“I figured you'd be at Marsha’s,” Weber told him as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of Pepsi, twisting off the caps and setting one in front of Parks.
The FBI agent shook his head. “I’ve been reading up on this Chandler guy. I think those two old folks are very lucky to be alive right now. This guy was one first class bad ass. It says here that he is suspected of killing another inmate that he got into a fight with over cigarettes. But you know how it is with convicts, a hundred guys in the yard when it went down and nobody saw anything.”
“Yeah, well snitches don't live long in prison,” Weber said. “And who knows, maybe the guards just figured it was one less maggot to worry about and didn’t investigate too hard.”
“He had a definite propensity toward violence,” Park said. “On that assault with a deadly weapon out of Tennessee, he shot a soldier on leave and stole his car. And the bank robbery he got busted for? That was in North Platte, Nebraska. A customer in the bank tried to play hero and grab his gun away from him. Chandler put two bullets into him and went about his business like it was no more than swatting a fly.”
“Did the guy survive?” Weber asked.
“He lived, but he'll be in a wheelchair the rest of his life. Chandler about blew his spine in half.”
Weber whistled and said, “Who’d have thunk an old codger like Carl Weston could take out a guy like that?”
“Like I said, they were damned lucky,” Parker told him, then got up and opened the freezer door on the refrigerator. “Do we have any ice cream in here?”
“No, we're fresh out,” Weber told him. “And it's just as well, because if Marsha catches you eating stuff like that she may just bypass your alimentary canal altogether and shove that next salad right up your keester.”
“My, my, I never realized just how kinky you hillbillies are up here,” Parks said, then squealed with glee as he reached into the back of the freezer and pulled a box out. “Fudgesicles! I knew you were holding out on me.”
Chapter 7
Weber was driving to work the next morning when the call came over his radio. “Dispatch, this is Big Lake Six, do you have a unit that can meet me at the Y? I’ve got a situation here.”
Weber picked up his microphone, keyed the button, and said, “This is One, what do you need, Robyn?”
“Things are getting out of hand here, I could use some help with crowd control.”
“Why do these things always happen before I have my breakfast?” Parks moaned from the passenger seat.
“Breakfast? I just saw you polish off two Pop Tarts and a quart of milk,” Weber said. “What the hell was that?”
“That was just practice to get my fluids going after a long night’s sleep,” Parks told him. “Sort of gastronomic foreplay, if you will.”
“That’s about the only kind of foreplay you know anything about,” Weber said as he turned toward the Y.
***
The main highway bypasses Big Lake, while the business route branches off in a Y formation on the south side and makes a loop through town, before connecting with the highway again in a T intersection on the north side. Deputy Robyn Fuchette’s patrol car was parked on the shoulder of the road near a large truck with a flatbed trailer that held a yellow bulldozer. Four other cars were parked on the other side of the road and a small group of people with protest signs were blocking the roadway.
“Now what the heck do we have?” Weber asked as he slowed and pulled off the road in front of Robyn’s car.
The petite, dark-haired deputy was wearing a fluorescent green safety vest and was directing traffic around the protesters. Weber walked to her side and asked, “What’s going on here?”
“I was directing traffic while Mr. Schmidt got his bulldozer unloaded and they all showed up,” Robyn said. “Apparently they think the new cell tower is going to destroy the environment.”
A few weeks earlier, the Town Council had approved the construction of two new cellular telephone towers that would greatly increase communication in Big Lake, which until then was served by a single tower atop Cat Mountain. Weber wasn’t surprised that the project was meeting resistance; there was a vocal element in the community that fought change of any kind, no matter what its benefits might be.
The same group had fought the paving of the road in front of the high school, construction of swings and slides in the park, and improvements at the boat launch. They were maybe a dozen in number, all holding signs that said things like, Save The Mountain, Trees Not Cell Phones, and Keep Big Lake Green. A thin, red-haired woman was leading the group in chanting, “Save the trees!” Weber walked up to her and asked, “What's this all about, Emma?”
“Forget it, Jimmy,” said Emma Moyer, “We're taking a stand right here. That bulldozer is not coming off that trailer!”
“Okay, well let’s get out of the road,” Weber said as an SUV towing a boat inched its way past the crowd, the passengers gawking at the scene. “Otherwise someone is going get run over out here.”
“We’re not moving!”
“Come on, Emma. Let’s not make a big issue out of this, okay?”
Weber started to take her by the arm but Emma jerked free and shouted, “Sit in!” As if they had rehearsed it, the protestors plopped down onto the pavement in a circle, back to back, and linked their arms together, while still chanting, “Save the trees!” The sheriff attempted to reason with the group, but his voice was lost in the sound of their verbal protests.
His attention was jerked away suddenly by the squealing of tires and he looked up to see a Honda Accord sliding to a stop, mere feet away. The driver, who had topped the slight hill from the main highway and almost crashed into the seated protestors, was rigid in her seat, hands gripping the steering wheel.
Weber walked to the car door and leaned in the open window to ask, “Are you okay, Thelma?”
Thelma Wright’s eyes were huge as she said, “I’m so sorry, Jimmy, I didn’t see anybody until it was almost too late!”
Weber’s Ford Explorer, with Larry Parks at the wheel, passed them and Parks pulled the marked police vehicle across the road at the crown of the hill and turned on the roof light bar to warn any other approaching vehicles.
Thelma Wright was a nervous woman under any circumstance, and the near miss had shaken her to the point where she seemed on the verge of a breakdown. Her face was pale, she was trembling, and she still held the steering wheel in a white-knuckled death grip.
“It’s okay, Thelma, you didn’t do anything wrong and nobody got hurt.” The sheriff patted her on the shoulder, feeling the tremors under her shirt. Her eyes were still glued on the group of people she had almost run over. “Thelma?” Weber squeezed her shoulder and seemed to break through to her. She turned her eyes to him.
“Thelma? Are you with me, kid?”
The woman nodded, but said nothing.
“Can you pull over onto the shoulder and get off the road? You can sit there and get yourself collected, okay?”
Finally she shook off the fog that surrounded her, nodded, and steered the car off the road. Weber walked beside her until she was safely on the gravel shoulder, then patted her shoulder again and said, “You just sit here, okay? There’s no hurry. Wait until you feel better before you take off.”
Thelma nodded and said, “I think I’m okay now.”
“Well, you just sit there until you’re sure. Alright?”
She nodded again, and Weber said, “Good. Now I need to get these people off the road.”
Weber stalked back to the protestors, who were still chanting, “Save the trees!” and seemed oblivious to the fact that they had all come close to being smeared across the pavement like so much road kill.
“Emma, I’m not going to argue with you about this. Now get your people off the highway. You can still protest, but we don’t need anybody getting run over out here.”
Before Emma could respond, the sound of a diesel engine starting up interrupted.
&n
bsp; “He’s taking it off the trailer,” cried one of the protestors, a small, short man who physically could have passed for a high school student except for his weathered face and mustache. He was pointing toward the flatbed trailer, where Dutch Schmidt had started the big Caterpillar bulldozer and was backing it down the ramps and onto the ground. By the time the protestors could get to their feet, Schmidt had backed away from the trailer and turned the big machine toward the fire trail that led up the hill to where the new cell tower was going to be erected.
“Stop him!”
Robyn and Larry Parks tried to slow down the crowd with outstretched arms to no avail. The protestors surged around them and ran after the giant, yellow bulldozer, which was already starting the roaring assault that churned up the earth under its steel treads, as rocks and small trees were crushed and crumpled underneath its wide blade.
Schmidt seemed oblivious as the angry protestors shouted at him, the sound of their voices drowned out by the bulldozer’s engine and the earth it displaced as it rumbled steadily forward. Fortunately, the steep banks on both side of the fire trail kept them from getting too close to the sides or in front of the machine, where someone might have been crushed.
“I'm sorry, Jimmy.” Robyn said, as she stood next to the sheriff. “I had no idea this was going to happen. They just showed up all of a sudden!”
“Not your fault,” Weber told her, “but you better call dispatch and get another unit out here.” He looked back up the fire trail to where the bulldozer and protestors were shrouded in a cloud of dirt and dust. “The times, they are a changing,” said Weber, shaking his head.
***
By the time Deputy Tommy Frost arrived on the scene to assist Robyn with crowd control, the protesters seemed to have lost a lot of enthusiasm, and most of them had walked back down the paved road, covered in a layer of dirt and grime.
“Jimmy, how can you stand by and let them destroy the forest like this?” Emma Moyer demanded to know.
“What can I do, Emma?” Weber asked her. “The Town Council approved the project and you all have filed your grievances and they were rejected. You can write all the letters to the newspaper you want, and wave your signs from here to eternity, but it's not going to change a damn thing. I don't know what else to tell you.”
“Bullshit!” said a tall man with a mop of curly hair, as he drank deeply from a plastic water bottle. “That's always the excuse, you can't stop progress. But I'm telling you something, Sheriff. We will stop this project, one way or the other. We're not going to stand by and see this mountain raped just so a bunch of spoiled, newcomer yuppies can use their cell phones.”
“Would I like Big Lake to stay like it was ten or fifteen years ago? Sure I would. But that's not realistic,” Weber told him. “And you seem to have a short memory, my friend. Ten years ago you didn't live here. I guess you want to be the last person who moved to Big Lake and made any changes, right? But that nice little lot where you have your cabin, on Firefly Lane? That used to be part of a pretty meadow where the elk would come down and graze in the early morning. And just how good for the environment is that plastic water bottle you’re drinking?”
The man scowled but did not answer.
“And you, Emma, weren’t you one of the people who was at the zoning meeting protesting development of that meadow where Richard lives? Back then, weren't you demanding that we keep the meadow pristine? Now you’re hanging out with one of the people you said was destroying Big Lake back then. How does that work?”
Emma gave him an ugly look, but before she could say anything, Weber singled out a couple standing nearby. “And what about you two? Gloria, didn’t you take a bad fall up on the ski run last winter, and the ambulance had to take you to the clinic? Isn’t that the same ski run you were waving signs and protesting about when they started to build it? And now you ski there? How do you justify that?” He turned to her husband, “How do you like that big fancy four-wheel-drive pickup you bought a while back, Ken? It’s sure got all the bells and whistles on it. That must have set you back some big bucks. Now where did you get that kind of money? Hmmm…. maybe from that half acre lot you sold to the guy who built the bicycle shop? And that truck’s got to be great for the environment right? What kind of mileage does it get?”
A couple of the protestors grumbled, but more of them were staring at the ground and shuffling their feet in the dirt.
“Hey, I'm all for protest and righting wrongs and all that,” Weber told them. “But why don't you put your efforts into something worthwhile for a change? When was the last time any of you volunteered to help out at the Senior Center? How many of you were out knocking on doors and helping us raise money for the Women's Shelter? You know Ken, some of that money you spent on that truck could have really helped Miss Roberts’ class over at the junior high school get down to Phoenix for the statewide science competition they were invited to. Didn’t those kids build their own solar panels and their own greenhouse?”
The fire gone out of their protest, people started drifting away, until just Emma Moyer and Richard MacEwen were left. Weber nodded towards Emma’s Toyota Prius and said, “Speaking of yuppies, nice ride you got there, Emma.”
The woman glared at Weber a final time before she and her companion walked across the road to the Toyota and drove away.
“Well, there's nothing like a little civil disobedience to get your blood flowing. Right, Scooter?” Larry Parks asked, as they watched the hybrid car disappear back in the direction of town. “Now can we go get something to eat?”
“Oh, go eat a tree hugger,” Weber told him.
***
Apparently, nearly averted traffic accidents, protesters, and the always dreaded paperwork weren't enough to make Weber’s day. He was back in his office signing off on payroll vouchers when Mary Caitlin knocked on his door and stuck her head inside.
“Mayor Wingate’s here.”
Before Weber could reply, Mary and the door were pushed forward and Big Lake’s mayor made his way into the room, followed by Councilwoman Smith-Abbot, a thin, severe woman who wore her hair in a tight bun on the back of her head.
“Sheriff, we’ve got a problem. No, let me correct myself, you’ve got a problem!”
“You shove me like that again, Chet Wingate, and you’ll have a problem,” Mary warned the overweight little martinet who delighted in riding roughshod over anyone who worked in town government.
“My apologies, Mary. But I have very important matters to discuss with the Sheriff,” said the mayor.
Weber rolled his eyes at Parks, who grinned back and rose to his feet, knowing well his continuous battles with the mayor and wanting no part of them. Mary followed him out the door after sending one final glare in the mayor’s direction.
“So what’s got your panties in a wad this time, Chet?”
The mayor scowled at Weber’s impudence, but didn’t take the bait. Weber thought for just a moment that if anything good had come out of the shooting of Steve Rafferty, it was that Mayor Wingate had been less of an irritant since that terrible day. Not that he was any easier to get along with when they interacted, but his attacks had been fewer and further between. Apparently that had been the lull before this latest storm.
“The situation with this new deputy of yours, what are you going to do about it?”
“Wyatt Earp? I had a talk with him the other day, Chet, and I hope it did some good. But honestly, I think I made a mistake hiring him and I'm not sure how it’s gonna work out.”
“Not Deputy Trask,” said Wingate. “I'm talking about Deputy Fuchette.”
“Robyn? What’s she done?"
“It isn’t what she's done,” the mayor told him, “it's what you have done. The two of you.”
“Where are you going with this, Chet?” Weber asked warily.
“It's common knowledge that you and Miss Fuchette are…. involved,” said Councilwoman Smith-Abbot. “It just doesn't look right, and I think this is something that the en
tire Town Council needs to review.”
Weber felt his neck getting hot and said, “Our private lives are just that, private. Stay out of it. What we do behind closed doors is nobody's business but our own.”
“I beg to differ,” the mayor replied, “You’re her direct supervisor and it's a clear-cut conflict of interest. I won't have it, do you hear me?”
“I intend to bring this before the Council at our next meeting,” said the Councilwoman. “There can be no personal relationships allowed.”
“No personal relationships?” asked Weber. “This is a small town and everybody knows everybody. We all have personal relationships with everybody in town.”
“You know what I'm talking about,” said the mayor. “Personal relationships.”
“Okay, I'm confused,” said Weber. “Who's talking about this? Because the Councilwoman's lips were moving, but you’re the one doing the talking, Chet. Of course, since you two are joined at the hip, I guess that makes sense. Talk about your personal relationships. When one of you farts, the other one says “excuse me.””
“How dare you!” shouted the Councilwoman. “Why, I never…”
“Maybe if you would once in a while, you wouldn't be so damned uptight,” Weber told her, then turned to the mayor. “So what should we do about your son, Chet? I mean, you're the Mayor, the head of the town government, and Archer's a deputy. How do you plan to get around that one? You tell me?”
Both of the bureaucrats were blustering and stumbling over their own words when Weber lunged out of his chair, crossed the room and opened the door. “Out,” he demanded, “both of you! You two pissants can go back to the Council and do whatever the hell you want. But in the meantime both of you had better stay out of my face!”
As the mayor and councilwoman fled from his wrath, Mary Caitlin, Parks, and Judy Troutman at the dispatch desk stared at the scene unfolding in front of them.
“What was that all about?” Mary asked, after the outside door had closed behind them.
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 162