9 More Killer Thrillers

by Russell Blake

  Carl shrugged his shoulders. “I just got lucky, I guess.”

  “Even a double tap, two shots to center mass, just like we train cops to do. How did you know to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Carl said. “Maybe I picked it up on a TV show or something. Or all the time I’ve spent hanging out with Pete Caitlin. You know how he’s always talking about his days as Sheriff.”

  “Yeah, Pete does like to reminisce,” Weber said. “But you know what he never talks about? The three men he had to shoot in the line of duty. That’s not something most people talk about to just anybody. Hell, I didn’t even know about it until we had a talk in the days after I shot Steve Rafferty and was having such a hard time dealing with it.”

  Carl stared at him without responding.

  “Having to shoot that kid was just about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I couldn’t eat or sleep for months afterward. Deputy Trask just resigned this morning because he couldn’t deal with shooting that fellow at the Thriftway. But you know what, Carl? The same night you killed Jerry Lee Chandler, you were pigging out on fried chicken at Mary Caitlin’s table like there was no tomorrow.”

  Carl still didn’t respond, so Weber continued.

  “One more thing about that gun that I noticed,” Weber continued. “When I got to your place after the shooting, you still had the gun pointed at Chandler. But when I told you to lay it down, first you flipped on the safety. I’d think somebody who didn’t know anything about guns and who had just shot someone wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to remember to do that. But you did.”

  “This is getting pretty offensive, Sheriff. Now, I’ve told you, we need to get on the road. I don’t know where you’re going with all of this, but you’re way over the line.”

  “About those trips of yours,” Weber said, ignoring Carl’s comment. “You’re right, we have been checking up on you. What was it that Agent Parks called you both today? Ghosts? There’s no record of either of you before you showed up here in Big Lake a few years back. No drivers’ licenses, no passports, nothing. And we can’t call Ladycliff College to talk to anybody about your teaching days there, can we?”

  Carl’s face was dark and his fists were clenched.

  “While Parks was doing his magic on the FBI computer system, I was doing some research of my own, even if it wasn’t all that high tech. You know Gloria Rasmusen, don’t you? She writes that Out and About column in the newspaper, where she talks about who got engaged, who had visitors from out of town, and such. I had Paul Lewis show me the back issues for the last ten years and guess what? On nine of those dates when you two were off on your extended vacations, banks and credit unions somewhere got robbed. And Jerry Lee Chandler or his brother Timothy were suspects in seven of those robberies. Is that a coincidence, or what?”

  The three lawmen had been concentrating on Carl Weston and not paying enough attention to Abby, so they were taken off guard when her hand dipped into her large cloth shoulder bag and came out with the can of law enforcement quality oleoresin capsicum pepper spray. No trained police officer could have done any better with it than Abby did as she directed it into their faces. Chad and Parks took direct bursts to their eyes, though Weber was able to throw his arm up to divert part of the spray, with less of it hitting him, but still enough to set his right eye on fire.

  The unexpected attack wasn’t lethal, but it was sufficient to give Carl and Abby time to jump into their car and for Carl to start the Subaru and throw it into gear. He cranked the wheel hard and drove across the yard, knocking over a plaster birdbath and plowing through Abby’s flowerbed before bouncing out onto the street and speeding downhill.

  Weber pulled his pistol and tried to aim it at the car, but his eyes were too blurry to be sure of his shot. Chad and Parks were wiping their eyes and cursing as they crawled into the Explorer. Weber started the engine and backed it out into the street, but the Subaru was already out of sight. He fumbled for the microphone of his radio and keyed the button.

  “Judy? I want everybody on the street right now. Tell them to find and stop Carl and Abby Weston. They’re in a blue Subaru Forester, unknown Arizona license plate. Tell them to wait for backup and to consider the Westons armed and dangerous.”

  As Judy acknowledged his orders, Parks handed Weber a plastic bottle of water. “Here, wash your eyes out.”

  Weber drove with one hand as he poured the water over his face. “There’s a decon kit in the glove box,” he told Parks, who pulled the two small plastic bottles out and passed them to Chad, in the backseat. Chad flushed his eyes and skin with the two-part solution and handed the bottles back to Parks, who washed his out. He used what was left to bathe Weber’s eye as the sheriff drove.

  The pain was lessened and Weber’s vision improved somewhat.

  “Damn, that stuff burns!”

  “Where’d they go?” Chad asked as they hit Main Street.

  “Only two ways out of town,” Weber said as he turned toward the T intersection to the north, which was closer. It proved to be the wrong choice, which was confirmed when Buz announced over the radio that he had the suspect vehicle in sight, approaching the main highway at the Y.

  “I’m on the main highway, coming up on the Y,” Dolan said. “I’ll block them from this end.”

  “We’re on our way,” Weber said, whipping the Explorer around in a U-turn, the tires squealing for purchase on the blacktop. “Do not approach until backup arrives! Just stop them. And be careful guys.”

  It took Weber almost seven minutes to get to the Y, driving through town at high speed, siren screaming, threading his way around cars and trucks that all seemed intent on frustrating him by not moving over. When he topped the hill where Thelma Wright had almost run into the protestors staging their sit in just a few days ago, he saw a tense standoff up ahead.

  Dolan Reed’s pickup was blocking the road on the south side, with Nate Sawyer’s Highway Patrol car filling the rest of the gap. At the bottom of the short hill, Buz Carelton’s marked car, Tommy Frost’s pickup, and Robyn’s Mustang formed a barricade. Between the two roadblocks, Carl Weston’s blue Subaru Forester was stopped in the middle of the road, facing away from town.

  Weber pulled up behind the Mustang and got out with Wyatt’s AR-15, walking up to where his deputies were crouched over the hood and trunk of Buz’s car.

  “Are you guys okay?” Robyn asked, seeing their irritated skin and bloodshot eyes.

  “Pepper spray,” Weber told her.

  “Here come the paramedics now,” Robyn said as the ambulance rolled to a stop.

  “You two go get looked at,” Weber told Parks and Chad, as Rusty Heinz and Pat Price climbed out. Parks started to shake his head, but Weber cut him off. “Go. I’ll need you guys able to see straight if this goes bad. I’ll be right there.”

  Robyn and Tommy had been off duty when the call went out and were dressed in civilian clothes. Robyn’s Glock was tucked into the back of her waistband, and she held a shotgun aimed at the Subaru.

  “What the hell is going on?” Buz asked. “That’s Carl and Abby, right?”

  “It would appear that our friends down there are professional bank robbers,” Weber said. “Do you have a bullhorn?”

  Buz nodded and got it out of his trunk. Weber held it to his lips and said, “Carl? Abby? I need you to exit the car with your hands up.”

  There was no response.

  “This needs to end right here and right now. Nobody has to get hurt. Just do what I say.”

  Weber’s amplified voice echoed off the hill beside the road but didn’t seem to draw any reaction from the car. Parks and Chad joined the cluster of officers and Parks said, “Your turn, Jimmy. Get that eye flushed out.”

  Weber handed him the rifle and said, “Robyn, call dispatch and get me Carl and Abby’s cell phone numbers. I’m sure Mary has them.”

  He went back to the ambulance, where the paramedics flushed his eyes and face, and gave him liquid soap to wash his
hands with. As soon as they were done with him, he went back to the roadblock.

  The sun was low in the sky, and Parks asked, “How much daylight do we have left?”

  “Not much,” Weber said. “Maybe 45 minutes to an hour, at the most.”

  “I’ve got the phone number,” Robyn told him. “Mary said they just have the one cell phone. She and Pete are on their way, in case they can talk some sense into them.”

  Weber pulled his phone out of his pocket and punched in the numbers. The phone rang six times, and as he expected it to go to voice mail, Abby answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Abby? Sheriff Weber.”

  “We figured it was you.”

  “Abby, I need you two to get out of that car with your hands in plain sight, okay?”

  “Hold on a second,” Abby said, and then the sound of her voice changed. “I put you on speaker, Sheriff.”

  “Okay. Carl? I told Abby I need you both to get out with your hands in plain sight.”

  “We heard you over the bullhorn,” Carl said, his voice sounding distant and tinny over the speaker. “I don’t think so, Sheriff. We’re not going to jail. We decided that a long time ago.”

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” Weber told him. “You can’t get away, you both know that.”

  “Just stay back, Sheriff. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  “Nobody has to get hurt,” Weber said. “Just get out of the car.”

  The sound of an engine and tires crunching on gravel signaled the arrival of Pete and Mary Caitlin. They ran up to the police cars, bent over in a crouch.

  “I can’t believe this,” Mary said. “Not Carl and Abby.”

  Weber held his hand over his phone and asked, “Do you think you can reason with them? They won’t come out of the car.”

  “I’ll try,” Mary said.

  Weber pushed the speaker button on his phone and handed it to Mary.

  “Carl? Abby? It’s Mary. Are you okay?”

  “Oh Mary, you shouldn’t be out here,” Abby said. “Please go home.”

  “Honey, you know Pete and I love you guys. Please do what Jimmy says and come out of the car, okay?”

  “I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” Abby told her.

  “Abby, listen to me…”

  Before she could continue, Carl’s voice came over the speaker. “Pete, Mary. Please go home. You two have been the best friends we’ve ever had. This isn’t going to end well. We don’t want you to be here for it.”

  “It doesn’t have to end this way,” Mary said. “Just get out of the car. Nobody will hurt you.”

  “Carl, if you want, I’ll come down to the car myself and take you into custody so you know you’ll be safe,” Pete added. “I won’t be armed. You have my word on that.”

  “No Pete. Don’t come down here. Please, take Mary home.”

  “Carl, just give it up, man! You can’t get away.”

  “We don’t expect to get away,” Carl said. “We got worried at the cookout that Sheriff Weber and Agent Parks were starting to ask themselves questions. We talked about it half the night and all day today, hoping we were wrong. We thought we’d just take one of our vacations and wait a few days, then call you and Mary and see if it sounded like they had figured things out. If we would have left a couple hours before the sheriff showed up, we could have made it. Poor timing on our part.”

  “Give it up, man,” Pete urged.

  “You’ve been a good friend, Pete. We’ve had us some good times, haven’t we? Remember that day we both caught our limits in less than an hour? That was some fishing, wasn’t it?”

  “It was a good day,” Pete agreed.

  “We’re not bad people. Really, we’re not,” Abby said. “Yes, I know we’re criminals, but we never wanted to hurt anyone. It was just a business for us. Some people are salesmen, or teachers, or airplane pilots. Our job was robbing banks.”

  “What about Jerry Lee Chandler?” Weber asked. “How did he figure into the picture?”

  “Jerry was an animal,” Carl said. “He and Tim were my cousin Audrey’s kids. She was a drunk and God never should have allowed her to have children. She drank herself to death when they were just kids. We tried to help them over and over again, but they just wouldn’t stay out of trouble.”

  “So you brought them into the family business?” Weber asked.

  “I figured if they were going to be thieves anyway, they might as well go big time. You do the same time for robbing a convenience store as you do a bank. But that was a big mistake. Like Abby said, we never wanted to hurt anybody. And we never did, Abby and me. Neither did Tim. But Jerry could shoot someone and it didn’t mean any more to him than stepping on a bug. We tried to break away from him but he was a dangerous man and we were afraid to cross him. I was glad when he went to prison. With just Tim, it was easier and safer for everybody. But then they killed him, and Abby got shot, and we knew it was time for us to retire. All we ever wanted to do was live here in peace. And we would have if Jerry hadn’t broken out of prison.”

  “What happened with Jerry?”

  “Going in, it was always clear that if any of us got caught, they did their time and kept their mouth shut and didn’t rat out the others. We all had prepaid phones for keeping in contact during our stakeouts, and I knew if Jerry ever got out, he’d call or come here. But that was supposed to be a long time from now. At our age, we figured we’d both be dead and gone before he ever served his time. We would have been too, if he hadn’t escaped.”

  “So he came looking for his share of the money from your robberies?”

  “This was our safe haven,” Abby said, “and the rule was that we never brought that part of our lives here. We’d have been happy to give him as much money as he wanted. We tried to. But money wasn’t enough. He wanted more.”

  “More?”

  “He wanted revenge,” said Carl. “Revenge for his years in prison. Revenge for his brother’s death. He blamed us for that. He wanted blood.”

  “So you shot him?”

  “I didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill us as soon as I told him where the money was hidden. It was either him or us.”

  “Where is all that money?” Pete asked.

  Carl laughed. “Pete, you sly old dog, I’m not going to make it easy on you. What fun would that be? But you can tell all of those fools with their shovels to stop digging up the neighborhood. Most of it’s in offshore accounts that nobody is ever going to find.”

  “If you tell us where the money is, things would go easier on you in court,” Pete said.

  “We’re never going to get to court,” Carl said. “Abby and I are two halves of a whole. Like I said the other night, forty-one years together. We’re not going to spend the rest of our days locked away from each other in cells. No more than we would in some nursing home somewhere. We decided that a long time ago.”

  Weber covered the phone with his hand and looked at Pete. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Me neither,” Pete said, as Mary wiped tears from her eyes and leaned toward the phone.

  “Abby. Please don’t do this.”

  “Now, don’t you worry about us, dear,” Abby told her. “We both knew this day could come and we made our plans if it ever did. This is what we both want. Just remember the good times, hon.”

  “Abby, please…”

  “The battery on this thing is about dead,” Carl said. “Don’t suppose you could talk the rest of these folks into just going away, could you Pete? Just for old times sake?”

  “I wish I could, partner,” Pete told him, tears streaking the old lawman’s sun-weathered cheeks.

  “Yeah, well, I’d be disappointed in you if you tried,” Carl said, “but it was worth a shot. Sheriff Weber? You still there?”

  “I’m here,” Weber told him.

  “I’m sorry for all of this trouble we’ve caused you. And Abby’s real sorry for the pepper spray. We sure didn’t want to hurt you fello
ws. We were hoping it would give us enough time to get away safely. Can I ask just one favor?”

  “What is it, Carl?”

  “Don’t let Pete and Mary come down here. We want them to remember us for the good times.”

  In spite of himself, Weber felt tears in his own eyes. “Just get out of the car, Carl. Please.”

  “I’m sorry, Sheriff. We decided a long time ago that being locked up apart would be worse than a death sentence for both of us. This is better. It really is.”

  “Carl…”

  “I’m going to say goodbye now, Sheriff. My battery’s flashing red and it’s going to be gone any second. I just ask that you give us one more minute to say goodbye to each other.”

  The phone went dead, and through the back window of the Subaru, Weber saw Abby and Carl lean together one last time.

  “Please don’t,” he whispered.

  Two quick gunshots, their sound muffled inside the car, told him that his wish wouldn’t be granted.

  Chapter 25

  Carl and Abby Weston had done a good job of covering their tracks over the years. Neither of their fingerprints were on file anywhere, and it took weeks to find any remaining members of Timothy and Jerry Lee Chandler’s long-estranged, dysfunctional family.

  Audrey Chandler had been an alcoholic and drug addict with an arrest record for prostitution and public intoxication, who died when her sons were ages nine and eleven. While a man named Richard Chandler was listed as their father on their birth certificates, there was no record of him anywhere else. There was no birth certificate on file anywhere for Audrey Chandler.

  An elderly second cousin in Toledo, Ohio, seemed to remember a family member and his wife who had taken in Timothy and Jerry Lee, but he couldn’t remember their names. Another distant relative thought the boys had been adopted by someone from back east someplace, but she admitted that her own long association with alcohol had dulled her memory.

  Unsealed juvenile court records in Lucas County, Ohio, revealed that when they were young teenagers, an uncle named William Parsons and his wife Sheila had agreed to take temporary custody of Timothy and Jerry Lee after they were arrested for a series of home and business burglaries. From there, they dropped off the radar. The address in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that William and Sheila Parsons had provided the court turned out to be another dead end, and there were no other records for a couple with those names.