by Chris Culver
“Asshole shot me a couple of years back,” I said, nodding and handing my weapon and holster to Paul. “Good enough?”
She looked down at my legs. “Do you have a backup firearm?”
I nodded to the weapon Paul held. “That is my backup piece. Detectives from Internal Affairs confiscated my primary weapon after I shot Dante. They haven’t returned it.”
“All the same,” she said. “Can you step around the table and lift up your pant legs so I can see if you’re wearing an ankle holster?”
“This is ridiculous,” said Emilia.
“Her tip, her rules,” I said, walking around the table. Once Carla could see my lower torso, I lifted my pant legs halfway up my calves. I looked at her. “Satisfied?”
“Rarely, but that’s not your fault. Let’s go.”
Carla and I left the building and then crossed the street to the surface lot that serviced the City-County Building. Neither Emilia nor Paul followed us out, but I could practically feel their eyes on us. When we reached my Volkswagen, Carla paused and tilted her head to the side, looking at it the same way someone at a used car lot might have. I half expected her to walk around it and kick the tires, but then she sighed and looked up at me.
“I guess this will do. When I drop you off, I can lose it for you if you’d like. You could tell your insurance company that somebody stole it.”
“I like my car a lot more than I like you,” I said, inserting my keys into the lock on the passenger side. “I’d watch what you say.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” she said, climbing inside. I walked around the car but kept an eye on her most of that time. She folded her hands in her lap and simply sat there. I still didn’t know what she had planned, but I could feel my adrenaline rising.
God, let this be a good idea.
Chapter 32
As I put the key in the ignition cylinder, the dashboard illuminated with its familiar blue light and I looked at Carla. “I’ve got about half a tank of gas. That cool with you?”
“How many miles can you drive on that?”
“Two hundred or so,” I said, shrugging. “Give or take.”
“Plenty, then,” said Carla, nodding. “Do you know how to get to Martinsville from here?”
Martinsville was a small town of about 12,000, forty miles southwest of the city. Driving through, I’d seen churches on almost every corner, and small mom-and-pop stores around the courthouse. The KKK no longer held rallies there, but I have minority friends who still call it a sundown town, meaning they don’t feel comfortable there after dark. The town has cleaned itself up over the years, and I know the vast majority of men and women in that town are good, honest folk. I also know that I, as an Arab, would never feel safe walking through it at night, even today.
“What’s in Martinsville?”
“We’re not going to Martinsville, but head in that direction.”
Since I rarely traveled that way, I only knew one way to go. I drove south on Pennsylvania and then west on Morris Street until I hit Harding, a street I knew would turn into Indiana 37. Thirty miles on that should take me right to Martinsville. Oddly enough, considering the company in my car, I found myself settling into the drive easily. As soon as she could, Carla would try something, but I hadn’t come completely defenseless. I had a firearm beside my seat and backup behind me. We could handle this.
I drove until I left the city buildings behind. Comparatively few cars joined us on that lonely stretch of road, but I could see a few in my rearview mirror. Hopefully they included Paul and Emilia.
“If we’re not going to Martinsville, where are we going?” I asked.
“Why do you need to know?”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m driving. Sometimes it’s nice to know where I’m going.”
“Tonight, you’ll just have to live in suspense, then.”
That’s what I had thought. I drove for another half hour before reaching the outskirts of town. At first, the businesses and churches we passed sat on large plots of land. They sold plumbing fixtures, off-road vehicles, four-wheelers—the kind of things people would go out of their way to purchase. Then, as we approached the town, we passed convenience stores, chain restaurants, and other businesses that relied on foot traffic and impulse shoppers. Traffic picked up, and I could see streetlights in the distance, bright and almost garish as they overpowered the light of the stars.
“We’re in Martinsville,” I said. “You care to tell me where we’re going now?”
“No,” she said, staring out the window. “Keep driving straight.”
We drove most of the way through town until we approached an intersection with a Walgreen’s on one corner, a heavy equipment yard on the second, and a gas station on the third. Mahalasville Road.
“Hang a left,” said Carla.
I nodded and slowed at the light before doing as she asked. Mahalasville felt tight and cramped after Indiana 37. It had two lanes with a double line down the center, and I knew as soon as I turned on it that we’d shortly be leaving civilization behind. I glanced in my rearview mirror. If Emilia and Paul turned off here, she’d notice. Hopefully they’d hang back some. At that time in the evening, blackness enveloped us quickly as we left the town behind. The road swooped left, and we passed what might have been a field full of winter wheat, but I couldn’t tell in the dark. I could feel myself growing a little worried. Out there alone with a crazy woman, I felt awfully isolated.
“You’ve got to tell me where we’re going,” I said.
She sighed. “You’re like a child. It’s not far. Just keep driving.”
We passed an elementary school, and the road swooped to the right. My headlights swept across a landscape as lonely as the moon. Plants, hills, trees. Not a single house in sight. Far behind us, I could just make out two pinpricks of light. Headlights, hopefully my backup. We drove on and on, into that blackness, and I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into that measureless night at the core of every man’s soul when he truly looks at himself and knows that he is alone in the world.
“Our turn is up there,” said Carla, pointing ahead of me. I slowed the car and searched out the side of the road until I saw it. A small break in the asphalt, nothing more. It looked like a driveway. Low Gap Road, the sign said. I turned and found myself, once more, on a dark road to nowhere.
“I used to come out here when I was young to escape my family,” said Carla. “I used to hope they’d change when I came back. They never did, though.”
“People don’t change, not who they are,” I said, surprised that I found myself agreeing with her. “We get older, and then we die. That’s it.”
I could see her cock her head at me in the glow of the dashboard lights. “You and I aren’t really all that different. I wish I had met you under other circumstances. We could have been friends.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t befriend murderers.”
“I guess I am a murderer,” she said, turning her eyes toward the road in front of us once again. “But you’ve killed people, too. Lots of people, from what I’ve seen.”
“I have,” I said.
“We’ve both done what’s necessary to protect others and to punish the wicked. The only difference between us is that I’m not afraid to look in the mirror at the end of the day.”
Part of me shuddered inside because part of me agreed with her. “I’m not like you.”
She looked out of the window again. “You fight monsters long enough, you’ll become one, Mr. Rashid. If you’re not there yet, you will be one day soon. Turn up here.”
I turned as she asked and flicked on my bright lights. Deep woods bounded the road on the right side, blocking my view, while an open field to my left allowed me to see the moon and stars. I turned once more at her direction onto Rosenbaum, a strip of asphalt no wider than a school bus. I passed a couple of houses, two of which had no-trespassing signs out front, and then the woods pressed in on me once again
as I left the fields. As I drove, the road seemed to narrow even further, forcing me to slow to a virtual crawl. Then I saw a break in the tree line and a shaft of moonlight on the asphalt, maybe half a mile up.
“Kill your headlights and pull up to that driveway.”
“Whose house is it?”
She didn’t take her eyes from the road in front of us. “Mine. I bought it to escape my husband before he went to prison.”
“Who’s in it now?”
She didn’t answer. I turned off my headlights and continued driving at maybe ten miles an hour, my engine barely idling. When I came to a stop, I found a two-story farmhouse in front of me. It had light-colored shutters and peeling paint that allowed me to see the underlying wood, like liver spots on an elderly man’s hands. No lights sprung on and no one came out to greet me. I heard nothing in the cold, still night.
“What now?” I asked.
“You’ll put your arms to your side,” said Carla. I did as she asked, not because she asked but so I could reach the firearm beside my seat. As soon as my palm touched the textured grip, I used my thumb to disengage the safety. “Miguel and Jacob are inside the house, but I imagine they have other men with them. Miguel keeps a loaded AR-15 beside him at all times and a loaded pistol on a belt holster within reach wherever he goes. On either side of the door, he’s installed a half-inch thick metal plate that you will not be able to shoot through. I thought it only fair to tell you that. It’ll even the odds.”
“Is Valerie in there, too?” I asked.
“If she’s still alive,” said Carla, staring straight ahead at the house. She had something planned, but I couldn’t see it yet. Carla blinked but didn’t say anything.
“Is this where you plan to take my car and leave?”
“No,” she said, turning her head toward me. “This is where we both run.”
Before I could stop her, she lunged toward me. My instincts and training told me to protect my firearm, so I held my left hand at my side and shoved her forward and into the center console with my right. I realized only too late that I had done exactly what she wanted. Her hand went right to the horn. The sound cut through the night, echoing off the woods around us.
“What the hell did you just do?” I asked.
“Bye, Detective Rashid,” she said, throwing open her door. I would have tried to stop her, but the home’s front door opened a crack and a figure appeared. I couldn’t see him well in the moonlight, but he carried a long gun, which he pointed right at my car.
“Damn,” I said, ducking beneath the console. A modern vehicle feels solid, but it’s not at all. The aluminum sheeting on the outside might withstand birdshot or BBs, but even a .22 would go right through it. The engine block, though, gave me some cover, at least for a time. The man on the porch—Miguel, I guessed—fired. The weapon had the kind of low and loud report most people only heard in war movies or on video games, and when those rounds struck the radiator and front end of my car, they rocked the entire thing on its chassis. Glass hit me in the back of the neck as shots ripped through the front window and thumped onto the seats behind me.
And then, silence.
I held my breath, my hand gripping my weapon tight. In that dark night, I heard the shooter’s feet clamber down the wooden steps and onto the gravel driveway. I crept to my right, slithering across vinyl seats toward the door Carla had left open. If my shooter knew the first thing about tactics in a firefight—and Miguel Navarra certainly did—he’d never give me the chance to lie in wait and ambush him as he came to the car. If it were me, I’d walk about halfway down the driveway and start firing again. That meant my best chance to survive lay in getting the hell out of there now.
I dove through the open door, twisting so that my back landed on the gravel outside. It bit into my shoulders and neck, but I barely noticed. Before my eyes could adjust to the scene in front of me, I reached under the door with my firearm and squeezed the trigger four times, hoping to stop my assailant from coming any closer. He immediately jumped back and retreated toward the house, giving me some breathing room and time to turn onto my stomach and pull myself out of the car completely. The woods to my right looked deep and dark enough for my purposes, so I fired toward the house two more times and sprinted across the gravel driveway toward the tree line. With just nine rounds remaining, I didn’t have the firepower or knowledge of the surrounding property to win this fight on my own. My goal shifted from saving Valerie to surviving long enough for backup to arrive.
The night seemed to darken as soon as my foot left the driveway and touched the hard-packed, frozen soil. I ran maybe ten yards into the woods and then ducked behind a tree with a trunk big enough to conceal me. My breath came out as a cloud of frost. As much as I wanted to hunker down and wait, I couldn’t. Miguel had hunted men for a living as a special forces soldier in the Mexican Army, and I didn’t even know how many friends he had with him or what kind of equipment they had. If I stopped moving, they’d shoot me before I could even see them.
I took one final breath against that tree and started running again, but I only got a few feet before a powerful spotlight swept the woods around me. Before I could second-guess myself, I dove to the ground. Gunfire shattered the night silence, and bark and wood fragments rained down on me as rounds thwacked into nearby trees. I tried to turn and fire back, but the shooting stopped and the light went out. If he had even half a brain, the shooter would be on the move, and I didn’t have ammunition to waste on return shots with such a low probability of hitting a target.
I pushed myself to a crouched posture and scurried deeper into the woods, putting as many trees as I could between me and the shooter. After maybe a dozen yards, I pressed my back into a tree and peered around. Even as dark as the woods were, I could still see movement. There were two figures about a hundred feet away, and they both moved with the practiced confidence of men accustomed to the woods. As I watched, their hands flashed signals to each other, and one of them broke off his pursuit and hunkered down behind the trunk of a fallen tree. The other kept moving toward me at an oblique angle, trying to flank me and force me to a spot where they could both fire at me without fear of hitting each other. A kill box.
Unless I took one of them out now, I wouldn’t survive long enough for my backup to arrive.
I looked at the woods around me. Five or six feet away, a small, dry creek bed—a depression in the dirt maybe a foot deep and two feet wide—ran to the northwest. Tree roots popped through the soil, but it’d give me a little cover. I crouched low and stepped toward it lightly, hoping my footsteps wouldn’t carry in the cold night air.
A shot rang out and a round thwacked into a tree to my left.
I dove flat and felt my breath leave me in a rush. I didn’t know which of the shooters that had come from, but it didn’t matter. I needed cover. I crawled toward the creek on my belly and heard another shot ring out. This time, the round hit a tree maybe two feet from my head. They were zeroing in on their target.
I rolled into the ditch and lay on my back. The depression in the earth gave some cover for the time being, but I couldn’t defend myself from that position.
“Come out, come out,” shouted the stationary shooter. He had a heavy Spanish accent. “I know you’re there.”
I didn’t dare raise my head to see if the second shooter had changed his direction of attack. Instead, I rolled to my stomach and started crawling, hoping they couldn’t see me. Another shot rang out, this time hitting the creek bank to my right, spraying dirt across my face.
“You still breathing, cop?”
Barely.
As I looked ahead of me I could see movement. The second shooter, and he had a clear line of sight right at me. I was outgunned and out of options. I would have given anything to hug my kids one more time.
Chapter 33
I expected to feel a bullet rip into me at any moment, but before one did, I heard a deep, almost guttural blast to my left. The bark of the tree nearest the mobil
e shooter, the one who I thought would kill me at any moment, exploded.
“Police. Drop your weapon and lie on the ground.”
It was Paul Murphy. My backup had arrived. Paul racked another round into his shotgun, while the mobile shooter began to raise his rifle. Before he could fire, three staccato shots rang out and three rounds slammed into a second tree near him. Emilia must have had a rifle with her. I could have kissed both of them.
After that initial volley, the two groups opened up their arsenals and fired freely, seemingly forgetting about me. Rounds whizzed above my head, and in that controlled chaos, I saw my chance. I crawled forward, much faster now than I would have dared a moment ago. I could see Paul on the move to my ten o’clock, running from tree to tree and drawing the mobile shooter’s fire as he retreated. The mobile shooter pressed forward, crossing the ditch in which I hid. Emilia drew his partner’s fire from my six o’clock.
I pushed up to a crouch and then to a kneeling position, tracking the mobile shooter’s back until I had a shot free of impeding trees or limbs. And then, as he took an ill-advised step to his left, I had it. I whistled, and he whirled around. With my backup in position, I didn’t bother trying to conserve ammo. I shot him six times in the chest. He fell straight down, his shirt looking as if his heart had erupted.
“One down,” I said, crouching as I hurried toward the body. I stuck my handgun inside my right jacket pocket and then picked up his rifle, an AR-15 with a pretty decent scope. “Paul, you okay?”
“Fine,” said Paul, still behind a tree. “You?”
“Alive,” I said, turning to the last position from which I had heard Officer Rios shoot. “Emilia?”
“Still here, but he’s got me pinned behind a tree.”
As if to emphasize the point, the stationary shooter, the one I hadn’t paid much attention to recently, popped up, fired four shots at her, and then ducked behind a log. I didn’t have a firing solution on him yet, but we had a numbers advantage now. Still crouched low, I ran to a walnut tree near to the tree behind which Paul hid.