“She lives here?” Rosey said.
“At the end, in the woods. House is visible from the road, so I suggest we park here and walk.”
“Why is it you and I seem to end up in the woods together a lot?”
“Hansel and Gretel?”
My cell phone rang.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Morland here.”
“Thought you were someone else. I don’t get a lot of calls.”
“Giving you a heads up. Dilworth is out. Her attorney got her released. Maybe an hour ago. I was discussing procedures with my chief when I got the word.”
“She’s fast. You barely had time to do the paperwork to get her in.”
“She’s tightly connected. Friends in higher places than I can go.”
“Me, too.”
While Morland and I talked, Rosey prepared himself for a potential conflict.
He was at the back of the Jeep checking his stash of weapons. He took out a Winchester 70 with a scope. It was a 7mm with good range. He then put on a 9mm Glock 34. I walked around to the back with him and watched. I told Morland where we were, that we were following nothing more than a hunch. He laughed and hung up.
“You want a long gun?” he said.
“Got anything light in there?”
“The Weathermaster 7400 is not bad,” he handed me the 30-06 made by Remington. “Only has four rounds, so shoot wisely.”
“My number one goal.”
“Mr. Morland have any good news for us?” Rosey said.
“Dilworth’s out on bond. Good lawyer and well connected.”
“Imagine that.”
We walked along the road until we could partially see some of the house in the woods at the end. I entered the woods on the left and Rosey took to the other side. We circled deep into the forest area until we were adjacent to the house. There were two guns out front leaning against a late model Lincoln Town Car. I guessed it was Big Bob’s. I moved slowly to position myself adjacent to the back of the house. Two more. One on the back porch appeared to be wiping his gun. The other was standing near a large pine smoking a cigarette.
Rosey and I had predetermined our strategy. My task was to enter through the back while he created chaos and confusion in the front. I waited for the chaos and confusion, and for the two guns out back to go around to the front. The silence was deadly. I knew what was coming.
The sound of Rosey’s 7mm rifle echoed throughout the surrounding woods. The man sitting on the porch cleaning his weapon dropped his rag and hurried to the front to enter the action. The cigarette smoker grabbed his automatic weapon and went the other way to the front of the house. The back was empty and open, but still dangerous. I had no idea how many were inside.
I moved toward the back porch by going from tree to tree for protection.
Another shot came from the front. Since Rosey didn’t often miss, I could assume that the outside force was now reduced to two. I heard a volley of return fire from the opposition. I took the opportunity to enter the screened-in back porch hoping that all eyes in the house were focused out the front.
A window to the left of the back door gave me a partial view of the inside. I was looking in the kitchen window. No was eating or fixing. I could see one man a bedroom kneeling down looking towards the front of the house. I could see a leg and a foot of another person in the living room. Neither of them appeared to be Big Bob. Wrong size.
I waited for another volley of gunfire and then entered carefully through the back door. Just my luck that the man in the bedroom decided to move from his window position. As he turned to come out of the room, he saw me. I didn’t have time to draw either of my handguns, so I fired the 30-06 in his direction. The force of the blast sent him airborne and into the front window. Glass and debris were flying everywhere as he landed in the front yard.
I ducked back into the kitchen area. I had no protection in there since it opened into a den with nothing separating the two areas except furniture. From my vantage point, the living room opened off to the left, the bedroom with the large hole in the window was to the right. There was a short hallway further off to my right. I couldn’t forge ahead into the living room where the other gunman was for fear that there might be someone in another room down the hall to my right.
I heard another rifle shot from the front of the house. Maybe three down and one to go before Rosey could come help me. I leaned the 30-06 in the corner of a bottom set of cabinets next to the sink. I wanted a handgun in close-quarter combat.
The .357 was in my hand as I waited for my next move. Sometimes instinct is all that helps you when you are in a dangerous and vulnerable position.
I was pushing my left shoulder into the front of the refrigerator that sat along the only wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. I could hear a single volley from an automatic weapon coming from the front. A sound to my blind-side left gave me the strong impression that the gunman in the living room was coming for me. I dove from my only cover towards the back of the sofa some fifteen feet away. I fired the .357 while I was in the air where I thought the gunman might be standing. He fired, too, but only as a reaction to my surprise attack. A bullet caught me in my left thigh just before I hit the hardwood floor.
The gunman from the living room went down, but he was not dead. He looked up just in time to see me fire once more into his body. He stayed down this time.
All was quiet, inside and out.
I used the sofa to help me to my feet. My leg hurt, but I could at least stand and limp towards the front door. I wanted to check on Rosey.
I had the .357 in my hand as I limped along.
“Drop the gun where you are standing, or I’ll drop you.”
I decided to do what I was told. I let the .357 fall as gently as I could onto the hardwood floor. I turned my head a little to see a large, fat man pointing a 9mm at me.
“You must be Big Bob LeFoy,” I said.
“You have the advantage, but I suspect you must be the broad Andy told me was making some heat.”
“Andy?”
“Yeah. B.A. Dilworth. My partner.”
“Partner, huh? Fifty-fifty?”
“Yeah, more or less. I do okay. See that car outside, all mine.”
“Impressive. You’re the brawn and she’s the brains.”
“What does that mean?”
“Excuse me, you’re the muscle and she’s the brains.”
“Oh, yeah. Good way to say that. Plus I get all the credit. Everyone thinks I’m in charge.”
“But we know better.”
“Hey, you ain’t gonna mess with my mind. I’ve had a good thing goin’ for years now. Don’t think I ain’t given a lot of thought to this. I got money, power and people moves over when me and the boys come callin’. I don’t care if folks don’t know the truth. Ain’t hurtin’ my wallet none. But you, … you’re here to mess things up. That won’t do.”
“So why didn’t you shoot me?”
“Orders.”
“Andy?”
“Who else?”
58
It was time for Rosey to come charging through the door and rescue me from Big Bob. The situation was not playing out exactly as I had hoped.
I decided to limp back over to the sofa in the den in order to put Big Bob between the front door and me. It was a perfect plan. Rosey would have a great shot at a target nearly impossible to miss.
The front door opened and Rosey came in. He had no gun. B.A. Dilworth came in behind him holding an assault rife and looking meaner than usual.
Now I really was worried. This was not the plan I had conceived.
Rosey saw my leg bleeding and came over to help me.
“You don’t need to do that. You’ll both be dead in a few minutes,” Dilworth said.
“Can I kill her, Andy?” LeFoy said.
“She’s all mine, Bobbie. All mine. You get the black dude.”
I heard a car pull up outside.
“Hey, Ms. Dilworth?” a voice that sounded like Wheesely yelled out. “Ms. Dilworth, you in there?”
It was Wheesely. He came walking into the living room as if he did this all the time. He looked around at the dead bodies, then at the weapons that were aimed at Rosey and me. Then he saw my injured leg. His expression never changed.
“I have the books you asked for, Ms. Dilworth,” Wheesely said.
“Thank you, Mr. Wheesely. You can put them on the kitchen table. We’ll destroy them after we destroy these two meddling people. All will be right with the world after that.”
“What do you mean destroy these two? You can’t kill them,” Wheesely said.
“Sure we can, Mr. Wheesely. This is a part of the business I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Sometimes people have to die.”
“I can’t let you do it, Ms. Dilworth,” Wheesely said and stood in front of me.
“How are you going to stop me?” she said.
“I’ll stand here and protect her. You won’t shoot me,” he said to Dilworth.
“Get out of the way, Wheesely,” Dilworth said.
“No. I won’t move.”
“Wheesely, come on. Move out of the way. This is not your affair.”
“I can’t just let you kill her, Ms. Dilworth. It’s not right,” Wheesely said rather calmly.
The gun shot surprised everyone but LeFoy as he fired his 9mm. Wheesely began falling to my left, and I grabbed him as he fell and guided him to the floor. Rosey, trained to act quickly, immediately kicked Dilworth in the face and she dropped her weapon. LeFoy shifted slightly to the right to shoot Rosey, but his gun jammed.
Just like that the tables had turned to our favor. LeFoy kept fiddling with his 9mm to get it to fire. No avail.
“Put the gun down, LeFoy,” Rosey said.
LeFoy ignored him and kept working on the jammed gun.
I was on the floor holding Wheesely who was semi-conscious. He had been shot in his right side and was in some obvious pain, but not showing signs of undue stress. He was remarkably calm for an 82 year old man who has just defended a fair maiden perhaps for the first time in his life. Chivalry was not dead.
“Put it down!” Rosey said louder this time.
LeFoy looked at him with eyes of desperation, but continued to fiddle with the useless gun. Then he saw my .357 next to the wall to his right. He dropped his gun and reached for my weapon on the floor. Rosey fired a volley of rounds that hit LeFoy in his hand, arm and lower leg. He went down to his knees and sat motionless for a few seconds. He was bleeding profusely.
“You can’t kill me, I’m Big Bob LeFoy. I’m the Main Man of Detroit City.”
There was a wild gleam in his eye, almost as if he had just decided to go mad that instant. He picked up the .357 and Rosey fired a few more rounds into Big Bob. They all hit him but he held onto my gun and turned it in Rosey’s direction.
Rosey then engaged the automatic with a volley of shots that seemed to last a lifetime. I turned my head and leaned over against Wheesely to protect him even though we were safely out of the way. Some things you just can’t watch. Despite the speed at which the rounds came out of the automatic, they had a familiar sound to me. I was transported at that moment back through time to that horrid day when I was in my room getting ready to go to Mr. Joe’s house to celebrate his homecoming from the hospital.
The sound was familiar and awful. I knew that death was at the end of the sound. There was no point in looking over at Big Bob LeFoy. I knew that he was not with us any longer.
I suddenly realized I was crying.
“You okay?” Wheesely said as he looked up at me.
“I’m okay.”
“You weren’t hit, were you?” he said.
“Only my leg from an earlier shot. I’m okay. How about you?”
“I’m great. I think I saved your life.”
“I think you did, too. The knight and the maiden. Thanks.”
Wheesely and I were both taken to the hospital and treated. His wound was not as bad as I had first thought. The bullet had entered his side at an angle and had exited his back, missing anything vital. My wound was a clean shot that didn’t look so clean to me. But there was nothing to dig out and that was good news. A faster healing time.
Several hours later I was ready to leave the hospital. Rosey came into the room with the doctor.
“I want you to remain overnight, just as a precaution,” Dr. Milo Herauldi said. “You’re a strong person, but you lost some blood. Besides, you look as if you could use some rest.”
Rosey nodded in agreement with the doctor’s advice, so I decided not to fight the collective medical opinions of the room. The doctor left.
“Get a wheelchair for me. I’m going to visit Wheesely.”
Rosey started to argue, but finally decided it was futile to do so.
Wheesely was all the way down the end of the hall from my room. He was sitting up in the bed when we entered.
“How are you, Miss Evans?” he said before I could ask him.
“Clancy, remember?”
“I’m sorry. I suppose when you rescue damsels in distress, you should sound as if you know them on a less than formal level,” he said.
“I’m okay. I get to spend a night here resting, so says the doctor.”
“Good. Perhaps we can pass the time. I get to spend a day or so here likewise.”
“Thank you again for what you did for us, Malcolm,” I said.
“Glad I could help you.”
“What you did was extremely dangerous. You could have been killed. I don’t think you should make a habit of doing things like that.”
“What, at my age?”
“No. At any age. A person holding a gun is more likely to use it than not.”
“Too much violence in the world,” he said as he adjusted the covers around him. “It has to stop. We’re all going to kill each other unless some of us take a stand. I was just doing my part to slow down some of the violence.”
“We’re grateful,” Rosey said. “Sorry you got shot.”
“This? Ah, it’s nothing. Like Matt Dillon used to say, ‘It’s only a flesh wound.’”
59
It was very late when Rosey rolled me back to my hospital room. We had a long visit with Wheesely, even dining together on hospital food. It’s wasn’t quite up to what I had been eating of late, but then my own cooking wasn’t up to the ritzy standard of the places I had visited during my brief stay in Detroit.
An unfamiliar nurse came into my room just as Rosey was about to leave.
“Clancy Evans?” she said.
“That would be me.”
“Do you know Mr. Cyler Conroy, he’s a patient here?”
“Yes.”
“He regained consciousness and was asking for you. I just happened to see the entry log and noticed that you were also in the hospital. Thought I would let you know.”
“Thank you,” I said trying to cover my surprise. “Thank you for coming to tell me.”
“You’re welcome,” she said and then she left the room.
“More visiting?” Rosey said.
“You tired?”
“Yes, but we have to go, right?”
“We have to go.”
Cyler was in another wing of the hospital and it took us nearly ten minutes to find his place from mine. We knocked gently and entered the room when we heard someone speak. We couldn’t understand what they had said.
The room was empty except for Cyler. He smiled when he saw me.
He looked like he had been run over by a truck. An eighteen wheeler. He was being given oxygen through his nose and had patches all over his face. There were more bruises than I cared to look at. I was sorry for him.
“Welcome back,” I said.
“Thanks,” he whispered. “Nice … to be … back.”
I smiled as Rosey wheeled me to the side of his bed. I gently took his hand and held it.
“Glad … you … could come. What�
��,” he gestured gingerly toward my wheelchair with his left hand, his only uninjured limb.
“Oh, this. It’s nothing. Injured while hunting vermin.”
He arched his eyebrows as a way of questioning my word.
“Pests,” I said.
He smiled, then looked at Rosey.
“Who’s … this?”
“Old friend. Came along to save my bacon. Wouldn’t be here without him.”
“I … would … not be …. here … with…out ……. you,” Cyler said.
I smiled and gently cupped his hand in both of my hands.
“I … need … to …. confess,” he spoke with some obvious strain.
“What?”
“I … killed …. Joey.”
“Why?” I said with some shock. “I thought you liked the man. Thought you were like kindred spirits.”
“Me, too. … But … he lied …. to me… He …. was … straight … and …. never … told me.”
Then I realized what Malone had done. He had kept his darkest secret from someone who had loved him. Some injuries run too deep for words. Deception is hard to accept.
“You found out about Bimbi,” I said.
“And … Gretchen …. That’s … why… I …framed…Bimbi,” he shook his head slowly. “For … over … twenty …. years…..” his voice trailed off and he turned his head away from us to keep us from seeing the tears.
I held on to his hand while he sobbed softly. I felt badly for him. I wanted to crawl into the bed beside him and comfort him, like a mother. He finally stopped crying and turned back toward us.
“You … tell …. the police, okay?”
“They’ll need a statement from you.”
He nodded and then closed his eyes. He was exhausted.
I was set free from the hospital by mid-morning the next day. Rosey drove us to see Morland. We told him what Cyler had confessed and he sent a couple of detectives over to get a statement from him.
“Think he’ll survive?” Morland said.
“Hard to say. Some of his injuries are pretty severe. My guess is that he’ll be a long time recovering,” I said.
“We’ll wait. In the meantime, I’ll put a police officer over there to protect our interests.”
One Lost Soul More: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 1) Page 24