Dust in the Heart

by Ralph Dennis

  Egan leaned over Bottoms. “Bring me a wet towel and a towel packed with ice.”

  Wilt gulped the whiskey. It was cheap, raw bourbon. It tore his throat and hit his stomach like a fire ball. He stared at the hand that held the glass. It was swelling and puffing.

  Egan used the wet cloth to wipe the blood from Bottoms’ face. He tossed the stained towel toward the bar and pressed the ice pack against the broken nose. “Hold that there.”

  “How about some ice for me?” Wilt said.

  “You?” Egan turned on him. “You didn’t get a scratch.”

  “The hand.” Wilt switched the glass to his left hand and held up the one that was swelling.

  Willis didn’t wait for the order from Egan. He brought a towel pack of ice to Wilt.

  Egan stood in the open space between them. “I guess you two had your fun.”

  Bottoms lowered the ice pack and stared at Wilt.

  Wilt took another swallow of the bourbon. “Let’s not forget you wanted part of him, Billy.”

  “That was before I saw the error of my way.” Giving Wilt a wink he turned to Bottoms. “What happens now? Do I call Jarvis?”

  “You don’t know the damage this can do to the government’s fight against—”

  “Thorpe molests and kills children,” Wilt interrupted.

  Bottoms was silent for a long moment. “I’ll take care of it. He won’t commit any more crimes in this state. You’ve got my word on it.”

  Wilt lowered his glass. “You move him somewhere else, right?”

  “That’s a judgment call.” Bottoms wiped the ice pack across his face and trailed a smear of blood across his chin. “Above my pay grade. There’s more testimony he needs to give on our ongoing cases, but he can’t if he’s on trial here. What happened here can wait.”

  “The hell it can.” Wilt looked at his left leg and realized it was beyond his control, trembling and jerking with a life of its own. “He faces charges here and now.”

  “Maybe I stopped his fight too soon,” Egan said. “I’m with the Sheriff. You’re trying to jerk us around because of some deal you made with this asshole. If you keep that bargain, you’re on the wrong side of me the rest of your life.” He turned his right wrist and looked at his watch. “You’ve got one minute to step over and join the righteous. After that I call Jarvis again.”

  “You bastards. You gang up on a man.” There wasn’t any force in his protest. He was weakening.

  “Where is he?” Wilt asked.

  “I don’t know. He missed a meeting this morning and he hasn’t called in on the emergency number.”

  Wilt grunted. “He missed the meeting because he was busy killing a sick old man in my county, a man who might have known something that tied him to the child-killings.”

  “And he hasn’t called because he’s running after slicing the kidney of one of my boys.” Egan said. “Lovely guy you’re protecting.”

  “So find him. I’m out.” Bottoms said.

  “Then stay out, all the way.” Wilt said. “If he contacts you, no new identity. No financial help. Nothing at all.”

  “Not my call,” Bottoms said. “It’s fine for you two to be righteous, but in my job, you have to make deals with the bad people to get the really bad people. That’s the way it is out there.”

  “You don’t like your job get out of it,” Egan said. He put his back to Bottoms. “You ready, Sheriff?”

  Wilt stood. The weight came down hard on the hip. The trembling, the jerking was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  Wilt sat in the cruiser. He was hurting and he hadn’t taken any of the worst of it, not by a mile. Now he waited for a surge of energy, for anything that would help him on the drive back to Edgefield.

  Egan stood outside the cruiser, on the driver’s side. A light misty rain, an ice spray, flicked at him and he blinked into it. The spray that stuck to the windshield had a glint like polished glass in the parking lot lights.

  “What do you think about what Bottoms said?” Egan asked.

  “He knows his criminal types. He knows that Thorpe will have a stash of getaway money. If Thorpe gets past me and he gets to another city, he’ll be in touch with Bottoms and they go on their merry way.”

  “You don’t sound too worried about that.”

  “I found his getaway cash. He’s running on empty. He doesn’t know that yet. He’s got to make a try for it. Just knowing where he thinks it is gives me an edge.”

  “I wish I could be over there when it happens.”

  “I could always use good help,” Wilt said.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The door to the bar opened and Bottoms stepped into the parking lot. He walked upright, too upright, like a man who’d had too much to drink and was putting on his best sober act. He was a few steps from the door before he saw Egan and the cruiser. He stopped. He appeared to steady himself and then he paced very deliberately toward the cruiser.

  He was a few steps from the cruiser when Wilt opened the car door and stepped out. He had some difficulty getting the leg straight and he had to grab at the door to keep from falling.

  Bottoms watching his struggle. He said, “I hurt you and didn’t know I did?”

  “Not you. A sniper.”

  “Shit. You’re a cripple.”

  “That’s what they tell me,” Wilt released his hold on the car door and stepped away from it. “You got more to say to me, Bottoms?”

  “You’re a son of a bitch,” Bottoms said. “But I got to respect you for standing behind your badge.”

  “Let’s all hug and cry,” Wilt said.

  “Have it your way.” Bottoms took a deep breath that shuddered through him. “This Thorpe is a bad one. No guilt and no remorse. He’ll kill you and his heart won’t skip a beat. You get him under your gun there might be a temptation to relax, to say to yourself that it’s over. Well, it’s not. That one will tear out your liver and stuff it up your nose before you know what happened.”

  “I’ve got a move or two you haven’t seen.”

  “Whatever. But you don’t belong in any boxing ring and you sure as hell don’t belong in a fight with Thorpe.”

  Bottoms turned and walked to his car.

  Wilt and Egan stood beside the cruiser and watched Bottoms weave his black sedan through the parking lot. He drove like a drunk. On the way out the driveway, he almost sheared the sign post with his right bumper and fender.

  “Like it or not, I’d better follow him,” Egan said. “He might need help getting from his car to the emergency room. And I’d better be there to back up, as the law, any explanation he has for what happened to him tonight.” He started away. “Don’t ever get mad at me, Sheriff.”

  Wilt tailed Egan and his Firebird for a couple of blocks before he reached the turnoff that put him on the highway to Edgefield.

  About ten p.m., Joe Croft started to feel drowsy.

  The heat in the guest house had him dried out and too relaxed. Both legs and feet were only a hair away from cramps and numbness. He got to his feet and bounced until he felt the blood circulating again.

  He left the living room and opened the back door as quietly as he could. He didn’t show a light and his eyes were used to the darkness. After a time, sure that the yard was empty, he eased the opening between the door and the frame wide enough so that he could slip through and out into the night. He soft-footed across the wet wood of the porch and stood on the steps for a time. He took deep breaths, listening to the hissing that was the sound of ice rain on trees and undergrowth.

  A few minutes later, he’d settled into his nest again. What he’d arranged was a space between the armchair and the wall. There was a clear, unobstructed view of the fireplace. He settled his back against the wall, trying to get it right, comfortable but not too comfortable. His .38 Police Special on the rug next to his right knee.

  Warm. Warm. The heat in the room lulling him. He decided that it was probably worse now, after his return fr
om the fresh chill air. From that cold to the overpowering heat, that was a mistake.

  He shifted his weight. His rump felt numb. Had he dozed off? He didn’t think so but there was no way of being certain. Had he been alert and awake or had he dreamed he was alert and awake?

  The real key was to keep his mind going. He told himself that. Think about something interesting. Like Charlotte? For all her foolishness, for all the conceits she had and for all the concern she had about her age, she was a hell of a woman in bed. In bed. That was a thought for you. It got him thinking about Charlotte in bed and then he was aroused and he sensed the change, the tightening, the lengthening …

  The heat in the guesthouse and the darkness overpowered him and the dream came down over his head like a hood.

  He awoke frozen in place. He heard breathing and, at first, he thought it was his own breathing. But he realized there were two different people in the room, the breathing not in stroke. His eyes remained closed at first. He opened them a slit and after an inner count of ten he widened the slit until he could make out the dark shape of Raymond Thorpe above him, one knee braced on the arm of the stuffed chair.

  Joe knew he was one muscle pull away from death. Oddly, he didn’t panic. Deep inside him, he accepted his death and in accepting it ,he could now try to make it as hard for Thorpe as he could. His left knee rammed hard against the stuffed chair. The chair moved and that unsettled Thorpe. As Thorpe fought for his balance, Joe grabbed the right wrist, the one that held the pistol. The muzzle blast almost scorched him. The grab and the force behind it had turned the pistol aside and the round plowed into the heavy stuffing in the back of the chair.

  The sound of the gun blast in the closed room deafened him.

  He held the wrist in his left hand. With his right hand he gripped Thorpe’s left bicep, his fingers digging in. He pushed the barrel of the pistol upward. At the same time, he avoided a knee that was aimed at his face. He struggled to get to his feet. His legs, from the hips down, were numb and bloodless. He put his weight on his feet and realized that his concentration had wavered. The pistol edged slowly downward. He used all his strength to halt the movement of Thorpe’s right hand. He searched even deeper inside himself and found a reserve of strength. The pistol edged upward again, until the barrel pointed straight at the ceiling.

  At the apex, when his strength was the greatest, he did the unexpected. He released the right wrist and the left bicep and took a backward step. While Thorpe battled the surprise, Joe set himself and hit him with the hardest right he’d ever thrown, in the ring or in his workouts with the heavy bag.

  Thorpe staggered. While he had the advantage, Joe rammed chest-to-chest against him and grabbed for the pistol. The pistol fell from Thorpe’s hand and hit the floor. It got kicked away and skidded across the rug. Joe saw the direction it had gone and he pushed Thorpe away and dived for the pistol.

  Thorpe saw his intention and stuck out a knee and threw him off direction. The impact stunned Joe and he hit the rug and rolled. He thought he was still near where he’d seen the weapon last. His hand slapped against the rug, feeling, clawing.

  He felt rather than heard footsteps. He braced himself for Thorpe. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that the footsteps were moving away from him. He knew for sure when he felt the blast of cold air that entered through the back door.

  Joe stood. He found the light switch on the wall and cut on the overhead light. He scooped up the pistol. He realized then that it was his .38 Police Special. He ran for the open back door and across the porch and down the steps into the yard. An ice crust broke under his feet. He felt it rather than hearing it.

  A circling of the guest house and Joe knew that Thorpe was gone.

  Long gone and running.

  He went back inside and called the Sheriff’s Station. He could barely hear Floyd. He gave a minimum account of the incident.

  Thorpe showed at the guest house. There was a scuffle, a round fired. No one hurt. Get the word to Wilt. He’d wait for him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Wilt squatted over the brick apron to the fireplace. His fingers traced the lines of the sand that replaced the mortar around the central brick that had hidden the stash.

  “I don’t think he removed the brick.” He stood and turned to Joe. “It’s too neat. No sand’s been spilled.” He tapped the brass rods of the fire screen. “You know if he checked for the stash in the tubes?”

  “He didn’t get that far. I called him before he got started.”

  “Hearing getting better?”

  “It’s coming back.”

  “Good.” Wilt walked to the overstuffed chair behind which Joe had nested. “Warm in here.”

  “I’d just been outside to let the cold blow on me. Right before Thorpe showed.”

  Wilt nodded.

  “I wasn’t sleeping, Wilt.”

  Calm eyes assessing him. “I didn’t say you were. Don’t get jumpy.”

  “It’s the God’s truth.”

  Wilt shook his head, abrupt at cutting him off. “We’ve got to assume that Thorpe doesn’t know we’ve uncovered his getaway cash. That might keep him in the area. He might decide he can make one more grab at it. Otherwise, we have to figure him as gone, that he’s leap-frogging across the country.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  “Longer he stays the better. Next to nailing him right away, we’ll settle for running him for a time. Until he gets tired and turns on us.”

  “I’ll stay here and wait for him,” Joe said.

  “Naw, I’ve got better plans for you. We’ll use King for the stakeout.”

  Nobody ever called the deputy by his given name. It was always King. He was a backwoods boy in his early twenties who spent all his off-time hunting and trapping or fishing.

  Before Wilt hired him, he’d asked a few good old boys about him. One said, “That boy can track a tick through a pack of dogs and ten miles through a thicket and show you where that tick swam the creek.” It was a reference that almost wasn’t an exaggeration.

  “Call him,” Wilt said. “Tell him to bring a shotgun of his liking and his choice of shot.”

  Deputy King arrived twenty minutes later on foot. He carried a long shape under one arm and a battered gym bag in the other hand. He stood six-two and he appeared to be part Indian. His hair was shaggy, black as coal, and it looked like it had been cut with the garden shears. His uniform was wrinkled and it probably hadn’t been washed for a week. But Wilt never noticed any bad body odor. King always smelled like fresh cut grass.

  King nodded and peeled an oil cloth cover from his 12-gauge shotgun while Wilt talked. The shoulder butt had been replaced with a pistol grip. Head down, listening to Wilt, inserted four shells into the magazine.

  “Four ought to be enough,” King said.

  Wilt cautioned him to take no chances with Thorpe. “If he moves after you, tell him to freeze or you’ll cut him down.”

  “Hadn’t planned to dance with him,” King said. He placed the shotgun on the rug next to the stuffed chair. He reached into the gym bag and selected a shotgun shell. He tossed it to Wilt. “Load my own. These will tear a man apart.”

  King was backwoods enough not to be squeamish about making a mess of a man. Wilt had known a few like King in the field with the Corps. They’d been the real asskickers when the rough times came.

  The pay phone was in the open. Wilt hunched his shoulders and put his back to the wind. The ice rain had stopped for the time.

  Marshal Bottoms had called. Floyd had reached Wilt on the highway.

  “Thorpe called me on our emergency line,” Bottoms said. “He wants us to bring him in. He wants to be moved to another location.”

  “What did you tell him?” Wilt was surprised he was even getting this call from Bottoms.

  “I said I’d need permission from someone higher up. He didn’t like it. He said I was wasting his time.”

  “You give any reason why you needed permission?”r />
  “I told him I’d heard there were charges out on him. And that broke his part of the bargain.”

  “Did he have you list the charges for him?”

  “He didn’t seem interested. My guess is that he knows what the charges are.”

  “How’d you leave it?”

  “He’s to call me between midnight and one a.m. By then, I’m supposed to hear from Washington.”

  “If I don’t have him by then, set up a meet with him. And if the meet’s in Raleigh, you’ll need to contact Billy Egan. It’s his territory.”

  “And you two will be there waiting to nab him,” Bottoms’ voice had a dry quality, like a scratching of dead leaves on cement. “That’s asking a bit, isn’t it?”

  “Not as much as you think. We’ll take him. Then you can come out and protest all you want to. I’ll have you outgunned. That way your ass is covered.

  “Maybe. I’ll think about it. No promises.”

  “He raped and killed two little girls and he stabbed a cop. Is this somebody you really want to put yourself on the line for?”

  Bottoms broke the connection.

  Joe sat across the desk from him at the Station. He lifted a hand and hid a yawn behind it. Wilt stared at him for a time and said, “You ought to sack out for a few.”

  “An hour or two ought to do it.”

  “Here or home?”

  “I’m afraid of my own bed. I get in there I might never get out again.”

  “Set my cot up in the locker room.”

  After Joe carried the bundled cot away and closed the door behind him, Wilt put his head on the desk blotter and closed his eyes. He dozed. He awoke. He dozed again.

  A call came in for Joe at the front desk and he took it in the Records Room. He saw the way Floyd looked at him. He knew the word was getting around. The Chief Deputy was getting some and then, expanded, the Chief Deputy had himself an older woman and she was rich, rich and very rich.

  “Yeah?” He threw it at her, hard and impatient. Time to let her know he didn’t like these personal calls during his working hours.