They both shook their heads.
“But you both remember what Scott looks like, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Linda said.
“When Parker Raynes’s told me about Doyle being a homosexual, my mind flashed back to the other day when I was out at Willa’s house. She showed me two studio portraits she had made of her boys a few years ago and it all started to fall into place for me.”
“I fail to see your point,” Toby said. “What have his looks got to do with it?”
“I get it,” Linda said.
“I don’t,” Toby said.
“He and his brother Hamilton were two of the best-looking guys this town ever produced,” Linda said. “I had a terrific crush on Hamilton at one time even though he was three years younger than me.”
Toby shrugged. “Okay. I’m willing to take your word for it, but what does this have to do with Doyle Raynes? Do you think something was going on between them?”
“I feel sure of it,” I said. “I think Doyle was in love with Scott, and Scott was jerking him around every which way. Walter Durbin told me he thought Doyle was protecting somebody.”
“Isn’t this kinda off the wall?” Linda asked. “I mean, girls were always nuts about Scott, and he has the reputation of being quite the little stud hoss. And then there’s this Newland girl.”
“Not at all,” I said. “There was a juvenile case similar to this that he was involved in the year he was a junior in high school. The records were sealed by the judge’s order, but I knew what happened because I did the investigation. Do either of you remember a kid named Jimmy Dale Webster?”
“I’ve heard the name,” Toby said. “But I was in the army at the time.”
“I do,” Linda said. “He killed himself.”
“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” I said. “It was eventually ruled a suicide, but I had my doubts even back then, and I really have my doubts today. You see, Jimmy was in the closet, and he and Scott did a string of burglaries together. Scott was the instigator of the whole thing, and he was using poor Jimmy’s homosexuality to control him.”
“You mean he was letting Jimmy blow him, don’t you?” Linda asked.
I laughed. “I was going to phrase it a little more delicately, but yes, they were having sex. Scott took the male role, as you might expect. Jimmy Dale copped to the whole thing. Jimmy’s dad was a retired air force officer, and at the time he owned a security company that had contracts spread out over three or four counties. Since his clients were the only ones hit, it was obvious what was happening. I leaned on Jimmy pretty hard, and he confessed. The windup of the thing was that both boys got probation because of their age.”
“But why would Scott kill him if they were already caught?” Toby asked.
“Revenge. He was mad as hell that Jimmy had revealed their affair. I knew about it, the judge knew, the prosecutor knew, Walter Durbin and Dud Malone knew because they represented the two boys.”
“I can see that,” Toby said. “For lots of people, queer is queer and it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re pitching or catching. Most black folks are that way.”
“So you’re convinced Scott was doing the same thing with Doyle Raynes?” Linda asked.
“I’d almost bet my life on it. I think Scott killed Amanda Twiller and made Doyle help him dump the body. You see, I always had a problem with Arno as her killer because a pro like him would have gotten her off somewhere and shot her and left the body where it fell. Then there’s another thing. Agent Hotchkiss and I have thought from the first that somebody was sending a message by dumping the body right out in public like that, and I know for a fact that Scott hates me and he hates this town. So…”
“What possible motive could he have had?” Toby asked.
“Either somebody paid him to do it, or the three of them were together and something got out of hand. It could have been unpremeditated. Amanda Twiller and Doyle were both known dopers, and I feel sure Scott isn’t averse to trying a little of whatever came along. Put three unstable people together with a bottle of whisky and some drugs late at night, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.”
“What about Willa?” Linda asked. “Do we need to go see her?”
“I already have. She says she hasn’t seen him, and that means she hasn’t. All the times I ever had trouble with Scott, she backed me up because she knew I was trying to get him to settle down and be decent. He’ll avoid her because he knows she won’t hide him or lie for him.”
* * *
By late afternoon I had assembled my team. It would be a multiagency operation for the simple reason that I didn’t have the available manpower to go it alone. Nor was I inclined to do so. The target house was inside the city limits, which gave the Sequoya Police Department a strong claim on inclusion and so did Hotchkiss. Texas Ranger Don Thornton was working the Doyle Raynes case, and I knew I could count on him. From my own force I picked Linda and Toby, with Otis Tremmel as surveillance and backup.
Clyde Morgan over at the city police assigned one of their best young patrolmen—Herbert Stovall, a graduate of the police academy up at Kilgore Junior College. I was one of the few people in town who knew Stovall’s first name since he’d gone by “Bobo” practically since birth. So we had a Bo, a Bobo, and a Bob, something that gave me a momentary urge to include Bubba Cates just to confuse the media people if anything newsworthy came out of the raid. But I resisted.
I got everybody together in my office in the courthouse. “First order of business,” I said after I had made introductions. “What we have on tap tonight is something we’re almost certain is a big drug buy. I’m sure all of you remember Lester Sipes from the newspapers and TV a few years back. According to Agent Hotchkiss, Sipes is now heavily involved in the cocaine trade. One of our local yokels, a liquor store owner named Emmet Zorn, has been muleing the stuff to Dallas for him. On the most recent shipment Zorn decided to screw Sipes, sell the coke, and then vanish. To that end, he got in touch with a drug dealer in St. Louis who wanted the stuff really bad. This St. Louis guy sent an idiot named Willard Peet down here to arrange the transaction, but when he hit town he couldn’t find Zorn. Peet freaked out when he failed to make contact, and went around asking people about him and insulting folks and in general acting obnoxious until he came to the attention of two of my deputies. They hauled him in, and largely through the encouragement of Chief Deputy Toby Parsons, he was made to see the error of his ways.”
“How did you do that, Toby?” Bobo Stovall asked.
“I appealed to the brother’s sense of racial solidarity.”
“Yeah, right,” Bobo said with a laugh.
“Once Peet saw the light,” I continued, “he ratted out both Zorn and his employer up north. But by this time Zorn had developed a major problem. The cocaine, which is valued in the neighborhood of a million dollars wholesale, had gone missing, and everything points to its having been stolen from Zorn by one of our local bad boys, a young rogue named Scott Kimball.
“I’m sure most of you are familiar with Scott. I’m also sure you realize that my main interest in this affair is nailing him because I think he did both the Twiller and Raynes killings. Yesterday, one of my informants called in a tip that Kimball was at a house over on the north side of town. We raided the place only to find that for some reason, Kimball had bugged out just before we got there. We did apprehend his girlfriend, and she has acknowledged her errors and begun to mend her ways. As a show of good faith, she told us about this drug buy. A second consequence of yesterday’s raid was that a mob-connected hoodlum named Paul Arno crossed on over Jordan. Kimball’s girlfriend told me that Arno was helping Kimball sell something that was supposed to bring him a big chunk of money, so I don’t see how it could be anything else. My take on it is that Kimball had the coke, but no contacts with possible buyers. Arno had the contacts but no coke, so they both must have seen it as a match made in heaven.”
“Aren’t you afraid Kimball will assume the gir
l tipped us off?” Stovall asked.
“Not really. He’s either going to be there or he isn’t. The girl claims he’s not aware that she knows about it. She heard him and Arno talking when they didn’t know she was listening. We think Kimball owes some heavy gambling debts to some bad people down in Houston, and he’s probably getting a little desperate.”
“There’s something else that makes me think he’ll be there tonight,” Bob Thornton said. “With Arno dead he may not have any way to get in touch with his buyers to reschedule the meeting. So it’s now or never.”
“Who does the house belong to?” Linda asked.
“It’s a rental. One of Kimball’s buddies is the name on the lease, but he hasn’t been in town for two weeks. He left Kimball the key.” I looked around the room. “Any more questions?” I asked.
A shaking of heads.
“Okay,” I said. “The house across the street is also a rental, and it’s empty. I got the key from the owner, and Otis Tremmel is going to go over there in civilian clothes about seven and go in the back door. He’s got binoculars, and there’s a streetlight right in front of the target house. He’ll let us know if and when the people show up.
“Now remember one last thing. Scott Kimball has almost certainly murdered two people that we know about. He was the cause of his only brother’s death, and he never showed a dime’s worth of remorse or guilt over that. Ever since he was a little kid he’s given every indication that he was developing into a stone psychopath. In all probability, the people he’s dealing with on this coke deal are going to be of similar disposition. So I want you to keep in mind that each of you is more important to your families, your community, and to me than any of these people we’ll be going up against. So don’t take any silly chances, and don’t hesitate a second if your life is on the line. I want everybody safe and sound and back down here bitching about the paperwork when it’s all over.”
Bob Thornton raised his hand.
“Go ahead, Bob,” I said.
He turned to face the group. “Folks, Bo is telling you right about that. And something else. Me and him both have been in enough of these old shooting fracases to know they’re no fun. When it comes down to the wire tonight you’re going to be scared shitless. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m going to be scared shitless right along with you. In fact, if you aren’t scared you need to get out of police work because a little fear is an asset to this job. Now go ahead, Bo. I’ve had my say.”
“Thanks, Bob,” I said and looked at my watch. “It’s four-thirty now and we need to meet back here at seven. Go across the street and have a little supper if you want. Or go outside and smoke or whatever. Just be here on time with your flak vests and helmets and all that fancy Dirty Harry gear. Okay?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
At seven we met back at the office and I checked everybody’s equipment—Kevlar-lined vests, Kevlar helmets with shock-resistant face shields, and radios with wrist mikes and earpiece headphones much like the Secret Service uses. Bob Thornton had secured an unmarked DPS van, and that gave us two. I assigned Toby, Linda, and Hotchkiss to the rear, and Bobo Stovall to cover the side door that opened from the kitchen. The four of them were in the DPS unit, which was stationed in an abandoned garage on the street behind the target house. Thornton and I parked well around the corner on a potholed side street and waited, sweating like pigs the whole time.
I have never known of a criminal who could consistently be on time for anything. That is, I think, part of their problem. On every stakeout and raid I have ever participated in, at least one of the suspects was late. It was eight-nineteen when my headphone came alive and I heard the urgent tones of Otis Tremmel’s voice informing us that a big Lincoln Town Car had just pulled up in front.
“Let us know when they get inside,” I said. “Toby, bring your people into position.”
Less than a minute later the radio came alive again: “They’re in the house and the door just closed,” Tremmel said.
Thornton and I stepped from the van and quickly made our way around to the front of the house and started carefully up the walk. We had almost reached the front door when two shots rang out inside, followed closely by a short burst of fire from an automatic weapon of some sort. We stood silently, waiting, then we heard several shots behind the house. A moment later Toby’s voice came through my radio earpiece! “It’s Kimball, Bo. He was coming out the back door when he saw us. He shot first, and then ducked back inside.”
“Hold your positions,” I whispered into my mike. “Everybody hold your positions and do not approach.”
“Bo, what do you think?” Thornton asked.
“I think if we hit him now he’ll flush. I don’t believe this boy will ever give up, and if we wait around for him to get his bearings things will just be that much more dangerous when we do have to go in.”
“My notion exactly,” he said. “And I really don’t want this to turn into a three-day standoff.”
“Me either. Right through the front door together?”
“Let’s knock the damn thing clean off its hinges.”
We did. It caved in like a cracker box to reveal a small living room that held some worn but decent furniture, a half dozen cluttered bookcases, and two bodies that appeared very dead. An instant later Scott Kimball materialized in the doorway on the opposite side of the room and fired two quick shots. The first hit Thornton in the chest of his flak jacket and put him down. The second shattered a vase on a bookcase beside my head and threw stagnant water all over the faceplate of my helmet, clouding my vision. I snapped off three shots of my own, only to catch a glimpse of the kid as he vanished into the darkened room beyond. I wiped my faceplate and looked down at Thornton. He had the wind knocked out of him, but his vest had held. He motioned me to go on.
It’s strange what runs through your mind in such situations. As I moved carefully across the room, I was very aware that this was a near replay of the day before when Arno was killed. I also found myself wishing that Charlie Morton was waiting outside with that Remington riot gun along with my other people. I knew from experience that Charlie wouldn’t hesitate, and I was afraid some of them might, good hands though they were.
I crept up to the doorway and peeked around the door facing. I caught a quick glimpse of Kimball on the other side of the room with a duffel bag in one hand, a pistol in the other, and what looked like an Uzi slung over his shoulder. I jerked my head back just as he fired a shot that splintered the doorway’s wooden molding right beside my ear.
“Give it up, Scott,” I yelled. “The place is surrounded.”
“Fuck you, old man,” he called out, and I swear there was a happy lilt to his voice. Then two more bullets slammed into the wall just opposite my head, and I found myself thanking my lucky stars that the house was old enough to have wooden interior walls instead of the plasterboard they use nowadays. I stood motionless for a few seconds, barely breathing until the silence was broken by a long burst of automatic weapon fire from the rear of the house. It was counterpointed by a half dozen or so individual shots that seemed to come from several directions. The earpiece of my radio crackled with static, and I heard, “Trooper down! Trooper down! Linda’s hit!”
I ran through the next room and out onto the back porch in time to see Kimball spray one final burst of fire from the Uzi and then dive through the dense privet hedge that bordered the right side of the yard. He made it, but his duffel bag didn’t. It hung up in the shrubbery, and I emptied my .45 at the hand that held it. The hand dropped the bag, and I heard footsteps running down the alley beside the house. Just as I slammed another magazine into my pistol, Linda yelled over the radio, “It’s just my damn foot! Go get the bastard! Aw, God, but it hurts!”
A motorcycle engine roared to life in the alleyway, and I fought my way through the hedge in time to see its taillight turn out into the street. I ran as fast as my aging legs would carry me and reached the end of the alley just as Toby screeched up in the
van. I piled in and we took off after the rapidly dwindling cycle.
As soon as I caught my breath, I said, “Call the city PD and the highway patrol.”
“I already did,” came the reply. “I wonder what was in that suitcase. Dope or money?”
“Money,” I said firmly.
“What makes you think so?”
“Two dead men in the front room of that house back there. Scott didn’t come here for a deal. He just decided he’d kill himself a couple of mainline hoods, take their money, and then go sell his crap someplace else. Ain’t this boy a piece of work?”
Kimball headed for the south side of town. Twice he cut through yards and down alleys and we almost lost him, but Toby hung on. As we rounded the square, he flashed onto South Main just past the courthouse and blazed down the street ahead of us, weaving his way in and out between cars and pickups and running two red lights in the process. We threaded through traffic and eventually managed to close up half the distance between us and the taillight of the motorcycle by the time we reached the edge of town. “He’s heading out State Highway Nine South,” Toby said over the radio.
Just as we passed the city limit a highway patrol cruiser roared up beside our van. Toby motioned him ahead, and the cruiser shot past us, its lights blinking and its siren howling. Our van wasn’t built for either handling or speed, and it had been a miracle that we stayed with him in town. Out on the highway we gradually began to lose ground, but the DPS car was slowly gaining on him. About two miles outside of town a Sequoya Police Department patrol unit joined the chase, then a couple of miles farther on we saw a second DPS cruiser coming toward us from the opposite direction with its lights flashing. It was in the process of trying to turn sideways to block the highway when the motorcycle swerved to the right onto an oil-topped county road that angled away from the main highway.
The first highway patrol cruiser was going too fast to make the turn and screeched past it with its brake lights shining and its front bumper almost down to the asphalt as the trooper tried to slow his cruiser. The city boys managed to fishtail onto the oil road, and we were right behind them. After a half mile or so, I looked back to see the two DPS units gaining on us. It was a wild ride, one I never want to repeat. Sixty and seventy miles an hour on a winding, one-lane county road in the dead of night is not my idea of fun. A mile or so off the highway the deep woods began, and soon came the sensation that we were flashing down a dark canyon whose walls rose high on either side of us. Three miles farther and the road’s oil surface turned to gravel, yet still we sped onward, the motorcycle’s taillight a faint red dot far ahead.
Nights of the Red Moon Page 21