He turned the page and read on, using his fountain pen to make notes on a legal pad. Behind him and outside his window, the bushes between his office and Connecticut Avenue bent over a little more.
All afternoon he had heard occasional airplane engines as aircraft owners took off from the airstrip on Airfield Key and headed for places safer. A little after four one of these engines suddenly grew louder. He looked out his window to see Lee Bell’s aircraft circling the town hall. He waved but didn’t think she saw him through the glass window. After a moment she banked hard and vanished to the north.
Chapter 35
Monday, July 29
Troy was still in his office at ten that night, reviewing evacuation plans, when Angel Watson called on the radio. “Trouble, Chief,” she said. “Some guy is holed up threatening to shoot anyone who comes near him.”
“Where are you?”
Angel gave an address on Barron Key. “I’m staying back a ways and trying to get people out of the line of fire.”
“This is good. On my way,” Troy said. He heard Jeremiah check in too and told him to head to Angel’s location.
At that hour, and violating a few traffic laws, it was two minutes to drive his Forester up Barron Road and left into the main housing part of Barron Key. On the road Troy used his department cell phone to call Juan Valdez and tell him to come help. Troy pulled in beside Angel Watson’s department Suburban at the corner of 19th Street and Florida Avenue. It was just dark, with some glow still from the sun reflecting off the high storm clouds out over the Gulf of Mexico. The wind was strong and building, and rain came in scattered bursts.
Angel was standing behind her truck holding her shotgun aimed toward a concrete block house. She was short enough that the truck hood with an engine block under was a good cover for her. Troy joined her. Angel had turned off the lights on the truck so as not to light herself up. Troy had brought along the two department AR-15 rifles and some magazines. Troy took one and handed the other to Angel. They each put in a magazine and slipped a spare into a pocket.
“Chief, I don’t have a clue what this guy’s problem is,” Angel said. “Got a call. Domestic. But the guy calling wasn’t one of the parties. Said he was some woman’s brother and the woman and her boyfriend were spatting. The woman is Marjorie Liston and her boyfriend is Norris Compton.”
“Christ!” Troy said. “Is there a flow chart to go with this?”
Angel ignored that. “She met me in the yard over there, told me everything was all right, and went back to the house. But as I was coming back to the truck she came running back out of the house and said her boyfriend had a gun and was raving about prowlers. Said he was drunk too.”
“Handgun or long gun?” Troy asked.
“She said a handgun. Revolver, is the way she described it to me. ’Course he could have an armory in there for all we know.”
“Where is the woman now?” Troy asked. He turned as the other Suburban pulled in and parked a few yards away. Jeremiah Brown heaved his large bulk out of that.
“She’s safe,” Angel said. “I sent her to her mother’s, where her brother is too. Other end of the block. I tried to get the people out of this house behind us but I had to keep an eye on the door to Norris Compton’s house too.”
“You did great. Jeremiah, see if anyone is left in the house behind us and get them out and on down the road. Then pull one of the trucks back and block the road.”
Jeremiah lumbered off. Troy got his iPhone and dialed up 4-1-1. In a moment he put it away.
“No phone?” Angel asked. She never took her eye from behind the rifle sights.
“No landline anyway. It would be noon tomorrow before we got a cell phone number out of someone, if he even has a cell phone. We can wait. Maybe he’s drunk and will sober up.”
She snorted. “Maybe he’s half drunk and will get worse.”
“Whatever works. Sober and sorry for what he’s done, or too drunk to function. Either way is good for us.”
“Could use a drink myself,” Angel said. “You don’t drink, do you, Chief?”
“Um. No. Not any more. Gave it up.”
“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink,” Angel recited. “When they get up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.”
“W.C. Fields?”
“Frank Sinatra.”
“Well, I feel pretty good, mornings, now,” Troy said. At least after nights where I don’t have bad dreams and sit around vomiting, he thought. He got some binoculars out of Angel’s Suburban and looked at the house. It was a modest CBS, or concrete block and stucco ranch style, with a low hip roof, typical of the housing stock in the majority of Barron Key. It had a front door in the center facing them that was open still, probably left that way when Marjorie Liston ran out. The lights were on inside and he could see a slice of the interior of a living room. He didn’t see Norris Compton.
Jeremiah had blocked the road and now came back to stand next to them. “Whattya think, Boss?” he said.
“I think that sooner or later he’s going to want to close that front door,” Troy said. “We could be there when he does that.”
“Sounds good, Boss. Let’s go. Before he looks out.”
“We will,” Troy said. “And both of you. There’s certainly a back door we’re not covering. When Juan gets here, Angel, have him take the other rifle and cover the back. Jeremiah and I will go in with just handguns.”
Troy looked down at Angel. “Keep a rifle on that door. If he looks like he’s going to shoot me or Jeremiah, shoot him.”
Angel gulped and looked at the open door. “What if he just waves a gun around?”
“Then use your good sense.”
“Chief, I’m not sure I have good sense for this.”
“You will, if the time comes. Don’t worry. Come on, Jeremiah.”
Troy and Jeremiah sprinted across the front lawn and took up positions on either side of the door.
Nothing happened for ten minutes except that Juan, wearing a tee-shirt and jeans and having parked down the road, ran up to join Angel, whispered to her, and took the other rifle and disappeared around the back of the house.
Troy pointed to Angel, then pointed to his own mouth and used his hand to imitate a mouth talking.
“Sir,” Angel shouted. “We’re the police. We’re not looters or burglars. Please come out and talk to us.”
“Damn looters,” a voice shouted. A large man, Troy’s height, but probably two hundred and thirty pounds, stepped out far enough to point a revolver at the clouds above and fire off a shot. Troy whacked the man’s wrist with his flashlight and the gun fell onto the front porch. When the man turned toward Troy, Jeremiah snatched the man off his feet by the scruff of his neck. Troy kicked the gun away from them, holstered his own, and managed, with some good timing, to get the handcuffs on as the man wiggled in Jeremiah’s grasp. And that was that. Jeremiah set the man back down on his feet, appearing not at all winded by the effort of holding a struggling fat man up in the air with just one arm.
“We should take this act on the road,” Troy said. “That was pretty slick, even if I do say so myself.”
Juan was shouting over the house roof, asking what was going on, and Troy shouted back for him to come back and join them. Angel also ran to join them. She had tears running freely down her cheeks.
“What’s your problem?” Troy said.
“I almost pulled the trigger,” Angel said. She was still holding the rifle in one hand and now she used the other to wipe her cheeks. Troy reached out one hand to take the rifle and used the other to pull her to him in a hug.
Chapter 36
Tuesday, July 30
At eight-ten in the morning Troy was drinking coffee and trying not to feel so sleepy. Angel Watson had broken down back at the station and had a weeping fit and Troy had sat with her an hour until she got herself together.
“I could have killed that poor man,” she said at one point. “You g
ot any idea how that makes me feel?”
“Yes,” Troy said. He decided not to elaborate. That wouldn’t help. This was one of the downsides of police work and there was nothing for it but for Angel to work herself through it.
With that, and welcoming Norris Compton to a cell and doing some paperwork, he had not gotten to bed before two and his internal alarm clock still woke him at five-thirty.
The intercom in his phone buzzed and June said, “Yacht Club on the line.”
Troy picked up the phone and pushed a button. “Troy Adam.”
“Need you out here pronto, Chief Adam,” he heard George Trapper, the Osprey Yacht Club’s manager, say. “Someone has defaced the front of the building.”
“How so?”
“Spray painted a message.”
“When?”
“Sometime last night, I suppose. We found it first thing this morning when we came to work.”
“You don’t happen to have a security camera facing the front parking lot, do you?”
“No.”
“What does the message say?”
“Who cares what the message says? You don’t go around spray painting buildings to send messages. It’s gang activity. And that requires a strong response from the chief.”
“What does the message say?”
“It says, ‘Wanda Frister Loves Drugs’. And Wanda Frister works here.”
“I know that.”
“Few days back her car was parked in the employee lot all night and into the morning with four flat tires.”
“I know that too. I’m sending an officer out now to photograph the graffiti and look around. Don’t scrub it off before he gets there.”
“What are you going to be doing about all this?”
“I’m going to be talking to Wanda Frister.”
Troy looked up Wanda’s number in her file. She answered on the eighth ring and sounded sleepy. Troy explained what had happened and told her he was on his way to her house to make certain she was all right. He called Milo Binder on the radio and sent him over to Wanda’s house. Milo certainly knew the way there by now. Bubba Johns was in the break room and Troy sent him and the department camera out to the yacht club.
When he arrived at Wanda’s trailer on Snake Key he parked his Subaru next to Milo’s department Suburban. Wanda’s aversion to having police cars parked at her house seemed to have vanished. The wind was blowing harder and the rain was coming intermittently as the outer rain bands circulating around the center of what was now Hurricane Donald crossed over Mangrove Bayou. Milo and Wanda were in her front yard, such as it was, standing in front of the concrete steps up to a closed trailer door. Milo was wearing his new khaki uniform and had his arm on Wanda’s shoulder. Wanda was in jeans and a yellow tube top and had no shoes. She was holding a key ring in one hand.
“Something’s squirted into the lock,” Milo said. “Lock’s frozen.”
“I came out OK,” Wanda said. “Talked to Milo. I keep the door locked all the time but when I tried to go back inside with Milo the key wouldn’t fit in the lock. This is all I need. My A/C went off last night too.”
“Let’s take a look,” Troy said. Without air conditioning an old single-wide trailer in the July heat would be almost uninhabitable. The air conditioner was a window unit in the bedroom. Standing on tiptoe, Troy could just see into the top vents. “Something in there,” he said. “Some kind of goo.” He looked at Wanda. Now she was holding Milo’s hand and probably didn’t even realize it. “I think you’ve been sabotaged here. Someone has squirted glue or something into your lock and your A/C unit. You need a locksmith and an air-conditioner repairman. You will need to pay for those yourself, I’m afraid.”
“I already owe you for the tires, don’t I?”
“No. But last night someone spray- painted ‘Wanda Frister Loves Drugs’ on the front wall of the yacht club. I told you that on the phone.” He looked at Milo. “Bubba’s over there now, with the camera.” Milo nodded.
“I bet it was Billy,” Wanda said.
“I bet it was too. Do you love drugs? I’ll need to talk to people over there. Might be time to get that question out of the way.”
Wanda started crying. Milo held her and she turned her face to his shoulder. “Been inside her trailer,” Milo said. “There’s no drugs. Not even prescriptions.”
“Wanda, do you use drugs? Any kind of drugs?”
“Leave her alone,” Milo said.
“I have to know, Officer Binder.”
“No sir,” Wanda said.
“Good. But let’s double check. Milo, I’m leaving you here with Wanda. Help Wanda with the locksmith and A/C guy. Check inside again for any drugs. And I mean do your job, Officer Binder. Do you understand me?”
“Yes sir. But she’s clean.”
“I hope so. Check anyway and report to me. We don’t have any warrant to search her trailer, so if you find something bad, let me know and we’ll figure out how to deal with that. And keep an eye out for Billy Poteet and a red F-150 pickup truck. He’s been getting energetic, if it’s really him, of course. Let June, back at the office, know, every hour or so, what’s happening.”
“OK. But if I see Billy Poteet I’m gonna shove his face down his throat.”
“Don’t do that. Messes with the lineup. You are a professional law enforcement officer. Do your job. Stay cool. If you do see him, you call for backup pronto.”
“Well, all right, Chief. Where are you going?”
“Talk to Billy Poteet.”
As it happened he couldn’t talk to Billy. Billy wasn’t at the boatyard. He was out pulling up his crab traps before the storm. Troy gave that up for the moment and went back to the stationhouse. He felt tired. He was willing to bet that Billy felt the same.
Norris Compton woke up around ten in the morning and started yelling. Troy went back to the cells, read him his Miranda warning, and told him why he was where he was.
“But I didn’t do anything wrong. A man’s got a right to defend his home.”
“Norris, there never were any looters. And you shot off a revolver. At my officers. Damn relic, too. Where did you get it?”
“Oh, my head. It was my dad’s. I only shot once, up at the sky. To scare off the looters.”
“That was a foolish thing to do. One of my officers came within a split-second of blowing your head off.”
“It was just a warning shot.”
“Well, I’ll let you and a state attorney discuss that. I’ve got you in here for discharging a firearm inside town limits and for aggravated assault on a police officer. Do you have an attorney? Is there anyone you would like to call?”
Compton groaned and held his head again. “Mostly I’d like some aspirin and something to eat.”
“I can do that. Then one of us will let you use the shower. When you feel up to it give a shout and we’ll lend you a phone to use.”
He drove over to the Osprey Yacht Club. Bubba had been and gone. Inside, the same girl sat at the same little desk with her hands folded. This time she didn’t even smile, but at least she said nothing as Troy walked in and on through the inner door. Troy found Paul Ronson, the commodore, in the office with George Trapper, the manager. Neither man looked happy to see Troy.
“This has to stop,” Ronson said. “George tells me it was gang activity.”
Troy shook his head. “We don’t have a gang in Mangrove Bayou. The only gang I know of who are breaking the law are the guys who play poker in your back room on Thursday nights.”
Ronson looked startled but recovered. Trapper looked amused. “Well, do you have any idea who committed that crime out front?” Ronson asked.
“Yes. I do.”
“Well, then,” Ronson said, “why aren’t you out arresting him?”
“Need proof, not suspicion. Too bad you don’t have a security camera.”
“If you know who it is, get on the job,” Ronson said. “That’s why you were hired. If you can’t do the job, I’ll talk to Les
ter Groud and see if he can find someone who can.”
Troy nodded. “We have a person who spray-painted some graffiti on a wall. It happens to be your wall and you’re right to be annoyed about it. But it can be removed. It’s not the crime of the century. Meantime, there’s a hurricane about to hit us and I need to organize for that and nobody is going to get any sleep when that thing is over us. I’m not forgetting or ignoring this, but there have to be priorities.”
“Yeah. Fine,” Ronson said. “One priority I have is that we’re firing that bitch Wanda Frister. We don’t need some druggie working for us who attracts this kind of illegal attention. Bad for the club image.”
“Why is she a bitch?”
“Well, she uses drugs. Her car tires the other night. I don’t need the criminal element working for me.”
“I would point out that Wanda Frister isn’t the criminal element here. She’s the victim. Do you fire people for being victims of crime?” He looked at Trapper. “George, is that even legal?”
“I don’t know,” Trapper said. “And I don’t want to have to find out.”
“Smart,” Troy said. “My information is that Wanda Frister doesn’t use drugs and she’s not some ‘bitch.’ George, has she been a good employee up to now?”
“She’s fine,” the manager said. “Experienced. Popular. Reliable. Happy to come in whenever I need some extra help. Never a problem until this.”
“I don’t give a damn,” Ronson said. “George can fire her.”
“Might be some legal issues with doing that,” George said.
“I have an idea,” Troy said. “I really like the club. The atmosphere. The people here. I am planning to eat in your dining room every night, from now to the heat-death of the universe. That will give me a chance to hobnob with the other members. You know, slap a back or two, shake the hands. Tell jokes. Ask the wait staff to bring me lots of fried chicken and watermelons. To prevent future outbreaks of crime I plan to have a patrol truck cruise by here twice every shift. They’ll be checking license plates for expired stickers, of course, we always like to do that. I can do the same out on the boats. Why, there could be, you know, unlawful substances, on some of those boats. And we’re going to find out.”
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