Jodi said slowly, “Mr. Montanus told us that he didn’t know anything that would help us.” She gestured sadly to the body. “But he obviously did.”
“What else did he ‘obviously’ not know?” Rollins placed hands on hips. “Come on, Strong! I checked you out! Your last supervisor said you have total recall for these things! Tell me everything that he said!”
Jodi inhaled deeply. “Well, we asked him if he knew any local cults that might be good for these murders, and he said he might know one. Then he got up to get some more wine and somebody shot him through the back door. After that …” She lifted her hands with a shrug, “… it was a whole new ball game. We went after the bad guy. There was a fairly dramatic running gunfight in the dark. The guy got away. And here we are.”
Rollins angrily stepped over the body, closing the distance. “People can lie to a cop all day long, Strong, and they’re not breaking the law. But it’s a federal crime to lie to a federal agent. And that goes for cops, too, so I’m gonna give you one more chance to rethink your answer. What did this man tell you that got him killed?”
Joe Mac stepped forward with a frown: “He didn’t say anything that got him killed, Rollins! It’s what he was about to say that got him killed! But he never got the chance.” He thumbed a hand at the glass door. “And I’m betting whoever was standing outside that door heard every word. They were probably using a laser or wolf ears. And if ol’ Montanus there had clammed up, he’d probably still be alive. But he was cooperating with us. And I think he would of give us a name, too. But he never got to it.”
“Well, what did you get out of him?” Rollins asked.
“He told us that a local cult was probably responsible for our murders,” Joe Mac answered gruffly. “But that’s all we got.”
Rollins’ displeasure was evident in the entirety of his face, his posture, and his stare. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then a voice made him turn.
“Well, well, well, well,” Captain Steve Brightbarton said as he descended the short steps into the living room. He bent as if staring Montanus in the eye before he said “Yep, this is something different. What makes you say that the hitter who did this is the same psycho we’ve been hunting in town, Joe? This is not exactly his MO.”
“Montanus, there, was killed before he could give us the name of ‘The Hangman,’” said Joe Mac. “But he was about to. I’m pretty sure of it.”
“Hmmm.” Brightbarton straightened and focused on Jodi. “Did you guys get any kind of look at the shooter?”
Jodi shook her head. “It was too dark.”
Turning squarely, Brightbarton stared at Joe Mac’s thick black glasses. “What about you, Joe? Did you get a look at him?”
“I was tying my shoe,” said Joe Mac.
“Uh huh.” Brightbarton stared around the room before he said, “Okay, boys and girls, what’s the operational status of your weapons? Let’s do this by the numbers.”
“Sir, I fired ten out of seventeen rounds in one clip,” said Jodi. “I put in a new clip with seventeen rounds, and there’s one in the chamber.”
Brightbarton simply stared at Joe Mac and then leaned closer: “Don’t even try and tell me you didn’t pull a piece.”
Finally, Joe Mac muttered, “I mighta’ fired a couple a’ clips.”
“Might have? Well, I ain’t even gonna ask you if you hit anything. I don’t expect you’d know. In any case, turn your weapons into crime scene before you leave. They’re gonna have to run ballistics.” He focused on Jodi. “Detective Strong, you’ll pick up a new piece tomorrow morning from the armory. Joe, you’re gonna have to dig something else out of your shoe box.” Brightbarton paused. “Since you’re just ‘an observer.’”
“You bet.”
Brightbarton stared down again. “Looks like ten rounds center mass, not one of ‘em thrown. That’s pretty good shooting. Looks like our boy has some serious skill sets. Probably got trigger time in Iraq or Afghanistan, and now he’s on the private market.”
“Look at this, captain,” said Jodi. She presented an empty cartridge case. “We found a bunch of these out back.”
Brightbarton held it up to the light. “A seven-six-two by thirty-nine. I’m guessing an AK on full auto?”
“Yeah,” answered Joe. “It looks like you’re gonna have to upgrade your profile, Agent Rollins. You’ve been plowing the wrong cantaloupe patch.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Jodi.
With a groan Rollins smoothed back his blonde hair, which had been tousled by the gathering snowstorm. Finally, he said, “Yeah. This is gonna add a wrinkle or two.” He paused. “Or three.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Jodi.
Joe Mac motioned with his cane. “The FBI profile wrote this guy up to be a wildly unstable religious psychopath. Now they’re gonna have to upgrade him to a fundamentally stable military operator because it takes a boatload of training to hit a man on fully automatic fire. And this honcho put ten rounds through Montanus’ chest at fifty feet inside two seconds with one fully automatic burst.” He nodded. “Yeah. That takes a lot of disciplined military training and then some because no normal man can do that even with training. It takes a good touch – sort of a natural born killer thing. And it upgrades the FBI profile from an ‘unstable religious psychopath’ to a meat-eating, highly functional Oklahoma cowboy with profoundly twisted religious delusions. It means the FBI’s spent about a billion dollars over the last four years looking in all the wrong places. They should have been pulling military files instead of church registers and asylum rosters.”
Jodi found herself staring at Rollins who suddenly seemed none too happy. His expression intimated that it was even worse than Joe Mac alluded, but she opted to keep her mouth shut. This was her first shooting and the last thing she wanted to do was say something foolish. She wasn’t even certain whether they would be keeping her on the case now that she’d fired her weapon.
“I suppose neither of you are hurt?” Brightbarton asked mildly, staring from Jodi to Joe Mac. “I didn’t think so. But as a formality both of you go to the hospital and get some air. Then go home. I’ll see you in my office with your PBA representatives tomorrow morning at eight. Meanwhile I’m ‘suspending’ your normal period of suspension following a shooting. I need both of you on this case. I think you’re too close to breaking this, and I can’t have you sidelined. Any questions?”
Joe Mac shook his head.
“No, sir,” said Jodi.
“Good.” Brightbarton looked at Rollins. “Anything you want to ask ‘em before I send ‘em to the hospital?”
Gazing down, Rollins shook his head.
“All right. Get out of here.”
In minutes they were inside Jodi’s car, and she was still puzzled at the aftermath of the shooting. She kept wondering if she’d done something wrong. “Is this what usually happens after a shooting?” she asked.
“Yeah, basically,” Joe Mac answered glumly. “First, they ask you the status of your weapon. Then they collect your weapon and send you to the hospital to get some oxygen and get checked out. They can’t ask you any questions about the event until your PBA representative is present, so they usually schedule your interview for the next day. And then, after all that, you’re usually suspended until the investigation is complete. But, like he said, he ‘suspended our suspension.’”
“He has the power to do that?”
“Sure,” Joe Mac shrugged. “The only person he answers to is the assistant chief or the chief. And Brightbarton’s not gonna have any problems with them. Not on this. Their careers are on the line, same as his.”
Jodi laughed lightly as she started the car. “Rollins sure didn’t look happy. I wish you could have seen his face. He’s mad.”
“It don’t take a big man to carry a grudge.”
“Why should he hold a grudge against us? We didn’t do anything to him.” She pulled onto the road; the snow had been heaped into the ditch by a snow plow worker that Jod
i would thank in her prayers. “That’s kinda petty, don’t you think?”
“We’ve made progress where he couldn’t, and he knows it,” said Joe Mac. “Plus, it’s gonna look real bad for him if the podunk NYPD manages to solve a major crime that a hundred FBI special agents couldn’t crack. Might even get in the way of his next promotion.”
“Good grief,” Jodi grimaced, “I don’t mean to hurt the guy’s career. He’s a good agent as far as I can tell. It’s just that I want to solve this case.”
“He knows that, kid; I wouldn’t worry about it.” Joe Mac rolled down the window. “And Brightbarton thinks you’re a good cop, or he would have come down on you a lot harder than he did. He thinks you got potential.”
Jodi gaped. “He does?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
Joe Mac laughed. “You’re still on the case, ain’t you? That’s because he believes in you. That’s because he trusts you to do the right thing.”
Jodi moaned, “That’s so nice of him.”
Joe Mac’s head bent, his smile lasting. Then, “All right. Let’s get to the hospital. We both need some air.”
After they were headed down the mountain, Jodi reached into her purse and pulled out Montanus’s organizer. She ruffled the pages, glancing down as Joe Mac turned his head, clearly listening as he asked, “You sure that deputy didn’t see you lift it?”
“I’m sure.”
“Don’t look through it right now. Keep your eyes on the road. I’ll make some calls when we get to the hospital.”
Jodi found herself staring between the road and Joe Mac’s expressionless countenance and finally asked, “You’re gonna call this old woman tonight?”
“No. We’re not contact her until after you pick up your new piece in the morning, and we make statements. But I’m gonna call some guys tonight to watch over her, so that nothing happens to her before we get there.” He turned his head as if to gaze out the window. “They won’t mind.”
Jodi asked, “Cops?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t want any more cops in on this. Somebody blew this rendezvous tonight, and it had to be Montanus or a cop. Nobody else knew we were coming.” He concentrated. “If it was Montanus, it could have been one of a hundred people he talks to on a regular basis, and he has no idea they’re stabbing him in the back. Might have been the same person that set his wife up to die. And if it was Rollins, it was Rollins himself or somebody he talks to on a regular basis.”
“What about Marvin? The archeology guy?”
Joe Mac’s face scrunched. “He just don’t seem good for this. I think he’s just an honest egghead.”
“But you really think it could be Rollins?” Jodi realized her mouth was hanging open. “That doesn’t seem credible to me.”
“I don’t know,” stated Joe with a sudden undertone of weariness. “I can’t see what he’d be getting out of it. He’s a career man. He’s got everything to gain and everything to lose. But I don’t know who he’s talking to.” A pause. “It don’t matter. When you’re not sure whether a situation is good or not you back away and get another angle on it until you are sure. You don’t push a bad situation. You remember that.”
“Roger that,” said Jodi. And after a moment, “You know, I’m learning a lot from you. You should be a teacher.”
Joe Mac nodded, “One last time.”
Jodi glanced over.
“One last time?”
Frowning, Joe Mac drew another .45 from his coat and rested the gun on his thigh, his head bowed. His voice was tired.
“One last time,” he whispered.
* * *
“You can make it home all right?” Joe Mac asked.
Jodi pulled on her sweater and tossed the hospital gown in the hamper; it’d taken the hospital two hours to clear them for release “with medical permission” and this was the first chance she’d had to talk to Joe Mac since they walked into the ER.
“Yeah, no problem,” she said. “What about our contact? Did you send some people to protect her until we get there?”
“Yeah. Some longshoremen who owe me. They’re both bull throwers, so nobody’s gonna bother her. Even so, we don’t need to burn no time at the station tomorrow. We go in; you pick up your piece; we make our statements and hit the road.”
“What about you?” Jodi asked. “They confiscated your gun.”
“I got six more 1911s at the house.”
“Good grief, Joe.”
“What? You only got one gun?”
“Like I can shoot more than one at a time?”
“You’ll learn.” Joe Mac turned. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll walk you to your car. Then I’ll hitch a ride.”
“C’mon, Joe. I can take you home.”
“I got a ride.”
“Another longshoreman who owes you?”
“A reporter. He owes me, too. That’s an art you need to cultivate.”
“What’s that?”
“Friends that owe you.”
“They come in handy after an officer involved shooting?”
“I have a feeling you’re gonna find out.”
Jodi released a deep sigh.
“Me, too.”
* * *
He dropped his blood-soaked coat and shirt on the floor and didn’t bother to try and raise his right arm; he knew he couldn’t.
The old blind man was either very lucky or very good. One of his shots hit him solidly in the chest smashing his ribs into splinters and sending him sprawling across that hateful frozen ground. But he had managed to stagger to his car. Then, as he was driving away, another bullet fired by the old man had struck the frame of the door, splintered, and fragments tore through his arm and hand and face.
He was bleeding badly enough to die, but he had already called the man, and the man told him that help was on the way. He knew he was in shock; it was the result of such massive blood loss. In fact, he had only barely managed to drive home and had not executed a single procedure to make sure he wasn’t followed, so he couldn’t trust his own judgment right now. The best thing – the only thing he should do was just sit here, keep pressure on the wound, and try to remain calm.
He ripped open a box of large gauze pads and pulled one out. Then he opened a pill bottle and swallowed two morphine capsules. Next, he pressed the gauze pad hard against his chest. He couldn’t tape it into place with one hand, and so he simply maintained pressure. He was thirsty with a bone-dry thirstiness he knew would become maddeningly worse because blood loss would also cause dehydration. Then he would begin to feel cold because all his blood was leaving his body.
He’d been wounded enough times to know the exact sequence of events that would transpire all the way up to death itself. But he wouldn’t die from this. They would be here soon, and the doctor would start an IV and sew up his wounds; the IV would restore his blood pressure and stave off shock; the sutures would stop the bleeding. And, in a few days, he would be on his feet.
He tried to remember whether he had left anything at the scene. He knew he had left the empty cartridge cases; there’d been no time to collect them. But he affirmed in his mind he had left nothing else.
Reviewing the scene in his mind, he had two vivid thoughts; he was still amazed that the old blind man had reacted so fast, and he was grief-stricken that he himself had failed.
His orders had been to kill them all, but when he swung aim to kill the old man he was already on the floor behind the couch and so he had failed to complete his mission. But, ultimately, it didn’t matter; he’d have another shot at the blind man soon enough. And next time he would not miss.
The old blind man – Joe Mac Blake was his name – had made more progress in tracking and identifying him that a thousand FBI agents and ten thousand police officers combined in the past three years. But then he had made a mistake with Joe Mac’s grandson.
No, he should have never left the dead cat at the edge of that field because they had found his
tracks. And, while it wasn’t much, it was still more than he had ever left at a scene and, in his mind, a grievous mistake.
Blinking sweat and blood from his eyes, he removed a Beretta semiautomatic pistol from his shoulder holster and held it loosely. He didn’t know who would be emerging from the stairs into this basement but he would be prepared.
Steps moved across the ceiling above his head.
The steps reached the stairway and descended.
He flicked off the safety.
The man entered the basement wearing his habitual black, hooded coat, and he was trailed by the woman physician who was on constant call for these things.
She studied him without expression as she unhooked her bright red EMT bag and removed a suture kit. She also removed syringes and vials and a stethoscope. Then she approached him with a bland look of routine, and he knew he would be all right. He just needed a little rest. Then he’d be back in the game.
The hooded man bent and placed a firm but gentle hand on his shoulder, “Rest, brother,” he said calmly. “We’ll take care of you.”
The man gently removed the bloody Beretta from his hand and slid it into his own coat. “I am here now. Everything is going to be all right.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “Thank you.”
He paid no attention to the man as he walked behind the couch. He never heard a sound as the man – his friend, his mentor, his teacher – removed the Beretta from his coat pocket and leaned back over the couch.
He never felt the bullet that smashed through his brain.
* * *
After placing the Beretta in the dead man’s hand the black-coated man straightened and gazed about the room. He removed his handkerchief and used it to pick up the man’s cell phone. He cracked it open to remove the battery and then dropped them both in his pocket. Without looking, he asked the physician, “Did you touch anything?”
“No,” she said, trembling. “Why did you have to kill him?”
“Because he left his blood on a tree,” said the man. “They’ve sent a sample to CODIS for matching. And his DNA is indexed in CODIS.” He inhaled deeply. “They would have found him by morning.”
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