Barking Dogs

by R. R. Irvine

  “Once I’m in position I won’t be able to move,” Holland said. “That means you’ll have to erase my tracks all the way back to the road.”

  “Let’s get at it, then.”

  It took them nearly an hour. First, they had to rearrange the jumble of blackened branches in such a way that Holland had an inconspicuous opening for his camera lens, plus a second opening for the microphone. After that, they laid down a ground sheet to protect the gear and Holland’s backside. Finally, they tested the equipment. The directional mike wasn’t all Manwaring had hoped for, but its sound was clear enough to get Mayor Ed Kearns convicted if he opened his mouth, smart lawyers aside, of course.

  As an afterthought, Manwaring walked back down the road until he found a live pine tree. He broke off a thickly needled branch and returned to the car. By then, the sun was directly overhead and hot enough to have him sweating freely. He mopped his face with a shaky hand. Holland, who’d been double-checking his equipment, looked as spent as Manwaring felt.

  “We need blood sugar,” he said.

  Holland agreed, so they rested on the ground sheet long enough to consume two candy bars and a can of soda each. As soon as Manwaring had stashed the litter in the trunk, he used the cellular phone to call the mayor.

  “I’ve just come back from Idaho Falls,” he said as soon as he identified himself. “Your friends at Bonneville have spilled the beans. You’re their agent here in Ellsworth, the man who owns the land they want.”

  “I’ve done nothing illegal.”

  “What are your neighbors going to say when I expose you?”

  There was silence for a moment. Finally the mayor said, “Sorry to disappoint you, but I can live with that.”

  “What if Vicki Garcia goes on the Evening News and says, „Without water rights, the mayor’s land would have been worthless. Without the destruction of Defiance, and the resulting deaths, the mayor would have been bankrupt. Was it deliberate murder, people are wondering, or merely an accident?’ That ought to do it, don’t you think, Mr. Mayor?”

  “I’m a lawyer. I know about slander.”

  “The network has lawyers who have nothing else better to do.”

  Kearns grunted. “What do you want from me?”

  “How about a partnership?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Let’s talk about it,” Manwaring said. “I’m in town now, but we don’t want too many people around, do we? What say we drive out to Defiance? We won’t be disturbed there.”

  “All right. Half an hour, you son of a bitch.”

  As soon as Manwaring switched off the phone, Holland said, “We’ve got ourselves a hunter’s blind, but I’d feel better if we’d brought a gun.”

  “If I get into trouble I’ll tell him the truth, that you’re videotaping and Vicki is doing the same at Bonneville, that she knows everything. He can’t kill us all.”

  “You hope.”

  Manwaring held up crossed fingers before backing away from Holland’s hiding place, dragging the pine bough behind him to obliterate the cameraman’s footprints. When he reached their Lincoln, he opened the trunk and stowed the branch inside.

  He’d barely had time to catch his breath when he heard the sound of an approaching car. It came into sight a few seconds later, one of those four-by-four Jeep wagons; it didn’t slow until the last moment when it braked hard enough to raise a cloud of sooty dust.

  “Christ!” Manwaring said for Holland’s benefit, “The bastard’s not alone.”

  The fire chief, Hal Romney, got out of the Jeep first and looked around carefully before approaching Manwaring.

  “The mayor wants me to search you for hidden microphones.”

  Manwaring raised his arms to accommodate. “Tell him he’s been watching too much TV.”

  Silently, Romney ran his hands over every inch of Manwaring’s body. He even unbuttoned Manwaring’s shirt and trousers for a visual check.

  Finally, Romney stepped back and said, “Where’s your shadow, Miz Wagstaff?”

  “She’s with Vicki Garcia at the moment.”

  Romney pivoted in a circle, studying the landscape, while Manwaring held his breath. After what seemed like a full minute, the fire chief waved Kearns out of the Jeep. The mayor approached slowly, his head tracking from side to side.

  He stopped five feet short and looked at Romney.

  “Nothing,” Romney said. “No wires. No tape recorder. Not even a pencil.”

  Kearns nodded and the chief returned to the Jeep, sitting on the passenger’s side with the door open, fanning himself with a newspaper. He was well within earshot of Holland’s mike.

  “Tell me,” the mayor said, “how much are journalists going for these days?”

  “It depends on how much rent Bonneville has promised to pay you.”

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  “I know enough.” Manwaring reiterated his conversation with the two vice presidents, leaving out the company’s intention to go offshore for the moment. “That ought to entitle me to a share of the profits.”

  The mayor sighed. “You think I did all this for myself, don’t you? That I bought the land only for the money?”

  Manwaring said nothing.

  “You’re like all young people. You don’t listen. I’ve done God’s work, nothing else.” He gestured at the Bitterroots. “This land was settled at Brigham Young’s order. He gave these people the water rights, yet they turned their backs on him. They renamed the town of Brigham to flaunt their disobedience. I’ve merely righted an old wrong.”

  “By killing thirty people?”

  The mayor shook his head. “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for them. They stood by and let my wife die in childbirth.”

  “Did you set the fire?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like to see everything that you love die. Not only my wife, but Ellsworth, too, the place where I grew up, and my father before me. Everything slipping away little by little, people, places, one after the other until there’s nothing left but memories.

  “Now, thanks to me, the young people who’ve abandoned us for easy money in the big cities can come home to work for Bonneville. Ellsworth will survive, and so will part of me. That’s my gift, my immortality.”

  “Did Bonneville know what you were doing?”

  “They didn’t care how I got the water rights, if that’s what you mean. „Do what’s necessary,’ they said. „We’ll back you all the way.’”

  “A good lawyer would know enough to get that in writing.”

  “I’ve protected myself.”

  “Not well enough,” Manwaring said. “Evans and Dixon have done you in. They’re moving their plant somewhere else. Offshore, they said. You killed Defiance for nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Manwaring raised his right hand. “I swear it.”

  The mayor leaned close, peering into Manwaring’s eyes.

  “I hope you believe in the fires of hell,” Manwaring said.

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “The fires of hell are my department.” Startled, Manwaring turned to see the fire chief holding a rifle, fitted with a silencer, in his hands.

  “What are you doing?” the mayor said.

  Romney jacked a shell into the chamber. The rifle looked like a .22, the same caliber used on Jess.

  “Take it easy, Hal. I’ll give him the money and that’ll be the end of it. We can talk to Bonneville again. Something can be worked out.” The mayor held up a thick envelope. “There’s seventy-five hundred dollars here, Mr. Manwaring. Out of our personal accounts. Isn’t that right, Hal?”

  “Before I take it, write „for Stacie Wagstaff’ on the envelope and then sign it,” Manwaring said.

  “If that’s what it takes to ease your conscience.”

  “It’s for Buttons’s old age.”

  The mayor shrugged, wrote on the envelope, and handed it to Manwaring.

  “To hell with tha
t,” Romney said. “It’s cheaper to put him in his car and set fire to it. Don’t worry, Ed. I’ll be careful with the bullet. No skull holes. No evidence, just a few charred bones. No fuss, no muss.”

  “We’ll never get away with it.”

  “I already did.”

  The mayor’s jaw dropped open. His lips moved but no sound came out. He twitched, then began to shake.

  Christ almighty, Manwaring thought, glancing at Holland’s blind a hundred yards away.

  The mayor’s trembling legs gave way, dropping him to his knees.

  “That’s right, Ed,” Romney said. “You always were a great one for praying. Just like those blasphemers here in Defiance, up every morning with the sun asking for God’s blessing, as if they deserved it.

  “God didn’t hear them though, did he? I did, me and my Anschutz.” He looked down at his rifle in his hands. “You know I’m right. You’ve said it often enough. „We’d all be better off with Defiance dead and gone.’ Your words exactly. The words of the mayor speaking for his town.”

  “It was only talk, Hal, my way of letting off steam.”

  “Remember what you said the day before the fire? „People don’t deserve to live if they harm others. We need the water and they’re not using it.’ You said the two of us would be rich.”

  The mayor swung his head from side to side.

  “Remember how I came to you the day my wife ran off? Remember what you said?”

  The mayor shook his head so hard he lost his balance and landed on his hands.

  “„She’ll come to her senses,’ you told me. „She’ll come home when she gets tired of Defiance.’ Only it wasn’t Defiance she ran to, was it? It was Ned Oswald, young enough to be her son.

  “Jesus, Hal,” the mayor said, still on his hands and knees. “You were my partner. I only wanted to comfort you.”

  “Everybody in town was laughing behind my back. I knew that. Ida Romney ran off like a bitch dog in heat,’ they were saying. They thought I couldn’t hear them.” He tilted his head to one side as if tuning in on the voices.

  The mayor regained his kneeling position. “Ida wasn’t like that.”

  “I used to spy on them at night, listening to what she and Ned got up to in bed.”

  The mayor brought his hands together in an attitude of prayer, while Manwaring weighed the chances of making a lunge for the rifle. Slim to none, he concluded, but still better than going down without a fight.

  “I was there early that night, listening. That’s what set the dogs off the first time, but they didn’t have the guts to come after me. Trying to slink off when the shooting started, just like Ned.”

  Manwaring prayed that the directional mike was doing its stuff.

  “I made Ned crawl, you know. You should have seen it. On the ground, squirming from my belly shot. Oh, I was careful all right. I didn’t want to finish him off too quickly. Just cripple him while I got around to everybody else. Watching him flop around did my heart good. Ida had to watch, too, since I saved her for last. She had to see everybody else die. She had to know that she was responsible. That Hal Romney keeps his word. „You ever walk out on me,’ I told her when she threatened me with divorce, „and I’ll kill you and anyone who helps you.’ After it was over, I dragged the bodies inside their meeting hall so they could roast up good, like in an oven. Nothing left at all to show I’d been there.”

  The mayor looked over his shoulder at Manwaring, nodded once, a barely perceptible gesture, and then slowly rose to his feet. “No more killing, Hal. It’s over. It’s all been for nothing.”

  He took a step toward the fire chief and Manwaring suddenly understood the nod; Kearns was going to sacrifice himself.

  Fear and adrenaline started blood pounding in Manwaring’s ears. The sound was so loud he didn’t trust his hearing for a moment. He held his breath. The engine sound was real enough, another car.

  The fire chief heard it, too, and immediately began backing around the Jeep to gain cover for himself and a wider field of fire.

  His rifle, Manwaring realized, was aiming at the mayor’s chest.

  The car was close enough now for Manwaring to see Vicki in the passenger seat, a stranger driving. Romney must have seen her, too, because he muttered, “Bitch.”

  The mayor stepped forward, waving the car back the way it had come.

  Suddenly, Manwaring smelled burnt powder. He glanced at the rifle, but there was no sign of smoke, only Romney working the bolt action.

  The mayor fell hard, face first in the dirt. Vicki’s car veered off the road.

  “Hey!” Holland shouted and stood up, waving his arms, exposing himself. “Over here.”

  As Romney turned to look, Manwaring charged. But the fire chief was quicker, jacking a fresh round into the rifle before Manwaring could clear the end of the Jeep. He tensed, waiting for the impact.

  Romney shook his head, a gesture so subdued that Manwaring decided against a suicidal lunge over the top of the car.

  “There’s too many of you now, and I don’t have the time.” Romney opened the car door, got in behind the wheel, and drove away before Manwaring could react.

  Holland came running, reaching Manwaring ahead of Vicki’s car. She got out accompanied by Stacie and the man who’d been driving. By then, Manwaring was crouched beside the mayor, checking for a pulse.

  Vicki said, “It looks like I got here just in time.”

  “He’s dead,” Manwaring said.

  Holland grabbed Vicki’s arm. “For Christ’s sake. You were supposed to be in Idaho Falls.”

  She glared at the cameraman. “Did you get the shooting on tape or not?”

  Holland nodded.

  “Then get your camera and we’ll do my stand-up right here from the scene of death. We can put the shooting in slow motion with voice-over when we get back to the affiliate in Idaho Falls. That ought to make Reisner sit up and take notice.”

  Her calm awed Manwaring. “She’s right. There’s nothing we can do for the mayor, so we might as well do our job.”

  39

  VICKI TURNED away from the body, extracted her compact, and pretended to examine her makeup. Please God, don’t let them see my legs shaking. To keep from being sick, she swallowed repeatedly.

  In the mirror, her complexion looked sallow, her lips gray, her eyes red. No tears, she reminded herself. Show weakness and they’ll be on you like wolves.

  Except for Manwaring. He was no wolf, nor was Holland. She smiled at them in the mirror, though they didn’t see her do it. They were too nice to be anything but losers in the world of television. There, the Reisners always won. He was the wolf, circling, waiting for an opening, a weakness.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself. Her face and future were on the line. She pinched her cheeks. This story meant the co-anchor spot was hers for the taking. Fall from grace now and she might never get another chance.

  “I should have known it was the fire chief,” she said matter-of-factly, “when he attacked me at the prayer dinner. The man’s totally off his head.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Manwaring said. “Why didn’t you say so when it happened?”

  She put her compact away. “I took care of it myself. He did mumble something about wanting to kill his wife, but I figured he was just drunk or shooting off his mouth to impress me. I never thought he’d kill the whole town to get back at one woman.”

  “We’d better alert the sheriff before he hurts someone else.”

  “Not yet. My stand-up comes first. Once the law arrives, we’ll be wrapped in red tape. Hell, the sheriff might even confiscate our tape.”

  She glanced at Wayne Gossett, who’d driven her, and at Stacie Wagstaff, both of whom were watching her in amazement. She played to them. “The network’s waiting. We can’t afford to spend the rest of the day in jail answering questions.”

  “She’s got a point,” Manwaring said. “We’ll send the sheriff a copy later.”

  He checked his watch, then turned to Goss
ett. “What do you think? Can we reach Idaho Falls in time to feed Vicki live into the Evening News?”

  “I’ll get you there.”

  Manwaring nodded at Stacie. “We’d better drop you off on the way out of town.”

  “That could put her in a hell of a bind,” Holland said.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said. “I have to fetch my pickup anyway.”

  Manwaring shook his head. “I want you to stay here and tell the sheriff what happened. Don’t worry. I’ll get your truck back to you.”

  40

  MANWARING REACHED the ABN affiliate station in Idaho Falls with forty minutes to spare. Once Reisner had been alerted that a feed was on its way, Manwaring put Holland to work editing the videotape and Vicki doing her own makeup, since the affiliate didn’t run to such niceties. While they were doing that, he wrote the script.

  Moments before air time, he called Sheriff Nichols from the control booth, where he and Wayne Gossett were watching Vicki’s rehearsal on the monitors.

  “I don’t have much time to talk,” Manwaring said. Reisner was holding on another phone. “Watch Vicki on the Evening News and you’ll know everything we do. We’ll send you a copy of our videotape as soon as we’re off the air.”

  “Stacie told me what happened, but we can’t find Chief Romney.”

  “One minute to air,” Reisner warned.

  “I have to hang up now.”

  “Goddammit, Manwaring, I need your help. Do you hear me?”

  “Goodbye.”

  “I’ll have you arrested. I’ll—”

  After that, Gossett fielded incoming phone calls until the Evening News ended half an hour later. Within seconds, Reisner called back and had himself put on the speaker phone. “That was a hell of a piece of work, Vicki. We’re proud of you here at the Broadcast Center. The fact is, Lee Aarons is taking tomorrow off and I want you here in New York filling in for him.”

  “As co-anchor?” she said.

  “That’s my girl. You never let me down. For once, you can be happy. You’ll have the news all to yourself.”

  “Thank you, Herb.” She leaned over and kissed Manwaring on the cheek.