Easy Death

by Daniel Boyd

  “And showed up on my doorstep.”

  “And couldn’t call for help because Chief Hannon, he didn’t suppose I ought to be there to start with.”

  She was ready to talk. Driving in that snow I couldn’t take time to look at her face, but I could tell it anyway. Feel it just from the tone of her voice and the air in that Jeep.

  “So now,” I said. “What’s your story about this Captain Scranton?”

  And then I saw them; saw the tracks, saw where they went.

  That little rise we’d been climbing to where the tower sat, it had a sharp drop-off to our left. And now that we were right up on them, I could see those tracks veered off, maybe forty yards in front of the tower and went sideways down the slope.

  At the bottom of that slope the snow suddenly turned flat and level for maybe a half mile, so I figured there was likely a lake down there. And right at the edge of that lake, almost covered in snow there was a black-and-white car.

  And footprints.

  “It looks like a police car,” Callie said helpfully.

  I hit the clutch and the brake, pulled up the Jeep and pressed my face up against the freezing-cold window, trying to see through blowing snow: one set of tracks, running from the passenger side of the car to the tower and back. Or maybe from the tower to the car, then back. I couldn’t be sure. Tried to look closer.

  Which is how we were, just sitting there, stock-still out in the open like that, when I heard a sound I’d only heard the like of once before; it only come on me one other time, back in the war, but that was too many times to mistake it for anything else.

  There was that short-sharp-sudden noise and all to once the windshield of that Jeep tuned into a crystal-white spiderweb with a big nasty hole in the middle of it.

  Chapter 22

  Three Hours and Fifty-Five Minutes After the Robbery

  December 20, 1951

  12:55 PM

  Sarge

  At Sarge’s Spot, the only business for two miles in either direction out on Highway 12, Sarge himself looked disgustedly around the soft-lit polished-plastic room full of empty booths and tables, the only noise there coming from the flashing red-and-yellow jukebox,

  Sleeeep in heavvvvenly peee-eeece,

  Slee-eep in heavvvv-enly peace.

  “You got that right,” he muttered to himself, took off his spotless white apron and walked to the big glass door leading to the gravel parking lot out front.

  Nothing there but snow. White, deep, and unbroken by any tire tracks all day.

  “Hell,” he said to nobody but himself.

  Behind him, Joe opened the door from the kitchen and looked timidly out.

  “You want I should pitch this coffee and make some fresh, Boss?”

  “Nah.” Sarge couldn’t take his eyes off the empty, money-losing parking lot. “Ain’t nobody gonna come out in a mess like this.” He reached up to turn off the bright blue-white-and-gold sign outside with the three stripes and the big letters

  SARGE’S

  SPOT

  Dining – Dancing – Good Food

  Beer –Wine – Liquor

  He wondered vaguely if he’d make enough yet this year to pay off Brother Sweetie and get clear. Maybe if he got a good crowd on Christmas Eve…and then New Year’s…. Yeah, he could count on a good crowd New Year’s Eve, and Sweeney wouldn’t expect to get paid right away anyhow, not right around the holidays like this, so if things broke right, he might make it. With a little luck and a good crowd. Not today, though. Nor tonight either. Might as well—

  Something out there caught his eye. Some kind of car, big and black, coming up Highway 12 as fast as it could on a day like this. Sarge tightened his fingers on the light switch. Just one car, he thought, and if they decide to stop and get out of this mess they might sit here for hours waiting for the snow plow to come by, just sitting here drinking coffee and using up my electricity….

  He almost turned off the switch. Then he reflected that whoever was out there might really need a chance to stop and rest. Might want something hot. Maybe need it bad, out there driving in all this. He listened a moment to the sentimental music coming from the jukebox and figured he might as well wait and see if whoever it was stopped in. Just for Christmas’ sake.

  Sure enough, the car slowed as it got closer and Sarge swore softly to himself. A damn cop car. All I’m going to get out of this is some damn cop wants a free cup of coffee and take a leak, using up my water….

  He paused. Funny, the car didn’t really park out front. Not like the cop inside wanted to come in. He just pulled up fast, sliding in the snow right up to the door, and jumped out as soon as it stopped.

  Sarge watched with growing interest as the cop went to the driver-side back door, hunkering down in the pelting snow like a boxer in the ring, and pulled out some guy in handcuffs. Took off the cuffs, turned the guy toward Sarge’s big glass door and gave him a gentle push that sent him reeling toward the building. By the time the man outside got his balance the cop was already back in the car, spinning his wheels in the snow and moving back out onto Highway 12.

  Sarge watched him depart, then turned his attention to the discharged passenger. Damn, it’s Slimmy Johnson out there! What’s he doing clear out—

  Sarge looked closer. What Slimmy was doing was relieving himself against the wall by the door.

  He flipped off the switch for the electric sign outside, wondering how he was going to get rid of him. Couldn’t just leave him out in the snow; even a pill like Slimmy Johnson you couldn’t leave out on a day like this. “But I sure as hell ain’t gonna keep him here long,” Sarge muttered. He wondered how Slimmy come to ride up to his door in a black-and-white taxi. Sarge figured there maybe was an interesting story here, and he put on his best professional smile as Slimmy finally got his bearings and reeled through the door saying, “Hey, where can a man get a drink around here?”

  Chapter 23

  Three Hours and Fifty-Eight Minutes After the Robbery

  December 20, 1951

  12:58 PM

  Officer Drapp

  “We’re under fire!” Callie yelled.

  Which was thoughtful of her, I guess, but I didn’t need her right there with the news. I was already rolling out the door into the snow, trying to keep as much of that Jeep body between me and the tower as I could while I fast-crawled to the back.

  That’s where I ran into Callie again. Didn’t know a big woman like her could move so fast, but then she looked a little surprised to see me there too.

  We were both hunkered down in the snow, hugging the back of that Jeep like a baby getting mama’s milk, just staring at each other.

  I got to say she handled it all right. Most folks, they don’t much care to get shot at, and it shakes them up some, but she just had this look on her face like this was a job of work now, but she wasn’t going to let it scare her much.

  Me, I was scared.

  I mean, there we were, sitting in the snow back of that Jeep and the only thing warm was the fumes coming from out the tailpipe. Somewhere in the back of my head I was glad I’d put the gearshift in neutral before we jumped out, and I remembered I’d pulled the parking brake automatically—another good habit the Army taught me—so the Jeep wasn’t going to roll away from us any.

  But this was still a damn mess, and we were in it.

  Callie sat close down beside me and got her legs up like I had, both of us hoping we weren’t leaving anything out for whoever was in that tower to take a bead on. “Looks like your bank robber got here ahead of us.”

  All I said was, “Somebody did.”

  “You mean that police car?” Inside the big fur hood she moved her head towards the slope to one side of us. “Another officer got here ahead of us?”

  “I don’t see how,” I said. “We’ve only been following one set of tracks.”

  “Well obviously your bank robber got up in the tower somehow and started shooting at us. Perhaps he even shot at the police car. Isn’t
that what you think?”

  “Doesn’t figure.” I rolled carefully to one side, keeping the Jeep between me and the tower, and looked down the slope at the black-and-white car that was already getting lost in the falling snow. I rolled back.

  “Those footprints. You saw them?” I asked.

  “Between the car and the tower?”

  “Yeah. You got a look at them?”

  “A short look, yes.”

  “I’m no woodsman,” I said, “but the way I read those tracks, whoever it was just made one round trip. One trip to and one trip from.”

  Somewhere inside that Eskimo hood, she caught on, and her eyes narrowed. “Let me see that.”

  Then all over sudden she was rolling on me like one of those heavyweight wrestlers you see on TV, like the Iron Russian or Two-Ton Frank or somebody like that, trying to get a look at those tracks without making a target of herself. Reminded me of once when I was a kid I got sat on by a horse, only this didn’t have that rosy afterglow. She sprawled across me, squinting into the snow, studying the footprints best she could, her breath making heavy steam in the cold air, then she rolled back off me, praise God.

  “I can’t be certain.” She pulled her eyebrows together—it was to help her think, I guess, but it made her face look like a clenched fist. “There’s been a great deal of snow, and whoever made those tracks walked back in his own footprints.”

  “Another thing,” I said. “Those tracks are at the passenger side of the car, closest to the tower.”

  “I don’t see your point, I’m afraid.”

  “Did someone get out of the car and went to the tower, they would most likely have used the driver-side. But did someone go from the tower to the car…”

  “…they would have gone straight to the passenger side, which is closer,” she finished. “My, you are a detective, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t need to be a detective to tell where those shots came from,” I said.

  “So it’s your conclusion that someone went from the tower to the car, then back.”

  “Where they took a shot at us, whoever it was.”

  “Officer Drapp, I’m getting a terrible suspicion…”

  “And I’m thinking maybe you better tell me about this Captain Scranton.” I hugged my coat a little tighter around me. “And do it quick.”

  She thought on that a second. Then something inside her relaxed and let it come pouring out, what she’d been trying not to tell me.

  “Well, they have ways of getting back at one…” She said it like a sigh. “You may remember I told you that.”

  “Those folks that didn’t think you ought to be a Park Ranger?” I leaned back on the jerry can mounted next to the spare tire on the tailgate of the Jeep, and pulled my feet up a little closer. “Them, you mean?”

  “The ones who didn’t think any woman should be in a job like this.” She almost snarled it. “And believe you me, there are plenty of them out there.” She pushed her back against the spare tire, and I felt the Jeep sway. “So when they saw they had to keep me on, they sent me here to work with Captain Scranton; I believe they supposed he’d drive me into quitting all on my own.”

  “He’s tough on you? Tough to get along with?”

  “Like Hitler on a bad day, only not nearly so calm and rational,” she said. “And not much of a ranger either, if you ask me. He frequently comes to work drunk—or so badly hung-over as makes no difference. He swears at visitors sometimes, and I rather suspect him of pilfering.”

  “You figure he’d shoot us over pilfering?”

  “Well he also likes to hunt here.”

  “Didn’t know could you hunt in a park like this.”

  “It’s against the rules,” she said patiently, “very clearly and plainly against the rules. And as if hunting in a nature preserve weren’t bad enough, he’s begun bringing in paying guests. Other hunters, I mean. Men who would pay him to hunt on the park grounds here where game is plentiful.”

  “Hunting in a park?” I shivered in the cold and tried to look around us, wondering about whoever was in that tower—and was he up to something else yet. “Why don’t they just shoot birds in a bag?”

  “Not to mention the danger presented to hikers and campers.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I got proof of his misconduct is what happened.” She rubbed her hands, trying to get the cold out of her fingers, I guess. “And I directed it to an office where I knew it would get proper attention. Things were just coming to a head, and I was of the opinion that Captain Scranton would lose his job and face criminal charges in the New Year, but…”

  She’d stopped short, like it hurt to say this next part, and I didn’t have time for that. Or anything like it.

  “But what?”

  “They redirected my charges to Captain Scranton—for him to investigate.”

  “How come they didn’t just kill you outright?”

  “I suspect that would have been an easier death.” She bit out the words like this had been a hard thing for her to take. Couldn’t blame her, either. If someone did me like that…well they better not let me get too close up near to them, that’s all.

  “Since then, he’s been getting even more ill-tempered,” she went on when she could, “and drinking more as well, and sometimes he’d look at me as if—” She shivered, and I didn’t figure it was from the cold. “—well, it wasn’t very pleasant around here lately, and we took to avoiding each other. Today he took the service truck out to the tower, and I thought he just intended to stay up there and drink himself to oblivion, but then I guess your bank robber showed up, and then that policeman—isn’t that a police car?”

  “Looks like one,” I said, “but it just doesn’t figure. I followed one set of tracks from that farmhouse to here. And you only saw one car go by, you told me.”

  “I didn’t actually see it,” she reminded me, “I merely heard it pass and saw the tracks.”

  “I’m just trying to think,” I started.

  I felt a little kick in my foot and heard a crack!

  And all come at once I saw a fresh clean tear in the toe of my boot. I jerked it in close to me fast as I could.

  “Oh my god,” Callie said calmly and stared at it. “Are you hit?”

  I stared at it myself, not exactly sure. Then I thought to reach out and feel around the toe. “Didn’t miss it by much,” I said finally. “Glad I got big shoes and thick socks.”

  She rolled a bit, took a quick look at the tower, then back to me. “Whoever’s up there seems a proficient shot,” she said.

  “Seems like,” I said.

  “Well,” she went on in a voice like she was starting spring cleaning and meant to get it done, “I suppose we shall have to find some way to get at him.”

  Chapter 24

  Four Hours and Twelve Minutes After the Robbery

  December 20, 1951

  1:12 PM

  Officer Drapp

  “It’s not our party,” I said. “It’s his party, whoever’s up there, and he calls the tune.”

  A fresh blast of wind went past us, and even in the shelter of the back of that Jeep, I could feel the cold.

  “Do you think it’s your robber or my captain?” Callie’s teeth were starting to chatter some, and she clamped them tight.

  “Whoever it is, he’s too many for us,” I said. “But maybe I can find out….”

  I stood up behind the Jeep, took off my hat and waved my arms at whoever was in the tower.

  It got close.

  I just had time to see the barrel of a high-powered rifle stick out the bottom of a louvered window at the top of that tower, and I quick hit the ground again, right ahead of a shot that dinged a hole in the roof of the Jeep.

  Then I was crouched down behind the Jeep again and Callie was looking at me like she wished she could quit my side and join the other team.

  “Grease us twice!” she swore. “I’m sure you had some good reason for that; would you care to share it
with me?”

  “Whoever’s up there,” I said, “when they shot at us they didn’t know there was a cop inside; they just saw it was the park jeep and shot at it.”

  “Go on.” She sounded less mad at me and more interested.

  “Well, your average Joe, he thinks twice about shooting at a cop—that’s my experience, anyway—so I thought…”

  “You thought that if it was my captain up there and not your bank robber, he might not shoot at you?”

  “Maybe he might not. Right now we got to think at getting out of here.”

  “Well our shooter, whoever he is, hasn’t disabled the Jeep. But I rather doubt he’ll let us drive it out.”

  “Don’t seem likely.” I noticed my nose was starting to sting from the cold, and I wiped snot off it with my sleeve. I looked around at the open space between us and the nearest cover, and it looked awful big and awful open. “And was we to try running off, we’d most likely get shot down or freeze to death. But we sure as Cleveland can’t stay here a whole lot longer.”

  “An hour perhaps,” she said, like she was reading out of a manual, “until hypothermia sets in and we become too weak to move.”

  “That quick?”

  “Well, sometime before that, we’ll become somewhat disoriented and apathetic as our body functions slow. That’s the first stage of it. But I’d guess that we probably have twenty minutes—fifteen or twenty, let’s say fifteen just to be safe—before any pronounced effect starts to set in. Have you any notion as to what we might do?”

  “Well,” I said and rolled over, took a mental measure and rolled right back again, “looks like maybe forty yards to the base of that tower. Through this snow, I might be able to get there in less than a minute, if I don’t get shot first.”

  “You propose running to the tower?”

  “Once one of us is underneath him—hey, is there heat up there?”

  “There’s an electric heater in the cab, yes.”

  “Cab?”

  “That’s what we call the little cabin at the top.”

  “Well, that’s it then. You draw some attention by shooting up at the cab while I run to the tower and disconnect the power at the base. Then he’s got to come out or freeze, and I’m guessing that up there in that wind he’ll get a lot colder than us down here.”