Countdown

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘Mike, listen—’ she started.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad you cal—’

  ‘Shut up, Mike! I’m in trouble—’

  ‘The baby?’ he said, panicked.

  ‘No, hush. It’s my mee-maw! She’s holding the sheriff’s wife and a bunch of deputies hostage until the sheriff lets my uncle Darrell out of jail. And she’s pulled me into this and I don’t know what to do!’ And then she started to bawl.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ Mike said, taking a deep breath. ‘Y’all at the Longbranch?’

  ‘Yes, in suite 214, on the second floor! But they’ve got guns! Mee-maw and Mama and Uncle Earl!’

  Mike took a deep breath. ‘OK, baby, listen up. Any way you can get out of the room?’

  ‘I doubt Mee-maw would let me.’

  ‘Try, but if you can’t, stay as far away from them as you can.’

  ‘Oh, God, you’re not going to kill them, are you?’

  ‘No! Of course not!’ he said, thinking, last resort, maybe. ‘Just do as I say. Can I call you back?’

  ‘Probably not a good idea. This is one of the deputies’ phones, and if Mee-maw caught me with it there’d be hell to pay.’

  ‘OK, I’ll try to get word to you. I don’t know how now, but I’ll try. I love you,’ he said.

  Chandra sighed on the other end of the line. ‘I know. I guess I love you, too. And I think maybe marrying you might be a pretty good idea, seeing as most of my relatives are gonna be either dead or in jail.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Mike said, unable to keep the smile from spreading across his face.

  After he hung up, Mike Reynolds left his desk and headed for his boss’s office, but was surprised when Charlie Smith, police chief of Longbranch, Oklahoma, met him halfway.

  ‘Reynolds, grab some guys and meet the sheriff at the Longbranch Inn. We got some shit going down there—’

  ‘Ah, Chief,’ Mike said. ‘About that …’

  We sorta took over the restaurant at the Longbranch Inn. We had the owner close the place down and send all his staff home. But before they left, I did find out one good thing: Loretta, my favorite waitress and one of the party members, had made a standing order for appetizers to be delivered every hour. They were working their way through the menu: stuffed mushrooms and jalapeño poppers had already been delivered; next up was fried cheese sticks, then Buffalo wings and potato skin boats, with an assortment of desserts to be delivered right before ten, when the restaurant closed.

  The owner remarked that he hadn’t been able to find his desk clerk when he was getting his people out.

  Charlie nodded at me. ‘That’s OK,’ I told him. ‘We know where she is.’

  Personally, I planned on buying Chandra Blanton a great big oversized teddy bear for that baby of hers. She’d done the bravest thing I’ve ever heard a Blanton doing – namely calling the cops on her own kin. And the cop she called, Mike Reynolds, was sitting at the table now with me and Charlie Smith. I stood up and thanked the Longbranch Inn’s owner for his cooperation, adding: ‘But I think it’s best you take off home now. We don’t know what’s gonna happen and we need to keep civilian exposure down to a minimum.’

  He stood up too and shook my hand. ‘Y’all try not to burn the place down, now, ya hear? This is a landmark building, remember?’

  ‘We’ll keep that in mind,’ I said as I nodded to Anthony Dobbins, who came and escorted the owner out of his own building.

  After Anthony closed and locked the front door of the Longbranch Inn I heaved a great big sigh, as I was about to reveal the seriously screwed-up mess in which we now found ourselves. ‘OK, here’s the deal,’ I told Charlie and his men, since mine already knew. ‘Eunice Blanton is holding my wife, Emmett’s wife, Anthony’s wife, Dalton’s fiancée and Will’s wife – oh, and Dalton’s cousin, and Loretta, of course, and oh, shit, and what’s her name, a friend of my wife’s, whatever … Anyway, she’s holding all these women hostage upstairs. With her are – Mike?’ I said, turning that part over to him.

  ‘According to Chandra, besides her mee-maw, Eunice, there’s her mother, Marge, and her uncle Earl. Chandra says Eunice and both her mama and uncle are armed,’ Mike recounted, a little breathless, but he was more or less in the same position as me and all my guys – that is, loving somebody who was up in that godforsaken room.

  ‘Well,’ I said, clearing my throat again. ‘As y’all know, Darrell shot his wife and I arrested and jailed him. What y’all don’t know is—’ I hesitated, cleared my throat again and said, ‘Old Darrell kicked the bucket in the pokey. We don’t know why. Not a mark on him. They’re doing an autopsy right now. Unfortunately, we got thirty minutes – well, now, make that fifteen – to produce the boy before Eunice Blanton starts shooting hostages.’ I looked around at the assemblage. ‘Any bright ideas?’

  Matt and Johnny Mac snuck into Matt’s parents’ garage, where they found two bikes. Matt grabbed his own personal bike and pointed at a girl’s bike for Johnny Mac. ‘That’s my little sister’s. You can use it,’ he told Johnny Mac.

  Johnny Mac just looked at it. ‘It’s a girl’s bike,’ he said.

  ‘Well, duh. My sister’s a girl, stupid!’ Matt said.

  ‘You want me to ride around on a girl’s bike?’

  ‘Or you can walk, but we’ll be long gone. It’s up to you,’ Matt said.

  Johnny Mac sighed. He saw little alternative and time was wasting. That dog could be dead by now. ‘OK,’ he said, lifted the kick-stand of the girl’s bike and walked it out of the garage.

  Cody was waiting at the end of the driveway. Matt and Johnny Mac mounted their bikes and followed Cody toward the end of the cul-de-sac. Johnny Mac was grateful that the new boy didn’t seem to take notice of the girl’s bike he was riding.

  They skirted around the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, finding an asphalt path that led to the hike-and-bike trail that encircled the subdivision. Once on the trail, they cycled over it to the beginning of the woods, and were soon following a path deeper into the small forest. They hadn’t gone far when Johnny Mac looked behind him and could no longer see the subdivision Aunt Jewel lived in. All he saw were more trees. And he noticed it had gotten darker. Glancing up, he could barely see the sun, which he knew would be going down soon. The trees above him formed an almost umbrella-like canopy that shielded them from the sun’s rays. He lost his balance, and he and his girl’s bike fell over in the underbrush.

  ‘Your old man is cuttin’ it real close, Mrs Sheriff,’ Eunice Blanton said. ‘You think he’s gonna call me and let me know what’s happening?’

  Jean thought the question wasn’t rhetorical. Eunice really wanted to know. ‘I’m sure he will,’ Jean said, keeping her voice calm and steady.

  ‘Ah, hell, what do you know?’ Eunice said, contempt in her voice. ‘I think you’ll be the first one I shoot! What do you think, ladies? You think it’s only right that the sheriff should lose his wife first?’

  The woman sitting next to the sheriff’s wife stood up. ‘Look, lady,’ she said, ‘I have nothing to do with any of this. I stopped to visit a friend on my way to Houston for a job interview. I think you should just let me go—’

  Eunice turned to her son, Earl, and used her head to point at the woman standing. ‘Make her shut up,’ she told her son.

  Earl walked up to Paula and pushed her down to the sofa. ‘Hey!’ Paula shouted.

  ‘Shut up!’ Earl said, and turned back around to his mother. ‘That good, Mama?’

  ‘If it ain’t I’ll let you kill her,’ Eunice said. ‘Now, as I was saying ’fore I was so rudely interrupted, the sheriff’s the one who arrested my boy and that boy never did a bad thing in his life!’ Eunice looked around at her other two children. ‘Ain’t that right?’

  ‘Sure,’ Earl said, remembering the time Darrell tricked him into putting his hand in that vice then turned it until he broke five bones in Earl’s hand.

  But Marge didn’t say anything, knowing her mama didn�
�t really care for her opinion one way or the other. She had a lot she could say about her youngest brother, but she knew the little bastard would eventually get his comeuppance – if not on earth, then in hell.

  Dalton Pettigrew stood very quietly by the elevator of the Longbranch Inn. Dalton had learned to be quiet over the years, opting not to say too much least he get the usual reactions: from Milt, a rubbing of the forehead and a squinting of the eyes; from Emmett, a clearing of the throat with a glance anywhere but at Dalton; from Jasmine, just a rolling of the eyes. Nita Skitteridge would look at him bug-eyed and say, ‘What did you say?’ loud enough for everyone to hear. Her cousin, Anthony, was Dalton’s only friend (other than Milt, of course), and even he sometimes looked confused or befuddled by what came out of Dalton’s mouth. Holly was the only one who understood him and would gently correct any misconception on Dalton’s part. She loved him just as much as if he were smart.

  But fear of condemnation was not what made Dalton quiet this day. It was fear, all right, mixed with an anger he had never felt in his life. An anger so outrageous he would gladly strangle the woman who kept his Holly hostage. He wasn’t sure if he could wait for Milt and them to come up with a plan; his Holly was in danger right now, and something needed to be done.

  He turned and looked at the elevator behind him. Just step in, push the button for the second floor, go to suite 214 and bust the door down. But he didn’t know where everybody was in the room; it would take a minute to place everyone and figure out who was bad and who was good. In that minute, Dalton figured, they’d riddle him with bullets. He didn’t mind taking a bullet for Holly, but he really wanted to marry her and have a life. He wanted that more than he had ever wanted anything.

  It had taken a while, but even his mama had gotten used to Holly’s look – the tattoos and piercings, the tutus and fishnets, the hair that was sometimes black, sometimes blue, and occasionally pink-striped. It had taken him but a minute. Almost immediately he could see her heart, and that’s all he really wanted to see. Well, that and a killer body, he had to admit. His mama had always said about loose women, ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ Meaning, he was pretty sure, why marry a girl who’d let you do the deed before the wedding? Well, his mama was wrong about that, but Dalton wasn’t going to tell her. Making love to Holly had been the most wonderful moment of his life, and he wanted moments like that to continue for eons to come. Yeah, his mama had been dead wrong about that.

  The assembled peace officers came up with a first move. They needed to know where everybody was, and the only way to find that out was to get into the suite. Since Loretta had a standing order for appetizers to be sent up every hour, and since the next appetizer in line – the fried mozzarella sticks – was already assembled and ready to go, they decided to send a ‘waiter’ up with the food. Mike Reynolds volunteered to be that waiter. He’d told Chandra he’d try to find a way to let her know what was going on. He wouldn’t be able to talk to her, he was pretty sure about that, but maybe just his presence would be some reassurance for her.

  The powers that be also decided to send two more guys up with Mike – Anthony Dobbins and Dalton Pettigrew. Anthony had the keys to the rooms on either side of suite 214, and he and Dalton would split up and try to listen in to the goings-on where their women were being held hostage.

  Mike changed from his police uniform into a waiter’s uniform he found hanging in the staff lounge, found a tray, put the two large plates of fried cheese sticks on it, along with several napkins, and headed for the elevator.

  Dalton Pettigrew hit the elevator button for him, squeezed his arm so tight Mike was afraid he’d drop the tray, then held the door open so Mike and Anthony could enter. Mike gave them both a nod and a weak smile. Anthony’s wife and Dalton’s fiancée were up there, just like his was. He felt like they were passengers on the Titanic, only the tables were turned and the men were safe while the women were about to go down with the ship. But, he thought to himself, not on my watch!

  Suite 214 was in the middle of the long hallway, about five doors away from the elevator, on the side facing the town square. Dalton and Anthony moved to their allotted rooms and shut themselves in, while Mike walked up to the door of suite 214 and rapped loudly.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ Eunice Blanton screeched, whirling around to point her gun at the door.

  ‘It’s just a waiter!’ Jasmine said. ‘We’re supposed to get appetizers sent up every hour, and it’s just about time.’

  ‘Earl! Move that boy’s body,’ she said, indicating Rex the stripper. She waved her gun at Jasmine. ‘You, get up and answer door. Don’t let him in.’

  Earl dragged Rex’s unconscious body behind the sofa, hiding it from view of the doorway.

  Jasmine went to the door and opened it. She recognized Mike Reynolds from the Longbranch police department. She nodded ever so slightly to show her recognition and he nodded back.

  ‘Ma’am, I’ve got the mozzarella sticks here,’ he said in a loud voice.

  ‘Just give me the tray, please,’ Jasmine said.

  ‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ Mike said, pushing past Jasmine. ‘It’d be too heavy for you.’

  Walking into the suite, he smiled brightly and said, ‘Hey, ladies! Y’all having fun?’

  ‘Put them cheese sticks on the coffee table, boy, and haul your ass out of here. We’re having a party, don’t ya see?’ Eunice Blanton said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Mike said, smiling brightly at his future grandmother-in-law, in awe of how un-scary she looked. From Chandra’s reactions to her ‘mee-maw,’ he always figured her to have horns growing out of her head, or at least a crooked witch’s nose. But she was just a fairly wrinkled old lady with tightly permed, mostly white hair, wearing a house dress the likes of which he hadn’t seen since his own grandmother’s passing some ten years back. Since Chandra had never allowed him to pick her up anywhere near Blantonville, he’d never seen any of her kin and they’d never seen him. Which had worked out well under the circumstances.

  He snuck a peak at Chandra, sitting in a straight-back chair toward the back of the room away from the rest, just like he’d asked her to. She was holding her belly, and the look on her face was full of hope. But he knew that look would vanish because he had to leave.

  He saw Jasmine sit down on the couch and made note in his mind of where everybody was. Then, with the silly smile still plastered on his face, he left the suite. Unlike a real waiter, Mike didn’t notice that he hadn’t been tipped.

  ‘Hey, guys, wait up!’ Johnny Mac called as the other boys rode out of sight. He got up and dusted himself off, then picked up the girl’s bike. Jumping back on it, he rode like the wind to try to catch up with the other boys. But after a hard five minutes, they were still nowhere to be found. Johnny Mac started to get scared. He stopped the bike, his feet on the hard-packed ground of the small forest. The woods were dark and unearthly still, not a leaf moving on any of the trees. He looked up. The sky – what little he could see through the trees – was getting darker by the minute, and it shouldn’t be.

  It was still daylight savings time, which meant it didn’t get dark until eight or nine. But the thing that worried him was that he heard no birds. You always hear birds in the woods, he thought. But where the heck were they? And where the heck were the other boys? He thought about turning around and going back to his aunt Jewel’s house, but then Matt and his friend would think he was a chicken shit. And he wasn’t. They were assholes, as far as Johnny Mac was concerned. Surely at least Matt had noticed that Johnny Mac was no longer behind them. Or were they playing some kind of joke on him?

  He felt the wind pick up and grow stronger. Looking up, he saw the tops of the trees almost bent over from the wind. Then he heard a noise every Oklahoman recognizes from birth: the unmistakable sound of a freight train bearing down on him.

  THREE

  Anthony Dobbins hadn’t told anyone yet, but Maryanne was eight weeks pregnant. They wanted to wait until s
he was further along before they told anybody, even their own parents. They’d lost two pregnancies around week eight, and this was a nervous time for them normally, but, Anthony thought, with this going on and Maryanne being held captive by that lunatic old bitch, he couldn’t help but think that the stress alone could end the pregnancy.

  Anthony and Maryanne had been married for nine years and together for fifteen. They’d been high-school sweethearts at Longbranch High, Anthony a linebacker on the football team and Maryanne a band majorette. They had also gone to the same church for most of their lives and, as he finally told Maryanne on their wedding night, he’d fallen in love with her the first time she did a solo in the children’s choir when they’d been little more than ten years old. Basically, Maryanne was Anthony’s whole life. If something happened to her up in suite 214 he didn’t know if he would be able to keep on living. Somehow, he doubted if he could.

  When Mike Reynolds came out of the suite, Anthony peeked out of his door and saw Dalton follow Mike to the elevator. Anthony wasn’t far behind the two.

  Once downstairs, they headed straight to the table where Milt, Emmett and Charlie Smith sat.

  ‘Well?’ Milt said, standing up. The other men at the table also stood. Milt looked at Anthony and Dalton. ‘Why are y’all back down here? I wanted you to stay up there! Keep an ear out!’

  ‘Oh,’ Dalton said.

  ‘Just let us hear what Mike has to say,’ Anthony pleaded.

  Milt nodded and Mike said, ‘Chandra was right. There’s three of them: Eunice, Marge and Earl. They’re close to the door. The couch is in the center of the room, sideways to the fireplace, facing the front door, and Mrs Kovak and some gray-haired woman—’

  ‘That’d be her college friend, Paula,’ Milt said.