Phfft! Phfft!
The twin smears hit the back wall of the shed, just above the carpenter ant poison. Teagarden stepped into the doorway, smoothly assumed a shooter’s stance, and fired.
BLAM, BLAM!
And that was it. He’d done it. The second pair of drones exploded where they hovered between the house and the garden shed.
Chapter Eight
He stood next to his beloved Coconut.
“What do you mean, it’ll take ‘a while’? How long of ‘a while’ is a—while? That’s bullshit,” he shouted into his cellphone. “And stop telling me to calm down. They attacked my house!”
“Sir, our nearest trooper is handling a serious auto-accident with injuries. He’s about fifteen miles from you. He has your address and will arrive soon.”
He paused to take a breath. He shouldn’t have been nasty with the dispatcher. She was only doing as she’d been trained. Dispatching a cop on an emergency basis for model helicopters was not in her playbook. A justifiable emergency involved real people, real injuries, a dead body, a man with a gun, shots fired, threat to life or property, or at the very least—trespassers. To her way of thinking, remote-controlled flying toys sounded like a nuisance complaint.
Standing on the sundeck, Teagarden forced himself to look at Coconut. The sadness of the image helped to calm his frantic state. He realized that he’d completely failed to convey the seriousness of his situation. He’d been so emotional with the dispatcher that he was nearly monosyllabic.
That was stupid. He had a Ph.D. in advanced mathematics. Yet all he’d told her was that his house was under attack by remote-controlled drones. No wonder. She had no idea what actually happened and understandably assumed he was nuts.
He was set to try again, including telling her that his dog had been killed, when he saw the truck. It was small and boxy, moving slowly beyond the trees on a secondary road through the woods. The side panels bore wording he couldn’t make out. He returned to the phone.
“Uh, now there’s a truck on the road.” The dispatcher paused to assimilate the information.
“A truck, sir?”
“Never mind. What about the sheriff’s office?”
“Sheriff Klumm is unavailable right now,” the dispatcher said. “Sir, Trooper Blaubach is the nearest law enforcement officer capable of responding. Please be patient. He’ll be in transit shortly.”
Teagarden watched the truck. It was barely moving just beyond the trees as though it were stalking something. It turned onto another secondary road.
“You know,” he said, “when you kill a man’s dog, you break a man’s rules.” He didn’t know where that statement came from. It was as though someone else said it. The voice was flat and calm, a stark contrast to the way he’d spoken a moment before.
“Sir?” the dispatcher asked.
The truck glided past the house where Billy Carney lived on the other side of the wooded lot and came to a stop.
“Sir, please repeat that. Did you say your dog was killed by remote controlled airplanes?”
No one got out of the truck. It just sat there. It stopped where he could see it through an opening in the woods. It was the right-of-way for the power line, which cut through everything and crossed all highways from Buffalo to New York City. The truck was gray, about ten feet long, with big tires, and discreet white lettering on the side.
“Uh, helicopters,” Teagarden said.
“Excuse me?”
“Not airplanes. Remote controlled helicopters. Very small. They killed my dog. I think he knew a final vet trip was close. He jumped to save my life. I shot them down. Like skeet. Blam, blam. All four.”
There was a pause before the dispatcher responded. He was speaking more calmly now, but he sensed he was still not rational.
“You fired at them, sir?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you are armed. Is that right, sir?”
Teagarden glanced at his old twelve-gauge Remington automatic where he left it, next to the laptop on the deck table. Before exiting the garden shed he’d reloaded it with four more shells just in case.
“Uh-huh.”
He heard the dispatcher furiously typing. He could guess why. She was probably updating the previous communication with Trooper Blowback, or whatever his name was, to include the words, “proceed with caution, complainant is armed, emotionally unstable, possibly dangerous.”
“All right. And what are the helicopters doing now, sir?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why would that truck stop in the only spot where he had a direct line-of-sight with my front deck?”
“Sir?”
Teagarden did not wait for her to respond. He dove to the floorboards, landing eyeball to eyeball with the dead Coconut, whose languid pink tongue was already turning gray from rigor mortis. The timing was close. He had dropped just as the whizzing bumble-bee whipped past, snapping a small hole in the window pane behind him. A microsecond later, sound caught up with speed, and he heard the muffled report. It was a type of underwater burp that came from the direction of the truck.
This time, there was no doubt about what happened. It was not mysterious. He knew he’d just been shot at by a real man, holding a real rifle, which fired a real bullet, which was intended to make him real dead.
Still gripping his cellphone, he dove onto the screened-in porch, then crashed through the screen and dropped onto the side yard. On the ground, he sprinted straight for the cover of the neighboring woods.
Chapter Nine
With his lousy knees, it was more of a labored than a true sprint, but fortunately he made it into the woods without being taken down by whoever wanted him dead.
He’d had enough. First it was drones, then an obtuse 9-1-1 dispatcher, and now a sniper. Never a big fan of cursing, once he was well within the tree line, he began a litany of profanity as he lurched through the undergrowth. With every surge of knee pain it was: “shit, shit, shit.” Every turn of the ankle was: “goddammit, goddammit, goddammit.” Every scraped arm on a tree branch was: “fuck, fuck, fuck.” It went that way for several minutes. He crashed through the woods alternately kneeling, ducking, tripping and shouting: “shit, goddammit, fuck; shit, goddammit, fuck.”
He was moving in a generally northern direction. That was fine because it was the opposite direction from the truck with the sniper. Other than that, he had no idea where he was going, where he’d emerge from the woods, or if he’d emerge at all. Nothing was certain. This was Sullivan County, where unexplored virgin forest and the Catskill Mountains go on for many scores of miles. It was nearly like the land beyond, beyond. Much of the terrain was impassable because bluestone slate erupted everywhere in slabs as large as houses. Every tree in the woods had to grow around it or push up under it, which posed a danger of precipitous drops, mini-cliffs coated with moss where the slightest stumble could result in broken bones. Having already survived a car crash that broke both legs at the knees, he did not care to repeat the experience. And at night—forget it. Not even hunters ventured through these woods after dusk, except four-legged predators. In the woods of Sullivan County, the coyotes owned the night.
He passed mostly aging poplar trees, young fir, and stout cherry. At a copse of tall pines, Teagarden stopped to rest in the soft needles. He sat down on an eruption of bluestone and checked his cellphone. Despite being in the wilderness where bird calls and his own exhausted panting were the only sounds, he still had a powerful cell signal. All five bars were solid.
Thank God for cell towers on hilltops.
During the run, he’d decided on his next move. While getting his breath, he looked up the name and pressed autodial.
“’Lo.”
“Hey, Billy, it’s Old Abe the math teacher from across the woods. How’s my boy prodigy doing this afternoon?”
“’Kay. What’s up, Old Abe?” Teagarden wondered how he
could answer that question and decided it was best not to try.
“Hey, Billy, you still have those binoculars?”
“Sure. Used ’em to watch a red-tailed hawk this morning. He was perched on that big oak in the wooded lot. The other birds didn’t want him there, so they teamed up, made a lot of noise, and ran him off. It was cool. Didja see it?”
“Afraid I missed it, Billy.”
“’Kay. I’ll call if he comes back.”
“Sounds good. Listen, Billy, if you’re not too busy, I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“’Kay.”
“I want you to take your binoculars and go up into your tree house where you can see my driveway and front yard. Watch what’s going on for a few minutes. Then call me and tell what me you see.”
“Sure. But I can do better than that. I got the new camera relay program. It’s called ‘lens-to-lens networking.’ It turns my cellphone camera into a viewable remote. I can dial you in, then you can see on your phone whatever the camera on my phone is focused on.”
“Billy, you’re a regular techno wizard.”
“Not really. I just pushed the download button. It’s a new app.”
“Well anyway it sounds like a good plan. But listen, Billy, don’t go beyond your own yard and treehouse. Okay? There may be some nasty men at my house, former math students of mine who’re super mad at me for flunking them out of school. So you just stay on your side of the wooded lot. Got it? Stay in your yard.”
“’Kay. That’s cool. I’ll call ya back.”
Teagarden hung up. He scanned a line of thick woods from his resting spot under the pines. Traipsing through them had been noisy. He guessed that if anyone followed him, he’d be able to hear them coming. At the moment, there was only silence. On any normal day, he’d consider that peaceful, and therefore enjoyable. But this was no ordinary day. And thanks to the last half-hour of his life, it was anything but peaceful.
He plotted the next few minutes. After Billy called back, he’d phone 9-1-1 again. Then he’d phone Sheriff Klumm. He didn’t know the sheriff personally, but he and Kendra met him once at a local town council meeting. Besides being sheriff, his family owned the local Gas-n-Get station where they occasionally exchanged greetings. That was typical of most locals. If you weren’t a retiree, a weekender from New York City, or Hasidim summering at one of the secluded Hasidic Jewish colonies, then you probably ran some sort of back-up business. There was no local industry to speak of. And in Bethel, the only notable attraction was the museum and amphitheater built on the site of the Woodstock Music Festival. But there was plenty of land. For most, the family back-up business was connected to the land. Sometimes it was lumber, sometimes hay, or harvesting bluestone, but most often it was pastureland for grazing cows. Cows were easy.
After explaining the situation to Sheriff Klumm, maybe he could return to his house. But only if they’d arrested a suspect. It would happen only if he could retrace his steps back through the woods. Otherwise, they’d have to triangulate his cellphone to find him and escort him out.
Billy’s callback was prompt.
“Is your A/C broke?” he asked in a whisper.
“No.”
“Your furnace?”
“Nope. That’s not broken either.”
“Well then, why is Harry at your house?”
“Who’s Harry?”
“Dunno. But I guess he’s the man who owns Harry’s Heating and A/C Repair Service. That’s what it says on the side of the truck parked at your house.”
“A boxy, gray, ten-footer with big tires?”
“Yep. And funny thing about Harry.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s more interested in your backyard than your furnace. What’d you do to it?”
“To my backyard? Nothing. Why?”
“Since when do heating repairmen need a leaf blower? Hey, wait a minute. Hold on, I’m going to put the phone down for a sec.” Teagarden pictured Billy in his treehouse adjusting his binoculars. After a moment, he came back to the phone. “Oh, my mistake,” he said, still whispering. “It’s not a leaf blower. It’s a vacuum cleaner. He’s vacuuming your yard. Hang on. Okay, now he’s going up to your front deck.”
“Billy, what about that new app of yours?”
“Oh yeah. Hold on, I’ll key you in. But the resolution won’t be so hot. I’ve got my best tech people working on that.”
Teagarden anxiously watched the cellphone cradled in his palm. After a moment, the bright green image of Billy Carney’s name and phone number went dark. When the phone fluttered back to life, it had grainy, shaky video of his house and yard. It was like watching a distant ship at sea through a cheap telescope. He could make out a man descending the sundeck steps carrying what looked like his laptop and shotgun. Whenever Billy’s hand moved, the video broke up, turning it into digital cubism before settling back into the barely distinguishable image of his split-level A-frame house in the woods.
“Billy, pan a little to the left, will you?”
“’Kay.”
“That’s it. Hold it steady, will you?”
“’Kay.”
Billy was right. He could make out an industrial sized hose draping from the back of that truck with big tires.
Uh-oh.
Teagarden knew what that grainy video meant. Harry had vacuumed the splattered drones that left bits of broken metal all over the backyard. That’s when he realized something else. Something bad.
“Uh, Billy?”
“What’s up, Old Abe?”
“It just occurred to me. You can’t see my backyard from your treehouse.”
“Nope.”
“Umm, Billy?”
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“Well, Old Abe, it’s like this, I circled around. I’m in the woods between your driveway and the road.”
“And that’s why you’re whispering? Because if you spoke any louder, he might hear you?”
“Yep.”
“Uh, Billy, that’s really not good. I told you…”
“No worries,” he interrupted. “This is fun. I like it.”
Teagarden couldn’t decide if he should tell Billy to quickly circle back and go home the same way he came, or just hunker down and stay hidden until the cops showed up. Before he could make a decision there came a series of odd noises that sounded like a football scuffle at the line of scrimmage.
“Billy? Billy is that you? You okay?”
“Uhh…uhh…uhh…Old Abe, I, uhh…uhh…”
Billy was trying to talk. But he seemed out of breath, as though he were running.
Uh-oh, that must be it. He was panting while running. Oh Jesus, he must have been spotted, so he took off.
“Yeah, Billy. I’m here,” Teagarden shouted, sitting on the bluestone sofa. “Can you hear me? Billy, talk to me. Talk—no, no wait. On second thought, don’t talk to me. Run. Run, Billy. Can you hear me? Run!”
“Uhh…uhh…uhh…”
BLAM, BLAM!
After a moment, another voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hello,” Teagarden said.
“Why did you do that?” It was a man’s voice, calm and smug.
“Do what?” Teagarden demanded. “Who the hell is this?”
“You know what you did. Why did you do it?”
“Yeah, okay, asshole. Why don’t you just tell me what it is I did? Then maybe we’ll have a chat.”
“You just blew away that kid while he was running through the woods,” the voice said. “Two shots to the head with your shotgun. You killed him. Why did you do that?”
Teagarden let the cellphone fall away from his ear. He looked up beyond the pine trees as a red-tailed hawk flew over, its wings stretched wide to glide blissfully upon the warm summer air.
Chapter Ten
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Encrypted Field Communic
ation
CoinTelSatOrbit53/NSA Apache Code Ofc Baltimore, MD/Bethel, NY
TO: deep field cmdr
FROM: ice skater
SUBJECT: operation dear john
ice skater to deep field cmdr: target escaped…4/pcs hardware down…total loss…clean-up complete…fox in woods…have advanced grant of supreme authority to make target publicly wanted murderer of local boy…pls coordin w/local auth on that…am in pursuit…
deep field cmdr to ice skater: acknowledged…will begin coordin w/local police…maintain supreme authority on target…and, your bill for 4/pcs of hardware now in mail…
ice skater to deep field cmdr: har-har…ice skater out…
Chapter Eleven
Sunday, July 21, 2019
The Woods of Sullivan County, NY
The balance of the afternoon was a prolonged walk on Queer Street.
Teagarden knew the voice on the phone had spoken truthfully. There was something about it that made him realize Billy Carney really was dead. He turned off his cellphone. Then, he turned himself off. He disconnected from himself. It was as though his mind uncoupled, leaving him without his personality, a boxer standing in the ring with no idea where he was, what he was doing, or why his opponent continued to throw punches.
It was partly because the death of his wife was still brutally fresh. Moments after the accident the previous November, he was barely conscious but he could see her body sitting next to him, behind the wheel, her head crushed. Now, an eleven-year-old boy was dead. For a man still healing both physically and emotionally, it was too much.
He sat on a large outcropping of bluestone for hours. At dusk, he stood and wandered about the evergreens. In the moonlight, their limbs appeared both sheltering and diabolic. And there were critters scurrying in the shadows: chipmunks, raccoons, groundhogs, the occasional black squirrel, and deer. The white-tailed deer always paused to watch, then ran as he approached. When exhaustion set in, he bedded down in a V-shaped alcove of bluestone slate held in place by cool earth. If he were a bear, it would be a perfect bed for the night.
Flight of the Fox Page 3