“There’ll still be tourists out there, finishing up their day’s vacation. We can come back after dark.”
“It can wait,” she said defiantly.
“No, it can’t,” I said. “Look, you’re going to be useless if you wake up tomorrow morning with a raging infection. Go get a damn shot. The Creighs aren’t going anywhere. Bags, can you get someone to come stay with Laurie May?”
Bags said he could get his wife’s sister, who volunteered over in her local county hospital, to come over from Gatlinburg. I told him I’d take Carrie back into Marionburg and that we’d come back after dark.
“You think ’em Creighs gonna come over here tonight? Lookin’ for y’all?”
“They might,” I said. “Nathan knows we hid out here once, so he may well check it out.” I could see what he getting at: We might drive back into an ambush of some kind. “Let’s do this: You guys stay here until we can get back and work up a plan. If there’s any reason you think we should not approach, put a single lantern in a front window. If you think it’s all clear, put two lanterns, one in each front window.”
“Them Creigh boys show up here, we goin’ to get to it,” David said.
“How’s Nathan looking?” I asked.
“He’s limpin’ some, according to Ma. Still well enough to put the hurtin’ on a defenseless old woman, though, the piece’a shit.”
“They come, you guys thin ’em out then,” I said. “Make it easier for later on.
They both grinned at that prospect. I gathered up Carrie and we went out to the car.
“I still think this is an unnecessary risk,” she said, but I saw her wince when she put her head back on the headrest.
“I meant what I said in there,” I replied. “I need you operational, not delirious with a fever, which is about where you are now, yes?”
She nodded and winced again. “Even my hair hurts,” she admitted.
“Okay, then. Let’s wait at the motel until dark, then go into the ER and see what they say.”
At eleven I was sitting out in a corner of the parking lot behind the Carrigan County hospital. I’d taken Carrie into the emergency room. The triage desk nurse told her it would be an hour’s wait, at a minimum. That had been two hours ago. When Carrie had mentioned “gunshot wound,” the nurse immediately wanted to notify the sheriff’s office, but Carrie talked her out of it, saying that she’d already been treated here for this same injury and the incident was already in the system. I had decided to wait in the car. If there were bad guys looking for us, they’d be looking for the pair of us. Carrie was relatively safe inside the hospital, at least from any marauding Creighs. Staph. aureus was another matter.
I’d made a couple of phone calls back to Triboro. The first was to my office, where I left a message for Tony, telling him what I was up to. Then I put a call in to Bobby Lee Baggett’s office. I wanted to brief him on what we thought was going on up here, but he wasn’t available. His executive assistant promised that he’d return my call in the morning. I called my defense lawyer at home and brought him up to date on the growing list of charges against me in Robbins County. He once again advised me to get back to Triboro as soon as possible, as in, tonight would be good, and warned of lots more fees if I kept at this. It was good to know he kept his focus, but I acknowledged that it was good advice. The problem was that I was in much too deep to back out now. Or so I kept telling myself.
I had parked in the darkest corner of the hospital parking lot to wait. The Dumpster alley was behind me, and I had a terrific view of the back of the Laboratory Services building, which apparently also housed the Pathology fun house. The hospital was a single-story affair stepped in layers along a hill. It consisted of several wings, with a small parking lot up front for the docs and the meat wagons. For ordinary humans and patients there was a larger lot behind the complex, which sloped down the hill, getting narrower as it went. Carrie was supposed to call my cell phone when they were done with her. It was cool enough to open the windows and not be eaten by mosquitoes. Fall was definitely coming on. I was ready.
At some point I must have dozed off, because I was startled awake by the sound of an argument somewhere in the parking lot. The voices were male, urgent, and, strangely, familiar. It sounded like they were trying to keep their voices down. I couldn’t make out what it was about, but when I finally found the source of the racket I sat right up.
And then I slid right back down again. I was in one corner of the narrow part, in the last and lowest row. The argument was in the other corner, and the noise was coming from two police cars, parked nose to tail so that the drivers could talk. They’d parked under a light, so I could see that one of them was Sheriff Hayes. His verbal antagonist was no other than M. C. Mingo.
My blood went cold. Hayes and Mingo meeting in a dark parking lot? Good Lord, was Hayes a part of the criminal matrix in Robbins County? I really, really did not want to believe that. I saw brake lights flare at the back of Hayes’s cruiser, and then backup lights. I slid all the way down below the dash, hoping like hell he wouldn’t recognize my Suburban. Once I heard his cruiser leave the parking lot, I raised my head again in time to see Mingo’s car approaching the back doors of the Laboratory Services/Pathology wing. He stopped, put a phone up to his ear, and talked to someone. Two minutes later, outside landing lights came on and the back double doors opened. A middle-aged man who had a neatly sculpted beard and wore a white coat came out, pushing a gurney. I stared hard, trying to see if it was the same bearded guy I’d seen at Grinny Creigh’s, but the building floodlights were shining in my eyes. Mingo got out of his car and went around to the right rear door of his vehicle, which was out of my line of sight. The two men transferred a blanket-covered something to the gurney, and then they both rolled it back into the hospital. Whatever it was, they handled it gently, as opposed to the way they might have handled a body. A few minutes later, Mingo came out. I went down-periscope and waited for him to drive away. The floodlights near the door went out.
I waited a good five minutes to make sure that there weren’t any other cop cars in or near the lot and that Mingo hadn’t swung back through to check his trail, and then I drove over to the wing into which they’d gone. A smaller sign near the door read LAB/PATH SERVICES ENTRANCE. The doors had small windowpanes, but the hallway behind them was dark. I was tempted to get out and try the doors but decided against it. If they were unlocked, then what? Go inside and snoop around? I didn’t think that would work out. Then my cell phone chirped; Carrie was waiting at the front entrance.
“Was that fun?” I asked her when she got in. Her face was pinched and she sat down gingerly, being careful not to let her head touch the headrest this time.
“Loads,” she said. “They had to remove the stitches and debride it, and then they gave me a shot with some kind of elephant syringe. Now I have seven days of these.” She rattled a pill bottle at me.
“Good thing we came in, then,” I said cheerily. I wasn’t positive, but I thought “debride” meant scraping the wound. Not fun. I drove away from the entrance with all its bright lights and turned back down into the parking lot.
“What’s this ‘we’ shit, paleface?” she grumped, still shifting from side to side in the seat.
“Actually,” I said, and then I told her what I’d witnessed. She exclaimed in disappointment when I mentioned Hayes. Then she asked what had been on the gurney.
“I couldn’t see, other than a mound under a blanket,” I said, knowing what was coming next.
“Was it the right size to have been a child?”
“Yes.”
“Mingo with another unconscious or drugged kid in his car? What the fuck?!”
“I don’t know that it was a child, and they were being more careful than that time Baby and I saw him handle that other child.”
The rest of the lower lot was empty, so if Mingo or even Hayes did come back, we’d be pretty obvious. I parked the car next to a delivery truck that I hoped wouldn’t be
moving until the next morning to give us a little cover.
“We’ve got to report this,” she said. “You saw them take a child down at Grinny’s. You watched while she showed a guy who’s probably some kind of back-alley abortionist the latest merchandise. And now here they are, Mingo and Hayes, delivering a child to a pathology lab where some bastard with a degree from Burundi U. is probably sterilizing an eight-year-old girl.”
“Um,” I said, “report to whom?”
She thought for a moment. “Mingo and Hayes collaborating? That has to go to Sam King.”
“Sam King? He’d blow you off, say this is just another interesting tale out of Robbins County. Plus, they were arguing.”
She stared at me. “So?”
“Hayes may have been running him off, not collaborating.”
“But that’s not what Mingo did, is it,” she said, angrily. “They talked, and then Mingo made the delivery.”
“All I’m saying is-”
“What-we do nothing?”
I held my temper. I was pissed off, too. Hayes and Mingo. Not good. “No,” I said, “but let’s see what happens next. If we’re right, somebody will come back and pick up the flower.”
“Mingo might just be disposing of a body,” she said.
“He’d have Nathan take care of that, Carrie. They wouldn’t bring an inconvenient body into town, especially outside of Mingo’s territory, not when they have all that empty country available. They give you any pain meds?”
She nodded.
“Put your seat back. Close your eyes and let that shit work. I’ll keep watch. I got a nap while you were partying in there.”
She let out a big sigh of exasperation but didn’t argue. In fifteen minutes she was asleep. I got out, rummaged in the backseat, and found a car coat to drape over her. It wasn’t really cold, but she was obviously uncomfortable. Her breathing was shallow and her forehead was warmer than it should have been. If we were going to do anything about this tonight, she wasn’t going to be a player, not until that infection was knocked down.
Twenty minutes later, the driver of the delivery truck showed up, got in, and drove the thing away in a clatter of diesel engine noise. We were now sitting out there all by ourselves, and there was no other place to park the vehicle where we could also watch the lab entrance. The truck’s departure woke Carrie up, and I pointed out our predicament. We decided to get out of there before Mingo came back. If he and Hayes did have some kind of understanding, we’d be fair game in that empty parking lot.
“Well, damn,” Carrie said wearily, as we went back into town. “Now what?”
“We go somewhere and get this all down in writing. Then we mail a report to someone who’ll listen.”
“Like who?”
“Like the Bureau? Or maybe that federal task force in Washington Baby was talking about-that PROTECT outfit.”
“And then what-sit back and wait for our government to get off its enormous inertial ass and do something?”
“No, then we join forces with some other interested citizens and see if we can catch these bastards in the act. But first, we obey the old fire department rule: See a fire, tell the fire department, then go see what you can do.”
She looked so down I decided to try a little humor. I leered at her. “Hey, little lady: Wanna go to a motel, fool around a little?”
She smiled despite her frustration. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said. “Will you mind if I throw up in the middle of it?”
“Kinky,” I said approvingly. “I love kinky.”
My lame attempt at humor didn’t really work, though, as neither of us could get our minds off what might have just happened in that lab. As I drove back to the motel, I could just imagine that bastard giving an unconscious little girl some kind of deep sedative and then going to town with scalpels or sterile knitting needles. And somewhere up there on Spider Mountain, was Grinny Creigh keeping a whole stash of potential flowers, which she might want to dispose of in a hurry? From a practical standpoint, I knew we couldn’t do anything for the kid in the lab. But somehow, somewhere, we needed to light a fire under one of the alphabets.
13
I did get her back to a motel room, but kinky it was not. That big blast of antibiotics sent Carrie into the bathroom for a double-ended purgative siege lasting an unpleasant hour. She was miserable, and so was I in not being able to do a damned thing for her. Plus, I was out of scotch. Even though it was past midnight I spent the time drafting a report of everything that had happened up here since I answered Mary Ellen Goode’s call for help. I named names and told it like it happened, being careful to protect Baby Greenberg as much as I could. I laid down our theory of what the Creighs were doing and delineated the events supporting that theory, especially what we’d seen tonight.
Normally a government report ends up with a list of recommendations, and there I hit a brick wall. Regrettably, I couldn’t just say bring in a section of F-18’s and wipe Grinny and her entire establishment off the face of the Smokies, although that would have improved the Smokies immensely. I finally gave up, deciding that a summary of the facts would prompt better brains than mine to some kind of effective action. I fervently hoped.
Carrie emerged from the bathroom several pounds lighter and pale as an oyster. She flopped onto one of the beds, told me not to go in there, and asked if I had any whiskey. I told her no and she groaned. Both of us knew she did not need to be drinking any alcohol, but I sympathized with the idea. I did the coldwashcloth routine on her face and arms for a few minutes, but she was still fighting an infection, and what should have been soothing began to irritate her. Then I had a stroke of genius, something that happens about once in a good year. It was nearing 2:00 A.M., so I turned on the television and found a channel where the station was off the air. The beam of white noise where the signal had been was still on the air, so I turned that up, doused the lights, lay down beside her, and held her hand. She was off to sleep in about ninety seconds. I soon followed.
I was awakened by a gentle tapping on the motel room’s door. It took me a few seconds to gather my wits and realize that it was bright daylight out there. The knock came again, gentle but insistent. I got up without disturbing Carrie and went to the peephole. It was Bigger John, or at least one of the shirt buttons on his chest. I was still dressed except for shoes, so I opened the door and stepped out, extending the deadbolt so I wouldn’t lock myself out. I checked my watch. It was nine thirty and it was indeed broad daylight. A crew of happy Hispanic ladies was clattering housekeeping carts down the sidewalk.
“How’d you find us?” I asked, wiping the sleep from my eyes.
“Said you was moving to a motel here in Marionburg,” he rumbled. “Made me some calls. You always sleep in your clothes, Lieutenant?”
“One of the benefits of being an ex-lieutenant,” I said. “Plus, I was up late. Ms. Santangelo isn’t doing so well after that head shot.”
He nodded sympathetically. “Word in the office was that y’all had left town,” he said.
“I told Sheriff Hayes we were leaving town, but her injury flared up, so we had to go back to County last night. Infection.” I looked around the parking lot. I saw his cruiser but no others, which I thought was a good sign. “Anybody in particular asking?”
“Ain’t nobody asking,” he said, shuffling his feet. “But we get the ER report every morning down at the sheriff’s office?” He smiled. “Professional courtesy sorta thing?”
I nodded. We’d managed something similar down in Triboro at the sheriff’s office. Quite often the violent events of the previous night and some of the people flopping around in the ER were related.
“Luke saw mention of Ms. Santangelo being treated, so him an’ me, we kinda figured y’all might still be around.”
“Is there news?”
He nodded solemnly. “Big trouble last night up in Robbins County,” he declared. “Big trouble. Seems Laurie May Creigh’s two boys, them twins? Made �
�em a blood feud on Grinny Creigh late last night.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. I’d forgotten all about our promise to go back up there. “Nathan and his boys roughed up their mother,” I told him. “They said they were going to go do something about that.”
“Might you recollect when they said that?” he asked. As in, how do you know that?
I told him we’d gone up there on our way out of the area to check on Laurie May because, given how quickly Nathan had caught up with me that night, we figured she’d been coerced.
“On your way out of the area?” he asked. Bigger John wasn’t missing much this morning. Of course, he’d probably had his morning coffee, something I desperately needed.
I shrugged. “So: How’d it come out?”
He smiled ruefully and shook his enormous head. “Word is, they rode in on Grinny in that there old Bronco they drive and started shootin’ up everything in sight. The cabin, the barns, some’a them dogs, winders, doors, everythin’ and anythin’ what couldn’t take cover.”
“Let me guess-then they ran out of ammo.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “ ‘Cause what happened next was that Grinny and her boys did one’a them Bonnie and Clyde numbers on the Bronco. Then somebody, ain’t nobody knows for sure who, of course, went over to Laurie May’s place and throwed a bunch’a gallon bottles of gasoline into the house.”
“With Laurie May inside?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Leastwise, that’s what it smelt like when the fire boys got to it.”
“Lovely,” I said. The same house where we had been planning to lay up while we figured out our next move. Bigger John was watching me and probably reading my mind.
“Sheriff Hayes know about this incident?” I asked.
He nodded.
“You suppose he knows we were out there earlier, before those boys went for their final ride?”
“Don’t believe he does,” he said. “Yet. He did ask this morning if y’all was still in Carrigan County, though. Called you the death angel.”
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