by D. F. Bailey
“Tell me something, Finch. How did you come into possession of that tape?”
“I have my sources. This one is protected by reporter’s privilege.” Finch leaned over and clicked his phone to record his current conversation with Gruman. “So, we’re on record now,” he said and added the date, time and place of their interview. He realized that Gruman had failed to acknowledge that he’d begun to record their dialogue. No matter; he’d given him proper warning.
“There’s no reporter’s privilege if you came by that tape illegally.”
Don’t get caught up in the details, Will thought. “All right. The digital file of you in conversation with Donnel Smeardon came to me as a gift. There’s nothing illegal about how I got it. The only issue I’m interested in now, is if you have a comment that you want to put on the record.”
Gruman leaned back in the chair and lit another cigarette. “All right, Finch. What exactly are you accusing me of? Is there some crime that’s been committed that I don’t know about? And if there is, by the way, you have a legal obligation to inform me of it. And promptly, I might add.”
Finch stiffened. “The crimes are the premeditated murders of Donnel Smeardon and Raymond Toeplitz.”
Gruman’s jaw hung open as he laughed in an abrupt snort. “Murder?! Are you still going on about that? You’re just trying to screw me six ways to Sunday by printing that bullshit, Finch. Go ahead. Do it. Then I’ll figure out how many millions I can sue you and your toilet-paper tabloid for. Everybody from here to China knows Toeplitz was eaten — devoured — by a black bear. Hell, I understand you sat in on the necropsy. I heard you even fainted. That right?”
Finch ignored this. Obviously Manfred couldn’t restrain himself from disclosing the episode in the pit. After Gianna revealed that Gruman was monitoring his local activities, he assumed every move he made was reported to the sheriff.
“Why don’t you tell me your bird-brained theory of the crime. I’m all ears.” Gruman waved his hands behind his ears and formed his lips in a mad grin.
“All right, Mark, the theory runs something like this. On Saturday afternoon, the Whitelaw twins traveled with Toeplitz in two cars from their family lodge in Cannon Beach up the switchbacks below Saddle Mountain. Evan Whitelaw drove in the passenger seat beside Toeplitz in his Mercedes, which is now parked in Bob Wriggly’s garage. Justin Whitelaw led the way in his BMW. Once they reached the place where you’d agreed to meet them, Justin stopped, turned his car and blocked Toeplitz’s way. Justin got out of his car, walked toward Toeplitz, signaling him to roll down his window.”
He paused to see what effect this was having on the sheriff. Nothing. He pushed on.
“But sometime before their appearance, you’d arrived on the scene. When the window was down you approached from behind the driver’s side of the car. Evan got out of Toeplitz’s Mercedes, ran with his brother to the BMW, and together they drove off. At that point you leveled Ethan Argyle’s Glock at Toeplitz and from a distance of about five feet you shot him twice, killing him instantly. The pistol was the same weapon you’d confiscated from Donnel Smeardon a few days earlier. A tidy bit of luck that you could exploit. But back to Toeplitz. After you murdered him, just after you picked up the brass from the Glock, something unexpected happened — something you thought would make the crime simply disappear. But it didn’t work out so well.”
Gruman sat in silence, mulling over the possibilities. “The unexpected, is it? Every crime writer must love this part of the story, Finch. Carry on.” He lit another his cigarette and waved a hand.
Finch leaned forward and continued. “That’s when the bear appeared, Mark. At first it caught you by surprise. Because your car was parked out of sight, up around the bend in the road, you had to make a dash to get out of his way. That bear was hungry after all. He was starving. Maybe it was the first time you ever experienced real panic.
“So, how would I know that?” Finch waited to see what effect this question had. “Because you drove away, about a half-mile down the switchback, before you threw the brass shells from the Glock down the hill. You didn’t think anyone would ever pick up the brass, did you? But I did, Mark. In fact, here’s a picture of them.”
Finch leaned over his phone, clicked on the photo gallery and selected one of the images of the nine-millimeter brass lying on the ground where he found it. “Under a microscope, you can spot some partial fingerprints. I wonder who they belong to, don’t you?”
Gruman glanced at the photo and nodded. “Go on.”
“When we did the necropsy, we found the matching slugs in the bear guts. But you knew that, too, didn’t you? One of your moles, Manfred I imagine, passed that critical piece of info along to you. Yes, that’s when I fainted, Mark, when I realized how much trouble this might cause you.” Finch wet his lips and leaned forward. Only now did he realize the depth of his own bitterness. Reel it in, he told himself. Stick to the facts.
“But today, when I heard that recording, all the pieces fell into place. You took the Glock from Donnel Smeardon. The same pistol used tho kill Toeplitz. And while the best solution for the gun would’ve been to toss it from the Astoria-Megler Bridge, you worried that Donnel Smeardon might tell the truth: that you had Ethan Argyle’s pistol the day Toeplitz was murdered. So you dumped the gun with Smeardon into the ocean knowing that if Smeardon surfaced he’d be holding the pistol that shot Toeplitz. You’d be able to pin everything on that poor kid.”
Gruman’s mind began to race. His face erupted in another snort of laughter. “This’s the deepest crock of horse shit I’ve heard since I left the army. Why the fuck would I get myself involved in any of this?”
“Because the Whitelaws promised you the one thing you need. The one thing they have in limitless supply.” Finch leaned closer, close enough to study the web of lines that extended from Gruman’s eyes down his cheeks. “Money,” he whispered.
Gruman scanned the ceiling. The sound of rain slapped against the roof. Soon the water would begin to drip from the ceiling to the floor in a dozen well-worn spots. He angled toward the coffee table and wondered how to steer Finch outside. He would have to move him outside and into his truck. He glanced through the windows. He couldn’t make out anything in the wet gloom.
When Gruman failed to respond, Finch spread his legs under the coffee table and pointed at his cellphone. “By the way, you should be aware that a copy of that recording is stored on a secure server in San Francisco. Tonight I’ll ask my editor to open it and transcribe it. Within an hour it’ll be posted on the internet.”
Gruman seemed to awaken from his torpor. “I suppose you imagine that gives you some protection. All neat and tidy. Finicky Finch. Was that your handle when you were a public affairs flack in Iraq?”
Finch raised his eyebrows and stared at the sheriff with a look of disbelief. Gruman had no idea about his actual mission in Bagdad. “That’s your comment on your conversation with Donnel Smeardon?”
Gruman drew his lips together and pulled his legs from under the sofa. He felt ready now. Almost eager. But he still had time enough to play with the little bird. He measured the distance between him and Finch. No more than two feet. “Let me tell you what people call me. People who know me well, that is. Back in the Gulf, during Desert Storm in ’91, the boys in the 24th Infantry Division used to call me Bone Maker.”
Finch reclined against the back of the chair. “Bone Maker,” he repeated with a hint of amusement.
“Don’t laugh. I had a knack for turning elite troops from the Iraqi Republican Guard into bones. White, broken bones that to this day are littered in the desert. Enough bones to win a bronze star.”
He crooked his thumb toward a four-by-five-inch box-frame fixed to the wall above the kitchen table. Inside the glass display case, Finch could make out some military regalia. Above the frame stood a brass plaque inscribed with two words: OS FECIT.
“Latin for bone maker,” he said when he saw Finch’s puzzled look. “You got one of those from
your newspaper?”
At first Finch ignored this, then he decided to take it up. “We’ve got something called the Pulitzer Prize. I don’t imagine I’ll ever pin one to a wall, but this kind of story — where a corrupt cop is exposed for double murder — it could put me in the running.”
Gruman’s jaw tightened. “I think it’s time you moved on, Finch.”
“Fine.” He tapped his phone again and slipped it into his pocket.
“Not with that, I’m afraid.” As he stood, his left hand reached toward Finch and he waved his fingers. Gimme.
“Sorry,” Finch stood up.
“Don’t be.” Gruman shoved aside the magazine covering the coffee table drawer and lifted the Smith & Wesson into his right hand. “Now, give me the phone.”
A rush of adrenaline swept through Finch’s arms and chest. His throat tightened. “Look,” he managed to say, his voice choking, “this is ridicu — ”
With a single jab of his arm, Gruman smashed the butt of his pistol into Finch’s left cheek. As Finch faltered, Gruman braced him under his left arm and fished the cell phone from the reporter’s pocket.
“You should be more careful, Mr. Finch. Resisting arrest is a criminal offense.” He whipped the pistol across Finch’s face. The blow opened a cut below his eye.
As the blood drizzled down to his mouth Finch could feel a tooth fall from his lips. He looked across the room and considered sprinting to the door. If only. His legs buckled and he slumped against Gruman’s chest.
“You know Finch, you seem to have forgot the public affairs golden rule: Never bring a cell phone to a gun fight.” He laughed at this, then shifted his hip under Finch and adjusted an arm across his shoulders. The sheriff tightened his grip on the Smith & Wesson and began to frog-march Finch toward the front door, one step at a time as they stumbled past the sofa, along the worn carpet and across the unfinished fir floorboards.
Finch tried to speak but could not. With one final effort he pulled away from Gruman but was tugged back into place. He could smell his own wet blood and the stench of Gruman’s nicotine-stained shirt. His tongue swept over the space between his teeth. How many had he lost? One, two?...
The sheriff eased open the door and gazed at the smudge of rain falling through the black drape of night. He calculated the distance to his truck. Maybe thirty feet. He could tie Finch to the open truck bed, drive him into the hills, finish him off, bury him and roll his Ford Tempo into a ravine. Finch would simply disappear. Flit away in the storm like a broken bird.
He took a dozen steps forward and noticed a break in the darkness ahead. Twin spears of light penetrated the air, then two more, and then another set. Seconds later, three vehicles pulled into his yard and parked in a tight row that blocked the driveway.
※
“Mark, best just to let Finch loose.” Biff Winslow drew his pistol and stood behind the cover of the open truck door. A moment later eight other people emerged from the second and third pick-ups and crouched behind the vehicles, pistols and rifles pointed at Gruman and Finch.
“Biff, is that you? I can’t believe that’s you.” Gruman pressed his forearm above his brow and tried to shield his eyes from the glare of the headlights. “Biff, get over here and help me. I’m taking Finch in for assault and resisting arrest.” He spat out a laugh of disbelief. “This shit tried to take me down, if you can believe it.”
“Mark, drop your pistol. Let Finch loose, and we can sort this out down at the station,” Winslow yelled into the gusting wind. “I’ve got the sworn-in deputies here including Bob Wriggly and Ethan Argyle.”
“Argyle?” Gruman grimaced and considered what this could mean. There was still a chance he could talk his way out of this. “Let him go? Fuck, I just lassoed him.” He yanked Finch to his chest and tried to think. “Listen up, Biff. I’m going to make my way over to my truck and drive past you boys.” He tightened his free arm around Finch’s chest and pressed the Smith & Wesson to Finch’s ear.
Winslow watched as the two men staggered towards the F150. As Gruman dragged Finch across the yard, Finch could manage only one or two steps on his own. “Sorry, Mark, that’s just not going to work. We’re arresting you for the murders of Donnel Smeardon and Raymond Toeplitz.”
Gruman grunted and pushed Finch ahead of him. He knew that if he could make it to the truck, he’d be home-free.
From his position hunched on the hood of his Wrangler, Ethan Argyle watched the two men stumbling through the swirling rain. He balanced the barrel of the AR-15 rifle in the palm of his left hand and took a sighting on the front tire of Gruman’s truck. Just wait, he whispered to himself. You’ll know when.
“Mark, I want you to stop right there!” Winslow called out. “Now I mean it!”
Gruman lurched forward and Finch slumped along the wall of his chest. Finch’s jaw felt like it had been transformed into a massive, ringing bell. With each step his head reverberated in pain.
“Don’t screw this up, Mark. Now you just stop there!”
When Gruman refused to halt, Biff Winslow waved a hand at the deputies behind him. A second later a barrage of a dozen shots flashed through the body of Gruman’s F150. The bullets punctured three of the tires exposed to the deputies’ line of sight. Ethan Argyle knew for certain that he’d taken out the front left tire where the pressure valve protruded above the steel rim.
“You wet fucks!” Gruman cried. “What the hell are you doing? One of you might hit me, for christ sakes!”
He stopped and turned towards the men and the bank of headlights. Part of him now realized that it was over, that he was finished. He pressed the pistol to Finch’s ear again and shook his head in dismay. The rain washed over his face. Beyond the glare of light streaming toward him from the row of trucks, the dark of night enveloped them all. He could feel himself sinking in a well of dread, a deep porous hole that would drown him. You could die here, he told himself. Die, and be gone for good.
Finch felt Gruman’s body shudder and then totter toward the cars once more. As they stumbled ahead, he felt himself slide along the sheriff’s torso down to his hip. Then the ringing in his head became a flash of pain as Gruman fired his pistol at Finch’s ear. His head lit on fire and he screamed as a second barrage of bullets flew above him. He crashed to the ground, taken down by the weight of Gruman’s limp body as it slumped across Finch’s arms and back. The shooting stopped as a volley of stray bullets ripped through the forest behind the geodesic dome.
Ethan Argyle set his gun aside, sure that one of the bullets that killed Gruman had been fired from his AR-15. He’d lined the shot up with objective care, with a rational disdain void of any human emotion that might interfere with the moment of fate assigned to his control. The bullet had penetrated Mark Gruman’s skull just above his right eye and exploded through the center of his brain. The sheriff wouldn’t have felt anything other than the blitz of lightning striking his skull. Which was more than Ethan Argyle could say for every soul that Gruman had crushed or destroyed during his forty-seven years in this troubled world.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As the ambulance coursed through the rain-drenched roads into town, Finch kept a wary eye on Gruman’s corpse lying on the stretcher beside him. Despite the searing pain that radiated from his ear over the side of his head, Finch turned once or twice to ensure that Gruman couldn’t lift himself and reach across the van to throttle him. Finally convinced that Gruman was dead, Finch swept an arm over the sheriff’s corpse until his hand found the cellphone. He wrapped his fingers around his phone, guided it into his jacket pocket, and pulled the zipper tight. Now, he thought. Now I have it all.
The Columbia Memorial Hospital was more modern and efficient than Finch had imagined. The on-call physician did a quick assessment within minutes of Finch’s arrival in the emergency ward. “It’s your lucky day,” he said. “That’s the neatest bit of earlobe surgery I’ve seen in some time. The bullet cut off a little flesh on the lobule and the heat of the lead cauterized
the wound. We’ll just have to keep it clean to ensure there’s no infection. Apart from that, I want to know if you have any hearing loss.” He paused to determine if Finch had followed him so far. “Can you hear what I’m saying?”
Finch looked up at him, still in a daze. “Yeah, but my ear is ringing like I’m inside a church bell.”
“Understandable. The paramedics said that the pistol was fired at the side of your head. I’ll get an audiologist to do a complete assessment. Now let me examine your jaw and teeth.”
When the doctor prodded the gum line, Finch screamed and almost jumped off the bed.
“This should help.” He applied a dollop of analgesic to the root. The relief was immediate. “Your second molar on the upper left is broken from the root. Fortunately, the ambulance attendant recovered the tooth.” He added that a dentist would bond the tooth to the root within the next hour. After Finch returned to San Francisco he’d need a local dentist to ensure no infection had set in. “When it’s convenient.”
“Convenient?” Finch said and he eased his head onto the pillow that the doctor fluffed up at the back of the bed.
“I’ll give you some medication for the pain and some topical disinfectant to apply to your ear. Now turn your head to the side and I’ll suture your cheek — probably just a stitch or two, enough to give you the look of a wounded hero. Tomorrow you’ll be good to go.”
The words made Finch wonder about his entire week in Astoria. On Monday, he’d never heard of the place. Now he was a patient in the local hospital, being treated for injuries inflicted by the recently deceased sheriff. If I’m good to go, he muttered, it’ll be as far away from here as possible.