The phone rang, and he steadied his voice, which tended to be shaky. “Amy?” he asked. When she replied, “No, it’s Lucy,” he said, “I need to report something really serious.
CHAPTER THREE
Washington Shipp
Washington Shipp was not a patient man, and he disliked criminals with all his might. He despised sneak thieves and vandals, of course, and he dealt with any who were caught operating in his bailiwick as sternly as the law allowed. He detested burglars, and anyone who attacked one of the people in his charge turned up his emotional thermostat to the boiling point.
He had hoped, on this rainy evening, to go home and watch TV with his nine-year-old son, while his wife worked on her weekly column for the Templeton Signal. The call from Livingston Frost put the kibosh on that.
“Break-in at 6411 Oak Grove Lane,” the dispatcher said, as she came out of her office. “That Frost fellow who deals in antique guns. Might be a big haul there if they got any of his choice pieces. I went to his gun show last year, and there was stuff there that would make you drool.”
Nobody would have picked dumpy little Lucy Fowler as an antique weapons enthusiast, he reflected. “I’d like to get rid of every last gun in the world,” Shipp growled. “What does he report missing?”
“He didn’t say anything about missing property. He was boiling over because the men who broke into the house hurt his sister. You know, Lily, who went off to be a hippy and came back with her wits addled.”
“Badly?” The question came so fast and so sharply that Mrs. Fowler blinked.
“Hit her on the head, he told me. I’ve sent Sterling and Lambert to check things out. That okay? They were patrolling only about a half a mile away.” She was watching him, reading him, he knew. She’d known him since he was a teenager doing chores for the wealthy families in town, and it sometimes made him uncomfortable to think how closely she could predict what he’d do.
“Lucy, you know I’m going out there, don’t you? My granddaddy worked for Dr. Frost and I’ve always known Stony and Lily. No matter what mistakes she made when she was young and foolish, she’s a friend. I want to see with my own eyes what happened.”
She grinned, the rouge on her faintly wrinkled cheeks crinkling into pink relief. “I’ve already told ’em you would be there. Jim has your car out front, waiting for you.”
He half chuckled, as he pulled on his leather jacket. It was sometimes very handy to have your needs met before you knew you needed them, but he would have liked, just once, to surprise that woman! He had a feeling that would never happen, though, for she could predict things she knew nothing about and could not explain at all. It was some kind of gift, he supposed.
The roads were slick with rain, and reflections of oncoming lights, brightly lit signs, and street lamps glimmered on the black mirror of the asphalt. He squinted, trying to separate the real from the illusory. He was using his eyes too hard these days, with the interminable reports he had to read and write. But it grew much darker as he got out into the remote area where Frost lived.
Oak Grove Lane had been a county road ten years ago. Only fishermen going to the river with their boats and gear had used it, or farmers bringing in produce from their low-lying farms. Woods still grew along most of its length, broken only by old homes like the Frost house or by a few new brick mansions, each surrounded by its own acreage of trees and grass.
The Frosts had owned a thousand acres, once upon a time, reaching all the way down to the Nichayac River. It was only by selling off bits of land that young Livingston had managed to keep things together after his father died. The Frosts were what the local people called land-poor—lots of land, no money.
Strangely enough, it had been Lucy Fowler who had led young Frost into what became his business. She had known his father well; indeed, everyone in the county had known old Doctor Frost and most had come into the world under his gentle touch. She had shared the old man’s interest in antique weapons, even before the collecting craze hit its peak in the Seventies.
When she pointed out to Livingston that his father’s and grandfather’s collections were worth a great deal of money, that had set him on the road to financial independence. Now his trading, buying, and selling were a part of the intricate network of antique firearms collecting in America, and had become, Wash knew, a highly profitable business.
And that, once he thought about it, scared the sheriff. He had already had the notion that there might be “special order” thieves who knew where anything could be found, and who took orders and delivered the goods as dependably as Sears, Roebuck ever had. The difference was that their stock was stolen to order.
The road curved to miss a huge maple that leaned over the way. The Frost driveway looped to the left, just past the tree, and a dim glow shone through the dripping privet and holly to guide him into the parking area before the garage. A police car was pulled off to one side, and Frost’s own modest Toyota was halfway inside the shelter.
Shipp slammed his door and strode through the wet into the haven of the porch. The many-bulbed lamp had been lit, though the total wattage came to something like fifty, he decided. The door opened before he could knock, and young Lambert nodded as he stepped back to let him enter.
“Lucy said you were coming, Sheriff. They made a mess of the place, broke some antique glass, scratched up the furniture a bit. We were able to find the circuit box and get the power back on, which helps. The lady isn’t hurt much, but Mr. Frost’s display guns were all taken.”
Wash’s scowl reflected his feelings on that score. Not that he thought that antique weapons were going to be used by criminals—there were more efficient weapons to be stolen far more easily. But the idea gave him the cold robbies.
He followed Lambert down the dark hallway toward the kitchen, where the smell of coffee was beginning to warm the air. Lily was sitting in a Lincoln rocker, sipping a cup of tea, and Frost was perched on a tall stool, his thin face paper-white, his black hair curled from the damp.
He stood as the sheriff entered. “Wash! Glad you came. I’ve been trying to persuade Lily that what was stolen isn’t my real stock, just my rebuilt models for show, so to speak. Maybe you can make her accept that. She always liked you.”
Shipp took the offered kitchen chair and turned it to straddle the seat. “As I don’t know myself, you tell me, and we’ll see if this time around it will take.”
“Oh.” Frost seemed at a loss for a moment. Then he climbed back onto his stool and ran a slender hand through his hair.
“Well, to begin with, I keep all my valuable stock in a vault in the bank. My dad did before me, and even Granddad began storing his best pieces there when they built the storage facility for large valuables, though the real collecting fever hadn’t begun yet to power the trade in stolen antiques.
“So what you could see on my walls and in my cabinets here were either replicas, which aren’t worth much, or rebuilt weapons that had deteriorated so much I had to replace too many parts to allow them to be sold as really good antique specimens. You following that?”
Shipp nodded. “Sounds logical to me. You could show them to your customers to give an idea what you had, and then if they were interested, you’d get the real thing out and sell it to them.”
“Right. But still the pieces here weren’t worthless. They were valued at about three thousand dollars in all for my insurance policy. That isn’t much per piece, but it is enough to make this grand larceny, isn’t it? I want to nail those bastards with everything I can. They hit Lily!”
Wash, despite himself, had always had a certain innate contempt for weakness, no matter what its cause. Now he regarded Frost with a new respect. The fellow couldn’t help being crippled. And now he was mad as a wet wasp, ready to go to war, it seemed.
“We’re going to get them,” he said. He turned to Lily. “You tell me what they looked like, Lily-bird.”
She looked up for the first time, the old nickname rousing her as nothing else had do
ne since he arrived. “Washington? You’re here? That’s nice....” She drifted away again.
Frost left his stool to kneel beside the rocker, his withered leg making a hard job of it. “Lily, honey, tell us what they looked like. Okay?”
She stared down at him, up at the sheriff. “All right,” she sighed. “One was big and had a dark beard. He looked quite a bit like Martin. Martin...Fewell.”
That told Wash a great deal, for he had taken an instant dislike to Martin Fewell when they both were boys, and that grew worse the day he got drunk, came to town and picked a fight in the drugstore. When Lily left town with the fellow, he had known she was making a bad mistake. He knew what Martin looked like. Yes, indeed.
“Then there were two small men, both blond. Twins. They had narrow little faces like foxes, and one had a scar—you tell him about it later, Stony. I’m tired.”
“Three then—that was all you saw?”
“No. There was another one, but he was wrapped up in a raincoat, with a big wide hat, and I couldn’t see his face. He didn’t come close to me at all.”
She seemed drained, and the trail of dried blood down her cheek, beneath the bandage, made her look like the survivor of some disaster. Which, in a way, she was.
“Lily, can you tell me, for certain, that these were the men, if I call you to testify? If we catch them?” He watched her face closely, as she considered.
“S-sometimes I’m scared. I go and hide in my room for days. But I’ll try. I’ll try.”
He looked up at Frost. “I think that’s enough. Come talk to me, Stony. We can let your sister rest now.”
He, too, was boiling. Any thief who thought he could come into Washington Shipp’s county and break into houses and hit lone women was going to find that life was very uncomfortable from that time forward.
He got everything Frost could provide. Then he went around the house, inside and out, while the fingerprint man did his job. They got a couple of dabs that were neither those of Lily nor of Livingston. They found those on the circuit box, which was hard to open with gloves on.
By the time everything was in hand, he had a good idea of his next step. He sent out a region-wide bulletin, using the descriptions he had, and he sent the fingerprints to the FBI, along with the identifying numbers and features of all the stolen guns. He had a feeling the men were already out of the area, but he also had a gut instinct that they might well be back, sooner or later. Particularly when they found out that the guns they had stolen were relatively worthless. They might well try again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Myron Duson
The black van went streaking down the highway, tearing a bright trail of light through the seamless darkness of the countryside. The state highway was busy in the daytime, but at night few vehicles used it, and tiny hamlets provided the only swift points of brightness in the long stretches of forest and pastureland that lined the way.
Myron Duson knew just about every inch of back road in all of East Texas and the western half of Louisiana. He planned his jobs carefully, and he never left any loose ends, which was why he was feeling antsy now.
“You sure that bitch was dead?” he asked for the third time in the past five miles. “She kept staring at me like she knew me. Made me mighty nervous. She’d know me again, Crowley. Didn’t seem to me you hit her hard enough.”
David Crowley didn’t turn his head as he replied, “Myron, you’re gettin’ old and scary. ’Course she’s dead. I hit her a lick, I tell you. Besides, we’re clean out of that country now, and we’ll be in Shreveport before you can say scat. Our client is going to go ape over these guns we got.” The dim light from the dash showed the small man’s profile and a straggle of pale hair.
Myron sighed and looked back at the road. Something had gone sour, and he wasn’t able to put his finger on just what it might be.
“You got the scanner hooked up yet?” he asked over his shoulder.
Donald Crowley grunted, behind him. Then he said, “Here. It’s hooked into the power supply—listen good, Myron. You’re gettin’ all shook for nothin’.” There came a click, and the hum of the scanner was broken by a distant chatter of talk. “...try findin’ a naked nigger on a dark night for yourself!” came through plaintively in a thick redneck accent, and all the men in the van snickered.
A stronger signal brought a string of directions and code numbers. Then: “All Points Bulletin. Repeat All Points Bulletin. Wanted for assault and burglary of a dwelling, four men, probably traveling together.
“Male Caucasian, five feet, eleven inches, about a hundred eighty pounds, dark hair and beard, black eyes, dark complexion. Two male Caucasians, twins, blond, narrow faces, scar on back of right hand of one shaped like a W. One male, probably Caucasian or Scandinavian but uncertain, large, heavy, dark raincoat, black hat with wide brim.”
“By God, I told you that you didn’ hit her hard enough!” Duson shouted over the rumble of the engine. “She’s alive, and Frost got back and found her. Now we’re goin’ to have every highway patrol all over the area looking for anything suspicious.” He slowed to the speed limit, and the noise of the engine quieted a bit.
“Myron, if her head is that hard, you couldn’t have dented it yourself,” David snapped. “Here, turn right up at the next crossroad. There’s a dirt road I know that will take us over to Highway 21. That’ll get us over the line, and from there it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to Shreveport. We can circle off to the east and hit our man’s driveway without going onto any main road.”
The van slowed still more, and within a half hour it was bumping along over the ruts of a muddy country lane. Sure enough, in a couple of hours it ended at the narrow pavement of 21, and they turned with great relief toward the Louisiana line.
Myron was not happy, but things seemed to be straightening themselves out at last. They hit 171 to Shreveport by midnight, and there was no talk of a bulletin out on them, once they crossed into the next state. Things were going to be all right, and this special order would be delivered on time and in fine fashion. The broker should pay a good price for the pieces in the back of the van.
He snorted and shifted his position. What anybody would want with a bunch of ancient guns that probably would blow up in your face if you tried to fire them he didn’t know. The polished stocks, the elaborate engravings on barrels and plates, the loving care with which they had been made and used didn’t touch him. A good sound Uzi, now, could make tears come to his eyes. This stuff was a bunch of crap.
They bypassed Shreveport, approaching their goal from the southeast. Bollivar’s drive was hard to find in the dark—or the daylight, for that matter—but he hit it unerringly, and the van pulled out of sight among the overhanging crepe myrtles and mimosas, behind the trimmed privet hedges.
As soon as the engine died, a light came on in the big garage into which they had pulled. The doors went down silently, hiding the transaction that was to take place, even if the only witness might be the damp greenery. Myron opened his door and got out, his knees stiff with the damp and with sitting for so long.
“Easy haul?” asked a voice, and a thin fellow wearing a velvet jacket came into the light from a door connecting the garage with the house beside it.
“Not so you’d notice,” said Myron. He unlocked the rear doors of the van and pulled them wide. “There was a damned woman there—nobody tol’ me Frost lived with somebody. We walked right in and there she was in the kitchen. Couldn’ see any light from outside at all. Made it sticky, I tell you.”
The man stiffened, his pale eyes narrowing. “And...?” he asked.
“Dave hit her. Not hard enough. There was a bulletin out, back in Texas. Probably not here. At least, not yet.” Myron was disgusted, and his voice reflected that.
Bollivar relaxed a bit. “Might as well check out the goods,” he said, moving to peer into the darkness inside the van. “You, Septien, hand me whatever’s on top.”
A dark-skinned hand came into view, holding
an oddly shaped gun wrapped in plastic. Bollivar slipped the plastic off and eyed the piece. His eyes lit up, but Myron knew that it was with greed, not with the collector’s true fanaticism.
“This looks like a Wesson sport rifle. Short barrel. It’s in really fine condition—I think I can get a good price for it. If the rest come up to this one, you’re going to be able to take off for a while and let things cool down.”
The other twin had crawled out the front, and now the last man came sliding out the rear of the van. “Don’ you fool yourself,” he said. His yellow-brown eyes were filled with wicked amusement in the stark light of the garage.
“I been looking, back there, wit’ my little flash. These is all real, yes and true, but they not what you want, Meester Bollivar. These is for show, they not for sale. Not to collector, you bet.” He chuckled, his swarthy face wrinkled into a mask.
“What would you know about what collectors want?” the broker asked, his mouth tight.
“Old Maurice, he be in the business for a long time, man. I work wid him when I be a boy. Maurice, he know a hawk from a handsaw any day of the week. He know jewel, he know gun, he know old furniture, he know everything anybody want, any time, any place. An’ he teach me.
“You look at those gun. Every piece be mark; you look. That Fros’ man, he too smart to risk his business in that old rattletrap house that anybody get in with two hairpin and a strong breath of air.”
Bollivar was frowning, and Myron felt as if he might burst, himself. The Crowleys stood off to one side, their heads cocked in opposite directions, as if they were mirror images. Their identical faces held no expression.
The broker’s fingers moved surely, and the stock came off the Wesson. He peered into the depths of the piece, and his frown became ferocious.
When he looked up, Myron dreaded the message in his eyes. “You’ve got a load of trash,” he said. “Marked trash, too. Why didn’t you check to see where he kept the good stuff? You’ve wasted your time and my time, and you’ve got your heads in a noose in Texas.
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