Billy and Donny collided on the porch. Their contact was audible even across the street where I was. Blood sprayed, a thick red fountain that cartwheeled with Donny as he fell over Billy.
Levi didn’t stop. He raised a revolver as he ran, firing twice at Billy as he struggled to get to his feet. The first shot went wide. It made snow puff up like a tiny volcano as it struck the ground. The second came as Billy was lifting his weapon to return fire. That bullet entered the sleeve of Billy’s jacket below the elbow. It burst out the shoulder.
Billy sagged away from the impact and dropped his pistol.
I pulled my service weapon as Levi jumped back into his waiting car. I let him reverse the vehicle until he cut the wheels and Levi was presented to me in profile.
“Stop!” I shouted the order more out of habit than expectation. His window was up. Not that it mattered. I didn’t believe Levi would stop and I didn’t wait for it, either. I fired. The shot shattered the window, but missed the intended target.
Levi jumped as the bits of window exploded inward. He didn’t stay surprised very long. He raised his right hand, crossing his body, then fired two rounds at me without aiming. They went wild.
My next shot cratered the metal of the car door.
Levi dropped his weapon. I didn’t know how badly he was hit but I knew it hurt. I could hear him cursing over the roar of the Dodge.
Levi jerked the gearshift and stomped the gas. The car slid side to side as it sent rooster tails of slush and snow into the air.
I kept Levi sighted as he fled. There was no chance to take another shot. At least not a clear one. I had to assume that there was another house behind the trees once the angle shifted. It wasn’t until he was gone I noticed Billy shouting. It was the sound of his voice I turned toward. I couldn’t understand the words.
Billy knelt over Donny Fisher. He had both hands pressed into the boy’s neck. He shouted to me again, “Call EMTs.”
That time I understood.
“And get my kit,” he added.
I was already running back up the hill to get it and shouting into the phone as I went. At the top of the hill I staggered, exhausted and in pain. The cold air I sucked into my lungs hurt more when I coughed it back out.
There was no running back. I drove the sheriff’s SUV out of the clearing and back to the road. When I got to the house I backed up through the yard to where Billy still held Donny.
Since Billy was a qualified medic, he always kept a large first aid kit in his vehicle. I pulled it from the back of the SUV along with blankets.
I put the kit beside Billy. The blankets I threw over Donny. He was pale. His breath was shallow and it seemed like each inhalation was an effort. Billy had rolled him on his side and a constant bubbling of blood was coming from his mouth.
“Put your hands here,” Billy said, nodding down at his own hands covered in blood. They were pressed to the right side of Donny’s throat.
He lifted his hands away and I saw the bullet hole they were covering. I put my hands on the wound. Billy gripped my wrists, moving my palms where he wanted them, then positioning my fingers. Once he was satisfied, he opened his kit and pulled out the things he needed.
Billy worked quickly. Once things were ready he signaled for me to take my hands away. There was a pulse of blood, then he had his fingers in the wound feeling for the open vein. He shoved a clamp in behind his finger, then the bleeding stopped.
“I’ve got this now,” he said. “Go in the house and check on the other guy. I think he’s dead. Make sure.”
I went, watching Billy work as I did. He put a hand under Donny’s neck and tilted the head back. I turned away and stepped into the house as a tube went down Donny’s throat.
No search was required. The other man was on the floor of the main room. He felt almost as cold as the air at the open door. Between that and the hole in his chest I didn’t have any doubt that he was dead.
A look back out the door, where Billy was pumping air into Donny’s chest using a bag attached to the throat tube, told me we had to hurry before we lost another one. I pulled out my phone and had to wipe my bloody hands on my jeans before I could work it. Doreen told me that due to the snow the ambulance was still fifteen to twenty minutes away. Nothing was happening fast. I told her to call off the EMTs. Then asked her to give me Chuck. I walked to Billy as I was transferred.
“Don’t talk,” I said. I spoke loudly so Billy would hear too. “I’ve canceled the ambulance. We’re taking Donny Fisher to Regional ourselves.” I raised my eyebrows to communicate a question mark to Billy.
He nodded.
“We have one dead body at this location,” I continued. “We need units to close and protect the scene. As many as we can spare. If a connection to Rose Sharon gets out, this place will be surrounded by press.”
“On their way,” Chuck said.
“BOLO,” Billy said.
“Issue a be-on-the-lookout for Levi Sharon. Last seen in a black, late-model Dodge Charger with a broken driver’s side window and a bullet hole in the door. Suspect is wounded. He’s armed and extremely dangerous.”
I broke the connection without saying anything else.
“Help me lift Donny,” Billy said.
We got him into the back of the SUV. Billy climbed in beside him and kept pumping the bag.
I got behind the wheel and eased the vehicle out of the rutted yard and into the road. It was the only slow part of the journey.
Billy and I didn’t talk the entire trip. Not to each other. I watched the road on the hills and twists, being careful in the snow. When we got to the county highway and had a few stretches of smooth, plowed asphalt, I watched Billy in the rearview mirror.
He kept his head down and his attention on his patient. Every few seconds I heard the bag in Billy’s hands pumping air into Donny’s lungs. After it I heard the wheezing exhalation.
Billy said, “It’s going to be okay. Stick with me. It will all be okay.”
I had to fight hard to keep my mind focused on the here and now. It would have been so easy to let the snow melt into desert sand, to slip back in time, and once more be the patient Billy worked on in the back of a speeding Humvee.
Chapter 7
A trauma team was waiting for us when I pulled up to the hospital’s emergency entrance. There was a doctor and two nurses. They hovered over Donny, shining lights in his eyes, asking questions, and pumping air into his chest even as two orderlies pulled him from the vehicle and onto a gurney. Practiced hands strapped him down and got him moving in seemingly one motion. They talked to each other in sharp half sentences, the code of trauma. Billy and I stayed out of the way and were ignored.
Even though we were outside near a busy parking lot, when Donny and his team went through the sliding doors the world turned eerily quiet. I tried to fill the void with some care. Tugging at Billy’s sleeve where Levi’s bullet had entered, I said, “You need to see a doctor too.” Fresh blood rolled out under the cuff. “You need to get your arm looked at.”
He looked down at the hole and pulled away from me. “The bullet went up the back side of my arm. It feels like someone painted me with gas from my elbow to my shoulder then lit it. Hurts, but it isn’t bad.”
“You can’t know that without even seeing it.”
“If it was bad, I couldn’t do this.” He raised his arm straight up, then brought it down and flapped it like a chicken wing. It would have been funny if not for the hard set of his face. He walked toward the trauma room doors. “I’ll stay here with Donny and call the family. You get back to the scene. Get on top of finding Levi.”
“How do you suggest I do that?” I tried not to sound hurt. I ended up just sounding pissed off.
“He’s not going to want to keep driving that car. There’s a shady guy Levi works for sometimes. I’d check with E. Lawson.” The double door
s whooshed open. Billy walked through without looking back.
“Wait,” I called.
The doors closed.
I closed the tailgate on the SUV, then drove off without worrying about how Billy would get it back. I drove slowly. It wasn’t caution that kept my foot off the gas. It was the feeling of being behind on everything. There had not been any real investigation of Rose Sharon’s murder. There had been only reaction after reaction to shifting situations. The Sheriff’s Department was basically occupied by dealing with the press and ugly publicity, and controlling crime scenes. Billy was running his own thing and he wasn’t sharing. I had the feeling that I was in the woods holding a bag waiting for a snipe to show up. I needed to get proactive.
I pulled the vehicle off the road and dialed my cell.
“You know I can’t talk to you about my clients,” Landis Tau said by way of greeting. “Don’t even try.”
“I have news you might need to know.”
“Helping the other side? That’s not like you. Not like any cop that I know.”
“Donny Fisher has been shot. He’s in the trauma center, but it’s a dicey situation at best.”
For several moments there was silence from the other end of the line. I used the time to get back on the road.
“What happened?” Landis asked. The tone of his voice had changed. I imagined him tucking the handset under his ear and writing on a yellow legal pad. “Do you know who did it?”
“You know I can’t comment on an open investigation,” I said.
“You didn’t call simply to tell me about Donny.” He let the statement sit there, waiting for me to fill the space.
I didn’t.
“What do you want?” he asked when he gave up.
“Rose Sharon is not your client. Is that correct?”
“Correct—as far as it goes.”
“Can you be more of a lawyer?”
“She is not my client. But she can be considered part of the Fisher family where certain things overlap.”
“And the Fisher family wants them overlapping as much as possible,” I said. Then I corrected myself. “Sissy Fisher wants them overlapping.”
“Get to your point, Hurricane.”
“Is there any overlap with Levi Sharon?” I could almost hear gears turning in the quiet on the line.
“Sharon’s brother?” Landis finally asked. “Is he your suspect in Donny’s shooting?”
“I can’t comment on that,” I said, clearly and carefully.
“In the murder of Rose Sharon?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
“I understand.” His voice brightened. I thought for a moment Landis was going to chuckle. “So—neither of us can comment on our spheres of responsibility. What do you want from me?”
“Background. A little understanding.”
“So you called a lawyer? You must be desperate.”
“If I was desperate I’d be in a bar, not calling you. I’m more at a crossroads. I figure you can help me choose a path.”
“Why do you think I will?”
“Because you want me on a road that leads away from your clients. I want a few paths closed off.”
“Fair enough.”
“How did this happen?” I asked. “The girl being with the Fishers. The boy in the army.”
“Is that all?”
“There’s a conflict in there somewhere. Who’s mad at whom and where’s the money?”
“What money?”
“There’s always money,” I said. “And the girl was poised to make it big. Someone had to be left out in the cold.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but there’s no big secret.”
“Then there’s no problem with you sharing the story.” I took a sweeping turn. The back end of the truck slid just enough to remind me the roads were still slick in places.
“He was seventeen; she was ten. Their parents had been performers in Branson shows since they were kids themselves. They worked for Hosea Fisher.”
“What about Sissy?”
“What about her?”
“How did they know her?” I asked. “Hosea doesn’t strike me as the kind to take in strays without a little prodding.”
“Sissy was front-of-house manager for the same show. Donny and Rose were already performing together.”
“Let me guess. They were star attractions.”
“You probably saw the billboards,” Landis said. “They were all over Missouri and Arkansas. I hear there were even a few in Oklahoma.”
“You wouldn’t want to break that up.”
“Your cynicism is showing,” he said, sounding a bit of the same. “Right after Sissy married Hosea, the parents of Rose and Levi Sharon were killed in a hit-and-run.”
“What kind of hit-and-run?”
“They were on 160 just after the 176 cutoff, coming home late.”
“Drinking?”
He hesitated. When he spoke again it was a sad admission. “A little. It was their date night. Matthew Sharon was driving. There was no indication that drinking was a big part of the accident.”
“Why?”
“Because someone came out of a dirt road and slammed into their car. It flew off the road and through the fence and gate on the far side. There were no skid marks. Not from their car or the truck that hit them.”
“How do you know it was a truck?”
“The accident report said they were hit high up by something big. Their conclusion was a commercial truck.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then the Fishers took the girl in.”
“Why not Levi?”
“See?” Landis asked. “You’re getting that judgy sound to your voice again. Probably it was because he was a seventeen-year-old boy who already had an attitude and the problems to go with it.”
“Foster family?”
“Yes. If you consider Uncle Sam family.”
“He went right into the army? At seventeen?”
“He got caught logging someone else’s land. They worked out a plea deal where Levi was declared emancipated and allowed to join up.”
“Allowed?” I asked. I made sure my judgment came through in my voice that time.
“I understand it was his choice.”
“Choice requires options,” I said.
I got off the phone and concentrated on driving.
* * * *
The first thing I saw when I pulled up to the house where Levi had shot Donny was a flash of light. There were sheriff’s department cruisers and the coroner’s van there, so I wasn’t surprised. But it was a single flash, not the strobing of emergency lights, that had caught my eye. It took a moment for that fact to sink in and I started looking for the source as I parked on the road with my own lights on for safety.
Deputy Tom Dugan was standing by the taped-off patch of bloody snow. I saw him looking down at his phone. He pocketed it as I walked up the drive.
“Hey, Hurricane,” he called, then corrected himself. “Detective Williams.”
“Did Chuck Benson have a talk with you?”
“What about?”
“Give me your phone.” I put out my hand. For the first time I saw something more than simple inexperience in his eyes.
“Why?”
I shook my hand in answer. I kept my gaze on his eyes.
Tom smiled. It was an off-balance look, like he knew what muscles were involved but not the feelings behind the expression. “What if I say no?”
“Do you like your job?”
His smile melted into a straight line. His eyes flared, though. They challenged. When I didn’t look away or give in, Tom broke eye contact and looked at the ground. His foot dug into the snow and for a moment I thought he was either going to run or throw a tantrum.
He raised his head and pulled out the phone at the same time. The wound was obvious in his eyes even though he didn’t look right at me. “Whatever,” he said, slapping the phone into my hand.
“Unlock it,” I said. “And open up the picture gallery.”
He took it back and punched the code onto the screen. When it was open he showed it to me.
The gallery was empty. I grabbed the phone from him and tapped my way through the file system looking for pictures. There were none that I could find.
“Satisfied?” Tom asked. His tone suggested he was the only one satisfied, and pleased with the feeling.
“No,” I answered. I handed the phone back. “Keep it in your pocket. If I see it again, it won’t matter that the pictures aren’t there.”
“I see why they make you go to a shrink.”
I leaned in close and spoke low. “Keep that up. You’ll find out why I really go to therapy.”
A news van drove past my truck and stopped right in front of the house. It blocked the street. I pointed at the vehicle and said, “Get out there. Keep the street clear and people behind the tape.”
Deputy Dugan shoved his phone back into his pocket, then turned and walked. “Whatever you say, Hurricane,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear.
I didn’t call him on it. I was already walking around the house to go in the back door.
The house wasn’t much warmer inside than out.
There were trails of butcher paper laid down leading through the kitchen to the front room. Beside the kitchen door was a pair of boots I recognized as belonging to Bobbi Rantz.
“Bob!” I called.
“Living room!” She shouted her answer. “Stay on the paper.”
I did. Bob was kneeling beside the body of the young man I had seen before. Standing by the open front door and on a nest of paper was Deputy Calvin Walker. He was using a small digital camera to take photos.
“Not like that,” Bob told him. “Don’t worry about me or the body. These are for orientation only. Get straight on to the wall and shoot wide then move in and shoot the places I have marked.”
On two walls were yellow-and-black ruled strips that marked bullet holes and blood spatter.
A Killing Secret Page 7