Too Many Suspects

by E B Corbin

  “Stay here and keep down,” Callahan ordered as he joined Pete behind the largest crate in the area.

  Sure, I’ll just stay here like a sitting duck, Roxanne wanted to scream at him but she remained frozen in place, her fear taking over. She heard another shot and popped up to see slivers of the wooden crate fly next to Pete’s head. He ducked and pointed to a crate closer to the airplane. Callahan nodded and scrambled for it as Pete let go a volley of bullets for cover.

  Halfway to the second crate, Callahan stumbled and fell. Roxanne watched Pete take careful aim and fire three times in rapid succession: she held her breath to avoid crying out. Callahan didn’t move. She knew he needed help and eased the door open so she could slip out.

  Pete saw her coming and yelled, “Stay there! I think I hit the shooter with that last volley but I can’t be sure.”

  Roxanne rose high enough to see a body slumped at the top of the steps leading into the plane. “You did. Gordon’s down. I can see him from here. But Callahan’s been shot. I’m going to him.”

  “No!” Pete shouted. “It could be a trick! Stay back for a minute.”

  She hesitated as Pete reloaded his weapon, took careful aim at the figure just outside the jet’s door and fired three more times. Roxanne saw the bullets hit making the body jerk three times and decided the man was either dead or wounded enough to be no longer a threat. “Good shooting,” she called to Pete. “You hit him all three times. He’s incapacitated at the very least.”

  The sheriff nodded but kept his attention on the plane. The county cop groaned on the ground beside him. “I’ll go check on Callahan. You stay here with the wounded officer.”

  “No! I’ll go check on Callahan, you stay here.”

  Pete looked as if he wanted to argue but he waved her forward. Then he motioned for her to stop. “Hold on.”

  As they watched the door to the cabin, two men dressed in pilot uniforms appeared waving a white handkerchief. They heard one yell, “Don’t shoot! We’re not armed!”

  “Keep your hands up and take it slow,” Pete yelled back. The two men did as he said, carefully descending the stairs.

  “They’re not a threat,” Roxanne said as she rose to cut around the crate. “I’m going to Callahan.”

  Before Pete could stop her, she ran out on the runway. She zig-zagged as a precaution but headed for where Callahan remained motionless on the tarmac. Dropping to her knees in a pool of his blood, she touched his back as gently as her shaking hands could manage. Her panic ebbed somewhat when she saw the rise and fall of his chest. His breathing was erratic at best, but at least he was alive.

  Pete crept up next to her, keeping his gun aimed at the two pilots who stood stock-still at the bottom of the stairs built into the inside of the passenger door. “Stay here while I cuff them.”

  Roxanne nodded and kept her hand on Callahan. “Do what you need to do. Get some medical help here. I’ll stay with John.”

  “There’s an ambulance at the main terminal. They’re on their way.” Pete pocketed his phone and pulled out two zip ties. “Hang in there. Help will be here in no time.”

  When Pete left with the two pilots protesting they were innocent, Roxanne rested her head on Callahan’s back.

  “Don’t you die! You hear me?” she whispered. “Don’t you dare die!”

  - 31 -

  Roxanne strained to hear an ambulance, but silence hung over the runway like a blanket of dense fog. While the pool of blood spread at a slower rate, Callahan’s breathing became labored, and she scrambled to think of something she could do to help. She hesitated to move him onto his back, not certain if the change in position would ease the pressure on his wound or increase the blood loss.

  Her entire being concentrated on the man bleeding out in front of her. Dammit! Where was that ambulance? She lifted her head to scan the area and her heart skipped a beat when she saw Judge Walters slowly descending the airstairs. He held something in his hand and even though she tried to focus, she could not make it out.

  She knew it was futile before she cried, “Stay where you are!”

  The judge kept advancing towards her. He stopped a few feet away and lifted a handgun. “You seem to have more lives than a cat. But I’m afraid you’ve used them all up.”

  “What are you doing? You’ll never get away with it,” she said. “Pete knows the whole story and this plane will never leave the ground.”

  “Unfortunate, I must admit.” The judge tilted his head to the side as he lifted his shoulders. “That new sheriff is almost as meddlesome as Chester Callahan. That old man just wouldn’t leave things alone. He used his contacts to find out what the IRA was planning and almost uncovered my involvement. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Roxanne tried to make sense of his words. “What did you…”

  “I ordered his killing.” He seemed to draw pleasure from the horror that spread across her face. “At least those Irish imbeciles got something right.” Walters snorted. “Lucky for me. Everyone assumed he was shot while attempting to save you.”

  The revelation stunned her. All this time, she had blamed herself for Chester’s death. Hearing the truth lessened her guilt but intensified her anger. “You bastard! They didn’t follow me to the farmhouse that day. They came specifically to kill Chester!”

  A groan from Callahan caught the judge’s attention. “And now, I’m afraid I’ll have to dispatch his grandson myself. A pity. It’s so much easier to have someone do it for you.”

  “Whatever you’re planning, it won’t work. If you kill us, you’ll be hunted down and punished.”

  “Not necessarily. I’ll need to go with plan B and take my chances melding in with the majority of the elderly in this vast country until I can make other arrangements to reach South America. But I’ll get there, sooner or later.” The judge stood firm but a slight tremor in his limbs made the gun wobble.

  In a last ditch maneuver, Roxanne edged her right hand toward the pocket where she’d tucked her Beretta Tomcat. With only one bullet, she knew there was little possibility of stopping Walters. Her best option was to keep the conversation going until help arrived. Then she might not need her gun. “I don’t understand how someone in your position could throw it all away for a measly five million dollars.”

  His smile chilled her to the bone. “Added to what I managed to stockpile from other sources, it’s more than enough to last the rest of my life. Besides, one has to settle for what one can get.”

  Roxanne shrugged. “Seems to me you’ve lost more than you gained.”

  “Only if you like being chained to a wealthy demagogue. Appearances are oftentimes deceiving. I thought I already explained that to you.”

  “Getting a divorce seems easier than killing, stealing and running away.”

  The judge shook his head. “My dear, you have no idea how many hoops I’d need to jump through for a divorce. To say nothing of having a divorce attorney looking into my resources.”

  “And what about your children? Won’t you miss seeing them?” Roxanne knew she was grasping at straws to keep the dialogue flowing but she still didn’t sense the approach of a vehicle. And she didn’t dare turn her head to search the runway.

  “My children are greedy little upstarts.” Judge Walters took a step closer to where she knelt next to Callahan. “Enough of this chit-chat. It’s too bad you pooh-poohed the idea of your boyfriend being behind this whole mess. He was the perfect scapegoat.”

  In the distance, Roxanne heard a siren. Walters scanned the area for the source of the emergency sound. While his attention wandered, Roxanne used that split-second to pluck the gun from her pocket. Using both hands, she aimed at Walters’ chest.

  When the judge turned back to Roxanne and Callahan, his eyes widened. “My, my, we seem to have a problem. Can you shoot me before I put a bullet in the back of Mr. Callahan’s head?”


  “You can always drop your weapon and no one gets shot, including you.”

  The judge’s gaze shifted to the crate behind Roxanne and back to her face. “I’m afraid that’s not an option.”

  As he lifted his hand holding the gun, Roxanne fired her one bullet. She’d decided at the last moment that even though his chest was a bigger target, the bullet might take longer to incapacitate him. She needed an instant result which wouldn’t allow him to fire off a shot and hopefully her years of target practice so long ago had not been in vain.

  A small hole appeared in the middle of the judge’s forehead. He staggered slightly before his finger twitched on the trigger. The bullet thudded into the asphalt as he fell to the ground.

  When the paramedics arrived, they huddled near the crates mumbling among themselves. They stood paralyzed as they surveyed the scene before them.

  Roxanne signaled them then realized she still clutched the Beretta in her hand. She dropped the empty weapon on the tarmac and rose with her arms held high, averting her eyes from the judge’s collapsed figure as she pointed. “That one’s gone. This one needs immediate attention.”

  The paramedics glanced at one another. With a shrug, the taller one sprinted to Callahan, felt for a pulse in his neck and called to his partner. “We need to get this one to the hospital, asap. Check out the other one.”

  She reluctantly stepped away from Callahan as he was loaded into the ambulance and then watched it speed into the night. The minute it disappeared, she realized she should have climbed into the ambulance with him; she had been too numb to react.

  Alone with Judge Walter’s body, she put her head in her hands and took a deep breath while she waited for the aftershock to settle in.

  When Pete returned with backup from the South Fayette police, he found her slumped against a crate, staring into an abyss only she could see.

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later

  The golden retriever barked once when the rental car pulled out of the drive. Then Puka whimpered and came closer to Roxanne for a reassuring pat. With mixed feelings, she watched Roxy and Conor’s vehicle fade from sight.

  She sighed and turned to Callahan. “Well, that’s that.”

  “You’ll miss her.” Callahan failed to hide the twinge of pain he felt in his shoulder. Roxanne knew some days were better than others. He’d lucked out that Gordon’s bullet had gone through muscle mass and not bone in his shoulder but he still faced a long period of rehabilitation to bring his left arm and reflexes back to normal.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I might, but…it’s also a relief to be on my own again.” Roxy had certainly brought more color to her life but along with it, high drama and imminent danger. Roxanne was tired of the constant stress.

  “I hope that doesn’t apply to me. I still need your help,” he told her. He grimaced for emphasis. “You aren’t going to leave, too, are you?”

  She knew he would soon be completely healed. What would happen then? The lyrics of an old song she’d heard on the radio that morning ran through her head. Will you still love me, tomorrow? She wanted to ask, but was afraid of the answer. Instead, she avoided the topic. “I’m here until you get tired of me.”

  “Hey, I’m going to need you for a long, long time. I was seriously injured. If the paramedics hadn’t shown up when they did, I could have bled out on the tarmac.”

  “I know. I’ll never forget that night.” She shuddered, then drew in a deep breath. “But it seems to be getting better every day, doesn’t it?”

  “Especially when I do this.” He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, easing his left arm around her shoulder. Then he kissed her. “Thanks for staying with me while I recuperate.”

  “Don’t be silly, I couldn’t let you fend for yourself. You could barely hold a glass of water when they first released you.” She drew back slightly, not wanting to break the moment but afraid to assume too much. “How long do you want me here?”

  He shrugged. “As long as you like.”

  She didn’t know the answer to that. She’d grown accustomed to making the trip from the farmhouse to the office every day. Sometimes Callahan went with her. They were preparing the empty office for when he joined them full time. He’d made a commitment to Sylvia to start May 1st but he never made a commitment to Roxanne.

  Though they lived like a couple, eating dinner together and making love almost every night, nothing was said about the long-term. Roxanne wondered what his thoughts were but she didn’t want to put any pressure on him. Either he wanted her to stay indefinitely or he wanted to be free to move forward without any obligations. That was something else they never talked about.

  She vowed to get things cleared up between them before she fell so deeply in love she never wanted to leave. “So, what are your plans when you’re healed?”

  He took her hand and led her to the sofa. “You know my plans. I’m going to start working with you and Sylvia in two weeks as soon as I’m cleared by the docs at the medical center.”

  “Don’t you have any paperwork to file or finish up?”

  “Tiffany took care of all that. The big boss decided that I’m too close to the case to have my name all over the indictments for Pearse and Seamus.”

  “What about Ron?” While her mother was around, Roxanne had deliberately avoided bringing up the subject of the mole in the agency. She knew Roxy would blow her stack if she found out that Ron, an agent they had all trusted, had supplied the IRA with inside information.

  “He’s no longer with the DSS.” Callahan shook his head. “I still have a hard time getting a handle on it. I trusted the fucker.”

  “He fooled us all.” Roxanne ran her hand up and down his arm. “But I guess in the end, no irreparable harm was done.”

  “The bastard betrayed us.” Unthinkingly, he flung out his left arm in anger until a spasm in his shoulder made him grimace. He clutched his wounded limb. “Christ!”

  “Sit down and rest,” Roxanne ordered. “It won’t do any good for you to undermine weeks of rehab in a moment of anger.”

  “You’re right.” He pulled her down with him onto the sofa. “Now that Roxy isn’t living next door and won’t pop in on us at random, we can have some alone time.”

  “Maybe… or maybe I should move into the cabin. I’d still be close enough if you need help.” She avoided the look in his eyes.

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Well, I won’t force you to stay.”

  Her gut twisted at his words. She longed to know if he cared for her even half as much as she cared for him. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—ask. “I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

  He took her chin to turn her head to him. “I want you forever.”

  “Are you sure? That’s a long time. What if we get tired of one another? Working together, living together, it can wear on a person.”

  Callahan ran his fingers down her cheek. “We’ll figure it out as we go. I love you. There’s nothing we can’t work out.”

  The air went still as she sat beside him in the parlor. Maybe there was no way to avoid a certain amount of risk, not when emotions were involved.

  A single word was all it took, but getting it out was like drawing water from the bottom of a deep well.

  “Okay,” she breathed.

  Thank You to All

  Thanks so much for reading the third book in the Roxanne Boudreaux trilogy. I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven’t read the first two books, Too Many Secrets and Too Many Secrets, they are available at Amazon.com.

  If you would kindly take a minute to leave a review at Amazon.com, it would be greatly appreciated. Reviews are important to an author and I thank you in advance for your opinion of the book.

  You can let me know what you think of this book and leave co
mments about anything on your mind, or just say “hi” at the following places:

  Email me at edanacorbin@gmail.com

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  Your comments and reviews are taken seriously. I would love to hear from you!

  EB Corbin (Edana Corbin)

  Watch for the upcoming adventures of Sam and Henry

  coming in 2019!