Another Man's Ground--A Mystery, page 14
“I know that ain’t what the Bible says, but I do,” she said. “He’s always got horrible music playing, he don’t got no housekeepin’ skills, and he’s mean as a constipated goat.”
Sam asked when she’d last seen Bunning. She wrinkled her nose in thought—or maybe distaste—and said it had been about two and a half weeks ago. She hadn’t seen the dog since then, either.
“That poor little thing. I don’t know how such an awful man coulda had such a nice dog. He left her outside too much. I’d feed her some, when he weren’t home.”
They listened to another several minutes’ worth of Ned Bunning’s failings, then carried her groceries into the house.
“So he must have taken the dog with him,” Sam said as they walked back out to their cars. “Or got himself murdered, and the dog’s disappeared who knows where.”
Hank nodded. “See if Bunning has anything like a locker at his seasonal job that his employer would let us into. It might have something in it we could get DNA off of. I’d love to know if he’s our Rotten Doe.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Sam said. “But DNA takes a while, and…”
Hank grinned. “And you want those fingerprints to get put to use right now, don’t you?”
Sam nodded eagerly. Hank leaned against his open car door and thought for a moment.
“Okay, there’s an argument to be made that possible homicide evidence at the Taylor property could disappear during the time we’re waiting for DNA results. If Kurt does definitely match Lloyd to those prints on the door, that should be enough to get a judge to give us a search warrant.”
Sam beamed. Hank started to get behind the wheel, then stopped.
“And good job,” he said. “That was a really nice piece of detective work.”
Sam’s smile doubled in size.
“Now go home,” Hank ordered with a smile. “Tomorrow’s looking like it’s going to be a busy day.”
CHAPTER
19
Now that he was actually on the property, Hank realized that the place not only looked like shit, it smelled like it, too.
“Oh, my God. What is that?” Sam gagged from behind him.
Ted Pimental pointed to the left, past the rusted-out engine block, to a pile of lumber and trash and beyond it a ramshackle shed semi-screened by trees.
“I think it’s coming from over there.”
Ted was one of the winners of the tagalong competition. Every deputy on duty, and two on their days off, wanted to come. A county judge had quickly approved the search warrant once the computer confirmed Kurt’s visual match of Lloyd’s criminal-record fingerprints and the ones lifted off Bunning’s doorframe. And everyone was as giddy as Sam. They’d never been able to secure a warrant for the Taylor place before, and the whole department was itching to get on the property. That had resulted in a free-for-all argument that morning—with the two off-duty guys chiming in by phone—that stopped only when Hank cut up his leftover Whipstitch Diner straws and made everyone draw one. The three shortest got to come. He couldn’t justify using any more manpower than that. Pimental and Doug Gabler had picked the first two. Sam had drawn the third. Sheila had growled and stomped back to her office.
He wished she were here. Those three were fine—Sam especially was shaping up very nicely—but no one could match Sheila’s observational skills. Or her attitude. Which he had come to appreciate more and more the further into this job he got. He’d never been in a position before where people just did what he told them to, and he was finding that it had its drawbacks. Having someone who questioned him, prodded him, and made him get his own coffee was turning out to be a good thing.
The smell faded a bit as they made their way to the mobile home on the right. Gabler had stayed in a squad car, parked to block escape via the dirt driveway. The other two were uniformed and Hank had his badge clearly displayed on his shirt. He pulled the search warrant out of his back pocket and loudly announced their presence.
They’d taken only a few more steps when a crash came from the far side of the mobile home. With a whoop, Sam took off around one side, and Ted took off around the other, following after the person now stumbling noisily through the dense undergrowth behind the trailer. Hank stayed out front. He wanted to see who was behind the curtain in the front window that had just twitched and then fallen back in place.
He switched the warrant to his left hand and dropped his right one down to rest on his Glock. He climbed the cinder-block stairs, gave the flimsy door a quick pounding that left indentions in the metal, then hopped down and waited. After sixty seconds, he identified himself again—loudly. After sixty more, he drew his gun. Time was always very distinct for him in situations like this. He knew exactly how much was passing, and exactly how long he was going to give the reluctant recipient of his warrant.
At two minutes and twelve seconds, he moved a broken ax handle away from the door and tossed it out of reach. Then he made sure he was in view of the curtained window and raised his gun. There was a shuffling sound and the door swung slowly open. This Taylor was as thin and surly as Lloyd, but older. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and lines were starting to pull down the corners of his mouth. His widow’s peak was barely visible on his shaved head. That was about all the skin Hank could see. Everything else was covered with tattoos. Mostly standard black single-hue ones, with a few mixed in that looked like the same drunken pen-ink designs Lloyd sported. They must have an artist in the family, Hank thought. And he might have been halfway sober when he did the spider that took up most of this Taylor’s chest, with legs stretching up onto his neck and down into the ratty boxers that hung at his waist.
“Come outside,” Hank said.
This Taylor scowled and didn’t move. Hank trained the Glock on the middle of the spider. Its owner growled and stepped down the cinder blocks and onto the dirt.
“I wanna get dressed. I know my rights.” It sounded like he hadn’t used his voice in a while.
“No. You have no right to a pair of pants. Not at the moment.” He moved back a step as the smell of unwashed Taylor hit him. “Is there anybody else in the house?”
Taylor smirked at his backtrack. Hank didn’t care. The guy stunk. He waved to Doug Gabler, who got out of the squad car and jogged down the dirt driveway to gleefully cuff whichever Taylor this was. None of their rap sheets listed a spider tat like that, so it must be relatively new. Hank needed to find something old enough to have been added to the descriptions in the law-enforcement database. He took a look at Spidey’s calves. The left one didn’t have a tattoo of a fist with its middle finger up, so it wasn’t Jackson Taylor, the oldest brother. And the right calf didn’t have a Gothic cross stretching from knee to ankle, so it wasn’t third-oldest Boone Taylor, who ironically was rumored to be the meanest of the bunch.
That meant the gentleman currently hocking a loogie at him must be the second of the four Taylor brothers. “Hello, Leroy,” Hank said as Gabler backed him away and made him sit cross-legged on the ground. That did not help the fit of Leroy’s boxers. Hank averted his eyes as he suggested Gabler put him in the back of the cruiser until they’d made sure there was no one else in the trailer.
He climbed the cinder blocks again and stepped inside. He should have brought one of those respirator things that Alice and Kurt used. Years of BO accumulation, stale pot smoke, and uncleaned toilets made him gag. The only thing that made it the least bit bearable was the cross breeze created by the other open door on the opposite side of the trailer. He glanced out that way but saw no sign of Sam or Ted Pimental.
Gabler joined him and they quickly went through the double-wide. They confirmed that no one else was there and fled outside. When Hank had finished choking, he promised Doug that they’d get respirators before going back in to inventory the contents. They were both still gulping in fresh air when the shooting started.
* * *
They froze. Hank spun toward the squad car, but the back doors were still closed, and through the window, Leroy looked as shocked as they were. He spun again, trying to pin down where the shots were coming from as the reports echoed around the clearing.
The next volley was followed by Sam’s voice, yelling incoherently. Hank and Doug bolted for the trees in back of the trailer, both of them drawing their guns as they crashed through the line of bushes that separated the woods from the clearing. Once past it, Gabler turned on speed Hank didn’t know he had, racing past him and into the gloom of the untended forest in front of them.
Sam’s yelling grew more distinct as he got closer. Then he heard an explosion of swear words from Doug. Hank didn’t think he could’ve run any faster, but he did. He breached the last screen of trees between him and his deputies and skidded to a stop. Ted Pimental lay on his back, drenched in blood.
Sam knelt over his legs, his hands around the middle of Ted’s thigh. He was yelling something about an artery. Hank dropped to his knees and scrambled forward as he undid his belt. He wrapped it around Ted’s leg above the wound and cinched. Tight.
The gush of blood began to slow. Hank fell back and looked at Ted’s face, which had lost all color. They elevated his leg so that his ankle rested on Sam’s shoulder. Sam shifted and readjusted his grip on Ted’s thigh as Hank yanked the radio mic off Sam’s other shoulder.
“Deputy down. Deputy down. All units. Hogsback Hollow. Shooter at large. Ambulance needed. Repeat, deputy down.”
He turned to Sam, who was starting to shake as he continued to press down on Pimental’s wound.
“Which one was it?”
Sam stared at him blankly. Hank put his face directly in front of him and repeated the question, more loudly than he probably should have.
“Which brother was it?”
Sam blinked. “I don’t know. Average height, blond hair … tank top and shorts … jean shorts. I didn’t get a look at his face.”
Hank turned back to the radio and issued the BOLO, listing the suspect description and repeating the location. Then he looked at Ted again. He was turning gray. “And get that bus out here now. We need medical assistance immediately.”
He dropped Sam’s radio and stood. Where the hell was Gabler? And where the hell was his gun? He spun back toward the screen of trees and saw it lying in the dirt. He must have dropped it when he saw Pimental. Definitely not a pro move. He was getting angrier and angrier at himself every second. He picked it up and shoved it in his holster just as Gabler came huffing back from the other direction.
“I lost him,” he puffed. “Never saw him, but I heard him crashing around ahead of me. He was headed toward Bear Creek. He had too much of a head start, though.”
Hank nodded. “I need you to get back up to the road and show the paramedics the way back here. I don’t want to move Ted until they get here.”
Doug turned and looked at his friend, who was going from gray to almost translucent. His face hardened and he took off toward the trailer where it had all started.
Hank picked up the radio again and started issuing orders. Roadblocks. Mutual aid. Highway patrol. Regional fugitive task force. He would have called in Air Force bombers if he could have.
Finally, after a string of minutes so long Ted could have died twice, he heard the sirens and then the shouts and thudding footsteps as the paramedics rushed through the woods toward them. They gently eased Sam away, checked Ted’s vitals and the tourniquet, and lifted him onto a gurney. The wheels were no good on the forest floor, so they carried him out without putting the legs down. Thank God for strong young backs, Hank thought as he followed their brisk trot.
They didn’t stop, sliding the gurney into the ambulance in one smooth motion and leaping in behind it. He watched the doors swing shut and the rig peel away down the dirt driveway. There was only one thing he could do to help now. He reached for his cell.
Maggie picked up immediately. She didn’t say hello.
“I know. We’re getting ready for him now. I’m going to take care of him, honey. We’re going to do everything we can.”
Hank couldn’t speak. Maggie waited a moment and then continued when he didn’t say anything. “Hank? Honey? I’m going to do my job. You go do yours. You get this son of a bitch, okay?” There were sounds of commotion in the background. “I gotta go. And Hank—be careful, babe.”
She ended the call. Hank put the phone back in his pocket, closed his eyes, and took a breath so deep it felt like it reached his toes. When he opened them, Sam was standing in front of him. His uniform pants were soaked with blood, and spots of it covered his shirt where he’d held up Pimental’s leg. Someone had given him a rag and he’d cleaned off his hands but not his face. What was there had streaked down his cheeks from tears he was trying to hold back. He looked like a ghastly Halloween decoration.
Hank stepped up to him. He had to get a grip on things, because the poor Pup was about to lose his.
“Sammy? Sammy, it’s going to be okay. Ted’s in good hands now. They’re going to do everything they can.”
He steered his deputy toward a Branson PD squad car parked near the trailer. The officer hurried to open the passenger door, and Hank sat Sam down in the full blast of the air conditioner. The officer pulled his own bottle of water out of the console and pressed it into Sam’s hands. Sam stared at it as Hank pulled the burly blond Branson guy away from the car.
“Thanks for coming out here,” he said.
“Hell, yeah,” said Officer G. Fesse, according to his nameplate. “I just started my shift when I heard it on the scanner. I radioed in and they told me to get straight out here.”
“How long do I get you for?”
“As long as you need me. My department is sending more your way. So’s Forsyth PD. They’re helping man the roadblocks until the highway patrol gets out here to assist.”
Good. Thank God for emergency protocols.
He glanced over at Sam, who thankfully was drinking the water and looking slightly more alert. He dug his phone out of his pocket again and called Sheila.
She also picked up immediately. “Don’t bother me. I’m coordinating.” The line went dead. It rang back two seconds later.
“Who was it?”
“Ted.”
“Shit,” she said, and hung up again.
CHAPTER
20
Sam was still sitting immobile in the Branson PD cruiser, his eyes glazed with tears and his white knuckles strangling the plastic water bottle. Hank knelt down so they were face-to-face. “Sam?”
“I’ve been to his kids’ birthday parties. Ava just turned ten. He got her a phone. With a Doctor Who case. They love Doctor Who.” He turned his head toward Hank. “Who’s going to watch it with her now?”
There was no time for this. No time to sit and think and worry. Only to act.
“Sammy, I need your help. He hasn’t shown up at any of the roadblocks. So he’s still out there. You’re the only one here right now who can track him. The state conservation agent can’t get here for another hour. You’re a hunter. You’ve tracked all kinds of animals. We need your experience.
“We need to go into the woods.”
Sam looked down at his blood-soaked pants. “I was in the woods.”
He stared at Hank. A tear on his cheek rolled slowly down, cutting the smear of blood on his jaw in half. It dropped onto his collar, adding a pale red splash to the rest of his stains. Hank forced himself to wait.
It was the worst possible thing he could do to Sam right now—make him go back to the scene. He should be sending him home so he could take a nice hot shower and call his mother. How hard could it be, to follow the trail made by a man who’d bulldozed through the woods at a full run? Even a city idiot like him should be able to do it.
But if he couldn’t, the chance would be lost. And that would be more costly than the price he was about to ask Sam to pay.
“And now we have to go back in the woods, Sam. We have to track the man who shot Ted. Do you understand me? We have to go.”
Sam’s head moved—the slightest of gestures. Hank saw it and focused on the ground so he wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.
“Get out of the car, Sam.”
The plastic bottle slowly crackled into shapelessness. Sam swung his big feet out of the squad car and stood up. He didn’t meet Hank’s gaze either, just turned and plodded back toward the trees. Hank waved Doug Gabler over, told him to get his twelve-gauge out of his squad car and follow Sam. He turned back to find G. Fesse getting his own shotgun out of his Branson PD cruiser.
“I went to school with Ted,” he said. “Our moms still go to River Baptist together. I’m coming with you.”
Hank nodded and pointed to the gun. “Grab mine out of my car for me. And I want four more guys. Everyone else stays here. I want this place torn apart.”
“Gladly.” Fesse strode off.
Five minutes later, the group—bristling with firearms—plowed into the woods. When they caught up with Sam, just beyond where Ted had been shot, a dumpy, balding officer in a Branson uniform who looked like he should have taken a medical retirement years ago stepped to the front of the line of men and stopped. He scanned everyone’s faces and muttered something profane. Hank, who was with Sam at the head of the group, started to protest at the delay.
“Shut it, kid,” he said. “All you assholes are too young. So you’d better listen good. This is how it’s going to work. You”—he pointed to Gabler—“are going to run point. That means your job is to protect the scout. You”—this time his finger jabbed toward Fesse—“you bring up the rear. This bastard could be anywhere.”
Hank shot Fesse a look. What the hell is this? Fesse patted the air. Calm down. He fell in next to Hank as the line, cowed into silence by the Commando, filed forward on high alert.
“He’s a Vietnam vet,” Fesse whispered. “Led raiding parties into the jungle. I don’t know much about it, but I do know he always came out. Never even got injured. He might have let himself go since then, but in this particular kind of situation, he knows what he’s doing.”
