23

 

 

I left the doctor in charge and went to check on my two suspects. It was still pandemonium outside. By some miracle nobody had been hit by any of the flying metal, but the shock was enough to have sent ordinary civilians into panic. There was still a lot of screaming and weeping. One man was saying to a woman, "Yes, but you don't know you're all right until you've been to see a doctor. Don't keep saying it. We're gonna sue." 

I trotted down the steps and out to the back of the shed. It was lit bright as day by the flames from the chopper. The local fire department hadn't arrived yet, wouldn't get there in time to save anything. Meanwhile a group of the tougher patrons of the motel had gathered around my two prisoners. They were angry, remembering their recent fear, ready to punish. They would have been touble if I hadn't had Sam along. 

I'd left him in charge when I went to look after Gallagher, and he was my salvation. He was standing over the two men on the ground, but turning as needed to keep the onlookers back a respectful distance from them. 

I walked up to him and fussed him and told him "Good boy," then I unfastened the cuff around the injured man's wrist. Kinsella pulled his hand away eagerly, ready to run now he had his wind and his control back, but I told him, "Forget it. My dog would eat you," and cuffed his hands together behind him. 

He swore, but softly, and I examined the other guy. My Marine snap-shooting practice had stood me in good stead. I'd hit him in the arm and the leg. Neither one alone was a stopping shot, especially with Sallinon's popgun, but the pain had frightened him. 

"You'll be fine. We'll get you to the hospital right away," I told him. I told Sam "Easy" and called to the crowd, "I need somebody to help get this guy inside." 

There was the usual twenty-second silence and then three men came forward at once. I tapped the first one on the shoulder. "You. Get this guy's arm over your shoulder." 

We crouched and each took an arm. I took the wounded side and the man groaned when I touched him. "Okay. Up," I said, and we lifted him and walked him to the motel, his feet dragging two scuffs in the gravel. Over my shoulder I told the other two, "Bring the prisoner in, and don't try to hurt him." 

Immediately everybody in the crowd volunteered. They all crowded around Kinsella and jostled him after us. One of them said, "Hey, it's the chopper pilot. What'd you do, guy?" 

I took them both into the room where I'd left Gallagher. The doctor was still working on him, but looked up when we came in. "Lay the injured one down there," he said, pointing to the rug. "Give him a pillow." 

We did, then I sat Kinsella on the floor beside him. He looked at me sadly. "Why'd it have to be this way? We could've been on the same side like we were in Viet Nam." 

"That was before you set me up to get greased," I told him.

"I saved your ass, didn't I?" he protested. "I could've left you dangling there, but I didn't. And now I'm in this mess."

"Just cooperate and I'll do what I can for you at the trial," I promised.

The doctor finished with Gallagher, tying the pad over his wound, covered him with a blanket, and knelt beside the casualty. He looked up at me. "Did you do this to him?" 

"After he did that." I nodded at Gallagher, who was trying to grin.

The doctor shook his head. "You sure know how to stop people," he said, and suddenly Kinsella brayed with angry laughter.

"There's nobody around like an ex-grunt for stopping people," he said savagely. "I'll bet he was a real cowboy in Nam."

"I made it through," I said. "That's all. Just a whole bunch of days of not getting killed. I was hit, but they didn't kill me." His laugh and comment had angered me. Already I was tasting the cold bile of violence, the sick knowledge that you've hurt somebody, possibly permanently. The older I get, the harder it is to take, but I've never managed to find any other way of earning my keep. I guess I'm one of nature's soldier ants. It's my function to protect society, to fight while others work. I wish I could get used to it. 

I turned to Gallagher. His eyes were closed, but he opened them and blinked wearily. "Listen, how good is your sergeant, can he untangle all this crap?" I asked. 

He shook his head. "I think he'd be over his head. Better call the OPP investigation unit. Tell them what happened, have them send some guys down the station to take care of things until I get out and about again." 

"Will do. You rest." I patted his shoulder and went over to the telephone.

While I was phoning, the ambulance arrived and the other police car with Jackaman and their last remaining constable. Them, plus the wagon train of reporters we had left behind us. Jackaman supervised loading the two casualties into the ambulance and then waited respectfully for me to get off the phone. I did, and told him what the chief's instructions had been. He sighed. This had been his chance for glory and now it was gone. 

"The chief thinks it's such a mess he needs an outside investigation, so none of the mud sticks to the department. That's why he wants the provincial police," I explained, and he brightened a little. 

"Okay, if that's the reason. But I could've handled it."

I soothed him down and he offered me a ride back to Olympia, but I refused. "My own car is here, I'd rather take it back, I'll need it tomorrow." 

He stood, lifting his cap off and scratching his scalp with the fingers of the same hand. "Can I ask you for one favor?"

"Of course." There's nothing like winning it all to bring out the generosity in a man.

"Well, we still haven't printed that garage where Sallinon was murdered. I need the scene protected until tomorrow. Can you put your dog in charge? Our guy goes off duty at midnight. He's got to double up anyway." Before I could answer he rushed on. "I'm having to bring him in to take over in the station and we don't have a spare man for the crime scene. I want to get it printed, I think it's not connected with these other killings." 

"All right. I'll go by the place and put Sam in charge, and drive your man back to the station," I promised. After which, I thought, I'd make my statement to the OPP and head back to the motel to fall into bed. 

I drove back down the highway at normal speed. There is only one radio station within range of Olympia and it plays nothing but rock. At night you can pick up other stations, but they float in and out so I switched off and just followed my headlights down to the turnoff. 

The young constable was sitting sullenly on the workbench in Sallinon's garage. He brightened when I gave him the sergeant's instructions. I installed Sam and told him "Keep." Then I drove the kid down to the station. 

Jackaman was there, talking to the lawyer who had finally arrived from Thunder Bay to represent Tettlinger. He told him about the upcoming investigation, gave him a few minutes with Tettlinger, and sat him down to wait for the OPP to start questioning his client. Me he took through to the chief's office and fed coffee. 

I should have waited for the OPP to arrive, but I was too tired. Instead I made a statement, using the station tape recorder, setting out all the events as Gallagher and I had deduced them before: the phony killing of Prudhomme, the evidence Eleanor had given me, our suspicions that Prudhomme had staged the whole event to profit from his knowledge of the ore body, our belief that the Mob was involved and had started wiping one another out—everything. 

Jackaman listened without comment, and when I'd finished he switched off the recorder and said, "Now I'm glad the chief asked the OPP to take over. This is more than just a shooting." 

"A whole lot more," I told him. "And now I'm quitting. Tell the OPP I'll be back at nine tomorrow to answer their questions. Right now I'm going home. Three guys have taken shots at me tonight and I want to rest up." 

He thanked me and showed me out past the angry lawyer— a junior partner, I judged, pale faced and restless on the station bench. Outside the reporters crowded around me, shoving tape recorders in my face, but I smiled and waved them all away. It wasn't until I was sitting in my car that I realized I hadn't surrendered Sallinon's pistol. I debated going back inside, but weariness won out and I started the car and drove off. 

I still had my motel key to the outer door so I let myself in and went along to unit four. There was a note taped to the door and I stood close and read it. "Heard the news. It's safe. Have gone home." It was signed with four kisses, no name. 

I took it down and went back to the car, wearier than ever. Twice in the mile drive to Alice's house I almost went off the road as my eyelids drooped, but I made it and pulled in gratefully beside her house. There were no lights on, which didn't surprise me, it was after one a.m. I closed the door quietly and went to the side entrance. It was unlocked and I let myself in. 

The warmth of the stove greeted me like a blessing and I eased my shoulders back and called out softly, "Hello." And then every nerve in my body blazed alive as I heard a soft whimper out of the darkness. 

I dropped to one knee and edged away from the door, feeling in my pocket for Sallinon's gun. I called out, "Are you all right?" and rolled silently sideways toward the stove, away from the direction from which the whimper had come. I found the stove by its heat and crouched behind it and suddenly the room was bright with light from the big central chandelier. 

A man was standing at the top of the stairs, holding Alice by the hair. He was wearing a ski mask and he had a bowie knife in his right hand. He spoke softly. "Drop the gun or she dies." I did as he said and he added, "Good, kick it away from you." I did that too, and while his eyes followed it I made another move, invisible to him. I pulled out the box of .22 shells I had taken from Sallinon's desk and set it on top of the stove. Then I stood up straight, looking at him. 

"Who are you?"

He didn't answer. Still holding Alice, he came down the stairs one at a time, keeping her in front of him, his knife at her throat. "Look, she doesn't have any money," I said. "I'm carrying a real wad, let go of her and you can have it." 

"I'll have it anyway," he said. He was tall and by the look of him fair skinned, a blonde. This wasn't Laval, and I had thought he was the only wild card left in the deck. 

The man came down further and I closed in, not near enough to scare him but ready to move if he cut her. If he did he would die. I'd made up my mind about that. 

"You must be Bennett," he said.

"That's right. What's your name?" I didn't care. All I cared about was his knife, but I wanted him off guard. Talk can do that, if you're careful. 

"You don't need to know," he sneered. He reached the bottom of the stairs and edged around to his left, toward the dropped gun. "You won't live long enough to have it matter," he said. 

I could smell thick smoke of burning cardboard behind me and knew my moment was almost here. He sniffed the air like a deer in the presence of wolves, but kept edging toward the gun. When it was at his feet he shoved Alice away from him and picked it up. Alice got to her feet and ran toward me but I threw her aside onto the couch. He raised the gun toward me and in the same instant the bullets on the stove began to cook off with the rapid crackle of automatic weapon fire. 

He froze. I used the single moment to dive headlong into his diaphragm. He went down like a tree and I knelt up on him and smashed him back and forth across the face with my elbow, back and forth more times than I needed until he lay still, eyes rolled up, broken jaw sagging open against the wool of his bloody ski mask. 

I turned to Alice. She was lying on the couch, weeping helplessly. "Did he attack you?" I knew the signs. She was traumatized almost out of her mind. But she shook her head. 

"Who is he? Do you know him?" I was intense enough to grab her and shake the information loose.

"Oh Reid," she sobbed. "Oh Reid. I thought he was dead. It's Ivan. My husband."