It was past eleven p.m. when they reached Rudge’s place, a brown ranch house on a half acre of land, roughly separated from the neighboring lots by stands of slash pine. The Taurus was in the driveway, and Jenner saw the light of a television flickering in the living room.
Deb leaned against her car.
“You need me, Jenner?”
He shook his head and smiled. “I’m good. Thanks for getting me here.”
“Where are you staying tonight?”
Jenner rubbed his face wearily. “I guess I’ll find a hotel.”
“You can stay with me, if you want. I have an empty room—take me a second to air it out, put out some towels and such for you.”
“You feel like rescuing someone?”
She shrugged. “You seem like a guy who could use a little rescuing.”
He smiled. “I think the hotel’s a better idea. And the county can pay.”
She hooted. “Yeah, boy—good luck with that!”
He stepped over to her and pecked her on the cheek, smiling. “Fuck ’em—I think I’m now officially sicker of Douglas County than it is of me.”
“Awww…” Deb made a sad face and hugged him gently, her hands on his waist to avoid his wounds. “I’ll call tomorrow, check in on you. Say hi to Rudge from me, eh?”
He walked up the driveway and stepped onto the path. She called over to him, “Hey, Jenner! The Gulf Breeze over on the bay will give you a government rate.”
“Thanks.”
He was nearing the porch when she called out to him again. “Jenner? My offer still stands, okay?”
Jenner waved, then stepped up onto Rudge’s front deck. He watched Deb climb back into her Miata, pull a tight three-point turn, then roar off down the road.
He pushed the doorbell, heard the buzzer inside, and waited.
There was a pair of dark wicker rocking chairs on the porch; it looked like a nice place to sit and do whatever people did around there when sitting on their porches. Drink ice tea, he imagined. Lemonade.
Then he thought of Rudge, and thought: Whiskey.
After a little while he grew impatient; he pressed the button again and stepped back. The blinds were drawn; the living room lights were on low, and the TV was flashing dry white and blue-gray shadows onto the blinds.
Jenner opened the screen door and tapped on the frame.
“Rudge! It’s Jenner.”
He could hear the TV, but there was no sound of movement inside. No scurrying from the kitchen, no hurried flush of a toilet.
Jenner noticed a light switch next to the doorway and flicked it. Nothing. He flicked it up and down again; looking up, he saw that the socket of the porch light was empty.
Then he saw a bulb resting neatly on the wooden deck railing. He picked up the bulb, and, curious, shook it; the bulb was good.
He reached up, screwed it into the slot; the bulb flickered and came on brightly, dazzling him slightly.
Jenner walked along the deck and tapped at the big living-room window. He pressed his ear to the glass; he heard nothing beyond the TV set.
Something wasn’t right.
He moved quickly now, back to the door, and tapped again. He waited a second, reached down to the door knob, turned it, and pushed gently; the door swung open.
The air inside was thick and stale, smelling of smoke and dry metal. And swimming beneath that, Jenner caught the copper whiff of blood.
He pushed the door wide-open.
“Rudge.” He realized he wasn’t even raising his voice; he already knew.
He stepped inside the house.
The living room was to his right, much of the space taken up by a bulky rear-projection TV set, a good eight or nine years old. Humphrey Bogart was onscreen; Treasure of the Sierra Madre had just begun.
There was an ugly dark wicker sofa with cushions upholstered in a bright tropical pattern, and a pair of matching ugly chairs like the ones out on the porch. The floors were bare white tile, except where the blood had pooled.
Rudge lay sprawled in a recliner directly opposite the TV set, tilted back, legs comfortably supported by the leg rest. The bullet had entered his temple by the orbit of his right eye; it had gone through his head, exited the back, and embedded in the wall, a gray hole surrounded by an ugly red sunburst of blood and blown-out tissue.
His body had slumped to the right; heavy bleeding from the entrance wound had caked the right side of his face, the drying blood puddling in his lap around his right hand, which still held the revolver, and dripping onto the floor to flow across the tile to his feet. The steady dripping had spattered tiny droplets over the TV remote at the base of the chair.
On the table beside the chair was a line of empty Budweiser cans, a near-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, and a neat row of shot glasses; one of the shot glasses had five unfired cartridges pushed into it, bullet tips down, submerged in amber liquid.
Jenner glanced around the room. It was pretty much what he’d have expected. One wall was taken up by bookshelves filled with several hundred DVDs and a small library of film books. On the bookshelves, there were trophies, too, plaques and certificates for valorous service, stacked rather than displayed.
In the kitchen, there were more empties stacked by the sink, mostly beer, but liquor too.
Jenner saw the phone on a coffee table in front of one of the ugly chairs. He sat down and dialed 911. He identified himself, reported the death, indicated that the decedent was a police officer. He didn’t know the address, just that he was in Golden Palms, but the dispatcher said they had 911 call-location software, and officers would be responding immediately; he should just wait with the body.