35

Mars slapped the magnetic flasher on the dash. Once on Interstate 35, his speedometer registered eighty-five miles per hour. He held his cell phone in one hand, punching Nettie’s cell phone number as he drove. There was no answer. That worried him until he remembered that Nettie had tossed her purse into the trunk.

Gunner sat in the backseat, oddly calm. It was pretty obvious that in Gunner’s mind, Mars was finally doing what needed to be done.

Mars had just turned onto Highway 169 when his cell phone rang. A state patrol dispatcher said, “Just wanted you to know we’ve completed a patrol on Interstate 35 to State 60. No vehicle matching your description there. We’re going to go north from Mankato on 169 and see what turns up…”

Mars struggled to keep his voice level. “It would have been better if you’d covered 169 first, driving south—I’m pretty sure that’s the route they’d be taking. Don’t you have two patrols you can get out on this?”

“Sorry. We’re doing the best we can. We’re down three patrol cars in this district since the budget cuts. I had to assign a vehicle based on where we had a patrol available…”

“Thanks,” Mars said. “I appreciate the help. But the sooner you can have a patrol on 169 South, the better.”

Mars calculated that based on his speed, he’d be catching Nettie within the next ten miles. When he came within range of where he expected to see her car, he slowed, not wanting to miss anything, and tracking milepost signings in case he needed to call for help.

He noticed the empty car pulled well over on the shoulder just beyond milepost 74. It wasn’t Nettie’s car, but Mars slowed, pushing the remote to open the rain-streaked window on the passenger side to get a good look.

As soon as the window went down, Gunner went wild. He threw himself against the door, then leapt over the seat and tried to go out the open window. Mars grabbed him just in time. He struggled to hold on to the dog while getting the window back up. Gunner pawed against the window, looking back at Mars in desperation.

“Gunner! No!” Mars said. But he wasn’t prepared to ignore the dog’s anxiety. Gunner had been right more times than Mars on this case. Mars looked at the car again. The memory came back to him immediately. Standing in the parking lot behind the office. The car waiting for DeeDee’s friend, the driver pulling the visor down when Mars looked back at him—even though the sun was behind the driver.

“Gunner. Stay,” Mars said, reaching over to the glove compartment to take out his service revolver. Gunner let out a howl as Mars squeezed out the car door, using the door as a shield against Gunner’s pressure. Mars went to the trunk, got out a flashlight, then approached the abandoned car. He held the flash against the car’s windows, first flashing over the front seat, then the backseat.

On the floor in the back was a wooden gun case.

Behind him, he could hear Gunner tearing at the inside of the car. He went back and let the dog out. Before he could get hold of Gunner, the dog was gone, racing in leaps toward the cornfield.

It was as Gunner disappeared into the field that Mars heard the sound of the rifle firing. Instinctively he yelled.

“Nettie!”

There was no answer. But at the far end of the field, near the road, a figure scrambled out from under the fence. Mars’s flashlight wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the figure, but he heard the heavy, emotional breathing as the figure ran toward him. Whoever it was, they were trying to gather breath to call out.

“DeeDee?” He recognized her at the same moment another figure emerged from the field, coming between Mars and DeeDee. The figure carried a rifle, raised to his shoulder. Mars released the safety on his revolver, meeting the rifle’s aim.

He couldn’t have fired if he’d wanted to. DeeDee was in a direct line behind the Green Man. If Mars’s shot missed the Green Man, it could hit DeeDee. Even if he hit the Green Man, the shot could pass through the first target and hit DeeDee.

The best thing he could do was to warn DeeDee to drop, then try to draw the Green Man’s fire away from her, hoping he’d have time to get off a shot.

He didn’t have time to do that. Before either of them could get off a shot, Gunner came at the Green Man with a force that knocked him off his feet, the rifle flying in the air in DeeDee’s direction.

“The rifle, DeeDee, get the rifle,” Mars shouted as he ran toward the Green Man. The Green Man had struggled to his feet, trying to get back to the road, Gunner’s teeth gripped on a leg.

“Halt!” Mars shouted, taking a firing position. “Halt, police!” Mars shouted again.

The Green Man turned toward him for a fraction of a second. Irrationally, Mars thought how ordinary he looked. Then he pulled the revolver trigger.

It was the first shot he’d fired with his revolver since he’d been a patrolman in uniform. It went home to its target with deadly precision.

It was enough to make you believe in God.

*   *   *

The state patrol car showed up within moments after the Green Man dropped. Mars had already called in for backup and a search helicopter. All DeeDee could tell him was that Nettie had left the car after her.

It was, of course, Gunner who led Mars to where Nettie was lying. She was facedown, DeeDee’s baseball cap pushed back, half off her head. The brutal wound at the base of her skull had bled down her back, around the side of her neck, staining her white shirt.

Mars had seen more dead bodies than he cared to count. He always knew on sight if a victim was alive or dead. This time his sixth sense failed him. It wasn’t possible Nettie was dead. He dropped down beside her, saying her name over and over, his hand searching along her neck for a pulse. He pulled her over, looking away as soon as he saw her expressionless eyes.

Gunner was lying on the ground beside Nettie, his head between his paws, his eyes darting back and forth. Guilt and grief behind his eyes. He had failed someone he loved. Anyone who doubted that dogs shared human emotions had only to see Gunner at this moment to know how wrong they were.

A state patrolman came up behind him, putting a hand on Mars’s shoulder. “We’ve got an ambulance on the way,” he said softly. No urgency in his voice. He knew without touching the body that there was no hurry. “They’ll bring a gurney out here to take her in.”

Mars shook his head, sliding his arms under Nettie’s body. He lifted her from the ground, shifting her once to bring her head onto his shoulder.

“No,” he said. “I need to do this.”

She was dead weight in his arms.

*   *   *

DeeDee Kipp stood on the shoulder of Highway 169, held back by a state trooper, staring out at the cornfield that was all but invisible in the dark.

“It would just complicate things to have you out there,” the officer said.

There were now a half dozen state patrol troopers at what their crackling two-way radios—audible from open car doors, their voices speaking into cell phones that never left their ears—described as “the scene.” Four officers had gone into the field, guns drawn, huge-headed flashlights following the swath cut through the field where DeeDee had driven Nettie’s car through the fence. An ambulance was parked near the patrol cars, its back doors open, the bright interior lights shining out.

The Green Man was already in the ambulance, encased in a black body bag.

Two paramedics stood next to the truck, a wheeled gurney between them, waiting for a signal from the troopers that they were needed in the field.

At first distant, then suddenly directly overhead, came the thunk-whack-whack-putter sound of a helicopter.

DeeDee Kipp had been raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. To her, the searchlight shining down from the copter had a sanctifying, spiritual impact on the scene. The light, blurred at the edges by the soft rain, confirmed her hopes. Her hopes that at any minute, Mars and Nettie would walk out of the field. Her hopes that the crack of the rifle she had heard did not mean what it might mean.

The copter swung back and forth over the field, then circled and held position. After what could have been seconds or minutes, it rotated its position and headed slowly back to the road, as if lighting a path between the field and the highway.

The trooper’s grip on DeeDee’s shoulder tightened, confirming what they both expected next. DeeDee could see the corn stalks moving under the copter’s searchlight. Then she saw Mars, carrying Nettie, her head on his shoulder.

She closed her eyes in relief. When she opened them again, a hard slap of fear swept over her. One of the troopers had raised his hand toward the waiting paramedics.

The raised hand was a signal. The hand’s thumb was turned down.