By then we had made the corner and were out of sight. “Go!” I yelled and started sprinting for the parallel street. As I did I pulled the Ruger. In no time I had hit the intersecting road that marked where he was.
I had a choice. Go down another block and come up behind him or pop out about twenty yards in front of him. I had been working it out in my head as I ran. I wanted to come up behind him, but I got the feeling I didn't have time.
I went with my gut and I was right. The Honda was just finishing a U-turn. I wasn't the only one who trusted his instincts. He must have sensed something, too.
I could hear Diesel roaring down the street behind me as the Honda accelerated. I stopped in the middle of the street and thought briefly about sending a round after him. It would have been pointless.
I holstered my weapon as Diesel pulled up next to me, the passenger door already open. I jumped in, pulled the Ruger, and set it between my legs as I buckled in. Diesel had already covered ten yards while I was doing this, and the Ford Crown Vic was just starting to gain momentum.
Whoever it was in front of us was not driving a factory issue Honda Accord. The car was pulling away from us with ease. That's when the Crown Vic's oil light came on.
“Fucking Ford piece of shit!” Diesel screamed, slamming the wheel and taking his foot off the gas as the engine made extremely unhappy sounds.
He looked over at me: “Go or no go?”
“No go.” I had no desire to walk five miles back to town after what would likely be a futile chase anyway. “See if you can nurse it back to the gas station or a garage.”
He started to turn the Ford around but couldn't even do that before it died. He slammed the wheel again and yelled, “Shit,” to emphasize the point.
“Well, we learned one thing about whoever is driving that car,” I told him as I put my shoulder into the door to pop it open. Diesel was out of the car on his side. We looked at each other over the top of the cruiser and then down the empty road.
“Yeah. They're not friendly.”
I nodded and grabbed my bag out of the back. Time to go find Max. Something was up. I could feel it.
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We walked back to the station and found Max in the office sitting at the chief's desk staring unhappily at a stack of paperwork. He brightened up a bit when he saw us.
“Hey. What's up?”
We told him about the gray car. He grinned, swept the paperwork back to a corner of the desk, leaned back, and put his boots up on the desk. “So, tell me what you think is going on, Gardener.”
“Someone is watching us.”
“And you, Diesel?”
“Same. Seen it before.”
“Yeah, we have, haven't we?” he replied pensively. “Going to have to do the same thing here that we did about it there.”
Max must have noticed I wasn't following their shared unspoken conversation. “In the 'Stan,” he said, turning to me, “we saw the same pattern. Usually it was scouting before someone drove a car into our area with a load of explosives and a high-definition vision of naked virgins playing in his head.”
“Oh, yeah. That always puzzled meâthe whole naked women thing. I thought a lot of those guys liked naked boys. Is there a separate heaven for them? Or do they spend eternity walking around, looking for the little skinny ones and asking them to roll over on their stomachs?”
That threw a wrench into their reminiscing. I think Diesel was having trouble parsing what I had just said.
Max laughed. “You're going to have to ask the next mullah we run across that one, partner.”
“So, we go find them first and kill them?”
“Yep, Gardener. That's what we need to do.”
“Well, I hope it's no one I'm related to,” Diesel said.
We talked some more about where the gray car might have come from. Diesel pointed out nearby towns on the road map we had pinned to the wall and made some suggestions. “Of course he could be coming out of some farmhouse in the woods,” he added.
“Before I forget,” Max interjected, “you both need to be at the VFW hall for a meeting at 1800 hours. Night is going to talk about the block manager program, and I am going to make my pitch to the vets about a town militia.”
This was news to me. “When did this get planned?”
“Oh, about two hours agoâwhen I found out they were having their monthly get-together.”
Diesel grinned. “They gonna have food again?”
“Yep. I think the Ladies Auxiliary is doing something.”
Diesel looked at me. “You're going to like this. Some of these women can cook!” We talked a bit more about the Ford. Diesel said he knew a guy who could fix it.
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I never made it to the meeting. Just as well. I hate meetings. The food would have been nice. Watching Night do her thing would have been nicer. That would have taken care of the first thirty minutes and then it would have gone downhill fast.
There is always some idiot at this kind of meeting who feels the need to talk and talk. Then I would have to fight the overwhelming desire to pistol-whip his ass because even I am smart enough to know that would set back our community outreach program.
I was sitting in the office with Max. We were getting ready to head to the VFW hall; for Max, an appointment at 1800 meant arriving at 1745. Diesel had already left. He and Night were going to meet us there.
Then a concerned citizen came in. He said he had been driving into town from West Virginia to see family. About ten miles out of town he saw an RV off the side of the road and on fire. As he passed it, a white Ford F-150 and a gray, foreign-make car had pulled out and gone the other way. He didn't stop.
“I saw that RV on fire and them boys staring at me through that truck windshield, and I hit the gas. Them boys sure didn't look like Good Samaritan types to me, let me tell you. Thank God, I've driven that road a million times, because I was flying.”
“They follow you?”
“No, sir. And I'll tell you what, I am taking the long way back when it's time to go home.”
We asked him some questions but he couldn't give us a good description of any of them. Max thanked him, told him we would get right on it, and sent him on his way.
After the door shut, I looked at Max. “
We
?”
“Yeah, well, you and Ninja need to run by and take a look. I need Tommy and Old Guy at my side for the meetingâthey being local and all.”
“Okay. So, we take your truck, see what we see, and report back. That it?”
“Yep. And Gardenerâ”
“Yeah?”
“Make sure you pick up a couple M-14s. You may need to put some holes in steel.”
“Okay. Give me your keys and I'll be on my way. Make sure you tell Night what happened.”
He handed me the keys and as I walked toward the door he added, “Body armor. Get the good stuff for you and Ninja out of the armory.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I grabbed the armor and two M-14s and headed to the farm to look for Ninja. Of course he wasn't where he had signed out to be. Instead I found him on the far side of the berm horsing around with the kids and Woof. I walked the kids back to the house while Ninja ran into the trailer and got whatever he thought he needed.
We headed back toward town and about fifteen minutes later we were moving down Route 235 West. We were probably going to run out of daylight, which would hamper our look-see. I figured we'd have to come back and told Ninja as much.
“Then why are we going now? Can't it wait?”
“No. There might be hurt people waiting for help. Plus, how can we be the law enforcement around here if we never go out on calls?”
“So where's our medic kit?”
“Shut up, Ninja.”
He laughed. “I thought so.”
We talked about farm stuff and some girl he had seen when he had been in town. We saw the smoke right about where we were told it would be. It was coming from a dirt pull-off picnic and rest area. I stopped the truck. No one else was around. I saw a trailhead at one end of the pull-off with a couple of state signs next to it.
“Is the Appalachian trail around here?”
Ninja replied, “I have no idea.” His tone left no doubt that he thought it was a stupid question. He was right; it was.
“Okay, hop out. Take the M-14 and cover me. I am going to roll right up to the RV. Get off to the side in the bushes.”
He gave me a look that clearly said,
Idiot, I know what to do
, and jumped down out of the cab.
I rolled up to the RV and got out. The camper had not completely burned. I could still make out the sticker on the door. It was the couple heading to the Born Again compound in Pennsylvania, all right.
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I didn't like the smell of the smoke, though. Burnt RV should not smell like pork barbecue.
I gave Ninja a hand sign: CLOSE ON ME. Then I walked around the RV. That's where I found the old guy. He was lying in the dirt. It looked as though they'd had him kneel and had shot him in the back of the head. There was a spent brass casing on the ground about five feet from him. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a 9-millimeter. I dropped it into my pocket.
About then Ninja came around the corner. I looked at him. He looked curious instead of like he was going to barf. He was starting to get hardcore, but I thought I would spare him seeing the toasted grandma I knew I was going to find.
“Ninja, start making a circle around the RV. Work your way out and see what you find.”
He nodded. One last backward look at the corpse and he began walking. I went around with him and stood in
front of the door. It was open and I could see stuff scattered over the floor inside. It looked like the contents of a purse.
I stepped inside. The cabinets in the kitchen were all open, and everything was gone, even the cookies. The refrigerator was also empty.
I walked back toward the bedroom. That's where she was, or what was left of her. She was curled up on the bedâwhat was left of it. She had been set on fire. I hoped she was dead first. The bed was smoking, and she was crispy. It was not a nice crispy. It was a red-and-blackwith-glints-of-white-from-bones crispy.
I backed out of there. I walked about ten yards away from the RV and took a lot of deep breaths. The smell would not go away. It was as if it had crawled up my nose and made itself at home in my sinuses.
I shrugged and turned around. Ninja was standing there looking at me. He was getting pretty good at moving quietly.
“There was someone in the RV, wasn't there?”
“Yeah. It was an old lady. They set her on fire.”
“Why? To hide what happened?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Then why didn't they drag the old guy in there too?”
I took my eyes off the road long enough to look at him. “Good point, Ninja, good point. Maybe they were just assholes.”
“Yeah.”
“Should we bury them?”
“Not now, Turtle. We don't have any shovels, and I am not sure how Max wants to handle it.”
He was quiet after that. I was thinking to myself,
No way am I going back in there and hauling Crispy Grandma out.
Just thinking about it gave me the willies.
We headed back. I dropped Ninja at the house. Night wasn't there so I headed into town. Old Guy would have given them a lift back, but I was restless. If I could have, I would have headed for the Interstate and driven for a while. Instead I figured I would go to the station, park the truck, and walk the town.
Nobody was at the station. Still at the VFW hall talking, I guessed. I decided to leave a note to let them know what I was doing. I went to Max's desk in search of paper and a pen. Curiosity got the better of me and I thumbed through the paperwork. Nothing exciting. Fed paperwork for law enforcement grants. Town census notes. Financial projections by tax revenue. He was welcome to it.
I walked the town. It was a quiet night. The cicadas were out, and I noticed how the stars were a lot clearer and there seemed to be more of them. I also noticed that I still smelled like pork barbecue. I hoped I had some clean clothes back at the trailer because I wasn't going to be able to get my usual three days out of these.
I passed a couple of people out walking and said, “Evening, folks.” It was returned with a smile and a hello. I was glad I liked watching westerns as a kid. It was great training for this. I headed back.
They were all at the station, waiting and buzzing with excitementâNight especially. I sighed inwardly. I knew I had a few hours of listening to her analysis of the meeting ahead of me.
I won't bore you with what was said. We talked for the next two hours. I told Max about what I found, and he
called the state police on our newly installed landline. It worked most of the time.
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One day Miss Edna told us that she had talked to the woman who took care of the telephone lines for our subregion. If we were willing to pay a small fee, the woman had said, she would see that our phone service worked most of the time. She could not guarantee it, because the phone company was no longer doing maintenance on the equipment. She would try to keep the line up and running as long as they could scavenge material. She was even willing to take payment in food or other items. I had been there when Miss Edna came by the station to talk to Max about it.
“Max, I don't mind paying them their âmaintenance fee.' I'm not sure how we are going to come up with it, but I will figure something out. What I am worried about is if they try to squeeze us for more once they get the first payment.” She paused and then added, “After all, this is the phone company we're taking about here.”