Exit Wounds

EXIT WOUNDS

J.A. JANCE

Prologue

T he woman lay in her bed, tossing and turning, and tried to sleep. It was hot, but southern Arizona in July is always hot. Due to unpaid bills, the power company had shut off electricity to the shabby mobile home months ago. By now she was pretty well used to sleeping without benefit of a cooler or even a blowing fan.

The heat
was
a factor, but more disturbing than physical discomfort was thinking about the approaching interview. She had kept her mouth shut for almost thirty years. For that long, other than pouring her heart out to her grandmother, she had been part of an ugly conspiracy of silence. No more. Tomorrow—today, in fact—she was going to talk. To strangers. To reporters. She was going to let it all hang out. The question was, what would happen then?

Someone had told her once—wasn’t it that same grandmother?—that the truth will set you free. The story she was about to tell was the truth, but would it really free her of the demons that plagued her? The terrible sense of dread she felt wasn’t at all like being set free. What if she only made things worse? What if telling damned her forever?

Finally, around four, a slight breeze ruffled the frayed curtain over her bed, and she drifted off. A scarce three hours later, awakened by a recurring nightmare, she staggered out of bed and into the bathroom. When she turned on the water faucet in the lavatory, nothing happened.

“Damn!” she muttered. “What a time to run out of water.”

Pulling on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, she hurried outside into the relative cool of the early morning. The dogs, locked in the straw-bale shed, heard the back door slam and set up a terrific racket. If she was outside, they wanted to be outside, too. She went over and opened the door on the make-do shed where she kept her motley collection of dogs overnight. As soon as the door opened, the dogs cascaded joyfully out into the early-morning sunlight.

As always, Streak, the fleet-footed beagle, led the way, followed by Jasper, a mutt who was more German shepherd than anything else. There was FiFi, the three-legged poodle, followed by Donner and Blitzen, the two malamutes the woman had found as tiny puppies left in a box outside Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve two years ago. Fat Albert, the dachshund, raced through the doorway carrying a ball and wanting her to throw it. Razzle, Yo-Yo, and Pansy, three rescued greyhounds, pranced out daintily, with Yo-Yo stopping long enough for a leisurely stretch and to have his ears scratched. Angel was an ugly, wrinkle-faced chow and Roger a doberman whose ears had been mangled in an amateur attempt at cropping. Mikey, the boxer, gave his owner a slobbery-faced greeting while newcomer Hombre—a black-and-tan hound—sidled shyly past her as if still unsure about whether or not he could trust her.

The older dogs came later. Chief, a collie mix of some kind, had lost several teeth, and Mopsy was a black Lab with a developing hip problem. The Lab had recently given birth to a batch of pups, only one of which had survived. The woman hoped that with money from her upcoming interview, she’d be able to afford to get the dogs not only their shots and licenses, but some veterinary care as well. Lester, a happy-go-lucky black cocker with an age-grizzled muzzle, was virtually blind due to cataracts that had dimmed both his eyes. Expensive canine cataract surgery would far outstrip his owner’s meager ability to pay.

Last in line was her favorite, a beloved mongrel named Oscar, who was evidently the result of an unfortunate mating between a German shepherd and a dachshund. Oscar’s large shepherd body tottered around on legs barely six inches tall, but what he lacked in height, Oscar more than made up in love.

Four of the dogs—Chief, Oscar, Roger, and Streak—had been with the woman for years, through a series of dingy apartments and humiliating evictions and, finally, at the very end, before her grandmother had let them come here, the dogs had lived with their owner in her Datsun 710 wagon. That was the wonderful thing about dogs—they loved you no matter who you were or where you lived.

After Oscar emerged, the woman glanced inside the gloomy shed to see if she had missed anyone. She didn’t remember having seen Shadow, Mopsy’s eight-week-old pup, but she was sure he must have come out with the others. Shutting the door while the dogs wandered off to relieve themselves, the woman turned resolutely toward the pump.

When she first moved in, she had cursed her grandfather for stubbornly continuing to use an old-fashioned rope-pull gasoline-powered pump on the well rather than switching over to an electric one that would have operated automatically or with nothing more than the touch of a switch. But now that same rope-pull pump, hard as it might be to start sometimes, was a blessing rather than a curse because it continued to work without benefit of electricity. The woman hoped that maybe, after she took care of the dogs, there’d be enough money left over to make up those months of unpaid bills and have her power restored.

The mobile home was parked on three acres just east of the San Pedro River. Sheltered on three sides by mesquite and brush and on the river side by a grove of cottonwoods, it was so isolated that, once the noisy pump had water flowing into the storage tank, the woman had no qualms about bathing outside under an outdoor showerhead her grandfather had installed between the tank and the house. She had finished and was toweling off when the dogs began barking and racing toward the gate.

The woman’s heart pounded in sudden panic. Most people weren’t pushy enough to drive past the bullet-riddled No Trespassing sign wired to the gate. And, although the two reporters weren’t due until eleven—she had told them not to come any sooner than that—she was dismayed to think they might have decided to arrive early.

Dreading seeing them and hoping vaguely for some other stray visitor, she grabbed up her discarded clothing and raced toward the back door, calling to the dogs as she went. Hearing the distress in her voice, the dogs came as one. She stood just inside the door and pulled on her shorts and T-shirt as they bounded past her. Once Oscar, always the slowest, had lunged his way up the wooden steps and into the house, she slammed the door shut behind them.

Even though it was still early, the inside of the house had never cooled off overnight and was already terribly hot. The woman knew that neither she nor the dogs could stay there very long. In order to keep vermin away from the place, she always fed the dogs inside the mobile. Milling around her in the kitchen, that’s what they expected now—breakfast. She had planned to feed the dogs and then return them to the relative cool of the tree-shaded shed while she met with the reporters.

But the dogs were oblivious to her uncertainty and concern. They simply wanted to eat, and so she fed them. At first her quaking hands fumbled clumsily as she grabbed for dog dishes and filled them with food, but gradually that simple task had a calming effect. By the time all the dogs were happily munching through their dry food, she rushed into the bathroom to peer at her reflection in the mirror.

She looked at herself so seldom that she was shocked by what she saw. Her face seemed gaunt and pale. There were deep shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. Her lank, uncombed hair flopped in wet tangles around her face. In other words, she looked like hell. She had desperately wanted to make a good impression on her visitors. Since they had mentioned videotaping the interview, she had hoped to sit in the sun long enough to dry her hair. She had even planned on putting on some makeup, if she still had any, that is.

Now, though, by arriving early—while the dogs were still underfoot and before she could make herself presentable—her visitors had ruined everything. No one would take her seriously if they thought she was nothing more than a madwoman living in a house overrun by a pack of unruly dogs. The reporters would probably take one look at her and write her off as a hopeless nutcase.

She was still staring in the mirror when a car door slammed outside. Streak, always the first to finish eating, abandoned his dish and raced to the front door, barking furiously. Leaving their food uneaten, the other dogs followed suit in a raucous, noisy chorus.

“Quiet,” the woman urged. “It’s all right.”

Milling in excited circles, the agitated dogs paid no attention. The woman waded through them as far as the front window. Tweaking one corner of the curtain, she peeked outside. She recognized the familiar truck as soon as she saw it.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, without moving toward the door.

The dogs had quieted briefly. At the sound of her voice they resumed barking. “Quiet,” she ordered once more. This time the dogs didn’t stop. Their deafening barking continued unabated as her unwelcome visitor began pounding on the front door.

“Open up,” a voice called from outside. “Let me in. I need to talk to you.”

“No. Go away. Leave me alone. Please.”

The woman watched spellbound as the front doorknob jiggled. Fortunately the door was locked. She always kept it that way. After a long moment, the jiggling stopped abruptly. Creaking footsteps retreated across the rickety front porch and down the steps. As they started around the side of the mobile, the woman realized in dismay that she had been in such a rush when she came into the house with the dogs that the back door might still be unlocked.

Alarmed, she headed there. Her overly excited dogs impeded her progress at every step. No matter how she tried to maneuver, one or another of them was in her way. She reached the back door just in time—just as that doorknob, too, began to turn. When the door started to open, the woman sprang against it and slammed it shut. First she twisted the small button on the knob that locked the door. Then, for good measure, she shoved home the dead bolt as well.

“Let me
in!
” her visitor complained. “I have to talk to you.”

Breathing rapidly, the woman leaned against the door and closed her eyes in relief. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she retorted. “Go away.”

She was still standing just that way when the first of the bullets ripped through the door’s thin aluminum shell and slammed into her midsection. The powerful .45-caliber bullet ripped into her flesh and propelled her backward until she came to rest against the flimsy paperboard wall behind her. As the wall collapsed under her weight, another bullet found its mark and pounded into her shoulder. She was already off balance and falling, and the force of the second bullet spun her around so that when she landed she was facedown. Other bullets were fired as well, but they flew harmlessly overhead. The fallen woman wasn’t conscious of any of them. All she heard was the sound of her dogs, barking, and barking—trying to protect her. But it was too late for that—much too late.

Sometime later, she came to. Oscar was pressed to her side, whining and licking her face. In the background she heard the other dogs as well, whimpering and whining. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she tried to reach out to pet Oscar, but her right arm was useless. She saw that the dog was covered with blood. At first she thought Oscar had been shot as well, but as soon as she attempted to move, she knew the truth. Wounded, bleeding badly, and in need of help, she was the one who was in trouble.

Using only her left arm and with terrible effort, she inched her way along the linoleum-covered floor, down the hall, through the kitchen and into the living room. All the while the dogs continued to race around her as if trying to understand if this was some new game. The woman knew that the phone was there—in the living room. All she had to do was reach it and dial 911. If she did that, someone would come to help her.

And they would have, too, but the woman never made it that far. She dragged her bleeding body as far as the living room, where the telephone sat on a corner table next to the couch. It was no more than a foot away from her grasping fingers, but it might just as well have been on the moon.

Weakened by loss of blood, she dropped onto the orange shag carpet and didn’t move again. Hours passed. Some time later, with her overheated dogs still hovering anxiously around her, the woman died. All through the day, the temperature in the closed mobile home continued to soar. And, with their mistress dead, one after another, the dogs, too, slowly succumbed to the heat.