The Taking of Libbie, SD (33 page)

“Whoever shot Mike and Tracie left his fingerprints on the gun,” the sheriff said. “If they aren’t yours, Jeff, you could take a lot of money offa McKenzie. I’ll even testify on your behalf.”

“Jeff?”

“Do I need to get a court order to take your fingerprints, Jeff?”

“Say it ain’t so, Jeff,” Wayne said.

Jeff’s head came up slowly. He looked at the sheriff. He looked at Wayne. He looked at me. Then he threw the knife at the sheriff.

I ducked at Jeff’s arm motion and spun off of the stool. I didn’t see the knife in flight, but I heard the sheriff’s painful cry, and I saw him wrench his left shoulder back and spill from his chair.

Jeff rounded the bar and ran to the door. I went to the sheriff. He was lying on his side and gurgling angrily. I gently rolled him on his back. The knife was four inches deep and protruding from the upper part of his armpit. It didn’t seem to have sliced any major arteries.

“Not so bad,” I said.

“Fuck you, McKenzie,” the sheriff said.

I reached across his body and yanked his handgun from its holster. It was a Glock 17, the primary sidearm used by the St. Paul Police Department while I was there. I never liked the Glock, was never comfortable with the grip.

“What are you doing?” the sheriff said.

“Wayne, call the sheriff’s department,” I said. “Call them right now. An ambulance, too. Did you hear me, Wayne?”

“Yes,” Wayne said. He went running for the phone behind the bar.

“That’s my gun,” the sheriff said.

“This is what comes from confiscating my grenade launcher,” I said.

I went to the door. The couple sitting in the booth stared at me mutely. They could have been watching reruns of
Walker, Texas Ranger
for all the excitement they showed.

“McKenzie, wait,” the sheriff said.

I did wait, but only long enough to be sure that it was clear.

I stepped out of the tavern into bright sunlight, the Glock leading the way. I shielded my eyes as I surveyed the parking lot. I saw the sheriff’s cruiser and a battered pickup that I guessed belonged to the older couple. There was a seared and blackened area in the corner of the lot where Church’s vehicle had burned. No Jeff. I circled to my right, carrying the gun with both hands, staying close to the building. I heard movement. I quickened my pace until I was at the corner of the tavern. I peeked around the corner. Jeff was rummaging in the back of an SUV parked alongside the building about twenty paces away.

“Stop,” I said.

He paused, looked at me, then pivoted away from the SUV. The gun in his hands looked like a Magnum. It sounded like a Magnum. When the chunk of the building just above my head exploded, raining shards and slivers of wood on my head and against my face, that sealed it.

I swung into a Weaver stance just as I had been trained to do—my feet shoulder-width apart, my right foot back from my left foot, knees locked, right arm extended at shoulder level with a slight bend in the elbow, my left hand supporting my right hand, my left arm bent at the elbow, the elbow close to my body, my body turned at a forty-five-degree angle, my head bent slightly to align the gun sights on the center of Jeff’s chest. I squeezed the trigger slowly.

Click.

What the hell?

I scurried back around the corner of the building just as Jeff threw another shot at me, this one sailing wide.

I pulled back the slide.

Are you kidding me?

Sheriff Balk had been carrying his Glock without a round in the chamber.

You gotta be kidding me. Who are you, Barney Fife?

Maybe that’s why he told me to wait, I told myself.

Geez, McKenzie, running around without first checking to see that the gun was loaded—could you be more careless?

I chambered a round and edged back along the corner of the building, keeping low. I took a quick peek and pulled my head back before Jeff could use it for target practice. He was in the SUV. I looked again, taking my time. He was starting the engine. I rose up, using the corner for cover, and went into the Weaver stance again. I pumped five of the Glock’s seventeen rounds into the engine.

Jeff poked his Magnum out of the window. He was point shooting, shooting one-handed from the shoulder, and he was using his left hand. I figured the odds of him breaking his wrist with the recoil were considerably greater than they were of him hitting me. I hopped back around the corner just the same. I might be careless, but I’m not an idiot.

I heard the shot; I had no idea where the bullet landed. I also heard Jeff shout, “Dammit.”

I shouted back, “I bet that hurt.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Give it up, Jeff. You’ve got nowhere to go.”

I heard the ignition of the SUV cranking, but the engine refused to turn over. I carefully glanced around the corner again. Jeff was still in the vehicle, his head down, staring at the console, the gun held carelessly outside the window and pointed more or less at the ground.

“It’s over,” I said.

Jeff lifted his head, an expression of pure panic across his face. I didn’t like the expression. Panic made him dangerous.

“Think, Jeff. Think.”

Only Jeff wasn’t thinking past his gun. He raised it, trying to point it at me.

I fired two rounds into the SUV’s front tire. The tire exploded, and the front end of the vehicle listed hard to the left. I ducked back behind the corner before Jeff could get another shot off.

“Think about it, Jeff,” I said.

“I’ll kill you,” he said.

I heard the door to the SUV open. He was coming.

Sonuvabitch
.

I spun around the corner and went into a kneeling position, my right knee firmly planted on the ground, my left knee up, my left foot flat, my left elbow resting against the front of my knee. I sighted along the short barrel.

Jeff seemed surprised to see me. He was carrying the Magnum low with both hands. When I came around the corner he started to raise it.

“Stop it. Stop it now.”

The voice came from behind Jeff.

It belonged to Big Joe Balk.

He had circled around the tavern from the other side.

He was holding a standard-issue twelve-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun, the stock hard against his right shoulder. I saw the blood from his left shoulder saturating his uniform. The knife had been removed, and for a brief moment I could imagine him pulling it out himself.

Geezus
.

The sheriff was pointing the shotgun at the back of Jeff’s head, but he was speaking to both of us.

“Drop the guns,” he said. “Drop ’em. I mean it. I’ll kill you, Jeff. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. You know I will. Drop the goddamn guns.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Jeff said. “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. I was just going to mess with them, joke with them.”

“Drop the guns,” the sheriff said.

“I went over there and the back door was unlocked and I went inside and I heard Tracie laughing and I yelled, ‘Sounds like a party,’ and Mike came into the kitchen. I was joking but he was angry and he started yelling and the gun was on the counter and we wrestled over it and it went off and then Tracie came running out and started screaming—I didn’t mean to shoot her. I didn’t.”

“It’s over,” I said.

“Drop your guns,” the sheriff said.

Jeff raised the Magnum.

He raised it slowly.

My finger tightened around the trigger of the Glock.

The sheriff screamed, “No, no, no.”

Jeff hesitated.

One beat.

Two beats.

Three.

He dropped the Magnum.

“You, too, McKenzie,” the sheriff said.

I deactivated the Glock and set it gently on the ground.

Nothing in his experience had prepared the Perkins County attorney for the crime wave he suddenly had on his hands. The arson charges against Church and Paulie were one thing—but three murders? Fraud? And whatever the hell was going on at the First Integrity State Bank of Libbie? When he ran for the job, he thought all he’d have to do was attend county commissioner meetings twice a month and try to keep the elected officials from doing something stupid when they let out the snowplowing bids. He certainly didn’t sign on for this. So he called the South Dakota state attorney general and asked for help. The AG said it was on its way.

At least that was what Sheriff Balk told me while I watched Nancy Gustafson carefully stitch his shoulder while he lay on an emergency room gurney. I didn’t know the extent of his wound, only that the stitches would have to do until he could get to a real hospital; Big Joe was expected to spend the night in Libbie before being transferred to Avera St. Luke’s Hospital in Aberdeen the next morning.

“You’ll be here when I get back, right?” he said.

“Sheriff, I have one more thing left to do, and then I’m going home,” I told him.

“Your testimony—”

“I’ll come back for that.”

“You’d better. I’d hate to have to come down and get you.”

“You could always send bounty hunters. Speaking of which…” I patted the sheriff’s foot. “Take care, Big Joe.”

“You, too.”

I paused at the door and looked back at him. The sheriff had told Jeff that he had killed someone once, and I wondered about that. I also wondered about his Glock.

“I still can’t believe that you carry a piece without a round in the chamber,” I said.

“I never thought it was necessary,” he said. “Before you came along, McKenzie, this was a peaceful community.”

The city council meeting was being held in a large conference room inside the Libbie government building across the street and down the block from the Libbie Medical Center. Although many people were starting to drift away by the time I arrived, the room was still crowded. Most of the citizens had satisfied expressions on their faces. Whatever spiel the mayor was giving them seemed to be working. I heard the end of his remarks as I entered the room.

“Our tax money will soon be returned to the city,” Miller said. “The funds that the various businesses invested will soon be returned to Main Street. The future of the City of Libbie remains secure.”

A smattering of applause followed.

Most of the people were sitting in rows of folding chairs in front of the conference room tables. The tables were arranged in a V pattern, the arms of the V extending toward the audience. Two city council members sat behind the tables—Len Hudalla and Terri Spiess—one on each side. There was a nameplate for George Humphrey, but he was absent, and the space reserved for Tracie Blake was left empty. Ed Bizek also sat behind the table. All things considered, he seemed surprisingly subdued to me. Dewey Miller sat at the base of the V, making it seem as if everything funneled toward him. He saw me enter the city council chambers, and a kind of quizzical expression colored his face.

“What are you doing here, McKenzie?” he said. “You’re not a citizen of Libbie.”

I ignored him and marched purposefully along the aisle between the wall and the rows of chairs toward the conference tables.

“What business do you have before this council?” Miller said.

I edged past the arms of the V and moved to Miller’s chair.

“What do you want?”

As I approached, Miller brought his arms up like a boxer fending off body blows. I pushed his arms apart and grabbed him by the collars of his shirt and suit jacket. I yanked him off of his chair, surprised by how easy it was—he was a big man, after all.

Must be adrenaline
, my inner voice said.

I half threw, half pushed Miller toward the aisle. He stumbled, nearly fell, yet managed to keep his feet. As I approached him, he spun about and tried to hit me with a long roundhouse right. I ducked under the blow, using his momentum to spin him back toward the aisle, and shoved him hard. He bounced off the wall and back into my hands. I grabbed him by the collars again and started pushing and dragging him along the aisle.

“Stop it, stop it,” Miller said. “You’re insane.”

Half the people in the room were on their feet, including all of the city officials. They screamed, they shouted, they demanded to know what the hell I thought I was doing, yet no one moved to help Miller. Maybe they thought I really was insane and were afraid to interfere.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” I said.

Miller grabbed an empty chair as we passed and swung it around, hitting me in the kneecap. The pain was enough to cause me to release my grip. I bent to clutch my knee.

The hard way
.

Miller tried to hit me again. I slapped his fist away from my face, and it passed harmlessly over my shoulder. I grabbed the lapel of his suit jacket. He tried to escape by spinning away and pulling his arms free from the sleeves of the jacket. The jacket came off, and I tossed it down on the floor. Miller ran up the aisle and nearly reached the door before I grabbed him again by the collar. I yanked backward. I heard the shirt rip and saw several buttons fly off. Miller waved his arms as he fell back toward me. I leaned forward, catching him, then reversing his momentum, and shoved him out of the conference room door.

Miller was shouting many things now, yet they all amounted to the same thing—“Let me go.” Eventually he added, “I’ll kill you.”

You had your chance
.

He turned in my grasp and tried to gouge my eyes, scratching my cheek instead. For an old man, he certainly was feisty. I moved my head away and yanked down hard on his shirt, pulling him off balance. He lurched forward and put his hand out, using the wall outside the conference room to remain upright. He turned again. The shirt tore in my hand as he edged away. Miller saw the advantage in this. He pulled on one end of the shirt as I pulled on the other until the shirt separated into two pieces. He swung his arm up and down until the sleeve slid off, and I fell backward against the wall.

Miller ran out the door of the government building, which was where I was taking him anyway. His upper torso was pale and fleshy; his muscles were flaccid. His fat legs generated no speed. It was easy to run him down. He screamed and twisted, his fists flailing at me and hitting only air. I took hold of the remains of his shirt and deliberately yanked it off.