Cold Fire, page 24
Alex nodded in agreement. ‘You don’t know it yet but another guy was picked up and taken to hospital. Seems he somehow got in the way of the Wolseys before they tried breaking their brother loose, and got burned almost to a crisp.’
‘Jeez.’ Visions of the terribly burned man invaded Tess’s mind and she shivered at the horrible punishment the Wolsey brothers had intended for her. She was yet to learn John Corbett Monk’s name, or see a photo of him before his horrific disfigurement, but it didn’t matter; she pictured an anonymous face writhing in flaming agony. She sat in the chair previously declined by Po.
‘Tess, are you OK?’
‘As well as I could be.’ She told him about the gas station they’d passed up near Lincoln and how they believed Harper was responsible for whatever crime had happened there during his hunt for Joanne. She told him about Harper and the redhead’s attack on the farm where Ellie and Felicity had taken Joanne in. ‘He’s irrational in his determination to shut her up. By now he must realize that he’s the number one suspect in the Blackhorse murders, and anything he tries here will change nothing.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time a murderer has gone for broke,’ Alex pointed out. ‘You’ve heard the saying, you’re as well being hanged for stealing a sheep as for a lamb, right?’
‘You watch too much British TV,’ she said.
‘Yeah, maybe, but you get what I mean, right?’
‘The way he’s acting it’s as if he doesn’t care about the consequences of his actions.’
‘So he’s nuts. Probably believes he’s unstoppable.’
Po kneaded the base of his skull. ‘He’s pretty convincing.’
Alex tapped the gun holstered on his belt. ‘Nobody is unstoppable.’
‘Don’t make the mistake of underestimatin’ him.’
‘I won’t.’ Alex returned his attention to Tess. ‘What about this woman, the one who stabbed you? What do you know about her?’
‘She tried claiming innocence, that she was employed by Harper to drive him and got drawn into his trouble, but her actions proved otherwise. She looked fit, strong, but not like a gym bunny, more like she’s a vet, ex-army if I’d to guess. I overheard her name … Siobhan, but that’s all I got. Perhaps Joanne can enlighten us. She knew Harper before all of this, maybe she knew Siobhan too.’
‘I’ve put out BOLOS for this Siobhan, based on the description you gave, and for the two gunwomen you described that booked outta the van. My trouble is the lack of manpower. I’ve requested assistance from our partner agencies, and the sheriff and state police and they are going to assist in the hunt. We have liaised with the local FBI office and have agents on route. Multiple murders, cross state crimes being committed, this has fallen into the jurisdiction of the feds. Until everyone else gets their act together, you have us; all my usual available patrols are tied up at the other crime scenes.’ Alex rested his knuckles on his desk again. His forearms trembled. Tess and Alex looked so much alike that some people assumed they were twins. It wasn’t the case, because Alex was older. They had another brother, older again. Except right then, to Tess, he looked like a nervous kid, while she felt as if she carried a century of tough years on her shoulders. Perhaps her fatigue was reflected in his posture because Alex changed tack. ‘Hey, Po, why don’t you take Tess to the bathroom and see if you can’t get you both cleaned up? I’ll have the Med-Kit fetched so you can dress your wounds. Then there’s a couch in the lieutenant’s office where Tess can stretch out and get some rest. You too, if you like, cause you both look set to drop.’
Po didn’t argue, he didn’t say anything, which was as good as agreement from him.
Pinky stirred, said, ‘There a couch that I can share with somebody?’
Alex snorted, but wasn’t in the mood for Pinky’s teasing. ‘Would be best for you to keep those pistols holstered while you’re in here, Pinky. Don’t want anyone seeing you and getting the wrong idea.’
‘A black man with a gun? Yeah, I’d just have to be the bad guy, me.’
‘Don’t make this about race,’ Alex said. ‘There are a lot of twitchy gun fingers amongst my officers tonight. They all know you’re one of us. Any of the others soon to arrive won’t know you from a hole in the wall.’
‘Fair enough. Where can I fill my hands with a strong coffee instead? I’m parched, me.’
Alex led the way, directing Tess and Po to the washroom and Pinky towards a recreation room where the cops and civilian staff took their breaks. A jug of coffee as black as oil simmered on a hot plate.
‘Now that’s what I’m talking about,’ Pinky announced.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Harper left the brothers where he’d stomped them into the snow. If any life existed within them it wouldn’t matter, because the cold would finish the job and kill them in no time. By morning, and the arrival of workers at the marine supply store, they’d probably be encased in a layer of ice. Now that he’d assuaged some of his frustration at failing to catch Joanne Mason again, he put the brothers out of his mind, concentrating on what he must do next.
His first notion was to check the car for weapons, because this had gone beyond the use of blunt force trauma: if he was going to accomplish his mission, he required better weapons than the butt of an empty revolver. Within seconds he discovered where the brothers had secreted a pistol. He didn’t enjoy the impersonal killing method of using a pistol, but was also a pragmatist, so was thankful to find it fully loaded. It wasn’t the brothers’ first choice of weapon either. Whatever had gone down between them to make enemies of the brothers and the private investigator, he couldn’t fully say, but they had wished Tess Grey harm almost as fervently as he wished Joanne dead. In the trunk he spotted the gasoline cans. A quick check of them showed that they were mostly full. There were other items he didn’t immediately recognize, but deduced they must be jerry-built fuses and timers so that the brothers could be clear of the flames when they ignited. He found the Molotov cocktail that Aaron had threatened Grey and Villere with, as well as several capped bottles primed with accelerant seated inside a cooler box on the back seat.
Lastly he dug for the cell phone that Aaron had been playing with on his arrival, and found it where it had slipped from between the man’s knees into the footwell. Harper checked and found that it had gone to sleep, but a simple press of the home button wakened it again. He depressed the home button twice more in quick succession and brought up the web pages and apps that Aaron had recently used, and was rewarded instantly when the latest showed an app for locating another person’s phone. Obviously, the brothers had been monitoring Jake’s cell phone from a safe distance and after he got himself captured, had used it to locate him: it explained how they were able to take a different route to intersect with the convoy, and had run into Jaycee Monk as a result. Harper checked on Jake’s current location. Logic said that wherever he’d ended up, so too had his captors, and Joanne with them. He didn’t know how to react when he saw that the cell phone had come to rest. It was good that he now had a target, bad that it happened to be a police station. In the grand scheme of things, he decided it was good. Thinking they were secure behind a police station wall, their guard would drop making her protectors more vulnerable to attack than they’d been while out in the open.
He had to shift the driver’s seat all the way back to make room in the Toyota Corolla. He preferred not to but he could drive, but was out of practice, more so when it had a stick shift and a clutch pedal. He put the cell phone on the dash and got the Toyota moving, finding his big feet cumbersome and unresponsive on the pedals, and had to make adjustments before he stalled the engine. He crept the car towards the exit. No traffic had passed in the last few minutes. On the intersecting road, over near the abandoned quarry, fire trucks and cops had converged on Siobhan Doyle’s SUV and Lyman and Carson’s van. For the moment he was safe from discovery, but the likelihood was that the cops would begin expanding their search radius. He had to accept they were probably aware of the brothers’ involvement and on the look out for their Toyota. Yeah, well, the last place anyone would think to look for him was heading directly to the police station.
He checked, saw the road was clear, and began a left turn. It took him across the carriageway towards the taxicab depot, so he kept his face averted as he drove past. If anyone were working that late in the evening it would be a cab dispatcher who might also have been sent a ‘be on the lookout’ notice from the local PD. Once past, he stared directly ahead, concentrating on staying in the ruts already dug in the snow by other vehicles. His nerve endings prickled at the thought of losing control of the car in a manner they never did approaching a life or death showdown with Joanne’s protectors.
A figure stumbled out ahead of him. Bent over at the waist, one arm thrust out, forcing him to stop. For a second he considered speeding up and running the figure down, rather than deal with her, but decided that she’d kind of proven her value so Siobhan Doyle deserved more. He applied the brake and felt the tires slide. He pumped the pedal and brought the car to a grinding halt inches from crushing Siobhan’s shinbones with the fender. She buckled forward, her palm going flat on the hood. She exhaled and even through a misted windshield, he spotted a smear of blood on her top lip. When she exhaled a string of bloody drool swung from her chin.
‘H-help me, please!’ she croaked. One knee gave way and she sank down, her torso only held up by the hood.
He got out and loomed over her. Siobhan’s face lifted slowly and it took long seconds for it to dawn that she wasn’t looking at a savior but the last person she’d hoped to see.
‘So you went and got yourself shot, huh?’ he asked needlessly.
Tess Grey’s bullets had found her, striking her twice in the upper chest. One wound was near her collarbone, the other lower down and far more troubling. The blood bubbling in the corners of her mouth hinted at a punctured lung.
‘I need … the closest ER,’ she said.
‘You aren’t kidding,’ he said. He offered a hand, which she blinked at, dazed. ‘Come on, let me get you inside.’
‘You … you’re driving?’
‘You thought I couldn’t?’
‘I … just thought your skills lay … elsewhere.’ For the briefest moment her lips pulled up into a snarky smile, reminding him of the woman who’d sat alongside him throughout the trip. In the next moment she shivered and what little color was left in her complexion drained. Her pale skin was almost translucent in the gleam of the Toyota’s headlights. ‘Harp, it’s over now. If I don’t get help I’ll die.’
‘I’m here for you,’ he said.
When she didn’t rise, or even reach for his proffered hand he ignored her mild resistance when bending and picking her up, one arm around her back, the other under her knees. Her head lolled against his shoulder. He heard her groan and then weep, and knew it was because she thought she’d escaped him, only to fall directly into his hands once more. He moved the crate of firebombs and laid her across the back seat. He had to fold her knees up towards her belly in order to shut the door. She cringed in agony.
He said, ‘Try and stay still or you’ll bleed more.’
‘It stinks in here … what is it? Gasoline?’
‘It’s only exhaust fumes,’ he lied. ‘I had to open a window to keep the windshield from misting over.’
‘So what’s in the bottles?’
‘Could be piss for all I know. When I was looking for a car to get out of Portland in, I couldn’t pick and choose.’
‘Why you lying to me, Harp? Now that I’ve thought about it, this is the car you told Monk to run off the road.’ She sounded stronger, but that was through the strength of accusation. ‘What are you planning next, Harp?’
‘Taking you to a hospital.’
‘That’s bullshit. Let me out, Harp. Whatever you have in mind it’s probably insane, and I want no part of it. I’ve done my bit, so do the right thing and let me go.’
‘I couldn’t possibly abandon an injured woman in this cold. You won’t survive more than a few minutes.’ Harper closed her door and quickly settled in the driver’s seat. This time he didn’t feel as awkward at the wheel. He set off driving, despite further protestations from the back. Before she could try opening the door with the idea of sliding out on to the road, he engaged the child locks. She swore at him and he smiled and ignored her completely. His attention was once more on Aaron’s cellular phone and the location it showed for his brother Jake’s phone. He drove on, taking US-1 over Tukey’s Bridge at the entrance to Back Cove and into downtown Portland. By the time he left the highway and found Franklin Street, Siobhan had fallen silent in the back: dead or only unconscious he couldn’t tell and wasn’t really that bothered either way.
For a second back there, when she’d stumbled out and he recognized her flaming red hair he’d felt something akin to a warm flash of happiness. Monk had proven worthless to him, and Lyman and Carson were cowards who’d ran away the second the fight turned against them. Throughout the mission, Siobhan Doyle had blown hot and cold in his estimation but latterly he’d come to distrust her and expected she’d try to book out at the first opportunity. After her abandoning the SUV he thought she’d skipped, and was literally in the wind by now. The last he expected was for her to stumble into his path and stop him. But her actions had been guided by desperation and mistaken identity: she’d thought him a Good Samaritan, and couldn’t be further from the truth. He owed her nothing, not even a dignified ending.
It was the early hours and the snowfall had forced home even the most determined of revelers, so it was quiet downtown. Harper didn’t see another person while scouting the area several blocks to each side of the police station. Being in one of the few moving vehicles in the vicinity he ran the risk of discovery, but other than a single PD cruiser parked with its wheels on the sidewalk, he saw no other indication of police activity. As he rolled by the cruiser he found it abandoned, the patrol officer obviously elsewhere on foot. He looped around the adjacent blocks and found some roads were one-way and contrary to his direction of travel. He took one of them anyhow, driving slowly and steadily towards what appeared to be an open-air parking lot used by the cops. On his right there was also a multi-storey car park. It was unlit between the levels, so he’d no idea how many vehicles were inside. He doubted that during a nightshift a police force in a town the size of Portland could call on dozens of reinforcements. He must account for civilian staff, but all told it would be surprising to find more than a dozen people inside and a good third of them would be non-combatants. Eight armed officers was not a number to be sneezed at, but he wouldn’t confront them all in one concerted defence. Faced with a couple of cops at a time he felt easily their match, one on one, he was their better.
He was always one that preferred taking direct action. There was no pussyfooting around with him. Once a decision was made to act, then he acted and the devil could take the losers. He parked the Toyota out of sight of the entrance to the police station, concealed by other parked cars. If inspected, the lack of snow on his car, compared to those in the lot would give him away, but for now nobody was outside. He twisted round to check on Siobhan and found her huddled on the back seat. Her side barely rose and fell: she was breathing easier than before, so perhaps her lung hadn’t collapsed, only been nicked. It was too dark to tell for sure, but he thought she’d bled a couple of quarts or more, and wasn’t long for this world without immediate medical intervention. He’d lied about taking her to hospital and she’d known it; he wouldn’t bother trying to convince her with any other lies. He ignored her; instead he checked the pistol he’d found. As with driving, he could use a firearm, he simply preferred not to. However, logic and pragmatism sometimes trumped his preferences. The gun was a Glock 19. He’d fired one before and knew that with a standard magazine he could expect fifteen rounds. He didn’t know if the brothers had used the gun during what he took was some kind of feud with Grey and Villere. He ejected the mag and saw it was full. A controlled working of the slide also showed a bullet nestled in the chamber. Good enough: if he’d estimated correctly, then it allowed for two shots apiece to those that might join in the fight. The others he was happy to beat down with whatever impromptu weapon came to hand. Speaking of which …
He got out of the car, and stayed a moment hunched over at the open door. From there he reached in and snagged the crate of bottles. He uncapped one and a brief sniff told him all he needed to know about the liquid’s combustibility. He emptied one bottle over the passenger seat and another on the floor. Next he drew open the back door and manhandled Siobhan out: he set her down in the snow. She murmured her thanks, misunderstanding his intentions. He felt at her waist and found her belt. He unclipped it and worked it free from under her clothes. She mewled slightly, trying to push his hands away, as if he was some sicko trying to cop a feel. She didn’t fully wake, delirious now from blood loss. He picked her up as he had before, one arm under her knees, one around her back. Her hair got in his mouth and he spat it out. He set her in the car, in the driver’s seat he’d vacated. He placed her hands together and then cinched them to the steering wheel with her belt. The seat belt held her upright, but her head lolled between her forearms.
He set aside a couple of the Molotov cocktails, but then emptied more of them in the back and even over Siobhan. Her hair dripped gasoline. She choked on the fumes, but without reviving from her swoon. He leaned in again and knocked the car out of gear. He turned on the ignition and the engine grumbled. He placed Siobhan’s foot on the clutch, and shoved the stick shift into first gear. It was all he’d need. Gently he lifted her foot clear and set it instead so her toe barely rested on the gas pedal. The car began a faster than expected crawl forward. He wrenched at the steering wheel, turning the car as it emerged from hiding and he aimed it towards the open entrance to the multi-storey parking garage. Siobhan murmured and her head rose slightly. If she understood what was going on she didn’t possess the strength to fight back. Harper grabbed what he needed, then strode alongside the moving car. He’d discovered cigarette lighters in the crate and now lit one. He aimed it at the fuse inserted in the neck of one of the bottles he’d set aside and immediately that it caught he tossed it inside the car. He kicked the door shut and darted aside. He could no longer see Siobhan for the boiling flames.
