When the Killing Starts (30 page)

"Welcome to the world." I grinned with her. "That's what matters. You did your best for him. Now it's time to do the best for yourself."

"You've been through this before, haven't you?" she said.

"Over and over," I told her. "It happens."
 

She was about to speak again when I heard Sam bark outside and then the crunch of wheels on the gravel. I looked out the window and saw two cars pull up. One of them was a black-and-white OPP cruiser; the other, a similar model, only with no insignia.

Inspector Anderson got out of the first. He looked grim, his normal expression. He's an ambitious man, always on the lookout for a new rung on the ladder to promotion. But I smiled when the doors opened on the second car. Two detectives got out, laughing at some private joke. I knew them well, Werner and Kennedy, a couple of professionals who had worked with me the month before on a major case. I knew I'd get an honest hearing from them.

I went out and told Sam, "Easy," then walked forward to meet the men. "You didn't waste any time."

"Is the victim still here?" Anderson asked.
 

"No, the chopper lifted him out a couple of minutes back. He's okay, he'll recover."

Werner and Kennedy ambled down and shook hands. Werner was grinning. He's a typical old-style copper, a little overweight and amiable even when the world is falling apart all around him. He said, "Couldn't wait for duck season to open, eh? Had to get the old shotgun offa the wall and nail whatever was moving."

"This was more sporting. Ducks don't shoot back," I said.

Kennedy was a bit more serious. He nodded politely to Eleanor Bull, who had followed me outside, then asked, "You got his gun someplace?"

"Nobody's touched it since he dropped it. This way." I led the three of them up to the rifle, and they crouched and looked at it. "Never seen one like that," Kennedy said. "Looks automatic."

"It's a military assault rifle, looks like the new British Enfield bullpup," I said. "It's the weapon the Freedom for Hire people were training with up north."

Werner turned to Eleanor, who had followed us up. "Hi, I'm Sergeant Kennedy," he said. "And you're?"

"Eleanor Bull. I was here when it happened," she said.
 

"And what did happen?" Anderson was anxious to get into the act, and he cut off Werner's question.

"The other policemen, George Horn, he was outside my door, and then I heard three bangs ratatat, then one different bang, then three more and another one, and I came out and saw the man on the ground."

"Three shots first," Anderson mused aloud, turning and looking at me as if he expected me to go red.

"He fired when he saw me," I said. "And I fired back."
 

"Warning shot, eh, Reid?" Kennedy suggested, and I nodded. It wasn't quite true. I'd have nailed him first crack if I'd been more careful with my aim.

"This man was crouching, waiting for a clear shot at George. I shouted, and he fired at me. I fired back. You can see the scar on this tree." I pointed, and all three of them examined the gash on the trunk of the cottonwood Michaels had been using for shelter. "Then he dived away and turned and fired off another burst at me. That's when I hit him."

"There's a moral to this story," Werner said. "And the moral is, don't screw around with an ex-marine."

Kennedy turned to the girl and asked, "Would you have an old wire coat hanger in the house, please?"

"Sure." She looked puzzled. "You want one?"
 

"Please," he said. "I want to pick this thing up."
 

Eleanor went back to the house, and Anderson turned to me, barking out questions in a voice that told me he didn't put too much value on the truth of my answers. Kennedy was slightly behind him, and he rolled his eyes toward heaven as Anderson bored in. I went over what had happened a couple of times, giving the same answers every time until anyone except Anderson would have known I was telling it straight. Then Werner asked, "This guy Michaels, isn't he the one you got away from this army outfit?"

"Yeah, that's the part I don't understand. He deserted them. Now he's back using one of their guns, backed up by a guy in a car who took off on his own. It seems on the face of it as if he was trying to make amends for leaving them in the bush, undergoing some kind of test."

"Sounds pretty farfetched to me," Anderson said, and sniffed like a Methodist preacher condemning bingo games.

"Got any better ideas, Inspector?" Werner asked innocently.

"There has to be one," Anderson snapped.
 

"Yeah, well, where did the kid get ahold of one o' these things? You can't buy one over-the-counter." Werner pointed to the rifle, and Anderson shrugged.

"Maybe he's a gun collector. Sounds like a personal feud to me. I don't think we have to go looking for any deep significance."

Eleanor came back out with a hanger, and Kennedy bent it into a hook and picked up the gun. "Thanks," he said casually. "Now if you'd be kind enough to let us take down a statement, I'll be happy to let you get on with your day," he said.

He went down to the house with Eleanor, and Werner put the rifle into an evidence bag, and then we all searched for the spent rounds. We found all six of Jason's and my two. Werner picked them all up with the end of the coat hanger and put them in two separate bags, one for the automatic shells, one for the shotgun. Then he and Anderson took my statement.

I made it complete, starting with the information I'd got from Guzman in Toronto the night before and giving them the gun I'd taken from him. Anderson grabbed that with great enthusiasm.

"An illegal weapon," he said. "Why didn't you turn this in when you spoke to the Metro police?"

"Because I expected to find somebody up here trying to kill George and I wasn't going to come after him bare-handed," I said easily. "Here, the gun hasn't been fired."

"But you already had the shotgun," Anderson persisted. He was one of those guys who perspire when they think hard, and his face was glistening, his eyes narrowed with intensity. Persistence personified.

Werner headed him off. "Not in Toronto he didn't," he said. "If you'd of been coming back to face a guy with a gun, you'd of hung on to the automatic as well, wouldn't you."

"It's against regulations," Anderson said.
 

"And trying to nail a policeman with an assault rifle is against the law," I said. "It was my decision, and I took it. Now you can keep the gun."

"It will go in my report," Anderson said, trying to make it sound like a threat.

"I'd be disappointed if it didn't," I told him. I was suddenly weary. No sleep plus a firefight plus Anderson's bitchiness had finished up all of my reserves. All I wanted was to head home and sleep for a week. The best I could hope for was one hour before Burke and the homicide guys arrived from Toronto, but even that thought was a comfort.

"Listen, I'm through. I'm going down to my place the other side of the lock on this road. If you want me, come and knock, but if you don't have to, let me sleep."

"Which house?" Anderson wanted to know.

"It'll be the one with the Murphy's Harbour police cruiser parked in the yard," I said, and Werner guffawed.

"That'll narrow it down," he said. "So go crash."
 

"Most policemen would stay on duty until the job was finished," Anderson said, his eyes glinting.

"Look at it this way, Inspector. You get an attempted homicide pinch all to yourself. Should look good on your record." I nodded at them all and went back to the cruiser.

George had left the shotgun propped against the wall of the house, and I stuck it in the back of the scout car and called Sam into the front seat. As I was starting the motor, Eleanor and Kennedy came out of the house, and the girl called out, "Coffee's ready, want a cup?"

"No, thanks, Eleanor, I'm bushed. I'm heading home for some shut-eye. Get your dad to call me when you've spoken to him and I'll tell him what happened."

She was young enough to blush. "Thanks, Chief," she said.

I waved without speaking, and Kennedy nodded; then I backed out and drove slowly up to the road and headed home.

As I drove, I remembered that I hadn't called Fred as I'd promised the night before. At the time we'd arranged, I was in the homicide office, talking to Burke. I checked my watch. It was quarter to eight, quarter to six Saskatchewan time. I would call her when I got in and try to catch her before she started her day. She'd said she was up early, but maybe not this early, unless she was involved in some sunrise-on-the-prairies sequence. I grinned at the thought. Dawn wasn't Fred's best time. She preferred to get up around seven-thirty and yawn over coffee for half an hour if she had the chance.

I was thinking of her and smiling as I rounded the corner in the road that leads down to my modest little place, and I almost gasped when I saw her Honda sitting in the drive. It couldn't be. She was on the prairies, and her car was underground in the parking lot of her apartment building. I squealed the scout car to a stop, reading the license over. Yes, it was hers. And then I saw her. She was getting into a boat at the end of the little dock behind my house, looking around fearfully but doing it because there was a man at the motor and he had a gun on her. It was Wallace, and he looked at me and fired off a quick shot, then threw the boat into gear and pulled away, with Fred tumbling into the center of the boat.

I grabbed the shotgun and dived out of the car, with Sam after me, but it was too late. Wallace was crouching low, ten yards from the dock, too far for even Sam to leap at him. He fired again, a quick snap shot that whistled high over my head, and I raised the gun, then lowered it. The cloud of buckshot it would throw would include Fred. I was powerless.

He sat up higher now and laughed. But then I saw my fishing rod leaning against the post at the end of the dock. It was set up with good five-kilogram breaking strain line and a heavy red-and-white spoon with a triple hook on it. My only chance. Wallace fired again as I grabbed the rod and cast it, concentrating on getting it across the boat ahead of him, a hard cast on a moving target. He fired again, but as he did, the line whistled past his face, and I set the hook, snagging him in the side of the head hard enough to break the line.

He screamed with pain and hurtled backward into the water, clawing at his face. Fred sat up in the boat and shrieked as it spun around in a circle, following the direction Wallace had forced the motor into as he fell.

The motor was slowing, but even so, the boat came full circle and hit Wallace square in the head. "Grab the motor," I shouted, and Fred stumbled back the length of the boat and took the control.

"Great. Bring it in," I called, and she turned for the shore, leaving Wallace sinking in the lake.

She came in clumsily, and the boat hit the dock with a bang that stalled the motor. I scrambled aboard, with Sam leaping in after me. Fred clung to me, sobbing. "Oh, God, Reid, what's going on? Who is he?"

I kissed her quickly and patted her shoulder. "It's over, honey. It's all over. Just sit down a moment and we'll pull him in."

She sat down on the seat ahead of me, and I restarted the motor, then reached out and squeezed her hand. "I'll explain in a minute. I want to get him before he drowns. He's a murder suspect."

She rubbed her eyes and then looked around. "He's gone," she said flatly. "He's drowned."

"It's only six feet deep there; we'll find him," I said, and ticked the motor forward, staring over the side. "I have to bring him up. What happened, anyway?"

She's a woman in a million. No panic, no stumbling over words. She took a breath to steady herself and told me, "The movie collapsed, no funding. Somebody who'd promised didn't come through. Anyway, I flew home late last night. Checked with Louise and then decided you would be up here, fishing. So I got up early, thought I'd surprise you."

"You did," I said. "You scared the hell out of me. This guy's bad. Where was he?"

"He was standing by the house when I got here. I didn't like the look of him, so I didn't get out. I just called out, 'Is anybody home?'"

"Then what?" I reached out and took her hand again, my heart still pounding from the shock of seeing Wallace threatening her. She squeezed my hand tight.

"Well, he said, 'I'm looking for Reid. We were in the service together,' something like that. And I told him I was sorry, I couldn't help him. Then he said something like, 'Hey, haven't I seen your picture in the paper?'"

She gulped suddenly. "Reid, I was so dumb. I should have said, 'No, you must be mistaken,' but I said, 'Possibly, I'm an actress.'"

"And he knew who you were?" Right at that moment I wanted to leave Wallace underwater forever.

"I guess." She tried a little laugh. It came out harsh. "So he pulled the gun and grabbed me through the window and said, 'You're coming with me.'"

"And he took you to the boat?" I was trying to work out why a professional like Wallace would have risked being seen instead of heading for the house, where he could have ambushed me.

"He tried to take me to the house, only I threw the keys away into the water. Then he hit me and said, 'Okay, we'll do it the hard way.' He was just getting me into the boat when you arrived, and you know the rest."
 

"You thought to ditch the keys. You're incredible. Marry me," I said impulsively, and she gasped, then laughed.

"You serious?"

"Absolutely. I've never met a woman like you, not ever."

"You're pretty remarkable yourself," she said. "And as I'm between jobs at the moment, I'll say yes."

"Between jobs? I thought this was a six-week thing." I didn't want to talk about her career. I wanted to find Wallace, dead or alive, but Fred was more important than he was, so I listened to her answer as we moved slowly ahead, staring into the water.

"Like I said, the funding fell through. I flew home last night and thought I'd come up here and catch you still in bed. I got up at four-thirty for this," she said. Then she pointed, shouting. "There. There he is."