Well, I certainly might have looked foolish scrambling underneath my Ford, but at least I was breathing and my body was unpunctured. And as for pissing somebody off, I think I had done that a while earlier. Maybe Keith had come back, ready to come through on his promise.
I sat there breathing hard, the tremblings beginning to ease some in my hands, when I heard the sounds of sirens. They seemed to be coming my way, which was surprising, unless some passing tourist had seen me with a pistol in my hand, which I didn't think had happened.
There was also the chance that someone had heard the gunfire that caused me to perform my groundhog imitation, but I was thinking that was also unlikely, since I hadn't heard the shot either.
Which meant somebody had been out there, gunning for me, with a silencer-equipped rifle.
I took another deep breath and listened as the sirens got louder.
A while later I was handcuffed and was sitting in the rear of a Porter police cruiser, which was the best thing that could happen to me after I was shot at. The cops had arrived in good form and I had initially ignored their commands to stand up and put my hands on my head. I compromised by kneeling and putting my hands on my head, because I didn't want to expose myself to the guy on the other end of the telescopic sight, wherever he might be. By then I had also kicked my Beretta underneath another car-presenting yourself as armed to a cop who has just raced in with lights and sirens on is a short recipe for a big disaster-and after I had been cuffed I was stuffed in the back of a Porter cruiser. Fair enough. By now there were enough cops and other people milling around that the chances were pretty good that the shooter had given up.
For now, of course. But I wasn't being greedy.
I looked around the parking lot as best I could. Jack was there, talking to one of the uniforms, and a bunch of senior citizens were trooping into their tour buses. A couple even stopped and took my photo, and I obliged them by not turning my head. The back of the cruiser smelled like old cleaner, and the upholstery was dark blue plastic. Nothing fancy back here, just something that could be easily cleaned of whatever bodily fluids might be left behind while transporting a prisoner.
The rear door suddenly opened up and someone leaned in to look at me. It was Detective Joe Stevens, wearing a long rancher's coat and brand-new, pressed blue jeans. His detective shield was hanging from a chain around his neck. I decided this wasn't the correct time to ask him if he had come across any information on the mysterious Whizzer.
"Lewis, how's it going?"
"I can't complain," I said.
He nodded, his face showing neither a smile nor a frown. Fairly neutral. He said, "If you get your legs out, I can get you standing up here and get those cuffs off."
"You sure that's a good idea?" I asked, now hearing the chatter of police radios with the door open.
"Why, you like being cuffed in the back of a cruiser? Is that a better idea?"
"No, I don't like being in here. But I even like less the chance of that shooter out there going for another try."
The detective shook his head. "Not to worry. From the trajectory and such, it looks like the shooter was over by one of the warehouses, down by the salt piles. We've got a crew searching it right now, and so far they haven't found anybody. But with all this activity around here, if I was a shooter, I'd be long gone. So. You want to spend the rest of the day in there?"
I shifted my weight, put my legs outside. "Nope, not at all." Getting out was a chore, with my hands cuffed behind me and my body bent at an awkward angle. But Detective Stevens grabbed my shoulders and helped me up, and I turned around «lid heard the nice
click-click
sound of the handcuffs being undone. He took the handcuffs away and I rubbed at my wrists.
Stevens said, “What did you see?”
I leaned back against the rear fender of the cruiser, feeling tingly and alive and breathing, and feeling almost childishly safe with all the police officers around me. "Not very much. Came out from the museum to my car here, and then I decided to head back and make a phone call. That's when I heard the round snap by and hit the car."
"What did you do next?"
"Made like a high school kid from the fifties and ducked and covered. Ended up on the other side of the Explorer while your uniforms showed up. Tell me, how did your guys get here so quickly?"
He eyed me. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that from the time of the shot until the first cruiser showed up here was only a minute or two."
He opened up a tiny little black-covered notebook and said, "Dispatch got an anonymous call of gunfire at the submarine museum parking lot. That's what happened."
I rubbed my wrists again and looked across the roadway, at the brick warehouses down by the harbor. "Odd... "
"And what's so odd?"
"Because I didn't hear the sound of a rifle, that's why. Just the bullet whizzing by and hitting my Ford."
Now there was a frown on Stevens's face. "You sure? Maybe the sounds of the traffic drowned it out. A gunshot can sound like a car backfiring, or a piece of heavy equipment operating."
"Maybe, but I'll bet you that when you do your canvass of the neighborhood, you won't find a witness who heard a gunshot."
"Sorry," he said, returning to his notebook. "Since the Red Sox last year, I'm not a betting man. And I'm also not a man who likes the thought of a nut running around with a rifle that has a silencer on it. About the only good thing, besides the fact the shooter missed, is that the bullet went through the door and dropped on the upholstery. It's pretty dinged up, but ballistics should be able to do something with it once we get it to the state crime lab. Okay, anybody you know out there who’d feel like putting a bullet in your head?”
"None that come right to mind."
"How about Keith Emerson, the son of the museum director over there? You think you're on his enemy list?"
"Well, I don't know if I'd go that far---"
"Look, we've already talked to Jack Emerson and some of the visitors who saw something going on back in the museum lobby. The two of you got in a little scuffle and he threatened to kill you. Any reason why you're defending him?"
"I'm not defending him, it just seems unlikely."
Now his tone was getting sharp. "Unlikely? Why unlikely?"
I rubbed at my wrists a third time. "All right, he made some threats. But I don't know how sober he was when he made them. He had a hard time standing up and walking around. And when he left and when I came out here, maybe just a few minutes had passed. It doesn't sound right that he'd be in a position to go over to the warehouses, pull out a rifle, and pop one in my direction."
"Doesn't sound right, is that what you said?" he asked, the neutral tone now back in his voice.
"Exactly," I said. "Guy like Keith, it seemed like he'd be the type to be in your face, with a fist or a knife. Not from a distance and with a high-powered rifle."
"Okay, Lewis, what doesn't sound right is you coming in here and getting shot at. That doesn't sound right. And I don't care what you think about Keith Emerson, he made threats against you, and a bullet came your way just a few minutes later. So we're going to pick him up and bring him in for a little chat." He paused, and added with exaggerated politeness, "If that's all right with you, I mean."
"I understand," I said.
"Good. I need to ask you one more thing."
"Go ahead."
Stevens looked around at the cops working the scene, talking to witnesses. I saw Jack Emerson talking to another detective, leaning on his metal cane by his small pickup truck. The museum door was fastend and a CLOSED sign had been put up.
“First time I met you, you asked me questions about the local drug trade and about a guy in particular, named Whizzer. You poking around the local drug managers, making them upset? Trying to put a little sting in their business?"
"No, I'm not," I said. "But having said that, you find out anything about a guy named Whizzer?"
He paused as a truck went by, heading out of the parking lot.
Jack was driving, staring ahead, not looking in our direction at all.
"Not a word," Stevens said. "You think this Whizzer guy might be the one who tried to pop you?"
"Could be," I said. "But so far, I haven't met anybody or anything with any kind of connection to anybody named Whizzer. Could be a ghost, for all I know."
"Maybe," he said. "But there's another thing." He reached into one of the deep pockets of his rancher's jacket and pulled out my Beretta. Even holding the small notebook, he worked the pistol expertly, popping out the clip and then working the action, ensuring there wasn't a round in there. He passed both the full clip and the pistol over to me.
"I take it you have a carry permit?"
"In my wallet, if you'd care to look."
"Nope. That's okay. Do me a favor and just put it away, and don't replace the clip until you're home, safe and sound. Second Amendment or not, having a citizen with a pistol in his possession at a crime scene tends to make us cops nervous."
I put the Beretta back into my shoulder holster and stuffed the clip into a coat pocket. "Not a problem," I said. "Always glad to cooperate with the local police."
"If that was a joke, it was a bad one," he said, his eyes narrowing down. "You get along now. Don't take this too personally, but if someone's gunning for you, I don't want it to take place in Porter. The paperwork would be a real pain. And with this little incident and my little search for Whizzer for you, my favor quotient with Diane Woods and you is used up. Understood?"
"Loud and clear," I said.
Then he shifted his feet and said quietly, “All right, enough barking on y part. Here’s my business card.” I took it from his outstretched hand and pocketed it next to the Beretta clip. “Anything else happen," the detective went on, "you let me know. Immediately, if not sooner. Like I said earlier, I don't like the thought of a sniper loose in my town."
"Neither do I," I said, and went over to my Ford, now sporting a round little hole in its door.
About halfway home to Tyler, driving on the interstate, I suddenly got the shakes and had to pull over to the breakdown lane. As traffic roared by me, heading south, I got out of my Ford and went down to a drainage ditch at the side of the highway, surrounded by cattails and tall grasses. I dropped to my knees and then had the dry heaves for a long minute or two.
Then I sat down in the grass, hands still shaking. I got the clip out of my pocket and popped it into the handle of the Beretta, worked the action so there was now a round in the chamber. I let the hammer down on the pistol and it took both of my hands to replace it in the holster.
I wiped at my face with a handkerchief and took a couple of deep breaths, as my stomach tried to make up its mind as to whether or not to revolt again. When it seemed to settle down, I sat on my hands and looked around. A redwing blackbird was moving about the cattails, chattering at me. Good for him.
Inches. Just a matter of inches and instead of digging a round out of the upholstery in my Ford, a medical examiner from Wentworth County would be doing the same to what was left of my bloody head.
Inches. And that woman who had called my home a few nights ago, warning me off on what I was doing, working with the feds. An empty threat at the time, but now ...
Inches, maybe even just millimeters. I wished I could have sat down and talked more with Detective Stevens from Porter. Tell him about the NEST team secretly working in the area. About the dead Libyan in North Tyler. About the missing uranium.
I wished I could talk about a lot of things, and I remembered a time when I was working for the Department of Defense and had the very same wish.
I freed my hands and held them out. The shaking had mostly subsided. I had things to do, and the time for shakes was over.
I got up and looked at the redwing blackbird one more time, then went up the embankment to my Ford.
In the parking lot of the
Tyler Chronicle
, I noticed a familiar green Volkswagen Jetta in the lot with a Tyler Police Association sticker in the rear window. I sat for a while in my Ford, listening to talk radio from Boston and wondering what the host would say if I called down there to report an attempt by the Libyan government to secure uranium from New Hampshire to make their very own atomic bomb.
I'd probably be hung up on, and the host would go to a caller complaining about seat-belt laws in Massachusetts. After all, one has to keep these kinds of issues in perspective.
Then the door to the
Chronicle
opened up and Diane Woods came strolling out, wearing khaki slacks and a short black leather jacket, her hands stuck forlornly in the coat pockets. I got out and was rewarded with a small smile as I met up with her at her car. I thought about telling her what had just happened to me and then decided not to. This was her time, not mine.
"Here to renew your subscription?" I asked.
"Now there's a thought," she said, leaning back against her car. "I plumb forgot to do it after I spent the past half hour in there, being interviewed by your friend Paula on my history as a detective, why I work to help out the people in this town, and why I happen to love women instead of men. Care to guess which one of these three issues will be highlighted on the front page one of these days?"