Now, there was not a cop in sight, in front or in back of Saks. Not a squad car, not a single foot patrol that Joe could see standing in the shadows. He was about to spin around and head home to the phone when, through the upstairs store windows, lights flashed and the shadows moved fast in one direction, converging at the back, hauling cumbersome bags. They disappeared downward as if on service stairs. Where the hell were the cops? The men came out the back of the building, piled their black plastic bags into the limos, swung in themselves and were gone, turning left to Ocean Avenue then right, heading up the hill for the freeway. He heard the cars in front start up and follow them, those figures so stealthy he hadn’t seen them. And still not a cop anywhere. He watched the line of cars turn south onto the freeway, and Joe Grey sped for home.
Bursting into the kitchen through Rock’s dog door and leaping to the counter, he had knocked off the phone’s speaker, forgetting that this call would be ID’d, when up on the freeway he heard tires squeal and sirens scream. He pushed the phone back in place, realizing only then how close the snitch had come to getting caught.
Just ahead of the mixed entourage of crooks, Zeb and Mindy, still driving slowly, saw the pack of cars bearing down behind them. They saw and heard the scream of squad cars, saw their lights flashing, coming fast, and they made a sharp skid onto the right shoulder; they were almost scraped over by the speeding limos. Zeb pulled over farther onto an embankment, tilting the Volvo nearly beyond recovery.
“Get out, Mindy, before we go over.”
“You get out,” she said, grabbing her cell phone and opening her door, watching Zebulon slide out to safety; and they both scrambled down the ditch.
“No point to call 911, the cops are here.” Zeb smiled when he caught a glimpse of white hair among the escaping limos. When the chase had passed, they climbed the bank again and walked along the highway, then sat with their backs against a tree, watching. It was there that Joe Grey found them.
Ahead, the limos and gray cars had slammed on their brakes, skidding and sliding into each other as cop cars circled them, cops appearing out of nowhere hazing them together like sharks closing in on their prey. Gray cars, black limos, black-and-white patrol cars all in a tangle, cops with short-barrel shotguns stepping out, ordering drivers out of their cars and facedown on the ground. A shot was fired, and another. And Zebulon ran, back along the berm. He piled into his car and took off rocking along the berm until he was steady again, turning his lights high, reaching over to open the passenger door as Mindy and Joe Grey jumped in. Praying for the first time since Nell died, Zeb fled along the highway as a shot blasted too close to their back window. So far, the cops had paid no attention to them. He floorboarded the car up the road half a mile past the Harper ranch, he was sweating; he swerved into his own turnoff and it was then he realized there was a cat in the car, sitting calmly on Mindy’s lap.
She said, “You saw him when he found us, back there on the berm. You saw him jump in the car, Grandpa.” Zeb glanced at the cat and at Mindy, and said nothing. They heard the distant scream of sirens as CHP officers joined MPPD, speeding down the freeway from the north, these blending with the howl of medics’ units from the village. Zeb skidded up his own drive, around the outside of the fenced house and pasture, and straight for the woods.
“The horses . . .” He spun around in the seat, looking. “Where are the horses?”
“At the Harpers’. I told you.”
“Oh, yes, that was nice of them. Of course I remember.” But in truth, he hadn’t, no more than he’d remembered the cat. Since DeWayne beat on him, things had seemed to get a little mixed up. He turned onto the narrow path through the woods, scraping the top of Thelma’s car against the hanging branches. A quarter mile, and he parked behind the Harpers’ barn, out of sight from the highway. They didn’t need Thelma or Varney coming after them.
Where was Varney? Had he joined DeWayne and his pack of thieves? Zeb had looked for him down on the highway, but in that mess of course he hadn’t seen him.
They got out of the car and headed around the Harpers’ barn and down the long drive. At the gate, halfway to the highway, Charlie Harper and their young hand, Billy, were standing watch in case one of those guys got loose, in case there was a chase. Both of them had shotguns. That much vigilance might seem amusing to Mindy, but Zeb and Joe Grey knew better—and it was Joe Grey, rearing up beside Charlie, looking down at the confusion of cars and cops, of medics and injured men, who saw DeWayne Luther, his white hair catching car lights where he lay on a stretcher, the coroner leaning over him. DeWayne lying death still beside the hearse, pale face caught in a squad car’s headlights. Zeb let out a gasp, and turned away.
But what turned Joe Grey’s stomach was not this dead man, but two police officers on stretchers, new young men that Joe hardly knew. They were being worked on by medics: tourniquets, oxygen tanks, emergency wrappings. Both were already secured in an ambulance, ready to head for the hospital. To see a cop who had been shot upset Joe so badly that he threw up, retching, in the tall grass.
Charlie handed Billy her shotgun, picked Joe up, wiped his mouth with a tissue and kissed him on top of his head, her red hair falling over his eyes. She gave him a gentle hug, put him down again, and reached to Billy for her weapon. They watched the coroner start to wrap DeWayne in a body bag. Zebulon stood looking with no expression on his face. Looking at his oldest son, dead. His son who had beaten him so badly and who had tried to kill that woman he ran with. Zeb opened the gate and started down toward the hearse, down the rest of the long drive, Charlie and Billy walking beside him gently supporting him. Mindy followed, her own face white, as Max Harper started up the drive to them. Down by the hearse the coroner had stopped working, he stood looking up to Max for a sign to proceed or to back off.
Max paused, looking up at Zeb. “Do you want to come down?”
Zeb was silent. He looked at Max for a long time, then shook his head. “After all these years, he deserved what he got. Now, I don’t need to see him chewed up with bullets.” He turned away in the direction of the barn. But then he paused, turned back, took a key from his pocket and handed it to Max.
“Thelma’s Volvo. It’s behind the hay barn, we borrowed it. Shall I take it back?”
“She won’t need it, she’ll be in jail with the rest of them, at least for a while.” Max accepted the key. “We’ll see that it’s impounded.” He looked down at Mindy. “You were headed home, to Zeb’s place?”
She and Zeb nodded.
“Children’s Services gets a whiff of that, you two alone there, and Zeb just out of the hospital, they won’t like it. Thelma may try for dismissal or maybe home confinement on the excuse that she needs to take care of you.”