Mumford stared through the gaping open door into the ramshackle log house-and directly at two more men who were sitting at a table, placing carefully measured amounts of white powder into small transparent glassine envelopes that they were holding up to the light.
One of them was Dan Griffis.
That's when the man on the porch saw Ted Mumford.
"Who the fuck're you?" he blurted, reaching for his gun and drawing the attention of the other two.
Mumford instantly inventoried the trouble he was in. His own gun was hard to reach, half hidden by his winter jacket, he was wearing nonregulation woolen gloves for their warmth, and he'd just found out how poor his footing was.
As a result, on pure instinct, and seeing the other man's gun starting to level in his direction, Mumford charged up the steps like a linebacker.
Checked Shirt was caught by surprise. Mumford tackled him around the middle, lifted him off his feet, and propelled him backward, flying into the cabin beyond. They both landed on the floor in a heap, with both of Mumford's gloved hands anchored around his opponent's gun.
As plans went, of course, it was short-term at best. Dan Griffis leaped to his feet at the violent intrusion, grabbed the back of his chair and swung it over his head in the same movement, and brought it crashing down onto the back of the deputy's head.
Mumford let out a groan and stopped struggling. Checked Shirt wrestled free, scrambled to his feet, readjusted the gun in his hand, and took aim. Griffis smacked him across the mouth with the back of his hand, sending him staggering.
"Hey, genius," Dan yelled at him, "why don't you blow your own brains out instead? And ours, too, for that matter. You wanna kill a cop? Get the fuck out there and find out who's with him. For all we know, he's got the DEA with him."
He then quickly knelt by Mumford's slowly stirring body, pulled the man's handcuffs from his belt case, and secured his wrists behind his back, commenting as he did so, "Always wanted to do that. Hope they're too goddamned tight."
Checked Shirt, for his part, angrily replaced his gun in his belt and sat in a chair in the far corner of the room, growling, "Up yours. I already been out there. There ain't no raid."
The third man in the room, sitting dumbfounded at the table, a glassine envelope still in his hand, finally spoke. "Jesus, Dan. What the fuck was that all about?"
Griffis looked up at him. "What was it about? What the fuck do I know, Charlie? How many times have you had a cop fly through the door and fall on your floor?"
Charlie seemed to consider the question seriously.
"We need to get out of here," Griffis said. "Mike," he ordered the man in the corner, "get your ass out of that chair and go outside. Humor me, okay?"
Without a word, Mike rose and stepped outside, closing the door behind him.
Griffis rolled the deputy over onto his back, removed his gun from its holster, and pointed it into Mumford's face. Mumford blinked a few times, slowly regaining his wits. A large knot was already growing on his forehead where the blow from the chair had driven his face into the floor.
"What's your name, cop?" Griffis asked.
"You know me," Mumford told him.
Dan straightened and looked at him more closely, trying to put him in context. "Mumford!" he finally exclaimed. "You sorry son of a bitch. I should've let Mike kill you. What the fuck were you doing out there? You're no drug cop."
"I wasn't here for drugs. Your stupid dog was barking."
The gun was lowered, already half forgotten. Griffis rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand. "You are shitting me. You came for a dog complaint? What? From the neighbors?"
Mumford merely gave him a wilting look.
Dan stared back at him, muttered, "Up yours," and got to his feet, adding, "Fucking Mike and his fucking mutt. I told him to shut it up. But, oh, no-he's a good guard dog." He began pacing. "Goddamned guard dog just about put us in jail."
"Are we going to jail?" Charlie asked.
Dan kept going in circles. "You can if you want, but I'm never getting out. No fucking way I'm sticking around for that."
Mike reentered the cabin. "Nothing," he reported. "He was alone, just like I said."
Griffis confronted him. "He was alone, Michael, because the neighbors called in a barking-dog complaint. I thought you should know that. Asshole."
Mike laid his hand on his gun butt but otherwise remained silent.
"What should we do?" Charlie asked, at last putting the small envelope down.
Griffis addressed them both. "I don't care. Me, I gotta get out of here, and I mean, way out. We need to put Deputy Mumford here back in his cruiser and squirrel it away somewhere where they won't find it for a while, but after that, it's every man for himself. You guys want to stick around, you can do that, too. They'll probably just slap you on the wrist. But I'm gone."
"You gonna go to Canada?" Charlie asked.
Griffis looked down at Mumford and shook his head. "Yeah, Charlie. To Canada, and I'll give you the address, too, just so the deputy here will remember it and have the Mounties drop by."
He tilted his head back and glanced at the ceiling meditatively. "Why am I surprised I ended up here?"
Joe was back at his favorite office contemplation spot, perched on his windowsill, overlooking the now snow-clotted parking lot. "John Leppman?"
They were all four there, including Willy, since the Dan Griffis situation had blown up and Dan was on the lam. Deputy Mumford's colleagues had taken about five hours to locate him, cuffed and stuffed into his own backseat, hidden inside an abandoned barn-time enough for Griffis to return home, clean out his effects, and vanish.
"Guess you never thought to check out the good guys," Willy gratuitously volunteered.
Joe took it in stride. "Never crossed my mind. He's worked with all sorts of agencies for years, got thumbs-up all around, is even part-time certified."
Sammie was less charitable, glaring at her companion. "Like you blew the whistle on him."
"He wasn't my assignment."
"Les," Joe asked, cutting in. "What do we know about him now?"
Lester, having worked the closest with Leppman, was understandably the most embarrassed. He kept his eyes on his paperwork as he reported. "Right now it's just background stuff, but it's bad enough. The whole family moved up here from Virginia about five years ago. Very successful-she, the doc; he, the big-name psychologist. They set down roots fast and wide, made lots of contacts. He started working with the police on computer crimes. Nobody gave it a second thought. But the reason they'd moved was that they used to have two daughters. I should've known that-I even saw family photos in his office showing two girls. Wendy is the older one. Her sister was named Gwen, Gwennie to them, and she was abducted, raped, and murdered by an Internet predator a little over a year before they pulled up roots. The killer was caught almost immediately, tried, convicted, and thrown in the hole, but the family couldn't stand living there, so it was off to Vermont to start over."
"Why wasn't any of that ever picked up?" Joe asked.
Spinney looked up for the first time. "It's not that rare, anymore, boss. And it was a fast case. I found local headlines, but not much else. These people were just victims. If you don't ask, and they don't tell…" He left the sentence unfinished.
"Okay," Joe conceded. "That goes under sad but true. What else?"
Lester's tone became more rueful still. "Turns out the choice of a Taser wasn't so random. When Gwennie was abducted and raped, a Taser, or at least a stun gun, was used by the rapist."
"Jesus," Sammie said softly.