It was an unconvincing reply, Joe thought. There was a hint of panic in it.
“If I come out, you promise you won’t shoot me?” Cudmore asked.
“I promise. My guys are professionals, and they won’t shoot, either, as long as you don’t make any threatening moves. So come out slow and relaxed, Tilden. We’ll go to my office and we can talk this out.”
Cudmore’s face disappeared from the window.
Joe looked at the front door: it wasn’t opening. He wondered if Cudmore would be dumb enough to try to escape through the back, where two deputies were waiting. Judging by his performance thus far, Joe thought, Cudmore was dumb enough to do just about anything.
For the first time, Joe heard something beneath the sound of the Humvee’s engine: the snarling of dogs. He changed his angle and could see the tops of black shapes inside the trailer: blocky heads, and glimpses of eyes and white teeth. The insides of the windows were smeared with spittle.
“Mike,” Joe said, “he’s got his dogs in there with him.”
Cudmore’s face reappeared and he looked toward where he’d heard Joe’s voice. He seemed to be thinking, trying to decide what he was going to do next.
“I’ve got my dogs in here,” Cudmore said. “I suppose you’re going to arrest me for that, too?”
“Of course not,” Reed said. “Just keep them inside when you come out. We don’t want to hurt your animals, either.”
After another long pause, Cudmore said, “Okay, I’m coming out.” He sounded resigned.
Joe tensed for what might happen next.
The front door opened slightly and Cudmore squeezed out. The dogs tried to exit as well, but he blocked them with his body until he could close the door behind him. A flashlight beam raked Cudmore over, pausing at his empty holster.
“Deputy Boner,” Reed said, “please approach Mr. Cudmore and place him under arrest.”
“Yes, sir,” Boner said, rising from behind his vehicle. His weapon was out and extended in front of him.
“I thought we was just going to talk,” Cudmore said. “Did you lie to me?”
“No. We are going to talk.”
Just then, Joe heard a heavy rumbling sound from behind him. It was actually causing the ground to tremble.
“Oh no,” Reed said.
The Saddlestring Police Department’s MRAP turned in off the highway and flattened the wrought iron archway. Plumes of dust billowed out from its undercarriage and dual sets of back tires.
“You fuckin’ lied to me!” Cudmore cried.
Then he leaned over and opened his front door and stepped aside.
“Get ’em, boys!” Cudmore commanded.
Four massive pit bulls boiled out: teeth flashing in the ambient light, ropes of saliva flapping in the air. Two of them were on Boner before he got a chance to retreat or fire.
Boner went down, the dogs on top of him. It was a savage attack.
Cudmore pumped his fist with joy.
Joe pushed himself to his feet. The third dog was streaking across the yard toward Reed, who was in the process of raising his weapon. Reed fired, but missed.
Joe raised his shotgun and fired instinctively, an orange gout of flame exploding from the muzzle. He hit the pit bull behind its front shoulder with a full load that rolled it across the grass less than a foot from Reed’s feet in the chair. The concussion was loud, but Joe barely heard it over the roaring in his ears. He hated killing a dog.
The fourth dog retreated from the others and took refuge behind Cudmore’s legs. Cudmore cursed and kicked it hard in the ribs, but instead of attacking like the others, the dog hunkered down in the mud.
The other deputies had surrounded the two snarling dogs on top of Boner. One of them yelled to be careful not to hit Boner, who writhed on the ground in a tornado of solid muscle and red-stained teeth.
Cudmore rocked back on his heels with his hands on his hips and hooted. Then he bent toward the whimpering dog and yelled, “Go help your brothers, you coward.”
There were several flashes and thumps and loud yelps as rounds hit the two dogs on top of Boner, then the whimper of a dying creature who’d been thrown to the side by the impact of the bullets. Boner thrashed, rolling, grasping at his face and throat. Blood, bits of flesh, and fur were everywhere.
A harsh spotlight from the top of the MRAP illuminated it all.
Joe was a beat too late when Cudmore drew a weapon he’d had tucked in his waistband under his jacket. The man did it tentatively, as if he were having second thoughts even as the semiauto cleared.
A volley of shots from the deputies cut him down and he fell straight back like a felled tree. A deafening burst from the .50-caliber machine gun on the MRAP ripped through the night and tore a twisted chunk of aluminum off the roof of the trailer. The fourth dog managed to scramble out of the way of Cudmore’s crashing body.
Joe ran to where Tilden Cudmore lay, and he kicked the .357 from the man’s hand. Cudmore grunted from the blow—he was still alive—and Joe wheeled and pressed his shotgun barrel into the man’s doughy cheek.
“Stay right where you are,” Joe said.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, but I ain’t dyin’, neither,” Cudmore said, revealing a mouthful of long yellow teeth in what was either a grimace or a grin. “I was prepared for your gestapo tactics.”
It was then Joe saw the collar of the body armor vest that Cudmore wore beneath his coat. Although the body armor had prevented rounds from entering his body, their impact had done damage. Cudmore hugged himself and whimpered.
“You’re going to pay for what you did to April,” Joe said, leaning in hard with the shotgun.
In Cudmore’s rheumy eyes was confusion at what Joe had said, then a slow realization.
“So that’s why you’re here,” the man said. “You think I done something to some girl. You people—”
The fourth pit bull charged Cudmore as if to attack him, but feinted at the last second and ran away. It got close enough to scare Cudmore, though. Joe admired the dog and watched it run off into the night.
—
“GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE!” Sheriff Reed yelled, wheeling his chair across the yard until it thumped into the front bumper of the MRAP.
The local cop garbed in camo and an army helmet who had fired the burst with the machine gun that missed Cudmore and nearly the entire trailer, said, “Sheriff—”
“Get that thing the hell out of here or I’ll arrest the lot of you!” Reed shouted. Joe had never seen him so mad.
The MRAP backed away, crushing a snow fence.
—
FIVE MINUTES LATER, with his ears still ringing from the explosion of gunshots, Joe heard Reed fume to Dulcie, “I just about had him in custody without anyone getting hurt. Then Williamson showed up with his goddamned tank.”
—
REED SAID, “If it weren’t for Deputy Boner’s injuries, I might ask the EMTs to slow down on their way out of here, and maybe we grab us some coffee while Cudmore rolls around in pain. But that wouldn’t be right, would it?”
“Um, no,” Dulcie said, her face white with shock at what had just happened.
Reed wheeled over to Joe. “Thank you for your restraint in not shooting him.”
“It didn’t seem right,” Joe said. “I really hated to shoot those dogs, though.”
“That last dog must have really hated him,” Reed said, shaking his head. “He finally got the chance to show him how much, is what I think.”
Joe barely heard him. His nerves jangled from the release of adrenaline and his throat ached from having witnessed—and participated in—such a scene of savagery.
He had his arm around Lucy, who had stayed silent since the shooting was over. He hoped she hadn’t seen much, but he was afraid she had. He wondered what she thought of her father if she’d seen him prodding a shotgun into the face of an injured man lying flat on his back on the ground.
“But we got our man,” Reed said.