“Sounds quite scenic.”
Bronski spoke up, voice low. “No worries, you won’t see shit.”
We got out in a main lobby area. Patients and family members swarmed around the elevator banks, but as our trio went out to the glass doors leading to the outside, it was like we were made of garlic and the people were vampires. They all backed away and turned their eyes, save for one little boy, wearing a Batman sweatshirt, who stared at me with wide, wide eyes.
If I had just persuaded him not to follow a life of crime, I guess this little public display was well worth it.
Bronski slapped a square button that opened up a set of doors, wide enough for the wheelchair to go through. Outside, the cold air snapped at me like a blast of A/C, and I took a deep breath, enjoying the taste and smell of outdoor air. Off to the right, parked right up to the curb, was a brown-and-tan GMC van with a gold sheriff’s department shield, and a long line of lettering announcing GRAFTON COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. Lindsay wheeled me to the pavement and off to the rear of the van. More family members were strolling up to the main entrance and, seeing me and the van, they all walked around in a wide circle.
“Look how popular you are,” Bronski said.
“And they don’t even know me yet,” I said.
Lindsay laughed. He parked my wheelchair and opened up the rear of the van. I was impressed. There was an elevator system in the rear made for wheelchairs. Lindsay toggled a couple of switches, and a platform unfolded and lowered itself to the ground. I was wheeled in, the chair’s wheels were locked, and in a couple of minutes everything was squared away. Bronski was up forward in the cab, with a mesh screen separating him from his dangerous prisoner.
The rear of the van was spare, metal and utilitarian. Benches lined both sides, and metal rings were set into the floor and the sides. I was set in the middle, wheels locked, and Lindsay took some heavy-duty bungee cords and secured the chair even more.
He leaned over, rapped the rear of the mesh. “Ski, we’re good to go.”
Bronski grunted, spoke something into his microphone to Grafton County Dispatch, started up the engine, and we were off.
In just a few minutes, we were on Interstate 91, heading northeast. Bronski had been wrong. I was seeing shit, although only through the rear windows with mesh wiring embedded in the glass. The landscape was wooded low hills and mountains in the distance. There wasn’t much left in the way of foliage. My wrist ached where the handcuff was cutting into the skin and bone. Deputy Lindsay leaned forward, wrists on his thighs, thick hands clasped together.
“You feeling okay?”
“Not bad.”
“Leg hurting?”
“Enough to know I got shot.”
“Jesus, that’s what I heard,” Lindsay said. “Who the hell shot you?”
I smiled at him. “A nine-millimeter pistol.”
“Hah,” he said. “I mean, who? Who shot you?”
I smiled wider. “A mysterious gunman.” He stayed quiet. I added: “Nice try, Deputy. Don’t worry about it.”
He grinned. “Hey, I gotta try. Never know what might happen.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “For all you know, somebody might confess to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Or Jimmy Hoffa.”
“Guy can dream, right?” he asked.
A few minutes passed. I said: “Excuse me for saying this, Deputy, but you don’t look like a cop. You’ve been a sheriff’s deputy long?”
“About five years.”
“What did you do before then?”
“Firefighter. City of Nashua. Got my twenty in, got the wife and kids, and headed north. Nice piece of land, raise some chickens, pigs, and beef. Figured if and when things collapse, we’ll make it through. In the meantime, I get out of the house, meet some interesting people, and add to my pension.”
“Sounds great.”
“Better than a lot of other people are doing here, that’s for sure.”
A few more minutes. I cleared my throat. “Deputy Lindsay, could I ask a favor?”
“Hmm?”
I raised my hands up. “I know it’s against the rules and all, but could you take off the cuffs? Please? My right wrist is really aching.”
“Christ, no.”
“C’mon,” I said, moving my hands over my bandaged leg. “You think I’m going anywhere with this bum leg? Do I look like I can overpower you? Please. Besides, your buddy up there driving looks like he’d like to pump a round in the back of my head, just for the hell of it.”
He looked up at the mesh screen, looked back at me. I quieted my voice. “Take the cuffs off, treat me just like a patient, and I’ll put my hands under the blanket. Keep my mouth shut. Your partner won’t know. We pull into the jail, put them back on, and that’s it.”
Lindsay seemed to be thinking over something, and then he came to me, worked quickly, and undid the cuffs. I put my hands under the blankets, rubbed both wrists this time, and said, “Thanks.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lindsay said.
About two minutes later was when it happened.
Bronski took an exit that put us on Route 25, and the road was narrow and curvy, with farms and pastureland and a few mobile homes out there in the distance. Old stone walls and barbed-wire fences, and herds of sheep and cows at work. I looked out at the passing rural landscape, wondering what my view would be like once I got to the county jail. I also thought about what Attorney Drake was doing on my behalf at this very moment, and spared some thoughts for Diane and Kara and Felix.
And here I was, alone in a sheriff’s van, heading to jail.
I was thinking so much that I almost missed the vehicle that was now behind us.
It was a black Chevrolet Suburban, with tinted windows and no license plate up forward, which meant it wasn’t local, since New Hampshire requires vehicles to have license plates both fore and aft.
It had pulled out from a dirt driveway, sped up, and was now closing in behind us.
“Deputy Lindsay.”
“Yeah?”
“Check what’s coming up on our tail. The Suburban.”
He leaned over, looked to the rear. “So?”
“Deputy, in about one minute, we’re going to get ambushed. Better call for some backup.”
He flipped back to me, the friendly look entirely gone. His eyes were glaring at me, face flushed, as his hand went down to his holstered pistol. “You bastard, you set us up! That’s why you wanted your handcuffs off!”
“If I was setting you up, I wouldn’t warn you. You don’t have much time. Deputy, get to it, call backup!”
His eyes didn’t leave me as he evaluated my words, and he said, “Move, and you’ll be the first one hit.”
“Take a number,” I said. “Those guys are after me.”
Lindsay took his pistol out and, with his other hand, toggled the radio microphone on his shirt epaulet. “Dispatch, dispatch, this is Grafton Mobile One.”
Static crackled back at him.
His voice louder, “Dispatch, dispatch, this is Grafton Mobile One.”
More static.
“I think they’re jamming you,” I said.
“Shit.”
He tried his cell phone, said “shit” again, and tossed it on the floor.
The Suburban sped up, getting closer. Lindsay pushed by me, rapped on the mesh wire separating us from the cab. “Ski! We got trouble! My radio’s not working, and we got bad guys on our asses!”
Ski said something back; Lindsay said: “Then haul ass! See if we can make the jail in time!”
The van lurched as Ski sped up, and Lindsay came back, checked his pistol, took me in with a look, and asked, “Who’s after you? Same guy who shot you?”
“His friends.”
“They’re pretty pissed off.”