He had a little fantasy of arranging a breakdown for Davenport's Acura, noticed that he'd just gone through Broderick at eighty-five miles an hour, saw lights on at Calb's and wondered if the feds might be in there, too, got even madder, and pushed the truck to ninety.
At the turnoff to the dump, he thought, Easy does it. You're cool, now. He continued down the approach road. There were no vehicles parked at the gate, but from the high seat in the truck, he could see over the rise of the dump to a brilliant cluster of lights off to his right. People at work.
He took the truck that way, bouncing over the ruts left by the bulldozer, saw Zahn walking back to his car, then Davenport and Capslock walking toward the fancy Acura.
The radio went, on the command frequency. "Sheriff, you there?"
He ignored it, pulled up beside Davenport and Capslock, and hopped out.
"What's going on here?" he asked Lucas.
"Take a look in the hole," Lucas said. "We think it's Mrs. Calb."
"Aw, jeez… How come I wasn't in on this?"
Lucas said, "I gotta apologize for that, but we got some information that, uh, the guy we're looking for might be with the sheriff's department."
Anderson had started toward the hole, but that turned him around. "My department?"
"Yeah. We think it might be Loren Singleton. Katina's boyfriend."
"Singleton? I just, I just… Aw, shoot." He walked over to look in the hole. They'd exposed most of the bag, and he could see a woman's thigh and lower leg. Could be Gloria Calb; about the right size.
"We got another bag underneath it," Bussard said, leaning on his shovel, looking up at the sheriff. He smelled like old Campbell's tomato soup. "Looks like a man's shoe. The boys here think it's gotta be Gene."
Lucas stepped up next to Anderson. "We were gonna come get you, and then go get Singleton. Since he's your guy, we figured you might want to be there to make the official arrest… "
Aw, shoot.
THEY ALL WENT back to their trucks, Anderson thinking that they'd never have called him, not until they had Singleton trussed up like a Christmas turkey. They were treating him like the village idiot, and if he hadn't gotten up here in time, everybody in Custer County would have known about it.
Anderson got in his truck and the radio bleated again, "Sheriff, are you there? Sheriff?"
He picked up the handset and said, "Yeah, this is me. What do you want?"
"We got a strange call from Margery Singleton. That's Loren Singleton's mother. She said she's afraid he's done something awful and that he might hurt some more people. I don't know, she sounded a little overcooked, but I thought I'd call you… "
ZAHN WAS LEADING the parade out of the dump, Lucas behind him, Anderson in the third truck, and as they pulled out of the approach road, Anderson began honking his horn and flashing his lights. They all stopped and Anderson ran up beside Lucas's truck.
"Loren Singleton's mom just called in. She said she thinks Loren's done something awful, and he's headed up to Broderick and thinks he might hurt some more people. She said he mentioned that Letty kid."
"Aw, shit," Lucas said. He shouted "Tell Ray," and accelerated away, barely giving Anderson time to jump back from the truck.
Anderson watched as Lucas swerved around Zahn and out onto the approach road. Zahn had stopped with all the horn honking, and had gotten out of his car when Anderson had gotten out of his. Zahn yelled, "What?"
"Loren's on his way to Broderick; he's after that Letty kid."
Zahn didn't say anything-just got in his car and tore out after Lucas. Anderson got back in his truck and followed, onto the approach road. Then he picked up his handset, called the dispatcher and said, "You gotta get the phone number of that church up in Broderick. Tell them that they're in danger, that Loren's coming after them. Tell them to lock their doors."
The call was, he thought later, the only good thing he'd done all night-but it was very good.
25
LOREN SINGLETON HAD just gotten his truck in Calb's garage when another truck went through town at high speed. He heard it, didn't see it-but its urgency carried a message. Something had happened north of Broderick, and the only thing north of Broderick for a long distance was the dump.
In his heart, he knew they'd found something. He sat slumped in his truck, the radio muttering at him, and then, distantly, playing an old Wayne Newton tune, "Danke Schoen." He turned it up a bit, and the song hit him emotionally, and he began to weep, thinking about Katina, but also about himself. The chances of Mom getting anything together were just about zero, he thought. He was toast.
He finally wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, pulled on his gloves, got the.380 out from under the car seat, put on his cop hat, took a deep breath, and headed out to the church.
RUTH LEWIS HAD finished her calls north. Letty was sleepy from the pain pills, and had given up her book and was watching one of the nuns' DVD movies, Thelma and Louise, her injured leg up on a pile of pillows. The older woman was in her cubicle, doing her afternoon prayers. Ruth, restless, thought about collecting Letty and walking over to the diner, or getting back in the car and checking at the dump, to see if anything had been found.
Thelma and Louisewas starting to show noise-either that, Ruth thought, or the DVD machine was breaking down. She leaned against the doorway, watching the movie over Letty's head, when the phone rang in the kitchen. She hurried back, picked it up. The sheriff's dispatcher, talking all in a rush: "Loren Singleton's mom says he's coming up there with a gun he might hurt you and you're all supposed to get out of there quick, the sheriff's on his way right now but Loren may be ahead of him… "
The doorbell rang.
RUTH DROPPED THE phone and ran toward the front of the church, stopped in the doorway of the TV room, and said, quietly as she could, but with urgency, "Loren Singleton's on his way. Get up in the loft and hide."
The doorbell rang again and Letty, not asking questions, limped past Ruth, and Ruth went to the front of the church and peeked out the small window at the front. Loren Singleton, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind, was standing on the concrete stoop.
She backed away. Silence was best, she thought. Then the older woman, interrupted at her prayers, called, "Ruth? Did you get the door?"
The doorbell rang again and then the doorknob rattled, and she heard Singleton yell, "Sheriff's deputy. Open up."
The older woman came out, puzzled, and asked, "What's going on?" Ruth grabbed her by the arm, saw Letty disappearing into the loft at the back, and dragged the older woman toward the back of the church. "Loren Singleton… the sheriff says he might be here to hurt Letty."
"What?"
They were at a window, and Ruth looked out-but there was nothing out there except a few snow-whipped buildings, hundreds of feet apart, and the plains. If they ran out the back door, and if Singleton saw them, there'd be no place to go, or to hide.
"I don't… " she began, and at that moment, Singleton kicked in the door. He did it like a cop, a quick heavy kick at the doorknob, and the door buckled, without quite breaking clean. Then he kicked it again, and Ruth said to the older woman, "Hide. Anywhere." She turned toward the door to confront Singleton.
Singleton loomed in the doorway and Ruth shouted at him, "The sheriff's coming. They just called and they know!"
Singleton had a gun in his hand, but the message got through to him and he stopped, breathing hard, maybe thinking, and then Letty, from up in the loft, yelled, "You killed my mom, you sonofabitch."
Ruth's heart sank.
Letty added, "I shot you once and I'll shoot you again if you don't get out of here."
Singleton saw her up in the loft, and shouted, "You little… " He lifted his gun hand as though he might shoot at her, and Letty shot him and he fell down.