Sunset Express

Kerris said, 'Bullshit, Cole. I checked out you and your partner, remember? You aren't built that way.'

Another boom, and this time the number four slammed through the wall just over Joe's back.

I crawled across him to the split again and looked out. Walter Lawrence had once more focused on the gun. He leaned forward from the waist, picked it up, then held it as if he had never held a gun before in his life. Maybe he hadn't. He cupped it in both hands and pointed it at Kerris, but the gun wavered wildly. He lowered the gun. I yelled, 'I'm serious, Kerris. What's all this to me?'

'If you're so goddamned serious, throw out your guns and come out.'

'Forget that.'

'Then let's wait it out.'

The car was close, now, and if I strained I thought that I might hear it. Walter Lawrence raised the gun again. Rossi said, 'That's Tomsic!'

I yelled, 'Okay, Kerris. Let's talk.'

I stepped into the door, and as I did Mr Walter Lawrence pulled the trigger. There was a loud BANG and his shot slammed into the Jaguar's rear fender and Kerris jumped back from the wheel, yelling, 'Sonofabitch!'

Walter Lawrence fired again, and again the shot went wide, and Kerris swung the shotgun toward him but as he did Angela Rossi shouted, 'No!' and she and Joe Pike and I launched out the door, firing as fast as we could.

Kerris brought the shotgun back, pulling the trigger BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM as our bullets caught him and lifted him, and then slammed him into the soft gray earth, and then the noise was gone and it was over and there was only the sound of Louise Earle crying.

CHAPTER 35

Mr Walter Lawrence fell onto his back and kept trying to right himself the way a turtle might, clawing at the air with his arms and legs. I took the gun from him and told him to lie still, but he wouldn't until Louise Earle hurried out from the shed and made him.

Linc Gibbs and Dan Tomsic pulled up in a cloud of dry gray dust, then ran over with their guns out. Tomsic said, 'Who's this?'

'One of the good guys. Get an ambulance, for Christ's sake. We've got another wounded in the shed.'

Linc Gibbs made the call while Tomsic ran for the first aid kit that every cop keeps in his trunk. The crew cut had put one high into the left side of Mr Lawrence's chest. His shirt and jacket were soaked red, and he felt cold to the touch. The blood loss was extreme. When Tomsic came with the kit, we put a compress bandage over the wound and held it in place. Mrs Earle held it. While Tomsic was working with the bandage he glanced at Angela Rossi. 'You okay, Slick?'

She made an uncertain smile. 'Yeah.'

When Mr Lawrence was bandaged we ran into the shed, but Elliot Truly was dead. Tomsic looked close at Truly as if he wanted to be sure of what he was seeing. 'Is this who I think it is?'

'Unh-huh.'

'Sonofabitch.'

Gibbs had them send a medivac helicopter, and while we waited, we secured the scene. There wasn't much to secure. Both the guy with the crew cut and the guy in the knit shirt were dead. Kerris was dead, too. Tomsic said, 'Do all of these guys work for Green?'

'Kerris was his chief investigator. I think these other two worked for Kerris. I saw the black guy at Green's home.'

Tomsic shook his head and stared at the bodies. 'Man, you really wrack'm up.'

I frowned at him. 'Do you have a spare shirt in your car?' My shirt was still a bloody wad on Elliot Truly's chest.

'Think I might have something.' Most cops keep a spare shirt for just such occasions.

He had a plain blue cotton dress shirt still in its original plastic bag stowed in his trunk. It had probably been there for years. 'Thanks, Tomsic.' When I put it on, it was like wearing a tent. Two sizes too big.

The medivac chopper came in from the north and settled to a rest well away from the radio towers. Two paramedics hustled out with a stretcher and loaded Mr Lawrence into the helicopter's bay. They told us that they were going to lift him to Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital, which would be a five-minute flight, and Mrs Earle wanted to go. They refused to take her until Angela Rossi volunteered to go with her. Lincoln Gibbs told Rossi that we would pick her up at the hospital.

When the helicopter had lifted away and disappeared over the hills, Gibbs looked at me and Pike, and said, 'Well?' The first of the black-and-whites was just now kicking up dust on the roads below.

'Green's people got to LeCedrick Earle. They offered him money and an early out from prison if he could get his mother to change her story. He hadn't spoken to her in six years, but he called and told her that the guards and the other prisoners were beating him because she was defending the police. Green's people went to her also, and helped convince her that it was real, and that the only way they could save LeCedrick was if she changed her story so that they could get him away from the guards.'

Gibbs nodded. 'Figured it had to be something like that. Figured she wouldn't do it for money.'

Tomsic said, 'Will she say that on the record?'

'Yes. And we've got something else, too.'

They looked at me.

'Truly made a dying declaration that Teddy Martin admitted murdering his wife, and that Jonathan Green conspired with Truly and Kerris to fabricate false evidence against Pritzik and Richards.'

Tomsic smiled, and Lincoln Gibbs made a little whistle. Gibbs said, 'Truly said that to you?'

Pike and Rossi heard it, too. Mrs Earle might've heard it, but I'm not certain that she did.'

Gibbs went back to his car and spoke on his cell phone for a time. As the black-and-whites rolled up, Tomsic met them and told them to hang around. There wasn't anything for them to do until the detectives who would handle the scene arrived. Gibbs came back in a few minutes and said, 'Is that your Jeep on the other side of the hills?'

Pike said, 'Mine.'

'Okay. We'll pick up Rossi and Mrs Earle at MLK and go see Sherman.'

I spread my arms, 'Like this?'

Tomsic was already walking to his car. 'The shirt looks great on you. What's your beef?'

'It looks like I'm wearing a tent.'

Pike's mouth twitched.

I said, 'Hey, Gibbs.'

He looked back.

'How about I pick up Mrs Earle? It might be easier for her.'

He stared at me for a short moment, and then he nodded. 'We'll meet you at Sherman 's.'

A black-and-white brought us to Pike's Jeep, and we drove directly to the MLK emergency trauma center. Mr Lawrence was in surgery, and Rossi and Mrs Earle were in the waiting room. I sat next to Mrs Earle and took her hands. 'We need to go see the district attorney. We need to tell her what we know about all of this. Do you see?'

She looked at me with clear eyes that were free of doubt or equivocation. 'Of course. I knew that we would.'

The four of us drove to Anna Sherman's office in Pike's Jeep. Mrs Earle rode with her hands in her lap and her head up. I guess she was thinking about LeCedrick. We did not listen to the radio during this time, and perhaps we should have. Things might've worked out differently if we had.

It was just after three that afternoon when Louise Earle, Angela Rossi, and I were shown into Anna Sherman's office. The bald prosecutor, Warren Bidwell, was there, along with another man I hadn't seen before, and Gibbs and Tomsic.

Sherman greeted us, smiling politely at Louise Earle and giving me a kind of curious neutrality, as if the meeting in Greenblatt's parking lot had never happened. I guess that they had told her what to expect.

Sherman offered coffee, which everyone declined, and as we took our seats she passed close to me and whispered, 'Great shirt.'