There was some shuffling inside the cabin, and suddenly Sales appeared in the doorway.
"What do you want?" Sales demanded in a tone that was sullen and much harsher than Bolinger had grown used to over the past year. His expression was hard to read through the screen, but Bolinger could hear the tension in his voice.
"Put the gun down," Farnhorst commanded in a loud booming voice that seemed almost obscene on such a peaceful night. Sales had a pistol in his hand, and although his arm hung straight down with the gun pointed at the floor, it made Bolinger swallow hard.
"You put yours down then." Sales glowered. "I don't need someone pointing a gun at me in the doorway of my own house."
"Put it down," Bolinger gently told his partner. "We need to talk to you, Don."
"Talk," Sales said. Some of the tension left his voice at the sight of Farnhorst's weapon by his side.
"We want you to come downtown with us," Bolinger said. "Will you do that?"
"Why?" Sales asked. "What's the problem? I didn't do anything."
"I know, Don," Bolinger said. "But Frank Castle was killed last night. Someone cut him open."
Sales stared blankly at the detective. He sighed resignedly and said, "Let me get my coat."
Without waiting for a reply, Sales turned back into the house, then emerged a minute later emptyhanded, wearing a black suede jacket and a matching cowboy hat. Farnhorst kept his gun ready, and when Bolinger asked about the blood on the porch, he tightened his grip. But Sales only laughed at them and held up his left hand. There was a blood-soaked bandage wrapped tightly around his index finger.
"Cut it to the bone," he explained. His mouth was twisted somewhere between a grimace and a smile. Then, pointing to the small shop on the side of the cabin, he continued, "Band saw."
The two detectives nodded silently and followed Sales across the dusty front yard. They piled into their car just as the headlights from his pickup cut into the coming night. Sales waited until they got turned around, then followed the police cruiser as it snaked its way to the main road.
"I didn't like that gun," Farnhorst complained.
"Man has a right to protect his own house," Bolinger pointed out. The lighter popped out on the dash, and after removing it he touched off the Winston that dangled from his mouth.
They hadn't been driving for more than three minutes before Bolinger, who had been keeping a casual eye on Sales in the rearview mirror, saw the dome light illuminate the truck's cab. Bolinger's instincts told him it meant something. When the light went off, however, he relaxed. But two minutes later, Farnhorst heard him utter the words "Oh, shit."
"What's the problem?" Farnhorst asked, but before Bolinger even answered, Farnhorst was thrown into his door when the sergeant slammed on the brakes and flipped the wheel, skidding around until they were facing in the opposite direction.
"There he goes," Bolinger muttered as he hit the gas. He slammed the wheel with the palm of his hand. "Shit!"
The two grim-faced cops wove in and out of the thin traffic. Sales was driving like a maniac, passing cars on double yellow lines and narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic. Bolinger flicked on his lights and the siren, which helped clear the traffic.
"Hang on!" he shouted as the cruiser mounted a hilltop and took to the air momentarily before crashing back to the pavement. Sales was already at the bottom of the hill and had shot around a wooded bend out of sight. When Bolinger rounded the corner, he cursed out loud.
"Son of a bitch!"
There was Sales's truck, driven right off the road and stopped just this side of the trees in some knee-deep grass. Sales shot out of the truck with a bundle under one arm and a rifle he'd wrenched from the rack behind the seat. Farnhorst rolled down his window on the approach and brandished his gun; he screamed for Sales to freeze. Sales never broke stride. Just before he hit the trees, Farnhorst began to fire. Bolinger jammed on the brakes, throwing his partner into the dash.
"Goddamn!" Bolinger cried. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Son of a bitch is gonna get away, Bob!" Farnhorst shouted. He jumped from the car, gun in hand, but pulled up beside the pickup and turned to face his sergeant. The truck's engine was still running. Country music spilled from the cab into the dusk. Bolinger got out of the car and met Farnhorst's eyes with a cold, hard stare.
"You know better than that," he told Farnhorst in reference to the gunfire. Bolinger waded through the grass, already wet with dew. Farnhorst pursed his lips. He did know better.
"Should we try to follow him?" Farnhorst asked, his gaze following the beam of the headlights where they pierced the darkness of the woods.
Bolinger wore a grim frown. "You or I could follow him for a year and we wouldn't get any closer than we are right now."
He met Farnhorst's puzzled look and explained, "The man lives in these hills. He lives in them. He hunts in them. He fishes in them. I've heard him talk about getting back in these hills hunting by himself and not coming home for a week at a time. No, we won't find him."
Bolinger leaned into the truck and flicked on the dome light. On the seat were smears of dried blood. He wondered if they were from Sales's cut finger.
"We better get the lab out here and check this truck out," he said. "There's some blood here on the seat."
"Should we call the sheriffs?" Farnhorst said. "They've got a helicopter. They've got dogs, too…"
Bolinger looked past the truck door off into the blackness of the woods and thought for a moment before sighing. With a nod he said, "Yeah, we'd better get them. Tell them he's armed.
"Shit!" he said, kicking up a small spray of dew in the beam of the car's headlights. "A goddamn manhunt. Shit! I didn't think it was him."
"Maybe it still isn't," Farnhorst said, but they both knew he was just being polite.
CHAPTER 18
"I still think Lipton killed Marcia Sales, and the girl in Atlanta," Bolinger argued. The captain looked at him skeptically.
"There's not that much I can do with Sales anyway," Bolinger continued. "The sheriffs are out there looking. The Texas Rangers are on alert. I've got a stakeout on his cabin. No one's come up with anything. Unless Sales turns up on his own, I don't know what more I can do with that case. With the FBI I can still investigate Lipton across state lines."
"Traces of that boy's blood were found on the seat of his truck," the captain reminded him. "Bob, admit it. You were wrong."
"I may have been wrong about Sales," Bolinger conceded. "But just because he killed Frank Castle doesn't mean he killed those girls. His own daughter, for God's sake, John. A man doesn't do that."
"You don't do it. I don't do it," the captain countered, "but you or I don't butcher Frank Castle, either. He was killed the same way as the girl. How do you explain that?"
"I think maybe Sales was trying to make it look like Lipton," Bolinger said.
The captain considered that for a moment, then said, "By the way, have you contacted the lawyer?"
"No," Bolinger said sullenly. "I haven't."
"Well, you should," the captain said, removing his reading glasses. He leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. "That's all we need, to have her get bumped and we didn't warn her that Sales is out there killing people involved with that case."
"It was on the news. It's the big story," Bolinger grumbled.
"Bob, talk to her," the captain said. "That's an order. In the meantime, as long as you give me your word you're staying on top of the Sales situation, you can help out the FBI."