The dirt-bike Dracula saw that Harry was high up and behind him, but he couldn’t see Fair even farther behind. Slowly, he pushed his bike around the hay bales, darkness shielding him.
The darkness also shielded Taz on Dinny’s back, but as the attacker pushed his bike he now saw them.
The vampire pulled out a gun and leveled it.
Harry boomed out, “Paul, move!”
Tazio’s abductor stopped for a moment as Harry barely touched the earth, heading straight at him, Tucker and Mrs. Murphy in front of her.
Firing, he missed Tazio, then turned and restarted the bike. Switching his gun to his left hand, he revved the engine. He roared straight for Harry, cape flying, mask in place, fangs showing.
As the bike hurtled at her, he fired his revolver with his left hand, wide of the mark. Harry hit the ground and rolled. Cunning, she pulled out the .38. She figured he would be ineffective firing the gun with his left hand.
Then Dracula spotted Fair running at him, but he slowed and made a one-eighty, again barreling straight for Harry, now back on her feet.
She kept her eyes on his right hand. He had to take his hand off the throttle and switch the gun to his right hand to accurately fire the weapon. That gave her a ray of hope. Bending down, she picked up a handful of dirt and hay stubble with her left hand.
Nearly upon her, he slowed and pulled out his gun.
Harry fired one shot from the .38 at his torso and sent another bullet for the front wheel, too. The tire blew; the bike lurched, then toppled over.
As the rider screamed, Mrs. Murphy leapt onto his arm. Harry threw dirt in the eyeholes of his mask. With her front claws, the cat ripped the mask. He coughed, trying to hold on to the gun. With everything she had, Harry threw herself onto him, smashing the butt of the .38 into his masked head.
In her jaws, Tucker grabbed the man’s neck. Blood was running inside his mask where the animals had torn through. Bright crimson blood now poured from the deep fang marks the corgi made, and more blood oozed from Harry’s bullet, which had hit a lung. The dog continued biting as Mrs. Murphy nipped and nipped, her sharp claws lethal on small prey and painful on large.
Fair caught up with them. Hauling the man to his feet as he started to come to, Fair hit him so hard Harry heard the man’s jaw break.
Having followed the bike’s high revs, Cooper and Dabny now arrived, driving across the hayfield, dirt churning behind the truck.
Cooper pulled out her service revolver as Dabny took the snubnose .38 from Harry.
“Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, enough!” Harry commanded.
The cat sank her claws into the mask and pulled at it before it snapped back.
Cooper leaned down and yanked it off.
Harry couldn’t believe it. “Neil Jordan!”
His jaw hung, the break obvious, teeth missing.
“You could have been killed!” Fair exclaimed to his wife. “Why would you do something like that?”
“He was going to kill Taz,” she said to her husband, Cooper, and Dabny. “And I had Dad’s .38. You told me to use it if necessary. I always do what you tell me.”
“Four people taken away to the hospital,” said Harry. “What a Halloween.” She, Fair, and Cooper were sitting at the kitchen table.
“Buddy, Taz, Barry, and Neil—and Neil under guard,” growled Tucker, sitting on the floor nearby. “If I could have had just a little more time, I could have killed him,” bragged the corgi. Perhaps it was true.
Mrs. Murphy sat on Harry’s lap. “He’s blind in one eye.”
“If I’d been with you, I’d have gotten the other one,” said Pewter, in Fair’s lap.
Tucker laughed at her. “Chicken, you stayed in the truck.”
“I jumped in the bed because Miss Mona had a spell while tending to Barry,” Pewter explained, or tried to. “She used to be a nurse, you know, back in the 1950s, but it was too much for her.” The gray paused. “I had to help.”
While this was wishful thinking, neither Mrs. Murphy nor Tucker teased her, because Cooper was now telling the assembled humans just what had happened after the ambulances left.
“We walked into Mount Carmel, told everyone gathered there in the church to stay still, and we counted heads. Wesley Speer was missing. So we drove to the schoolhouse. No Wesley. Put out an alert and picked him up the next morning, boarding a 6:10 A.M. flight to Phoenix out of Dulles. Wesley admits to being an accessory for the first two killings. Said he opposed killing Tazio and Harry. When he heard the shots, he knew Neil was out there. He got scared and ran. He swears he tried to talk Neil out of it on their cellphones. Swears Neil threatened him. Said he turned into a maniac after killing Josh and Hester. Mind you, I take this with a grain of salt. He wants to save his own skin.” Cooper paused. “I told Rick we should give Dinny, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker an award for service to the public.”
“Hey, hey, I helped Miss Mona.” Pewter put her paws on the table, which Fair removed, settling her back in his lap. “I did my part,” she insisted, vainly and in vain.
It was Monday morning, and Cooper had stopped by the farm before going to work.
“How’s Buddy?” asked Harry. “I don’t want to call Georgia. She’s got to be on overload.” Georgia was Buddy’s wife.
“He’ll be okay. Neil stabbed him in the back and must’ve thought he’d killed him, but Buddy is big, has a lot of muscle as well as fat, and the knife didn’t puncture anything vital. That deep wound will take time to heal, but he’ll be fine. He goes home today. He had no idea what any of this was about.”
“Did Neil confess?” Fair asked.
“Not so far, but his jaw is wired shut. He’s blind in one eye. One lung has collapsed. He’ll live. Can’t talk. We’ll get him to write answers to our questions once he’s not so drugged up. If he cooperates, that is. I expect he’ll lie like a rug.” Cooper smiled. “Mrs. Murphy and Tucker did as much damage as you did, Harry. I have never seen anyone run as fast as you once I caught sight of you in the hayfield. Go, girl!”
“Luckily I had my .38. It’s amazing what you can do when you have to.”
“Brave. And foolish. He had a gun, too.” Cooper admired Harry, even though her neighbor had once again taken a wild risk.
Harry shrugged. “So did Wesley say anything else?”
“He did,” said Cooper. “Wesley said they stood to realize between twenty to twenty-four million dollars if they could have developed that property behind Random Row. They thought they could get the schoolhouses and develop them, too.”
“But Buddy hadn’t agreed to sell,” Fair said. “Or had he?”
“He was weighing the options,” Cooper said. “They kept throwing money at Buddy and figured he’d cave at two and a half million. They’d pay the taxes. That’s a big chunk of change.”
“Sure is.” Harry’s eyes widened. “But why kill Hester and Josh? They hadn’t yet raised money or gathered people who might raise opposition.” Harry knew she would always miss Hester.
“One, they certainly would have done so. With Tazio on board, they would have been a formidable team. Hard to deny the worth of their cause. Each could make a strong argument for return of the schoolhouses and a portion of the lands. There goes the profit from a potential development. That didn’t sit well with Wesley and Neil, who were figuring they could snap those schoolhouses up, especially as the county tax base continues to shrink. Wesley said when we’ve reached the point where some factions start talking about selling off Yellowstone Park, anything is up for grabs. Neil and Wesley thought they could get the whole package by June of next year. They already had the money, and they removed their two greatest obstacles.”