The pain was beginning to make my head swim. “Push, Lester. Get me out of here.”
We did it in one clumsy, spasmodic heave-I pushing against the dog, Lester against me-spilling us out over the confines of the trench. In the process, the Rottweiler broke loose, rolled away, and coiled up to spring again as I finally wrenched my gun free.
We both aimed at each other simultaneously, he with those enormous jaws, I with an instinctive shot from the hip, noticing as I pulled the trigger a man pointing a rifle from the porch.
“Gun,” I yelled, firing as fast as I could into the chest of the airborne dog.
At the same moment that the lifeless dog hit me again and sent me sprawling, a large-caliber explosion filled the air, and a heavy thud slapped into the ground near my head, immediately followed by three fast, high-pitched shots from Lester.
Then, finally, as if following a battle-filled nightmare, the silence returned-utter, complete, absolute-leaving me only with a ringing in my ears and the smell of gunpowder in my nostrils.
“You okay?” Lester asked, sounding far away.
The dead dog’s head was nestled in the crook of my neck, his blood and saliva coursing down inside my collar. Wincing with a lightning bolt of pain from my mangled arm, I half rolled, half heaved him off me and propped myself up on my good elbow, gun still in hand.
“Yeah.”
Lester and I were staring at the porch, where the body of Richie Lane lay sprawled across the steps, his rifle useless to one side, his motionless chest mottled with dark red blood.
From beginning to end, this whole mess had lasted thirty seconds, if that.
Lester was halfway to his feet when he froze again, both our attentions caught by something moving inside the open doorway.
“Don’t move,” we both yelled.
“We’re the police,” Spinney added. “Come out with your hands in plain view.”
Slowly, tentatively, like a ghost taking shape, the figure of a woman emerged into the dim light, her expression frozen, her face pale, walking as if in a dream. Stepping out onto the porch as Lester moved toward her, she glanced down at Richie’s corpse and let out a small whimper.
Lester was not sympathetic. He grabbed her roughly, spun her around, planted her facedown in the snow and put a knee in the small of her back, one hand holding her wrist in an armlock, the other still pointing his gun at the house.
“Anyone else in there?” he asked her.
“No,” was the muffled response.
“What’s your name?”
“Shayla.”
Having unsteadily regained my feet, I stumbled past him, dripping blood as I went, and positioned myself just outside the door. Lester quickly frisked and cuffed Shayla Rossi and joined me.
It took us under two minutes to check the interior of the tiny house.
Back on the porch, I sat heavily onto some cordwood, feeling faint, cradling my left arm in my lap, while Spinney stood beside me surveying the carnage.
He gently tapped the toe of his boot against Richie’s inanimate leg. “I’ve never had that happen before.”
I looked up at his sad, reflective face. “Shot someone?”
He didn’t answer at first and then said, “Damnedest thing. Civilians think we do this all the time.” He sat on the top step beside the body, quietly, almost as if the latter were only sleeping, and added, “I wonder how one of them would feel right now.”
Chapter 14
Willy Kunkle appeared in the doorway between my woodworking shop and the rest of the house, having let himself in, as everyone did who knew me. I lived on Green Street, across from an elementary school, in what had once been the carriage house tucked behind a truly exotic Victorian showpiece, now my landlord’s residence. It was quiet, affordable, with lots of light, and it had a postage stamp-size yard beside a small attached barn I’d converted into the woodshop.
“Hey,” I said. “Come on in. There’s coffee on in the kitchen, if you want.”
He waved his one good hand in the air dismissively. “I’ve had a gallon of that shit already today. Heard you tried to replace me as token gimp.”
I turned away from the workbench where I’d been ineffectually but meditatively sharpening a chisel on a water stone and showed him my slinged left arm. “No cigar, though. Doc said I should be in good shape in a week or two-no broken bones, not too much muscle damage. Just an interesting scar. What brings you by?”
He reached inside his jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope, which he placed on the bench beside me. “Snuffy Dawson’s report on all TPL members with any kind of record. I took a look. It’s mostly predictable, protest-related stuff, but a couple of ’em got a harder edge. Guess not even the tree-huggers can deny human nature.”
It was a throwaway line, typical of the man, but perhaps because of the late hour, or my encounter with Ben the Rottweiler, or even my recent conversation with Sammie Martens, I challenged him on it.
“And what is that nature, Willy?”
He pointed at my injured arm. “You should know-dog eat dog.”
“Dog eats man, at least,” I conceded. “I’m serious, though. What’s your take on the human race?”
His expression soured. “This the shit I gotta put up with for seein’ how you’re doin’?”
I didn’t see any value arguing the point. “Yeah.”
His eyebrows arched. “You must be pretty dense if you don’t already know what I think.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He slapped his forehead. “Oh, I get it. You know me better than I know myself. ’Cause deep down inside me, there’s a goddamn saint struggling to be free.”
“If there were, he’d have committed suicide long ago,” I told him. “I’m just saying that if you really believed all the crap you hand out, you wouldn’t be doing this job. Nor would you care about Sammie.”
He scowled at me darkly, didn’t answer immediately, and finally admitted, “She said you’d been by.”
I picked up the envelope and dropped it again. “Which is why you’re here now-this could’ve waited till tomorrow.”
He didn’t answer.
“Right?” I pushed him.
His mouth twitched angrily, and he turned away. He walked over to a table saw and brushed its cool, smooth surface with his hand. “I don’t… Damn.”
“You didn’t break up, did you?” I asked, suddenly alarmed.
“No,” he said heavily. “I just can’t… We probably should, for her sake.”
“Isn’t that her decision, too?”
He glared at me. “What’s this? Amateur shrink time?”
“All right,” I agreed, getting a little angry myself. “Then straight talk. She loves you, you love her, but you’ve fucked up before and you’re scared you’ll fuck up again. You think she doesn’t know that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Find out, then. Tell her. Ask her questions. Open up a little. You’re wrapped so tight your eyeballs’re bulging. And if you don’t know she hasn’t called you a total asshole a few dozen times over the years, you’re living in a dream. Except,” and I held up a finger for emphasis, “that she chose to be with you anyway, at least for the moment. Give her some credit for that. Honor her taking a risk by taking one of your own. If it falls apart then, it falls apart. At least you won’t have to blame yourself for not trying. Is that non-psychobabble enough for you?”
He took a long time to say, “Yeah,” in a quiet voice.
More advice boiled inside me, more ways of saying roughly the same thing, but despite my eagerness to unload years of pent-up frustration, I realized it wasn’t my time.
“Go talk to her, Willy… Now,” I said instead, and turned back toward my sharpening stone.
I was in bed when Gail came in, both the day’s trauma and the painkillers having finally taken hold. I sensed her standing there before I opened my eyes and wasn’t startled when I saw her outlined against the dim light from the window.
“Hi. I didn’t expect you.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and kissed me. She smelled of fresh, cold night air. “I didn’t, either. I’ve been thinking about us ever since the motel room, feeling happier than I have in a long time. I finally decided, the hell with it, and came down. I’m sorry I woke you, though. I thought you’d still be up. I guess surprises like this aren’t ever a really good idea.”