P Deutermann - Spider mountain

I came into Marionburg fifteen minutes later and headed right for Sheriff Hayes’s office. No point in letting Mingo tell his side of the story first. I was too early; the sheriff wouldn’t be in for an hour, and the look on the sergeant’s face when he got a gander at me wasn’t reassuring. I went back to my abode of marital bliss, fed the shepherds, took a shower, and got some dry clothes. I bandaged my foot as best I could and put a slipper on it. Then I found a diner back in town and had breakfast. As I came back out to the Robbins County cop car, I noticed two holes in the left front fender and a star in the left rear window. Go, ten-gauge.

Sheriff Hayes looked his usual weary self. I wondered again if he wasn’t dealing with a heart condition or some other serious illness. Certainly the stress and strain of the job up here in the western mountains could not begin to approach that of his urban brethren, but he sure had the look. He listened in increasingly concerned silence as I told my story, including my confrontation with Rowena Creigh. When I was finished he buzzed his secretary and asked for more coffee. I thought it was for him, but he said it was actually for me. I guess I didn’t look so hot, either.

“This is what, the third time you’ve butted your fool head against Robbins County and bounced off?” he asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” I said.

“In a manner of speaking,” he repeated sarcastically. “And each time, there seem to be more goddamned bodies. What are you, some kinda angel of death?”

I just sat there, not knowing what to say. He had a point.

“You came up here originally because Mary Ellen Goode asked you for a favor. You obliged and, in fact, broke that little mystery wide open. Got the little girl to talk. Established that two guys were involved, and that they were probably both deceased by now. Good work. End of story. Except it wasn’t. Why the hell didn’t you just go home? You do have a home, don’t you? You’re not homeless or anything, are you?”

I shook my head. The secretary came in with the coffee. He stopped talking while she set things down and then left.

“Rue Creigh is going to be your problem, not mine,” he said. “M. C. is going to want your scalp for that, even if she did throw down on you, which I absolutely believe. That girl was all grit, clit, and bullshit. But Carrie Santangelo? That’s very different. I’m going to have to notify the SBI, and they’re gonna send a posse, and those boys will want to talk to you. At fucking length, if you catch my drift.”

“It was her beef that I was working,” I said, using her expression. “She’s convinced Grinny Creigh is selling children into some porn or slave market, probably in Washington. She felt strongly enough about it that she resigned. Took early-out from the SBI to go work it on her own, knowing what that meant, too. Financially and otherwise.”

“And now? Where is she now?”

I hung my head. “I don’t know. She went off the side of that boat like she’d been hit by a board. By then I was ducking rifle rounds and trying to hide behind an inflatable boat. I had to deal with them before I could help her.”

“You say you didn’t kill them when you had the chance. They were sure as hell trying to kill you two. So why not?”

I explained about overhearing them talk about “Lucas” doing the actual shooting. “I couldn’t know what Mingo had told them about us. They were a couple of deputies, probably doing what they thought was right.”

“That’s bullshit. Deputy sheriffs arrest perps and bring them to justice. They don’t shoot them down like wetbacks in a fucking river.”

“Like I said, I think it was the other guy who did the shooting. I believe emotions are running high up there. If they saw what remained of Rue Creigh, and Mingo spun them up, well… cops. What can I say.”

He looked at me the way a drill sergeant looks at a recruit who’s shown up with a pink Mohawk. That was a look I remembered from boot camp.

“And now I suppose you think you’re going back in.”

“Thought crossed my mind,” I said. “Carrie’s still out there.”

“So’s Mingo and his mafia,” the sheriff said. “This time they’ll get you. You’re in no shape to go anywhere. You look like you’re ready to fold up right there in that chair.”

He was right. I was suddenly very tired. My bones ached, I didn’t want to look at my foot, and I was worried sick about Carrie. It had been her crusade, but I was the guy who’d made it out of the kill zone. I didn’t look forward to the kinds of looks I’d be getting once the SBI crew showed up.

“You need to go offline for a while while I get some adult supervision into this mess,” he said. “Go back to that French boudoir of a hotel room and wait for me to tell you what you’re going to do next.”

“I mostly need some sleep,” I said. “That’s what Carrie was trying for when Rue Creigh waltzed in and took her prisoner. Right here in beautiful downtown Carrigan County, now that I think about it.”

He gave me a sour look. “Okay, okay, I’ll put some people on your hotel. You still have that Creigh shotgun?”

“It’s out in that Robbins County cruiser,” I said. “I’d like to keep it, though-Nathan took my SIG.”

He thought about it for a moment, then realized the shotgun would provide little ballistic evidence.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll have a deputy follow you back to the hotel. Then I think we’ll park their cruiser back out by the county line.”

“What if Carrie was right?” I asked. “What if Grinny Creigh’s got a clutch of kids in a cave somewhere and is preparing to transport them to God knows what?”

“First things first,” he said. “Let’s find out what happened to Carrie. You’re positive it wasn’t the deputies who did the shooting?”

“They had handguns, the shooter had a rifle of some kind. I definitely heard one of them say, ‘Lucas got her good.’ Don’t know who Lucas is. That’s all I’m sure about.”

“But they didn’t prevent it, either.”

“No, they did not. And at least one of them was looking forward to phase two.”

“That’s what makes this thing so tough,” he said. “I have zero jurisdiction or authority over there, or I’d take a crew in and look for Carrie. So now I’m going to call in some cavalry. Like I said, they’ll want to talk to you.”

“Ducky.”

I slept right through to five o’clock, even though I’d set a clock for three. I fed the dogs again and then limped up to the main lodge to get something to eat. My ankle was coming down a little bit, but my instep still hurt and I couldn’t get a shoe on yet. When I got back to the cabin I found three large men with North Carolina SBI windbreakers waiting for me. The shepherds were watching them from inside the screen porch. They weren’t barking, but they hadn’t let them in, either. They showed ID, and I told the dogs that it was okay. I led the threesome into the living room.

The man who appeared to be in charge introduced himself as Senior Supervisory Special Agent Carl Gelber. He was not a happy camper. He looked like an enforcer for a mob loan shark, minus the big pasta belly. Of his two associates, one was young, maybe twenty-five, and the other was in his late forties. Both of them were big boys, too. The SBI must have a goon squad hidden somewhere, I thought, as I watched them try to fit into the cabin’s lavishly upholstered chairs.

Gelber said he’d been briefed by Sheriff Hayes and now he wanted to hear it from me, beginning at the beginning. I asked them if they wanted a drink. Gelber just sat there looking like he was barely in control of his temper, and, no, they were not here to socialize. This was definitely a business call. His expression said that I was lucky not to have been hauled down to a dungeon for this little consultation.