P Deutermann - Spider mountain

The cruisers went right at it. One stopped nose to nose with the Dodge; the other two swept along either side and screeched to a halt, one flat alongside, the other at an angle, thereby preventing anyone in the Dodge from opening a door. We moved to the front door and stepped outside to see what happened next.

What happened next was that all hell broke loose. The deputies in the side-block cars jumped out of their vehicles with guns leveled across their vehicles’ hoods and started yelling at whoever was inside to show their hands. The nosein cruiser had his high beams and door spot on, which surely should have blinded the guys inside. Instead, the driver of the Dodge, who’d apparently fired up his trusty 318 when he saw cops swooping in, slammed it into reverse and, tires screeching and smoking, backed up at about ninety miles an hour-smack into a forty-foot-high parking-lot light standard.

The collision was forceful, and the tall aluminum pole jackknifed onto the top of the Dodge. The sodium vapor light fixture exploded in a blue-white flare of sparks on the pavement, which in turn ignited the fuel vapors that were streaming out from under the Dodge’s crumpled back end. This produced a brilliant carpet of fire, followed seconds later by a really big boom. Guy must have been running on racing fuel, because the second explosion was a real crowd-pleaser. The light pole had put a pretty big crease in the top of the car, enough to have given everyone in the Dodge a headache. And to jam the doors.

The deputies, who had been left standing fifty feet back, scrambled for shelter behind their cruisers when the gas tank went up. Finally one of them stood up and began to approach the burning Dodge. He quickly backed up when there were two loud booms from inside the fire as someone’s shotgun cooked off. There was some more of this, but by now the vehicle was settling on melted tires and entirely engulfed in hot orange flames. A muscular column of glowing black smoke was pumping into the night air, and it was clear that no one was going to come out showing hands or anything else.

Baby started humming that tune with the refrain about “another one bites the dust,” which provoked a horrified look from a woman who’d come out to gape at the burning car.

“Those were genu-wine bad guys, ma’am,” he explained pleasantly. “Who just discovered the express lane to hell.”

She put a hand over her mouth and stepped back into the hotel.

“You better boogie,” I told him. “Sheriff Hayes is going to show up soon. No self-respecting feds would want to be here.”

“You got a point there, judge,” he said. “Thanks for dinner. And the entertainment. You think those were Mingo’s people?”

“It’s going to take DNA to find out,” Carrie said, as the car finally bottomed out and fire engine sirens could be heard. “But I’ll bet Sheriff Hayes will have an opinion.”

It took Sheriff Hayes about an hour to discover that we’d been at least tangentially involved in the mess up front and come knocking on my door. He did have an opinion, as it turned out.

“This was because of you,” he announced as soon as we let him into the cabin. He was carrying a briefcase and looking agitated.

“We were having an innocent dinner, Sheriff,” I told him. “The manager thought those guys were fixing to rob the place.”

“Who’s we?” he asked.

“Carrie and I,” I told him.

“Manager said there were three of you,” he said.

“Oh, him,” I said.

Hayes waited a moment for me to elaborate, and when he saw I wasn’t going to tell him, he shook his head and sat down wearily in an armchair. He still didn’t look well. We probably weren’t helping with that.

“That car was registered in Robbins County,” he said. “They had at least three shotguns, and containers of some kind of fuel or accelerant in the trunk.”

“Any ID on the toasts?” Carrie asked.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Humans. We think. But one of’em had this.” He produced a clear plastic evidence bag from the briefcase. Inside was a badly charred SIG. 45 semiautomatic pistol. It wasn’t impossible that a bunch of black hats would have a SIG, but it also wasn’t the kind of gun they normally would use.

“Mine?” I asked.

“We’ll soon find out. But didn’t you tell me Nathan Creigh relieved you of one of these up in that cave?”

I nodded. He put the bag back into the briefcase and leaned back in his chair. “I think they were here to exact revenge for what you said happened to Rowena Creigh. They were probably going to shoot you with your own piece.” He looked over at Carrie. “You well enough to travel, young lady?”

“Where am I going?” she asked.

“Away,” he said, his voice rising. “The both of you. I want you out of here. Out of my county, out of the state if you can manage it. I’ve had enough death and destruction for one month. The Creigh clan won’t rest until this is taken care of, and that just means more of the same.”

“Why don’t you stop it, then?” Carrie demanded, surprising the sheriff and me in about equal measure. “Why does Mingo and his gang have free run of Carrigan County? If you knew that trouble was brewing, why weren’t your people alerted to look for just exactly what showed up in the parking lot here? Why was Rue Creigh able to drive in here and abduct me and then drive right back through the center of Marionburg with me in plain sight, adorned in duct tape?”

Hayes started to splutter, but suddenly Carrie Santangelo of the SBI professional standards investigations division was in his face and not backing down.

“We’re not causing this shit. We might be provoking them, but that’s because we’ve had the temerity to lift up the rock and see what’s under it. You and your people, on the other hand, are doing nothing. Nothing! You think the Creighs aren’t moving product here in Carrigan County? You think there’s no meth problem in your piece of the hills?”

“You listen to me,” Hayes began, but she shut him right down. The shepherds had long since crawled out of the room. I was trying to figure out how to join them.

“No, Sheriff, you listen to me. I’m beginning to think that I need to call my ex-boss in my ex-organization and tell him they need to take a look at the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office, that the sheriff here is either hopelessly ineffective or he’s part of the Creigh organization. Or maybe I should go find the local newspaper and write a little op-ed piece. I’m a citizen now, not a state employee. I can say whatever the hell I please. And if that’s not okay with you, then get off your fat ass and get to work. Find these bastards. Arrest them. Harass them. Fucking do something! And in the meantime, get the hell out of here before I get pissed off.”

The sheriff was red in the face by the time she’d finished, and I was suddenly concerned about his heart condition. But then, to my utter amazement, Hayes grabbed his hat and briefcase and stomped out of the cabin. I went to the window and saw one of his deputies hotfooting it up the path to the parking lot with the sheriff behind him, his hat jammed low over his forehead. I suspected the deputy had heard an earful and was anxious to get to the safety of his cruiser. I pulled the curtain closed.

“Well, now,” I said, and then stopped when I saw there was still fire in her eye. “Want a drink?”

She shook her head and went out onto the porch overlooking the creek. I fixed two scotches and went out after her.

“I chase bent cops,” she said, “but I have a positive hate-on for do-nothing cops.”

“I’d’ve never guessed,” I said, handing her a drink. She took it without looking at it, but she didn’t refuse it. A waft of leftover smoke from the front parking lot blew down in our direction. “That the car or the burning bridge?” I said.