Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

The angry face spun away as a loud pain punctured Angel’s ears. The three shots sounded like bombs going off. Then Angel got it. Silencer gone, ripped off in the struggle.

Carol was down, pitched forward on all fours. She struggled for one wobbly beat to push up, then collapsed. Angel knelt, picked up the medallion, and stuffed it in the wreckage of Carol face. Then Angel froze.

Very close, just on the other side of the fence, a man shouted, “What the hell. .?” Then, “Carol, Carol; you all right? ” He had an adrenaline foghorn for a voice.

Not supposed to happen. Not.

Scrambling now, freeing the dangling silencer from the gun barrel. Hold on. Don’t drop it. Christ, the spent cartridges? But there was no time. She dashed for the gate.

Footsteps. Rapid, scuffing in the alley, also headed for the gate.

Angel shrank back against the fence as a short thick man thrust open the gate and stepped into the illumination of the yard light. He wore shorts and a green tank top that rode up over his flab. At his waist, next to the tiny cell phone, Angel saw red dots on a ring of flab. Heat rash. And she realized that if she could see his rash, he could see her face.

She raised her left elbow in front of her head to hide her face and came around the gate swinging the clubbed pistol. Her left hand held the green plastic bottle. The half-blind swing landed with panic strength on the man’s forehead. He pitched to his knees, waving his arms.

Angel felt his heat and sweat against her bare legs as she shoved past him. But she was out, in the alley, running fast. By the time she turned onto the street, she could hear him screaming, “Nine-one-one? Yes, goddammit, this is life and death.”

Oh, shit. The cell phone.

For the first time, it occurred to her that she could be caught.

Now Mouse drove at a slow, almost solemn tempo. After dropping Harry off at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, he and Broker settled into their own thoughts. Broker had contracted a case of the Harry-Gloria blues, the main symptom being a heavy reluctance to follow through on the suspicions that Gloria Russell had convicted Ronald Dolman with a pistol when she couldn’t get him in court; and that Harry had erred hugely on the side of omission. He stared at the green box of shell casings sitting on the pile of printouts in the foot well of Mouse’s car. He had no interest in confronting Gloria Russell. Other people would have to do that.

He was done with this.

As if clairvoyant, Mouse picked up the theme. “I ain’t going to pick her up for questioning. Uh-uh. Not me. John’s back tonight. He can make that call. I mean, what have we really got? Some shell casings. Gloria’s going to say, sure, they’re from my gun-but my gun was stolen just before Dolman was whacked.”

“And you still have two different things going on-Moros wasn’t killed with a thirty-eight; he was a twenty-two,” Broker said.

“I hate this thing,” Mouse said.

“Yeah, but you gotta get a warrant. You gotta at least look,” Broker said.

“Yeah, I know.” Mouse finally roused himself, pulled out his cell, and punched numbers.

“Where are you?” he asked when Benish answered the phone. “You’re at home firing up the grill. Listen, Harry gave us some pretty compelling stuff on Gloria being the Saint. Yeah, I shit you not. Meet me at the shop. We’re gonna need a warrant for her home, her car, her office, and anyplace else she might hide a thirty-eight-caliber Colt Detective Special. Get Lymon in gear and have him run a background check on Gloria purchasing the gun last summer. And put somebody on her place, try to get a line on her movements. We’re going to want to talk to her.” He paused. “Harry? He went. . quietly. Yeah, give him a couple of days to come down; then we’ll go out and take a statement.”

They were coming through Lake Elmo, going northeast on Highway 5. Mouse’s car radio grumbled occasionally, the volume turned down.

Broker reached down and pulled up the sheaf of printouts he’d taken from Harry’s bag. He started to flip through them, then sat up straight and said, “Holy shit, Mouse.”

“What?”

“This. Holy fuckin’ shit! Lookit the top sheet-it’s the complaint against Moros.”

“Yeah?”

“And we got a real problem here because the second sheet is about someone taking pictures of a little girl putting on a bathing suit,” Broker said.

“So?”

“A. J. Scott.”

It took Mouse a second. “ Our A. J. Scott from this morning?”

“Address checks,” Broker said, tapping the sheet of paper.

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” Mouse pulled onto the shoulder and put the car in neutral. “We made some assumptions. .”

Broker nodded. “Heart medication in his bathroom cabinet doesn’t have to equal heart attack in his yard.”

“There was no medallion,” Mouse said.

“There was no mouth to find it in.”

“Jesus, you’re right. The dogs could have taken it,” Mouse said. “And even if somebody shot Scott, how the fuck could you tell-”

“You better call Joe Timmer over at the ME and tell him to start looking for bullet holes in all that hamburger,” Broker said.

“Two shootings in Stillwater in one week?” Mouse said, steering back on the road. “Give me a fucking break.”

Five minutes later, they were swinging around the LEC, heading for the underground ramp, when the dispatcher’s voice surged up out of the routine static: “Anyone in the vicinity of Beech Street, North Hill Stillwater. We have a possible fatal shooting and an armed suspect fleeing on foot. Address is six thirty-eight Beech.”

Mouse hit the brakes and locked eyes with Broker.

“Get a name,” Broker said.

Immediately, Mouse snatched his radio handset and keyed it: “One hundred, this is one oh six. Do you have a name on the victim?”

“Wait. Two cars talking. One oh six, go ahead.”

“This is one oh six. Do you have a name on the victim?”

“Ah, wait. Everybody else shut up on the net. Two oh seven, come in.”

“Two oh seven.”

“Do you have an ID on the victim?”

“Ah, roger that. Carol Lennon. Schoolteacher, Timberry High.”

“Let’s get to that shooting,” Broker said, holding up the printouts. “She’s the fourth sheet.”

When all hell breaks loose, women make the best dispatchers.

“Ten thirty-three, emergency traffic only. All units, shots fired in Stillwater, victim down. .”

It had something to do with multitasking.

“Suspect fled west down Maple on foot from six thirty-eight Beech Street. . suspect described as white female in dark running shorts and dark tank top.” The dispatcher’s voice strove for calm. “Use caution; suspect’s got a gun.”

It was ninety-nine dead-still degrees out, the humidity 82 percent. The surge of radio ten codes hot-wired the moisture in the air. A dozen cops leaned forward, stepped on the gas, and fired up their adrenaline jets. A computer program immediately set in motion the units nearest to the address. At the Washington County Comm Center, Dispatch-call sign one hundred-and the first cop on the scene worked on basic emergency first aid.

“Clear the airway, see if she’s breathing. EMS en route. ”

“She ain’t breathing, and there’s something stuck in her mouth. .”

Broker’s fist slammed down on the dashboard. “Aw, shit!”

“Some kind of locket on a chain.”

Mouse loosened the safety strap on his holster and stepped on the gas. Lights and sirens. Broker put out his hand to steady himself on the dashboard as Mouse plunged into the summer traffic.