Steven Havill - One Perfect Shot

“East or west, sir?” She didn’t sound triumphant, just interested in what might come next.

“We’ll know in a few minutes.”

And sure enough, Lieutenant Leo Burkhalter answered on the second ring. His voice was a little scratchier than it had been five years before when I met him during a Joint Task Force waste of time…a JTF exercise.

“About goddamn time,” Burkhalter rasped when I introduced myself. “How’s life in the fast lane?” he chuckled. His county in northeastern Arizona, so huge that dinky Posadas would be forever lost in one remote arroyo, presented a whole catalog of challenges that we never faced-massive forest fires, for one, along with distances that made me tired just looking at the map.

“I’ll be perfect if you tell me that you have one of our errant teenagers in custody, Lieutenant.”

“Maw-reese Arnett. Ever heard of him?”

“Indeed I have. What’s the deal?”

I heard papers shuffle. “Well, this is a mess. And on the day that my daughter is about to give birth to my first grandchild, you drop this in my lap, Undersheriff. Look, rail dispatch called us with word that they’ve got this Arnett kid on the manifest…or at least a kid who fits the BOLO you sent out. They’re just a few minutes out of Winslow, and without security on board, they played it pretty smooth. He’s contained in the observation car, along with one of the attendants. The engineer is takin’ it slow, headed for the first siding that comes along.”

“Why didn’t they take him off the train at Winslow? The city PD would have done that.”

“That would be Amtrak’s call. I suppose because they didn’t want an incident at the station. That’s right in the middle of that old hotel in the middle of lots of people. If this kid is armed, if he’s a fruitcake, we could have a real incident. It’s a whole lot easier to just isolate him out in the middle of the goddamn desert, and take him out at our leisure.”

“So he’s still on the train, still unsuspecting?”

“As far as we know. The rail folks know who he is, and he’s contained with an attendant who apparently is really skilled at making up stories about why the train is going so slowly. But I’m not there, so I can’t say for sure. All I know is that they say the situation is secure for the moment. What’s your call, Undersheriff?”

“I need to be there.”

“Damn right. So get your old carcass out here. We’ll get rail dispatch to stop the train where we can reach it by vehicle. The rail freight traffic is hellacious on that line, so Amtrak isn’t about to let their passenger train just sit in the middle of things. They’ll want off the mainline. Who’d this kid kill, anyway?”

“A county employee.”

“No shit.”

“I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. Look, I’ll be coming into Winslow airport. You can have a deputy there for two of us?”

“You got it.”

“And get me two hours. Patch through to Amtrak and tell them status quo is just fine until we show up. It isn’t like the passengers aren’t used to it.”

“Doing nothing is my specialty, Bill. Like I said, Amtrak doesn’t have armed security on the unit, so they’re more than happy to have us take care of it. They’ll wait.”

When I hung up, Ernie Wheeler leaned forward expectantly, his hand reaching for the phone. He’d heard Winslow airport mentioned, and knew that Southwest Airlines didn’t have a direct flight from Posadas planned any time soon.

“Call Jim?”

“Tell him he’s got two for Winslow. And then wake up Schroeder and have him start on the extradition paperwork with his Arizona counterpart.” Our District Attorney, Dan Schroeder, might occasionally serve as president of the Procrastinator’s Club, but he was capable when conditions warranted.

“Burkhalter will work his end. And you might as well wake up Ruth Wayand and give her a heads up.” I took a deep breath to slow down. “The kid hasn’t broken any Arizona laws yet, beyond being underage while carrying a firearm on a train. I’d think that the Arizona cops will be happy to get rid of him. Just hope to hell that he doesn’t pull the trigger and change all the rules.”

We dashed out to the car and blasted out of the village, taking the state highway toward the airport.

“This is where it gets sticky,” I said to Estelle. “Ruth Wayand is with the state department of Children, Youth, and Families. See, the catch is that Mo isn’t eighteen yet. So technically, we have a juvenile on the run.” I took both hands off the steering wheel and held them up toward heaven, then shrugged and paid attention to my driving for a moment. “And that just adds all kinds of shit to the mix, sweetheart.”

The Posadas Municipal Airport was seven miles beyond the village on State 76, and other than the security light over the apron, was dark as a closet. I parked beside the hangar where I knew Jim Bergin’s plane to be, and tried to be patient. But in two minutes I gave that up.

“PCS, three ten.” I drummed fingers on the steering wheel while Wheeler found a moment to respond.

“Go ahead, three-ten.”

“Is Bergin on the way?”

“Affirmative. He said you should go into the FBO and start the coffee.”

I laughed. I glanced at my passenger. Estelle Reyes was as composed as usual, as if flying off into the desert in the middle of the night was a usual activity. I realized that I hadn’t given her even a moment’s notice to gather personal items-I hadn’t bothered, and it hadn’t occurred to me until now that she might like a scant travel bag at least.

“You all set?”

“Yes, sir.”

On the still night air, the howl of Bergin’s late model pickup truck carried to us, and he had to brake hard for the airport gate. His GMC slid to a stop behind 310, the dome light came on, and I could see him shuffling papers, cigarette between his lips, eyes squinting against the smoke. He found what he wanted and climbed out, crushing the butt under foot.

“What’s wrong with a sunny morning for this sort of thing?” the airport manager grumped. A short, lithe man with an old-fashioned buzz cut left over from his military days, Bergin had taken over the manager’s job two years before, and we’d become good friends from the get-go. I admired his ambition…he seemed to be able to make a living at an airport where on a busy day, air traffic could be counted without resorting to double digits. He nodded at Estelle as I introduced them, then beckoned us to the enormous hangar door.

“As long as you’re here, give me a hand with this son of a bitch,” he said, and we all leaned against the door and pushed it to one side against the drag of cranky, squeaky rollers. “One of these days, I fix it,” he muttered, and found the light switch. Racks of florescent fixtures blossomed in the cave-like hangar. I’d ridden in Jim’s Cessna 182 RG a few times, enough to know that flying held no thrill for me, and considerable gastric anguish for my stomach. It was parked square to the door, with two other aircraft crammed in the hanger behind it.

“Go ahead and board,” he said. “Damsel in back.”

“You want help pulling it out of the hangar?”

“Hell, no.”

By the time Estelle and I had squeezed inside and found all the seatbelt connections, Jim had finished a cursory walk around. “Not even cooled off from the last flight,” he said as he slipped inside with considerably more grace than I had managed. A twist, a pull, and a few other gyrations, and the big engine fired, settling into a ragged idle. Lights, camera, action. About that fast, Jim finished up with the switches, dials, and controls, released the brakes and eased the Cessna out of the hangar under its own power, wing tips clearing the door frame with a foot on each side.