Robert Walker - Cutting edge

Meredyth and Lucas looked ahead to see the other shadowy gunmen emerge. They first saw big Jim Pardee, followed by the thin, ambling Fred Amelford; then came a stunned Andrew Bryce, Randy Oglesby, and someone Lucas couldn't quite make out until Meredyth said, “It's Conrad.” She held on to Lucas's shoulder, sobbing, “Are you going to be all right?” She dared not tell him how close to the heart the arrow had obviously run.

“Go ahead,” he said in his most nonchalant voice. “Go to him.” He indicated Conrad, her boyfriend.

Randy Oglesby rushed to Lucas, and Lucas, fighting off a fainting spell, heard him explaining that he had gotten a call from Conrad McThuen, and that Oglesby had in turn called Phil Lawrence, who had in turn put together this small squad of commandos familiar with the case.

Phil Lawrence was kneeling over Lucas now, too, saying that the bleeding looked bad. Lucas tried to focus on the moment, to keep control, to not black out. He imagined that Conrad McThuen and Randy Oglesby had hung back beyond the line of fire, and for the first time Lucas got a look at the tall, good-looking boyfriend, who at the moment was utterly shaken, his eyes wide, his mouth agape, trying to do other than ape Meredyth's name as she guided him back to where Lucas remained half up, half down on the asphalt.

Lucas concentrated on his dislike for Conrad. He wore expensive, post-yuppie, L. L. Bean clothes, his glasses alone worth one of Lucas's paychecks. He might be exactly what Meredyth required in a man, Lucas thought but didn't believe.

Beside McThuen now stood a grinning Randy Oglesby, who was praising both Meredyth and Lucas for their courage. He saluted Lucas, as if to say, “Well done!”

Pardee, a heavy man who carried his weight well, rushed past Lucas, as did Fred Amelford, each anxious to have a look at the kill, Pardee repeating the phrase, “We got the bastards… we finally got the bastards.”

Amelford came back to Lucas, kneeled to be eye-to-eye with the Cherokee sleuth. “I want to shake your hand, Stonecoat, and congratulate you and the doctor here on a job well done. You two were on the right trail all along. We should have been more cooperative. I regret that now. But you know how damned stubborn detectives can be, right? Right?”

He wanted absolution and forgiveness, Lucas thought. Just like a white man. “You made it in time for the kill.” Lucas returned the smile and handshake. “Why don't you and Pardee go ahead and claim the collar.”

“No, no way. You guys risked your lives inside there. All the glory's yours.”

Meredyth was being held tightly by Conrad now, and Lucas wished it was he instead who was receiving her affections. It looked as though she were comforting Conrad instead of the other way around, Lucas thought.

“You think it might be Mootry's?” asked Captain Lawrence, interrupting Lucas's thoughts, speaking of the skull that Lucas had come away with. It had miraculously remained intact “Get a call in for an ambulance, now!” shouted Commander Andrew Bryce when he came near, seeing how badly Lucas was hit. “Are you a fool, Lawrence?” Bryce asked. “This man could go into shock at any moment.”

“I'm all right, Commander,” countered Lucas, putting forth a great effort just to speak, fighting back the stabbing, burning pain of the arrow lodged in his shoulder blade.

Lucas stared up at the skull which Lawrence now held between his hands, soot and ash still coming off the bone. “It may be Mootry's, yes. Definitely male and definitely missing from someone,” he continued to joke, but his eyes had returned to Father Frank Aguilar's lifeless body. He saw bloodstains all over Aguilar's robe now, coloring it like so many wine spots. Aguilar, like all his henchmen who'd come through the door, had been riddled with bullets, as if they'd run into a firing squad. Aguilar's arms and legs were splayed apart starfish fashion. He'd taken three bullets to the abdomen and two to the chest area, as well as the single shot through the brain. Overkill on overdrive.

Lucas pushed up to a sitting position and remained there momentarily, disobeying Bryce's orders to remain still and in a prone position until medics could get to him. Getting to his feet now, Lucas looked eerily like a dead man walking with the arrow hanging limply from his back.

“Damn it, man!” shouted Bryce, “I'm ordering you to sit down and stop pumping blood through that wound.”

“The blood's stopped,” Lucas countered. “I don't feel any more blood pumping out. I'm okay.” The blood had coagulated around the arrow shaft, adhering to it.

“Just the same,” continued Bryce, “you'll open the wound further if you persist.”

“Do as the commander says, Stonecoat,” cautioned Lawrence. “He's got to know you can follow orders.”

But Lucas remained for a moment, standing over Father Aguilar's body and the scene of destruction.

“Are any of them alive?” he asked tonelessly as he stared on the scene of massacre. All eyes were watching him, fascinated and horrified by the sight of the arrow dangling from him.

“Not a chance,” replied Lawrence, who'd followed along with him like a man prepared to catch whatever fallout might come. Lawrence now placed a fatherly hand on his uninjured shoulder and said, “You and Sanger did a splendid job of detection, Stonecoat. Good work all around, work you can both be proud of. This kind of thing, it could mean a definite promotion in the ranks.”

It sounded like a payoff, Lucas thought. “How did you know we were here?” He wanted to hear Phil's explanation, wanted to study his eyes and body language as he replied.

Lawrence shrugged. “No biggie. Pardee and Amelford had you staked out from the moment you and Meredyth disappeared from the precinct today.”

“What?

“They got wise after you and Dr. Sanger made some connections they missed, so they began tailing you. I got a call from Randy Oglesby saying you were here-

“But you already knew we were here…” It was said as an accusation. Lucas, feeling another fainting spell washing over him, buckled at the knees and went down. This caused a general wave of murmurs among those standing about.

Lawrence went to his knees beside his injured man. “Well, no… not really. Amelford and Pardee were contacted after I learned of your whereabouts from Oglesby,” he continued to explain. “I felt they had a right to be in on any sort of raid we might make, and besides, while I was getting the paperwork, a warrant, I wanted someone to watch the church. Coincidentally, they were already watching the place.”

“You were able to get a warrant to search here, a church, so easily?”

“No, not so easy. In fact, we couldn't arrange it. Not enough probable cause, and I didn't want to tell a judge you and Sanger were trespassing. That's why we had to wait outside to see what popped, if anything.”

He seemed to have an answer for everything, Lucas thought, and it all seemed so damnably pat. Lucas settled into a sitting position, crossing his legs, going into a meditative state to control the pain and the blackness that wanted so much to claim him.

Lawrence seemed in need of repeating himself. “Oglesby called me, but Pardee and Amelford were tailing you for hours. They were already here when I located them. Said they more than half expected you to infiltrate the church tonight when they saw you come out earlier in the day.”

“So, everyone knew about the church, that Meredyth and I were here earlier.”

“Not everyone, no. Bryce and I just learned about it when Oglesby called saying he got a call from Dr. Sanger's friend over there.” He pointed out Conrad McThuen.

“I see. And was it necessary to completely blow Aguilar away?”

“He had you in his sights, Lucas. We were all firing at the crossbows.”