Greg Iles - Third Degree

Ray chuckled and took a drag on his cigarette. “How long you kep’ it?”

“Twenty years.”

Ray coughed up smoke. “If this has anything to do with my wife, I’m gonna kill your ass. I’m telling you that right now.”

Trace shook his head. “It’s about that cocky sumbitch up in the house. The doctor.”

“Shields?”

“Yep.”

“What do you know about him?”

Trace’s eyes smoldered with secret knowledge. “Plenty. Remember when he kilt that boy in his parents’ house? Jimmy Birdlow?”

“Course I do. We were just talking about it outside.”

Trace nodded. “Well, I was there.”

Ray sat up at the table. “What?”

“Sure was. This was back when I was gettin’ high a lot. And Jimmy was always gettin’ high. He wanted some Dex to stay awake, and we didn’t have no money. We just happened to be over in that neighborhood, and the Shieldses’ house was the closest one that didn’t have no lights on. Jimmy figured he’d just slip in and grab a TV, something he could trade for the pills. But the old man must have been awake, ’cause next thing I know, I’m staring in from the back patio at Jimmy and Mr. Shields screaming at each other. Jimmy was trying to explain, but the old man wouldn’t give him a chance. He started yelling how he was going to call the police. And the next thing I know, Jimmy pulls out a gun.”

Ray was staring at his younger brother with wide eyes. Carl blinked slowly, then leaned forward so as not to miss a word.

“Jimmy wouldna shot him,” Trace asserted. “He just didn’t want the man to call the law.”

“Why didn’t he just run, then?” Ray asked.

“He tried to, but Shields’s daddy tripped him up. Then he got between Jimmy and the door. Then the mama come in there, too, wearing her damn housecoat.”

“When did Shields show up?”

“Hell, I didn’t even know he was there till he shot Jimmy in the back. Sumbitch didn’t give Jimmy no warning or nothing.”

Ray leaned back in his chair and silently regarded his brother.

“Bastard,” Trace muttered. “Blew Jimmy’s heart out the front of his chest.”

Ray shook his head. “You said Jimmy was holding a gun on his daddy.”

“He wouldna shot him!”

“You think Shields knew that? Jimmy broke in their goddamn house! I’d of shot him, too. You’re lucky he didn’t shoot your ass through the window.”

Trace shook his head bitterly. “I tell you one thing, if I had a gun that night, I’d of killed that motherfucker dead.”

“Boy, if a bird had your brains, he’d fly backwards. I can’t believe you didn’t wind up in Parchman before your twenty-first birthday.”

“I ain’t stupid. And I’ll tell you something else. I hope that sumbitch tries something up in that fancy house. I hope the sheriff sends us in there. ’Cause I will blow his shit away, no lie. For what he done to Jimmy.”

“Jesus, Trace. You need to calm down.”

“You said the same exact thing a minute ago!”

Ray sucked thoughtfully on his cigarette.

“I don’t like him,” Trace insisted. “People act like he’s a damn saint or something. You ever see him out at the baseball field? Sumbitch thinks the rules don’t apply to him. Or his kid, neither.”

“I forgot,” said Ray. “Shields’s team beat your boy’s like a drum last spring, didn’t they?”

“Cheated us, is what they done.”

Ray stubbed out his cigarette and stood as best he could in the low-ceilinged trailer. “Nobody’s called on the radio. Let’s get out there and see if we can’t make something happen before Billy Ray gets here.”

“Damn straight. What about that government man? Beagle.”

“Fuck him. Billy Ray ain’t gonna give him the time of day.”

Trace pushed himself up off the table, leaving his cigarette burning in the ashtray. “Damn straight.”

Like a lizard clinging to the window screen, Carl watched the two deputies leave the trailer. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, to do about what he’d heard. Sheriff Ellis wasn’t going to change the makeup of the Tactical Response Unit in the middle of a crisis. And Trace Breen’s presence at a shooting twenty years ago couldn’t be corroborated by anyone; therefore, his motive for revenge could not be proved. As for the racist remarks about Carl, that was just the reality that underlay the veneer of courtesy he encountered every day. The president of the United States couldn’t change that, much less the sheriff of Lusahatcha County. But Ray Breen was right about one thing: marine sniper Carl Sims did not intend to kill another living soul unless it was to save a life in clear and present danger.

He shouldered his Remington and walked soundlessly around the trailer to join his fellow deputies.

Danny just beat the storm clouds to Athens Point. He flew low over the city, angling along the hills, then cutting eastward once he’d passed the old sawmill. His nerves were jangling, but at least he knew Laurel was alive.

Five minutes ago, Trace Breen had tried to patch Dr. Shields through to Sheriff Ellis on the radio. The connection had been poor, but Danny had heard Laurel’s voice when the sheriff asked Shields for confirmation that she was all right. Laurel told Ellis that Beth was asleep, but she fell silent when he asked her about Dr. Auster. After Shields took back the phone, Ellis had informed him that he was flying next to the doctor’s old flight instructor. Shields asked Danny how he was doing, and Danny said fine. The whole conversation had the feel of a family phone call, like talking to relatives on vacation in a foreign country. The connection died soon after that, and when Trace called Shields back, the doctor didn’t answer.

“I want you to stay close to me when we land,” Ellis said as they dropped toward the earth. “I’m thinking this chopper might make a good diversion if we have to go in hard.”

Danny nodded, trying to swallow with a mouth devoid of saliva.

“That’s the neighborhood, isn’t it?” Ellis said, pointing down to some patches of open grass in the forest below.

“That’s it. Shields’s land is in a bend of Larrieu’s Creek.”

Danny picked out the serpentine creek and followed it eastward. Soon he saw the slate blue roof of the Shields house, nestled in a curve of trees that grew along the waterway.

“Damn,” said Ellis. “There’s at least fifty meters of open ground on all sides of that place.”

“Except that back corner.” Danny pointed through the windshield. A broken line of trees marched up from the creek’s ravine to the southwest corner of the house.

“That must be where the son got out,” Ellis said.

They could see the cruisers gathered in front of the house, and a roadblock at the entrance of Lyonesse Drive. Someone had even put up a red flag as a wind indicator, Danny noticed, on a pole standing in the clear space behind the department’s camper trailer.

“There’s the command post,” said Ellis. “Set her down, Danny.”

“Twenty seconds.”

The sheriff unhooked his harness as Danny pulled back on the cyclic and flared in. Then Ellis opened the door and jumped to the ground like MacArthur going ashore in the Philippines. “Remember, stay close!” he called over his shoulder.

Danny checked his phone for new messages. Finding none, he climbed out and secured the main rotor to the tail boom with the tie-down kit. There was liable to be some real wind before he flew out of this place again.

When he was satisfied, he walked over to the command post, where a small knot of men had gathered around the sheriff. Three of them wore dark business suits, and one seemed to be getting in the sheriff’s face pretty good.