William Brown - The Undertaker

I rose to my feet and stumbled away, but my ribs and my lower back were screaming in pain. I hoped nothing was broken, but I didn't care. My mind focused on getting the hell out of there and back to Boston. These people were crazy. I had no further interest in Columbus or whole State of Ohio for that matter. I didn't care about Greene, Dannmeyer, or Tinkerton. All I wanted was to forget today, forget yesterday, and forget everything that happened after Gino Parini climbed into the front seat of my Bronco.

I turned my head and looked back at the funeral home. A fifteen-foot section of the sidewall had collapsed on top of the ambulance, bringing part of the roof down with it. I could even see into one of the chapels. It had been laid out for a funeral in the morning, complete with chairs, flowers, and a casket at the far end. Some wake. If it all wasn't so damned real, I'd have fallen down laughing.

Good thing I didn't. It was the smell of gasoline that brought me back to reality. The ambulance's gas tank must have ruptured and a dull, orange glow spread beneath the ambulance. In seconds, the flames raced along the length of the vehicle. That was when I forgot the pain and began to run.

There was a Mercedes parked at the rear of the lot. Probably Tinkerton's. I ran around it trying all the doors, but they were locked. On the other side of the lot, Dannmeyer's police cruiser was still sitting across the entrance, its headlights on and engine running. The driver's side door was hanging open, just as the sheriff left it, and it didn't require a whole lot of thought to realize it was my only way out. I jumped inside and slammed the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man in a bloody white smock stumble out through the rear service door and fall on the loading dock. He got to his knees and wobbled back and forth. It was Tinkerton. Like Rasputin, somehow that big bastard was alive and still coming after me.

I wasn't about to wait. I dropped the sheriff's car into drive and pushed the pedal to the floor. The big cruiser did a donut in the funeral home's front lawn, kicking up grass and dirt until I got it pointed in the general direction of the highway. Behind me, the dark night erupted in a ball of bright orange flames as the ambulance's gas tank exploded. I spun the steering wheel to the right. The car bounced over the curb, through a ditch, and shot out onto the highway.

Forget today? Forget yesterday? Forget the whole thing? Not very damned likely, not anymore.

Big boys need lots ‘a toys…

My mind was exploding. I kept hearing the words of that song, “I would walk five-hundred miles, and walk five-hundred more.” Walk? I'd run that far to get away from that funeral home, I thought, as the lyrics kept ringing in my ears. Two days before, I had been a software engineer and rock music aficionado minding my own business in my new job in Boston. Now I was a soon-to-be-very-much-wanted cop killer racing down the dark, country roads of central Ohio in a stolen sheriff's cruiser. I drove on into the night, heading west and south through the cornfields. My back ached, my ribs ached, and my head ached in two places. I took several deep breaths to relax and clear my head, trying to turn my mind loose on the problem, knowing I needed to come up with a plan. I had to get rid of Dannmeyer's car and I had to get away from Columbus as fast as I could. It no longer mattered whether I was guilty or innocent, or that I had barged into the Varner Clinic with the very best of intentions. I left three bodies back there in the flames and rubble and I was the one they would be after.

The digital clock on the dashboard read 10:15, which meant I had eight, maybe nine hours of darkness left. Even at night, the big, brown cop car would stick out like a sore thumb. After the sun came up? Forget it. The Bronco was probably toast. When Dannmeyer drove back into Greene's parking lot a few minutes ago, I had a sneaking suspicion he was coming back from dumping it off on the East Side. It was already in some chop shop or on its way to Cleveland, and I needed to find a new set of wheels.

That bastard Tinkerton. How much time did I have before the alarm bells went off, I wondered? With the side wall and the roof of the building collapsing like it did and the ambulance going up in flames, the funeral home had taken some serious hits. It should be a couple of hours at least before they figure out what happened, even if Tinkerton talks. Dannmeyer's body was buried deep under the bricks and I doubted anyone else even knew he was there, so why would they come looking for his car?

When they finally put the out flames and dug into the rubble, they'd discover George lying in the basement with his throat slit and blood all over the place, Ernie wedged in the front seat of the burnt ambulance with two nine millimeter slugs in his chest, and one slightly crushed sheriff lying under a pile of bricks with a smoking Glock in his hand. All in all, this would be the damnedest collection of bodies Campbell County had seen in a long time, and that didn't count one badly dented and bruised Ralph Tinkerton, Esq. lying on the loading dock. Those were four good reasons not to be caught in Dannmeyer's car. But who else besides Tinkerton, Dannmeyer, Greene, and Varner even knew about me to begin with? That was the problem with a tight little conspiracy. They'd have as much problem explaining it to the real cops as I would.

Tinkerton and his pals may be super-patriots with badges, working for what they thought was some greater good, but they were wrong. Besides, what could he do? Call in his buddies from Washington? Maybe. Even if old Ralph had that kind of clout, which I doubted, help wouldn't come overnight. Without local police support, even the FBI would have a lot of ground to cover once they get here.

With one eye on the dark, country road, I looked quickly around inside Dannmeyer's car. He must have just come back from a cop convention. God, but they do like their toys. He'd outfitted the cruiser like the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, with doo-dads all over the dashboard and console. To my right sat a big two-way police radio, a bracket-mounted portable computer, a mobile Bearcat scanner, lights, switches, buttons, and even a writing pad. That was a stretch. A jarhead? I was surprised there wasn't a pad for his comic books and a holder for some crayons.

The radio and the scanner had been quiet since I jumped in, other than some routine police chatter. The voices were calm and the language pure, boring cop-speak straight out of Rescue 911 on TV. I'd have traded them all for one good FM radio station and some back-to-back REM. Even some Twisted Sister belting out, “We're Not Going To Take It Anymore,” would do.

A dashboard bracket held a sleek Vascar radar unit that was pointed out the front windshield, a video camera, an extra-long flashlight, and a can of Mace. With a collection of toys like those, I could only imagine what he had at home in his basement. There was a steel rack welded to the hump in the middle of the floor that held a 12-gauge shotgun and a high-power hunting rifle with a scope. I shook the barrel. Californians must be out of season, because Dannmeyer had them locked-up tighter than Fort Knox. The key was probably one of the dozen or so on the big ring in the car's ignition, but I didn't know what I would do with a shotgun or a rifle to begin with, so I let it be. He also had a big, round ”Smokey the Bear” sheriff's hat hanging from the headrest on the passenger side of the car, where nothing would dent its lovely round crown. They were great for election posters, parades, and cop conventions. Too bad he wasn't wearing it a few minutes ago, I thought. The brick wall would have crushed that sucker flat.

The quick inventory reminded me, what did I have? I had thrown on my clothes so fast I hadn't even looked. I felt my hip pocket and realized my wallet was missing. I patted down my front pocket. My cell phone was gone too. Tinkerton had taken them, which meant I had no money, no credit cards, no phone, and no ID. That would make things damned inconvenient. What else did I have to work with? I felt my shirt pocket. The obituaries and stories I had taken from the library were still there, which was a relief. Tinkerton must not have noticed the shirt, so at least I had something.