John Sandford: Shock Wave

“Okay.” Haden got up. “You want a beer? Or a glass of wine?”

“No… but I need to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“I just remembered, you asked a lot of questions about the farm,” she said. She twisted her hands together. “You know, that first night I came over. I just, I mean, you seem really interested…”

He frowned. “Sally, where are you going with this?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Her hands flopped in her lap. “It just seemed you were always more interested in the money than Bill was, and you started talking about maybe us getting married, and I started to think… I mean, oh, God…”

He laughed. “You think I’m the bomber?” This wasn’t good.

“No. No, of course not. It’s just that you came on so hard with me. Nobody ever did that before. You’re so good-looking and the other women, you know, are always looking at you. I wondered why you… I mean, I know what I look like, I’m pretty average… I’m not that smart…”

“Sally, for Christ’s sakes.” That ol’ sinking feeling.

“And then…”

There was more? “What, what?”

“I remember last week, you were telling me how we’d slept together the night before that bomb went off at Pye’s building… but we didn’t. The bomb was on a Wednesday, and Billie has her dance line on Tuesday evening, and then her cello lesson, and we’re never home before ten o’clock. It was on Monday we slept together. And on the way over here, I wondered why you’d even bring it up-that we’d slept together the night before the Pye building thing, when we didn’t, and I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

“That I was building an alibi?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Did you tell any of this to Flowers?” Haden asked. “I really don’t want him jumping down my throat.”

“I didn’t tell it to anyone. Nobody knows about us, not even the kids. It’s so embarrassing. Bill leaves the house, and three days later I’m in bed with a friend of his. I mean… I’d be ruined, if my friends found out.”

“Sally, people don’t get ruined anymore,” Haden said. “They only get ruined in Victorian novels.”

“And small towns,” she said. “Anyway, you didn’t do it. I mean, Flowers asked if I’d been seeing anyone, and I lied and said no, and that’s when all this silly stuff started going through my head. And then I started thinking, I just lied to a police officer. I think I could really be in trouble, I think I might have to go back and tell him that I was seeing somebody. I think that would be best.”

Oh, shit. The whole plan goes up in smoke.

He thought, Nobody knows where she’s at. Nobody knows that we’ve been sleeping together. If Flowers finds out, finds out I mentioned marriage… that would be inconvenient. If Flowers kept coming, if he ever stumbled over that FedEx store in Grand Rapids… and who knows what would happen if they took too close a look at that videotape? Would there be some way they could tell it wasn’t Wyatt?

He felt a surge of anger, ran his hands through his hair. Hated to give it up. Hated it.

But the anger was running so hot, and the frustration. He’d been one inch away…

Wyatt stood up and stepped toward him. “John,” she said. “They won’t care. I mean, I won’t tell them, you know…”

He slapped her, hard, and she fell on the floor. “You bitch!” he shouted. “You’re taking it right out of my pocket.”

She was weeping, and trying to turn and crawl away from him. He straddled her, and dropped his weight on her hips, pinning her facedown. She cried, “You did it.”

“You silly bitch. All my work. All my planning.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she screamed. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Yes, you will. You’ll tell everybody,” he said. He swatted her on the side of the face with an open hand. “Now, I want you to tell me something, and I want you to be honest about it, because if you’re not honest about it, I’ll catch that little bitch of a daughter of yours, and I’ll spend two days raping her virgin ass, then I’ll strangle her and throw her body in a ditch so the animals can eat her. You hear me? You hear me?”

He hit her again, and she sobbed, “Yes.”

“Who did you tell about us?”

“No one,” she sobbed. “Honest, no one, and I never will tell anyone. Just let me go, let me go, I’ll never tell anyone.”

“You’re fuckin’ lying.” He hit her yet again, and her head rocked with the blow.

“Why… why did you kill that car man? Why?” She tried to push herself up against him, but he pinned her. “I know why you killed Bill, but why… that car man…”

“Because I needed him to lead Flowers to Bill,” he said. “Now, listen, Sally, I’m really sorry about this, but I’m going to have to choke you a little-”

“Please don’t do this, please don’t…” She thrashed against him, and he felt the hard knob in her back, and cocked his head, and frowned and she shouted, “Safety.”

Haden said, “What?”

Virgil stuck his head in the door and said, “Get off her, John.”

Haden, stunned, looked down at Wyatt, then back up at Virgil, his mouth open. He said, “Virgil…”

Virgil said, “Get off her, John.”

Haden stood up and said, “She accused me-”

Virgil said, “Too late, John.”

Haden took a quick step toward Virgil, as if to push him out of the way. Virgil’s response was instantaneous: the punch came from somewhere behind his waistline. As it passed his shoulder, his fist was already traveling at the speed of sound-well, almost-and when it collided with Haden’s beaked nose, there was an immensely satisfying crunch, at that perfect distance where your hand and knuckles don’t feel it too much, and your shoulder takes up some of the recoil, and the nose guy’s head rockets off your knuckles like a tennis ball flying off a racket.

Haden stumbled over Wyatt’s legs and smashed into the wall, and went to his butt. O’Hara pushed past Virgil and said, “That’s what happens when you resist.” Jenkins was right behind her, and said, “Good punch.”

Wyatt wailed, “He was on top of me, he had me by the throat, he was choking-”

At that moment, Haden, who’d rolled up on one leg, as though he were just coming to his feet, suddenly fired off the floor, like a runner coming out of the blocks. He was headed toward the patio door…

Which was closed.

He hit the glass headfirst, full tilt, went through in an explosion of splintered crystal, crashed into the lawn furniture, and went down again.

Virgil and Jenkins and O’Hara were on top of him before he could recover again. O’Hara put the cuffs on.

Ahlquist had come through the front door in time to see the sprint.

Haden looked up at him, his face a mass of blood, and said, “I think… I think I’m really hurt.”

Ahlquist bent down, looked at him for a moment, then said, “Tough titty.”

O ’Hara and five other cops, in three sheriff’s cars, lights all flashing and sirens screaming, drove Haden through town to the hospital, leaving no doubt in the mind of anyone who heard them, or saw them, that the bomber had been caught.

At the hospital the docs propped up Haden’s nose and sewed shut a few cuts from when he’d gone through the glass door, and then O’Hara and the escort cops drove him with sirens screaming and lights flashing through town to the jail, and locked him up.

When all that was done-it took three hours-Virgil and Ahlquist, O’Hara, Barlow, Theodore Wills, the county attorney, Good Thunder, Pye, and Chapman took part in an hour-long press conference jammed with TV, newspaper, and online reporters, and the one public radio reporter with his recorder and microphone. Ahlquist wore a silky pale blue suit from Nordstrom and served as master of ceremonies, giving broad credit to Virgil, Barlow, and O’Hara for cracking the case.