Hometown Homicide

by C. K. Crigger

  Then, at last, Gabe arrived with the cavalry.

  He pulled up behind the ambulance, tires skidding on the gravel verge. Rudy Swallowtail drew in after him, his cruiser’s bumper almost touching the SUV’s. Frankie’s Airweight dropped to the ground as she turned toward Marc.

  “Frankie,” Gabe yelled as he got out of the SUV. He crossed the ditch toward her like a broad jumper, Rudy taking it only a little slower. The men skidded to a stop beside her.

  Gabe knelt, gripping her shoulder. “Frankie, you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” It must’ve been obvious from the way she winced away that she wasn’t. A bright flow of blood ran down the side of her face. Damn Darryl and his boxer’s fists and his crappy gold nugget ring. Another scar to add to her collection.

  Service weapon in hand, Gabe scanned the area before coming back to shake his head over Marc. “Marc?”

  Frankie didn’t think it was worth her while making the effort to stand and then having to bend down to check Marc. Her hip felt like it was on fire and she wasn’t even sure the leg would support her.

  Taking the easy way, she crawled to her partner, pulling the dropped medical box with her. Once at his side, she rose to her knees. “Darryl is your killer.” Frankie found her voice at last. “He shot Marc—and Denise and Howie. He confessed to me. Bragged, actually.”

  “Darryl? Darryl Holland?” Gabe sank down beside her, his fingers seeking out Marc’s pulse as Frankie opened the box and drew on latex gloves. “Darryl Holland, the volunteer fireman, is our shooter?”

  “Yes.” She tore open Marc’s shirt. “Go after him, you and Rudy. He ran off that way.” A vague wave indicated direction.

  “Not until you get in the car,” Gabe said. “Your safety comes first.”

  “Marc comes first,” she corrected, yanking a cuff from the med-kit and starting on Marc’s vitals. “You just get Darryl. But don’t shoot him dead until you make him talk. He’s not the brains behind these murders.”

  “He isn’t?” Gabe stared at her. “Then who is?”

  “A woman.”

  Gabe’s impatience showed in his exasperated question. “A woman? What makes you think so?”

  Neither expected Marc’s entry into the discussion. “’Cuz he told Frankie after she shot him,” he rasped before his voice died away.

  Maybe he wasn’t hurt as badly as Frankie first thought if he’d been awake enough to know what she’d done—and tell about it.

  Pulling a pack with an IV line out of the box, she started a saline drip, ignoring her patient’s wince as the needle went in. Not, perhaps, her smoothest work, poor guy.

  Marc’s remark brought a frown to Gabe’s face. “Frankie shot him?”

  “War hero,” Rudy said as if it were the most commonplace thing in the world.

  In the distance, a car roared awake, its Cherry Bomb glass pack muffler making them all jump.

  “That’s Darryl’s car.” She’d know it anywhere after hearing the old Chevy’s rat-trap motor and exhaust system in the parking lot these last couple weeks. Worried and angry, Frankie turned toward the sound. “He’s escaping.”

  “We’ll get him.” Gabe touched his shoulder mic.

  Marc pushed Frankie and her stethoscope aside, struggling onto his elbow. “No,” he told Gabe. “Darryl has a scanner in his car. He’ll hear everything you tell dispatch.”

  Gabe gave him a long look. “Okay, we’ll do it this way.” He whipped out his phone, punched in some numbers, and held it to his ear. Connection made, he called for aid from the state police. A second call warned the Washington people across the state border to be on the lookout.

  Wincing, his face nearly as white as Banner’s fur, Marc collapsed again, finally allowing Frankie to get to work.

  She put a sterile pad over his wound and turned him enough to see if the bullet had exited. It had, having gone through the soft part of his side. Another pad went over the larger exit wound, along with layers of gauze to hold it in place. With the IV in place and fentanyl administered, Marc’s blood pressure stabilized.

  “Feeling any better?” she asked him.

  Eyelids drooping, Marc’s face relaxed. “These drugs ain’t too shabby, Frankie,” he muttered. “You oughta try some.”

  She laughed. “Pass. I’ve already had more than my fair share.” If he only knew.

  Lew and the volunteer on-call showed up just as Frankie finished prepping Marc for transport. Lew, being Lew, had plenty to say about rescuing the rescuers. Frankie knew him pretty well by now and didn’t quite buy into the off-hand dress-down. The acerbic part of his speech where he yakked about taking unnecessary chances was belied by the almost-tender way he wiped blood from Frankie’s cheek and pressed a butterfly bandage over the cut. He finished with a lecture on dripping body fluids all over a patient—but he smiled as he said it.

  A little woozy, her hip and stomach both aching desperately, Frankie tuned Lew out and concentrated on her own misery. She was glad to collapse on the sidelines and leave the volunteer to care for Marc. The minute she sat down, the shakes started—belly deep, adrenaline coursing through her veins like pure grain alcohol.

  She put her hands under her thighs to hold them still.

  Gabe, thank God, wasn’t around to hear Lew chewing her butt because the moment he saw Frankie and Marc into the paramedic’s capable hands, he climbed in his SUV and hurried off in pursuit of Darryl. From the look on his face, she wouldn’t want to be in Darryl’s shoes when Gabe found him.

  Wounded, his identity finally known, she couldn’t imagine Darryl escaping clean. Not with a cop as determined as Gabe on his trail.

  Even so, this thing wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. She knew it like she knew her own name.

  Rudy, bless him, elected to stay with the extra ambulance until it could be retrieved from the side of the road. All EMS needed was to have someone raid an unguarded ambulance for drugs. All their ducks were in a row, and thank God, events were out of her hands.

  Frankie sat in the passenger seat as Lew sped, top lights flashing, toward Coeur d’Alene. The truck motor droned, and the background noise faded as Frankie’s mind drifted.

  She. A mysterious she with a bad temper. That’s what Darryl said. Who was the woman who’d hired him and turned him loose to murder at will? The puzzle was enough to give Frankie a headache. Or... wait. She already had one of those from Darryl’s blow to her head.

  When the headlights of an oncoming car blared into her eyes, Frankie’s vision blacked out. So did everything else, until she woke up to find Lew and a hospital orderly unloading her from a gurney onto a bed. Crap!

  Morning, after a short follow-up by a brusque on-call physician, found Frankie released into Jesselyn’s tender care.

  Jesselyn strode into the lobby like a plump elf, her soft strawberry blonde hair flying every which way. She stopped, did an exaggerated double take. “Holy crap, girl, you look like hell!”

  “Thank you.” Sourly, Frankie acknowledged the hit. “You mean, I look exactly how I feel?”

  Jesselyn, hands on hips, studied her, not without sympathy. “Like you’ve been whupped with an ugly stick and, believe me, I’m being kind.”

  Frankie’s wry smile indicated she knew what Jesselyn meant. The mirror in her hospital room had been all too revealing. A black eye with a row of bright blue stitches above the arch of her eyebrow. Check. Cheekbone swollen and with a purple tinge. Check. And that was the easy stuff.

  What Jesselyn didn’t see was the deep bone bruise on her hip, resulting in a limp on her “good” side. The only reason the doc turned her loose this morning was because an ultrasound determined her spleen wasn’t ruptured after all. Double check.

  An encounter with Darryl’s size twelves was pretty much like being on the wrong end of a big ugly stick.

  “Do you need a wheelchair? I’ll get you one,” Jesselyn offered after further study of Frankie’s face.

  “No, thanks.” Grunting with effort, Frankie pushe
d herself out of the chair, where she’d been waiting for her ride, and rose to her feet. Holy crap! “I’m good as long as you’re not parked at the far end of the parking lot.”

  And if she wasn’t all that good, she’d act the part until she convinced herself.

  “No problem. I’m right out front.” Jesselyn positioned herself, so Frankie could hang onto her if necessary.

  Frankie, determined not to hang on anybody, stumbled along leading the way through the revolving doors to Jesselyn’s Liberty. She even managed to hoist herself in. Small blessing. At least her friend didn’t drive a subcompact or a sports car requiring one to fold in half.

  “Is there any news about Darryl?” she asked once they were underway. Having had to wait until the pain in her hip ebbed, she was still a bit breathless.

  Jesselyn glanced over at her and flipped on the radio. A local news station was broadcasting, a woman’s deep voice murmuring in the background. “Let’s give a listen. Last I heard was the same old stuff. I can’t believe this guy found a place to disappear so fast—or one so well hidden the cops can’t find him. Scuttlebutt going around says every law enforcement officer in the county is on this one.”

  “Whole state, more likely. And Washington and Montana besides.”

  “I didn’t know Darryl more than to say hi to him. He always seemed like a nonentity to me.”

  “I hate to admit it, but to me, too. A rough-edged nonentity. I think the whole department thought so.”

  Flicking her turn signal, Jesselyn whipped around a slow-moving car from Vermont. “And now, apparently, the cops are looking in all the wrong places.”

  “I’ll bet he’s with the person who hired him,” Frankie said, earning herself a long stare. “Watch it,” she urged, beginning to wonder if Jesselyn was about run off the road.

  Inches away from the ditch, Jess steered back into her lane. “Somebody hired him? Really? You mean this isn’t a grudge killing?”

  Me and my big mouth, Frankie thought. The police are probably keeping the killer for hire aspect of the investigation under wraps. Well, too late to worry now.

  “Doubtful. I’m pretty sure this situation is more complicated—and serious—than a simple grudge.”

  Jesselyn, to the detriment of her driving, was staring at her again. “I hope that means my brother is off the hook. Does it?”

  “Umm…probably.”

  “And Matt?” This time Jess managed to keep the car on the road.

  “I doubt the police are looking for anyone but Darryl at this point.” He’d been definite about his boss being a woman, too, so unless either Russ or Matt could work a cross-dressing disguise better than she imagined, they were in the clear.

  Jesselyn’s wide grin equaled the sunny day in its brilliance. “Wow! This is great. Do you mind if I call Russ and Matt with the good news? They’ll be so relieved.”

  What could it hurt? According to the news media, everyone knew Darryl was the subject of an all-out manhunt. Anyone involved in the search for Denise and Howie’s murderer would figure it out anyway.

  Frankie gestured toward the radio where an announcer was giving an update on the latest crime statistics. “Might as well. Doesn’t seem to be any big secret.”

  She closed her eyes as Jesselyn multi-tasked with her phone calls and driving—causing some hairy moments.

  No. No secret about Darryl’s guilt. But what about the woman who’d hired him?

  Chapter 26

  Dreams of fire and bombs awakened Frankie. Gasping for air as though an imaginary IED had sucked all the breath from her lungs, she flung herself to the side of the bed, almost tossing Shine, who’d been sleeping beside her, over the edge.

  Instead of protesting this rough treatment, the bichon scrambled to her feet, eyes glowing in the moonlight purling through an uncovered window. But then Frankie noticed Shine wasn’t looking at her. The dog had her gaze fixed on the door.

  Banner’s gaze, too. His lips coiled into a silent snarl. On his feet beside the bed, his plumy tail, normally spun in a tight curl over his back, hung halfway down his hocks. Frankie, fighting the dream’s spell, put her hand on his head, feeling a deep vibration rumble through him.

  “What?” she asked, the question soundless. But she knew what. Danger.

  Swinging her feet onto a rag rug still warm from where the Samoyed had been sleeping, she came slowly to her feet, hoping to ease the old floor’s natural creak. From the hall outside her room came a whisper of incremental movement.

  Head cocked toward the sound, she heard a small snick as someone opened the door to the other bedroom then left without closing it again. Ditto the bathroom, the linen closet, the attic stairs. Until her own was the only door left.

  Not Gabe. Definitely not Gabe.

  Old-fashioned fear stopped her for a moment. The bogeyman is coming to get me. Adrenaline pumped. Tension took fear’s place.

  “Sit,” she breathed, waved Banner down, and flipped the blankets over Shine, silencing the small dog who stood rigid on the bed, a growl or a bark building in her throat.

  Damn Rudy for confiscating her .38 after the shooting last night. And damn her for giving in to her aches and pains today and neglecting to choose another from her grandpa’s stash in the garage. But she wasn’t entirely unprepared. This had been her room as a teenager, and she’d had the best batting average of any girl on the slow-pitch team. Her favorite aluminum bat stood propped against the nightstand, just as it had for years.

  Frankie picked it up and inched into a crouched stance on the far side of the dresser—the best she could do in the way of shelter—along the same wall as the door.

  Stay. Her hand motion kept Banner still, out of the bat’s likely reach.

  Seconds ticked past. Five…ten.

  The door inched open. Now she heard breathing—quick, harsh panting.

  Over on the bed, Shine thrashed, fighting the blanket holding her down.

  The man—and Frankie clearly saw it was a man—crept into the room. He held a gun in front of him, and it rose as he zeroed in on Shine’s movement on the bed.

  Frankie cocked the bat, ready to swing.

  One step more. C’mon, you sonofabitch.

  But Banner couldn’t stand the wait. He broke ‘stay,’ bounding forward, his bark, deep and angry, echoing through the silent house. The man’s gun hand swung toward the dog, sighting in on Banner as he leaped at the intruder.

  No time for Frankie to wait. Her bat arced around with every one of her one hundred and ten pounds behind it.

  The first hit broke his arm in at least two places with an audible crack. The pistol dropped from his hand and skittered away, discharging as it hit the floor, the bullet going God knows where.

  Frankie’s follow through strike slammed into the man’s shoulder. He screamed—a high-pitched noise silenced by her third hit, this one, with only marginally less force, aimed at his head.

  He crumpled to the floor like a sack of old clothes and lay unmoving in a pool of moonlight.

  Darryl. No surprise there.

  Banner jumped on top of the body, stuck his nose in Darryl’s ear, and sniffed, then sneezed as though disgusted by the odor. Darryl remained dead to the world.

  Or maybe just dead.

  Which was fine with Frankie. Right this moment she didn’t care if she’d killed him. All she felt was relief—and pain where she’d tweaked her bruised hip. Pain she owed to him.

  Shaking in the aftermath, she scrambled under the rocking chair where the pistol had landed and picked it up. Shine burrowed her way free of the blankets at last and barked peremptorily. Frankie collapsed onto the bed beside her.

  “We got him,” she said.

  But the explanation didn’t satisfy Shine. The bichon jumped down and ran past her, past Banner, past Darryl, and out into the hall to the top of the stairs. Bouncing on all fours, she set up such a caterwauling the walls seemed to shrink.

  “What the hell?”

  Frankie limped after t
he little dog. Banner, distracted from examining the unmoving Darryl, caught Shine’s distress, and rushed to join her, growling low in his throat.

  “Hey, guys, ease up. What is the matter with—” Her question cut off.

  She stopped at the top of the stairs. From this vantage point, she had a line of sight all the way outside and across the porch. The front door hung wide open, swaying a little as though someone had just passed through. Even from inside the house, she smelled what the dogs already had scented—a strong odor of gasoline.

  Her heart clenched.

  Furtive movement stirred around the lilac bushes bracketing the porch steps.

  Darryl hadn’t come alone. Someone else lurked in the shrubbery. Someone equally as dangerous as he. The dogs knew.

  Fear struck Frankie. Without pausing to think, she scooped the bichon up under her arm, called to Banner, and dashed down the stairs as though she not only had two full feet but as though she was graceful as a dancer and as fast and sure as a high-wire gymnast.

  Frankie and the dogs fled outside just as an explosive thump fractured the night. Flames shot from under the porch steps the exact moment they cleared the bottom riser. Banner, thrown by the concussion, yelped and rolled. Frankie lost her footing and fell, still holding Shine.

  Thirty yards down the street, she spotted the figure of a person racing away. A person fleet of foot and inches smaller than Darryl who lay unconscious upstairs. Almost certainly his mysterious boss. A woman. But who?

  “Banner.”

  The dog looked at her.

  “Get ’er.”

  She pointed at the person, even now disappearing into the night. And Banner, although Frankie wasn’t at all certain what he’d do with the woman if he caught up with her, bounded forward, hot on the trail. Shine struggled for release from Frankie’s arms. Gaining her freedom, the bichon dashed after the bigger dog, barking her head off.

  Next door, a porch light came on, and a man stepped outside.