Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19)

by Jenna Bennett

  “Mordecai Lawson’s a Civil Rights era activist,” Rafe told her. “And a big deal in Memphis. I ran across him during the time I was working there.”

  During the years he’d spent trying to infiltrate Hector Gonzales’s criminal organization, which had fingers in every major city in the southeast. “He wasn’t involved in anything shady, was he?”

  “No, darlin’. Upstanding citizen. Lawyer. Judge.”

  “If he were to be killed…”

  “It wouldn’t be good,” Rafe said.

  Grimaldi lowered the flier. “This makes enough sense that we’re going to go with it. I’ll call Bob and tell him that he and the other sheriffs can handle Laurel Hill. And to let him know what we’re thinking might be going on here.”

  “If he knows that, I don’t think he’ll agree to go to Laurel Hill,” I said.

  “The sheriffs of Lawrence, Lewis, and Giles are sitting around with nothing to do,” Rafe added. “Between them and the park service, they can cover Laurel Hill. And Bob can stay here and—”

  He closed his mouth when his phone went off. Grimaldi’s did, too. They both grabbed for them, and both their faces turned to ultra-grim at the same time.

  “What?” I asked, looking from one to the other.

  “Explosion at the park ranger station in Laurel Hill,” Rafe said.

  “Oh, no.” Were we wrong about this? “Did anybody die?”

  Grimaldi was already dialing. “Depends on how many rangers were there. Or anyone else.” She put the phone to her ear. “Bob.”

  She turned away while she listened to whatever Bob Satterfield had to say.

  “I don’t think I’m wrong about this,” I told Rafe, softly.

  He shook his head. “Somebody’s at Laurel Hill, though. If this was an ammonal explosion, somebody had to be there to set it off.”

  True. “Maybe it’s Rodney. Maybe Lance killed Felicia and he and Rodney took off in Rodney’s car early this morning. But Lance got out after a few blocks while Rodney went down to Laurel Hill. Or maybe they both went down there, and Lance helped Rodney get the Tannerite set up, and then Lance came back to Columbia in Jennifer’s car.”

  “Possible,” Rafe admitted.

  “Then at eight-thirty, Rodney set off the explosion. Everyone from four counties converges on Laurel Hill. Rodney has fun picking off first responders.” Just as I had thought when we were standing on Fulton Street three nights ago, and outside Rodney’s apartment building this morning. If someone wanted to take out a lot of law enforcement, it would have been a golden opportunity.

  Rafe looked grim, maybe at visions of the carnage that could ensue. But he was also keeping an eye on the bigger picture. “By ten o’clock, ain’t no law enforcement left in Columbia. SWAT and everyone else that can be spared has gone to Laurel Hill. And Lance can do whatever he wants.”

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Got any proof?”

  None whatsoever. “I’m not saying that you should ignore Laurel Hill, you know. Someone’s down there, and it’s probably Rodney. Somebody needs to go down there and catch him. And he’s been practicing his shooting, so it could be dangerous. But blowing up the ranger station in a small wildlife area isn’t going to start that race war they want. Blowing up, or taking out, the crowd that’s gathered to commemorate the 1946 race riots might.”

  Rafe nodded. “We better get up to Columbia and have a look around.”

  “When you say we,” I began, and he shook his head.

  “Not you, darlin’. You and Carrie stay here.”

  “I wasn’t going to mingle with the crowd,” I protested. “But I can help look around, at least. If he has a rifle, he’ll be somewhere at a distance, right? I can look around at a distance and not be in the line of fire.”

  He hesitated. Long enough that Grimaldi finished her phone call and turned back to us. “Bob’s taking his team to Laurel Hill.”

  So there went any backup from the sheriff’s department for Columbia. All the more reason to let me look around.

  “What about the SWAT team?” Rafe asked. Since he was on the SWAT team, and already dressed in team colors, I guess he was afraid he’d be ordered down to Laurel Hill, too, now that we knew that somebody was down there and might start shooting.

  “Bob thinks the SWAT team will stand out against the grass,” Grimaldi said, with a twitch of her lips.

  “So we’re not going?”

  She shook her head. “I told him to handle it. We’ll handle Columbia.”

  “Let’s go, then.” Rafe turned toward the door.

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I wanted to come, too, and then I changed my mind and closed it again. “Good luck,” I told them instead, as they both stepped through the door and onto the porch. “Let me know how it goes.”

  Rafe’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. I smiled sweetly, before I closed and locked the door behind them, and watched them walk away.

  I was out the back door before Grimaldi’s SUV had cleared the driveway. Two minutes later, Carrie and I were clearing the driveway, too, and on our way up the highway toward Columbia.

  I made sure I stayed far enough behind them that they wouldn’t notice me in the rearview mirror. Once we got into Columbia proper, I did catch a glimpse of the SUV at the top of Main Street, taking a right to circle City Hall, but that was just as I was taking a left onto West 8th, so I didn’t think they’d seen me.

  I parked outside the library, and lifted Carrie’s stroller out of the trunk of the car. After fitting the car seat into it—it was the newfangled kind, where the car seat did double duty as stroller with the addition of wheels—we set off down the street in the direction of Main, and of East 8th, on the other side of the main drag.

  By now, it was past nine-fifteen, getting closer to nine-thirty, and a little crowd had gathered down the street on East 8th. I padded in that direction, pushing Carrie and the stroller ahead of me. Just a young mother out for a walk with her baby. Nothing to see here.

  There were maybe fifteen people gathered, so not a big crowd yet. And the crowd might not get much bigger, since it was in the middle of the workday. Most of the folks here were older, probably retired, and most of them were black. I nodded and smiled in both directions as I pushed Carrie down the street past them. “Excuse us. Sorry. Coming through.”

  The funeral home I’d mentioned earlier, with the historical marker, turned out to be a boarded-up brick building, sitting well back from the sidewalk and positioned next to an alley. Up the alley and a little west, I could just see the top of the clock tower on City Hall over the roofs of the buildings fronting the square.

  The monument itself was wrapped in a sheet, up on the grass not too far from the marker. On the other side of the alley was a paved parking lot, where a tent had been erected over thirty or forty folding chairs and a wooden podium. A black woman in her fifties was fiddling with a microphone, and there were a few more people in the seats. The crowd in the street was slowly seeping in that direction.

  There was no sign of Mordecai Lawson yet. I gave the clock tower at City Hall another hard look—anyone who climbed up there would have a straight shot at the crowd down here—and dug in my pocket for the phone.

  I dialed Rafe as I pushed the stroller up the alley, still nodding and smiling at anyone I passed. “You need to get somebody up to the top of the clock tower on City Hall and make sure it’s empty.”

  “’Scuse me?”

  “The clock tower,” I said. “There’s a straight sight line down to the monument on East 8th. Anyone who was up there would be able to pick off Mordecai Lawson without any problem.”

  There was a slight pause. “I thought you were gonna stay home, Savannah.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing going on yet. Maybe a dozen people, and a woman who’s setting up a microphone. There’s a podium and the bauta. That’s it. No media or anything. And no sign of Lance, or of Jennifer’s car.”

&n
bsp; “Get away from there.”

  “I’m getting,” I said. “I’m already on my way up to 7th. But I don’t think anything’s going to happen until the ceremony starts.”

  He didn’t answer that, and I added, “So will you get someone up to check the clock tower? I think someone with some experience could make that shot. If they were crazy enough to climb City Hall to do it.”

  “I don’t think he’s that crazy,” Rafe said, “but I’ll tell Tammy. She’ll get someone up to check.”

  “Thank you.” I stopped at the mouth of the alley on 7th and looked around, catching my breath. It’s a climb from 8th up to City Hall. Probably why the locals had called East 8th The Bottoms back then. It was at the bottom of the hill. “Nothing going on on 7th.”

  “Then go home,” Rafe said.

  “It’s still early.”

  He didn’t say anything, and I added, “I’m not being careless, Rafe. Not with Carrie.” Nor with myself, for that matter. “I’m just walking around downtown Columbia. There are plenty of other people here.”

  And if somebody started shooting, we’d all be targets. But for now, I was going on the assumption that only the crowd on East 8th was in danger, and not until the ceremony started.

  “You know,” I told Rafe, “you could cancel the ceremony. Just call whoever arranged it, and tell them it’s off. That there have been threats and they can’t proceed.”

  “Tammy’s already tried to get approval for that. The mayor’s inclined to think this is a long shot, and the danger’s at Laurel Hill.”

  “Maybe I could go down there on the sly and tell them—”

  “No!” He took a breath and said it again, more calmly. “No, darlin’. I don’t want you anywhere near there. And we don’t know that anything’s going on. It’s just a hunch. There haven’t been any threats to the ceremony. There’s been a definite threat in Laurel Hill.”

  Yes. There was no arguing with that.

  “Any news from down there?”

  “Not yet. It takes a while to get there. I don’t imagine they’ll catch up to Rodney for a couple hours, at least.”

  “Unless he’s set up close enough to take pot shots at the parking area.”

  He didn’t respond to that. “I’ll let you know when I hear something.”

  “What about the SWAT team?”

  “Ready to go,” Rafe said, “as soon as we know where we’re going.”

  “And somebody’s checking the clock tower?” I glanced at it again, just across the square from me now. There was no movement up there, and everything looked peaceful.

  “I promise, darlin’. Now will you please take yourself and our daughter outta there?”

  “I’m not in any danger. Nothing’s going on.”

  “If there’s a sniper with a gun anywhere around the town square,” Rafe said, “I want you miles away from there. Not a block up from where we think his target is.”

  “Just let me know if he’s in the clock tower. I’m going to buy a cup of coffee and try to look inconspicuous.”

  I dropped the phone back into my pocket and wheeled Carrie into the coffee shop on the corner. By the time I came out again, my phone was ringing.

  “Clock tower’s empty,” my husband said.

  “Good.” I looked around for somewhere else Lance might be holed up.

  “You about ready to head on home now?”

  “Soon. I just want one more look around. I mean, he has to be somewhere.”

  “A good sniper can take out a target from a couple miles away,” Rafe told me. “He could be halfway between here and Sweetwater.”

  Not quite. Not only is Sweetwater farther away than that, but there are hills between. If he wanted a clear shot at The Bottoms, there were only so many places he could get that. And even as I stood there, another complication presented itself, rolling past in a plain gray van.

  “Damn,” I said, and didn’t even think to apologize for it.

  “What?” Rafe said in my ear.

  “Audrey just drove past me with your grandmother. What do you want to bet they’re headed to the ceremony?”

  As the van rolled down the hill, the turn signal came on, indicating a right turn onto East 8th. “Yep. Looks like it.”

  Rafe said something unprintable.

  “I’ll try to catch them before they get out of the car,” I said. “Although if I tell them what’s going on, you know they’re going to want to tell everyone else. And by then, Mordecai Lawson might have arrived, and—”

  “Don’t go anywhere near them,” Rafe said. I could hear from the background that he was moving. “Stay where you are.”

  “It’s your grandmother.” And Mother’s best friend. “I can’t let them walk over there. If I can catch them before they leave the car…”

  I dropped the phone into my pocket without taking the time to turn it off, and threw the coffee cup. It hit the gutter with a splat, and coffee flew everywhere. I grabbed the stroller handle with both hands and took off down the hill.

  When I puffed around the corner—I’ve never been in great shape, and after giving birth a few months ago, I was in worse shape now than ever before—the van was parked halfway down the block, and Audrey was in the process of helping her aunt down to the sidewalk.

  “Audrey!” I pulled to a stop next to them, panting.

  She turned to me, surprised. “Savannah? What are you doing here?”

  “You have to go home,” I said, breathlessly.

  “Oh, we can’t.” She glanced down at Mrs. Jenkins. “Aunt Tondalia wants to see Mr. Lawson.”

  “She can see Mr. Lawson some other time. It isn’t safe for you to be here.”

  Audrey looked at me. Mrs. Jenkins did, too, but I wasn’t sure how much she understood.

  “What’s going on?” Audrey wanted to know. It sounded like she was taking me seriously, anyway, so that was good.

  I looked around, to make sure no one else was close enough to hear me. “Something bad is going on. You have to leave.”

  “Not until I say hello to Mordecai,” Mrs. J told me.

  Say hello to? “You know Mr. Lawson?”

  “Knew him back in the old days,” Mrs. J said. “I marched from Selma to Montgomery with Mordecai in 1965.”

  Had she really?

  “Then you definitely need to see him,” Audrey said, patting her aunt’s hand.

  All the more reason to get her out of there, as far as I was concerned. If Lance was here and opened fire, and Mordecai Lawson was shot, I didn’t think that experience would be good for Mrs. Jenkins. Her son had been shot right in front of their house the year before Rafe was born, and Mrs. Jenkins wasn’t over it, thirty-one years later. I doubted she’d ever be. The last thing she needed was to witness another shooting, and of an old friend, too.

  But as I tried to shoo them back into the van, a sleek, black stretch limo glided around the corner, and I realized it was too late. That had to be Mordecai Lawson’s entourage, and if he was here, there was no way to convince Mrs. J to leave.

  Maybe I could just keep them here instead, safely behind the van—

  The limo rolled silently past us, and in its wake, a black-clad figure skidded around the corner. I tensed—my first thought was that it was Lance, ready to blow someone away. It only took a second for me to recognize Rafe, though.

  He took in the street at a glance, found us, and headed in our direction. Meanwhile, up ahead, the few people still on the street parted for the limo, which glided to a stop in front of the bauta. The front door opened and a chauffeur in full uniform stepped out. He slapped a cap on his head and walked five or six feet backwards until he could swing the door to the back open.

  The crowd surged back around the limo while Mrs. Jenkins tried to tug her arm out of Audrey’s grasp. Rafe skidded to a stop next to the van just as a tall, skinny, old black man unfolded himself from the back of the limo and rose to a full height of close to six and a half feet. Someone in the crowd started clapping, and
others joined in.

  He headed for the tent, entering from the back and inclining his head left and right as he proceeded toward the front. The people who hadn’t yet found seats disbursed themselves into the rows on the left and the right, and by the time Mordecai Lawson had climbed the single step onto the wooden podium and turned to the crowd, he was being cheered by thirty or forty people.

  “Friends.” His voice was rich and resonant through the microphone, as he gestured expansively with big hands at the end of long arms. “Friends, be seated.”

  And that’s when the first shot rang through the air, so loud it hurt my ears. It hit the wooden platform, and for the second time inside a week, I watched something blow up.

  Twenty-Four

  “Down!”

  Rafe pitched the word so everyone in a block radius could hear him, but he shoved me down with one hand, and wrapped the other arm around both his grandmother and his cousin at the same time, sweeping them down next to me.

  “Stay,” he added, for our benefit only.

  “Keep your head down!” I told him, although I’m not sure he heard me. I couldn’t hear me. My ears were still ringing, and besides, there was a whole lot of other noise. Screaming, crying, sobbing, from the other side of the street, interspersed with the staccato burst of a rifle.

  I raised my head far enough to be able to peer through the window of the van and out the window on the other side. “He’s on top of one of the church towers.”

  Rafe nodded, eyes already on it.

  The church down on the corner, beyond the boarded-up funeral home, beyond the bauta and the podium and the limousine and the crowd, had a square tower on each corner, and a gabled, pointed roof in-between. Each tower was considerably taller than the top of the gable, and one tower was taller than the other. The ground rose in the back, so the front of the church was a solid story higher than the back of the church, too. The tallest tower was probably three stories tall, while the shorter one might have been two and a half. The gunman was on top of that one. If I squinted, I could see the slight movement as he jiggled the rifle to sight again.