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

by Jenna Bennett

  Rafe’s body tensed, like he was planning to move, and I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket—the one with SWAT in iridescent letters across the back—and spoke fast. “There’s a one-story addition on the back of the church. Sort of a saltbox roof. And the ground’s higher back there. Should be easy to get onto.” I’d been looking at the architecture of the church when I’d walked up the alley earlier. Not for this purpose, although now it came in handy. “You need to move along the bottom of the roof so he doesn’t see you, and then you have to climb around the tower once you get there. You can’t go along the peak, or he’ll see you.”

  He nodded. “You gotta let go, Savannah.”

  Of course I did. Because of course he had to do this. Even though he was hurt, and even though I desperately wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt again.

  “Be careful.”

  “Always.” He flashed me a grin before he moved away. I watched, heart in my throat, as he headed up the street, long legs eating up the distance.

  I waited for the shots, but they didn’t come. Maybe Lance was already breaking down and trying to make his escape, or maybe he just wasn’t focused on anything outside the small area under the tent.

  Nothing much was happening there. A few people were gathered around Mordecai Lawson, who had been thrown several feet through the air, and was flat on his back on the pavement. I assumed he was bleeding, because the lady who’d been setting up the microphone earlier looked like she was applying pressure to what might have been his leg, but at least that meant he wasn’t dead, so silver lining there.

  The rest of the people were huddled against the wall of the building, or trying to squeeze themselves under the flimsy folding chairs. A few were moaning or sobbing softly, but it was hard to be sure whether they were hurt or just scared. I distinctly heard a woman’s voice praying, while another was having hysterics, and who could blame her?

  “You OK?” I asked Audrey. Carrie was still crying from the rough handling, and I fumbled for her pacifier, dug it out from behind her back—that might have been part of the reason she was crying—and popped it in her mouth. She hiccupped a couple of times and then quieted.

  “We’re fine,” Audrey said, her voice thin. She was hanging on to Mrs. Jenkins with everything she had. Mrs. J was practically hyperventilating, and I leaned closer to her. “It’s OK, Mrs. Jenkins. We’re fine. And Rafe will be fine, too. He knows what he’s doing.”

  She didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure she heard me. I wasn’t sure she knew who I was, or who Rafe was. I had no idea if she knew where she was.

  But she was safe and unharmed, and we could deal with the rest later.

  I raised my head and peered through the car again. But it was hard to see clearly, and the shooting seemed to have stopped, so I told Audrey, “Stay with Carrie,” and scooted around the back of the car.

  There was no movement from the tower, and no sign of anyone up there. I could hear sirens coming closer, and the rumble of a big engine. Other black-clad shapes started pouring around the corner and down the alley—or maybe not pouring, but they came, and there were more than a few of them. A huge, armored SWAT vehicle rumbled around the corner up ahead. I heard noises behind me, too, and turned in time to see another, smaller SWAT truck turn the corner from Main Street.

  Then the sound of the ambulance rose to a shriek, and it careened into South 8th from up ahead.

  A tall guy skidded to a stop next to me. “Savannah!”

  It was Patrick Nolan, Darcy’s boyfriend, looking rather impressive in SWAT black.

  “She’s not here,” I told him, since I was sure he would be worried about Darcy. If I was here, she might be, as well. “Audrey and Mrs. J are over there.”

  I waved to the other side of the van.

  “Hurt?”

  I shook my head. “Rafe went after the guy. He was on top of the church tower. I don’t know where he is now. Either of them.”

  “I’ll go,” Nolan said, and took off. Another figure in black followed, up the alley and behind the old funeral home. Since no shots rang out to stop them, I followed, too. Carrie was safe with Audrey and Mrs. Jenkins, Audrey would take care of her if she needed anything, and I needed to know if my husband was safe.

  The area behind the old building was high with last year’s weeds. I fought my way through, as brambles and burrs clung to my coat and tried to slow me down, and came out next to the side of the church. A much bigger building, it stretched farther back than the small funeral home. A very narrow strip of ground separated them, probably wide enough for someone to squeeze through, but nothing more. No one was in it right now. I could see through to the street, in time to catch another ambulance pull up next to the first.

  Nolan was already on the roof, making his way along the steep side like a crab. His companion—I thought it might be Tamara Grimaldi—was boosting herself up. And behind her, another black-clad figure—this one much smaller—was peering up at the roof with what I could only describe as loathing. Lupe Vasquez, Nolan’s patrol partner, is about a foot shorter than he is.

  “Vasquez!”

  She turned to me, and I waved. She came jogging, the stuff on her belt jingled. “You OK?”

  “We were down the street when the shooting started. Rafe’s grandmother knew Mr. Lawson back in the day, so she wanted to see him. She and her niece and my daughter are hiding behind the gray van down there.”

  “Hurt?”

  I shook my head. “Mrs. Jenkins is shook up. I’m sure Audrey is, too. But nobody got shot. Do you know who did?”

  “Not yet. We were already on our way when the shooting starting. Rafe took off like a shot after he talked to you, and the rest of us didn’t even try to keep up. Although we got here as fast as we could. And brought the vehicles.”

  I nodded. “Mordecai Lawson arrived. He walked up on the podium and greeted the crowd. The first shot hit the podium itself. There must have been Tannerite under it, because it blew. Lawson went flying. And then I think Lance started shooting at other people, but there was so much noise and activity it was hard to know for sure…”

  And speaking of Lance—

  There was the sound of a scuffle up the roof, and I took a couple of steps sideways for a better view.

  And there he was, my husband, with a scratch on his cheek that was oozing blood, and the shadow of a black eye starting to come up—not to mention several broken ribs under his clothes that I couldn’t see—hauling the handcuffed villain along the peak of the roof.

  “Careful,” I heard him say, “so I don’t accidentally let go. It’s a long way down.”

  Lance must have thought that sounded better than what was happening, though, because he put up quite a fight. I held my breath as I watched him wiggle like an eel on a hook, trying to upset Rafe’s balance. But then Nolan was there, and Grimaldi, and between them, they managed to wrestle him down the gable, and onto the one-story addition, and from there onto the ground. Lupe Vasquez stood ready to receive him, and so, by now, did several other SWAT officers.

  Rafe grinned down at me. “Hi, darlin’.”

  “Hi,” I said, my heart beating hard against my ribs. “You got hurt again.”

  “Just a little. He got hurt more.”

  He turned to Vasquez. “Come on up here. I gotta job for you.”

  Vasquez eyed the edge of the roof, and Rafe turned to Nolan. “Give your partner a boost. I need her to climb the tower and get this POS’s stuff down.”

  Nolan grabbed Vasquez by the waist and basically threw her up on the roof. He was stronger than he looked. Rafe caught her, and the two of them started making their way back toward the front of the building and the two towers. “Be careful,” I called after them.

  Vasquez gave me a thumb up, with the hand she wasn’t using to keep her balance. Rafe just winked, but I could hear his standard reply in my head. “Always.”

  “Only two fatalities,” he told me later. “Not that those two don’t matter. And not that those two a
re all he’s responsible for.”

  No. There was Jennifer Vonderaa, and Felicia Robinson. And the single individual Rodney killed in Laurel Hill before sheriff’s deputies took him down. And the injuries, both in Columbia and Laurel Hill, including Mordecai Lawson’s broken leg. But still, two fatalities today wasn’t bad. Not under the circumstances.

  He could have killed everyone on East 8th street, most likely. I had no idea why he hadn’t.

  In Laurel Hill, the explosion had taken out a chunk of the wall and a chunk of the ceiling, but nobody had been in that part of the building when it blew, so nobody had gotten killed. We—or Rafe and Grimaldi and Bob—ascribed that to the Tannerite they’d had to leave behind in Jennifer Vonderaa’s house. Not getting their hands on that had meant that both explosions had been less powerful than Lance had wanted them to be. If they’d been able to add the rest of the Tannerite, Mordecai Lawson would probably be dead, and so would several park rangers.

  There had been injuries in Laurel Hill, of course. Rangers hit by flying debris and the like. Cuts and bruises and a concussion. But nothing serious. And one fatality, a sheriff’s deputy from Lawrence County. After shooting him, Rodney had been so shaken by what he’d done that catching him had been no problem.

  “We found the little coward sniveling over a broken leg at the bottom of Finnie Peak,” Bob Satterfield said disgustedly.

  It was later that afternoon, and we were all gathered at Beulah’s, halfway between Columbia and Sweetwater. Bob had brought Cletus Johnson, who had taken a seat practically as far away from Rafe as he could get, while still being at the same table.

  After Rafe hauled her up on the roof, Lupe Vasquez had skinned up the church tower as easily as a monkey. She’s both small and light, and in order to qualify for the SWAT team, obviously in good shape as well. She’d brought down Lance’s weapon, and the backpack with his extra ammunition and other stuff. He was behind bars along with Rodney, and neither of them were likely to get out anytime soon, in spite of the surprisingly low number of casualties we’d just been talking about.

  Mordecai Lawson was all right. He’d broken his leg, and in a man his age, that wasn’t great, but the EMTs seemed to think he’d be all right. There were two fatalities, both of them older women, and a few other injuries, but nothing like it could have been. None of us could explain it, and Lance had declined to give us his version, so we just had to chalk it up to luck or fate or maybe just bad eyesight on Lance’s part.

  “What will happen to the two of them?” I asked. “Or three. Is Kyle being arrested, too?”

  “Kyle looks like he’s gonna get off with community service and a slap on the wrist,” Rafe said. “He was more than happy to roll over on both Rodney and Lance in exchange for a reduced sentence.”

  “There isn’t a whole lot we can charge him with, anyway,” Grimaldi added. “He wasn’t part of planning what happened this morning. Lance did that, and Kyle doesn’t think he told Rodney anything about it until today. If he did, Rodney didn’t tell Kyle.”

  “Or so Kyle says.”

  They both nodded. “We can’t prove he’s lying,” Grimaldi said. “There are no text messages or anything like that implicating Kyle in the planning. Or any text messages, period, between him and Lance’s burner phone. Anything like that seems to have gone through Rodney, and none of the messages between Kyle and Rodney mention anything specific about today.”

  “What about my house? They vandalized my house. Twice! Is he just going to get away with that?”

  “Again, not much we can do,” Grimaldi said. “You can sue for damages in civil court. But Kyle doesn’t have much money, and since he’s of age, his parents aren’t responsible…”

  I made a face. “So we just have to hope the insurance company will come through.”

  “Yes and no. Turns out Rodney and Kyle didn’t vandalize your house on Sunday night.”

  “So who vandalized my house? And how do you know?”

  “Remember that couple that came through the open house?” Rafe said. “The guy who tried to buy the place at auction, and his wife?”

  My eyes widened. “You’re kidding. They did it?”

  “Their son,” Grimaldi said. “Dusty Tremayne. We finally had a chance to make it through all the doorbell cameras in the area. It wasn’t a priority, sorry.”

  I waved the apology away, since that was certainly understandable, with everything that had gone on this week. “One of the doorbell cameras caught him?”

  “Cutting through the yard on the next street with a crowbar in his hand,” Grimaldi nodded. “Going toward your house, and then coming back twenty minutes later. And even better—”

  “Yes?”

  “The camera caught the SUV parked across the street. And the person driving.”

  “Her? Or him?”

  “Her,” Grimaldi said. “Richelle. Dusty’s mother. She sat there for twenty minutes with the windows rolled down and her head out, listening.”

  “Can you charge her with anything?”

  “Depends on how much damage was done,” Grimaldi said. “Over a thousand dollars? Over ten thousand? Over sixty?”

  “Not over sixty. Probably over ten.”

  “Class C felony,” Grimaldi said, “punishable by three to fifteen years in prison and a fine of up to ten thousand dollars.”

  That wouldn’t cover the damage, and I might not get it anyway, but it would help. And the satisfaction would be considerable. Especially if it involved jail time.

  “And you can take’em to court,” Rafe said. “Or Darcy can, since it’s her house. Civil case. Ask for damages. Your brother or sister would litigate for you.”

  They probably would. Especially Catherine. She likes nailing people’s ears to the wall.

  “Are you going to arrest them? The Tremaynes?”

  “When we’re finished here,” Grimaldi said. “You can come and watch if you want.”

  I smiled. “Can I invite Darcy and Charlotte to come along?”

  “The more, the merrier,” Grimaldi said. She lifted her glass of Pepsi. “To a job well done.”

  I clinked mine against it. “I’ll drink to that.”

  So would everyone else, it seemed. Glasses were raised up and down the table. Yvonne, who didn’t have a drink, but who was standing at the other end of the long table with her hand on Cletus Johnson’s extra-broad shoulder, raised her voice instead. “Hip-hip—”

  “Hooray!” we all chorused.

  Yvonne bent to say something in Cletus’s ear. Bob and Grimaldi knocked their glasses together, and so did Nolan and Lupe Vasquez, on the opposite side of the table. Rafe joined in with his own glass. I glanced down at my baby, who was taking in the scene with her eyes wide—big and blue and surrounded by those long, dark lashes.

  Her world was safe once more. We had struck a blow for decency, and equality, and justice, and taken two people off the streets who would have taken that away from her if they could. We’d made the world a better, safer place today for someone like Carrie.

  And then I fished my phone out of my bag to contact my sister and my best friend to put them on notice that the person who had destroyed our house was about to be arrested and we’d been invited to watch her humiliation.

  It had been a good day so far, and it was about to get even better.

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  Behold, the blurb:

  Savannah’s friend Tamara Grimaldi was fourteen when her mom was murdered, and the body dumped along the side of Interstate 65 in Indiana. Since then, Grimaldi has kept an eye out for her mother’s killer, first as a homicide detective in Nashville, and now as the chief of police for the city of Columbia, a few miles off I-65 in southern middle Tennessee.

  When a new body with the old MO shows up along I-65 in Maury County, it looks like there m
ight be a break in the case. But trying to find a serial killer who has been active for two decades along an interstate that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, is easier said than done.

  Although this time, there are indications that the culprit might be found closer to home…

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jenna Bennett (Jennie Bentley) writes the Do It Yourself home renovation mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime and the Savannah Martin real estate mysteries for her own gratification. She also writes a variety of romance for a change of pace.

  For more information, please visit Jenna’s website: www.JennaBennett.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Jenna Bennett

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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