Third Degree

by Greg Iles

  “One ID says he’s a special investigator for the attorney general, and another says he’s with the state Medicaid office. Name’s Paul Biegler. Says he’s down here investigatin’ Dr. Shields and Dr. Auster for some sort of fraud.”

  The sheriff knit his heavy brows in puzzlement. “Is he standing right there, Ray?”

  “No, sir. I got him waitin’ outside the trailer. He claims he was in that fire over at Dr. Auster’s office. Claims one of the employees tried to blow the place up. He’s got bandages on his face, and he says he was wounded by shrapnel or something. He’s got two other boys with him, and he’s trying to take over the damn scene.”

  “What? Repeat that.”

  “I said, Biegler says he’s got federal warrants for Dr. Shields and Dr. Auster, and that makes this a federal case. He says if we don’t give him tactical command, he’s going to call the FBI down from Jackson to take over.”

  Danny saw the sheriff’s knuckles go white. “Bullshit he’s going to take over our scene. You keep that son of a bitch on ice until I get there, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir. A big ten-four on that.”

  “How far out are we, Danny?”

  Danny scanned the river for landmarks, then checked his airspeed. “Twenty minutes, tops.”

  “Tell him I’m almost there now, Ray. And put a man on him. Let me know if he makes any calls to Jackson.”

  “You got it, Sheriff.”

  “Out.”

  Ellis turned to Danny. “What in the Sam Hill is going on? Sounds like our good doctors have got themselves into serious trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Kyle Auster was up to no good. But Dr. Shields? I just can’t see that one.”

  “Me, either,” Danny agreed. “He’s a straight arrow.”

  “I got to think about this. You remember what happened with that engineer on Milburn Street? Blew hisself all over me without so much as a by-your-leave. And he was alone in the house. If Dr. Shields really has his wife and daughter in there, and if he’s really shot his partner, I might have to send the TRU in there hard.”

  Danny closed his eyes in silent prayer. Most of Ellis’s deputies had only moderate training, and their practical law enforcement experience was limited. Worse, the TRU was commanded by a deputy with juvenile delusions of heroism. The possibility that those men might make an assault into Laurel’s house with grenades and automatic weapons nauseated him with fear. He could not allow that to happen.

  When Sheriff Ellis settled back in his seat with his thoughts, Danny let go of the collective and pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket. No new messages. Nevertheless, he flipped open the phone and began keying a message with his left hand. The first he sent read, On my way there wi sheriff. u or Bth hurt? Auster alive? If yes, condition? He started to put the phone away, then sent an immediate follow-up: No one knows we have this link. Tell me all u safely can. How W armed? He intend imminent harm? As Danny slid the phone beneath his left leg for easy access, Sheriff Ellis spoke again.

  “Must be pretty important messages to slow us down for.”

  Danny gritted his teeth. “We’re not going any slower. This is like taking your hand off the wheel in a car, but leaving your foot on the gas. I increased friction on the collective, so it stays in place.”

  Ellis’s eyes were still on the cell phone.

  “Problems with taking care of my boy,” Danny lied. “My wife didn’t come home to let the babysitter go on time.”

  “You can’t just call her?”

  “We don’t talk so much these days.”

  Ellis grunted. “That’s a shame. Marriage ain’t easy, but you got to stick with it.”

  Thanks a million, Dr. Phil.

  “You don’t go to church, do you, Dan?”

  Oh, boy. “Not much, Sheriff. Not for a while now. I’m not much for group worship. I get my quiet time in the woods. And in the air.”

  “I hear you, brother. But it’s not the same, you know. You ought to come see us at First Baptist. I think you’d be surprised.”

  Not if this is any indication. “I may give it a try.”

  “At least talk to Reverend Cyrus about your marital problems.”

  Danny cleared his throat and spoke as diffidently as he could. “Sheriff, could I offer a little input on the hostage situation?”

  “Absolutely. This is one of those situations where there’s ten tragic things that could happen, and only one good thing.”

  “You’re right. Sheriff, I would think long and hard before I considered sending Ray Breen and his boys into that house. Even the people who do that kind of thing for a living—I’m talking about Delta and the SEALs—they’re hesitant to go into a situation with innocent friendlies in a confined space. I’m not saying anything against Ray, but if you turn insufficiently trained men loose in a house with automatic weapons, God only knows who’ll wind up dead. The wife, the little girl, some of our own guys maybe. I’d sure hate to see that, and I know you would, too.”

  Ellis was nodding as though in agreement. “You said a mouthful there. A standoff’s a tricky thing. On the other hand, I’ve got a responsibility to that wife and little girl, not to mention this community. How would it look if we just stood by while Dr. Shields executed his wife, his daughter, and his partner? That wouldn’t say much for my department, would it?”

  Danny tried to hide his true feelings. Ellis was already as focused on how the drama would play out before the voters as he was on the safety of the people inside the house. “No, you’re in a tough position, that’s a fact. And I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do.”

  “But . . . ?” Ellis prompted.

  “If it comes down to having to take Dr. Shields out, I’d have Carl Sims do the shooting.”

  “From long range, you mean.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve seen that boy shoot, and he’s as good as the snipers in the Secret Service. He could take out Shields with zero collateral damage, even if the doctor was holding his little girl in his arms.”

  “He could,” said the sheriff. “But will he? That’s what’s on my mind.”

  Danny cringed inside. Six months ago, Sheriff Ellis had given Carl Sims authorization to shoot a young black man who had taken a hostage while robbing a local bank. In Ellis’s mind, he had given a clear order to kill, effective as soon as Sims had a clean shot. But Carl interpreted the order differently and blasted the robber’s gun hand into pulp instead. Danny heard that the sheriff had nearly had a stroke over this, and only the media praise he’d gotten afterward for his “restraint” had saved Carl Sims’s job. Instead of getting a pink slip, Carl got a medal, one that probably didn’t mean much after the hatful he’d received from the Marine Corps.

  It’s all fucking politics, Danny thought. Even the life-or-death calls.

  He wanted to beg Ellis to at least consult with the FBI in Jackson, but he knew the sheriff would reflexively reject this idea. Why? Because the FBI could have a SWAT team at the Shields house in three hours, even if they had to come by road. If they used a chopper, they could be fully deployed in two. And unlike the Sheriff’s Department, the Bureau had strict rules of engagement for hostage situations, written in the wake of Waco and Ruby Ridge. They would only assault the Shields house as a last resort, after all other means of resolution had been exhausted. Billy Ray Ellis wanted no such constraints on his decision-making. Short of a written order from the governor, he would not hand over tactical command of the scene to a federal agency, not in his county. Some men might see a federal assumption of authority as the ultimate out, an ideal way to cover their ass, but ex–football stars didn’t think that way. Danny kept his mouth shut, figuring he could accomplish more from inside the tent than out of it.

  “Are you pedal to the metal, Danny?” Ellis asked tersely.

  “We’re at the VNE now, sir.”

  “The what?”

  Danny pointed at a small gauge in front of the sheriff. “Velocity never exceeded. She can’t do another knot without b
urning up the engine.”

  “Okay, then. Just keep her at the redline.”

  As the sheriff glanced out at the ever-darkening clouds, Danny checked his phone for text messages.

  There were none.

  • • •

  Carl Sims slowly worked his way back to the front of the Shields property, naturally moving from tree to tree, assessing the cover-and-concealment potential of each position. Snipers liked open spaces about as much as deer and rabbits did; they would do almost anything to avoid them. Twelve minutes after he’d started, he returned to the stand of trees that half hid the trailer serving as the TRU’s tactical command post.

  He needed to take a leak. The most sheltered spot was a narrow space between the trees and the rear of the trailer. He set his rifle butt-first on the ground and leaned it against a pine, then unzipped his fly and began to urinate against the next tree. He’d developed this habit as a boy and refined it in Iraq. Pissing against a tree or a wall could be almost silent, if you did it right; this practice had probably saved his life once in Baghdad. He was half-finished when he heard voices on the air. He quickly zeroed in on the source as a small, screened window in the back of the trailer. After zipping up, he moved toward the opening and peered through it from an off angle.

  Ray and Trace Breen sat hunched over a Formica table, smoking cigarettes and talking in low voices. A pack of Camels and a .40 caliber pistol lay between them on a topographic map of the area. The smoke was so thick in the trailer that a steady draft of it was being forced through the window beside Carl’s face. He had to struggle not to cough.

  “Hell, I wish he’d pop off a round in there,” said Ray. “Something. Shit, if he don’t, we’re liable to be here all night listening to the sheriff holler through a bullhorn.”

  Trace nodded and blew out a long stream of blue smoke. “Yep.”

  “I tell you what else worries me. Our sharpshooter.”

  Trace snickered at the word.

  “You know what I’m talking about?” Ray said.

  “Damn straight. That nigger might of killed a bunch of towelheads over in Iraq, but I don’t think he’s got the stomach for shootin’ Americans.”

  Ray was nodding. “You saw what happened at the bank. Sheriff told him to take the perp out, and what did he do?”

  “Blowed the motherfucker’s hand off instead. What if he missed? A hand’s a hell of a lot smaller than a head.”

  “Moves a lot more, too,” Ray observed. “That coon can shoot, I’ll give him that. But what he can’t seem to do is follow orders. Which is strange in a marine.”

  “Awful strange.”

  Carl was tempted to shove the barrel of his Remington 700 through the window screen and scare the piss out of both Breen brothers, but he didn’t. He had been quiet before, but now he stood with the sniper’s stillness, a motionless state he equated with absolute zero, that condition of coldness in which not even electrons spin around their respective nuclei. Carl could remain in that state for many hours, and had, more times than he could remember. His respiration and heartbeat slowed until it seemed an age between each, an age during which he had almost infinite leisure to pull his trigger without being disturbed by the movement of breath or blood.

  “You want to know something?” Trace said. “Something you don’t know?”

  “If you ain’t told me yet, maybe I don’t need to know. ’Cause Lord knows you can’t keep a secret.”

  “I kept this one.”

  Ray chuckled and took a drag on his cigarette. “How long you kep’ it?”

  “Twenty years.”

  Ray coughed up smoke. “If this has anything to do with my wife, I’m gonna kill your ass. I’m telling you that right now.”

  Trace shook his head. “It’s about that cocky sumbitch up in the house. The doctor.”

  “Shields?”

  “Yep.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  Trace’s eyes smoldered with secret knowledge. “Plenty. Remember when he kilt that boy in his parents’ house? Jimmy Birdlow?”

  “Course I do. We were just talking about it outside.”

  Trace nodded. “Well, I was there.”

  Ray sat up at the table. “What?”

  “Sure was. This was back when I was gettin’ high a lot. And Jimmy was always gettin’ high. He wanted some Dex to stay awake, and we didn’t have no money. We just happened to be over in that neighborhood, and the Shieldses’ house was the closest one that didn’t have no lights on. Jimmy figured he’d just slip in and grab a TV, something he could trade for the pills. But the old man must have been awake, ’cause next thing I know, I’m staring in from the back patio at Jimmy and Mr. Shields screaming at each other. Jimmy was trying to explain, but the old man wouldn’t give him a chance. He started yelling how he was going to call the police. And the next thing I know, Jimmy pulls out a gun.”

  Ray was staring at his younger brother with wide eyes. Carl blinked slowly, then leaned forward so as not to miss a word.

  “Jimmy wouldna shot him,” Trace asserted. “He just didn’t want the man to call the law.”

  “Why didn’t he just run, then?” Ray asked.

  “He tried to, but Shields’s daddy tripped him up. Then he got between Jimmy and the door. Then the mama come in there, too, wearing her damn housecoat.”

  “When did Shields show up?”

  “Hell, I didn’t even know he was there till he shot Jimmy in the back. Sumbitch didn’t give Jimmy no warning or nothing.”

  Ray leaned back in his chair and silently regarded his brother.

  “Bastard,” Trace muttered. “Blew Jimmy’s heart out the front of his chest.”

  Ray shook his head. “You said Jimmy was holding a gun on his daddy.”

  “He wouldna shot him!”

  “You think Shields knew that? Jimmy broke in their goddamn house! I’d of shot him, too. You’re lucky he didn’t shoot your ass through the window.”

  Trace shook his head bitterly. “I tell you one thing, if I had a gun that night, I’d of killed that motherfucker dead.”

  “Boy, if a bird had your brains, he’d fly backwards. I can’t believe you didn’t wind up in Parchman before your twenty-first birthday.”

  “I ain’t stupid. And I’ll tell you something else. I hope that sumbitch tries something up in that fancy house. I hope the sheriff sends us in there. ’Cause I will blow his shit away, no lie. For what he done to Jimmy.”

  “Jesus, Trace. You need to calm down.”

  “You said the same exact thing a minute ago!”

  Ray sucked thoughtfully on his cigarette.

  “I don’t like him,” Trace insisted. “People act like he’s a damn saint or something. You ever see him out at the baseball field? Sumbitch thinks the rules don’t apply to him. Or his kid, neither.”

  “I forgot,” said Ray. “Shields’s team beat your boy’s like a drum last spring, didn’t they?”

  “Cheated us, is what they done.”

  Ray stubbed out his cigarette and stood as best he could in the low-ceilinged trailer. “Nobody’s called on the radio. Let’s get out there and see if we can’t make something happen before Billy Ray gets here.”

  “Damn straight. What about that government man? Beagle.”

  “Fuck him. Billy Ray ain’t gonna give him the time of day.”

  Trace pushed himself up off the table, leaving his cigarette burning in the ashtray. “Damn straight.”

  Like a lizard clinging to the window screen, Carl watched the two deputies leave the trailer. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, to do about what he’d heard. Sheriff Ellis wasn’t going to change the makeup of the Tactical Response Unit in the middle of a crisis. And Trace Breen’s presence at a shooting twenty years ago couldn’t be corroborated by anyone; therefore, his motive for revenge could not be proved. As for the racist remarks about Carl, that was just the reality that underlay the veneer of courtesy he encountered every day. The president of the United States c
ouldn’t change that, much less the sheriff of Lusahatcha County. But Ray Breen was right about one thing: marine sniper Carl Sims did not intend to kill another living soul unless it was to save a life in clear and present danger.

  He shouldered his Remington and walked soundlessly around the trailer to join his fellow deputies.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Danny just beat the storm clouds to Athens Point. He flew low over the city, angling along the hills, then cutting eastward once he’d passed the old sawmill. His nerves were jangling, but at least he knew Laurel was alive.

  Five minutes ago, Trace Breen had tried to patch Dr. Shields through to Sheriff Ellis on the radio. The connection had been poor, but Danny had heard Laurel’s voice when the sheriff asked Shields for confirmation that she was all right. Laurel told Ellis that Beth was asleep, but she fell silent when he asked her about Dr. Auster. After Shields took back the phone, Ellis had informed him that he was flying next to the doctor’s old flight instructor. Shields asked Danny how he was doing, and Danny said fine. The whole conversation had the feel of a family phone call, like talking to relatives on vacation in a foreign country. The connection died soon after that, and when Trace called Shields back, the doctor didn’t answer.

  “I want you to stay close to me when we land,” Ellis said as they dropped toward the earth. “I’m thinking this chopper might make a good diversion if we have to go in hard.”

  Danny nodded, trying to swallow with a mouth devoid of saliva.

  “That’s the neighborhood, isn’t it?” Ellis said, pointing down to some patches of open grass in the forest below.

  “That’s it. Shields’s land is in a bend of Larrieu’s Creek.”

  Danny picked out the serpentine creek and followed it eastward. Soon he saw the slate blue roof of the Shields house, nestled in a curve of trees that grew along the waterway.

  “Damn,” said Ellis. “There’s at least fifty meters of open ground on all sides of that place.”

  “Except that back corner.” Danny pointed through the windshield. A broken line of trees marched up from the creek’s ravine to the southwest corner of the house.