“We’re both dead. But you’re goin’ to get to hell first, buddy . . . just a few seconds before me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
2:42 P.M.
When Dunn made the comment about the tombstones, Savannah and Dirk knew it was time. For the longest four minutes she could remember, they had been standing outside the slightly ajar motel door, listening to the exchange inside.
The case was solved; now all they had to do was get their least favorite police captain out of the room, hopefully without having his hide or vital organs perforated.
Dirk gave Savannah a nod, she pushed the door open, and he rushed inside, weapon drawn and trained on Titus. Savannah did the same.
Titus hardly even flinched. He glanced over his shoulder at them, but immediately turned back to Bloss.
Even under the stress of the moment, Savannah was shocked at Titus’s appearance. She had never seen anyone—at least, not anyone living—who was so gray, so bloated, so miserably ill. She couldn’t believe he was still conscious and functioning.
The golf shirt he wore was crusted with black, dried blood over his torso. His slacks were just as badly stained, and a swath of clumsily applied, filthy bandages were wrapped around his left shoulder.
“Coulter, Savannah, this is between Bloss and me,” Titus said. “Just turn around, the both of you, and walk out that door.”
“That’s not the way it’s going to happen,” Dirk said quietly. “You know that. You know what we’ve got to do here.”
“Yeah, and I know what I’m going to do,” he said. His voice sounded a bit quivery, but his resolve was solid.
Savannah braced herself, holding the Beretta in her right hand, her left beneath to steady the weapon. In all her years on the force, she had only been forced a couple of times to sight down that barrel at anything other than a paper target.
And now, her finger on the trigger, every muscle flexed, she couldn’t believe she was sighted on Titus Dunn.
This couldn’t be happening. The inevitable wouldn’t occur. Not if she could stop it.
She took a step closer to him. “Titus, don’t . . .” she said, pleading. “This isn’t the way any of us wants this to end. Put down the gun. We don’t want to hurt you, but you know we will if we have to.”
“We all gotta do what we gotta do,” he said with a wry chuckle. “And I know what I’ve going to do: I’m going to shoot this sonofabitch here, and then you two will shoot me . . . unless, of course, I get one of you, too.”
As in other moments of high drama, Savannah experienced a surreal slowing of time passage. Titus was raising his gun slightly, his finger tightening on the trigger. And in that split second, a series of thoughts raced through her mind: Titus sharing pancakes with them at the restaurant, Christy weeping on her sunporch with the Christmas angel tree, Charlene Yardley’s bruised face and broken spirit, weeping for her dead mother with the sweet, Southern accent, and Margie crouching, terrified, behind a pile of dirty tires in a dark service station lot.
Then three shots exploded, filling the room with smoke and the smell of cordite.
Three bullets seared burning paths through living flesh.
Two bodies hit the floor.
And when the smoke had cleared and the noise was only a roar in their ears, another thought went through Savannah’s head.
Titus was right. It had gone down just the way he’d called it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
2:45 P.M.
Both Titus Dunn and Harvey Bloss lay on the floor of the motel room. Bloss’s hand was still cuffed to the chair. Both shot. Neither one breathing. Neither had a pulse.
Just a quick examination told Savannah and Dirk that Titus Dunn was beyond resuscitation. They had fired one bullet each. Both had struck him in the region of the heart. His death had been almost instantaneous.
Bloss was a different story. Titus’s aim had been low, nicking him on the inside of his thigh. While it was a bit more than the proverbial flesh wound, the injury shouldn’t have been fatal.
Quickly, they ripped his shirt open, yanked down his trousers, and looked for another wound. But there was none.
“What’s wrong with him?” Dirk asked, shaking his captain by the shoulders. “Why doesn’t he have a pulse for cryin’ out loud?”
“I guess he had a heart attack or maybe it just scared him to death,” Savannah said as she dialed 911 and requested an ambulance.
Dirk knelt over his inert captain, listening for respiration, but, for all practical purposes, Bloss was as dead as his counterpart.
Looking up at Savannah, Dirk said, “You know what this means?”
“What?” Savannah bristled. No, don’t even think about it, she thought. No way.
“If we don’t give him mouth to mouth,” Dirk said, “he’s going to die.”
“And your point is . . . ?”
“You’ve got to do it. I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? He’s your boss, your responsibility. Pucker up, babycakes, he’s all yours.”
“I can’t. I can thump on his chest, maybe get his heart started. But I can’t do the breathing part. I just can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a dude.”
“Are you telling me that you’re such a friggin’ homophobe that you can’t give a dying man the breath of life? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Dirk shrugged and looked miserable. “Maybe I could . . . if he was some other guy, but . . . Bloss. I just . . . I can’t. You do it.”
“Hell no! I’m not touching him. I’d rather eat a maggot.”
Then she thought of all the rotten things this man on the floor had done to her. The loss of her job, the time he’d had her falsely arrested for murder, all the snide remarks and . . . and the look that would be on Margie Bloss’s face when she heard her father was dead.
“Come on, Van,” Dirk begged. “You gotta do it. If he dies, I won’t get to bust him for the vigilante shit!”
Savannah dropped to her knees, pinched Bloss’s big, red nose between her fingers, bent over him and said, “Boy, oh, boy, Coulter. You are gonna owe me so big for this! There aren’t enough donuts or pizzas in the world to pay for this!”
December 21—3:39 A.M.
Savannah sat at her kitchen table, sipping a mug of hot chocolate, wishing that she, like the rest of the world, was asleep.
There was nothing quite like killing someone to keep you awake at night—someone whose home you had visited, whose barbecue you had eaten, whose sweetheart you had consoled. The mental picture of Titus lying on the floor, staring up at her with dead eyes didn’t lend itself to a peaceful night’s sleep.
She wondered whose bullet, hers or Dirk’s, had actually killed him. Maybe both. Dr. Jen was good; she would find out during the autopsy. A ballistics test would tell them for sure.
But did it matter?
No. Not really.
Titus was dead. He wasn’t coming back. And while that was, no doubt, a comfort to his many victims, their loved ones, and even the community at large . . . Savannah didn’t feel all that good about it.
If she had it to do all over again, she wouldn’t change a thing. Titus had given them no choice.
But it still sucked. And no amount of hot chocolate or soul searching was going to put it right tonight.
In the living room, the children snoozed away on the sofa. Vidalia and Butch were in the guest room, the bedsprings having finished squeaking a couple of hours ago.
Margie was nestled all snug in Savannah’s bed, having come home from the hospital where her father was still in Intensive Care, but his condition was stabilized. He had suf fered a heart attack, but the damage appeared to have been minimal. Dirk could hardly wait for him to recuperate sufficiently so that he could place him under arrest. He had promised Savannah that she could be present for the auspicious occasion. She had already decided to wear rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.
While at the hospi
tal this evening, Savannah had dropped by Charlene Yardley’s room to find that she had been discharged. The nurse said she had gone home and would be spending time with her children. Savannah wondered if she had heard the news before she went to bed.
If she had, at least she would sleep better.
But Savannah wasn’t the only one having trouble counting sheep tonight, she realized when she heard footsteps for at least the fifth time in an hour, traipsing down the upstairs hall to the bathroom. At first she figured it was Butch, getting rid of the beer he had consumed this evening. But she heard a cough that sounded more female. Maybe it was Vidalia, and maybe she was sick.
Leaving her hot chocolate, which had passed from lukewarm to decidedly cool anyway, Savannah quietly made her way through the living room, past the sleeping children, and up the stairs to the bathroom.
She knocked softly on the door. “Vi, is that you, honey?” she asked.
After a few moments of rustling sounds, the door opened and a very tired looking Vidalia stuck her nose out. “It’s me.”
“You keep getting up. Is everything okay?”
“No. That’s why I keep getting up.”
“What’s wrong? As Gran would say, ‘A case of the green apple quick step’?”
Vidalia sighed and sagged against the door frame. “No, I wish I did have diarrhea. I’ve never been so constipated in my life.”
“That’s pretty common with pregnancy, isn’t it?”
“But not this bad. I feel all shivery and sick, and it’s coming in waves. I . . . oh . . . here it comes again.”
She closed the door, leaving Savannah standing there with a feeling that a drama of a different kind might be starting.
Savannah opened the door to see her sister sitting on the pot, her face red from straining. In a family of nine kids, modesty and privacy had been abandoned long ago. “Vi, how long has this been going on?”
“For the last four hours, I guess. Why?”
“Did you say it’s coming in waves?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re feeling the urge to push?”
“Well, sure. I told you, I’ve never been so cons- . . .”
Vidalia looked up at Savannah, comprehension dawning on her face. “Oh, no. You don’t think it’s labor, do you? The baby ain’t supposed to come for another six weeks or so.”
“Are you sure about your due date?”
“Not real sure. I wasn’t keepin’ track of my periods, so we don’t know exactly when I got pregnant. The doctor was guessin’. I . . . oh . . . here it comes again.”
Savannah did a quick mental count. “Those were only about two minutes apart.”
“Do you think I might be in labor?”
Savannah wasn’t sure how to break it to her, other than bluntly. “Kiddo, I think your baby’s about to be born. Come on, let’s get you back to bed, and I’ll call the hospital.”
Supporting her under the arms, Savannah helped her sister down the hall to the guest bedroom. “Butch!” she called. “Butch, wake up! We need you here.”
When she flipped on the light, her brother-in-law sat up in bed and looked around him, completely disoriented. “What? Vi, what’s the matter?” he said when his wife waddled to the opposite side of the bed and collapsed on it.
“We think the baby’s coming,” Savannah said. “Call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance.”
He still looked dazed.
“Now!” she yelled.
He bolted out of bed, as naked as a jaybird and headed for the door.
“Butch! You might want to put some jeans on that scrawny butt of yours first, if you don’t want to frighten the rest of the household,” she suggested.
“Oh, yeah . . . okay.” He scrambled into his pants, then flew out the door.
Savannah wondered if he was too scattered to find the phone, but she had more immediate concerns. She turned her attention to Vidalia. “Make yourself as comfortable as you can, and I’ll be right back.”
She ran to the bathroom and washed her hands thoroughly, then rushed back to her bedside. “Let’s see what we’ve got going down there, sugar,” she said as she pulled up her sister’s nightgown.
“O-o-o-kay, that’s what I thought.”
“What is it?” Vidalia asked, her breathing hard and ragged.
“It’s either a bowling ball, a purple watermelon, or a baby’s head, right there.”
“Oh no! Can we wait until the ambulance gets here?”
“We could, but I think the baby’s got other plans. It’s crowning right now, Vi.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to deliver it. We’re certainly not going to try to send it back to where it came from.”
“Have you done that before? Have you delivered babies?”
“Lots. No sweat.”
Savannah could almost feel her nose growing and her tongue turning black. It would probably fall out of her mouth any moment. At least, that’s what Gran had always told her would happen if you told a whopper.
But she’d watched Dirk deliver a baby once about five years ago . . . so, it wasn’t that big a lie, right? She gave her labored sister a nervous grin. “Constipated, huh?”
“Hey, I didn’t know. It doesn’t hurt so bad this time, not like it did with the twins.” She screwed up her face and began straining again. “Or maybe it does,” she added between pants.
Butch came stumbling back into the room, tripping over his own feet. “I called them. They said they’d be here lickety split.”
Yeah, right, Savannah thought. She knew all too well how “lickety split” the emergency services were in this town.
“Go wake up Margie,” she said. “We need as many hands as we can get. The baby’s almost here.”
“What?”
“Go!”
By the time he returned with a sleepy-eyed Margie, Savannah had her hands full with a frantic, squalling Vidalia. “I can’t stand this!” she was screaming. “It’s never coming.”
“It’s coming,” Savannah said, the evidence all too clear. “Believe me, it’s coming.” She turned to Butch. “Run down to the kitchen and get a turkey baster, a pair of scissors, and that ball of string from Jack’s kite.”
Butch nodded. “Baster, scissors, kite.”
“No! The string from the kite. And Margie, grab an armful of clean towels from the bathroom closet. Throw about half of them into the dryer and turn it on. Then bring the rest back here.”
“Got it.”
“And you, Vi, I think we can deliver the baby’s head with the next contraction or two. Are you ready?”
“N-n-n-o-o.”
“Me either, but let’s do it anyway.”
Butch and Margie arrived at the same time, arms laden with the requested supplies. The ball of string was still attached to the kite, and Jack was at his father’s heels, squalling something about his daddy breaking it. His sister wasn’t far behind.
“Oh, great,” Savannah mumbled when she saw her niece and nephew. “That’s all we need now.”
“I’ll take care of them,” Margie said grabbing each one by the hand. “How would you guys like to have ice cream for breakfast?”
“We can’t have breakfast yet!” Jillian said, starting to cry. “It’s still dark out.”
“That’s when you’re supposed to eat ice cream for breakfast.” She pulled them out the door and said over her shoulder, “I’ll get them settled, then I’ll come right back.”
Savannah nodded, without looking up. “When you do, bring me those warm towels from the dryer. Pile them in the wicker laundry basket.”
“What are the towels for?” Butch asked, looking like he was about to start crying himself.
“For the baby,” Savannah said. “If it is coming early, it’ll need to be kept nice and warm.”
“Early, you mean premature, like the twins were?”
Savannah recalled how touch-and-go it had been with the twins those first few weeks. Th
ey had nearly lost little Jillian.
Her stress level went through the roof as she felt the baby’s head pushing against the palm of her hand.
“It’ll be okay, Butch,” she said. “Just get up there by your wife’s head and try to comfort her.”
Butch moved into position and began stroking Vidalia’s hair. “Don’t worry, baby,” he told her as she panted, sweated and strained. “Don’t worry about it being premature and all that. It probably won’t be near as bad as it was with the twins.”
Vidalia’s eyes widened, and she began to cry even louder.
“Thanks, Butch,” Savanna murmured, listening for the blessed sound of the sirens above her sister’s wails . . . and hearing nothing. “Thanks a lot.”
Halfway up the staircase, laundry basket and warm towels in hand, Margie heard something that sounded like a puppy’s yelp or kitten’s mew. Could it be?
Yes?
She ran into the bedroom just in time to see Savannah gently suctioning a tiny baby’s mouth and nose with the turkey baster.
“Wow! It’s here already!” she said, hurrying to the bed.
“And you’re just in time with those towels,” Savannah said. “How hot are they?”
“Just nice and warm.”
Savannah checked with her hand before grabbing one and winding it snugly around the wriggling infant. Vidalia was still huffing; Butch looked ecstatic.
“It’s okay,” he said proudly. “It’s another boy, and he’s little, but he’s breathing okay.”
“You did it,” Margie told Savannah proudly.
She wondered why Savannah didn’t look so relieved.
Margie moved closer to the bed. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. The baby’s fine,” Savannah said. “It’s just that . . . I think maybe . . .”
Vidalia bore down again, her face purple, pushing, straining.
“Yep, that’s what I thought,” Savannah said. “We did it . . . but now we get to do it all over again.”
7:12 A.M.
Unable to sleep, Dirk had driven to the hospital at dawn to check on Bloss’s condition.
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