Seeing Red

by Sandra Brown

  Kerra had stopped listening after being told that The Major was leaving the hospital. She was flabbergasted. “You trust this source?”

  “He loved my orange glasses. The crew has already left. They’ll meet you there.”

  “My car—”

  “Rent a limo. Hitchhike. I don’t care. Just squirt some red-out in your eyes and get your ass up there.”

  Trapper wanted to notify Glenn that he was on his way to Lodal so he could tell him in person that the FBI now had the goods on Wilcox. Regardless of what he’d told Glenn last night, he thought he could swing a lenient plea deal for him if he agreed to testify against Wilcox.

  Frustrated after repeatedly getting his voice mail, he called the SO’s main number and asked to speak directly with Glenn. Rather than being put through, he was asked to identify himself.

  “John Trapper.”

  “The sheriff didn’t come in today.”

  “I’m a friend.”

  “Yes, I know, but he’s not here.”

  “Do you know where I can reach him?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  After disconnecting, Trapper had the uneasy feeling he’d been given a scripted answer that was intentionally evasive. He called the Addisons’ home number. A woman answered. “Hey, Linda, it’s Trapper.”

  “Mrs. Addison is on her cell phone and can’t be interrupted.”

  “Who are you?”

  She identified herself as a family friend. Why did Linda need family friends around her? “Is Glenn there?”

  “No, and, I’m sorry, but that’s all I’m at liberty to say.”

  “How come?”

  “You may want to call Hank,” she said before hanging up.

  Maybe he was getting the runaround because Hank had spread the word that Trapper was persona non grata.

  Or perhaps, after tendering his resignation, Glenn was ducking people in general to avoid having to answer questions.

  Maybe he’d suffered another bad anxiety attack or something worse.

  With that worry in mind, Trapper called the hospital, asked if Glenn Addison had been admitted as a patient, and was relieved to learn from the switchboard operator that he hadn’t been.

  “Good. Thank you.” Uncertain how he was going to feel about talking to his father so soon after the discovery he’d made, he hesitated.

  “Can I be of further assistance?” the operator asked.

  “Yeah. Please ring Major Trapper’s room.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “This is his son.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Trapper. I can’t connect you because your father has been released.”

  “What?”

  “He’s checked out of the hospital.”

  “When? Why wasn’t I notified?”

  “I…I…”

  “Never mind. Put me through to the senior nurse on his floor.”

  While his cell phone battery drained, the phone on the other end rang at least two dozen times. He had about decided to hang up and call the switchboard back when a man answered, sounding harried. As soon as Trapper said his name, the guy identified himself as the floor’s supervising nurse and got defensive.

  “We tried to contact you, Mr. Trapper. None of the numbers we had on your father’s chart went through. We tried persuading him to stay until you could be reached, but he was insistent on leaving. His doctor strongly advised against it, but—”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Half an hour. Maybe a bit longer.”

  “Was he taken home by ambulance?”

  “No. Reverend Addison was here. He offered to drive him.”

  Chapter 36

  A minivan Trapper recognized as Hank’s was parked in front of The Major’s house.

  Trapper sped through the gate and kicked up dust on the drive. He braked so hard the car skidded before coming to a jarring stop. He was out of it in a blur and bounding up the steps to the porch.

  The door was unlocked. Trapper rushed in. Then stopped dead in his tracks.

  The Major was in his recliner but sitting upright. He looked pale and weak, shaky and shrunken, but also enraged.

  Standing over him was Hank, who backed up a few steps and swung the barrel of the rifle he was holding away from The Major and toward Trapper, who said, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Hank replied, “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No Bible?”

  “This gets attention faster.”

  “In anybody else’s hands, maybe. You just look like a jackass.”

  Trapper was cracking wise, but his gut had drawn up as tight as a drum, and he was attuned to every nuance of Hank’s tone and expression, because his finger was tapping against the trigger of the deer rifle.

  But his father’s labored breathing was Trapper’s immediate concern. “I’m going to sue that hospital for letting you leave.”

  “He told me we were going to search for Glenn together.” He raised his chin toward Hank. “Instead he drove me here. Took that rifle from the cabinet…”

  “Save your breath,” Trapper said. “I can figure out the rest.” His thinking had snagged on the need to search for Glenn. He was desperate to have that explained, but first he had to disarm Hank. “Do you even know how to load that thing?”

  “It was loaded for me.”

  “Huh. Let me guess. Jenks?”

  “Handy guy.”

  “I’m sure. But come on, Hank. Put down the rifle before you hurt somebody.”

  “I’d love to start with you.”

  “You never could hit the broad side of a barn. You’d miss me, and then I would have to kill you, and I don’t want to. Not because I’d miss you or anything, but it would be hard on your family.”

  “Slowly, using one hand, remove your holster.”

  “Holster?”

  “If you don’t do it now, I’ll shoot The Major.”

  “With the rifle my mom gave him? That’s unsportsmanlike.”

  “Do it, Trapper.”

  The gleam in Hank’s eyes made him look maniacal enough to turn this standoff bloody. Trapper couldn’t risk that until he had a better grasp of what was going on. “In order to reach my holster with one hand, I have to take off my coat.”

  “Slowly.”

  Trapper shrugged the coat off his shoulders, then let the sleeves slide down his arms. It fell to the floor. Reaching behind him with one hand, he detached his holstered nine-millimeter from his waistband.

  “Now pitch it over your shoulder.”

  “That’s dangerous. I’m not sure the safety is on.”

  “Do it.”

  He tried to pinpoint the spot of the thud against hardwood when the holster landed.

  “Keep your hands raised,” Hank said.

  Trapper held them at shoulder height. “Now what? We stand here until one of us caves? Your lifetime record for holding out is for shit, you know.”

  “Shut up!”

  The Major’s breathing whistled when he inhaled. “Hank, why are you doing this? Have you lost your mind?”

  “His soul, I think,” Trapper said. “What’s this about having to search for Glenn?”

  The Major said, “He hasn’t been seen or heard from since last night.”

  “He was called away from the house,” Hank said.

  Trapper didn’t like the sound of that, or the gloating expression on Hank’s face. “Called away?”

  “By Deputy Jenks.”

  “Department business?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What exactly?”

  Hank said, “I notified Jenks that Dad had—as you put it—grown a conscience and spilled his guts. Which presented us with a problem. Jenks lured him out to The Pit. No more problem.”

  “He killed Glenn? Jesus Christ,” The Major whispered. “Why?”

  Trapper said, “Because the reverend here wanted to take over for Thomas Wilcox as chief bad guy.” Trapper snickered. “But the thing is, Hank is so screwed
and doesn’t even know it.”

  “Whatever your con is this time, Trapper, I’m not falling for it.”

  “No con. Hadn’t you heard? Wilcox is dead.”

  “Oh, I heard all the gory details. Your girlfriend reported them from outside the Wilcox mansion.”

  “What you don’t know, but I think that maybe now is the time to enlighten you, is that Kerra and I were inside the mansion last night with Wilcox.”

  Hank guffawed.

  “Cross my heart.”

  “You went to see Wilcox?”

  “After leaving you.”

  “And he welcomed you with open arms?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But over the past few days, he and I had formed a mutually beneficial quasi-partnership.” Trapper stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I see you’re taken aback. You didn’t know that.” He sighed and ruefully shook his head. “Yeah, time was that Tom even had me at gunpoint but couldn’t bring himself to kill me. Instead we talked through our differences—”

  “Get back to last night.”

  “Or what? You’re going to shoot me? I don’t believe you will. Although you’ve already hurt my feelings. I know you’re pissed at me for sending you out to that line shack, but isn’t this taking your payback a little far?”

  “Get on with it,” Hank snapped.

  “I forgot where I was. Oh, yeah. We three—Wilcox, Kerra, and I—had two interesting conversations, the most recent being around one o’clock this morning.”

  “Did you tell him that Dad had betrayed him?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you believe it or not. It’s the truth.”

  “Then what was discussed during this meeting which I still don’t believe ever took place?”

  “Serious stuff, and I’m not joshing you. Wilcox had the one thing, shy of a signed confession, that would persuade the feds to reopen the Pegasus bombing case. He agreed to give it to me.”

  “Wilcox wouldn’t give you the time of day, much less anything that would incriminate him.”

  “Ordinarily, no. At first he was coy, the dealmaker, the wheeler-dealer. You know how he was. He was holding out for a guarantee of full immunity. But those are details that probably don’t interest you or anyone except federal prosecutors.”

  “Get on with it,” Hank repeated, this time straining the words between his teeth.

  “If you’d stop interrupting…Suffice to say only one thing would have compelled Wilcox to come to a burnout like me and ask me to negotiate a deal for him.”

  “Well?”

  “Vengeance for his daughter’s murder.”

  Hank blinked, always a giveaway.

  “He made me promise to make that a priority.” Speaking softly, Trapper said, “Who’d you get to do it for you? Because I know you don’t have the stomach or the balls to have done it yourself.”

  “Shut up, Trapper.”

  He smiled. “Fine. I’ll shut up. Just one last thing. I repeat: You. Are. So. Screwed. You can kill me, you can kill The Major, but Kerra was with me last night. She knows all about Wilcox’s pledge, signed by people who do dirty deeds for him. She’ll make certain that everybody on it is exposed and made to answer for his crimes.”

  Hank laughed out loud. “Trapper, Trapper, Trapper. Always trying to hoodwink me. But it won’t work this time, because I didn’t sign that ridiculous pledge.” He adopted a Count Dracula reverberation. “Down into the bank vault. Down long dark corridors to the inner chamber.”

  Returning to his normal voice, he said, “I was put through the wringer just like Dad described to you last night. Wilcox smoothly reminded me how much he had donated to the tabernacle building fund. With a single stroke of his Mont Blanc, he had saved my fledgling TV ministry. The bill was due, he said. Words to that effect. Sign on the dotted line.

  “But, I said, ‘Not so fast, Thomas.’ See, the previous Sunday, I had shared the good news of his generosity from the pulpit. Hallelujah! All saints be praised!” He laughed again. “What was he going to do? Take the money back? Welsh on an offering made to God Almighty?”

  “What did he want from you? Absolution?”

  “Very little, actually. He was growing increasingly concerned that Dad would crack. He was getting older, more sentimental, maudlin when he drank too much, which was all the time. Wilcox wanted me to do to him what Dad had been doing to The Major.”

  “Spying.”

  The Major’s succinct remark surprised Trapper. Sensing that, The Major looked up at him. “Hank told me about your visit with Glenn last night, his confessions.”

  “It wasn’t an easy or pleasant hour for me.”

  “I believe that, John.”

  The Major looked dejected and resigned, but even more worrisome to Trapper was that he seemed to be physically diminishing with every passing moment. He wanted to hear everything Hank had to say about his adversarial relationship with Wilcox, but he needed to hurry him along.

  “Okay, so you refused to sign Wilcox’s pledge. He took umbrage with your audacity, got huffy, issued some threats. ‘You don’t have any idea who you’re up against.’ That kind of thing. But Wilcox had good game.”

  “You must admit,” Hank said, “his method worked for decades.”

  “Centuries. It’s Machiavellian. Not original but effective, and you took your cue. You showed him. You killed his daughter.”

  “Not I, of course.”

  “Right. We concluded that you’re too chicken-livered. Who’d you send to do it?”

  “I had shown the path of righteousness to a former drug user.”

  “Cost of redemption: one murder.”

  Hank’s smile turned angelic. “God works in mysterious ways.”

  “So does the devil.” Trapper’s smile was more like the latter’s. “Remember when I said you were screwed and didn’t even know it? Well, you didn’t sign Wilcox’s pledge, so the feds don’t have your signature. But they do have—because I handed it over to them—a list Wilcox conveniently typed and alphabetized. Now, take a wild guess whose name he added?”

  Wilcox had done no such thing. Hank’s name hadn’t been on the roster, but maybe Hank would believe it was. It was very like something Wilcox would have done out of sheer spite.

  “Sorry, Hank,” Trapper said with feigned regret and took a step toward him.

  Hank jabbed the rifle forward. “You’re lying.”

  “You can kill me, but the FBI still has those names, and Kerra can testify as to how I came by them. She can attest to everything.”

  “Then I’m doubly glad she beat it up here to cover The Major’s release from the hospital.”

  Trapper’s stomach plunged. “What?”

  “Oh, I see you’re taken aback,” he mocked. “You didn’t know that.” Then, “Kerra?”

  She appeared in the doorway between the living room and the hall. Jenks’s left hand was wrapped around her biceps. In his right was a revolver, the caliber of which you didn’t argue with.

  Kerra’s lips were almost white with fear, but she was putting up a brave front. “Gracie gave me your message. I tried to reach you.”

  “The phone ran out of juice.”

  “They warned The Major and me that if we signaled you that I was here, we would all die.”

  “I think that’s the plan anyway.” Trapper gave her only a half smile, but he hoped she realized that it was brimming with apology and regret.

  “Jenks, bring her over here,” Hank said. Jenks propelled her forward, and when she was within reach, Hank took her arm and jerked her in front of him, facing Trapper. “Take hold of the rifle.”

  “Go to hell,” she said and elbowed him in the stomach.

  Acting instinctively, Trapper lurched forward.

  Hank yelled, “Jenks! Shoot him!”

  “Wait!” Trapper froze and raised his hands higher. “Leave Kerra alone, you can do with me whatever.”

>   Hank, breathing with exertion—excitement?—said, “Well, that’s real generous of you, Trapper, but you’re in no position to dictate terms, seeing as how I have all the advantages here. Tell Kerra to take hold of the rifle.”

  Trapper glanced at Jenks, who had moved to stand at The Major’s side. Any of them made an easy target for his revolver. Coming back to Kerra, he bobbed his head. “Do as he says.”

  Eyes locked on Trapper’s, she allowed Hank to place her hands where he wanted them and secured them with his own. Her left supported the barrel, her right was wrapped around the trigger guard. Hank’s finger remained crooked around the trigger itself.

  Looking at Trapper from over Kerra’s shoulder, Hank chuckled. “It was the darnedest stroke of luck. I was about to leave the hospital with The Major tucked into my van when she drove into the parking lot. I invited her to ride along with us and told her she could call her crew to meet us out here. Except—”

  “Except that when I tried to make the call,” Kerra said, “he backhanded me and took my phone.”

  Trapper settled an icy gaze on Hank. “I’m going to have to kill you after all.” He glanced over his shoulder and spotted his holster on the floor two yards away. He knew a bullet was chambered, but how to get the pistol out of the holster…

  Reading his thoughts, Jenks said, “I don’t advise it.”

  “Better heed him, Trapper,” Hank said. “Being a lawman, he’s got lots of tricks up his sleeve.”

  “Tricks like planting evidence to frame a white-trash parole violator for attempted murder?”

  “That’s the least of Jenks’s talents,” Hank said. “He can make people disappear without a trace.”

  “The Pit.”

  “Your bodies will never be discovered.”

  “Like that of his partner Sunday night?”

  “Petey Moss,” Hank said.

  “Who was the third?” Kerra asked.

  “Wasn’t a third.” That from Jenks.

  “Yes, there was.” Trapper directed Kerra’s attention to The Major.

  She looked down at him, her lips parting with bewilderment. Wearily, he nodded. “He’s right.”

  Trapper wished he could take satisfaction from his father’s admission. He couldn’t. He said to Kerra, “The day I came here, I figured out it had to have been him who tried to open that door before you heard the shot. But I couldn’t reason why. No, let me rephrase.” He looked down at his father. “I didn’t want to reason why. I get it now.”