After the Rain

by Chuck Logan

  Joe spun furiously, yanked the pistol from his waistband, and waved it in Dale’s face, then at the floor. “Just shut up, okay? And clean up your shoes and the tracks on the floor.” He turned back to the window and the phone.

  Dale didn’t care for that, Joe pointing a gun at him. But he removed his work shoes and washed them thoroughly in the bathroom sink. Then he took Gordy’s mop and pail from the closet and removed all trace of his footprints. Dale was thinking as he worked, and the more he thought about it, the more he decided Joe should be punished for sticking a gun in his face. Uh-huh.

  By the time Joe ended his phone conversation and approached Dale, stepping carefully around the bodies and the remaining blood on the floor, he’d settled down. “George and I think it’s best to change the plan. After this, what happened here.”

  Dale shrugged. He didn’t care. He had the woman to be with all the way to Florida. “Sure,” he said.

  “Good, so I’ll get you over to Camp’s Corner to hook up with George. Then I’ll split back over the border. George will go with you to the target.”

  “Fine,” Dale said, “let’s get going.”

  While Joe went across the road to the equipment shed for his van, Dale dragged Nina’s unconscious body to the back storeroom and lay her down next to the door. He returned to the barroom and picked up her purse. It did not particularly surprise him that he could look at the dark-haired woman’s body and Ace’s without feeling anything, other than a certain satisfaction that he was finally succeeding in life, despite all the obstacles he had to overcome—while Ace, who was gifted from birth in every way, who had always squandered his potential, had failed.

  “You lose, asshole,” Dale said.

  He stooped down and rubbed Nina’s purse in the pool of blood that spread around Janey Singer’s torso. Then he came back and studied Nina, watched her labored breathing. But he wasn’t real worried. He’d given her 100 mg. Usually enough to put even him into a K-hole for an hour. And he outweighed Nina by almost a hundred pounds.

  He couldn’t resist removing her wallet from the purse and carefully fingering out the Minnesota driver’s license. Holding it by the edge, he took the Sharpie from his chest pocket and blackened out the eyes on the photo. Then he inserted the ID back in the wallet and put the wallet back in the purse.

  He heard Joe’s van pulling around the building. “Asshole,” he said under his breath. “Pointing a gun at me…” Like Gordy, trying to boss him.

  Joe backed up to the loading dock, got out, and then checked to make sure there were no cars on the highway, no one in the fields. Then they lifted her off the dock and put her on the cargo floor in the back of the van. Dale folded her arms across her stomach and put her purse on her chest. He stayed with her, in the back, out of sight, as Joe drove west on Highway 5, took a turn to the south.

  Right through town. That took some balls.

  Yeah, well, so does this.

  Dale hunkered down behind the driver’s seat so Joe couldn’t see him in the rearview. Okay. He removed his pocketknife and studied his open left hand. The crisscross lines in his palm were supposed to predict things about his life. Damned if he knew what.

  What the hell.

  Keeping his hands low, he drew the sharp blade along the heel of his left hand and watched the blood drip onto the floor of the van. He flexed his hand so the blood made a small pool in his palm and then he grabbed at the spare tire mount, then the back door latch, leaving a red spongy pattern of his hand and fingerprints. He searched in his back pack, took out some Kleenex and a surgical glove. He wadded the tissue over the cut, applied pressure. Not the greatest, but it would do for now. Then he pulled on the Latex glove, one he’d worn last night.

  With Gordy.

  “How you doing?” Joe called back.

  “Fine. Just drive.”

  “We’re really going to do this,” Joe said.

  “Drive,” Dale said as he sat back and watched Nina’s chest rise and fall. Later, when they were alone together, she’d be awake and he could watch her eyes when he told her what he was going to do. Watch her think about it.

  He looked up, at the back of Joe’s head. Joe was relieved to think he would soon be free of Dale. He’d head north, cross into Canada. Joe Reed would vanish. He’d be Joseph Khari again. Smiling all the way, a rich man. A big man in Winnipeg.

  They came to Camp’s Corner. Immediately one of the doors on the garage bay opened and George stepped out and waved them in. Dale got out, looked around, saw nothing but flat green and the anomalous bulge of the Nekoma pyramid floating in a blur of ground thermal.

  George looked haggard, dressed in a dirty shirt and shorts, unshaven, and blinking in the sun. He and Joe made quite a pair, both looking so grim and nervous. Joe shifted from his good foot to his bad foot and licked at the scars around his lips. Dale wasn’t sweating drop one. They were just foot soldiers in a war, same as Nina. He felt more like Truman—cool, calling the shots.

  Hiroshima? Fuck it. Just drop that sucker.

  “We gotta do this fast,” George said as he looked searchingly at Joe and Dale. Dale made his face stolid and obedient. Like George would expect.

  “No one saw us. We’re good,” Joe said.

  “We have to do this fast,” George repeated. Dale saw he was antsy now, so near the end. And keyed up about all the things that could still go wrong.

  The Roadtrek was parked in the baked shadows, gassed up, with the new Minnesota plates Joe had stolen off a car in long-term parking at the Winnipeg International Airport. Hopefully they wouldn’t be missed for the next few days. Dale planned to ditch the camper and be in Florida by then.

  If the prevailing wind patterns didn’t change.

  George and Joe averted their eyes as Dale carried Nina from the back of the van into the Roadtrek and placed her on the bed that filled the rear compartment. The bungee cords were waiting, laid out on the sheets with a pliers. He used the cords to secure her wrists and ankles to the bed’s side boards. He used the pliers to crimp the hooks together. Just a formality. Ketamine would control her.

  And Dale had lots of ketamine.

  He checked the compartment to make sure he’d removed everything that could be used either as a weapon or a tool. Just a TV and VCR on a wall shelf overlooking the bed. Where she could see it. His own video camera, a tripod, and remote hookup were stacked in the corner. He shook his head. Focus.

  “Dale,” George yelled. “C’mon out here.”

  Keeping his injured left hand well down by his side, he shook hands with Joe, clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck,” Dale said. “You gonna take Mulberry?”

  Joe shook his head. “Richmond Crossing. Not as active.”

  “Smart,” Dale said.

  George embraced Joe and said, “Look for us tonight on CNN.”

  “Inshallah,” Joe said, with a twist of irony in his torn smile.

  “But you don’t believe in God,” Dale said, and they all laughed.

  Joe got in the van, pulled out on the road, and turned north. George immediately handed Dale two maps: North Dakota and Minnesota. He’d written his cell-phone number prominently on them and traced a route in orange Magic Marker.

  “We’ll keep in contact by cell. I’ll lead, you follow, but not too close. Halfway, we’ll stop. I have something to show you.”

  “The pictures?” Dale asked, smiling.

  George nodded, pointed to a circled town on the Minnesota map. He was bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, fingering the medallion around his neck. “Here, in Fergus Falls.”

  “What if I gotta stop to take a leak?”

  “Signal with your lights for the next rest stop. But we gotta hurry, get back on the road. Okay.”

  “Hey, calm down, George. We got time. I told Irv I’d be there by five P.M.”

  George didn’t calm down. He talked faster. “We drop down to Highway 2, take it to Grand Forks, then drop south on 29, pick up 94…”

  Dale grinne
d, “I got it. C’mon. Let’s go.”

  Solemnly, George shook Dale’s hand and stared into his eyes. Dale figured George was in danger of trading his dope-smuggler cool for a bunch of holy-warrior bullshit. Whatever. Then George turned and got into his Lexus. Dale shut the door, got in the Roadtrek, checked Nina in the back. She was still in the K-hole. He pulled the big camper outside, went back, shut the garage door, got back in, and put it in gear. As he pulled on the road, he watched the sun glint on the back of George’s silver Lexus.

  Imagine that, cool old George getting flustered, and me getting cooler and cooler. Like now…

  Dale grabbed his cell phone off the passenger seat. First he held his breath, then he started panting as fast as he could until he was gasping. When he sounded like he was hyperventilating, he punched in 911. Funny about numbers, wasn’t it? Nine-one-one. Nine-eleven.

  Dale thought for a moment. Okay…Karen Fremuth would be on duty at the SO. Dale had gone to school with her older sister. Hopefully she would recognize his voice.

  “Nine-one-one.”

  He held the phone close to his chest, rasping in a loud whisper. “Help. Oh shit it hurts. He shot Ace. You gotta help. And this girl…”

  “Calm down who is this where are you who was shot!!!”

  Dale grinned. Karen’s starting to sound like old George. Now she’s the one who had to calm down. “It’s me, Dale. Dale Shuster. Joe Reed, that fucking Indian went crazy, he shot Ace…at the bar.”

  “Dale? Your brother Ace? You have to talk louder, I can’t hear you.”

  “I can’t. I’m in the back of his van on a cell, me and that women Ace was with. Shit, he’s taking us…going north on Richmond…”

  “You mean Pinto Joe?”

  “Pinto Joe, a brown GM van. Oh shit, no, no…”

  Dale ended the call. That’d teach Joe to point guns at him. They knew Joe’s van at the sheriff’s office.

  All hell was about to break loose!

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Barry Sauer was sitting three miles east of Langdon, parked on the side of Highway 5 watching the cherry-red ’Cuda grumble off the shoulder. He glanced at the file on his MDT screen. He’d just tagged Kyle Shriver doing seventy-five in a fifty-five. Fifteen years ago he’d given Kyle’s old man about the same ticket for about the same margin over the…

  “Jimmy, Barry, Lyle: Dale Shuster just called.” Dispatch at the SO came on the radio yelling, so blown-away excited she skipped the ten codes, “…and was he freaked. Said Joe Reed shot his brother Ace and maybe some woman at the Missile Park and sounds like Joe kidnaped Dale…maybe shot him, too. EMT is started…”

  The voice on the radio changed. Norm Wales had taken over the mike. “Where is everybody?”

  “Yeager. Two north.”

  “Lyle. On Main. Headed for the bar.”

  “Sauer. Three east,” Sauer croaked as the adrenaline thickened his throat. He whipped the cruiser around, tires fliging gravel, then hammered the gas as he headed into town. Pins and needles played hopscotch up and down his spine—the déjà vu running with the acceleration.

  Last week. Really cranking, lights and sirens to an accident, and this deer…

  Doing sixty now, sixty-five…

  His skid marks were still carved into the road surface headed toward the Pembina Gorge, panic hieroglyphics about what happens when an 02 Crown Victoria with a Interceptor package and a 351 Cleveland engine with high-performance fuel injection and two-hundred-dollar Eagle GT tires doing 120 miles an hour…

  …mature running whitetail, weighing 200 pounds…

  The nylon air bag was in his face like an air fist. Everything went steam white from the hot blast of nitrogen that powered the inflation; add the cornstarch coating from the bag, which wound up in his teeth. Damn deer drove in the grill and the radiator and pushed them back into the engine. Crammed the bumper back into the left front wheel…

  Coming up on town…driving his sergeant’s car today. Shit!

  Gotta make a decision here. In his trunk, tucked in with his emergency gear, he carried an M-14 semiautomatic rifle with a twenty-round magazine. If he stopped to take it out, how much time would he lose? He glanced at his speedometer. Already going seventy.

  No M-14, he decided. He loosed the safety strap on the holster that held his .45. The radio squawked:

  “Joe driving that brown metallic van?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Bet he’s headed for the rez.”

  “Don’t figure. He can’t outrun us on the flat.”

  “If he just shot Ace, he’s probably not thinking real clear.”

  Then they got a break from a local game warden.

  “Norm, this is Phil Lutes. Monitored your traffic. I’m out on Richmond just off 5 and the sumbitch just turned off the highway, heading north…I got him. I got him. Just turn onto Richmond Road going north. That’s him, brown GM van, kinda metal-flake brown.”

  “Hey, people, you got that? He’s heading for the border. I’m calling customs to get the Canadians up. But remember—no pursuit into Canada.”

  “We got it.”

  Then a transmission stepped on the others, persisting through the static. “Norm, it’s Lyle.” Lyle was out of breath, shouting. “I’m at the bar. Ace and a woman are down, shot.”

  “Lyle. Secure the scene for EMT.”

  “They don’t need no ambulance. They’re dead, Norm.”

  “You monitor out there?”

  Sauer put his foot on the floor, picked up his radio mike, called it in to the state net. “Milton Tower, two-five-nine. Langdon nine-one-one has a double shooting, two confirmed dead, suspect running north on Richmond Road in a brown Chevy van. Am in pursuit. Request backup.”

  “Milton ten-four.”

  Sauer switched to his shoulder mike. And I got the fastest car.

  Two miles north of town, closer in than Sauer, Jimmy Yeager did not step on the gas first thing. Thinking Joe probably had a shotgun in his van, or maybe a deer rifle, he popped the trunk, jumped out of his cruiser, and unclipped his M-14 from the inside roof of the trunk. He inserted a twenty-round mag of 7.62 NATO rounds, advanced one to the chamber, set the safe, and stashed the big rifle in the passenger foot well.

  Don’t want to get outgunned.

  Yeager got back in, put the cruiser in gear, locked his seat belt, and stamped on the gas.

  Roaring past the city limits, Sauer was thinking it might be smarter not to go to noise yet. Play it stealthy. But he was coming upon the four-way stop on north 1, and he was already doing seventy-five, eighty. So as he blew past the line of brand-new Border Patrol Tahoes parked at the Motor Inn, he hit the lights and the siren.

  The whoop of the siren brought Broker up to an instant sitting position. He reached over and felt the empty bed next to him. He saw the gun belt on the table, got up, read the note. As the siren receded in the distance he got a real bad feeling. He grabbed for his clothes.

  Sauer made his second decision. He’d shot past the Richmond turn and was beginning to brake to catch the next road. “Where is everybody?” he yelled in the radio.

  Sheriff Wales answered first: “In back of you, coming outta town.”

  “I’m going to parallel west. Try an’ get ahead of him.”

  “I’ll come up Richmond. Get on his tail.”

  Sauer tightened both hands on the wheel and manhandled through a skid. Turning, rear end sliding out. Caught a piece of the far ditch and threw clods of dirt. Oh shit. Shit. Gonna flip. Amazingly, he didn’t. Got her stable and back on the road, rattling along. “Jimmy?”

  “Parallel east of Richmond and I think I see him.”

  “Okay.” Sauer blinked sweat. Goddamn, I hope nobody’s on this road ahead of me. “I’m going to try to get ahead of him.” He glanced at the speed. Holy shit, does that 140 mean 140? Nothing under the accelerator but fuckin’ floorboards now.

  As Broker pulled on his jeans and stepped into his shoes he heard a second siren start to w
ail. Coming out the motel front door he saw the familiar boxy green shape of an ambulance, flashers revolving, heading west on 5. He ran for the Explorer, got in, started up, and took off after the ambulance.

  On his way out of town Broker heard and caught the barest glimpse of a red flasher whipping over the fields to the north. Then the lights were gone. Just the sirens ahead of him and to the north. The whole town seemed to echo with sirens.

  And he caught some of the old frenzied feeling in his chest. Car chase. Then the adrenaline jag solidified into a dull thump when he saw the ambulance pull into the parking lot of the Missile Park bar…

  …and stop next to the dusty red Volvo with the Minnesota plates and the Wellstone bumper sticker. He parked behind the ambulance and got out.

  One cop car. A stout county deputy stood on the porch talking to a female EMT. The other EMT hunched over the wheel of the ambulance, absorbing the staccato radio traffic.

  The EMT slouched, empty hands hanging at her sides. Her bag sat on the porch. The body language didn’t look good, none of that pit-bull intensity of a medic starting in on a casualty. She was waiting.

  For a crime lab and a coroner.

  Broker came abreast of the Volvo. The window was open on the driver’s side, and he saw the blue pack of American Spirits lying on the dash. The brand Nina smoked. He approached the porch and stopped at the steps. He took a breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. “Who’s down?” he said.

  The deputy and the EMT studied him, put their heads together, and conferred. Then the deputy said, “You’re Broker, right? We all heard how Jimmy Yeager went out with you last night.”

  Broker nodded, still edging toward the door.

  “Okay, it’s like this. I’m Deputy Vinson. And, Mr. Broker, you can’t go in there. We have to keep it sterile for the lab guys.”