by P. L. Gaus
Branden covered outside, revolver drawn.
In seconds, Niell stepped out making a disgusted grunt and said, “There’s a policeman dead in there.”
Branden poked his head in and saw enough to know not to enter.
Niell stepped to the driver’s side of the truck, stood in the downpour, and reached for the mike. Distant sirens came to his ears.
“Code 32 at the Orchard Grove Cottages.”
Almost instantly, two cruisers with lights and sirens shot into the lane at the front of the cottage properties and headed for Niell’s truck, which was still running flashers in the rain.
Branden stepped around the trailer and peered into the stormy darkness back toward the cottages.
Niell threw power to the spotlights on his truck and started searching the grounds with twin shafts of light.
“There’s a body in the trailer,” Niell shouted as the first cruiser skidded in behind his unit, blocking his rear.
Two Port Clinton policemen scrambled into the trailer, came out directly, and returned to their unit.
One radioed in, and the other came over to Niell.
“That’s Paul Lively in there,” the officer said, shaken.
“I think he’s been in there a while,” Niell said and briefly explained about the missing Jeremiah and the Brikkers who ran the place.
Another Port Clinton unit arrived, officers got out, and Niell hurriedly gathered them in the rain at the back of his truck, explaining again about the kidnapping of Jeremiah Miller.
“That’s Mel Brikker,” one of the officers said. “Runs the cottages with her husband when he’s not in jail.”
Branden shouted “Ricky!” from the edge of the trailer and ran toward Niell, pointing back down the lane.
“They just took off. I saw the boy!”
Niell motioned for the two cruisers to back out of his way and realized that there wouldn’t be time. He jumped in behind the wheel and roared the 4x4 up onto the jagged pile of concrete slabs, backed down a bit, lunged forward onto the pile again, tilted the truck at an extreme angle, backed a second time, and then bounced forward and pulled hard right, the two left wheels riding high on the seawall.
Once clear of the concrete slabs, he motioned wildly through his open window for Branden to jump in, and then raced without caution around the trailer and through the orchard, knocking off low branches, between the cottages, and fishtailed back out onto North Shore Boulevard.
The police cruisers backed down the lane, swerving erratically, lights and sirens piercing the rain.
Branden shouted, “The other way, Ricky!” and Niell whipped the 4x4 around on the slick pavement, headed for 163, and then followed the fleeing car toward Marblehead.
On 163, they overtook a slow-moving Gremlin hatchback, raced by, and then saw a blue sedan some distance ahead, careening wildly under the Marblehead streetlights. On impulse, Niell punched up channel 21 and raised the Coast Guard.
Near the point at Marblehead, Niell again broadcast his position on LEERN, pounded the wheel when he realized where the car was headed, and followed it on in, past the Byzantine Church, down the short road to the lighthouse and the waters off the Marblehead point.
Niell skidded to a stop in the gravel, ran his spotlights over the area, caught a glimpse of the sedan at the water’s edge, and focused the beam on two figures, a woman and a man, struggling to load a squirming bundle into a boat tied among the trees beneath the lighthouse.
Niell drew his pistol, ran along the shafts of light toward the boat, and shouted, “Freeze!”
The boat engine sputtered, caught, fired, and growled into life.
The man spun the wheel, and turned the boat toward open water.
Rain blew hard in Ricky’s eyes. He closed the distance to the boat as it pulled away.
Niell dodged trees, hit the flat rocks at a run, leapt for the boat, splashed into the water with his left hand locked on the starboard gunwale, spilled water into the boat, and heard the engine cough, sputter, and die.
By reflex he brought his right hand up with the pistol, and last remembered the bulking form of the woman, who lunged to the gunwale with a wooden paddle, and smashed it viciously onto Ricky’s head.
Niell groaned, rolled onto his back, sank, popped up on his stomach, and bobbed in the shallow water, unconscious.
Branden waded into the water, grabbed Niell by the front of his collar, held him half-floating face-up at his side, and trained the barrel of Ricky Niell’s cocked .357 magnum on the man, who worked furiously to restart the engine, not more than five feet away.
Niell’s unconscious body lurched with the waves against Branden’s thigh. The rain pounded into Branden’s face. Lightning struck on the opposite side of the cove, lighting the scene in white flashes. Gasoline fumes from the boat’s motor filled the air.
Branden shouted, “At this range, I’ll never miss!” and stared coldly at the man.
Mel Brikker scoffed, jerked Jeremiah to his feet, and held him in front of her, bound, gagged, and groggy.
“Back off!” she shouted. “We’re taking the kid!” She reached into the bottom of the boat and brought up a sawed-off shotgun, pointing it toward Branden.
Branden snapped his arm toward her, fired once, and immediately cocked the hammer again.
The round struck Mel Brikker at the base of her neck. She dropped the shotgun, grabbed at her throat, and fell over backwards, blood spurting between her fingers.
Jeremiah fell sideways into the bottom of the boat.
A Coast Guard UTB appeared from behind the shoreline to the west, its screaming sirens set on wail.
Bobby Brikker managed to restart the engine and pulled away abruptly, leaving Branden struggling in the waves to bring his sights, one-handed, onto Brikker’s back. Niell floated heavily in the water at his side.
Port Clinton officers arrived on shore, splashed into the water, and took charge of the unconscious Niell.
Branden regained the bank and tore along its edge, past the lighthouse, pushing recklessly through the tangle of branches and rocks to the point, trailing Brikker’s boat as it left the cove.
He took up a position in waist-deep waters off the point, planted his feet, and drew down, double-fisted, on Brikker, his finger tightening against the smooth combat trigger.
Around the point, in a driving rain, lights and sirens caught his attention and he eased off on the trigger, still charged with adrenaline, frantically wanting the shot. Driven to take it, as he waded deeper into the water.
Seaman Munson careened the Coast Guard UTB in front of Branden into a tight circle around Brikker’s boat, and switched his sirens to an intimidating yelp. Then he threw the switch to loud hail and spoke with command. “This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Stand to, and prepare to be boarded.”
As Munson came alongside Brikker’s small boat, two men from the hostage rescue team boarded with drawn nine millimeter Berettas, while others on the bow and stern of UTB 41-443 covered with M16s.
The wake of the UTB came ashore and knocked Branden over backwards amid the boulders of Marblehead Point. When he had managed to struggle to his feet, he could see Jeremiah standing in the boat, with one seaman from the UTB working to untie him, while another wrestled Bobby Brikker into handcuffs.
30
Saturday, June 27 10:00 A.M.
A DISGRUNTLED nurse stormed up to Ricky Niell’s room at Magruder Hospital, held the door ajar with her foot, and said, “Out. Both of you. Mr. Niell needs to rest.”
Robertson, equally disgruntled, followed Munson out into the hall and traded scowls with the nurse. Once the nurse had disappeared around a corner, Robertson stuck his head back into the room and said, “You never called.”
Niell managed a weak smile, shrugged, and said nothing.
“When you wake up, you need to call Ellie,” Robertson added.
Niell blanked and rubbed the back of his head, and Robertson explained. “She’s been asking about you all night, and I’m
tired of explaining to her that you’re not dead. OK? Call her!”
Niell nodded voicelessly, and Robertson let the door close softly.
Then he pushed the door open again abruptly and asked, “They say you had the professor out on the lake under a small crafts warning. You got anything to say about that?”
Niell rolled his eyes painfully, and Robertson backed out of the room grumbling.
“He’ll be all right,” Robertson said out in the hall. “Just a concussion.”
Seaman Munson asked, “You know how he figured it out?”
“Not yet,” Robertson said, still irritated with the nurses. “They haven’t let me stay long enough to ask him.”
“Down in Holmes County,” Munson said, “I bet Niell’s sort of a hot dog. Does things his own way.”
Robertson smiled broadly and eyed the nurse’s station for a chance to slip back in.
“He’s like me,” Munson smiled. “He likes the action. Worries that if he starts carrying too much brass on his collar, he’ll end up on a desk job.”
Robertson said, “Sounds like Ricky.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, nodded at the no smoking sign on the wall, and said, “Let’s go outside.”
Under the canopy at the emergency room entrance, Robertson lit up, shook the match out, and walked with Munson toward the parking lot. The sun was up strong, burning off the morning haze, steam rising from the blacktop.
“You found Niell’s pistol underwater?” Robertson asked, trying to tie up all of the loose ends, cover all of the details.
“Right.”
“And you say Branden fired once?” Robertson asked and drew on his cigarette with his eyes narrowed.
“One shot at the woman and then prepared to take a second, at the man,” Munson said. “Right as we came alongside.”
“The woman died instantly?” Robertson asked. He knew she had, but wanted Munson’s account of it.
“Dead in the boat by the time we boarded,” Munson said. “If Branden had got off another shot, the man’d be gonners, too.”
“You saw her point a shotgun at him?”
“Right, but we were still a ways out, at that point.”
“So, there’ll be no charges.”
“Shouldn’t be.”
“And the boy?”
“Found him tied up in the bottom of the boat,” Munson said. “The woman bled all over him. The kid had been tied and drugged.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Robertson said and looked back toward the hospital from the parking lot. “They’re going to observe him for a few hours more, and then I’ll take him home.”
Munson shaded his eyes to look up toward Niell’s room. “If you find out what put him onto the Brikkers, let me know, will you?” Then he shook Robertson’s hand, slid into the seat of a small convertible, and backed out of the parking place.
Before he drove away, Munson looked up from his two-seater and said, “Sheriff, we’re supposed to handle kidnappings, anything federal, through channels. Toledo, Cleveland, and then Washington. You got any idea why Niell didn’t do that?”
“Loose as ashes in the wind.”
Munson looked puzzled.
“That’s a line from an Ian Tyson cowboy song, Seaman Munson,” Robertson explained. He grinned and added, “It’s the same reason Niell paid you boys a visit on his own initiative, yesterday.”
“Which is?”
“Ricky Niell’s not carrying too much brass on his collars,” Robertson said.
Then, Robertson finished his cigarette, crushed it out with the toe of his shoe and asked, “You got time to show me where the trailer is?”
Munson led Robertson to North Shore Boulevard, slowed in front of the Orchard Grove Cottages, pointed down the lane, waved, and sped away. Down by the water, at the end of the lane to the trailer, Robertson parked beside Niell’s truck and a Port Clinton police cruiser and found Branden, with an officer, in the trailer.
“How’s Ricky?” Branden asked immediately. He had parked himself in a well-worn recliner, and had several books stacked in his lap, with a few more open on the floor at his feet. Empty spaces in a bookshelf beside him roughly matched the volumes Branden had gathered to himself.
“Niell’s gonna be fine,” Robertson said and then, “Is this where they found the cop?”
“Back there,” Branden said, indicating a small bedroom set off with a folding partition.
The Port Clinton cop came forward from the bedroom and said, “His name was Paul Lively. When we found him, he’d been dead maybe three days.”
“You figure he caught on to the Brikkers?” Robertson asked. “With the kid, I mean.”
“Must have,” the policeman said and walked out, stepping over the collection of books at Branden’s feet.
Robertson took a seat at a small metal table in the corner that served as a kitchen and looked around at the inside of the trailer. There was a closet door ajar, with outlandish western clothes on hangers and piled loosely in a basket on the floor. Dirty dishes lay in the sink and on the kitchen table. There was an over-full ashtray and a rusty fishing knife. Several snapshots were scattered on the table where he sat.
Robertson gathered up the pictures and asked, “Have you seen these?”
Branden nodded, absorbed with one book, and Robertson eased back on his chair and flipped through the photos, shots of Jonah and Jeremiah, fishing with an older man and woman.
“Are these the Brikkers?” Robertson asked and tapped one of the snapshots with his finger.
“Melanie and Bobby Brikker,” Branden said distastefully, looking up for a moment from his reading.
In one photograph, Robertson saw Jeremiah next to a gruff-looking Melanie Brikker, who held him tightly by the shoulders on the stern of a Baha Cruiser. Jonah stood next to Jeremiah, smiling unconcerned into the camera. Robertson shook his head, disgusted by the way the Brikkers had betrayed their friend, and scattered the snapshots back onto the table. “They must have played up to Jonah while they ran the blackmail scheme secretly.”
“Trouble was, when Jonah started talking about going home with Jeremiah, the Brikkers’ secret ransom scheme caved in around their ears,” Branden said.
Robertson stood, studied the inside of the small trailer for a moment, and decided he had seen enough. “I’m going back to check on Niell and the boy,” Robertson said. “Want to join me?”
“Not just yet, Bruce,” Branden said, distracted. “I’d like to pack up a few things here. Caroline knows a teacher who’d probably like to see some of these books.”
Robertson eased himself down the two steps of the trailer and turned back to Branden. “They say you got off one clean shot, Mike.” He watched Branden’s face for a reaction.
Branden pulled his eyes from the book and looked back at Robertson calmly.
“You gonna be OK with that?” Robertson asked.
“Yes,” Branden answered directly.
“You know you saved young Miller’s life,” Robertson said, intending encouragement.
“What are you worried about, Sheriff?”
“It’s not so easy, sometimes, Mike. Living with a shooting is not at all easy.”
Branden closed the book in his lap, looked at his friend, thought for a moment, and said, “When she brought out the shotgun, my arm snapped left immediately. But it plays back through my mind in slow motion. Everything is still up here, in my eyes, as if it has just happened, only slow. Bobby Brikker cursing at the engine that wouldn’t start. The smell of gasoline all around me. The rain and the wind. The way everything felt cold, wet. The boat rocking in the waves. That wretched woman. Her scorn, contempt. Niell floating against my thigh. Sirens and lights behind me, coming down the lane to the lighthouse. She stooped down and brought up the shotgun and started to point it. I can still feel Ricky washing in the waves against my leg, cold. Still feel the concussion of the shot against my palm. A brief gust of gunpowder in my face. The adrenaline when I chased the boat along the shore. A near
ly unstoppable surge, driving me for a second shot. I study that sort of thing all the time—in the memoirs of Civil War soldiers. The rush of combat, a high of unbelievable intensity.
“I’ve always wondered about that. The question of valor. You know, strength of will. And I remembered the boy tied in ropes, the cop in the trailer with a knife in his belly. And Jonah Miller lying in his ditch.”
He paused.
“And?” Robertson asked.
“And I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble getting over killing Melanie Brikker.”
Robertson remembered Munson’s account of it and said, “From what people tell me, you’d have capped off Bobby Brikker, too.”
Branden looked steadily back at the sheriff, thought about an answer, and shrugged.
31
Thursday, July 2
8:00 A.M.
IT WAS the day of Jonah Miller’s memorial service. His plain burial had taken place several days earlier in a family cemetery on a rise overlooking the Doughty Valley.
Caroline Branden climbed the worn sandstone steps to Leeper School carrying a brown paper grocery bag and a key. She wore a long, pleated dress of a plain dark plum color. It had a high collar and long sleeves. Her long auburn hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head, out of deference to the Amish.
She had found an Amish neighbor to the school, explained her intentions, and had borrowed the key to the school with a promise to return it after the services. Branden waited beside the car.
Summer had come convincingly, at last, to the Amish farms on the hills and in the valleys of Holmes County. In an assortment of small fields beyond the school, Branden saw hay wagons drawn by horses, corn waist-high in a corner field, a man on a bicycle, and a matched pair of Amish brothers setting fence posts. Branden was dressed modestly, as he knew the bishop would prefer, in the new suit of Amish clothes he had bought with Caroline in Fredericksburg. His short brown beard was trimmed neatly, the skin shaved smooth, top and bottom, around his mouth, anticipating the Amish service to come.
Inside, Caroline took three tattered books out of a paper sack and arranged them on Miss Beachey’s old desk. Into the pages of one of the books she inserted a single-page note, written in a heavy, unpracticed hand.
