Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  “Too bad it’s bullshit,” she said.

  “Bullshit rules the world, honey,” he told her.

  NINETEEN

  Sandy jogged toward Odoms’s house dressed in his long sweats and a gray hooded sweatshirt. He trotted along slowly, keeping his head focused straight ahead, using his peripheral vision to scope out the scene.

  The house was still dark. Odoms wouldn’t be up for another hour, if he kept to his usual schedule.

  Sandy spotted a surveillance car a half block up from the target house. Two men sat inside, though one looked to be reclined in the passenger seat, sleeping. The partially fogged window and the rumpled look of both men told Sandy they’d probably been there all night.

  Sandy’s mind raced. Were these the Keeper’s men, there to make sure he did the job?

  Or was it a trap?

  If it were a trap, why would the Keeper want to set him up?

  Sandy jogged past the house and down the block. There were too many possibilities for things to go wrong here. He didn’t like the idea of cops parked up the street from a target while he was inside, even if they did answer to Larson.

  He returned to his car. He started the engine and let it idle while he thought. After a few minutes, he decided Odoms could wait, at least until there wasn’t an audience. He didn’t know what Larson’s endgame was, but he’d feel better about it if there weren’t any witnesses to anything he did.

  Sandy reached under his seat where he’d tucked away his .45 and the suppressor. Underneath them was the other file. He pulled it out, tore open the edge of the envelope, and looked inside for the first time.

  This one was thin. He glanced at the label.

  Kelly Caper, it read. And underneath that, Murder x 2/J.

  “So he’s a kid killer,” Sandy murmured. That was good. It made things easier on him.

  Sandy flipped open the file. A photograph of a smiling blonde woman in her late forties stared up at him.

  He scowled. A woman? He’d never had a file come through with a woman before. Hank had one once, but that was the only one he could remember ever coming through.

  Sandy skipped the biographical data and went straight to the summary. He skimmed through the report and immediately saw why Larson had selected this one. Kelly Caper had drowned both of her children in the bathtub rather than lose custody of them to her own mother.

  He bit his lip. Those were the actions of an insane person. He wasn’t as comfortable with insanity in this context. It wasn’t exactly like killing an innocent, but it wasn’t the same as executing evil, either.

  Sandy took a deep breath and let it out. “Fuck it,” he said. Anyone who does the heinous things he’d seen as a cop or in the files since becoming a Horseman had to be some kind of insane, anyway, right? Karma didn’t always have to revolve around intent.

  He glanced back up at the biographical data. He read the address. Then he dropped the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

  It was time for a cold call.

  When he reached her street, Sandy scanned the area for any surveillance vehicles. There were no cars parked on the streets or in the driveways. He wondered if Larson had surveillance set up in one of the neighboring houses. He peered into the windows as he rolled past, but saw nothing suspicious.

  Her neighborhood was solidly upper middle class. Every garage was designed to hold at least three cars. The lawns were huge and almost certainly professionally maintained. Sandy imagined that practically every one of these houses was alarmed.

  He cruised by the target residence, a dark red brick two-story that was at the bottom end of the price range for this part of town. The street was still empty and quiet. Sandy figured that this crowd, those that worked anyway, probably enjoyed routine 9-to-5 banker’s hours.

  Any car, especially one as proletariat as Sandy’s, would stand out parked on the street in this neighborhood. So he drove around, looking for someplace non-descript to stop. A block away and on the next street over, he found a home for sale. He pulled into the driveway and parked.

  From under the seat, he retrieved his .45. He screwed the suppressor onto the muzzle while staring at the woman’s photograph, burning her features into his mind. Then he slid his hand holding the gun into the pouch pocket in his sweatshirt, got out of the car and flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt. He started jogging slowly in the direction of the target’s house.

  No cars passed him on the light trot over. As he approached the house, he slowed to a walk, pretending to be cooling off from a run. Without pause, he walked up the driveway. He’d spied a gate in the six foot fence that butted up to the house. The walkway branched off, providing a path to the front door and to the gate. Sandy went to the gate.

  Hoping that it wasn’t locked, he pulled the latch. The gate opened easily on oiled hinges. He paused a moment, wondering if there might be a dog in the back yard. Dogs were worse for him than burglar alarms.

  Sandy heard no growling or barking nor any footsteps.

  Good. No dog. Probably still an alarm to deal with, though.

  He stepped into the back yard. The concrete path disappeared, replaced by heart-shaped stepping stones. Each one had a child’s handprints, along with an age and a name.

  Alicia, age five. A clumsy happy face was drawn underneath.

  Tanner, age three. Tiny fingers.

  Alicia, age seven.

  Tanner, age four.

  Alicia, age nine. This one was encrusted with marbles made to look like jewels. Sandy imagined a beautiful child dreaming of fairies, unicorns and being a princess.

  His jaw set as he continued up the path. He diverted his eyes from the stones to the house to his left. A single window above the garage was the only potential threat. The window was dark.

  He looked at the side of the target house. His eyes came to rest on a gray box with wires coming out of it. Even at a distance, he could identify the various uses; the thick black coaxial for the cable television, the thinner gray for the telephone and a round white cable that he guessed powered the security system.

  Sandy withdrew his Leatherman multi-tool and flipped it open to the wire cutter. He let the .45 hang in its pouch, took hold of the telephone wire and snipped it. Then he grabbed onto the white cable and nestled it into the crook of the wire cutters.

  He paused. Some systems were wired with an alternative power source. This allowed the alarm to trigger if the main source of power were disrupted. If he clipped the cable, he ran the risk of setting off the alarm in a neighborhood that he was pretty sure would bring all sorts of witnesses out of the fancy woodwork.

  Still, the alternative power source was an expensive feature. Sandy guessed that whoever owned this place was stretching a little bit to get into the neighborhood. Everyone else had an alarm system, so they’d have to get one, too. But they didn’t necessarily need the Cadillac model.

  Sandy stared down at the white cable. The very fact that it was exposed and not in a secure box only reinforced his theory. This was a bargain level security set-up.

  But if it wasn’t…

  Sandy clenched his jaw.

  Sometimes, he thought, you just have to forge ahead.

  He snipped the cable.

  Nothing happened.

  Quickly, he slipped the Leatherman tool back onto the belt he wore under his sweats. He gripped the handle of the .45 and continued along the stepping stones, not looking down.

  As he reached the corner and looked into the backyard, he was confronted with a wide deck patio with heavy plastic chairs and a round table in the center. He paused, his eyes scanning the neighbors’ homes above the fence line. He was much more exposed here. Now he had three different houses to worry about. Anyone on the second floor looking out a window would be able to see him easily. He would have to act quickly.

  Hopefully, they’re all still asleep, he thought, because I’m committed now.

  Sandy rounded the corner. A large glass sliding door led from the house onto the patio.
On the other side of the slider was a spacious kitchen. A blonde woman stood near the sink, pouring coffee.

  Sandy did a double take. In the reflection of the stainless steel stove backing, he saw familiar features. It was her. Kelly Caper.

  His reaction was automatic. Without thinking, he leveled the .45 at the woman and fired through the slider.

  The first shot clacked as the slide mechanism cycled. The bullet blasted through the glass, leaving a large, fist-sized hole. Thick cracks immediately radiated outward.

  The woman staggered against the counter. The coffee pot fell from her hand and shattered on the floor. Oddly, the cup remained clutched in her left hand. Coffee sloshed out of it and splashed onto the counter.

  Sandy’s second shot went through the weakened glass two inches from the first hole. Behind her, wood splintered away from where the bullet struck the cabinet.

  The cracks in the slider door deepened and lengthened. Huge chunks of glass broke away and crashed to the floor.

  The woman didn’t react to the second shot. She turned toward Sandy, a stunned look on her face.

  Sandy strode purposefully through the large hole in the slider. He kept the gun leveled at her as he shouldered aside a dangling chunk of glass. It crashed to the ground behind him.

  Her confused gaze settled upon his face. Her lips formed a question.

  “Whuh—“she uttered.

  Sandy cut her off with two quick rounds. The first caught her in the left breast, a perfect heart shot. The second one was a head shot, opening a dark hole above her left eye. A spray of blood, bone and brain matter splattered against the light oak cupboards behind her.

  She toppled to the ground.

  Sandy moved around the large center counter, his gun trained on his target. When he got a look at her, he lowered the gun. She lay still, gazing upward, a confused expression frozen on her face. She still clutched the handle of the now broken coffee cup in her left hand.

  Without hesitation, Sandy backed away. He went around the island counter and to the long hallway that he figured led to the front door. He had to get out of the house before any prying eyes came out of any of the neighbors’ houses.

  His mind recited his exit strategy automatically. Out the front door, start jogging in the opposite direction of his car, then cut across to the car as quickly as possible. Drive one direction at the speed limit until he was out of the area.

  He walked down a hallway lined with pictures, pulling his sweatshirt hood forward.

  Simple plan. Not always easy to pull off.

  He stopped suddenly, his peripheral vision catching sight of something. He took a step backward, turned and looked closer, unsure of his own eyes. He pulled the hood back slowly as he stared at large photograph on the wall. His stomach sank.

  “Je – sus,” he whispered.

  She was in the picture. Kelly Caper. She looked easily ten years younger. Flanked by two teenagers.

  “Alicia,” Sandy said, shaking his head. “Tanner.”

  Not dead.

  Not drowned.

  He stared at the photograph. Next to a smiling version of the dead woman in the kitchen and surrounded by two beaming teenage children, George Larson grinned out at him.

  “You son of a bitch,” Sandy growled at the picture. “You set me up.”

  And you fell for it.

  Sandy smashed the butt end of his .45 into the face of Larson’s photo. The shattering glass reminded him of the slider door from moments ago.

  “Motherfucker!” Sandy shouted. Rage bubbled up in his chest and shot out to his arms and legs. He smashed the picture a second time, wishing it was Larson’s face. He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip Larson limb from limb.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to bring his rage under control. He turned and walked back into the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, staring down at the still body of the woman he’d just murdered.

  “Jesus,” he muttered again.

  Her confused stare, an accusation. The first tendrils of black guilt crept into the roiling anger that burned in Sandy’s stomach. He stood above her, wondering if her name was even Kelly. Why she was dead. What had she done that was so terrible that Larson wanted her killed?

  He heard the creak of footsteps on the wood patio a moment before the voice rang out.

  “FBI! Don’t you move!”

  TWENTY

  Sandy fired in the direction of the voice without thinking. By the time his eyes caught up with his own reaction, he saw a chubby man in suit cry out in pain and clutch at his thigh. The man crashed to the ground, howling in pain.

  The woman in a pants suit behind him held her gun pointed to the ground in classic police fashion. She glanced involuntarily down at her partner as he fell, surprise and horror plain on her face. In that moment, Sandy shifted his aim to her.

  “Drop it,” he told her forcefully. “Or I’ll blow a hole in your chest big enough to walk through.”

  She turned back to Sandy. Her eyes widened at the sight of the .45 trained on her. Her hand twitched.

  Sandy leaned forward slightly. “Don’t,” he growled. “You are not fast enough.”

  She paused, then looked back down at her partner. He held his thigh, moaning in pain and rocking back and forth. His gun lay near his feet. His pants were already soaked through with blood.

  “Put the gun down,” Sandy ordered her, “and I’ll let you help him.”

  The woman looked back at him, studying his face as if she were trying to gauge how trustworthy he might be.

  “From the amount of blood I’m seeing, I’m guessing that’s an artery I hit,” Sandy said. “You don’t have much time.”

  “Neither do you,” she replied, her voice shaking slightly but surprisingly strong. “Police are on the way.”

  Sandy shrugged, even though he felt a tinge of panic nibbling at the edge of his composure. “So he dies and I have you as a hostage. Or you drop your gun, he survives and I have two hostages.”

  She studied him a moment longer, then crouched down and put her gun on the kitchen floor.

  “Slide it over,” Sandy ordered her.

  She slid the pistol across the floor toward him. It stopped two feet away.

  “Now his,” Sandy said, gesturing at the identical pistol next to the man’s feet.

  She reached over the wounded man and shoved the gun in Sandy’s direction.

  “His I.D.,” Sandy said.

  “He’s bleeding to death!” she shouted.

  “Then you better hurry,” Sandy said, not raising his voice.

  Angrily, she fished a billfold out of the man’s inside jacket pocket and tossed it toward Sandy. It landed with a slapping sound at his feet.

  “Direct pressure,” he told her. “And hard. Harder than you think.”

  She turned her attention to her wounded partner. She found the wound and pushed down hard, leaning downward. The man cried out in pain again.

  “Oh fuck,” he yelled. “That hurts!”

  Sandy kept his eyes on the pair as he crouched down to pick up the billfold. He flipped it open. An FBI badge and credentials stared out at him.

  “Special Agent Scott McNichol,” he said aloud. He looked up at her. “And you?”

  “Go to hell,” she replied, her voice still wavering. This time, though, Sandy thought it was more due to anger.

  Sandy dropped the billfold to the ground and stood up. He took two steps toward the agents, then stopped and dropped into a catcher’s crouch. “What are you doing here?” he asked them.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped back.

  Here? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She ignored him. “Hang in there, Scott,” she told her partner in hushed tones. “It’s going to be fine. Help is coming. You’re going to be all right.”

  Agent McNichol closed his eyes and groaned.

  Sandy pointed the .45 directly at her. “Listen,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I shoot you, he bleeds ou
t. Is that how you want it?”

  She shot him a murderous glare. “You cold-hearted bastard,” she spat out at him.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Sandy snapped.

  “You’re goddamn right you don’t,” she snapped right back at him. “Cops are on their way. You’re fucked.”

  Sandy rose, took another step toward her and pressed the gun against her forehead. “Maybe we’re all fucked,” he whispered intensely. “Or maybe I get my answers and then I get out of here. Agent McNichol lives. So do you.”

  “Maybe you go to hell,” she said, not looking at him.

  Sandy moved the gun away from her head and fired a round into the floor near her knee. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we all go there together. Your call.”

  She started to shake her head at him, but McNichol interrupted her with a moan. “Jesus, Lori. Just tell him,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m dying.”

  Sandy met her gaze. She sighed and nodded.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “Following you,” she replied.

  “Why?”

  “In case you made a move.”

  “How did you know about this target?”

  “About this target?” She shook her head. “We didn’t. We were following you. When we heard the glass break, we figured out what you were doing.”

  Sandy considered her words. In the distance, he heard the muted yelp and wail of a police siren. Graveyard officers had been rousted from their paperwork and early morning coffee and were on the way.

  “You’re running out of time,” Agent Lori told him without looking up from her bloody hands. She continued to press downward.

  “Odoms,” Sandy said, realizing. “You were onto Odoms.”

  “You’re a fucking genius,” she said.

  Sandy shook his head. “The surveillance outside his house is FBI.”

  She nodded.

  “And Odoms? Inside?”