The Verdict on Each Man Dead

by David Whellams

  The second detonation served as a signal to Devereau’s two outside watchers. Peter tracked a figure carrying an Uzi as he arrived up the driveway, and crossed into the shadows by the door, where he hid. Another, hefting a Glock 17, provided backup, taking up an ambush position in the scruffy hedge less than thirty feet from Peter. Neither shooter saw him. Peter set his priorities. The Uzi presented the bigger threat, though the Glock man was lethal too, perfectly positioned to attack the Mexicans when they emerged from the building or came around the corner. Even without a view of their faces, Peter knew they were poised to attack when the door opened. He couldn’t allow them the initiative.

  He took a step out into the lane and aimed the shotgun at the one with the Uzi, who stepped confidently into the light with his weapon pointed straight at him. Peter fired one round and blew the triggerman backwards into the door, his body obstructing the exit. The crash, Peter hoped, would confuse the thieves inside, and if they panicked, they might run pell-mell out this way. Not hesitating, Peter dropped to the pavement and turned the German gun on the Glock man by the hedge — or where he ought to be in the darkness. The gunman fired first; Peter could tell he was using 9-millimetre ammunition. Peter shot from the ground and the man screamed.

  Devereau and his two companions burst through the door. They stumbled over the dead Uzi shooter but quickly fixed on the position of their wounded man in the hedge, and then Peter, who was in the middle of the lane, madly loading fat shells into the shotgun. Devereau had a .45 in his hand now. He swivelled towards Peter.

  What saved Peter was the white van that turned the corner and began speeding up the driveway. Peter was taken by surprise. He hadn’t imagined that Devereau would carry verisimilitude this far: having a phony vehicle show up on schedule to pick up the load of drugs. That’s how he planned to persuade the guards to open the side door.

  But it became evident the young Latino driver hadn’t been fully briefed. He wore earphones and nodded to his music as he completed the turn, oblivious of the bloodletting around him. His right front tire rumbled over the corpse by the door and came to rest on the Uzi and the dead gunman’s left arm. Everyone but the clueless van driver took cover. Devereau’s team pushed back to the wall. The wounded man with the Glock fell back into the hedge, where he remained a threat to Peter.

  Peter rolled and scrambled to the hedge, some fifty feet from the tangle of gunmen. The van temporarily shielded him from most of the shooters but he realized that he was still in the line of fire of the Glock. He got to his feet and held the shotgun up where the van driver couldn’t fail to see it. For a long thirty seconds the boy froze; when he gained focus on the shotgun, he reflexively crouched down below the dashboard. Peter shifted his aim; he wasn’t about to waste a cartridge on a warning shot. He considered sending a double load Devereau’s way to keep him at bay, but the van effectively blocked his aim. Instead, Peter waited for the driver’s head to reappear and then waved him out of the van. The boy slipped out the door and disappeared back out to the street.

  Peter had choices to make, knowing that he was in trouble unless substantial reinforcements arrived. Where were Henry and the Mexicans? But he remained unruffled: he had a pocketful of shells and would use them the moment any of Devereau’s men showed a body part. He waited, thinking how sloppy the drug dealer’s planning had been. The marijuana store — Peter could smell the grass through the cordite and ammonium nitrate — should have been more securely sealed.

  The empty van offered shelter and a vantage point from which Devereau’s men could cut down Peter where he crouched in the bushes. For a flash, he considered stealing the vehicle and leaving the attackers stranded, but that would take him out of the action. The hell with that! Yet there was no percentage in running back towards the Honda, since the shooters could hardly miss his exposed back. Peter stood and began firing at the wall of the building, cascading shards of cement onto his opponents. The wounded Glock shooter on the other side of the van was less of a factor now, since he would have to squeeze around the driver’s mirror to gain a shot. Peter shifted another step to his left. Each shotgun shell illuminated the three men crouching by the door. One of them let off a wild burst from his MAC, but Peter remained unscathed.

  José had waited for the smoke from the second bomb to clear. He verified that his boss was dead, then paused a minute before edging into the factory room. The roof fans made it hard to sort out who was shooting, but he understood that the invaders were killing everyone they encountered as they progressed to the end door. He, too, was determined to kill everyone he saw from that moment forward.

  In theory, with Peter anchoring the far end of the complex and the fat man on the interior side, the defenders had achieved their squeeze on Devereau. In reality, as Peter grasped, they controlled none of this disputed territory.

  Henry, meanwhile, had retreated from the scene of the second explosion. His bleeding head throbbed; a metal fragment had arrowed into his left bicep, leaving his arm dangling. As he exited the marijuana storefront into the foggy light on the street, he became delirious. A sign, askew on the wall, loomed in front of him: “Support Legal Medical Marijuana.” Looking down, he blearily noted that his left leg was bleeding. But he still had his .45 in his right hand, and he began to limp down the sidewalk towards the far corner of the linked buildings.

  Devereau’s men knew to wait for Peter to exhaust his ammo. He had no choice but to use up his cache of shells, and for three minutes he blew the mortar above the door to pieces, showering the killers with fragments and pinning them by the van. He even tried a billiards ricochet into the narrow gap between the van and the wall, causing one man to fire a MAC-11 volley into the air in exasperation. Peter lost vital seconds when his fingers caught on his pocket as he reached for the last of his shells. Ronald Devereau stepped from the shadows and raised his large handgun. Peter recognized the police artist sketch of the man from 13 Hollis. He was also the figure in Alma’s diner and the visitor at the Dreamland Motel. Devereau hesitated, puzzled by this old man with the incongruous shotgun in his hands, and Peter responded with a last double salvo.

  Devereau’s left ankle appeared to collapse. Peter saw a flash of fire under the white van. One of the Mexican scouts had finally entered the contest, having taken ten minutes to sort out whom he should be shooting. Cleverly, he had judged that the lines of sight for Devereau’s men had a blind spot, the centre of the back panel, and so he pasted himself against the loading door of the van. It was risky to open the rear door, smarter to slip under the vehicle and wait. The first target that presented itself was Devereau’s ankle.

  Henry reached the far corner, and although he couldn’t see Peter, he located Devereau and at once began firing. All three of the raiders fell back into the inadequate shelter of the doorway. Peter counted on González and José emerging from the shipping room. Devereau would be boxed in from three angles, though his man with the Glock 17 remained well sheltered on the driver’s side of the van and persisted as a threat. Peter watched as Devereau and the Glock shooter appeared to achieve a silent consensus through the van windows. Peter was about to fire into the windshield when the Glock man opened the van door, using it as a barrier, and squirmed inside. At the same time, Devereau opened the passenger door and half pushed, half dragged his wounded colleague into the back seat. He also managed to toss the bundle of “drugs” inside. Devereau leaned out and snapped off six shots at Peter. None connected.

  The Glock man turned on the ignition, while his boss ducked into the back of the van. The last member of the gang, crouching in the alley, fired his MAC-11 at Peter, missing. Henry shot him from behind and the body landed on top of the corpse of the first dead assailant. Devereau shifted into the front seat. To Peter, from his vantage point facing the van, Devereau appeared to lock his gaze onto Henry; Henry later confirmed the strange mesmerism of the moment.

  The pair of corpses prevented Devereau from closing the passeng
er door. The wounded driver lurched forward, rising over the double hazard and slamming the driver’s-side door against the wall with an unholy screech. José emerged from the shipping door and levelled his .45 at the side of the getaway vehicle, pumping four bullets into the door.

  José and Henry swivelled to track the racing white van but managed only two more shots each, since they feared hitting Peter. The retreating vehicle was now almost surrounded by Henry at the rear, José on the passenger side, and Peter at its front. It accelerated across the sixty feet to where Peter stood aiming, in a target stance, at the windshield. Although he had a good angle on Devereau, he had no time. He dropped and rolled to one side of the road. The wounded driver, marvelling at the old man’s alacrity, shouted “Fuck you!” and sped up.

  José stood in the doorway and watched the vehicle scream out of the parking lot. Peter, bruised and filthy on the asphalt, signalled to the Mexican bodyguard, who turned to his two men and held up a restraining hand. They lowered their guns.

  Henry was in the worst shape of the group. Blood soaked his thigh and his shoulder drooped, giving the impression that his left side was melting. The leaking furrow over his left eye caused Peter to begin estimating blood loss.

  José ignored Henry’s injuries and turned back into the building to retrieve his dead boss and decide how to carry him off into the night before the real cops arrived.

  CHAPTER 36

  “We’re all tainted by this,” was the first thing Henry said when Peter went to pick him up at the hospital, a full ten days after Denver. Official hell had broken loose.

  Condemnation rained down on every policeman who could be connected to Denver: Pastern, Mohlman, DeKlerk, Chief Grady, Rogers at the DEA, and Peter Cammon. Denver Police, feeling abused by the bloody free-for-all in their capital city, cried the loudest, concentrating their outrage on Grady and the West Valley force. Grady’s own man, Henry Pastern, even though he was only on administrative leave, had no business involving himself in a drug sting outside his jurisdiction. Then there was this mysterious British national: he might be a private citizen, but where was his firearms licence? And on that subject, why did Pastern and Cammon think they could borrow high-powered weapons from a drug dealer? And so it went as the Denver and Colorado State forces struggled to clarify the facts so that they could move indignantly towards a jurisdictional showdown.

  Grady for a time considered protesting that Henry was operating undercover, but no one would have given the claim any credence. Bureaucratic remedies were needed. He was a veteran of cross-state and cross-agency wars, and made quick moves to allow both Denver PD and his own force to save face. Most offensive in this context was Henry’s participation in the raid, and the chief formally suspended him. He called in the Utah State Bureau of Investigation to independently investigate the origins of Henry’s crazy alliance with González, hoping that state police involvement might shift the focus from West Valley’s incompetence to the broader, multi-state challenge of narcotics, a concern on which all states and the federal agencies could find common ground.

  The passage of time, Grady understood, would fog the details of the Denver raid, but one fact could not be ignored: the death of three Colorado students outside the Denver marijuana store. An altar sacrifice was required, and that would have to be Boog DeKlerk. Grady was ruthless. DeKlerk could be drummed out of the force without much fear of union appeal, while Henry, optics considered, presented as a handsome Mormon, picturesquely wounded in anti-drug combat. DeKlerk couldn’t be rehabilitated, and Grady was disinclined to try.

  Before confronting Boog, the chief took the surprising step of consulting Peter. He might have sought out Phil Mohlman, but the Boston detective hadn’t been at Denver. Cammon wasn’t such an odd choice. After four days of bureaucratic dodge ball, Grady needed to bounce his strategy off someone experienced in the internecine jealousies of police forces. At the same time, he could use the Englishman’s vulnerabilities against him if it came to needing another scapegoat for Denver.

  “Three dead civilians, Chief Inspector. One of mine seriously wounded. González dead plus at least one other bogie. And you appear in my office looking unscathed. What the hell?”

  Peter could have displayed his abrasions from the parking lot, but that wouldn’t address Grady’s point, and he waited for the chief to tell him why he had been summoned. Grady’s next shot startled the veteran detective. “I could have you deported for abuse of jurisdiction. I may be forced to do it.”

  That’s clear! thought Peter. (Technically he would not be deported, but he might be declared persona non grata. In that case he would depart on the next flight out of Salt Lake International.) Peter still hoped to be present at Ronald Devereau’s takedown, and so he argued. “I’d make a lousy scapegoat, since no one will understand my presence in Denver. But I am ready to meet with the Colorado police.”

  Grady smirked. “Will you tell them the full truth, Cammon? Because I don’t think you’ve been open with me.” Peter heaved a sigh and was about to mount a defence when Grady held up a hand in a peace gesture. “We’ll get back to that. I want your counsel on something else. Your honest counsel. So, what do you think? How would you handle this in England?”

  “For the police forces involved, the problem is clear enough. You need an institutional response. I presume you’ll invoke Internal Affairs?”

  “It’s inevitable and it’s already started. The IA investigators are Salt Lake City officers, to keep it objective. Their names are Furst and Ordway. But between you and me, Cammon, I’ll try to focus them on DeKlerk rather than Pastern.”

  Peter nodded, understanding that DeKlerk couldn’t be saved.

  Grady proceeded. “Trickier will be the revived investigation of the Watson killings. I never closed the file officially, and I’ve mandated the new team to look into any and all dimensions of the case. I hope to divert them from the Denver raid. There’s no way you or I or Pastern can ever explain what González was trying to accomplish in Denver. But Cammon, I want you to be available for the Colorado inquest. Tell them the whole truth, but don’t even think of implying that West Valley was behind the sting.”

  Peter acquiesced again. The solution to bureaucratic friction was always more bureaucratic manoeuvring. The storyline had to shift to the drug trade and its disruption: the deaths of the three young men illustrated the dangers of the street traffic in marijuana. The demise of González didn’t offset the loss of the students, but it was some comfort, and citizens were grateful when drug dealers killed one another. Grady could only hope that his Colorado counterparts bought into these broader themes.

  “Is Henry Pastern up to all this?” Grady queried.

  “Henry will recover,” Peter stated, as if that were the point. “I saw him yesterday.”

  “Shit, Inspector, Henry may be the key to all of us surviving this storm. He was there with González one-on-one in Wendover and present when González died. He can make us look good. Our poster boy better perform.”

  Clean white bandages swathed Henry’s head, shoulder, and left leg. The doctors continued to worry about infection but ruled that he could be ministered to at home. The two members of the new “Watson Team,” Furst and Ordway, had dropped by the hospital twice. “I don’t feel I had good answers,” Henry reported. Peter knew from contact with Phil Mohlman that the two Bureau agents had largely held back any tough questions while they waited for Henry’s discharge from hospital.

  Peter had already journeyed to Denver in the F-150 and given a long statement to local investigators about his involvement. It had gone as well as could be expected, with a minimum of evasions on his part, and Peter was optimistic the afternoon he arrived to take Henry home to Coppermount Drive.

  Over those ten days, Peter had visited the hospital daily, except for his Denver jaunt, and had grown used to his friend’s depression cycles. Peter remained upbeat. “It’s shaping up well, Henry. The new
team is open to our evidence, and they’re buying your view, and Phil’s, that Devereau survived that basement, and that it was him in Denver.”

  Peter couldn’t help his own buoyancy. Chances were Devereau would be nabbed in a dragnet somewhere in Colorado or Utah.

  Henry waited until halfway to Coppermount Drive before commenting. “The question is: Will Devereau strike again before they get him?” He stared out the window of the truck as if he had never seen this view before.

  “There are things we can contribute to the case review,” Peter said. “He’s following a distinct pattern. They’ll welcome our input.”

  Henry shook his head emphatically, even though his pain flared. “I’ll never be reinstated. God, my shoulder aches …”

  Peter’s tone was harder than he intended. “You wanted to engage the enemy, you’ve done that. Don’t regret the costs. As for being suspended, you were already out of the action.”

  Henry whined, “As long as they don’t have a name or prints, they’ll fail.”

  They were entering a new phase, Peter saw. If they were to finally hunt down Devereau, a degree of cold-heartedness was necessary. They had finally achieved some progress, made eye contact with their prey. González’s death was behind them. There was nothing Peter regretted about the Denver raid, not even González, and Henry’s wounds were badges of honour. “You look like a hero from your Revolutionary War,” he said, trying to lighten Henry’s abject mood.

  Henry wasn’t to be cajoled. “We’re done. Devereau escaped.”

  Tynan was waiting at the front door on Coppermount, as pre-arranged. Peter never quite got used to his strangeness. Today he carried a tool belt and a handsaw. He played it casual. “Doing some work. Thought I’d drop by.”

  Inside, Henry slumped on the sofa and eyed the hot desert beyond the patio doors. Tynan, uncertain, lined up the bottles of prescription pills on the bar.