Not Before Midnight (Sheriff Bud Blair Oregon Mystery Series Book 5)

by Rod Collins

  He stumbled back, fear in his eyes, and said, “Hey, man. Hold on!”

  Grim-faced, Butler said, “Let’s get this right the first time. You can’t have any of my money because I’ll just shoot you in the guts and let you bleed to death. Second, you can’t get on my bus. I’m not going to spend time with a bunch of smelly, scrofulous, thieving bastards.

  “That said, around the back of the store I spotted a pickup with the key in the ignition. I know for a fact the owner isn’t coming back any time soon. And I know it isn’t stolen. So … you behave until the bus comes. Then you can have the pickup.”

  He looked at the woman and said, “You with them?”

  She glanced fearfully at the three men and then took a hesitant step away from the group. Butler nodded. “Good. You can ride my bus. And I’ll give you enough money to get back home.”

  ***

  Three days later, a young Tillamook cop on the graveyard shift followed a pickup driving erratically through a neighborhood lining the main north-south street of the city. When she switched on the emergency lights, the driver of the pickup chose prudence versus flight and pulled over.

  A comparison of the license plate to an FBI bulletin on her dashboard computer prompted the police officer to call for backup. The passenger door popped open, and two men ran across the sidewalk. They jumped a fence into the unlit side yard of a residence, where they were greeted by two noisy, salivating Rottweilers. They jumped back over the fence only to face a scared, but determined, police woman who pointed a black pistol at them and said, “Freeze!” She herded them into the back of her cruiser, charges to be determined.

  The driver of the pickup, for reasons to remain forever unknown, pulled the gearshift into drive and mashed the accelerator just as a second police car pulled in front of him. His reaction was one second too slow, and the pickup plowed into the right rear quarter panel of the cop car.

  The seatbelt the pickup driver was not wearing did not stop his forward progress, and the air bag did not deploy. In a word, he ate the steering wheel. He would later have his broken jaw wired shut at the local ER, before taking a trip to jail. He would then suck unappetizing meals through a straw for most of the next six weeks.

  An internet search by the Tillamook Police Department found outstanding warrants for each of the men. The chief breathed a sigh of relief and personally called the proper jurisdictions to tell them where to pick up the “wanted.” He made sure he didn’t have to feed the men any longer than necessary. As his honor, the mayor, said: “We all need to work within narrow budget parameters.”

  Chapter 58

  Texas Style

  BUD BLAIR STOOD on the aging concrete sidewalk that led from Bullard Street to the front door of the Lake County Courthouse. He wore a black Kevlar vest advertised as capable of stopping large-caliber rounds. A shotgun rode the crook of his left elbow. A medium-sized cardboard box marked “Soft Cuffs” sat on the walk behind him.

  The two-story courthouse occupied most of a city block, except for the lawn on the NW corner bordered by Bullard and F Street. Tall one-hundred-year-old deciduous trees arched over the sidewalk and gave shade to the sun-hungry grass.

  Dell BeBe stood beside him, a shotgun over his right shoulder, his big hand on the stock and his right index finger resting on the trigger guard. The safety was in the off position. The Kevlar vest he wore was a bit tight, but he found comfort in it nonetheless.

  Superintendent Bob Blankenship and his Warner Creek correctional officers stood two-and-two on each side of BB and Bud. They were armored up, and they each carried a .223 caliber AR-15. Bud would have preferred shotguns, but they came equipped with their own weapons. Grateful though he was for the added numbers, he thought they were a little too jacked up. Trained, but never tested, he thought. I want to do this without hearing a single gunshot.

  At the distant sound of motorcycle engines, he turned and spoke his thoughts aloud. “We do this slow, we do this right, and no one gets hurt. You ever hear the old Texas Ranger saying about riots?”

  The correctional officers all shook their heads. Superintendent Blankenship said, “Can’t say I have.”

  “Well,” Bud said, “it goes like this. One riot, one Ranger. That’s all it takes. Makes me feel sorry for the bikers. We have them outnumbered thirteen to fifty.”

  A few chuckles satisfied Bud.

  ***

  Dell Bebe Glanced at his old partner. The setting pulled his memory back to Portland, his mind still seeing Detective Bud Blair punched backwards, as a slug from a .38 smashed into the center of his vest.

  BB fired three quick rounds in response. Much to his regret, those shots ended the life of a fifteen-year-old boy – a street punk who had pistol-whipped the cashier of a small convenience store during a robbery – but it didn’t make BB feel any better. He was relieved, however, to find Bud would live to heal from a broken sternum.

  BB said quietly, “No heroics today. Okay”

  Bud frowned at BB. “Never got over it, did you? You still think I screwed up when I tried to talk that punk in Portland into surrendering.”

  “Got you shot.”

  Bud nodded. “I’ll give you that much.”

  ***

  Chief August (Gus) Hildebrand, his cruiser parked beside the veterinary building on the north side of the street that led highway 140 from the east into town, counted the stream of motorcycles. When the last pair of bikers crossed the railroad tracks, he keyed his mic and said, “Sheriff, this is Gus.”

  “What you got, Gus?”

  “They just crossed rolled past me, headed your way. I count fifty-two motorcycles.”

  “Thanks, Gus. Herd ‘em on in.

  Gus pulled in behind the last pair of bikers and followed the slow parade on into town.

  At the intersection of Highway 395 and 140, he spotted a brown state police cruiser, one of the newer Dodge Chargers. Gus waved and looked in his review mirror as the state trooper fell in behind him. He keyed his mic again. “Sheriff, a state trooper just joined the party. He’s following me in. You ready?”

  Bud glanced back at the courthouse and watched Deputy Roger Hildebrand settle his .308 rifle stock on a sandbag hugging the top of the eighteen-inch block parapet surrounding the roof of the building. Roger gave Bud a thumbs-up.

  Bud waved back and keyed his mic to respond to Gus. “We’re about to find out.”

  He looked across the street at the two-story brick building that housed the Elks Club and some upstairs apartments. He looked at Blankenship and said, “There’s a hole in the net. I need your men to cover the doorways across the street. Deny access to the building.”

  “Understood, but that just leaves the two of you to face these guys.”

  Bud grinned and said, “One Ranger, one riot. Me and BB might just equal one Ranger.”

  BB laughed so loudly the officers setting up to block the streets looked at each other with unspoken questions. Beatrice looked at Lonnie Beltram who just frowned and shrugged. “Pre-action jitters?” she suggested.

  But it wasn’t that.

  In their law enforcement careers, they both felt frustrated at times by the constraints placed on police officers. Necessary though they were, there were times when both men felt helpless to stop the tide of criminal arrogance sweeping the Northwest. This was a chance to push back, and they were both eager to get on with it.

  The correctional officers from Warner Creek were nearly across the street when the head of the snaking column of bikers turned off F street and onto Bullard. The sight of two armed officers didn’t intimidate any of them. The one BB privately identified as Beer Belly drove onto the sidewalk and up to where Bud and BB stood.

  Two other bikers followed and parked on either side of the two police officers.

  BB surveyed the sea of leather vests, beards, and biker rags, then said to Bud, “Convenient, don’t you think?

  “Works for me,” Bud answered as the rest of the bikers filled the street sidewalk- to-sid
ewalk. A half-dozen drove up on the lawn, and one cut a raucous three-hundred-sixty-degree cookie in the lawn, throwing sod in a forty-foot arc.

  A wary biker in the rear of the group eye-balled the blocked intersections, the county pickups, the city police cars, and the state police cruiser – then decided he didn’t like the looks of things.

  He jumped his bike up on the sidewalk and pulled a wheelie, intent on squeezing by the blockade. Beatrice Tusk waited until he was almost to her county pickup before opening the passenger door … directly into the biker’s path. She winced at the sound of the impact, and Beltram laughed. “That’ll come out of your paycheck.”

  Beatrice hopped down, hand on her pistol, and stepped over the heavy motorcycle. The moaning biker was sitting on his butt and holding both hands over his nose. There was too much blood to see how badly he was hurt. She pulled her cell phone from a shirt pocket and called for an ambulance.

  The leader gave Bud a look of pure hatred. “We’ve come for our friends. Let ‘em loose, and we won’t bust up your town.”

  Bud shook his head and glanced at BB. “He doesn’t get it, does he?”

  “Nope. Want me to explain it?”

  Bud nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, how to put this. You … are under arrest.”

  “For what?”

  “Well, for a number of things. First, you aren’t wearing a helmet. Second, you violated the city’s noise ordinance. Third, you threatened two police officers … and a whole town. Fourth, you are in trespass. Fifth,” and BB glanced at the rifle in Beer Belly’s saddle scabbard, “you are most likely a felon in possession of a firearm. We’ll work on the rest.”

  The biker sneered. “Ain’t enough of you.”

  Bud looked at the roof of the courthouse and keyed his mic and said, “Roger. Wave at this asshole.”

  The biker followed Bud’s stare and saw Roger get to his knees and wave. “You see, idiot, if you try to hurt any of us, Roger will punch a hole in your head with about 180 grains of lead. No matter what happens, if it goes bad, you die.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  BB dropped the shotgun down from his shoulder. The forestock slapped his left hand, and he said, “The sheriff might be, but I’m not.” Anger in his voice, he shouted so all of the bikers could hear him. “I don’t like being shot at. I don’t like it when one of your kind shoots an FBI agent who happens to be one of my friends. And I don’t like it when you threaten to hoorah a whole town.”

  The biker on his right said something he couldn’t understand, so BB put his foot against the bike and kicked it over. When the biker stood back up, he stuck a hand inside his vest. BB took that as a threat and smacked him alongside the jaw with the butt of the shotgun, rendering him hors de combat. A small pistol skittered across the sidewalk. BB walked over and picked it up.

  Bud shouted, his anger clear to anyone within hearing. “Now, then. You are all under arrest. You will put any weapons, be they knives, guns, or clubs on the ground. You will line up on the sidewalk in single file, or I will shoot as many of you as I can, starting with this guy right here.”

  Something in Bud’s eyes convinced Beer Belly. He had no doubt Bud meant every word. Reluctantly, he said, “Okay, boys. Do as the man said. I’ll have our lawyer here before the day’s out.”

  Bud fished a pair of handcuffs from his equipment belt and said, “Get off that bike and turn around.”

  Several of the bikers were heard to say foolish things like, “I’ll be damned if I will.” But the arrival of about a dozen 4x4 pickups packed with armed civilians put a stop to that foolish bravado.

  One by one, the bikers lined up on the sidewalk along Bullard, guarded by Gus and his two officers, the Oregon State Trooper, and the four officers from Warner creek. They grumbled and cussed while Sonny searched them for weapons. As each was cleared, Beatrice, Larae, and Lonnie used soft ties to secure each man’s hands behind his back and add him to the row sitting single file along the sidewalk.

  Roger remained on the roof, a grim reminder that one alternative to capture and arrest was a high-speed bullet. Not one biker wanted to be first.

  A red rescue vehicle with flashing emergency lights, a siren, and a Lake County Disaster Unit logo, pulled up to the intersection of Bullard and F. Two EMTs popped the doors open, retrieved two heavy bags from the rear of the vehicle, and hurried to the biker propped up against a light pole, holding a cotton pad against his nose.

  He glared at Deputy Tusk and said, “I’ll get you for this.”

  Beatrice shook her head. “You want help or not?”

  Sonny walked over and said, “We have another injury. Can you take two?”

  A photo taken by Carol Connor, editor of the Lake County News, would hit the airways within the hour and become national news. By noon, all Lakeview motel rooms would be booked for incoming reporters.

  Another media circus, Bud thought when rumors of the incoming tide of reporters reached his desk.

  And by noon, Deputy Roger Hildebrand would answer a phone call from Buffalo Boggs, innkeeper and owner of the Paisley Saloon. Buffalo just wanted Roger to know the Z-BAR foreman had decided to withdraw from the race.

  Roger asked, “Are you sure?”

  Buffalo laughed and said, “I called a friend of mine who has a bar in Missoula where the new owner of the Z-BAR is from. My friend told me some interesting things about our new owner and his foreman. I sort of let it slip that I had talked to this friend in Missoula. I reckon that gave them pause. I never said I would leak it, but they chose prudence over bravado.” Buffalo laughed and hung up before Roger could thank him.

  Roger grinned. “Bud,” he said quietly to himself, “you have more friends in this county than you know about.”

  Several times over the years, Roger had thought about doing a little background check on Buffalo, just to find out if Buffalo Boggs was his real name. His old Forest Service friend, Special Agent Tom Johnson, laughed when Roger told him about his hunch. In typical Tom Johnson fashion, he suggested it might be better to “Let sleeping Boggs lie.”

  Chapter 59

  Bull Run

  AL-ALWANI AWOKE in a sterile recovery room, his right hand in a cast and his left foot elevated by a pulley system to support the mid-calf cast on that member of his body. He raised his head and found a large, stern-looking man sitting in a plastic chair. “FBI?” Al-Alwani croaked.

  The man’s grim smile seemed to crack the flat planes of his face. “You had better hope so.”

  “Where am I?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Why not? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “No, you’re not.” The man rose from his chair, walked over and hit the call button. He gave Al-Alwani a dismissive shake of his head and walked back to his chair. Al-Alwani could swear the chair groaned when the big man sat down.

  The watcher ignored Al-Alwani and turned back to his Men’s Health magazine. It was clear from the way his shoulders packed his suit jacket he had more than an idle interest in men’s health.

  “I’m thirsty,” Al-Alwani said.

  “Tell it to your nurse.”

  ***

  Dutch Vanderlin looked up from the head of the long conference table, a cell phone to his ear, as Brandt and Wilcox entered the room. Other than Dutch, the room was empty.