Deadout

by Jon McGoran

  For an instant, he just stood there, his masked face looking somehow confused as he watched his colleague crash through the window next to the front door and onto the front lawn. I kept my eyes on the guy with the gun, and when he turned to me, I said, “Drop it.”

  He didn’t.

  Instead he swung it in my direction, a move that cost him a few ounces of shoulder as I squeezed off a shot.

  Blood sprayed the doorframe behind him, and he returned a few rounds as he stumbled backward into the kitchen. A blossom of fluff appeared from the back of the sofa.

  Outside, a car started up and sped away. I assumed it was the first guy tagging out and leaving the new guy to get home on his own. I dove behind the now-perforated sofa, for visual cover if nothing else. When I peeked over it, I saw the guy in the kitchen standing by the back door, his rifle hanging down as he looked at his bloody shoulder.

  Sometimes the cop voice can be enough to shake someone into compliance. I didn’t think it was going to work with this guy, but figured the hole in his shoulder might help. The alternatives were staying in hiding or picking him off. I jumped to my feet, the gun two-handed in front of me.

  “Freeze!” I thundered, loud and deep.

  He squeezed off a few rounds, simply out of shock. I fired twice, and as I dropped back down behind the sofa, I heard the sliding door shatter and dissolve, followed by the sound of feet crunching on broken glass.

  Once again, I flipped myself over the sofa. Sprinting after him, I remembered too late that the floor was covered with shards of glass and my feet weren’t covered at all. Luckily the same momentum that made it impossible to stop was enough to carry me over it. I landed on the deck outside and almost bumped into a couple of bullets traveling in the opposite direction, zipping past my ears. I saw a muzzle flash in the darkness, and I realized I was silhouetted against the light from the doorway. Stepping to the side, I aimed at the spot where I’d last seen the muzzle, but I didn’t know what was through those woods and I couldn’t risk collateral damage. I considered going after him, but I didn’t want to leave Annalisa alone and I doubted I’d find him anyway.

  As the sound of him tromping through the brush faded away, I heard a weird, strangled cry. A moment later my eyes watered and I gagged, but I smiled.

  He’d been skunked.

  55

  Annalisa was a bit of a mess, which was just as well, because if she wasn’t, I would have been. As it was, I had to tell her everything was okay.

  “They know,” she said. “They must. Why else would they send men after me? What am I going to do?”

  “They could have been coming for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve made some friends here over the last week.” I did a quick mental count of who I’d pissed off over the course of the week, and it occurred to me that maybe I needed to work on my people skills. “It’s entirely possible that they came after me, and as far as they’re concerned your only infraction is a questionable taste in friends.”

  She looked doubtful but she let out a brief snorting laugh. That was a good sign. Then she turned to look at the papers laid out on the dinner table. “Did they see that?”

  The first guy hadn’t, I was pretty sure of that. The lights had been out; then he’d been busy trying to kill me. The other guy, I couldn’t be sure. There was a moment, when he was standing in the entry to the kitchen, that he could have seen them. “I don’t think so.”

  She let out a small sigh. “So what are we going to do?”

  “Tomorrow morning at six we bring the ID back to the gym. Then you call out sick to work and we figure out someplace safe to go.”

  She stared at me for a moment. Then she nodded. “We should call the police, right?”

  “I’ll call Jimmy.”

  He answered on the third ring. “It’s two-thirty in the goddamned morning.”

  “It’s Doyle.”

  “I know who it is. It’s two-thirty in the goddamned morning. You know the kind of day I’ve had? How little sleep I’m on?”

  “Two masked gunmen just broke into Annalisa’s house.”

  “Jesus, is she okay?”

  “We’re okay. The assailants are a little banged up.”

  “You want me to call it in for you?”

  As he said it, I heard a car pull up out outside. Through the missing front window, I saw two uniforms getting out of a cruiser. “Never mind. They’re here already. Get some sleep and I’ll call you later.”

  Annalisa was looking out the window. “The neighbors must have called it in,” I said. “We need to get those papers out of sight.”

  She started picking them up, carefully arranging them in order, then sliding them into her shoulder bag at the same moment the knock came at the door. I slid my Glock into it’s ankle holster.

  “I’ll handle this,” I said, although I hadn’t decided how. “Just tell them you were upstairs for the whole thing.” Then I opened the door.

  The two cops were young and big, and they looked very tired. “Thanks for coming out, guys,” I said. “Come on in.”

  “We got reports of gunshots,” said the bigger of the two, “some kind of disturbance.” His eyes swept the place, lingering on the blood on the kitchen door jamb.

  I held up my badge. “I’m with Philly P.D. Yeah, we had a couple of armed intruders.”

  They nodded at the mess, but raised their eyebrows because that’s probably not the usual call on the island.

  “I see,” said the one that talked, taking out a pad.

  He took our names, then asked for the story. I told it to him, mostly. We had no idea who they were, I told him, but I knew there were a lot of security types on the island. Maybe they were drunk or high, I said, or maybe they came to the wrong house. “They got away, but one of them left a couple of ounces of shoulder behind, and the other one might have a permanent squint.”

  “So, the first guy had a gun and a knife, and you got them both away from him?” he asked when I was done. They both looked dubious.

  “I guess so, yeah. I took the gun, the knife got stuck in the banister, then we grappled hand to hand. I poked him in the eye and he left.”

  “And that’s when the other guy showed up with an assault rifle?”

  “Right. By then I had the first guy’s gun, and I shot him.”

  “And then he ran away?”

  I nodded. “Through the woods. And I’m pretty sure he got skunked.”

  They interviewed Annalisa, but she just said she woke up to the gunshots, by the time she came to the stairs it was over.

  “And you were on the sofa?” he asked me.

  I nodded.

  “So you two are…?”

  “Friends,” Annalisa said.

  I told the story a few more times, the sky a little bit lighter each time. They bagged the intruder’s gun, and I was glad I hadn’t used the Glock, because they would have bagged that, too. When they were done with the interview, they told us not to leave the island without notifying them, then said they were going to have to declare the place a crime scene. Did we have a place to stay?

  I said yes, drawing a questioning look from Annalisa.

  It was almost six.

  56

  “Where are we staying?” Annalisa asked as soon as we got into the car.

  “I don’t know, but I didn’t want them to find us a place, because then they’d know where we were. We should probably get you off island.” I figured they would probably have the ferries watched. Maybe I could hire a boat.

  She shook her head. “They know who I am,” she said. “If I don’t stay here and figure out what’s going on, they’ll stay after me.”

  I couldn’t argue. “Let’s just get rid of this ID, then we’ll figure it out.”

  The truth was, I needed to think. I thought about protective custody, but I didn’t know if I trusted it. Jimmy had talked a lot about pressure from high up. And I suspected that pressure might have something to do with wh
y Teddy was still in jail.

  As we drove in silence, the deserted streets and early morning fog magnified the surrealism of the situation. It intensified further when we saw flashing red lights slicing through the mist up ahead.

  Annalisa squinted, trying to see what was going on. “I know another route,” she said, glancing down at her watch, nervous. “You can make this right and go around it.”

  “Hold on,” I said quietly, slowing down but still driving forward.

  “The street looks closed…” she said, her voice trailing off.

  As we got closer to the lights, the fog thinned. The street was not closed, but it was partially blocked by a pair of fire trucks, an ambulance, and two police cars, one from Tisbury and one from Edgartown. As I coasted toward them, I saw a cop waving us around. Jimmy Frank, looking the way I felt.

  I lowered the passenger’s side window, but as we slowed to a stop, Annalisa let out sharp gasp.

  Jimmy came over to the car. “So much for sleep,” he said to me, then turned to Annalisa. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

  But she was looking over his shoulder, at Julie Patchouli’s house, half of it turned to a blackened, smoking ruin. The front tires of her SUV were melted. Black water was running down the driveway, looking like death as it curled into the gutter and down the road in search of a storm drain.

  Annalisa turned to look at me, her eyes wide and her lips trembling. Then she looked back out the window.

  Jimmy looked at Annalisa’s face as she stared out the window. Then he looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “House fire. Accident by the looks of it, but it’s early. Girl was killed.” He paused to study Annalisa’s face. “You know anything about it?”

  “I knew her,” Annalisa said softly.

  “They worked together,” I said, my face underlining my words.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her again, gently.

  She nodded and he put his hand on her shoulder.

  “We need a place to stay,” I said.

  He nodded. “My place is tiny, but…”

  “I’d like to get Nola somewhere safe, too. Until things settle down. What about one of your caretaker places?” I’d already had the “How about you leave this crazy island” conversation with Nola in my head. It hadn’t ended well.

  He thought for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah, I have a place.” He looked at me, adding, “And these folks are totally organic or whatever, with the chemical thing. Should be fine. Meet me back here in an hour.”

  57

  Nola hadn’t answered her phone. Not unusual when she was working, but it still made my foot a little heavier on the accelerator. I expected early morning to be bustling on the farm, but the place was deserted. As I parked in front of Nola’s cabin, pockets of mist hung in the air around us. I got out of the car and stepped onto the tiny porch, my concerns coalescing into a knot in the pit of my stomach. Annalisa hung back. She looked down at my hand, then up at my face. I realized I was holding the Glock.

  I was just about to knock on the door when I heard the slap of the screen door on the big house and the unsettling sound of a shotgun being racked.

  I turned and saw Nola at the top of the steps. “Doyle?” she said, lowering the gun, but only a little.

  I’ve never been one of those guys who gets off on the whole “guns and girls” thing. I’m not actually all that big on the whole “guns” thing, although I’ve learned to appreciate them in the right situation. But seeing Nola standing up there on the porch, her hip cocked and holding that shotgun, it was just hot. Even still, I would have felt better about it if she’d lowered the gun all the way. And if she hadn’t just come out of Teddy’s house.

  “Hi, Nola.”

  She raised an eyebrow and looked over at Annalisa, then back at me. There was a hardness to her face that I’d never seen before. I’d seen plenty of tough, but never hard. I felt a wave of sadness about it, and a rush of guilt, knowing I had something to do with it.

  She looked me in the eye for a moment. Then she turned and said, “Come on in.”

  * * *

  As soon as we got inside, her demeanor softened, almost liquefied. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned the shotgun next to the back door, delicately, like she was afraid it was going to bite her. The kitchen was black-and-white tile, white enameled fixtures, and white painted cabinets.

  I looked at Annalisa and gave her a smile. I think she tried to smile back, but she missed it by a wide margin.

  I cleared my throat. Things were in a precarious state and I didn’t want to make them any worse, but I had a question. “So, have you been staying in here?” I tried to say it nonchalantly. I might not have nailed it.

  “Yes, that’s right, Doyle,” she snapped. “I’m just waiting for my man to get out of jail.” She laughed, bitterly, then shook her head. “Teddy. That weasel gets to make one call from jail and he calls me, tells me I have to maintain the farm, take care of the chickens. As far as I know, he’s still in jail and I’m stuck here, barely able to fend off the rabbits, and suddenly it’s like I’m in a war zone. There’s carloads of goddamned mercenaries driving around, and people coming in from off island to join the protesters.”

  She buried her face in her hands, and I couldn’t tell if she was crying. I put my hand on her knee, wondering if she was going to slap it, or push it off. When she didn’t, I moved closer and put an arm around her shoulder, and she slumped against me.

  “You’re not the only ones I’ve had to point that thing at,” she said, her voice muffled against my shoulder.

  “Did someone come for you?” I asked.

  She pulled back and shook her head. “They were just drunk and lost. But I was scared.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder again, but before I could put my arm around her, she jerked away from me.

  “Wait,” she said. “Did someone come after you?”

  Annalisa and I shared a look, then I looked back at Nola and nodded.

  I told her about Annalisa’s concerns about the bees, about what happened at Annalisa’s and then about Julie Patchouli. Her eyes were pinned to me the whole time, except for a flickering glance at Annalisa when I mentioned that I’d been sleeping on the sofa.

  When I was done, I told her I wanted to get her off the island. I figured it was worth a shot, but she cut me off, shaking her head. “I took a job, I have responsibilities. I have animals I need to take care of.”

  “Where are Gwen and Elaine?” I asked.

  “They left right after Teddy got arrested. Elaine said she wasn’t going to work for him for free. When things started getting crazy, Gwen left, too. She said I was nuts to stay. She was probably right.”

  I opened my mouth to agree, but she cut me off. “I’m not them.”

  “Jimmy has a place we can stay,” I told her. “I think it would be safer.”

  “What kind of place?”

  I knew what she meant. “A house. Jimmy says they’re very … organic or whatever. He says they’re hard-core.” I didn’t ever want to disregard her concerns about chemical sensitivity, my suspicions regarding her current status notwithstanding, but even still, I was struggling not to remind her that we all suffered from bullet sensitivity syndrome.

  She bit her lip. “I don’t care about the crops, so much, but I need to feed and water the chickens.”

  “They’ll be fine.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Then we can come back.”

  It took fifteen minutes to pack up all of Nola’s stuff. She gave the chickens some extra food and water, and we were ready to go.

  Nola grabbed the shotgun as we slipped out the back door. As we approached the Jeep, she looked at Annalisa and called, “Shotgun.”

  58

  As we drove, Annalisa’s phone buzzed, and a moment later I heard a gasp from the backseat.

  “What is it?” I asked, looking at Annalisa in the rearview.

 
; “I just got a company e-mail from Stoma, ‘Stoma Corporation would like to welcome Thompson Company as the newest member of the Stoma Corporate family.’ It also says all Stoma operations on the island are being consolidated at the Katama site.”

  “They bought them?” I was shocked.

  Nola looked at me. “When I tried to call Teddy’s dad, the number he gave me forwarded to Stoma Corporation.”

  Annalisa leaned forward. “You mean his personal number?”

  “It was supposed to be.”

  Suddenly, Teddy still being in jail made sense. “Renfrew is rich, but Jimmy told me he’d heard everything was in the company’s name, trying to game the system, avoid taxes and stuff. If he’s lost the company, it’s entirely possible that he’s lost his phone, and a lot more than that.”

  * * *

  Jimmy was standing by his cruiser and when he saw us, he nodded and got in, then drove off. As I fell in behind him, Nola and Annalisa quietly looked out the window at the burnt remains of Julie’s house.

  He led us along a winding road up the side of a hill in the thick woods. Ten minutes later we were following him up a driveway to a sleek but modest A-frame looking out over a steep slope.

  “You know where you are?” Jimmy asked.

  The road had been windy but the route was simple. I nodded.

  He took a key out from under a plant pot and opened the door. The house consisted of a spacious common area with a living and dining area under a vaulted ceiling, and two bedrooms and a bathroom on either side.

  Jimmy told us the lay of the place, then stood with his hands on his hips. “I need to get back,” he said. “I’ll check in later. But you’ll be fine. No one will find you here.”

  He reached out and gave Annalisa’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  As he stepped toward the door, he caught my eye. “Can I have a word with you, Doyle?”