Shoot the Dog

by Brad Smith

“Yup.”

  “I declare.”

  “Where have you been?” Virgil demanded. “I’ve been trying to get you for two days.”

  “I left my phone in my car.”

  “I know that now.”

  “I’m up north, Watertown area,” Claire said. “You worried about me, Virgil Cain? So worried you went off and bought yourself a cell phone?”

  “I didn’t buy a cell phone. I have some information for you. What are you doing up there?”

  “We’ll get back to the part about you being worried about me later,” Claire said. “I’m following Ronnie Red Hawk, that’s what I’m doing. But a little while ago I got a call on the radio from Marina at the station, and she gives me a cell phone number she dug out of the trash, and tells me that the number belongs to you. And that it’s urgent that you talk to me. So now I’m convinced that I have arrived in an alternate universe. What’s going on?”

  “You’re on the wrong trail,” Virgil told her, and he gave her a quick recounting of what he’d learned the past couple of days.

  “Sixteen times,” Claire repeated when he’d finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “I would have to call that suspicious.”

  “I thought you might. What do we do now?”

  “The first thing we do is get rid of that particular pronoun,” Claire replied. “There is no ‘we’ in this. You done good, Virgil. Now step back and leave the rest to the professionals.”

  “I just heard the professionals are on a wild-goose chase somewhere up around the St. Lawrence River,” Virgil reminded her.

  “I’m heading home as soon as I get off the phone. Where are you anyway?”

  “On the movie set.”

  “You’re working, then?”

  “Not really,” Virgil said. “Just hanging around.”

  She paused. He could imagine her coming to her own conclusions as to why he was there. “Goddamn it, Virgil. Stay out of it. When I get back, I’ll get a warrant and find out who the number belongs to. And take it from there. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, Virgil.”

  “Okay.”

  “I really don’t like the way you say ‘okay.’ I know you.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” Virgil said. “See you when you get back.”

  He closed the phone. Leaning back in his chair, he looked again toward the trailers before glancing down at the number he’d gotten from Buddy. He opened the phone again and closed it. He put the paper back in his pocket.

  People continued to mill about, readying for the big Indian attack. Virgil watched for a few minutes, then pulled the paper from his pocket again and punched in the number of the person who had called Olivia Burns sixteen times. The phone rang and at that moment Tommy Alamosa walked around the corner of one of the trailers.

  He had his cell phone to his ear.

  Virgil closed the phone at once. “Sonofabitch,” he said out loud. He’d been worried all along that it might be Tommy, but he’d been hoping it wasn’t.

  He kept watching, though, and to his surprise Tommy didn’t lower his phone. In fact, he kept walking and appeared to be talking into it. He must have gotten a call—or made a call—at the same time Virgil had dialed the number.

  So Virgil dialed it again.

  And this time Levi Brown came out of one of the trailers, phone in hand, looking somewhat perturbed, like a guy who’d received two calls in quick succession with nobody on the other end. Virgil hung up again and saw Levi shouting into his phone, holding the screen up in front of him, looking at the display, no doubt wondering who the hell Buddy Townes was.

  Virgil sat in the chair, tapping the phone lightly against his chin. So that was it. When Levi turned to go back inside, Virgil called again and watched as Levi jerked the phone to his ear.

  “Who the fuck is this?” he demanded.

  “It’s the hired hand, Levi.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Virgil.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Come on, Levi. Aren’t you just a little curious as to how I got your phone number?”

  “No,” Levi said. But Virgil saw him looking around now, as if he sensed that Virgil was near. “Everybody on set has it.”

  “I’m over at the cabin.” Virgil waited for Levi to glance over and then he waved to him, as if he were riding a float in a parade. “And I didn’t get your number from anyone on the set, Levi. I got it off Olivia Burns’s cell phone.”

  Virgil could hear the man’s breathing grow quicker.

  “I believe I’ve rendered you speechless, Levi.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Then I’ll help you out,” Virgil said. “I came across Olivia’s phone down by Rondout Creek. You called her sixteen times the night she died. Now, I realize, Levi, that you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, and so you might have called her by accident once. You know, the wrong number. Maybe even twice. But even a dipshit like you wouldn’t call the wrong number sixteen times. Would you, Levi?”

  “Go to hell,” Levi said, and he hung up. Glaring over in Virgil’s direction, he turned and went back into the trailer.

  Virgil placed Buddy’s cell phone on the railing and leaned back. There you go, Claire. No need for your warrants and all that paperwork. Levi Brown was the man. What was behind it wasn’t something Virgil could even speculate on. But Levi appeared to be a man who was easily offended, and he obviously had a temper. With his golden locks and weight-room muscles, he was also someone in desperate search of an image. Of course, that didn’t make him a killer and Virgil had no idea what did.

  Claire would find out, though. It was the type of thing she was good at. Virgil was lucky she was; otherwise he might have gone down on the murder charge a few years back. Claire had been the only one willing to entertain the notion that he might be innocent.

  Virgil knew he should contact her and tell her what he knew. He considered calling the station and asking for the woman—was Marina the name?—that Claire had mentioned. He picked up the phone, wondering how to do that. He could call 911, he guessed, but he wasn’t sure if that would put him in touch with the state police or the local authorities. He could always drive back to the station, but that might mean another encounter with Joe Brady. He sat looking at Buddy’s phone, trying to decide and thinking how unlikely it was that he was the one with a cell phone while Claire was roaming the state without.

  He glanced over to see that Levi had emerged from the trailer again. He walked behind the units and stood there, looking across the open field at Virgil. Staring at him. As Virgil watched, Georgia came out of her trailer and moved toward Levi, her body language hesitant, suggesting she’d been summoned. Levi leaned over the little girl, telling her something, then they both walked toward Levi’s car, parked a few yards away. Georgia got in the passenger’s side and Levi moved around to the driver’s door. He stopped there and looked defiantly back at Virgil again.

  He got into the car and drove off.

  Virgil, his heart in his throat, was on his feet and off the porch. But the Audi had already reached the road out front, turning left there to head west up into the hills. Virgil, cursing, sprinted for his pickup, jerking open the door and climbing inside. As he put the truck in gear, though, he flashed back to the day in the clearing, when Levi had pulled the handgun and shot up the forest.

  Virgil looked desperately around and his eyes settled immediately on the muskets, leaning in a row against the barn door. He got out and ran over, grabbed the first one in line, then stuffed some lead balls and percussion caps in his shirt pocket. Picking up a powder flask, he headed back to the truck, and as he ran he could hear Will, the weapons man, yelling at him.

  He hit the road out front and turned left, wondering how much of a lead they had on him. Up ahead there was nothing but forest, with any number of narrow roadways and lanes leading off into the brush, to hunting camps or trout streams or picnic areas.

  Virgi
l floored the old Ford and kept to the main road, which curved and dipped through the forested hills, making it impossible to spot a vehicle up ahead. Virgil had no choice but to hope that Levi kept to the highway. He wondered what the sonofabitch had told Georgia to get her into his car. Maybe he’d invented a family emergency, or told her she was needed at another location. Whatever it was, it was Virgil’s fault. Claire had told him to keep out of it.

  He had no idea if he was even on the trail of the Audi; Levi could have turned off miles back. After a while, though, he began to notice cardboard signs posted at every intersection, signs with the production company’s logo and arrows pointing west beneath the words FORT HOWARD. Virgil knew they were scheduled to begin filming at the old fort the following week. Is that where Levi was headed? Maybe that’s what he’d told Georgia, that she was needed on set at the old fort.

  Virgil’s mind went back to the look Levi had given him before taking the little girl, as if daring him. It suddenly occurred to him that Levi wasn’t trying to get away from Virgil after all. Maybe he wanted him to follow.

  But he had no idea what it meant if he did.

  Cresting a hill, he came upon a straight stretch of road that ran down into a broad valley and up again on the far side. And there in the distance was the Audi, climbing out of the shadow of the hollow and starting up the incline. Levi wasn’t driving particularly fast, not for a man on the run.

  If Virgil’s memory was correct, Fort Howard was ten miles or so past the top of the rise. As he descended into the valley, he found himself a little calmer, knowing he hadn’t lost them. It was apparent now that Levi very much wanted Virgil to catch them. It seemed as if he was spoiling for a showdown.

  Just like in the movies.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Virgil turned off the gravel lane and drove the truck into the overgrown brush. He guessed he was a quarter mile or so from old Fort Howard, and he had no intention of driving up to the building, with Levi ready and waiting, presumably armed. Virgil didn’t know for certain that Levi had taken the turn for the fort. But it seemed to be the play.

  He parked and got out, the heavy musket in his hand. Walking around to the rear of the truck, he opened the tailgate and sat there while he loaded the antique weapon. He wasn’t sure how much powder Will had used, so he did it by guesswork, reasoning that a little too much was better than a lot too little. He took a lead ball from his shirt pocket and drove it into the barrel with the ramrod, then slipped one of the little percussion caps on the nipple beneath the hammer.

  When he was finished, he regarded the weapon unhappily. He was woefully under-armed; Levi was carrying a semiautomatic handgun that probably held a dozen rounds or more.

  There was nothing to do about that. He’d brought this on himself—and on Georgia—and there was no point in dwelling on what he had, or wished he had. Being outgunned by Levi Brown made no difference at this point. There were no decisions to be made. Virgil had put the little girl in danger and now he needed to get her out.

  With the musket in his right hand, he slipped the powder flask into his hip pocket and started through the brush. The forest was mostly hardwood, second growth he would guess, smaller trees that were a foot or less in diameter. They were spaced fairly well apart and walking was easy. Above him sparrows and finches flitted from tree to tree, keeping ahead of him like riders on the point. When he was close enough to see the walls of the fort in the near distance, he moved through a stand of blue spruce, the smell of the evergreens strong and sharp to his nose. Through the heavy branches he saw the black Audi parked in the gravel lot by the fort’s entrance. Plain sight. Levi was making no effort to hide its presence, or his own.

  Virgil stopped by the edge of the clearing. The huge front gates of the fort were swung wide open and Virgil assumed that some of the crew had been there, getting things ready for filming. There were no other vehicles in sight now, though. The open gates were like an invitation that he had no intention of accepting. He walked around the edge of the clearing to the rear of the wooden garrison, toward the door that he and Tommy had used earlier. He stood there in the trees for a time, listening. There was no sound from inside the fort. As he waited he heard a distant thunderclap and looked up to see dark clouds moving in from the west. Finally, it was about to rain. Ordinarily that realization would have made Virgil happy.

  But right this minute he had other things on his mind.

  He moved quietly to the wooden door and pushed it open halfway, enough for a look inside. There was no one in his line of vision. He stepped through the opening, his eyes going at once to the ramparts up above. Still there was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. The place was eerily quiet, like the ghost town that it was. Staying close to the outer wall, he walked toward the buildings to his right—the remnants of the general store, the old courthouse, the jail. Glancing in the dirty windows, he saw nothing but cobwebs and dust. As Virgil moved cautiously forward, something caught his eye in one of the windows of the stable, some faint movement. Crouching down, he trotted to the wall, then straightened for a look inside. Georgia was there, standing unsteadily on an ancient two-wheeled cart.

  She had a rope around her neck.

  Virgil recoiled, flattening himself against the rough plank wall. Urging his mind to work, he recalled a back door to the stable, where the horses would have been led in and out in bygone days. He quickly moved around the building. The door was closed, secured by a rusty iron latch. He reached forward cautiously and tried the latch. It was locked. The image of the little girl with the rope around her neck was imprinted on his brain. Cocking the musket, he moved backward and with his heavy work boot kicked the door off its hinges and stepped inside.

  “Virgil!” Georgia screamed.

  “Don’t move!” he yelled, his hand reaching toward her, even though she was fifty feet away. The cart beneath her teetered. Virgil saw now that her hands were tied behind her.

  He felt the gun on him before he saw it.

  “Good advice,” Levi told him. “Don’t you move, asshole.”

  He was standing inside the front door of the building, where he’d presumably been watching for Virgil’s arrival. He was maybe forty feet from where Virgil stood at the back of the building, with the two rows of horse stalls between them. The wood planking immediately in front of him gave Levi cover, and he held the big semiautomatic handgun in both hands, the barrel pointed at Virgil’s head. Virgil forced himself to look away, back to the little girl.

  “Don’t move,” he told her softly. “It’s going to be okay.”

  She was trying hard not to cry. “I’m scared.”

  “I know,” Virgil said, and he turned to Levi. “Let her go.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do,” Levi said, then, realizing what Virgil had in his hand, he smiled. “You brought a musket? You really are a fucking moron, aren’t you?”

  “Let her go. Please.”

  “I would, since you’re asking so nicely,” Levi said. “But that would ruin my little plan.”

  “Your plan doesn’t have to include her. You’ve got me. Think about what you’re doing. She’s a child.”

  “She’s a fucking child actress. They’re all the same.”

  Virgil gauged the distance between himself and Georgia, trying to decide if he could cross the dirt floor quickly enough to get the rope off her. The cart was moving beneath her, back and forth every time she breathed it seemed. She was too far away, especially with Levi’s finger on the trigger.

  “What’s this plan?” Virgil asked, trying to stay calm.

  Levi smiled. “It’s a beauty. And I came up with it like that.” He took one hand off the gun, snapped his fingers. “I’ve always been good under pressure, man.”

  “Let Georgia go and you can tell me about it.”

  “Oh, no,” Levi said. “She’s a part of it. And so are you. In fact, you’re the star. Without you, there is no plan. I guess I can tell you, since you’re not going to be around later
to hear about it. By the way, I’m giving you a bigger role, from dumb farmer to troubled drifter. Here’s the pitch—you fell in love with Olivia Burns at first sight and became obsessed with her. You stalked her to the hotel and lured her outside with a cell phone you stole from the production company. You like it so far?”

  Virgil was thinking that if he dropped to a crouch, under cover of the stalls, he could reach Georgia. Maybe he could get the rope from her neck and push her out the window there. She could run for the gates, escape into the woods.

  “It’s a cropper,” he told Levi. “But why did you kill Olivia?”

  “Because she fucking deserved it,” Levi snapped. “She slept with me and a week later she wouldn’t even speak to me! Who does that? We made a connection, and she treated me like I was trash.” He laughed. “Like I was you.”

  Virgil realized that he couldn’t make any kind of move toward Georgia. If Levi started shooting at Virgil, and that seemed inevitable, it would put her in the line of fire. He needed to think of something else.

  “But what about this situation?” Virgil asked.

  “This? This is simple. You were a godsend. Part two—after Olivia, you then became obsessed with our little girl here and kidnapped her.”

  “But people saw you leave the set with her,” Virgil pointed out.

  “I don’t think so,” Levi said. “I was watching. Everybody’s attention was on setting up the Indian attack. And let’s face it—it’s going to be pretty easy for me to make a guy like you into a serial killer. A sick hillbilly with a star fixation. I chased you down—but got here too late. You killed two people. I had no choice but to take you out. You see?”

  “Yeah,” Virgil said. “I see.”

  Georgia was sobbing now.

  “It’s okay, kid,” Virgil said. “He’s just talking. But it’s like a movie, he won’t really hurt you. He’s not that kind of guy.”

  “I’m exactly that kind of guy,” Levi said, and he started shooting.

  Virgil hit the floor and rolled on his side into the nearest horse stall, landing awkwardly on the musket. He could hear the wood ripping into splinters above his head. Georgia was screaming. Virgil got his feet under him and keeping to a crouch he scuttled along the row of stalls, moving away from the little girl on the cart. Levi kept shooting, following Virgil as he moved, the slugs tearing into the rear wall of the stable.