The Blood of Patriots

by William W. Johnstone

  Ward was feeling a little stupid; he had assumed they wouldn’t go right to the curb and check for evidence where the attackers might have parked. What made it worse was that Brennan knew exactly what he’d thought.

  The small yellow room got the morning sun and the blinds were angled to throw it in slats across the bed and walls. Randolph looked like he’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. His neck was bandaged and his eyes were swollen with a single bruise that stretched across the bridge of his nose; his jaw was also banged up.

  “Doc says I hit the ground face-first,” the farmer said.

  “That was my diagnosis last night,” the chief replied. “Mud splatters tell tales.” They walked to the right side of the bed. “Everything still works, though?”

  “So far.”

  “That’s what matters most,” Brennan said.

  Randolph nodded. He looked at Ward. “Thanks for coming, John.”

  “Of course.”

  Brennan thought for a moment then said, “I just wanted to go over what you said last night. You said you didn’t see or hear anything that happened?”

  “Only headlights on the wall, my pigs squealing, and me going outside. Nothing till I came to.”

  “Which we put at about ninety minutes later, according to what Doc O’Hara says about the death of the pigs—”

  “The slaughter,” Randolph said. “My pigs were slaughtered.”

  She dipped her head in acquiescence. “Slaughtered. That means the butchers worked fast and knew the lay of the land.”

  “You mean they knew my property?”

  “They knew where to go, where you slept, and how to get up there unseen,” she said. “We talked to some of the people on Ridge Road this morning. No one noticed any lights. Is there anyone who was so familiar with your place they could approach in the dark and do this by flashlight?”

  “Chief, you know how many people have worked for me over the years,” Randolph said. “There’s no secret what I have and where it is.” He grew solemn. “What I had,” he said quietly.

  “Other than the encounter with those off-roaders, has anything happened out of the ordinary?”

  “What, like UFOs? Crop circles?”

  She didn’t answer. Even Ward knew he was venting.

  “Chief, nothing different has happened for as long as I’ve been up there,” Randolph said.

  “What about up at your hunting cabin? Anybody see you dressing a deer? Animal rights activists, anything like that?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Has anyone offered to buy your place?” the police chief asked.

  “Like I told John, I hear from folks at the bank that it gets run up the flagpole every couple of months but I don’t pay it no attention.” He regarded her through his swollen eyes. “Look, we know who did this—”

  “We don’t,” she insisted.

  “Then we know who probably did this,” Randolph said. “Why don’t you just question those bloody Muslim kids?”

  “Because I have absolutely no evidence,” she replied. “I’m not allowed to go on hunches, Scott. I need proof. I need the weapon with which you were assaulted. I need a tag from one of the bikes.”

  “They probably cart’em around in a van or truck.”

  “That’s just about everyone who owns an ATV or dirt bike,” she said. “I’m not permitted to interrogate someone just because you don’t like him.”

  “How are we going to find anything out if we can’t ask questions, let alone knock heads together?” Randolph asked.

  She laid a hand on Randolph’s shoulder. “We aren’t going to worry about it. My department is. I’ve got the lab guys going up to your place later, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. But this isn’t a big town, Scott. Someone will say something, boast about what they did up there, and someone will hear it.”

  “Bare feet and hot coals’ll work a lot faster,” Randolph said.

  “And no court in the United States will admit as evidence what we might discover,” she replied.

  Randolph shook his head. “I’ve got no livelihood, I’m takin’ my meals through a straw, and I can’t help find the a-holes who put me here. I didn’t feel this helpless when we had that wildfire in eighty-eight.” He turned a bloated eye toward Ward. Suddenly, the eye narrowed slightly. “You know what? I didn’t whine then, now that I think of it. To hell with me. How’s your daughter? Things goin’ okay for you?”

  “We’re working on it,” Ward said. He was proud and impressed at the way Randolph had just bootstrapped himself.

  “Good man.”

  “She read about your exploits?” the chief asked.

  “Seems like half the countryside read about it,” Ward said.

  The chief’s hand was still on Randolph’s shoulder. She gave it a gentle squeeze. “Look, you need to rest and I need to get to work. Promise me you won’t push to get yourself out of here?”

  “Chief, that I cannot promise. I vaguely remember saying something about wanting to be upright last night and I meant it.”

  “Okay, but I’ve left instructions that no one takes you home except me. And if I don’t think you’re ready, you’ll be thumbing a ride in this pretty paper gown.”

  “That won’t stop me.”

  “Maybe not, so how about this.” Her eyes grew hard. “Someone means you harm. If you’re here, we can look after you. You go back, feeling less than one hundred percent, and you’re putting yourself at risk. Don’t be the first Randolph who couldn’t tell the difference between brave and stupid.”

  Randolph was silent for a moment. Then he looked at them, his eyes moist. “I was thinkin’ last night, before this went down, that it’s good to know folks have my back. Thanks.”

  Brennan and Ward left without a word. They continued to the parking lot in silence and stopped beside Ward’s car.

  “Scott’s stubborn as a rash but he’s good people,” Brennan said as she slipped on her sunglasses.

  “I really like him,” Ward said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said that about anyone.

  “So what are you thinking of doing now?”

  “About?”

  The police chief gave him a give-me-a-break look.

  Ward reached through the open window for the bag with the coffee, now cold. He pried back the plastic lid. “You’re convinced I’m going to do something.”

  “As sure as I know what year it is.”

  He sipped the coffee.

  “Okay, I’ll go first,” she said. “I’ve got nothing on this. The lab couldn’t tell me much about the weapon used to kill the pigs, other than that it was a butcher knife. The incision on the throat was not designed for a pig.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The butchers could have gotten in and out faster with simple venipuncture of the jugular,” she said. “A few quick pokes below the ear, let it bleed out, on to the next. That kind of information is available online. You don’t have to wrestle with each pig, the way these guys did judging from the impressions in the pens. No, the throat-cuttings were patterned after human beheadings. Have you seen any of those videos from the Middle East?”

  Ward confessed that he had seen several of the many dozen that had appeared online: The videos were included in the NYPD’s mandatory anti-terror training. The instructors wanted officers to understand the kind of monsters they were facing. The victim was typically thrown on his side with the killer kneeling behind his shoulders, literally sawing his throat with a blade while another man held his head down. Ward would never forget the sheets of blood, the dying man’s screams, then the awful gurgling as his severed windpipe tried to suck air through the wound, drawing only blood. It took about six or seven seconds for the victim to go limp but it seemed hellishly longer.

  “The pigs were slaughtered the same way,” Brennan said. “The cut went through the trachea nearly severing the head—far more than was needed to kill it.”

  “Someone train them, you
think? Or did they watch the videos too?”

  “Not sure,” she admitted.

  “But they were definitely sending a message,” Ward said, “letting us know what kind of culture they come from, telling us they’re not afraid of this level of violence, and warning us that next time it could be people.”

  “Some of that, anyway,” she said.

  “But not leaving any actionable evidence,” Ward said. “You say the pigs were held down. Was there—”

  “Good get,” Brennan said. “Yes, we found smudged glove prints on one pig’s head as it was pressed into the ground and held there. The fibers didn’t tell us anything other than that they were smallish hands. No palm prints.”

  He took another long sip. It was funny how the taste of cold coffee brought him back to his rookie year and long stakeouts.

  “First thing we’ve got to do is eliminate a frame-up,” Ward said.

  “Am I missing something?” she asked.

  “Pigs, pork—forbidden to Muslims. Somebody looking to frame them for a crime might go for something obvious like that.”

  “It’s a thought,” she admitted.

  “I met some Utes up in the field earlier. They said they were there to pray for the spirits of the pigs. True?”

  “I’d believe that,” Brennan said. “They’re proud of their past but they don’t have their hands out, like so many others. In a lot of ways, Randolph is more like their ancestors than he is like everyone else here. He lives off the land, respects it, doesn’t go in for a lot of modern conveniences. He still had an outhouse until about fifteen years ago.”

  “So who would be on the short list of potential framers?”

  “That’s just it,” she said. “There’s a bunch of people here who hate how the Muslims have come in and started buying up the town. There’s been a lot of grumbling over at Papa Vito’s but there hasn’t been any violence against them since that started. Hell, their money saved a bunch of folks from going under. There was some uneasy joking about, ‘Hey, it’s just our gas money coming back to us.’ But nobody has taken it to the next level. There hasn’t been so much as a ‘towel-head go home’ on the community center wall.”

  Ward drank more coffee. “So did you walk me to my car to chat or is there some other reason?”

  “You mean to make sure you got out of town?”

  He shrugged.

  “I am not so stupid to put ego and bad press ahead of the safety of my town and fellow citizens, Detective Ward—”

  “John,” he said.

  “John.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” he asked. “You don’t seriously mean to hire me.”

  “Not at this point, but if you’re planning on staying in Basalt for a while I can’t tell you who you can or can’t watch or talk to.”

  He finished the coffee and looked around.

  “John, my folks had one of those fake copies of the Bill of Rights framed on our living room wall, you know the kind that cost a quarter and were artificially aged?”

  “Yup. I had the Gettysburg Address.”

  “Well, I know what that document says. I also know, the First Amendment notwithstanding, that I don’t have the right to shout Fire in a crowded theater. The Bill of Rights should come with a user’s guide and it should have a section called, ‘What to Do When a Different Set of Laws Comes to Town.’”

  “Meaning what? Muslim Sharia law? We have separation of church and state—”

  “Actually, we don’t, John, which is the trouble,” Brennan said. “We have separation of church within state. People haven’t grasped the fact that the Bill of Rights gives legal protection to what is effectively a fifth column.”

  He looked at her with surprise. “You’ve given this some thought.”

  “I’ve got to be one way with folks like Scott to keep them from going off half-cocked, but I’m not naive,” she said. “I’m going to say it to you because you’ve seen it, but I’ll deny I said it if it comes up again. Our nation is facing a stealth jihad. That’s how I came to read about your experience in New York. Yes, it made some national news outlets but I saw how you were railroaded with the unwitting help of minority police and liberal media. America won’t need its throat cut: our hearts are bleeding all over the pavement. It’s got to stop.” She reached into her shirt pocket, took out a business card, and wrote something on the back. “This is my cell number,” she said, handing him the card. “In case you need it.”

  “You’re serious about this,” he said. “I mean, my staying.”

  She said, “Yeah, I’m serious. John, I’m scared for the country.”

  Ward slipped the card in his wallet. He only just became aware of the sounds of traffic on East Valley Road and nearby Highway 82. He had been riveted, surprised, and unexpectedly heartened by their discussion. He extended his hand. She clasped it tightly.

  “Chief, it’s been great talking to you,” Ward said. “I have some business with Mr. Dickson at the bank. I was thinking about setting up an account for Megan. Any thoughts about him?”

  “He had some tough times before the influx of short sales,” she said.

  “Any chatter about that?”

  “He started taking a much harder line on foreclosures,” she said. “People looked at him like a collaborator.”

  “Yeah, I picked up on that when I popped by yesterday. No threats?”

  She shook her head then took his hand. She locked her other hand on his before releasing it. There was gratitude in her smile. “I need to get you a hat,” she said.

  He shot her a quizzical look.

  She pointed at the Prius. “White hat to go with the white horse.”

  When she was gone, he reached through the window of the Prius, grabbed the bag of half-eaten breakfast and stuffed it in a trash can beside a street lamp.

  Damn, but she was right. He hadn’t felt this clean, this right, this unencumbered in a long, long time. There was no district attorney, no straitjacketing regulations, no sense that lurking behind every good and honest action was a punk attorney looking to stick a pitchfork in his backside.

  No.

  It was different.

  It was the West.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  During anti-terror training, Ward learned that one of hallmarks of a terrorist was an air of euphoria that increased in the days and hours leading to an attack. That feeling lessened without disappearing entirely as the hours became minutes and the execution of the mission became all-encompassing. The rapture came from knowing something of which the people around you were oblivious, something that would have a tremendous impact on their lives or even end those lives. That excitement was enhanced by the fact that the terrorist was immune to laws and restrictions. The combination of power and certainty was godlike.

  To a smaller degree, Ward felt that exhilaration now. If he were still a cop working in New York where everyone was always on high-alert, where laws and protocol had to be strictly obeyed, he could never attempt what he was planning. He felt liberated in a way he never had.

  Ward used his cell to place a call from the parking lot of the Fryingpan Savings and Loan before entering the bank. Earl Dickson was on the phone when Ward arrived. He sat on the sofa to wait for the manager. He acknowledged an elderly woman seated beside him, the only other patron waiting for an officer. She was solving a Word Search puzzle in a magazine.

  “The bank doesn’t seem as crowded as it was yesterday morning,” Ward remarked pleasantly.

  “You’re not a local,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Monday is Take Your Home and Business Day,” the white-haired lady explained, with the slight edge of someone describing wallpaper they didn’t like. “At least, that’s what everyone calls it. The opening of the business week is when the checks are due. Though most people come here with pleas. They’d come with lawyers, but who can afford them?”

  “Do the pleas ever work?”

  She shook her head gravely. “I’m here t
o see my banker, Ms. Wood, and open an account for my granddaughter. It used to be so crowded here in the mornings. So crowded. Everyone chatty.” The head continued to shake as she went back to her puzzle.

  Ward was about to ask what she thought of the new faces in town when he saw Dickson hang up. He excused himself—he actually used the word “ma’am,” unaware that it had ever been a part of his vocabulary—and strode to the desk. Dickson had already turned his attention to his computer monitor.

  “Mr. Dickson?” Ward said to the man’s back.

  The manager’s thick neck turned. He looked up at the newcomer. There was a slight, formal smile, a touch of inquiry in his eyes, but his demeanor was otherwise flat and uninterested.

  “My name is John Ward. I’m the former husband of Joanne McCrea. Your daughter used to babysit—”

  “Yes, Mr. Ward. Angie mentioned she saw you. How are you?”

  “Not bad.”

  Dickson swiveled his chair around and gestured to the thinly cushioned plastic seat beside the desk. Before sitting, Ward absently angled the chair so that he could see the front door.

  “How may the bank be of service?” Dickson asked.

  “Well, I find myself temporarily unemployed and was thinking about opening some kind of investment account. Let my money work for me.”

  “We read about what happened,” Dickson said. “Very sorry.”

  “Thanks.” Ward watched Dickson carefully. “I’ve been told that the Midwest Revitalization Initiative has been making some forward looking deals and I was also told you might be able to hook me up.”

  The banker asked defensively. “Who told you that?”

  “Actually, I overheard it at Papa Vito’s.”

  “Happy-hour gossip. I’ve handled some local transactions for them but I am not their agent.”

  “I see. Do you think it’s a good investment?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Ward.”

  “Who would I talk to, then?”

  “They have offices in Chicago—”

  “Locally, I mean.”

  “There is no local office.”