I turned on an oldies channel, and Lainie sank back in the armchair with her head back and her eyes closed, listening to the music. I was sitting the same way on the sofa with Oscar on my lap. We were pooped from stress. Neither of us said much but we were thinking the same thing. Was Plum going to show up at Lainie’s apartment?
“I wish we were there,” I said. “This wait is driving me nuts.”
“Netter ordered us to stay put,” she said. “He thinks it would be crazy for us to be there.” She pulled a box of Raisinets out of the bag. “Want one?”
I shook my head, no.
“Do you think Netter’s going to kill Plum?” she asked. “I mean, do you think he’ll even give him a chance?”
“I don’t know. Both he and Cox want him pretty bad. One thing’s for sure, I’d hate to tangle with either one of those two … speaking of crazy.”
Both of us jumped when we were interrupted by my cell phone. We looked at each other, but I shook my head when I saw the number. It was Amanda Jane.
I picked up. “Hi, sweetheart. I was just thinking about you. Did you have a good time with grandma and grandpa?”
“I guess,” she said softly, followed by an awkward pause.
“Is something wrong, baby?”
“Daddy, did Maggie leave you?”
I shook my head, and slapped my forehead with my palm. “No, sweetheart, Maggie didn’t leave me. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but sometimes grandma and grandpa are just plain nimrods.”
She giggled. “They are kind of weird, aren’t they?”
“Very weird,” I said.
After I hung up, Lainie looked at me. “I’m gaining a new appreciation for my mother.”
At ten o’clock, we decided to call it a night, and I took Oscar out for a last tinkle. After checking the doors, I turned off the music and the lights and stretched out on the sofa with the little fur ball. I didn’t get undressed or even take my shoes off. I wanted to be ready if Netter or Cox called.
I lay there listening to a light rain tapping on the window and finally drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 40
I was jolted awake shortly after midnight by the sound of my name. Oscar barked, and I bolted straight up. I held my breath straining to hear, but there was nothing. It must have been a dream.
And then, “Hello, Ben.” It was Plum! His voice was coming over the intercom. An icy chill ran down my spine.
Lainie’s door jerked open, and she stood motionless in the dark, holding her weapon and trying to assess the situation.
I pointed to the intercom. “He’s in the main house,” I whispered.
“Ben, I know you’re over there. Please don’t do anything stupid. I have a clear view of the cottage, and I could pick you off if you come out the door.” A few seconds passed before he spoke again. “I don’t want to kill you, Ben. I really don’t. But I will if I have to.”
I grabbed the Kevlar vest, quickly strapped it on, and slipped my T-shirt over the top. I grabbed Pure Reason and walked over to the intercom and pressed the button. “Yes, I’m here. What do you want?”
“I’ll be brief because I know you’re probably dialing 911.”
I let go of the intercom button and looked at Lainie. “I don’t think he knows you’re here,” I said.
Plum continued. “I needed to tell you that I feel very bad about what happened at the museum. It wasn’t supposed to work out that way. That young officer surprised me. She was just in the wrong place.”
I grabbed the night vision goggles from the duffle and pointed to the front door. Lainie looked at me and said, “What?”
“When I give you the sign, you yank the door open! I’ll take a direct beeline to the main house, and then you come out back and around. We’ll catch him off guard.”
“No, Ben! That’s crazy! This is exactly the kind of thing Netter was talking about.”
“Just do it!” I yelled. I ran over and stuck Oscar in his crate and closed it.
“Keep him talking,” she said. She went back to her room, closed the door, and dialed 911.
“How is she doing?” Plum asked.
I pressed the button. “Officer Stanton is expected to have a complete recovery,” I said.
“Good. I just don’t want you to think I’m a monster.”
“Why do you want Agent MacKenzie?” I asked. “She doesn’t fit your profile either.”
He sighed. “You’re right. But I heard her in an interview on Channel Fourteen, and she’s a very smart lady. Let’s just chalk this one up to self-defense. I’ve got a lot that I want to accomplish, and she knows a little more than I want her to.”
Lainie returned to the front door. She kept shaking her head “no,” and I kept nodding “yes”.
“By now you know just how similar we are, Ben. Tell me, do you think I’m crazy?”
I slid the two loaded .44 caliber speed loaders into the front pockets of my jeans and put on the night vision goggles. “Yes … just like me.”
I gave Lainie the signal, and she jerked the door open. The movement caught Plum by surprise, and I was several steps across the patio before he realized what was happening.
As I reached the teak bench under the large great room window, I could make out his temperature signature to the right in front of the great room fireplace. I stepped up on the bench and fired one shot though the window toward him. The tempered glass shattered, coming down like a waterfall as I vaulted through the opening.
My leap was slightly short, and I caught my right foot on the window sill. I landed on my back on the great room floor and the night vision goggles flew off, but not before I saw Plum running toward the front door.
I was collapsed on the floor and couldn’t see where I was actually aiming, but I emptied five more shots from my revolver in his direction. He fired at least eight rounds as he ran, and I felt two impacts like I was hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.
I got to my knees, ejected my shells, inserted the speed loader, and released the reload. I snapped the cylinder shut and raced toward the open front door.
My heart was pounding. I eased my way outside with my weapon raised and saw Plum running to the left down Meadow Rue Drive.
As I took off after him, I could hear every dog in the neighborhood barking from the gunfire exchange. I reached the street as Lainie tore around the front corner of the main house, gripping her weapon in her right hand. Her appearance told me she must have slipped in the mud sprinting across the back yard.
“I’m okay!” I yelled.
The two of us chased Plum down the street, me a hundred feet behind, and Lainie another thirty feet behind me. Three houses down, he took a sharp right and scrambled over the front fence on the left side of a house.
I followed Plum while Lainie took a shortcut on the right of the house. Plum was just going over the back fence when I caught a break. His injured left arm caused his hand to slip, and he fell back off the fence. He regained his balance and started climbing again, but I had him in my sights.
And that’s when it hit me—a one-hundred-ten-pound Rottweiler! It seized my right arm, forcing me to shoot Pure Reason into the ground. The explosion shocked the dog, and it jumped back. Then it attacked again, gripping my arm in its teeth and dragging me to the ground. It was snarling, growling, and hissing, with its powerful jaws tearing at me, trying to reach my throat.
Sometime during the frenzy, the back porch light came on, and a man walked out onto his patio. “What the hell?”
Lainie finally caught up to me, gasping for breath as she aimed her weapon at the monstrous dog. “Federal agent!” she shouted. “In pursuit of a murder suspect! Restrain your animal, sir! I don’t want to have to shoot it!”
“No, don’t shoot, don’t shoot! The man quickly ran over, pulled the dog from me and began walking it back to the house. I dropped down on my back on the wet ground looking up at the stars. I took a few deep breaths and said, “Looks like the rain stopped.”
Lainie knelt next to me and started looking me over. “Jesus, Tucker, your arm is torn up pretty bad.”
The man returned. “She won’t bother you anymore,” he said. “I put Princess in the house.”
I stared up at him. “Princess? You mean I was almost ripped apart by Princess?”
“Can you dial 911 and give them your address, Sir?” Lainie asked. “And can you bring me back a damp paper towel to wrap around this man’s arm?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded nervously and quickly headed back to the house.
I started to get up, but Lainie wouldn’t let me.
“Wait until the paramedics get here,” she said.
“We need to call Netter.”
“I did that before we ever even left the guesthouse.”
I sank back down on the ground.
Within minutes, two Holly Springs police cruisers arrived. Lainie quickly explained what had happened and indicated the direction Plum had headed. But both of us knew that by now it was too late.
The paramedics pulled up with full lights and sirens. They grabbed their gear and quickly came back to where I was lying. The older of the two knelt down and said, “Let’s see what we got here.” Lainie watched, concerned, as he examined my arm and checked for other injuries. “He’s going to need stitches,” he said to his partner. “Let’s check his vitals, and start an IV.”
I heard voices behind me and turned my head as Netter and Cox came through the fence gate. Netter knelt down on one knee beside me and looked at my arm. “Christ almighty! What the hell happened?”
“Princess,” I said.
Confused, Netter looked at Lainie. “A dog,” she said. “About a hundred-pound Rottweiler.”
“Jesus, Tucker, you’re lucky. The thing could’ve ripped your throat out.”
“Yeah, I’m lucky,” I said, lying on my back looking at the Big Dipper. “Kind of like winning the lottery … only without any of the good stuff.”
Netter looked at Lainie again, her hair tangled in a holy mess. “Christ, MacKenzie! Is this what you look like when you get up in the morning? You look like Ronald McDonald.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” she shot back. “You’re no prize either!”
One of the Holly Springs police officers found this humorous but straightened up toot sweet when Lainie glared at him.
The other officer came out of Princess’s house and joined us. “The animal control guys are on the way. The dog’s owner showed me its rabies vaccination certificate, but he got pretty upset when I told him we were going to have to quarantine his dog for ten days, anyway.” He looked at me. “Do you want to press charges, Mr. Tucker?”
“No, Princess was just protecting her turf.”
When the paramedics finished checking me over, the senior one spoke to Netter, Cox and Lainie. “He’s shaken up but seems to be stable. We’re going to transport him to WakeMed, so they can treat that arm.” He turned to his partner, saying, “Bring the gurney over here, Chip.”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said to the medic.
“What’s that, Mr. Tucker?”
“I think I’m lying in dog shit.”
Netter shined his flashlight on me and grimaced as the paramedic helped me sit up and pull off my foul shirt. Then Netter squinted and looked closer at my vest. “What the hell is that?” he pointed.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Don’t nothing me dammit! You have two slugs in your vest!” He looked at Lainie, aggravated. “I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta keep an eye on this asshole all the time. He’s fuckin’ goofy!”
The paramedics helped me onto the gurney. “I’ll have someone meet you at the hospital to take your statement,” Netter said. “And get your damn hair cut!”
He looked at Lainie. “Go with this birdbrain and make sure he doesn’t do anything crazy again. He’s gonna get himself killed yet. Don’t let him out of your sight! I don’t care if you have to sleep with him!”
Lainie stiffened. “Why did you say that?”
Netter, ace detective that he is, picked up on it and looked closely at her. Then he looked back and forth between us. “Aw Christ!” he said. “You two are playin’ footsy! That’s just fuckin’ great!”
CHAPTER 41
We got to the hospital at one thirty in the morning. I could easily have walked into the emergency room, but the paramedics insisted on wheeling me in like a corpse. Lainie walked beside me, carrying our guns in a plastic bag she’d borrowed from the ambulance.
The bright lights of the ER accentuated the mud covering FBI Special Agent MacKenzie. She looked like one of the Clay People from the old Flash Gordon science fiction movie serial—only with spiky red hair—pretty creepy actually.
The paramedics rolled me into stall number one and transferred me to the waiting bed. A young doctor eventually came in and examined my arm. He might have been sixteen. “So, you’ve been the victim of an animal attack.”
“Tyrannosaurus Rex,” I said.
He looked at me and grinned. “I see. Well, it certainly looks like it.” He selected some supplies from a cabinet and said, “This might sting a little.” I flinched as he began cleansing my wounds with an antiseptic wash that burned like hell. Sting a little, my ass. He finished by wrapping my arm in white gauze and taping it. “We have a surgeon on call I’d like to take a look at this. I don’t see any damage to the major veins or arteries, but I’d prefer to have a specialist evaluate the continuity and integrity of the tendons.” He left the room to contact the surgeon.
Dr. Dacosta arrived forty-five minutes later and took over my treatment. The wait was put to good use as Lainie and I gave our statements to Officer Roman Perez.
Lainie provided details I was unaware of. According to her account, Plum was on the back fence and witnessed the dog attack. When he saw Princess pull me to the ground, he got down off the fence and began coming back toward me. She said it appeared as though he was coming back to help me. But when he saw her, he headed back to the fence, climbed over, and made his escape.
I was astonished. “I wonder why he did that.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, Tucker, he’s obsessed with you, and he doesn’t want anything to happen to you … at least for now.”
Dr. Dacosta had me perform a series of movements with my fingers and wrist to ensure there was no damage to the underlying tissue and tendons. By the time he’d finished, I had eighteen sutures closing two major gashes on both sides of my arm.
“I did the best I could,” he said, “but it’s likely you’ll have some scarring.” You might want to consult a plastic surgeon to see what he recommends to minimize scar tissue formation. They’ve got some new techniques that work pretty well these days.” He gave me prescriptions for antibiotics and pain pills, and wished me good luck.
After Dr. Dacosta left, a nurse came in and gave me printed instructions describing how to take care of my wounds. Then she helped me put a hospital gown on backwards to cover my back. I was still wearing the Kevlar vest.
Officer Perez offered to drive us back to the estate. He was nice enough to stop on the way at an all-night pharmacy, so I could fill my prescriptions and pick up supplies to dress my wounds. I also bought a package of white Hanes crew neck T-shirts and ditched the hospital lingerie.
It was almost four o’clock in the morning when we finally arrived back at the estate. News people were crawling all over the place and descended on us as soon as we opened the car door. Netter and most of the Holly Springs police officers were long gone, but Wake County Crime Lab technicians were still processing the scene. We walked briskly to the guesthouse because the main house had been taped off.
One of the newswomen asked, “Why does Jack Plum keep making contact with you?”
She shoved her microphone in my face. “I don’t know. I have no further comment.”
We walked past her and through the front door of the guesthouse while Officer Perez herded the reporters back to the street.
>
We put our weapons away and checked our messages. Nothing. While we waited for the lab techs to finish up at the main house, we decided to get cleaned up. We looked each other over to decide who was filthier. I won. Not by much.
Twenty-five minutes later, investigators told us they were releasing the scene.
The early morning air felt good, and we could hear crickets as we walked across the courtyard and entered the breakfast area. When we walked into the great room, my jaw dropped. “Jesus Christ!” I said. “Look at this place. It looks like a damn war zone.”
I went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, and dialed Marcus. He answered hoarsely on the fourth ring.
“Yeah?”
“Hi, Marcus. It’s Ben. I have a, uh, situation.” I briefly described the night’s rampage and told him there was a smidgen of damage at the main house. He yawned and said he’d be right over.
The large window overlooking the back yard was gone, and there were tiny glass fragments all over the place. Fingerprinting residue was everywhere, and some of the furniture was askew. I saw several bullet holes in the walls and places in the woodwork where bullets had splintered the wood. There were a few broken objets d'art and one dead lamp.
I described the battle to Lainie. “I landed here, and Plum was over there by the fireplace, kind of where you are now. I lost the night vision goggles and just started firing in that direction.”
“Well, he was definitely firing back,” she said. “There should be shell casings all over. The crime lab guys must have packaged them as evidence.”
“Mine would have been over here.” I bent down. “Here’s my speed loader.” I picked something else up and studied it. I looked up at the ceiling. “And a piece of the chandelier. Shit, I need a drink.” I got two glasses from the kitchen and set them on the counter. “Scotch?”
“I think we need some bigger glasses.”
I filled the glasses with ice, but I didn’t have the strength in my right hand to pull the top from the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I handed it to Lainie.
Vengeance is Mine - A Benjamin Tucker Mystery Page 24
