by Thomas Perry
“Dad, are you worried about getting your plants watered, or afraid you’ll get killed?”
“Why would I make a date for tomorrow night if I thought that?”
“You’re right. That would be pretty stupid.”
“But if that did happen sometime, you would know that I love you very much. And I’m proud of what a nice person you grew up to be. And you have a key, and know where the important papers are, and where the emergency cash is hidden. Right?”
“Right. And I love you too.”
“Then I’ll talk to you tomorrow, after I’m back.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Love you. Bye, Dad.”
“Bye, honey.”
Till walked from his desk into the second room, which was his private office. He had a pair of locked gun safes along the windowless outer wall. He worked the combinations and opened them. He placed on his desk two .45 ACP pistols and a short M-4 rifle with a sling. He took from another cabinet a heavy body armor vest.
Till was aware that if the Boyfriend brought out the Barrett .50-caliber rifle, the vest would do no good.
He picked up the rifle and shouldered it. The rifle was just like the old M-16 A2 that he had used in Vietnam, except that the M-4 had a four-position stock and an eleven-and-a-half-inch barrel, and the “Auto” position of the selector lever didn’t restore it to full auto. It weighed a bit over five pounds, and a thirty-round magazine added a pound. Till took out four full magazines and set them on the desk too.
Till brought out camouflage pants, shirt, and baseball cap; a “camelback” water carrier; and a small backpack. He took an infrared night scope out of the last safe, and attached it to the rifle. He loaded the gear into two duffels, carried them downstairs and out the rear entrance, and put them into the trunk of his car.
He went back upstairs, went to the desk, and picked up the road map. He had brought it with him when he’d gone to visit Jerry Escobar. He had listened carefully to Escobar’s description of the housing development, and then put a mark on the map. He had shown it to Escobar, who had said the mark was in the right place. Till had planned to use it to direct Detective Anthony and Detective Sellers and a SWAT team to the place. On the back was a pencil drawing of the development, with the house marked. He folded the map and took it with him.
He went back to the desk, opened his bottom drawer, and removed two sets of handcuffs. Not to bring handcuffs would have given his actions a different meaning.
33
Till knew it was a long drive out into the rough, craggy badlands to the desert housing development, but even as he covered mile after mile, everything was happening fast for him. There should have been more time to think about what he was doing, more time to make mental good-byes. But he knew that was just the mind speaking for the body, wanting any excuse to delay or avoid the risk of death. He saw the sign for the exit.
He went past the exit on the long straight interstate, because he wanted to see what it looked like first. There was a road leading away from the interstate toward some distant jagged hills. In the flatland between the interstate and the hills, the road led to an unlit stone sign with metal letters on it. Just beyond the sign there were maybe seventy-five or a hundred lots along a network of streets paved and with curbs, all of them occupied by practically new homes.
Jerry the copper thief had said the Boyfriend and Sharon were staying three streets from the near edge of the development in a two-story house with a circular window above the door, and a three-car garage.
He took the next exit a minute later, then took the overpass to the entrance going back, and got on and then off again at the proper exit. Just past the straight road into the development, there was a winding road that led up into the hills, probably put there by crews erecting utility poles. Till took it. As he climbed the road he would stop every time he could look down and see the development.
There were no lights on in any of the buildings, even though it was only around eleven at night. The street lamps were dark—they must have been paid for by monthly assessments on the vanished home owners.
After a half mile up the road there was a flat place at a turn where Till could park his car. He got out; walked to the trunk; took out the duffel bags; sorted out the rifle, pistols, ammunition, and gear. Then he put on the camouflage clothes, the armor vest, and the boots. He closed the trunk, locked the car, and then loaded the weapons. Each time he finished loading one, he set it on the car roof. He put on his camelback water carrier, then the small backpack that held only ammunition and a spare pistol, put the sling on his shoulder to hold the rifle, and began to walk toward the house.
He made his way along the hill road in the dark, stopping again whenever he had a view of the rows of houses below. There were still no signs of life. Once he stopped, took a drink of water through the tube that ran from the water carrier, and looked up at the sky. He wished that he had taken Holly out to remote places like this more often during her childhood. There seemed to be many more stars out here, shining more brightly than they ever shone in Los Angeles. There were so many things he should have shown her but somehow forgot, and she would have enjoyed them so much.
When he was near the lowest part of the road, he sat on the ground and used his night scope to try to find any human being he could. The scope images showed bare walls, empty streets.
It occurred to him that the Boyfriend and Sharon were probably living like desert animals, moving around at night when it was cooler and sleeping during the day when the sun was fiercest.
He went over the whole development again. There wasn’t any electric light that he could see. He counted three streets up from the highway, two houses in from the corner. That was where Jerry Escobar had seen them.
He studied the house. He could see the back window by the porch, where Jerry the copper thief had said he and his friend had climbed in. The window was covered now, with a sheet of plywood over it. Till decided to give himself more time to find the occupants. He turned on the infrared night scope and searched for body heat.
Till stayed in place on the stony hillside a hundred feet above the development, hidden by rocks and brush. The thermal scope showed hot spots from the heat of the sun all over the outside of the houses, as they slowly cooled from the edges inward, but he saw no human presence.
He stood, kept low, and began to walk. At first he was high enough on the hill to keep his eye on the house where the Boyfriend had been living with Sharon Long, but soon he could see only the house behind it.
Till walked steadily and quietly through dry chaparral and gravel that would have been the next phase of the housing development if there had been one.
Every few minutes he would stop, kneel, and use the night scope to try to read the neighborhood. He would find nothing, and advance. As he came closer to the house he consciously resisted the temptation to hurry to get out of the open.
Till reached the house, then stood with his back to the rear wall of the building, waited, and listened. After a few minutes, he stepped to the side of the door and quietly tried the knob, but found it locked. Till took out a knife, knelt beside the door, and pushed the blade in between the knob and the door. He carefully inched it up and into the crack where it could depress the latch, then pushed the door inward.
Till waited a couple of seconds for the Boyfriend to panic and shoot at the open doorway, then stepped around the jamb to the inside with his rifle ready. He moved steadily but quietly from room to room. Till stopped at the front door. He could see big holes in the wood with moonlight showing through.
He climbed the stairs to the second floor, but there was nobody left in the house.
“They’re in the other house,” said Moreland. “Good thing we moved over here.” He sat on the floor in the living room of their new house watching their old house through the window. He had seen a man’s silhouette in
an upper window.
“Who are they?”
“I can’t tell. Maybe friends of those thieves.”
“What are they doing?”
“I’d guess looking for us,” he said. “First thing is to go get the pistol I gave you, and the suitcase I brought from the other house. I’ll stay here and watch them.”
“What if it’s the police?”
“Then we’ll have to be sure we kill them and get out before the other cops get here. Now do what I said.”
“What I mean is, if we’re unarmed and don’t try to hurt anyone, the police will arrest us,” said Sharon. “If we have guns they’ll shoot us.”
“That’s true, but they aren’t the police. If I’m wrong, they’ll yell it out: ‘This is the police. Come out with your hands up.’”
She dragged the heavy suitcase to him, and he opened it and began selecting things and pulling them out. She said, “Can’t we just leave? They don’t know where we are yet.”
“Just be quiet now. I’ve got to hear what they’re doing.”
Sharon stood in the empty living room, not certain what to do. Being quiet seemed to be an unassailable idea, so she obeyed. He seemed so busy and preoccupied with the men that he didn’t care what she did.
She had been feeling depressed since the night the men had come for the pipes and wires. One thing she and Michael had not even talked about was that those men had not actually come here to kill him and rape her. When Michael had made her go outside to help him drag the bodies to their van, not one of them had been carrying a gun. In their van and their truck had been wrenches, screwdrivers, a couple of hacksaws, and some power tools.
She felt terrible that she had shot the man coming in the window, and thinking about him had somehow broken the mechanism that had kept her from doubting Michael. For a couple of days she had been asking herself why she had trusted Michael. At first it was because she had a big old crush on him. And after Gabe was killed, she needed to trust somebody, and Michael was all that was left. She had tried to cling to him, to believe in him, to do everything he said. Each time she’d wanted to turn back, what had kept her from doing it was her shame at what she’d done so far.
And now, tonight, she was going to get killed. She deserved it, she knew. She was terribly sorry for what she’d done, and she knew the bad things had been destined to catch up with her. She watched Michael crawling around below the window with a gun in his hand. He was peeking out at the house where they used to live and trying to assemble a big long rifle of some kind at the same time. She had never seen anything like it. When he attached the barrel, it looked as long as an old flintlock from a museum.
Sharon put the pistol he had given her on the counter between the empty living room and the empty dining area and walked into the foyer. She thought about saying good-bye, but she knew that was a bad idea. She didn’t take anything but her purse. She quietly opened the door and stepped outside.
Sharon felt the warm, still air as she walked down the front path, stepped off the curb, and started across the street. Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming toward her from behind. She sensed it was Michael, so she ducked and ran hard to the side. He grabbed for her, but overran her. He stopped and turned to her.
His voice was a whisper. “What are you doing to me? I saved your ass. I took care of you.” He held out his hand to her, but kept his pistol pointed in her direction, apparently unaware of the contradiction. “Get back inside.”
“I can’t, Michael.”
He aimed his pistol at her head and began to step backward away from her, moving to get closer to shelter before he made the noise of shooting her. Sharon could see that there was no reason for her to run, because he couldn’t possibly miss.
Behind him, he heard the garage door of the house he’d just left rise on its squeaky springs, and he turned. A voice called out, “You’re going to want to do something else.”
“What?” Moreland kept turning, tilting his head, searching frantically to spot his target. The voice had to be coming from the garage. “Who are you?”
Jack Till shouted a second time. “What do you think, boy? You up to pistols at sixty feet?” He stepped forward from the shadowy rear wall of the garage of the house where Moreland had come from, and stood beside where Moreland’s car was parked facing outward. He had his pistol in his left hand hanging down by his thigh. “Come on. Just you and me. Bring your weapon down to your side, and we’ll play quick-draw.”
Moreland couldn’t believe it. This was the man he’d seen in Boston, the one who had shot up his car. Behind him, Moreland heard Sharon push off and begin to run, trying to get away from him.
Moreland’s mind judged the timing instantly: take the pistol shooter down, hit Sharon before she made it to cover, and then dash back to the house and wait for any others in ambush.
Moreland didn’t lower his weapon; he just crouched, pivoted, and raised his arm to aim at the man with the pistol.
As he did, the car’s headlights came on. After hours of the desert darkness, the glare was searing, blinding Moreland. He fired to the right side of the left headlight, where he figured the man must be.
Till had leaned into the car’s open window to reach the switch. He heard the bullet dislodge air by his leg as he raised his pistol. He held his sights on his brightly lit target and squeezed the trigger while the Boyfriend fired again hastily, trying to make up for the first miss. Till’s bullet passed through the Boyfriend’s head, and his body fell to the street.
Till left the headlights on, stepped down the brightly lighted driveway to the body, knelt, and felt the neck for a pulse. He stood and saw the girl walking toward him tentatively, as though she might decide to run again. She gave a long, despairing sob, and he held her, waited it out, and then said, “Are you Sharon Long?”
“Yes.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said. “Why did you do that? It’s crazy.”
“To make him think about me instead of you.”
“To save me.”
“Yeah.” Till took out his cell phone, then looked down at her, frowning. “Sharon, I’m calling for help now. But before anybody comes, you need to listen to me. You got kidnapped in Springfield, and that man made Gabe go into the bank. Then he dragged you out here. That’s all you know. Never say anything different to anybody.”
“Why do you want to help me?”
“It’s for all of us—you, the families of the girls he killed, a bunch of cops you don’t know, and me. You’re the first one we could get to in time,” Till said. He turned away as he put the cell phone to his ear. “Hello. My name is Jack Till, and I would like to report a shooting.”
