Now Des heard a second gunshot in the distance.
Mitch. I have to save Mitch.
“Des, you’re not helping me here. Can you close your hand?”
Des really tried to, but her right hand wouldn’t respond at all. It did occur to her that this might present a problem. It was kind of an important hand, after all. Her drawing hand.
“Not to worry,” Hannah assured her. “Just hold the spoon there for me with your other hand, okay? That’s a girl.” Quickly, Hannah positioned the second spoon against the back of Des’s hand and forearm, and wrapped a second kitchen towel around the two spoons. She secured the improvised splint in place with a pair of cloth napkins, one knotted at Des’s wrist, the other at her elbow. Then she folded a checkered tablecloth into a big triangle and fashioned a sling out of it, first cradling Des’s wounded arm inside it, then tying the ends together around Des’s neck. “Try to keep the arm elevated, okay? And don’t eat or drink anything. Not even water. They may want to go in as soon as you’re out of X ray.”
“‘Go in?’” Des repeated, frowning at her.
“Operate. If there’s anything in your stomach, it might delay them. That’s why I’m not giving you any Tylenol.”
“I just ate a sandwich.”
“Okay, be sure they know that.”
As Des shifted her arm around inside the sling, wincing from the pain, she became aware of a faint whirring noise. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It sure wasn’t coming from Jory there across the table. Possibly it was inside her own head. Her wheels spinning away as she wondered where Mitch was, how Mitch was. If she could get to him before he got his head blown off. If she could fire one of those deer rifles with only her one good arm. Didn’t matter. She had to try. She got up out of her chair now and tottered over toward the gun case on rubber legs, fishing around with her left hand for Les’s key ring in the pocket of her beloved shearling coat, ruined now. Two bullet holes, bloodstains. Then again, maybe that all just gave it more character. What would Vogue call it, Victim Chic?
“Just exactly what do you think you’re doing?” Hannah demanded.
“My job,” she replied, wondering which key would open the case. She ought to just smash the glass open with a cast-iron skillet. “I’ve got to help Mitch.”
“Des, you can’t! You’ve go to sit still until…” Hannah fell silent, standing there with her ears cocked. She’d heard it, too. The whirring noise. She went over to the window and glanced hopefully up at the bright blue sky. “I think your helicopter’s here, Des. I think it wants to land.”
Des could hear it loud and clear now, hovering directly overhead. “Come on, we need to be out there in the parking lot when they touch down. There’s no time to waste. This is urgent.”
“Are you sure you can make it?” Hannah asked her doubtfully.
“If you don’t mind me leaning on you.”
“Lean away.”
Hannah looped Des’s good arm over her shoulders and helped her past Jory’s body and out the kitchen door. Together, they tramped their way across the courtyard through the snow. Des could not believe how hard it was simply to put one foot in front of the other. Without Hannah, she wouldn’t have made it at all. Part of it was how deep the snow was. But most of it was how wobbly she was. She felt as if she’d been laid up in bed for a week with a wicked Asian flu.
Up above, SP-One was still a few hundred feet over the parking lot, descending slowly.
“You’re the real deal, aren’t you?” she said as they plowed their way through the snow together. “As a director, I mean.”
“I think I am.” Hannah glanced at her curiously. “But why do you say that?”
“You don’t fold under pressure. You get stronger.”
“I have to be that way, if I’m going to make it.”
“You’re going to make it. I have a good feeling about you.”
“Thanks,” said Hannah, her cheeks flushing from the praise.
Ahead of them in the courtyard, Des could see footprints in the virgin white snow. And a deep depression, as if someone had taken a head-first slide into it. But there was no sign of blood. This was positive. This was good. The footprints continued on across the drawbridge in the direction of Choo-Choo Cholly’s flattened depot. As she and Hannah came around to the front of the castle, she spotted the others gathered outside the front door, waiting for the chopper to touch down. They reminded Des of frightened mice the way they were all cowered there together.
SP-One touched down smack-dab in the center of the plowed parking lot, its rotor blades gradually slowing as Des and Hannah reached the cleared pavement. The pilot remained on board as Soave and Yolie climbed out and scooted toward them in heavy-duty black ski parkas, their heads ducked low against the swirling air.
Soave, who was short-legged and bigged-up from weight lifting, looked remarkably like a bowling ball as he scooted toward them in his parka. Yolie, a four-year starter at point guard for Coach Vivian Stringer at Rutgers, moved like a gazelle in comparison. And looked way less street than usual with her braids buried under a black wool skullcap.
A medical examiner’s man climbed out of the chopper, too, and started toward them, clutching his gear.
“Yo, what’s up with that?” Soave called to Des as soon as they were within earshot. He was eyeballing her slinged arm with great concern. “Are you hit?”
“I’m fine, Rico. Don’t worry about me. Our immediate concern is-”
“She’s stable, but not fine,” Hannah interjected. “She’s been shot. She’s sustained a compound ulnar fracture and there appears to be neurological damage. The bleeding’s under control, but she requires immediate medical attention.”
“What are you, a doctor?” Soave asked Hannah.
“No, a documentary filmmaker.”
“Oh, boy, here we go again,” Soave groaned, rolling his eyes. “Already, I can tell this one’ll be a trip to unravel. Am I right, Yolie?” He frowned at his silent partner. “Yolie, you okay?”
“Not really,” Yolie Snipes replied glumly, a sickly expression on her face. “I left my stomach and toenails somewhere back over East Haddam. Or maybe it was over-”
“Will you all please shut up and listen to me!” Des shouted over them. “We’ve still got us a hot one-white male, early twenties, name of Jase Hearn. He’s armed. He’s killed three people. And he’s running. Mitch took off after him that-a-way,” she said, pointing toward Cholly’s depot. “We’ve heard shots fired. Last one was a few minutes ago.”
“Is Berger armed?” Soave asked her.
“He has my weapon.”
Soave eye’s widened at her with surprise. “Who does he think he is, Vin Diesel?”
“God, I hope not.” Des let out an involuntary sob that caught her totally by surprise. It was the bullet wound. Had to be. Because she was totally not a girlie-girl. And yet here she was, sobbing just like one. “Rico, if anything happens to that man, I swear I will just curl up and die.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Soave squeezed her good arm reassuringly. “Not to worry. We got your boy covered, right, Yolie?”
“On it,” Yolie vowed, striding off toward the depot with her SIG drawn.
“Excuse me, where will I find the bodies?” the medical examiner spoke up.
“There’s so many locations to choose from,” Des replied, swiping at her teary eyes. “You can start in the kitchen, if you’d like. Or the woodshed…”
“There’s also two second-floor rooms,” Hannah added. “Numbers one and three.”
“Jeez, did Charlie Manson bust out?” Soave marveled, shaking his head.
“The mice can show you the way,” Des told the ME, indicating the four who were still gathered at the castle’s front door. As the ME started toward them, she said, “Rico, you’ll want to make sure you seal off that big freezer in the kitchen, okay? Jase threw some bloody clothes in there.”
“Gotcha,” he said, nodding. “You ready to go?”
&n
bsp; “Go?” She looked at him blankly. “Go where?”
“Our pilot’s heading back up to Meriden to fetch us a load of tekkies. He’ll drop you at the hospital on his way. Hop aboard.”
“No way. Not a chance.”
“Des, you need emergency medical care right away,” Hannah said insistently. “Every minute is precious.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Des insisted, her eyes following Yolie as Soave’s sergeant marched her way past the toy railroad station and down the snow-covered tracks.
Yolie hadn’t quite disappeared from view when they heard another gunshot off in the distance. Just one.
And then there was only silence.
CHAPTER 19
“Don’t make me do this to you,” Mitch pleaded with Jase Hearn as he crouched there pointing Des’s gun right at him, the SIG feeling so unfamiliar and wrong in his hand. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
“You have to,” Jase argued, his own gun trained right back on Mitch. “Or I have to shoot you. I won’t come with you. I won’t be locked up. I can’t be.”
“This is no good, Jase,” Mitch said, seeing his breath before him in the rail barn’s frigid air. Even though he could barely breathe. His heart was pounding faster than it ever had. And the only other time his knees had trembled this badly was that night he’d gone for his first open-mouthed kiss from Emily Rosenzweig in the doorway of her apartment building on Stuyvesant Oval. How old had he been, fifteen? Emily was married to a periodontist now, had two kids, still lived on the Oval, and why was he thinking about her at a time like this? “Jase, the law is already here. Can’t you hear them?”
The sound of SP-One’s whirring blades had built to a thundering crescendo as the chopper had touched down in the castle’s parking lot. Gradually, the sound was beginning to taper off. They’d definitely landed.
“Jase, state troopers will be all over this place in a minute. They’ll follow our footsteps directly here.”
“They’ll never find me,” Jase promised, sticking out his furry chin. “I’ll be gone before they get here.”
“You’ll be dead is what you’ll be-if you don’t drop your gun.”
Jase shook his head at him. “You’re too nice a guy, Mitch. Can’t pull the trigger.”
“Sure, I can,” said Mitch, who had absolutely no doubt. Not after everything he’d been through over the past eighteen hours. He was not the same person who’d driven up here for dinner last evening. He’d seen too much death. And now he was staring it right in the face. And it was staring right back at him. And he was not going to blink. No, he was not. Because he wanted too much to stay alive. It was simple, really. Sometimes, the truth is.
“Maybe you can,” Jase allowed, reading the cold certainty in Mitch’s eyes. “But that just means we both die. What good does that do?”
“You don’t get away, that’s what. I won’t lie to you, Jase. I’d really rather not die just yet. But if that’s what it takes to stop you, so be it.”
“Well, okay then,” Jase said easily. As if by magic, all of the panic and desperation began to seep right out of him. He became very relaxed. Even seemed at peace with himself, if such a thing was possible. He lowered the. 38 into his lap, holding it there loosely. “It’s the best thing all around, you know.”
“What is?”
“Shoot me,” Jase said, incredibly calmly. “Just go ahead and do it, man. You’ll be doing me a favor. I haven’t got a single damned thing to live for. Go ahead and shoot me. I want you to.”
“Jase, this is not going to happen. I won’t be your judge, jury and executioner.” Mitch edged closer, almost close enough to touch him. He held his left hand out to him. “So why don’t you let me have your gun, okay?”
Jase hung his head in defeat, studying the gun in his lap. “If that’s how it has to be.” He sighed.
“That’s how it has to be.”
Jase smiled at him fondly now. “You were nice to me from the moment we met. Didn’t treat me like some low-class cretin.”
“Because you’re not one.” Mitch was still holding his hand out to him.
“I wouldn’t do this for just anyone,” he said, hefting the. 38 in his hand. “I hope you get that.”
“I do, Jase. And I appreciate it. Now please just hand it-”
“You shouldn’t have to shoot me, you know. If you do something like that, man, you’ll be seeing me in your dreams for the rest of your life. And that’s not fair to you, is it?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Mitch, I’m really glad we agree on this.”
And with that, Jase Hearn took a deep breath and put a bullet directly through his own right ear.
He did it so fast that Mitch did not have time to react. All he could do was watch it happen, stunned.
Jase toppled over against the wall, the gun falling from his hand. But he didn’t die instantly. He was still there with Mitch for a few seconds, reaching out to him as if he wanted to shake hands. Mitch took his hand and squeezed it. For one brief, weird moment, they were like a pair of civilized gentlemen there on the floor of the barn together, saying, “I was pleased to make your acquaintance, kind sir.” Then, Jase’s hand quivered and jumped in Mitch’s, like a live fish, and then, with a quick spasm, it was not a live anything.
Mitch knelt there, holding him in his arms, feeling so unbelievably sorry for him. He could not direct any anger at Jase. That emotion he reserved for Jory. No, Jase had shown him only kindness. In fact, Jase had probably just done Mitch the biggest favor anyone would ever do for him in his entire life. And so he felt grateful. And he knew that in the weeks to come, when he strolled past Jase’s headstone at Duck River Cemetery, he would pause to leave him a smooth, polished stone and say, “Hey, Jase, just came by to say thanks again.”
But right now, Mitch had to let go of Jase and leave him there on the cold ground. Mitch staggered back out of the rail barn into the snow and retraced their footsteps up the railroad tracks toward the castle. His ears were still ringing from the gunshot. His nose had stopped bleeding, but he couldn’t breathe through it at all. He found himself gasping for breath as he plowed his way back up the hill. It was rugged going, and he was tired. He had never been so tired.
As he came around the big bend near where Jase had jumped him, he spotted someone charging down the tracks in a black ski parka. Someone of color. As they drew nearer to each other, he realized it was Yolie Snipes, Soave’s half-black, half-Cuban sergeant.
Yolie had her gun drawn. She was pointing it right at him. “Drop your weapon!”
“It’s okay, Yolie, it’s me!” Mitch called out. He hadn’t even realized he was still holding it.
“Mitch, I still want you to drop the weapon!”
And so he did.
She approached him with a guarded look on her face. Snatched Des’s SIG up out of the snow and sniffed at it. “This hasn’t been fired.”
“That wasn’t necessary.”
She shoved it in her pocket and checked him over, her brown eyes gleaming at him warmly. “How you doing, big fella? You okay?”
“I think my nose is broken, but I’ll live.”
“What about our shooter?”
“Jase made other arrangements.”
“He made what?”
“You’ll find him on the floor of the rail barn, behind Choo-Choo Cholly.”
“Choo-Choo who?” Yolie shook her head at him. “Damn, what kind of place is this anyhow?”
“A real happy place, Yolie. People come from all over the country just to be here. They watch the eagles soar. They hike the trails. And they ride Choo-Choo Cholly up and down the hill, up and down, up and
…” Mitch smiled at her. “It’s nice to see you again, by the way.”
“Back at you,” she said, reaching her hand around and pressing it against the back of his head. She came away with blood. “You sure you’re okay?”
“That’s just from this morning, when I had a small concussion. I blacked ou
t twice, but I’m fine. Why, don’t I look fine?”
“You look great.” Yolie grinned at him hugely. “And I know me a hurting baby girl who’s about to get real happy. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
She took him by the arm and helped him back up the hill to the clearing where Cholly’s little crunched depot was. From there, he could see the helicopter idling in the parking lot, its blades whirring slowly. Several people were standing near it.
One of them started running toward him right away. It was Des, and she ran very strangely. It was partly the deep snow, partly the homemade sling she was wearing on her wounded arm. As she got closer to him, he saw that she was also sobbing uncontrollably, the tears streaming down her face, which was totally not like her. Des absolutely detested girlie-girls.
When she got to him his girlie-girl slammed into him so hard that they both pitched right over into the snow, Des flush on top of him, covering his face with wet, cold kisses. “Baby, I thought you were dead,” she blubbered. “I… I heard those shots and I thought you were dead!”
“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. You didn’t have to worry about me. I’m inflatable. You punch me, I bounce right back up again.”
She drew back, studying him with her shiny pale green eyes. “Why does it sound like you have a clothespin on your nose?”
“It’s nothing. But tell me about you. How’s your wing?”
“Broken,” she replied, making a face. “They’re talking some fool stuff about airlifting me to the hospital.”
“Well, you’d better go, you big doofus.”
“Your big doofus wouldn’t leave until she found out how you were,” Yolie said, helping both of them back onto their feet.
“Well, how about now?” Mitch asked her. “Will you go now?”
“I guess,” she grumbled. “If you’ll come with me.”
“You mean like on a date?”
“Don’t make fun of me,” she pleaded, starting to sob all over again. It had to be the bullet wound. She was in shock or something.
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