After The Fire (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 9)

by George Wier

  “Don’t kill him, Jess,” I said.

  I ran up beside her as she was about to fire. She was aiming directly at the figure at the wheel. If she fired, he was a dead man.

  Jessica lowered the gun and snapped off a shot. The driver’s side rear tire deflated instantly and the truck slewed to the left. She stepped to her right and fire off another one and the right tire went. The truck went into a small gulley and stood up on its front grill. The engine sputtered and died. It stood upended in the meadow like a piece of modern sculpture art. The driver was still trying to get the door open to flee when Jessica came around and pointed her gun at the driver’s head.

  “Hi, Bill,” the driver said.

  “Hi yourself, Eloise,” I replied. “Are you bleeding badly?”

  “Bad enough, but I’ll live.”

  “Meet my daughter, Jessica,” I said. “She’s the one who shot both you and your truck.”

  “Hi, Jessica. I’m Eloise Gallencamp.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Gallencamp. You are under arrest.”

  “I know. Help me out of here, Bill.”

  Jessica nodded her agreement, and I stepped up and made like a Boy Scout. When Eloise was standing on terra firma, I was about to start in with the questions, but Jessica interrupted.

  “Dad, take the gun while I put cuffs on her.”

  “Okay.”

  Eloise was bleeding from her upper right thigh. It was bad, but not immediately life-threatening. Jessica pulled the woman’s arms behind her and cuffed her wrists together.

  “You understand the Miranda warnings, correct?” Jessica asked.

  “Yeah. Silent. Attorney. Yada yada.”

  “Good. All that understood, would you like to say anything?”

  “Yeah.” Eloise looked at me. “If I tell you a name, Bill, would you tell me if you know the person?”

  “If I know them, I’ll say so. If I don’t, I’ll also say so.”

  “Good. Who is Chuck Holland?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We saw the red and blue lights of the cavalry long before heading back. Full darkness had fallen, and after several minutes of looking around for the rifle with Eloise—handcuffed and bleeding—in tow, the three of us traipsed back across the field to the creek, down into it and up the other side. A team of Sheriff’s deputies waited for us and helped us up onto level land. Jessica got a bunch of pats on the back from her county friends. I suppose I was puffed up in pride a bit.

  An ambulance arrived and Driesel was loaded into it.

  Jessica and Pat loaded Eloise into the back of Jessica’s cruiser—her first nab. And she didn’t even know she was law officer yet.

  “I think I’m late, dad,” she said.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For the qualifying range.” Jessica turned to Patrick. “I think I let everyone down for real,” she said. “How long do I have to wait to qualify.”

  “All the guys that were at the range are already headed down to the station.”

  “What guys?” Jessica asked, the red and blue lights of another Sheriff’s cruiser flashing on her lovely face.

  “Well, it was going to be a surprise.” Patrick reached into his pocket and pull out a badge.

  Jessica’s eyes lit on it, followed it as it went from Patrick’s hand slowly over to my own.

  “Bill, you want to do the honors?”

  “Sure,” I said. I took a step to Jessica. “The other day when you were at the range, Patrick had the examiner watch you. You’ve been a qualified and duly appointed peace officer since you passed your written final last night.” I carefully pinned the badge to her chest. Tears began streaming from my daughter’s eyes. I looked down into her face. “And I’m so proud of you I could bust wide open.”

  She did it then. She leapt up into my arms hugged my neck.

  “I love you, daddy. I love you so much.”

  “I know. I love you too. Don’t get your cocky ass killed, okay? Your mother would never forgive me.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”

  Jessica released me.

  “I don’t know,” Patrick said. “The guy who sponsored you doesn’t rate a hug, I guess.”

  Jessica tackled Patrick as well, and the tears began again.

  “All this stuff is very dramatic,” Eloise said from inside the open door of the cruiser, “but I’ve been shot too. I wonder if anybody cares.”

  “Not really,” I replied.

  “Thanks a lot, Bill.”

  “You could have killed my daughter.” I slammed the door and Eloise jerked her head back, narrowly missing the window glass.

  “I’ll take her to the hospital,” Jessica’s said between sobs, and released Patrick. She wiped her eyes and smiled. “Once she’s treated, I’ll take her in and book her.”

  “Nothing doing,” Patrick said. There were several deputies looking on the scene. Through the crowd I saw Shawn Tannen climbing into the ambulance for a bumpy ride through the pasture with her partner. “Who wants to volunteer to forego the party and take this lady to Brackenridge for treatment?”

  A couple of hands went up and Patrick selected one. “After she’s patched up, book her for attempted homicide and felony assault.”

  “Sure,” the officer said.

  “Uh, you can do that if you want to, Patrick,” I said, and then I realized I had everyone’s attention. The pasture got quiet. “I mean, I don’t like it that Jessica got knocked on her butt because Eloise put a round into her kevlar. But I think we need to know what’s going on, first, before we throw her to the wolves and put her in prison for the next two to ten years.”

  I suddenly had everyone’s attention.

  “I’ve known this lady for about fifteen years. She’s never done anything like this. I want to know why. She mentioned a name back there when Jessica collared her.”

  “Yeah,” Patrick said. His arms were crossed and he leaned back against his cruiser. “Chuck Holland. Who is he?”

  “That’s what she asked.” I hooked a thumb back toward Eloise. “I’ve known Chuck for years as well. He was the guy who up and flew the coop after I got him to do a little simple computer trickery. This was last night, about the time Jessica was taking her exam. Remember that I sent Perry over there to talk to his parents?”

  “Yeah. I remember.”

  “On top of Sol’s dead billy goat, there’s supposedly a batch of people in that subdivision across the way, dying of something—I know not what—and the creek that Eloise just took pot shots at us in runs between both those properties. I think there’s bigger fish to fry here than a goat farmer’s ex-wife. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Well dammit, Bill. Isn’t there anything cut and dried with you?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Patrick looked at me long and hard. Then he said, “Nothing. Just nothing. He raised his hands as if in defeat. “All right. We’ll get her patched up, then take her in for questioning. But if the answers aren’t good—by which I mean really good—she’s going down.”

  I pursed my lips. Bit my lower one.

  “Agreed.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was 10:30 at night. Eloise was, as Patrick had called it, “patched up”, which from the report of the officer who had accompanied her to the emergency room, consisted of the removal of a .38 round that was just beneath the surface of the skin. Essentially, at the great range at which she had been hit, most of the muzzle velocity had bled off by the time the bullet was three-quarters of the way to her.

  Eloise, Patrick, Jessica and I sat in a small conference room at the Sheriff’s Office. The quarters weren’t exactly spacious, and the room was overly bright and utilitarian.

  Aside from some nervous sets of hands, the only thing on the table was a simple tape recorder.

  “You want to take this, Jessica?” Patrick asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “Mrs. Gallencamp, you have been arrested but you haven’t been charged with
anything. Yet. The purpose of this talk is to see whether or not we should continue with the process of procuring an indictment against you. Do you understand?”

  Eloise nodded. She waved a dismissive hand.

  “Okay,” Jessica replied. “I’m turning the tape recorder on, now.” She reached out and pressed the RECORD button. “All right, what’s today? I think it’s April 11. It’s about 10:31 at night. Present are Eloise Gallencamp, Patrick Kinsey, Bill Travis, and Jessica Travis. Ms. Gallencamp, you are aware that this conversation is being recorded?”

  Eloise nodded again.

  “We can’t get a gesture on the recorder,” Jessica said. “Could you speak up, please?”

  “Sure. Yeah. I know what you’re doing.”

  “Thank you. Are you okay with this interview being recorded?”

  “Fine by me,” Eloise said. She sounded powerfully bored.

  “Okay,” Patrick said. “We have to do it this way, Mrs. Gallencamp. I know it’s an inconvenience, but if you could get into the spirit of the thing, it might be helpful. To you, that is.”

  Eloise audibly sighed. “Fine. Fine. I’m here. I’m in. Let’s roll.”

  “Thank you,” Jessica said. “Okay, so you stated you understood all your rights when I arrested you in the field this evening, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Good. It still applies. If you want your attorney, or need a court-appointed attorney, we’d be happy to oblige.”

  “Bill, you’re not an attorney, are you?” Eloise asked.

  “Nope,” I said. “Don’t insult me, Eloise. I don’t even like attorneys.”

  She laughed. “Okay, I don’t have an attorney and I don’t want one.”

  “Alright,” Jessica said. She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, cool, calm and collected. “So, why did you shoot Driesel and why did you shoot me?”

  “Huh. Did you examine the rifle I supposedly shot you with?”

  Jessica uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You’re answering a question with a question, Mrs. Gallencamp. It’s an attempt to control the interview.” Jessica looked at Patrick, who nodded. At that moment I realized my little girl had outgrown me. She no longer looked to me for any of the answers in life. It was not a small pain.

  “Okay,” Jessica continued. “I’ll bite. No we haven’t examined it. When we do, what will we find?”

  “And you haven’t looked beneath the tree to find any spent cartridges, have you?” Eloise asked.

  Patrick chimed in, “Someone is doing that now. Will he find any?”

  “No,” Eloise said.

  “Wait a minute,” Jessica said. “Are you saying it wasn’t you who fired up on us?”

  “I’m not saying anything. Last I checked, it’s your job to find evidence against me.”

  I raised my hand.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Travis,” Jessica said, and I suppose that stung even more. Intellectually, I understood it from the viewpoint of the formal nature of the interview, but that didn’t assuage the pain of the unintended barb.

  “Eloise, normally these types of things are adversarial, and very much so. But while you were cooling your heels in the back of Jessica’s police car out in that field, I was setting up this little interview so that you wouldn’t be formally charged with a felony. I didn’t like the picture in my head at that moment of seeing your arms sticking out of prison bars eight years down the road and looking at a wasted life. Because that’s what your life will be like if this isn’t ironed out, and in one hell of a hurry—as in tonight. So, your help is needed here, both for us and for yourself. Please, tell us everything.”

  “Why should I?” she asked.

  I looked to Jessica, and she nodded. For a moment I got it that she was relieved that I had chimed in. That did help the unsettling feeling I had.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Say that Patrick’s people examine the gun and examine the bullet taken out of Driesel’s leg and find out that it wasn’t from the rifle you had out there, and say we also find out your rifle wasn’t fired recently. That still leaves you at the scene of a felony, possibly aiding and abetting whoever did take a shot at us. That, dear lady, is a felony as well, last I checked. That’s two to ten in the penitentiary.”

  Eloise laughed. “Now that, Bill, would be insanely difficult to prove.”

  The room was silent for all of a minute. Jessica and Patrick and I all exchanged long looks.

  Patrick held up his hands, as if to say, “It’s beyond me.”

  “Who is threatening you, Eloise?”

  Her breath caught. Bingo!

  “Your husband’s name is James. I seem to recall he goes by ‘Jim’. What about Jim?” I asked. “Is somebody threatening his life?”

  Silence. It lasted two full minutes.

  I thought she was about to answer. We all abhor complete silence. It’s the one reason we detest a vacuum—sound doesn’t travel well in a vacuum, and it’s difficult to draw a breath. But then the door to the conference room opened, and in walked Shawn Tannen.

  Eloise said, “This interview is over.” She leaned forward and clicked the recorder off.

  “Driesel’s out of surgery. He’s going to be all right.” She looked around the room and into the sudden deep silence. “Just what’s going on here?”

  “Just trying to get to the bottom of what happened out there,” I said.

  The reporter’s eyes grew wide. She hurriedly began swelling up. “Look. This...woman...shot Driesel. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m beginning to think maybe she didn’t,” Jessica said, and stared at Eloise, pinning her with an unflinching, penetrating gaze. “But she knows who did and is protecting them for some reason.”

  “What?” Shawn shouted.

  “Reporters,” I said. “Always cool under fire.”

  “Okay,” Eloise said. “Look here.” She glared back at Jessica. “It was almost dark out there. Let’s say there were a couple of people watching the place out there because possibly someone was coming to...I don’t know...maybe remove something that shouldn’t have been there to begin with. What if they were going to remove this something and then skip away, scot free? Huh? Did you ever think of that? And what if—just what IF, mind you—one or two people were there watching the place and saw what they thought was a whole group of someones going into the creek to do their dirty work? And carrying this further, just for the sake of argument, what if one of them got nervous and fired? But it was exactly the wrong people all along.”

  Again, silence in the room.

  “Damn you,” Eloise said. “Damn all of you. Damn you, Bill, for doing exactly what I said not to do—stick your nose into it.”

  “I know you’d like to blame someone, Eloise. But you asked a question out there in that field that nobody answered. You asked about Chuck Holland. Do you want to tell us how you know about him?”

  “No,” Eloise answered.

  “That’s fine. But my daughter is going to find out anyway. So, I suppose you picked up Sol at the Driskill within ten minutes of me dropping him off there. That’s when the two of you went out there and set up your little turkey shoot.”

  Shocked silence for a moment. Eloise turned to Jessica. “Am I still under arrest?”

  Jessica looked to Patrick, who shook his head.

  Eloise stood. “Then adios, muchachos.”

  And I should have asked her about a fire from long ago.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was late. I took Jessica home.

  I’d forgotten the house would be deserted. Julie and the little kids were at Nat’s ranch. I called Julie and she answered right away.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I’m beat for the night. I’m turning in. In fact, I’m already in bed.”

  “Is it safe for us to come home yet?”

  “I don’t know that it was ever unsafe to be home, but I don’t have a real answer yet. There’s still a lot I don’t know.” />
  “Tomorrow, maybe?” Julie asked.

  “Maybe. You sound like you’re in bed.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “I wish it was my own bed.”

  “I know. By the way, Jessica’s on the team.”

  “Oh crap.”

  “Yeah. Still, it’s what she wanted. I just hope she doesn’t become one of those angry, jaded veteran cop-types you see on TV.”

  “Do you know any like that? I mean, for real?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “Okay. Watch out for her till I get home.”

  “Nat says he wants her to watch out for me. Can you believe that?”

  Julie chuckled. “He’s got a point.”

  “Good night, honey,” I said.

  “Good night. I love you.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  We hung up.

  I lay in bed and let my mind wander back over the day. I was lying like that, seeing Jessica getting knocked to the ground in my mind’s eye, see the blood from Driesel’s leg oozing between my fingers, seeing the whole day in a swatch of color and sound and emotion, when it hit me like a bolt from the blue.

  I got up, started throwing my clothes on as fast as I could. I darted out the door, whipped down the hall and to the stairs.

  Jessica and I met each other on the stairway—me going down while she was coming up. We both stopped at the same time.

  “Perry Reilly,” we said in unison.

  “Yeah,” Jessica said. “Crap!”

  *****

  There was no answer on Perry’s cell phone. I called his insurance office and got the standard “I’m not here” recording.

  “No luck?” Jessica asked. We were downstairs in the family room, sitting on the couch.

  I shook my head. “I think we have to go over to his house. Why don’t you put your uniform on. Bring your badge, your gun, and your police radio.”

  “Yeah.” Jessica dashed toward her new garage apartment and I got the image of Supergirl stepping into a telephone booth and emerging in a flying whirl of red and blue. But they don’t have phone booths anymore and Supergirl now carries a .38 instead of a cape.