Moving Target

by R. A. McGee

  Lost in thought, Porter tore through his food. He tried piecing together everything he knew. All the info from Joe’s file, everything he’d heard from the Newtons and Spaulding. He wondered who the two guys in the photos were, and what they had done to Pima.

  In the back of his mind, something was rattling around. A loose thought, something he wanted to tell himself. He tried to figure it out, but it wasn’t there. Thoughts like that were like butterflies—run after them and they float and fly and disappear. Sit back and watch them, and there was a chance they would hang around for a while.

  Porter pushed the errant thought from his mind.

  Claudette was back a few minutes later. “I see you didn’t like it today.”

  “Terrible,” Porter said. “The worst.”

  She started cleaning up the plates, and Porter stopped her. “Got a minute?” He pointed to the chair opposite him.

  “Sure,” she said, sitting down. “What can I get you?”

  “Nothing. I’m just tired of eating by myself. Figured I could use some company.”

  “But you’re already done eating,” she said with a smile.

  “Yeah, but I’m still sitting. That counts.”

  “Give me a minute,” Claudette said, standing up and clearing the table. Porter watched her walk away until she disappeared in the back. Moments later, she came out with an enormous brownie, cut into two pieces. “There, now you’re still eating.”

  The brownie was nearly as good as the burger, and Porter ate it quickly.

  “Slow down. That’s how you get agita.”

  “Agita?”

  “Yeah, agita.”

  “No fair making up words to try to trick the tourist,” Porter said. “Next thing I know, you’ll try to convince me to hunt snipe.”

  “It’s not made up,” she said, “it’s real.”

  “Let’s say I believe you, which I definitely don’t. What the hell is an ‘agita’?”

  “It’s like heartburn.”

  “See? You’re messing with me,” Porter said.

  “No, I’m not. My grandfather was from Italy and he used to say it all the time. It was even in an episode of The Sopranos.”

  “Really? Fine, I’ll check it out when I go home,” Porter said. “If I see Tony say it, then I’ll concede.”

  “Where is home?” Claudette said, picking at her brownie.

  “Tampa.”

  “How’s Florida? I’ve never been,” she said.

  Porter shook his head. “It sucks.”

  “No way. The commercials make it look so great.”

  “Too hot. Too humid. It rains all the time.”

  “Yeah, but you have the beach,” she said with a smile.

  “Then sand gets everywhere. Trust me, you guys have it better up here,” Porter said.

  “What? This cold weather? You’re crazy.”

  “I guess I am a little better insulated than you are,” Porter said, patting his abdomen.

  “Believe me, when winter hits, that ain’t enough,” she said with a laugh.

  “Maybe so,” Porter said. “But beyond that, this seems like a nice enough place.”

  “It used to be. Now… I don’t know. It just feels like it’s stuck in time. Stale. Jobs leave and they don’t come back. Hell, what do I know? I was an English major in school; economics wasn’t my strong suit.”

  “So was I,” Porter said.

  “What? An English major?”

  “Sure,” Porter said.

  “Really? Who’s your favorite poet?” she asked flippantly.

  “Flannery O’Connor,” Porter said without missing a beat.

  Claudette eyed him suspiciously. “You’re serious? I thought you were busting my balls.”

  “Nah. I’m lousy at math, so I figured I should go a different route.”

  “Hmm. Can’t say I expected that,” Claudette said. “You know, since I completely judged a book by its cover.”

  “I don’t blame you. I probably look like I can’t even spell the word ‘book,’” Porter said.

  Claudette blushed. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, you don’t seem like the type, that’s all. You probably spent your time stuffing people in lockers.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Claudette stood and picked up their shared plate. “Honestly, at this point, I’m not sure I would be.” She walked back to the kitchen.

  Porter watched her go.

  He collected his things and moved toward the front door.

  Claudette leaned out from the kitchen. “So, am I going to see my best customer again tomorrow?”

  “The burger’s too good to miss,” Porter said. “Service ain’t bad either. And I don’t mean Herschel.”

  “Good. It’s a date,” Claudette said with a big smile.

  Porter pushed out the door, cowbell clanking as he went.

  Twenty-Three

  The big box store in town was easy enough to find, with its oversized building and enormous parking lot. Porter ran in to grab a couple of things. He figured it would take him a few days to find out what happened to Pima, and he’d need some provisions to make the motel feel like home.

  The inside of the store felt sterile, with its artificial lights and squeaky clean high-traffic linoleum floors. Porter squinted as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. He filled his cart with a couple of cases of spring water, and more supplies from the pharmacy to keep his injured arm and leg clean.

  With any luck, he’d be able to keep them from getting gangrene.

  As he pushed his cart toward the checkout line, he saw the very unstealthy Deputy Adams loitering near the produce department. The deputy turned his back as Porter walked down the aisle, as if he’d miss a tan-and-green uniform and a big shiny gun belt.

  Spaulding had been right about them needing training, but Porter hadn’t realized how badly. Still, at this point, he was tired of being followed, and if it weren’t for the perfect lighting and hundreds of security cameras, he’d have taught the deputy a lesson on the spot.

  Instead, he paid for his items and pushed his way to the parking lot and loaded up his truck. He waited for a few moments to see whether Adams or any other member of the sheriff’s office followed him out of the store.

  Seeing no one, he threw the Yukon into drive and peeled out to the main road, heading back toward the motel. He couldn’t be sure he was going to be followed, but he was going to take it as a given until he was proven wrong.

  Porter ran three lights to get back to the motel, sliding on the loose gravel of the parking lot into a spot that wasn’t near his room. He hustled to his front door, opening it and flipping the exterior light on, before stepping outside again and making a phone call.

  “Hey man. What up? How’s the case?”

  “It’s going,” Porter said, watching the road by the front of the motel. “Right now I just need to pretend to be on the phone for a couple minutes.”

  “Well, while you’re pretending, tell me how it’s going.”

  Porter filled Ross in—the one person who always got the unabridged details.

  “You just left the hunter there?”

  “Yeah,” Porter said, leaning against the window of his room.

  “You have to hide the body or something, right?” Ross said.

  “I set it on fire.”

  “Set it on fire? That’s not smart. There’s still evidence,” Ross said.

  “It’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not trying to get into it with you right now. I just need to kill a few minutes.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ross said.

  Porter explained that he was sick and tired of being followed.

  “What are you gonna do about it? You can’t mess with them—they’re cops.”

  “I’m gonna mess with them.”

  “I just said you can’t do that,” Ross said. “Don’t you listen to anything I say?”

  “Uh-huh,” Porter said.

  As if on cue, a fam
iliar pair of headlights pulled in to the front of the motel and into a spot, then blinked off.

  “Hey man, I gotta go.”

  “Porter, no. Listen, maybe you should—”

  Porter hung up the phone and stuffed it in his pants. He lingered for a few moments, waiting to make sure he was seen.

  The car the deputies had pulled up in wasn’t a marked unit, but it was still the same make and model as the rest of the sheriff's office sedans. Besides that, even in the failing light, anyone with eyes could see the light bar stuck to the inner windshield.

  And they wondered why criminals always made them when they were trying to be sneaky.

  Making sure he’d been seen going back into his room, Porter reopened the door, stepped inside, and flipped all the lights on. Then he shut the door behind him. He made sure the blinds were cracked just a little bit and that his room was lit up like a Christmas tree. A very inviting Christmas tree.

  Porter sat on the bed and waited for a few minutes. He needed the cops to relax and settle in. He needed them to let their guard down. Then he planned on having a talk with them about boundaries.

  He peeked out the partially open blinds and saw the car still sitting next to his Yukon. Porter was impressed that the cops at least had the shrewdness to not park in front of his room. That was the most impressive thing he could say about them.

  Porter shut the blinds fully, then drew the shade and flipped his light off. Anyone who’d been watching would assume he’d settled in to doze off to a peaceful night’s sleep.

  Instead, he went to the bathroom and pried open the small window. Porter looked at the window, then looked down at himself, then looked at the window again.

  He was used to being the biggest guy around. His physical attributes had served him well many times in his life, from his youth playing football and wrestling to his stint as a bouncer to his career as a federal agent. He was deceptively fast for his build and his strength could not be ignored.

  The bathroom window didn’t care about any of that. Its narrow frame taunted Porter. He made sure the window was all the way open, then fed his head and arms out of the opening.

  Porter continued pushing himself along, inch by inch, until his hips caught on the windowsill. Halfway through and upside down, he pushed along the wooden siding of the motel until he was past the sill and the rest of him slid freely out.

  He tucked his head and rolled, ending up on his ass in the dirt.

  Porter stood and dusted himself off, then hugged the back of the motel, following the curve until he was at the edge of the building. He peeked his head around the corner until he could just see the front of the hood of the car the men sat in. Most of their sedan was obscured by his own Yukon.

  Porter waited a few minutes to catch his breath, hoping that the deputies would leave their vehicle. That would make things a lot easier. But neither of the men moved a muscle.

  Porter looked around in the dirt at his feet, toeing up a softball-sized rock and gripping it tightly in his hand. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to make these good old boys so upset, but he was going to make sure they had a reason to be angry with him.

  Convinced the deputies’ attention was on his room, Porter took a few big steps over to his Yukon and leaned close to his truck. The deputies’ sedan was in the adjacent spot.

  Porter stole a look around, finding the coast clear. Even the light in the check-in hut was turned off.

  He moved around to the back of his truck, leaning on the tailgate. He looked at the back of the sedan and took a step toward the car, raising the rock as he went.

  Then the driver’s door opened up. Porter thought for a second and stepped back behind his car. He wondered what the men were going to do. The passenger joined the first man at the trunk of the sedan. There was whispering and rustling, and Porter couldn’t make out what they were saying from the other side of his truck.

  What he could hear, as clear as Claudette’s laugh, was the sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.

  Twenty-Four

  The sound of a shotgun racking had a tendency to change things. In this instance, it changed Porter’s mind.

  He no longer assumed the cops were guileless idiots trying to prove a point. There was something bigger going on, something that involved a loaded shotgun.

  Porter felt his Glock resting in his waistband and knew he was outgunned. A long gun beat a pistol most times. He wished he could get into his truck and grab the rifle inside, but that wasn’t possible. He’d have to handle this another way.

  Timing the click of the deputies’ boot heels as they moved away from the sedan, Porter stepped in between the two vehicles and kept his head down as he moved to the front of the cars. Up and to the right, one man was moving to the front door of his room. The one with the shotgun was headed around the back. Both were wearing balaclavas to hide their faces.

  Porter knew the man with the long gun was the bigger threat. He waited until he turned the corner to the rear of the U-shaped motel, then sprinted from his hiding spot to the edge of the building. When he peeked his head around the corner, the man with the shotgun was moving slowly away from him, toward the bathroom window.

  Porter stepped to the rear of the building and took several large steps until he fell in a couple of feet behind the deputy. His Chuck Taylors helped him to move as quietly as a size thirteen foot could move, which was silent compared to the noise the man in front of him was making, stomping through the dirt and rock and grass.

  Every so often, the deputy would slow down and sweep the barrel of the shotgun left and right, looking for anything suspicious. He never looked behind him, where his biggest threat was slowly advancing on him.

  At this point, Porter was within arm’s reach of the man, just waiting for the right moment to wreck his night. Up ahead, his bathroom window glowed into the darkness. Porter had waited long enough.

  He took two quick steps, then slammed a right hand into the man’s neck. It was like someone had flipped off a light switch. The man fell into a heap, his arms stiffly stretched out in front of him. Porter pulled off the man’s balaclava, revealing the plainclothes deputy from the day before.

  A few moments later, he’d moved to the wall next to his bathroom window, his body pressed flat. There was a loud bang, the sound of the other man kicking his door in. Porter waited. He wasn’t a mind reader, but he knew the man was confused, expecting to see Porter sound asleep in his bed.

  Porter waited, still as a stone as he heard the intruder pull open the bathroom door, the overhead light projecting his silhouette out into the forest behind the motel. The man’s boots clicked across the flooring, closer and closer, until Porter was sure he was in the window next to him.

  He stepped away from the wall and reached up into the window, grabbing the man by the side of his head. The man with the mask tried to squirm away, but Porter squeezed and held his head in a vise grip.

  Then he yanked the man’s head, pulling him clear through the open window. Since he was smaller than Porter, he didn’t get stuck on the sill; he was yanked all the way out and landed on the ground beneath Porter.

  The masked man struggled beneath him. Porter let go of his head and grabbed the man’s arm, locking it up and tearing the man’s elbow out of place. There was a muffled scream from beneath the balaclava, which Porter put an end to with several powerful elbows to the face.

  His assailant limp beneath him, Porter pulled off his mask, confirming it was Deputy Adams.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  He was up in an instant, leaving Adams unconscious and bleeding from a large gash that his elbow had gouged out. Porter winced as the wound in his own leg stung, presently unhappy with his squatting up and down.

  The other deputy was beginning to stir, snorting as he was coming back to consciousness. Porter kicked him in the side of the head, rendering the man inert again. He pulled out his pocket knife and cut the straps on the man’s shotgun, pulling it away from him.
>
  “This is mine now,” Porter said as he stepped away from the fallen man.

  He jogged to the corner of the building and looked around it. The parking lot was empty enough to show no new cars. No one was out for a late-night stroll or cigarette break. Porter jogged over to his truck, threw the shotgun in the back seat, and peeled away, rear tires sliding in the loose gravel.

  Twenty-Five

  “And it was like that when you got there?”

  “Yep,” Porter said. He sat in his idling Yukon in the parking lot of the big box store that seemed to never close.

  “Well, Porter, I’m sorry this happened,” Spaulding said, looking up at Porter from his heavily marked cruiser. “I’d hate for anyone to feel unsafe in my town.”

  “I don’t feel unsafe, I’m just not happy my door was kicked in. I have underwear in there. What if they stole them?”

  Spaulding smirked. “I’m not sure anybody wants your drawers.”

  “Did you say ‘drawers?’”

  “Isn’t that what people call them?”

  “Not saying it like that, it’s not,” Porter said.

  “Eh, I tried. When I went to the scene, both guys were gone. Any clue who did it?”

  “No,” Porter lied. “No clue. I told you—”

  “It was like that when you got there. Then you drove here and called us. I know, I know.” Spaulding yawned. “You’ve told me.”

  “It’s kind of late for you to be out. Don’t you have underlings for this type of shit?”

  “I do, but I can’t get any of them on the phone. Probably drunk or sleeping it off someplace. I’ll deal with them when I can. Just know that no matter what, someone will respond if you have any issues. I give you my word.”

  “That makes me feel better,” Porter said, a dry bite to his voice.

  “No need to be sarcastic. I’m here, aren’t I? Besides, you can’t say I didn't warn you.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I asked you to leave the police work to the police. A day after you show up in town asking questions about the Newton girl, this happens. You think that’s a coincidence?”