Open Carry

by Marc Cameron

  “I haven’t gotten around to getting a swim boob,” January said, giving the bags a nod. “Still coming around to the idea that some parts of me are removable—like Mrs. Potato Head.”

  Cutter continued his examination of the dry suit, speaking without looking up. “My wife—the good one—had this nurse who had also been through breast cancer, double mastectomy, really nasty chemo—Adriamycin, the whole deal. Anyway, she reminded my wife not to reduce her self-worth to a bag of skin with a nipple on it.”

  January shot a glance at Cassandra, who was looking up, suddenly interested in the adults’ conversation.

  “I don’t think you should say ‘nipple’ around the girl.”

  Cutter gave an innocent shrug. “You just did.”

  “Yes,” January said. “But girls can talk that way because we have nipples.”

  Cassandra put both hands in front of her face, peering out between her fingers, grinning.

  “Well, technically, men do—”

  “Anywaaaay,” January said. “I’m a night owl and Cassandra must have slept half the day, so she won’t want to go to sleep anytime soon. I have some new DVDs onboard. How about I make some popcorn and we have a movie night?”

  Cassandra nodded quickly, dropped her pencil, and gave two thumbs up.

  “I guess I could go for popcorn and a movie,” Cutter said. He closed the dry suit’s zipper, then grabbed the neoprene on either side and gave a healthy tug down by the waist. It held, so he moved his hands upward. At the center of the chest, the teeth on the zipper parted, and like a row of falling dominoes, the entire thing opened up.

  “That would ruin your day,” he said.

  “It did,” January said. “I probably went through a dozen very intricate yoga poses in about two seconds when that cold water hit me. Luckily, I was right below the boat so I could get in and warm up fast. It’ll cost more to replace the zipper than it would to buy a new suit.”

  Cutter returned the wadded plastic bags and scooted out of the dinette seat. “Where would you like me to put this?”

  January gave him a sheepish look. “The aft lazarette?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to go outside.”

  “I changed my mind,” she said. “This storm is really creeping me out for some reason. The lazarette’s just back of the cabin, so you won’t be walking up front into the wind. And besides, I’m sure you’ve been dying to search all the compartments on this boat since you got here.”

  “You’d have made a good deputy marshal,” he said.

  * * *

  “How about Moana?” January said once Cutter was back inside and drying his hair with a towel she’d given him from her cabin. “It’s Cassandra appropriate and a damn good movie.” She held up the DVD cover. “I can’t decide if your partner reminds me more of Moana or the Rock.”

  “Believe you should keep that to yourself,” Cutter mused.

  Whatever Lola Tuakana Teariki Fontaine was doing now, it was a pretty sure bet she wasn’t munching popcorn and watching a Disney movie about a Polynesian girl.

  The forward seats at the dinette were high backed and plenty long for the three of them to slide in. Cutter, who was rarely comfortable around anyone, watched the light from the computer screen glint off January’s abalone earrings, and felt himself relax by degree in the warmth of the cabin heat.

  Four hours after he’d borrowed Trooper Benjamin’s pickup, Arliss Cutter found himself snuggled under a quilt around a laptop computer with January Cross and Cassandra Brown. Havoc had curled up in the cushion on the other side of the dinette. Outside, the rain still pelted the water and the little boat swung back and forth in the wind.

  CHAPTER 41

  SAM BENJAMIN PRESSED THE PHONE TO HIS EAR WITH ONE HAND, talking to Officer Simeon while he drove with the other—something he hated to do, especially when the roads were so bad.

  “We’re nearly there,” he shouted. The rain hit the roof of his Tahoe with such force he may as well have been trying to talk inside a metal trash can while someone beat on it with a stick.

  “I’m just coming through Klawock,” the Craig officer said.

  “Copy that,” Benjamin said. “We’re about five minutes ahead of you. I have Deputy Fontaine with me so we’re going to go ahead and try the door.”

  He got nothing but the sound of static—which wasn’t out of the ordinary on this remote rock. He took his eyes off the road for a half second and looked at the phone, just to see if he still had a signal.

  “Shit!” Lola Fontaine pounded her armrest. “Look out, Sam!”

  A surge of adrenaline flooded the trooper’s legs when he looked up. He stood on the brakes, feeling the Tahoe hydroplane on the wet pavement. Miraculously the tires found their grip. The antilock brakes groaned and shuddered as four thousand pounds of vehicle slithered to a stop, mere feet from a half-naked woman in the middle of the road.

  Soaked to the skin and wearing nothing but a pair of pink panties, she stood frozen and wide-eyed, like a startled doe in the beam of the Tahoe’s headlights. It took Benjamin half a second to gather his wits after the near miss, but when he’d calmed down a notch, he recognized the rain-soaked blonde as the young woman who’d been sitting beside Kenny Douglas at the bonfire.

  “I’ll grab a blanket from the back,” Benjamin said to Fontaine as he activated his red and blue emergency lights. “If you don’t mind getting her off the road before someone comes up and rear-ends me in the mess.”

  Fontaine gave him a thumbs-up. She threw open her door and stepped into the rain without another word.

  “He’s gone crazy!” the girl said, when Benjamin met her and Fontaine on their way to the Tahoe. He draped the wool blanket around her shivering shoulders and walked her toward the backdoor.

  “Who’s gone crazy? Kenny?”

  The girl looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “No, not Kenny. Millie’s dad.”

  Benjamin helped Fontaine get the girl in the Tahoe, and then ran around to jump back in the front, out of the downpour.

  Benjamin wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. He made sure the sliding window on his prisoner cage was open as far as possible, then turned to look at the wilted young woman. “Tell me your name again.”

  “Ashley,” she said. “Ashley Pratt.” Her teeth chattered. A string of bubbly saliva hung from the tip of her quivering chin.

  “Okay, Ashley,” the trooper said. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, lips together. Water dripped from blond bangs. Tiny ears stuck through her wet locks, elf-like. “He has a gun,” she said. “It scared the shit outta me when he kicked in the door. Kenny and me were . . . you know . . . Look, I hardly know Mr. Burkett, but I’ve never seen him like this. He seemed to get extra mad when he came in and saw me and Kenny together.”

  “Did he hurt Kenny?” Fontaine said, also turned halfway around in her seat.

  “Not yet,” Ashley said. “Kenny’s bigger, but Mr. Burkett has a gun. He pointed it at me and told me to leave. I was so scared I just ran out of there.”

  “Where are they now?” Benjamin said.

  Ashley nodded to a gravel driveway ahead of the Tahoe and to the left. Benjamin could tell there was a house back there, but thick cedars along the road blocked much of the view.

  “I think they’re still in the house,” Ashley said. “Mr. Burkett said he was going to ‘frog march’ Kenny out into the woods and teach him a lesson.” She looked at Benjamin with pleading eyes, starting to sob now that she was getting warm. “I don’t even know what ‘frog march’ means.”

  Benjamin grabbed the radio mic. “You stay in the car, Ashley,” he said, before depressing the key. “Simeon, you there?”

  “Go ahead, Sam.”

  “Burkett’s here already. I’ve got Ashley Pratt in the back of my vehicle. There’s a chance Burkett and Douglas will be in the woods by now.”

  “Ten-four,” Simeon said. “Copy that, dispatch?”

  “Ten-four,” the
Craig dispatcher said. “I’ll find somebody to head your way and then I’ll get in touch with Trooper Allen.”

  “I’m maybe three minutes out, Sam,” Simeon said.

  “Copy,” Benjamin said as he put the Tahoe in gear. A hell of a lot could happen in three minutes.

  The beam from the Tahoe’s headlights bounced across rough gravel as Trooper Benjamin turned off the main road. Long shadows crawled up the clapboard house at their approach. The front door opened as they were driving up, and Kenny Douglas stumbled out, hands tied behind his back. He shrank back at the bright light, then fell forward again, barely catching himself as Gerald Burkett smacked him across the back of the head with the barrel of his pistol.

  “That’s not good,” Benjamin said.

  Fontaine groaned, hand on the door. “Suicide by cop?”

  “He knows we’re here,” the trooper said. “And he still came out into the light.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Ashley, lay down in the seat. Don’t get up until I tell you to.”

  Both Benjamin and Fontaine opened their doors and stood behind them, pistols out and trained on Burkett. Benjamin blinked, barely able to see his front sight in the downpour.

  Burkett stood immediately behind Douglas, holding him by the collar, revolver at his side. Eyes swollen and bloody, the FISHWIVES! security man sagged.

  “Gerald!” Benjamin yelled, thankful he’d taken the time to put on his Stetson. Frigid water ran down the collar of his uniform, pooling above his gun belt at the small of his back just below the coverage of his ballistic vest. His breath blossomed in front of his face in clouds of vapor. “Put down the gun and let’s talk!”

  “Afraid not!” Burkett yelled, his words almost lost in the wind and thrashing cedar boughs. He listed heavily to one side, crazy with rage and alcohol.

  “Shoot him!” Kenny Douglas yelled, head bowed against the rain, straining to get away from Burkett’s hold on him.

  “Nobody’s gonna get shot,” Benjamin yelled. He cast a quick look at Fontaine, who stood at her open door with her Glock braced against the post. “You got him?”

  “Yep,” she said, lips set in a grim line.

  “I’m going to get a little closer,” he said, so only the deputy could hear. “If things get crazy . . .”

  “Then somebody will get shot,” Fontaine said. “Just make sure it’s not you. I’ll keep him talking.”

  Benjamin used the cedars as cover, moving from tree to tree, relying on his headlights to effectively blind Gerald Burkett. It might work in the movies to set down your gun and walk forward to negotiate, but the trooper preferred to have three feet of timber between him and any bullets Burkett might send his way. Sorrow and anger released powerful chemicals into the brain, chemicals that were capable of making best friends murder one another. Benjamin felt certain Burkett would certainly feel sorry about it if he killed him. But sorry wouldn’t make him any less dead, so he kept to the relative safety of the trees and checked Burkett’s position every few steps.

  Lola called out, identifying herself. “US Marshals!” She ordered him to put down the gun. Douglas hunched his shoulders against the rain and continued to scream for someone to kill his tormentor.

  Burkett threw back his head and cried into the night, as if imploring God instead of the trooper. “You know what this bastard did to my little girl!”

  Douglas half turned and said something unintelligible. Burkett cuffed him in the back of the head with the revolver again for his trouble.

  “Will someone please kill this son of a bitch!” Douglas was crying now, slinging snot in a near mental breakdown.

  Burkett swayed and began speaking to the sky again. Douglas, having had enough, threw himself backward against the other man, sending them both reeling against the door of the cabin. The revolver flew into the mud a few feet away. Douglas hit him again, this time with the point of his shoulder, slamming him against a wall.

  Benjamin was still twenty feet from the two men when the gun hit the mud. He holstered his Glock and sprinted forward, floundering twice before slamming into an already stunned Burkett. Even drunk and out of his mind with sorrow, Gerald Burkett was an incredibly strong man. He’d already given up on his own life, and seemed bent on committing suicide by cop. In order to do that, he had to stay out of handcuffs—and the only way to accomplish that was to kick Sam Benjamin’s ass.

  Pushing one shoulder and pulling the other, the trooper spun the other man, attempting to get his hands behind him. Burkett was having none of it, and just kept spinning, giving the trooper a glancing punch in the jaw as he came around. Rather than continue to fight, Benjamin shoved Burkett away, drawing his Taser and flicking the switch with his thumb to activate it. The red laser light played across Burkett’s torso and the trooper pulled the trigger. The battery released a compressed nitrogen charge, propelling twin barbed darts into Burkett’s chest and left thigh, just missing his groin. Fifty thousand volts found the path of least resistance between the two darts—through the major muscle groups of Gerald Burkett’s body. He dropped like a felled cedar, splashing in the muck.

  From the corner of his eye, Benjamin caught sight of Douglas heading to where the gun had fallen, both hands in front of him now. Somehow, he’d slipped his bonds. An instant later there was a flash of movement in the darkness.

  * * *

  Lola Fontaine had just holstered her Glock when she saw Kenny Douglas slip his right hand out of the tape behind his back. He took a moment to rub his wrists and wipe the rain and tears from his eyes. Turning, he peered back at the Tahoe for a moment, using the flat of his hand to shield his eyes from the headlights. Then, coming to some decision, he dropped to his knees and began to search through the mud for Burkett’s weapon.

  “Step back!” Fontaine shouted, already running toward him.

  He ignored her, continuing to dig through the mud for Burkett’s gun, not the least bit worried about the approaching female.

  That was his first mistake.

  Fontaine hit him hard in a flying tackle, riding him backward into the mud. Douglas shrugged her off, elbowing her hard in the gut and knocking the wind out of her. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was still a man, possessing more upper body strength than Fontaine, no matter how much time she spent in the gym. What he did not have was her guts—not by a long shot. Underestimating her a second time, he continued to grope through the dark puddles for the revolver, thinking he’d shrugged her off for good.

  Fontaine fell flat on her backside, croaking as she tried to draw a breath. Freezing water rushed into her jeans, already soaked from the rain. Gathering her wits, she went against her natural instincts and exhaled forcefully, relaxing her diaphragm enough to be able to breathe again. Her hand closed around a paving stone at the same moment Douglas sat back in the mud. He tried to bring up the revolver, but Fontaine clobbered him in the side of the head with the brick.

  Douglas yowled, falling sideways and clutching his head with both hands. He’d already been bleeding from the pistol whipping Burkett had given him, and the brick seemed to undo him completely.

  Fontaine confiscated the gun, tucking it into the back of her jeans. She rolled Kenny onto his stomach with a heavy grunt, not really caring that he was blowing bubbles in the rain-sodden driveway as she ratcheted on the handcuffs.

  “You could’ve killed me!” Douglas whined. A slurry of mud and saliva dripped from his swollen lips. Blood covered the side of his face, mingling with the pouring rain.

  Fontaine nodded, still trying to catch her breath.

  “I could have shot your ass,” she panted. “And dead is dead, by rock or bullet.” She pulled Douglas to his feet.

  Trooper Benjamin dragged a handcuffed Gerald Burkett over by the elbow, checking to see if Fontaine needed help. Burkett tried to break free as soon as he got close to Kenny Douglas.

  Benjamin pushed him back with a flat hand to the chest. “Knock it off,” he said.

  “You better keep that crazy son of a bitch away fr
om me,” Douglas sneered. “Just ’cause his daughter is dead doesn’t give him the right—”

  “Hey,” the trooper said. “You have the right to remain silent. I think you should.”

  Officer Simeon rolled up and bailed out of his car, sloshing through the rain.

  Benjamin waved a soaking wet greeting to the slender Craig officer. “Just after the nick of time,” he joked. “If you don’t mind transporting Gerald, we’ll take Kenny with us. And we have a girl that will need a ride back to her apartment in Craig before questioning. Put her up front with you.”

  “Hang on now,” Douglas said. “Why are you arresting me? I’m the one that was kidnapped and pistol whipped.”

  “How about sex with a minor?” Fontaine said. She opened the back of the cruiser and escorted the dazed girl to Simeon’s car.

  Douglas stopped in his tracks, forcing the other trooper to shove him along through the muck.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Ashley said she’s eighteen. Tell them, Ashley!” The girl just shuddered silently, clutching the blanket around her as she slid into Simeon’s front seat.

  “I’m not talking about Ashley, genius,” Fontaine said as she shut the door.

  Burkett screamed something as Simeon put him in the back of the Craig PD cruiser. The actual words were torn away by the wind, but the meaning was crystal clear.

  Kenny Douglas turned to look over his shoulder. “That asshole over there thinks I killed his daughter.”

  Benjamin opened the rear door of his Tahoe. “Watch your head,” he said, prodding the man inside.

  Douglas bowed his body, making it impossible to stuff him into the vehicle. “Just hang on one damn minute,” he said. “You don’t really think I killed that girl?”

  “Get in,” Benjamin said.

  “I didn’t kill anybody.” Douglas turned to Fontaine, looking for sympathy. “You gotta believe me. I’m innocent.”

  Lola shook her head. “You’re a lot of things, Kenny,” she said. “But innocent ain’t one of them.”