Kill Devil Falls Page 7

  Mrs. Patterson hurriedly tossed a dishtowel on the counter, reached for the doorknob.

  Frank’s chair scraped on the floor as he rose for a better look. Yates coughed out a lungful of blue smoke. Mrs. Patterson opened the door.

  And let out a piercing shriek.

  6

  FRANK AND MIKE HELPED carry Jesse Patterson into the restaurant. The man was limping badly and wincing in pain. They lowered him into a chair. Helen saw that his cheek bore a long, angry welt, and a trickle of blood ran from his hairline.

  “I’ll get the first aid kit,” Teddy said.

  “What happened?” Mrs. Patterson wailed.

  “I fell down the goddamn stairs, that’s what! Where’s my cane?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay! I just told you I fell down the goddamn stairs!”

  Jesse looked to be around seventy. Once handsome, and still with a thick head of curly white-gray hair, a neatly tended salt-and-pepper beard, a silver hoop in his left ear.

  “Goddess! You’re bleeding!” Mrs. Patterson wrapped her arms around his head and pulled him into her breasts.

  “All right, stop fussing,” he said, pushing her away. “No sense in ruining your dress.” He seemed to notice Helen for the first time. “Hi there. If you want to fuss over me, I won’t object.”

  Helen smiled. “Is your vision blurry? Any nausea?”

  “No, but I must be hallucinating. I’m seeing angels.”

  Mrs. Patterson punched the old man’s shoulder. “Ass.”

  Teddy brought over a first aid kit.

  “Okay, let’s have a look.” Teddy opened the kit, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, began dabbing at Jesse’s scalp with a gauze pad.

  Yates tottered over.

  “Took a tumble, did ya?” he said.

  “Your powers of observation are, as always, nothing short of astounding, Mr. Yates,” Jesse said.

  Mike slipped through the back door, reappeared with a cane.

  “Don’t think you need stitches,” Teddy said. “Just some gauze and a butterfly bandage.”

  “I prefer butterfly kisses,” Jesse said, and winked at Helen.

  If he had been twenty years younger, she would have found his flirtation disgusting, but he was at that age where it seemed harmless, if not charming.

  “I got your cane, Mr. P,” Mike said.

  “Michael, you’re a prince.”

  “I’ll take that,” Mrs. Patterson said. She lay the cane on the table. It was black and glossy, with a brass tip and wooden derby handle.

  “Your legs and arms okay?” Teddy asked. “Nothing busted?”

  Jesse lifted his feet, rotated his elbows.

  “Perhaps just my cultivated air of nonchalance.”

  “You really should get those stairs fixed,” Teddy said.

  “Why? I’ve only fallen down them three times in the past decade. The odds are quite good, all things considered.”

  “He’s got a bum knee,” Mrs. Patterson said to Helen, by way of explanation.

  “Do not call my knee a bum,” Jesse said. “It’s more of a trickster. Or a rapscallion, if you will.”

  “I’ll fix up those stairs for you, Mr. P,” Frank volunteered. “For one month’s free dinners.”

  “Help, police, I’m being robbed,” Jesse said. “One week.”

  “Deal,” Frank said.

  Jesse turned to Helen.

  “So I take it you are the detective dispatched to toss Rita Crawford under the wheels of justice?”

  Helen caught a whiff of a tart odor, thought at first it was something Teddy was using to clean Jesse’s wounds, then realized it was booze. Whiskey, perhaps. Coming off the old man in waves. Perhaps it wasn’t the stairs that were at fault after all.

  “I suppose that’s one way to put it. I’m not a detective, I’m a Deputy Marshal. And yes, that’s why I’m here.”

  “May I ask what will happen to her?”

  “That’s for a jury to decide. Unless she cuts a deal and pleads guilty. Either way, I imagine she’ll spend some time in prison.”

  “What about her partner, what’s-is-name?” Mrs. Patterson said. “Any information on his whereabouts?”

  Helen had no idea. Before noon today, she’d been running down unregistered sex offenders, not working the Most Wanted list. But when interacting with civilians, her policy was to give the impression that the US Marshals were always on top of everything.

  “Larimer?” Helen said. “We have leads. Won’t be long before he’s in custody.”

  Mrs. Patterson nodded. “Good.”

  Teddy applied a bandage to Jesse’s scalp wound. He soaked a pad in rubbing alcohol, dabbed at an ugly round purplish mark on Jesse’s neck.

  “Ouch!” Jesse complained.

  “Sorry,” Teddy said.

  Helen noticed that Teddy worked quickly and efficiently.

  “It’s strange, though, for Rita to show up in Kill Devil Falls,” she said. “I mean, why such an out of the way, isolated place?”

  Teddy’s hand froze. “Guess you really didn’t get a chance to look at that paperwork,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Rita’s from here,” Mrs. Patterson said. “This is her hometown.”

  “Oh.” Now Helen felt stupid.

  “Her dad run off when she was a young kid,” Teddy said. “Her mom and my dad got married a few years later.

  “So he’s … you’re her … ” .

  “Yeah,” Teddy said. “Big Ed’s her stepfather. And that makes me her stepbrother.”

  Teddy and Helen trudged down the center of Main Street toward the Old Log Jail. Mike and Frank had promised to head back to their trailer to collect tools, after which they would be along to look at the Charger.

  “I woulda mentioned it,” Teddy said. “But, I don’t know … it’s kinda weird.”

  Helen nodded. It was weird. But ultimately, Teddy’s family situation was immaterial. She was here to do a job, not get involved in people’s private lives. Still …

  “I suppose it must have been hard arresting your own sister,” Helen said. “Stepsister.”

  Teddy shrugged. “Not hard, exactly.”

  “No?”

  “She ran away when she was sixteen. To be honest, we wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead until we heard about her on the news. That was a shock, let me tell you. Well no … not a shock. I mean, to hear she was alive was a shock. But to find out she was into armed robbery and all that … coulda seen it coming.”

  “She was a troubled kid?”

  “My dad was real hard on her. He used to … ” He fell silent.

  “Used to what?”

  “When we was growing up … sometimes, you know, he’d smack us around a bit. More Rita than me, ’cause she was always so damn mouthy. Didn’t know when to quit. I got pretty good with the peroxide and bandages, let’s put it that way.”

  Helen’s blood simmered. It was an old story. A heavy-handed, abusive father. A damaged child. Rita may have broken the law, but the sheriff was equally culpable for her crimes.

  Dusk now blanketed the town. A line of street lamps dotted Main Street, the last of them standing guard beside the jail, its crooked neck casting a yellow ring of light on the edge of the access road. Beyond it, the only illumination came from a rising moon and brightening stars.

  Helen observed that the window of the jail was pitch black.

  “Did you turn off the lights when we left?”

  “Don’t think so,” Teddy said. “Maybe the electricity went out?”

  “The street lamp is on.”

  “Could be the bulb in the jail popped, or a fuse blew.”

  “Rita must be freaking out, locked up in the dark.”

  “She may as well get used to it,” Teddy said. “They ain’t going to leave a night-light on where she’s going.”

  As they got closer, Helen saw the front door was open.

  “See that … the door?” she said
.

  “Maybe my dad’s back already,” Teddy said. “I don’t see the Explorer, though.”

  The only vehicle parked in front of the jail was Helen’s sickly Charger. Her heart flipped. Leaving Rita alone was against procedure. More than that, it was just plain irresponsible.

  She broke into a run. After a moment’s hesitation, Teddy followed, his boots clomping loudly on the pavement behind her.

  Helen took the porch steps two at a time, calling out: “Rita? Hello?”

  No answer. The door yawned on its hinges, its open mouth black as an empty well.

  Helen reached an arm inside, patted the wall, searching for a light switch. Teddy plodded up the stairs of the porch, breathing heavily.

  “Where’s the switch, Teddy?”

  “Let me get it.”

  He squeezed past her. After a few seconds, the overhead light flickered to life.

  Helen stepped into the room, saw that Rita’s cell door was open. And the cell was empty.

  “Christ on a cracker,” she muttered. “Where is she?”

  Teddy poked his head into both cells. “Let me check in back.”

  He hurried around the corner, into the guard room. His voice echoed hollowly as he called back to her.

  “She ain’t in here, either.”

  Helen glanced at the hook on the wall where she’d seen Teddy hang the cell door key. The hook was bare. She swung the door to Rita’s cell shut. The key dangled from the lock.

  “You put the key back on the wall when we left, right?” she yelled.

  Teddy emerged from the hallway. “Yeah.” He looked up at the empty hook, down at the key in the door. “I think I did.”

  “You still have the one for the front door?”

  He jangled the keys on his belt. “Right here.”

  Helen stepped out onto the porch.

  If anyone was moving out there, across the road or beyond the reach of the street lamp, Helen couldn’t see them in the gloom.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid … leaving Rita alone like that. Helen looked up at the sky. Saw-toothed pine trees ringed the rapidly darkening horizon like a snaggle of teeth. Her breath steamed in the frosty air. She corralled her rising panic.

  “We’d better start searching. Maybe she’s heading for her car,” she said.

  “I’ll run down the road a ways.”

  “You have a flashlight?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled a compact black tactical flashlight out of a loop on his gun belt.

  “Hold on, let me check something,” Helen said. She trotted over to the Charger, opened the passenger door, checked inside the plastic bag. “Her car keys are still here.”

  “Huh,” was Teddy’s comment. “Maybe she just run off in a tizzy.”

  “But how could she have gotten out of the cell while handcuffed?”

  “I really don’t know, Marshal.”

  “What if she had help?”

  “What help?”

  “Maybe … Lee Larimer,” Helen said. “Or somebody else we don’t know about.” Like a guy in camo, driving a brown Honda. “And maybe whoever broke her out has another car stashed somewhere.”

  “So what should we do?”

  If Rita had escaped, Helen was finished in the marshal’s service. She could imagine the look on her father’s face when she gave him that news. Worse would be the jibes from Chowder and her fellow deputies. But if she got Rita back into custody, she might just be able to save her job. And her reputation. The problem was, if Rita had an accomplice, and he was armed, there was a decent possibility someone was going to get shot or maybe even killed.

  Helen looked at Teddy. He seemed in no way prepared for a gun fight. But she didn’t have a lot of options.

  “Can you run down the access road, like you said?” she asked. “Just be careful. If she has an accomplice, assume he’s got a weapon. If they have a car, try to stop them from getting away. Shoot out the tires or put a few rounds in the engine. But don’t engage them directly.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Look around here. We weren’t gone that long. Rita couldn’t have gotten far.”

  “Okay. Holler if you find her, Marshal.”

  “You, too.”

  Teddy loped off down the road. His keys jingled so loudly, she figured if Rita and Lee Larimer or whoever had sprung her from the jail were out there, they’d hear him coming long before he ever saw them. He was like a baby rabbit sent to take down a Rottweiler. She felt guilty. But she had to get Rita back. Had to.

  Helen leaned back into the Charger and removed a pocket-sized flashlight from the glove compartment. She flicked it on and then made a quick circuit of the jail. She inspected the structure’s foundation and saw a series of rectangular air vents, but no cellar door or possible hiding places. She crisscrossed the grassy lot behind the jail, searching for foot prints, found nothing.

  She climbed into the tree line, pushed aside a tangle of underbrush, plunged into the forest. She breathed in the scent of fresh pine. The ground was pleasantly spongy, yet treacherously rutted and tangled with roots and undergrowth.

  “Rita? This is Deputy Marshal Morrissey. Come out with your hands in the air.”

  An insect buzzed, attempted to burrow in her ear. She waved it away.

  “And if Larimer is with you, he’d better come out, too. I’m armed and backup is on the way.”

  Helen swept her flashlight back and forth as she moved forward.

  “You can forget about that cheeseburger! And cigarettes!” she yelled.

  Long fingers tugged her hair. Helen whirled, raised the flashlight.

  A skeletal branch, extending sidewise from a pine tree, vibrated softly. Helen touched her hair, picked out a scatter of pine needles. Black patches of sap oozed from the tree’s bark, like blood from old gunshot wounds.

  “Suck it,” she muttered.

  She turned away, continued deeper into the forest, struggling to remain calm. Losing a fugitive in her custody … she’d never work in law enforcement again. All the time invested, the hard work, the bullshit she’d waded through. Up in flames.

  “Ritaaa!”

  This was ridiculous. If Rita was hiding in the forest, Helen was unlikely to find her without the help of twenty more officers and a police dog. And involving a bunch of cops was the last thing she wanted. Her best bet was to find Rita herself. Keep things contained. Fix the problem before anyone else found out about it.

  She halted, leaned against a tree, squeezed the flashlight under her armpit, rubbed her chilled hands together.

  Initially, the forest seemed deathly quiet. But as Helen stood motionless, a multiplicity of sounds crept into her awareness. Insects chirping, whirring, clicking. A light wind rustling above. The occasional patter of pine needles dropping to the ground. Distant cracking and scratching noises.

  A wet, hacking cough.

  Helen yanked the flashlight out from under her arm.

  “Rita?” She cocked an ear. “If that’s you, Rita, get your ass out here right now.”

  No answer. Helen drew her Glock, held the flashlight above and to the left of her head. She took a step forward, squeezed past a shrub, tripped on a hidden root, almost sprawled onto her face.

  The cough, again, to the left. Helen descended into a narrow gully. Her foot bumped against something solid, but yielding.

  The thing at her feet, whatever it was, wiggled.

  Helen retreated, pointed her light downward. Within the circle of illumination lay a zombie. That’s what it looked like, anyway. Black with blood splatter, white eyes, mouth open, gasping like a dry-docked fish.

  Helen’s lungs quit drawing air. Fear slammed down on her like an icy wave. She fumbled with the Glock. But then she recognized the leather jacket. The ripped-kneed jeans. The dark, hollow eyes.

  Rita.

  She sank to her knees. “Rita! What happened?”

  Rita coughed, a liquid rattle in her throat.

  “Let me see,” Helen said.


  There was a deep cut across Rita’s neck, from carotid to windpipe. Blood pumped sluggishly, keeping time with her slackening pulse.

  It looked bad. Really bad.

  “Help!” Helen yelled. “Help!”

  She holstered the Glock, searched her coat pockets, came up with a wad of tissue, pressed this to Rita’s neck.

  “I need some help here!” Helen screamed.

  Rita’s lips moved. A bubble of blood leaked from her mouth, a trickle ran from her nose.

  “I can’t hear you.” Helen leaned close.

  Rita coughed blood into Helen’s face.

  Something large and moving fast crashed through the forest, breaking twigs, snapping branches. Helen turned, shined her flashlight in the direction of the noise.

  A figure dropped into the gully. A man. Helen couldn’t see his features, just that he was big. And carrying a shotgun.

  “Show me your hands!” the man barked.

  7

  RITA DIED IN BIG Ed’s arms as he carried her out of the forest. She panted, her sides heaved, she twitched, and then she was gone.

  Some folks believe the soul had a calculable weight. Twenty-one grams. Which means a dead person should be a titch lighter than a living one. Big Ed’s experience was quite the opposite. Dead bodies, by virtue of their utter slackness, were heavier than a barrel of wet cement. He felt it when Rita passed, an extra ten pounds suddenly added to his load.

  Frank and Mike appeared, tool boxes in hand, just as Big Ed and Helen emerged from the trees. Teddy was already waiting beside the Explorer, now parked next to the Charger in front of the jail.

  “Take this,” Big Ed said to Teddy, indicating the shotgun held awkwardly in his right hand.

  “Is that Rita?” Frank asked. “Goddamn! Is she dead?” His voice cracked. At first, Helen thought he was scared. But then she decided he was keyed up.

  “You boys go on home and stay there,” Big Ed wheezed.

  “We’re supposed to fix the marshal’s car,” Frank said. He couldn’t take his eyes off Rita.

  “Just do as I say,” Big Ed growled.