Fury (21 page)

He pocketed the phone.

Dougherty was dragging him now. Pulling him headlong over the rutted tracks. Ten yards from the end of the drive, Corso heard the squeal of tires, tried to stop and listen, but Dougherty wasn’t buying. She dropped his hand and began to run, her long strides eating up the ground. Good thing she was wearing boots. If she’d been going any faster, she’d have plowed facefirst into the gray van that slid to a stop in the mouth of the driveway.

Saturday, September 22
11:16
P.M.
Day 6 of 6

The van’s engine shuddered slightly at each revolution. The rhythmic tick of a bad valve seemed to be the only sound moving in the air. Behind the nearly black windows, the figure leaned to his right, as if fetching something from the glove compartment. From where he stood in the driveway, Corso could see the rear bubble window puffing out like a blister from the van’s flat profile.

Dougherty was backing toward Corso, who began moving quickly toward the van. He swallowed and put on his best Jim Rockford smile.

“Look, honey, we got lucky.”

Dougherty’s expression suggested she was not familiar with English. Corso hooked her around the waist and forced her forward. Skidding her over the grass.

“What…you can’t read the sign?” Defeo said in a nasal tenor. He couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred fifty pounds. A pipsqueak. “Somethin’ about the sign you two didn’t understand?”

Corso kept smiling. Mr. Jovial. “What sign is that?”

Corso had no intention of squinting into the head-lights. He kept moving, forcing Defeo to step aside as they made their way past the van, out into the street. The guy smelled of Old Spice. Corso nearly gagged. Defeo’s hand trembled as he pointed to a tattered sign hanging askew! “No Trespassing.”

“Sorry,” Corso said. “It was dark as hell when we walked down. I never even saw the sign.” He turned to Dougherty. “Did you see it, honey?”

She managed to stammer out, “No.”

“Well, what the hell are you doing here anyway?” Defeo asked. He walked around Corso, taking him in from all angles. “Nobody comes down here at night no more. No reason to.” He made eye contact for the first time.

You had to pull your eyes from the twitching muscles around his mouth before you could process the face. Patrick Defeo appeared to have been made of spare parts. His right eye was fully an inch higher than its counterpart. Same thing with his cab-door ears. Offset. Angular, the effect was of a head that had been welded together. The expression lost and desperate, like one of those long-ago
Life
black-and-whites of gaunt Dust Bowl refugees.

He wore a blue baseball cap. “FBI” in big gold letters. The hat was sized down as far as it would go, leaving a four-inch piece of strap sticking out the back. Otherwise it was all camouflage. Fatigues with a pack of Marlboros rolled into the left sleeve. Tiny spit-shined boots. Pants tucked into the boots. Marine insignia on his chest. Special Forces patches sewn on his narrow shoulders.

“We broke down,” Corso said. “Up the street.” He pointed toward the Chevy. “We were going along just fine and then just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“it quit.”

Dougherty regained her wits and said, “We saw the house light and thought maybe you’d call a tow truck for us.”

It wasn’t just his mouth. Defeo was twitchy all over, as if his limbs had a life of their own. He seemed to be incapable of standing still. Constantly moving from one foot to another, shifting his weight, as if he was about to walk off and then suddenly changed his mind. He folded his arms across his chest to keep them still. Beneath his arms, his fingers fluttered like wings.

“Can’t imagine what might have happened. Always been a real reliable car. Nothing like this ever happened before.”

Defeo rolled his neck, like he was working out a kink. “Just quit, you said.”

“Just like that,” Corso said. “I’m terrible with cars. Don’t know a thing about ’em. Never have.”

Defeo looked Corso over like he was measuring him for a suit. “What was you doing down here anyway?” he demanded. “The old woman sent you two down here to spy on me? Still can’t keep her damn nose outta my business.”

Dougherty began to stammer, “Oh…no…we…not to spy…we—”

“We just took a wrong turn somewhere,” Corso said quickly.

Defeo cocked his head, as if listening to distant voices. Rolled his neck again.

“Lemme have a look at this broke-down car of yours,” Defeo said, gesturing up the road with his chin. “Lemme see it.”

“We were desperate,” Dougherty said as they moved toward the Chevy. “Yours was the only light on the whole street.”

Defeo’s eyes rolled in his head like a horse’s. “Nobody out here no more,” he said. He swung his arms in an arc. “Used to be nothin’ but farms.” He pointed at the mini-storage yard. “That was Jorgenson’s dairy.” He looked up at Corso. “Will be again too. Someday. When the final turnaround comes. Everything’s gonna be like it was before.”

He looked from Corso to Dougherty and back, as if daring them to disagree.

Suddenly, Defeo stopped walking. Reached over and grabbed Dougherty by the arm. Squinted at the gold bracelet tattooed around her wrist and the red letters in the palm of her hand. “What the hell you go and defile yourself like that for?” he asked. “That’s a hell of a thing. Let a woman defile herself that way.” He dropped her arm and looked to Corso for an explanation, as if to say, “You let her do that to herself?”

Corso kept grinning and walking.

Dougherty hung back now. Rubbing her arm where he’d touched it. Corso pointed to the Chevy. “Here it is,” he said. Defeo looked the car over as if he were going to salvage it for parts. “All parked nice and neat,” he commented. “You push it in here?”

“Just rolled it right in,” Corso said.

“Get in. Pop the hood,” Defeo said.

Corso slid into the driver’s seat. Found the hood release. Pulled it. Dougherty slipped into the passenger seat and locked the door. Still massaging her arm.

Defeo fiddled around for a moment and then opened the hood.

Dougherty shot Corso a panicked look. He made a “stay calm” gesture.

“Try it,” Defeo said.

Instead of turning the key to the right, Corso turned it to the left. Got a series of electrical clicks. “Nothing,” he said out the window.

“Try it again,” Defeo called back. Corso did it again.

“You sure you turning it the right way?” Defeo asked.

“Positive,” Corso assured him.

They kept repeating the process for what seemed to Dougherty an hour, until finally Defeo dropped the hood. He walked around to the driver’s side and leaned down. Peered into the car. Gave Corso his version of a smile. “I’m gonna run up the house, get my toolbox,” Defeo said. A muscle in his cheek fluttered like a butterfly.

He looked back over his shoulder twice as he hustled back to the van. Smiling all the way, like he’d just heard a good joke and couldn’t wait to tell it to somebody else. The van began to roll. Corso checked his watch. Thirteen minutes since he’d called Densmore.

“Did you smell him?” Dougherty asked.

Corso nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here. From now on he’s Densmore’s problem.” He turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Tried it again. Still nothing. His stomach was suddenly ice cold.

“He…,” was all Dougherty could get out.

He grabbed the door handle. “Come on.”

In the junkyard, the dogs were growling along the fence. He grabbed Dougherty by the hand and sprinted diagonally across the street, running along the fronts of the buildings, trying doors, looking for a place to duck in and hide, finding nothing until, fifty yards up the street, they came to a narrow alley separating a welding shop from something called Fircrest Fabrication. A pair of fifty-five-gallon drums were chained together in the mouth of a grimy alcove. One barrel was marked “Oil.” The other, “Solvents.” He peered over the top into a narrow space between the recycling drums and the metal wall behind. Maybe three feet wide. Big enough.

He grabbed Dougherty by the elbows and lifted her completely over the drums. Set her gently on the littered ground.

“Get down,” he said. “Stay down.”

Saturday, September 22
11:38
P.M.
Day 6 of 6

His knuckles glowed white around the phone. Again, he paced over and peered down the driveway. Nothing had changed. The van still sat facing the street. Lights on. Engine running. The tired yellow bulb over the front door carved the same deep shadows into the yard.

“Come on,” he muttered to himself.

Corso jogged back to the alley. Dougherty sat huddled against the north wall, her usually ruddy face now the color of cement.

“What if they don’t come?” she wheezed.

“They’ll come,” he said, with a good deal more conviction than he felt. He checked his watch. Sixteen minutes since he’d hung up on Densmore. Four since Defeo went for his tools. This time of night, if they were coming, it shouldn’t be long.

He ran to the edge of the driveway and looked down. Status quo. On his way back to Dougherty, he heard the sound of studded tires snapping on the pavement. He turned. No lights. The snapping drew closer, until out of the darkness a dark blue Ford Crown Victoria rolled around the corner and pulled to a stop, with the front half of the car blocking the driveway. Wald was driving. Densmore shotgun. Donald in back, behind Wald. Densmore was out of the passenger door the second the car came to a stop. Circled the hood of the car. Got right up in Corso’s face.

“Where’s the backup?” Corso asked.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” he said.

“The guy’s got automatic weapons, fellas. You guys are gonna need some serious help here. Lots of it.”

Behind Densmore’s back, the two cops exchanged worried looks. Densmore held up a moderating hand. He turned to his fellow cops. “We don’t even know if this is the guy. All we’ve got is the say-so of the world’s most notorious liar here.”

“Still, Andy…we better—” Wald began.

Densmore was having none of it. “Last I looked, Wald, I was still the three. You got any complaints, you better take it up with somebody downtown.”

Corso stared disbelievingly at Densmore. “Did you call the chief? You didn’t, did you?” He turned to the other cops. “Did he call about Himes?”

“What makes you think this is the guy?” Donald asked Corso.

Dougherty was out of the alley now, walking across the pavement toward the men, her eyes the size of hubcaps. “He’s got the victims’ clothes on display. He’s got, like, this really sick little shrine set up in there,” she said.

The cops exchanged another long look. “And you know this how?” Wald asked.

Dougherty covered her mouth with her hand, looked to Corso.

“We were inside the house,” he said.

Densmore bared his teeth. “You broke into…?” he barked.

“It wasn’t locked.”

“You realize…you asshole”—he stomped in a tight circle—“you realize you’ve tainted every piece of evidence inside that house, don’t you? We’re not going to be able to use anything in there.”

Densmore jabbed a finger, first at Corso, then at Dougherty. He had a smile on his face. “You two are under arrest. As soon as we get this sorted out, I’m having you transported downtown on charges of—”

Whatever charges Densmore had in mind were lost when Donald suddenly said, “We’ve got movement up at the house.”

He was right. The light over the front door had been turned off, leaving only the headlights and the ghostly purple reflections of the mini-storage yard to illuminate the scene. As Corso squinted into the gloom, Defeo clicked on the high beams. No doubt about it. He could see the cop car across the front of the driveway. After a moment, he threw open the door of the van, jumped out, and ran back into the house.

“He made us,” said Donald.

Wald popped the trunk on the cop car and began shouldering himself into a Kevlar vest. Donald stood dumbfounded for a moment and then hustled over and followed suit; his long delicate fingers shook as he pulled the Velcro fasteners tight across his chest. By the time Wald had the vest settled over his suit, he was alternately thumbing shells into a shotgun and peering nervously down the muddy track toward the van.

Densmore fixed Corso with a final feral stare, stepped around Donald, and leaned into the trunk. Instead of a vest, he came out with a bullhorn.

“Call for backup, Chucky,” Wald said.

Donald had gotten one step toward the front of the car when Densmore snapped, “No, we’ll handle this.”

Wald started for the radio. “Fuck you, Densmore,” he said. “You want to risk your own ass, that’s okay by me. But—”

He didn’t get to finish. Up at the house, Defeo was back in the van. Wald squatted in front of the driver’s door, holding the shotgun in his left hand. Thumbed off the safety.

“The van’s moving,” Donald chanted.

He was right. The van was rolling forward down the drive. The bright lights and dark-tinted windows made Defeo completely invisible.

The van stopped. Seventy yards from the cop car. Densmore arranged his gold shield over his heart like it would make him bulletproof. He got to his feet and faced the van over the hood of the car. He held his service revolver in his left hand and the bullhorn in his right. He straightened his spine and brought the bullhorn up to his lips like a carnival barker.

“Jesus, Densmore, get down,” Wald said, tugging at his partner’s pant leg. “Are you fucking crazy?”

Densmore’s electronic voice crackled through the darkness.

“This is the Seattle Police Department. You are surrounded. Turn off the car and put both hands out the window.”

Defeo raced the engine. Corso thought he might have heard high-pitched laughter. Wald got to his knees, in firing position. Donald rested his forearms on the roof as he aimed at the windshield. His face was taut. His mouth hung open.

“This is Detective Sergeant Andrew Densmore of the Seattle Police Department. Turn off the car and—”

Defeo came up through the sunroof. Fired half a dozen rounds before anyone could move. The force of the slugs moved Densmore backward, like he was on tracks. Moon-walking in reverse. The bullhorn arced back into the darkness. Corso threw himself into the ditch beside the driveway. The assault weapon began to spit bullets in sixes and eights. Tearing the windows from the car, sending the glass showering down onto the pavement. The force of the multiple impacts rocked the car on its springs. Gaping holes appeared on the far side as flattened slugs began to punch their way through the sheet metal. And then it stopped.

Donald crouched behind the rear tire, his arms thrown over his head.

Wald kept the engine block between himself and the van. Densmore lay in the road, one foot twitching, his arms outstretched above his head, as if he were basking on the beach. His service revolver lay in the middle of the street. Corso thought of trying to drag him from the line of fire, but, before he could force himself into action, the assault began anew. Again the flat sound of the muzzle filled the night air. The cop car began to disintegrate as the bullets tore the metal to pieces. Pieces of metal began to fall noisily to the street. The car squatted on its rims. Then silence again.

“He’s coming,” Donald shouted. The roar of the van’s engine filled the air. Corso jumped to his feet, took one step to the right, and retrieved Densmore’s revolver from the pavement. When he turned, the van was no more than fifty feet away, its worn fan belt screaming as it rocketed down the rutted track.

Wald was on his feet, pumping the shotgun. The windshield of the van was a shattered mess. Corso raised the revolver and began pulling the trigger. Over and over as the van lurched onward. He was still pulling the useless trigger when Wald dove out from behind the car and tackled him back into the ditch.

The van hit the police car doing about forty miles an hour, nearly lifting the Crown Victoria up onto its side. Six tons of scrap metal hovered in the air for a moment and then slammed back to earth. An eerie silence settled over the scene. Only the soft ticking of cooling metal was audible above the buzzing of the streetlights.

Wald scrambled up from the ground, keeping the shotgun trained on the van as he worked his way between the two cars, inching toward the driver’s door. The van’s windshield had torn loose from the frame and was about to collapse inward. Except right above the steering wheel, where a red dimple of impacted glass bulged outward like a boil.

“Put both hands out the window,” Wald screamed.

Corso gulped air, snapped his head around looking for Dougherty. She lay fifteen yards to his left. Facedown in the ditch. Unmoving. His legs were loose-jointed and seemed to have a will of their own as he covered the distance and knelt by her side.

“Hands out the window,” Wald screamed again.

Corso took her by the shoulders and carefully turned her over. Her eyes popped open in terror. She raised a hand to strike out, recognized Corso and instead threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down upon her.

“Is it over?” she breathed into his neck.

Corso said it was. “You okay?” he asked. She said she was. Corso disentangled himself and got to his feet. He took her hands and pulled her from the ground.

“We’re going to jail, huh?” she said. Corso looked back over his shoulder.

Wald had the driver’s door open. He rested the shotgun on his hip while he felt for life on the driver’s throat.

“Maybe not,” Corso said.

“Is he?” she asked.

“I think so, yeah,” Corso said, taking her by the elbow and turning her away. She wobbled, like the heels weren’t connected to her boots.

“Perp’s dead,” Wald announced. The sound of his own voice seemed to bring him around. He swiveled his head. “Chucky,” he hollered. “Andy.”

The force of the collision had driven Donald all the way across the street. He rose from the grass wiping at a nosebleed, his trousers blown out to reveal a pair of peeled, bloody knees. His unfired gun was still in his hand. “Over here,” he yelled.

Wald was breathing heavily through his mouth. His lip was bleeding; his bright yellow tie had escaped the vest and now lay flopped up over his shoulder. The shotgun hung from his limp right arm. He found himself looking at the soles of Densmore’s shoes and stopped in his tracks. He gulped air and shouted to Donald on the far side of the street.

“Chucky! Call for an aide car. Officer-down call.”

Donald holstered his gun. “For Christ’s sake, Wald…come over here and look at the poor bastard. He doesn’t need an aide car. Half his head’s gone.” As if sickened by his own words, he suddenly began to retch, sending the contents of his stomach spewing out onto the pavement in a dozen raspy spasms.

Donald was right. Densmore’s head was gone from the eyebrows up. Nothing but a couple of shiny gray dreadlocks hanging down over the ears. What was left of his skull looked like a broken lava lamp.

“Listen,” Corso said.

Wald looked confused. “What?”

Corso gestured with his hand. “Listen, no sirens. No nothing.”

“So?”

“So Dougherty and I are getting out of here.”

“No,” Wald said. “You can’t…we—”

“This scene doesn’t play with us in it.”

“He’s right,” Donald croaked. “We keep this simple. An anonymous tip. We follow up on a phone tip and walk into a hornet’s nest. We’ve got a hero. We’ve got a villain. All nice and simple like.”

Corso jumped in. “Otherwise, somebody’s gonna want to know why an experienced cop like yourself found himself facing a mass murderer without backup. Especially after you’d been told what to expect.”

“Jesus,” Donald muttered. “We’re fucked here, Wald. This is a career killer.”

“Same people are gonna want an explanation of why Lieutenant Donald here never managed to get off a shot.”

Wald shot a disgusted glance at Donald and then returned his gaze to Corso.

“You think I’m betting my ass—my career—on you two keeping your mouths shut?” Wald sneered.

“There’s nothing in this for either Dougherty or me, except some time behind bars. We broke and entered. We interfered with an ongoing investigation. Tainted evidence. Maybe even recklessly endangered. It’s as much in our own best interests to keep our mouths shut as it is for you two.

“We beat it, and you guys tell the story any way you want.” He hesitated. “If not for your own asses, then maybe do it for Densmore.”

Wald looked down at Densmore. Winced. “God knows he paid for his lunch.”

“Paid in full,” Donald said.

Wald swiveled his head. Donald nodded.

“Somebody gonna call about Himes or what?” Corso demanded.

Wald pulled a phone from his inside jacket pocket. Checked his wrist.

“What you say is in that house is in there?”

“I swear.”

Wald opened the phone and dialed. “This is Detective Sergeant Steven Wald. I need to be patched through to Chief Kesey, immediately.” He began to shake his head. “Don’t start that not available crap with me. This is an emergency.” He looked up at Corso. “Wald,” he shouted into the phone, exasperated now. “Detective Sergeant Steven Wald. Don’t tell me you can’t—” He listened for a moment. “Get me a supervisor,” he snapped. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “She says all the circuits are busy.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Donald moaned.

Wald looked at Corso again. “Get outta here,” he said, then turned back to Donald.

“Make that radio call, Chucky.”

Corso moved quickly, grabbing Dougherty by the hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He didn’t have to ask twice.