Harmless as Doves (22 page)

“I know I am not harmless,” Caroline said.

The bishop nodded. “None of us is. That’s why forgiveness is necessary.”

“It’s hard to accept,” Caroline said. “It sounds so easy, but really it’s hard.”

“It may not be easy,” the bishop said, “but it is simple. I was just getting Glenn Spiegle to understand that. I think maybe he was finally able to accept it.”

“Forgiveness?” Caroline said.

“Yes.”

“Then, what about people like Jacob Miller?” Caroline asked. “He apparently never even knew that he needed to be forgiven.”

Shetler smiled sadly. “I spoke to Jacob, yesterday. I asked him what he thought it meant in the scriptures, where it reads, ‘Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Wherefore, be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.’ I asked him if we are to be harmless as doves for the well-being of the wolves.”

“What did he say?” Caroline asked.

“He had no reply,” the bishop said.

“Wise as serpents
and
harmless as doves?” Caroline asked. “Both for
our
benefit?”

Leon smiled, “Doesn’t that make sense to you, now that you know guilt? To be harmless spares us, first.”

“And forgiveness is always possible?”

“Yes, if we will only ask.”

“By grace?” Caroline asked, tears flowing again. “Not because we deserve it?”

“Yes,” the bishop said and reached over the table to take her hands. “Outside of grace, forgiveness isn’t possible. It might as well be parked on the moon.”

* * *

Riding home later in Cal’s truck, the storm over, Caroline called her husband. He asked how she was, and she said, “Better, Michael. I’ve been talking with Cal. And Katie and Leon Shetler.”

“Are you still sad about Eddie?” the professor asked.

“A little, I guess. It’s not so bad, now. Did they catch that Render?”

“No,” Branden said, and he explained.

“Where are you now?” Caroline asked.

“We’re at the hospital. Waiting for the doctors to let us talk with Stevens Clark.”

“I don’t remember who he is,” Caroline said.

“He was driving Jacob Miller, when Render shot them. He’s been through two surgeries, and now they think he can talk a little bit.”

“Does he know where Render is?”

“We don’t know,” Branden said. “But if he doesn’t, then nobody does.”

“When are you coming home, Michael?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Branden said. “We have a flight at five o’clock.”

“Do you need me to pick you up?”

“At Akron/Canton,” Branden said. “Gets in at seven-ten.”

“What are you going to do until then?”

“If Clark tells us anything we can use, we’ll go back after Render.”

“I don’t want you chasing this guy down, Michael.”

“It’ll be the sheriff or the Coast Guard. We’ll hang back.”

“Not the lead boat, Michael.”

“No,” Branden laughed. “Not the lead boat.”

33

Friday, October 9

7:15
P.M.

WHEN ORTON, Niell, and Branden got to Stevens Clark’s room in the surgical ward at Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton, Clark was sitting in a padded chair beside his bed, fumbling with the red button on a gray metal box that controlled his pain medication. An IV line fed drugs into the back of his hand, and the right side of his face was bandaged heavily. He looked as haggard as battle fatigue, but he reacted strongly to the uniforms Niell and Orton wore, barking out, “I’ve got nothing to say! Leave me alone!” as he tried to stand. But his IV lines were tangled around his arm and in the clamps on their stand beside him, and after a frustrating attempt to unravel the lines, Clark flopped back in his chair and cursed the tubing for its stubbornness.

Branden stepped forward and said, “I can get that.” Too frustrated to argue, Clark hung his head and surrendered his arm to Branden, muttering, “
Whatever.
”

Branden untangled the lines, and Clark stood up, sat on the edge of his bed, and fell back sideways on the mattress, grumbling, “We never should have gone out to Cortez.”

Niell stepped to Clark’s side and said, “We’re looking for the man who shot you.”

Clark eyed Niell’s uniform and asked, “You’re not local?”

“Holmes County, Ohio,” Niell said.

Derisively, Clark shouted, “Wonderful! First Jacob Miller nearly gets me killed, and now you boys are gonna want to ask me stupid questions about the man who shot me.”

“That’s what we want to ask you about,” Niell said. “Jacob Miller. How did he nearly get you killed?”

Clark laid his fingertips against the bandages on the side of his face and said, “These aren’t chigger bites, Deputy.”

Branden said, “I think what Sergeant Niell means is, ‘What were you two doing when Jacob Miller nearly got you killed?’”

“Running!” Clark shouted and winced at the pain under his bandages. “We were running from Conrad Render.”

“But why, Mr. Clark?” Ricky asked. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Clark complained. “It was all Miller. He came hotfooting it out of that warehouse and told me, ‘Drive!’ So I did. Made it over the bridge, got myself shot at the light, and don’t remember much after that.”

“Did Miller tell you why you were going to see Conrad Render?” Branden asked.

“Only thing he said was that he knew ‘this fellow’ was a bad man, and this was going to be
his big payday.
If I had known it was Conrad Render we were chasing, I’d never have been driving him around.”

“You didn’t know?” Ricky asked, surprised and not bothering to hide it.

“I just drove him where he said to go. He’d go in somewhere, and I’d wait in the truck. When he came out, he’d have someplace else for us to go. We chased all over like that, looking for him.”

“When did he tell you it was Render?” the professor asked.

“He didn’t,” Clark said. “I didn’t know he was looking for Render until I saw Old Connie pull up beside us at that intersection.”

“You still sure it was Render?” Orton asked.

Clark gave a weary sigh, and muttered to himself, “I’m keeping the company of imbeciles.” Then louder, he said, “I promise you boys. If I had known it was Render, I’d have just put a bullet in my own head, and saved myself the trouble of running for the rest of my miserable life.”

Intending to encourage the man, Ricky said, “The sheriff has boats on the river, and the Coast Guard is patrolling the coastline and the bays. Someone will catch him.”

Showing the fatigue of pain, Clark asked, “Don’t nobody listen no more? He’s not out on the water.”

“I don’t think you’ve told anyone that,” the professor said.

“I’m telling you now! He’s in a warehouse in Cortez! Beside one of the fish plants on the south side. He’s holed up in a warehouse at the waterfront, where he can put his boat under cover. That’s where Jacob Miller found him. In a waterfront warehouse in Cortez. We barely made it back over the bridge before he gunned us down!”

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” the professor demanded.

Sighing heavily, Clark mumbled, “Morons,” and looked around the room as if he were searching for an escape route. Then he said, “Because, boys, if you’re really gonna go after him—
like really going to try to catch him this time
—then I need you to get him for sure. Otherwise I’m a dead man.”

A nurse arrived with a stern expression and marched up to Clark’s bedside, saying, “That’s enough. Mr. Clark needs to settle down.”

“Just a few more questions,” Ricky insisted. “Just one or two more.”

The nurse stepped back and folded her arms, saying, “I’ll stay here. Two questions and then you’ll have to leave.”

“Are you sure he’s still there?” Ricky asked. “Maybe he’s cleared out by now.”

“Warehouse! Waterfront! Cortez!”

“That’s enough,” the nurse stepped forward. “You’re going to have to leave.”

Standing fast, Ricky said to the nurse, “He can draw us a map.”

“Morons!” Clark shouted. “Get me some paper.”

34

Saturday, October 10

FIRST LIGHT

THE PROFESSOR attempted to train his binoculars in the general direction of the waterfront warehouse doors, but the rise and fall of Orton’s thirty-foot skiff on Sarasota Bay lifted his line of sight up and down, and all Branden saw was rhythmic flash-by glimpses of the warehouse, as the skiff rode the chop on the water. They were tied at anchor over a sandbar, two hundred yards out from the warehouse, which fronted the water on massive wood pilings east of the big fish company’s docks in Cortez. At water level, the warehouse presented a maze of enclosed docks, with articulated garage doors in front of each bay. Branden was struggling to hold his binoculars on the third bay from the left.

To the north, boats large and small strained on their moorings near the fishing pier at Bradenton Beach. A strong onshore wind cast a haze of salt spray over the turquoise water. A flight of five pelicans came gliding low over the water in front of the skiff, oblivious to the drama that was unfolding on the bay. All around the boat, whitecaps danced in front of the wind, as the sun came up over the trees to Branden’s right, with an early morning promise of intensity and heat.

Between the skiff and Render’s location stood three Coast Guard vessels, two of the fast orange RBSs and one of the larger UTBs. To the south, other boats blocked the routes to the Gulf through nearby Longboat Pass and at New Pass between Longboat and Lido Keys. To the west, two Coast Guard helicopters, deployed from the Clearwater station,
hovered over the waters of Bradenton Beach, just offshore. The sheriff also had men in boats at the drawbridge to the north, clearing early fishing craft from the area, in case any of the action ran in that direction. The activity repeated to the southwest, in the popular waters around the drawbridge at Coquina Beach.

On land, approaching the warehouse from the north, the Manatee County sheriff’s SWAT entry teams moved into positions on both sides of the warehouse. Sniper teams deployed on the rooftops of nearby buildings to the east and west.

Niell and the professor stood in the skiff forward of the wheel and Orton held a handset radio in the stern. “They’ll make soft entries from the sides,” he said. “Try to move people out of the building, before they close on Render.”

The professor pulled his binoculars over to the west side of the building and caught a brief glimpse of a SWAT team lined up outside a door, while the lead man knelt to try the knob. When the chop on the water next allowed Branden to see that spot again, the last member of the team was moving into the building, with his weapon trained forward to let the sights of his gun track the movement of his eyes. When Branden had found the other side of the building, he saw that the eastside SWAT team, too, had made its entry into the building.

As Branden fought the rise and fall of the skiff, trying to keep his binoculars trained on the building, Orton shouted, “There!” Branden took the binoculars down from his eyes and saw that the third garage door from the left had shattered outward, as if a blast had taken it apart. Charging toward them, two hundred yards away, was Render’s flame-painted cigarette boat, the wake behind his three outboard motors spraying thirty feet into the air.

Render came out straight toward Orton’s skiff, the hull of his go-fast boat lifted up high to fly, only the engines at the stern engaging the water. Branden watched the fast boat close the distance at an astonishing speed, and guessing Render’s intent, he knotted his fingers into the straps of Ricky’s life vest, pulled him down beside him and shouted,
“Hold on to something!” just seconds before the orange and red flames of Render’s painted hull strafed past the skiff. Before Branden could secure a grip in the skiff, Render sliced past them and crashed against the gunwales so violently that the skiff rocked on edge and cast the three men overboard.

Branden lost his grip on Niell’s vest and was tossed several yards away from the skiff. He turned back to look for Ricky and saw that one of his shoes was hung up on a starboard gunwale cleat. Niell lay facedown in the water, with his leg held out of the water by the boat cleat. His limp body was knocking against the hull at the waterline, as the waves tossed the skiff up and down. Branden swam forward and kicked himself up to grab the high gunwale, but missed. He kicked again and caught hold of the cleat, but his fingers slipped as the waves tossed the boat up violently. He was thrown back into the water.

On his third attempt, Branden’s grip held, and he pulled himself up enough to wrestle Niell’s shoelaces free of the gunwale cleat, just before the next wave threw them both back from the skiff. Branden reached for Niell in the water and managed to turn him over. Neill coughed out water and gave a ragged groan, his arms floating limp at his sides. Branden tightened the straps at the neck of Niell’s life vest so that the padded collar would best hold his face out of the water. Then he turned toward the skiff to look for Orton.

At the stern, Branden spotted the white deck shoes on Orton’s feet just below the surface. The rest of Orton’s body was somehow pinned beneath the outboard engine. Branden tried to pull himself underwater, but his vest kept him afloat. He worked the straps loose in front, struggled out of the vest, and kicked out of his shoes, as the waves tossed him up and down beside the stern.

He drew breath to dive underwater, but he was thrown against the driveshaft of the outboard engine. His forehead collided with the engine housing, and he tasted blood. He lay back and kicked away from the engine and floated on his
back to catch his breath. Ignoring the gash over his eye, he rolled over, dove down, and swam forward underwater.

The straps of Orton’s vest were tangled in the props. Orton’s mouth was open, and his eyes were fixed with unconsciousness. With the engine and skiff lurching up and down, Branden surfaced and pulled Orton’s dive knife out of its ankle sheath. Then he dove back underwater at the props and cut the straps of Orton’s vest to free him. Losing air himself, and feeling his lungs burning, Branden dropped the knife, bunched his fingers onto Orton’s collar, pushed away from the propeller shaft, and kicked for the surface.