No Man's Dog (32 page)

Mulheisen slipped away from the barn, in a crouch, intending to reach an old apple tree, halfway between the barn and the new study.

Almost immediately his fears were answered. A splinter flew from the corner of the barn, at about chest height. Mulheisen had heard no shot. This man had a silenced gun.

Mulheisen lay flat on the ground in the darkness. The ground was damp, but he barely noticed. He eased toward the tree on his forearms and toes. A neighbor’s car drove by, went on up the street, and turned in.

Mulheisen could see, though not well. This was a rural or, at least, a suburban setting. There were no streetlights on the road, for instance. It was dark, but there was more light than one might expect; not just from houses, including his own, or the not too distant floodlights at the marina, but a general glow from the low base of the clouds, the reflection from the lights of roads and businesses, civilization not so very remote as one imagined.

Mulheisen’s mind buzzed with questions, most of which he scarcely acknowledged. Where had this man come from? The lake? It was dark out there, and the field was dark.

Then he saw his assailant. He was creeping along the edge of the study. Perhaps he thought that he’d hit Mulheisen and he was checking. He was a slim fellow, all in black. He seemed to be carrying a heavy pack on his back and the silhouette of his head was distorted by some kind of apparatus he wore. Night glasses, apparently.

Mulheisen wasn’t very familiar with this equipment, but he had the impression that, while it employed available light, too much
light could have the countereffect of somewhat occluding vision. He wondered, uncertainly, if that was what was happening, because he could see the man all right: night glasses might be more of an hindrance than a help.

Another question intruded. Was the man alone? Did he have a backup shooter stationed nearby? Mulheisen peered about from the brush near the base of the apple tree. He couldn’t see anyone else. But he was reluctant to expose himself, to rush the man, who was now no more than fifty feet away. He was looking toward the barn, obviously focused on that corner, scanning it for the body of his presumed victim. He edged away from the side of the new structure, evidently considering the apple tree as a halfway point from which he could reach the barn.

The moment of decision was fast approaching. The man stood erect, moving away from the study, and raised his weapon, an awkwardly shaped contraption with a heavy barrel and some kind of fancy scope mounted on it. When he began to move toward the tree, Mulheisen got to his knees. The man hesitated then, perhaps reconsidering. He turned away, as if to head toward the field beyond.

Mulheisen cried out, “Drop it! Now!”

The man whirled toward Mulheisen, the gun at hip level, and fired. The rifle made a plopping sound.

The bullet struck near Mulheisen and a splinter of the apple tree hit Mulheisen’s cheek. He cried out and in the same instant squeezed the trigger of the Llama.

Mulheisen had never been an outstanding shooter, usually avoiding his scheduled mandatory qualifying sessions at the range until he couldn’t put it off any longer. This shot, however, accompanied by a bright flash and a terrific crack, hit the target.

The man cried out. The weird weapon was thrown high and to the side and landed in the grass. The man struck his back against the study, then recovered. He turned and fled into the dark field,
shouting into a handheld device, “I’m hit!” Then he changed course and headed for the marina.

Mulheisen rose to a half-crouch. He looked about intently, in the event that there was another shooter at hand. He saw no one, heard no associated noises. He waited, indecisively. It may have been what saved him.

In the next instant, the back side of the study erupted with a shattering
boom
! The windows blew out of the little structure and fire could be seen inside. Mulheisen swiveled away, taking cover behind the apple tree.

There were no further reports. Smoke billowed up. The structure was on fire. Mulheisen gawked, then raced toward the house. He was arrested by the sound of a helicopter approaching from off the lake, very low. The engine grew louder, seemingly determined to come in for a landing. Then it veered toward the lights of the marina. There, it hovered for a long moment, quite close to landing, although Mulheisen could not adequately see it through the billowing smoke of the study. Then the helicopter rose up and fled away.

Mulheisen ran to the house. The frightened nurse peeked out of the archway to the dining room.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You okay? My mother?”

She stared at him. “You’re bleeding,” she said. Then she nodded. “We’re all right. Your mother’s in bed.”

Mulheisen’s hands were full. He slipped the Llama into his coat pocket. He went to his mother’s room. She appeared to be sleeping soundly, unawakened by any noise like a gunshot or an explosion. He bent closely to be sure she was all right. She was breathing quietly.

He returned to the kitchen. The nurse was filling a kettle, presumably for tea. She stared at him. Mulheisen snatched up the phone and called the fire department. While he explained the
location he caught a glimpse of himself in the dark window that looked out on the drive. There was blood all down the left side of his face. The splinter from the intruder’s wild shot had opened a small gash. He hadn’t even noticed it, but now it stung.

He hung up and went to the sink. He tore a section of paper towel off the roll under the cabinet, wetting it at the faucet and mopping his face clean with the aid of the dim reflection in the glass.

He told the nurse that he’d seen an intruder. “He must have set a bomb,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any danger of it spreading, but I have to check. I’ll be right back.”

“Should I call the police?” she said.

“No, I’ll be right back.”

He could see there was no way to save the structure. Flames had already engulfed the roof. The heat was intense and he could not approach very closely. The grass around the construction site was dry, but because of the construction there was only packed dirt. He stamped out a small fire. By now, several neighbors had arrived and they helped him. He could tell them little, except that there had been an explosion, which of course they already knew. One of them, an elderly fellow that Mulheisen didn’t know well, declared that it must have been from the propane. There was no propane, of course, but Mulheisen didn’t bother to correct that impression. He left the neighbors to deal with the small spots of fire and ran to the marina.

It wasn’t that far to the marina, a couple of hundred yards to the parking lot. There was only one person there, a local kid not long out of high school named Jason. Mulheisen knew him vaguely. He was one of those boat-crazy kids who had been hanging around the marina since he was eight until, finally, they’d had to employ him.

Mulheisen asked him about the helicopter.

Jason seemed to think it was pretty cool. “He just swung in here and scooped his guy up like nothing.”

“Did you get the identification number on the chopper?” Mulheisen asked.

Jason hadn’t, but he knew who it was: “Homeland Security,” he said. “They called about twenty minutes before the chopper came in and told me to turn on the lights in the parking lot.”

“Were you here alone?”

“Yeah. The other guys went home about seven. I was just finishing up the caulking on Dr. Hubbard’s cruiser.”

“Did you talk to anybody from the chopper?”

“No. He just dropped in and this guy comes running up and dives in and they bailed.”

Jason had seen no markings of any kind on the chopper, which was painted black. He seemed to think that was cool, too.

Mulheisen went back to the construction site. The fire engines had arrived along with a pumper truck. There was a hydrant, but it was too distant. By the time they got water on the burning structure the roof had caved in. They pulled back and shut off the hoses. It was as well to let it burn. The fire chief told Mulheisen that there was nothing to be done. They had soaked the area around the structure to prevent any spread.

“It’s lucky there’s not much wind,” the chief said. He wanted to know, of course, how it had started. Mulheisen told him that there had been some kind of explosion, but other than that he really didn’t know. He said nothing about the intruder.

The chief opined that the explosion was probably the windows blowing out. The fire most likely had smoldered inside, stifled by lack of oxygen, but perhaps finally had penetrated a wall. Once it got oxygen, it had simply blown. That was his guess. They’d investigate in the morning. In the meantime, they’d keep the pumper handy to make sure there were no further problems.

Mulheisen thanked him and headed back to the house. He had gone only a few steps when he kicked the rifle, lying in the dark
grass. He looked around; no one seemed to be paying attention. He bent down, picked up the rifle, and carried it to the house, setting it inside the back porch.

“You’re still bleeding,” the nurse said. “I’ll fix it.”

“It’ll be all right,” Mulheisen said. He got another piece of paper towel and dabbed at it while he called Wunney at home. He was recounting what had happened when his mother appeared in her dressing gown. Evidently, she’d heard Mulheisen’s voice.

“What happened?” she said. “What’s wrong with your cheek? Why are all those lights out there?”

Mulheisen asked Wunney to hang on. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and asked if she was all right.

“Of course I’m all right,” she said. “You’re the one who sounds upset. Did you hurt yourself?” She reached out a hand toward his cheek, but hesitated.

He explained that he’d encountered a suspicious man outside, but he’d run away. He said he’d fallen, chasing him. Then the fire had started. Presumably, the man had set it.

“Why on earth would he want to burn down your study?” she asked. She didn’t seem alarmed, just shook her head at Mul’s clumsiness. “Running around in the dark,” she said. “You’re bound to stumble on something.” She offered the opinion that his “suspicious fellow” had probably been one of the Colonel’s young men.

“They come by, at odd times,” she said. “What did he look like? Was he a small, dark man?”

Mulheisen said no. He realized that she was thinking of Joe Service. “It wasn’t one of Tucker’s guys. Just some character, snooping around.”

She thought it was absurd. Obviously one of Tucker’s fellows wouldn’t have set a fire. Probably it was a cigarette or something that the carpenters had tossed aside. “They worked until dark, you
know,” she said. “It might take a while for the fire to get started. You really can’t blame Colonel Tucker.”

He could see she’d been a little rattled, but she seemed quite composed now. He suggested she have some tea. She said that she didn’t want tea. “It’ll keep me up. Well, I wanted to talk to you anyway. I remembered something. I wasn’t sure it was important enough to call that number. I didn’t want to go traipsing down to the marina. They’ve been busy all day, and into the evening. Horrible racket.”

“What was it?” Mulheisen asked. “I’m calling one of the guys who works with Tucker right now.” He gestured with the phone.

“Well, go ahead, don’t let me bother you,” she said.

“No, what was it?” he asked.

She said it was just that she’d remembered about a man she’d seen at the Wards Cove courthouse just before the bombing. She described him briefly and related his warning to her to get out. Mulheisen said that might be important. He urged her to go on into the kitchen and have some tea.

When she’d gone, he told Wunney what she’d said. “It sounds like it could have been Luck,” Mulheisen said.

“So, he
was
at the courthouse,” Wunney said. “That might have been one of his men at your place, too. The guy’s an old chopper pilot, you know, from Vietnam. He must have flown a sniper in—a sniper with a bomb, just in case. He must have got the wrong house!” He laughed.

Mulheisen wondered if they weren’t leaping to conclusions. But who else could it have been? The question was: how had Luck learned that Cora had remembered him?

Wunney said, “Who knows? He probably put two and two together and figured that was why you were up there snooping around. He must have figured that you being up there meant your mother was alone. If he was gonna eliminate a witness, now was the time to do it.”

Mulheisen wasn’t so sure. “He’s taking a hell of a chance, flying into that parking lot. If his shooter had been successful he’s almost bound to be identified.”

“Well, he wasn’t,” Wunney pointed out. “The Homeland Security gag seems to have worked. It was bold, all right, but he’d probably sussed out this possibility well ahead of time, he just hadn’t felt enough pressure to do it. But he didn’t scout it out properly, or his man’d never have hit the wrong building. Not too bright, I’d say. The thing is, Mul, you don’t know what was going through his mind. A guy who goes to the trouble of blowing up a courthouse to forestall a minor property claim . . . who the hell knows how that kind of mind works? He’s compulsive, and impulsive. But the fact that your mother can place him at Wards Cove is pretty much all we need.”

Mulheisen could see the point.

Wunney raced on, “Now listen, Tucker has gone to Washington. I got back in time to see him before he left. He’s gonna be screwing this whole thing up, wait and see. By the time he gets through conferring with the nobs back there Luck could be in South America. We got a little window here. We have to use it.”

“What do you want to do?” Mulheisen asked.

“I’ll get some guys out to your place,” Wunney said. “They ought to be able to secure the place, no sweat.” He paused for a moment, then said, “This is an opportunity, Mul. I’ll make a good faith attempt to get hold of Tucker, but I don’t expect to locate him tonight. I’ve still got some authority around here. I’m thinking we oughta haul ass up to Traverse City and bust Luck. I’ve been around these guys long enough to know that a fait accompli is what’s needed. You get the guy in the can, then you let them try to explain everything. We’ll grab that chopper. It’s bound to have some evidence on board, blood from the guy you popped, that sort of thing. You up for that?”