The police radio sputtered to life. I heard Darlene’s static-riddled voice, calling for assistance at a fire.
“This bullet doesn’t mean diddly, Clayton,” Joanie said. “Who was the fourth guy?”
“I don’t remember saying it was a guy. Anyway, I think I’m done talking for now, missy. Obviously you ain’t smart enough to figure it out. I think I’ll just hold on to what I got until I know I’m not going to get crucified in the paper.”
Joanie turned to me. “We’re wasting our time.”
Perlmutter looked at Shep and shook his head. He looked as disgusted as he did amused. “The little missy’s just plain young, girl, but what do you figure is his excuse?”
He was trying to tell me something, but I was straining to hear the police radio. “Listen up,” I said. Darlene, louder now, was calling all available deputies to the old Blackburn property. Fire trucks and ambulances were on their way. A man had ignited some buildings and appeared to be trapped in one, but he was to be considered armed and dangerous nevertheless. I hoped it wasn’t who I thought it was. “Let’s go,” I said, jumping up. I must have spooked Shep, who leaped up snarling from where she lay and lunged at me, jaws agape, just as a fat black cat sprang from my right, flying straight at my head. My arm instinctively shot out and whacked the cat out of the air. It screeched as I drove my right boot into Shep’s ribs and yelled, “Get the hell away!” Shep yelped and skittered toward Perlmutter, who grabbed her collar while shouting, “No, down, girl, down!” I raced out the door behind Joanie and kept running off the porch and into the darkness, grabbing her by the arm as we struggled through the knee-deep snow, saying, “Go, go, go, before he realizes I have the picture.”
twenty-four
What a load of crap,” Joanie said. “We traded a perfectly good story for that?” My truck bounced along the snow-covered gravel road two miles from Blackburn’s old place. “Third bullet, my butt. Probably just another drunken miss.”
“We got the photo.”
“I bet it’s rigged. And this fourth guy-or girl, or, heck, maybe it was Bigfoot-why didn’t he just tell us? I’ll tell you why. Because he didn’t see a thing. He was working us.”
She looked at me for a reply, but I was going over what Perlmutter had told us while dreading what we might find at the old Blackburn place. Yes, his “third” bullet could have been a fake. But the photograph intrigued me; the figure in the photo seemed to have that hunch Leo had in his shoulders. As for a fourth person, I didn’t want to think about it too hard without knowing who it was. Boynton? Dingus? Elvis Bontrager?
“Did you ever find out anything about Blackburn’s family?” I said.
“Nada. If he had a brother-in-law in Kalamazoo, he isn’t there now.”
I swung the truck onto Route 571. A dim orange glow pulsated in the sky ahead. “How about the property?” I said. “Who owns it now?”
After Blackburn’s death, the county had boarded up his house and the billets and declared the property off- limits. Now and then some kids would break into one of the billets and have a party. It had all since been purchased, or so the rumor went, by an out-of-state real-estate investment firm.
“Some company in Virginia,” Joanie said. She flipped through her notebook. “It’s in my backpack. Something like Richards Incorporated or Richards Company.”
“You got this at the clerk’s office?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you get past Verna? Vicky?”
“Yeah-holy crap!”
We crested a hill and in the clearing below orange flames and billowing black smoke leaped into the sky through the falling snow. Swirling police lights painted the bare trees in scarlet and blue while the fire hoses etched silver arcs of water catapulting over Blackburn’s house and the three billets.
Everything was burning.
I stopped the truck on the horseshoe drive that looped in front of the cabin, where our parents had parked their cars when we were kids playing at Make-Believe Gardens. A cluster of deputies swung around and pointed flashlights our way. “Stay back,” one said, but it was only Skip Catledge, so I moved ahead of Joanie into the reek of charred wood and gasoline.
Catledge turned and shouted to another deputy, “Tell Sheriff the press is here.” He turned back to me and said, “Not another step, buck.”
“What the hell’s going on?” I said.
“Judge never should’ve let him out.”
So it was Soupy, as I had feared. This was how he put his affairs in order. “Where is he?”
“One of the little houses in the back. Said he isn’t coming out, but the firefighters are going in before the smoke kills him.”
I tried to move past Catledge, who put a gloved hand firmly in my chest. “Back off, Gus. If this isn’t evidence of guilt, I don’t know what is,”
“Come on, Skip, I’ve known the guy for thirty fucking years.”
“I’ve known him just as long, and he’s an idiot,” Catledge said. He turned around and surveyed the scene, then grabbed me by my jacket shoulder. “All right. Come on.”
We trotted up to within fifty yards of the billets. The heat and smoke stung my face and the inside of my nose. “Far enough,” Catledge said. “Stay here.” He jogged off toward the fire.
Cops and firefighters encircled the burning billets. I imagined Soupy crouched inside, the fire and smoke closing in on him, his idiotic bravado vanished. I thought of his estranged daughter in Flint and how even though she hadn’t seen him in years she would be crushed to hear how her daddy had died. I wanted to run into the burning buildings and punch him to death. And I wanted him to come out, sputtering for breath.
Just then a firefighter, followed by a second one, burst from the front door of the nearest billet. They stumbled awkwardly off the porch into the snow, hefting a body wrapped in a blanket. Two paramedics rushed past us with a stretcher.
“They got him,” Joanie said.
I walked in a daze of fury and relief toward the paramedics. They laid the body on the stretcher and unwrapped the blanket. It was Soupy, all right. His eyes were shut. He was limp and motionless. A flap of thick hair fell over one side of his face. The hair on the other side was singed off. Charcoal smears blackened his nostrils and upper lip. Dingus emerged from the smoke to our right. He was waving and yelling something I couldn’t make out. He saw Joanie and me approaching and held up a hand as if to stop us. Catledge jumped in front of us. “You’re gonna get me in trouble,” he said.
“Is he alive?” I said.
“No idea. Get back.”
The paramedics closed around Soupy, blocking our view. All I could see was Soupy’s arm dangling lifelessly off the stretcher. In all of our years of playing hockey, I’d never seen him on a stretcher, not even close. He was lucky that way. Other things didn’t hurt Soupy. Mostly it was Soupy who hurt Soupy.
One of the paramedics leaned away and I saw Soupy’s arm jerk up and down, once, then again. Then Soupy’s head rose a few inches off the stretcher. He coughed a moist wad up on his chest. He leaned over the edge of the stretcher and spit more in the snow, struggling for breath. I felt myself exhale before the anger rushed back in.
“Soupy,” I yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”
Dingus pushed in front of me. “Deputy, get them out of here.”
“Trap,” I heard Soupy say. “Trap. Man, I’m so, I’m so sorry, man.”
“Deputy!”
Catledge put his hands on my shoulders. “Let’s go, buddy,” he said. He pushed me back a step and I stiffened.
“Soupy, why?” I said.
Catledge pressed against me. “Don’t make me, Gus.”
“I got to talk to you, man,” Soupy said.
