went out, although they left their headlights on, and a bulky figure in a uniform and hat got out of the driver's side. She squinted at him through the back window, trying to make out what he looked like against the light.
Odd. That was an awfully large car for a cruiser. That didn't look exactly like the Tulsa P.D. uniform-there was something wrong with the shape of the shoulder patch. And why weren't there extra lights behind the grill?
The driver paused, just short of her door, as she tried to identify the make of the car.
She handed out her license, but the cop did not take it. 'Get out of the car, please, miss,' the man said, in a calm and neutral voice.
Alarm threaded her nerves all over again. Wait a minute. They don't ask you to get out of the car on a routine traffic stop!
She glanced back again, and got a better look at the car; it was a Lincoln.
There wasn't a city in the country that could afford Lincoln Town Cars for unmarked units!
Too late. Her moment of hesitation gave her away.
The last thing she saw as she reached for the keys to start the car and get out of there was the club swinging at her window; the last thing she remembered was throwing up her hands to protect her face from the club and the shower of safety-glass fragments.
The last thing she felt was a blow to the side of her head, followed by an explosion of stars, and oblivion.
'Think this'll do?' 'Jim' asked, as 'Bob' slowed the car at the top of the dam at Lake Keystone.
'Bob' squinted down through the darkness at the little spit of park below Keystone Dam. 'You sure they're planning on opening the gates around two?' he asked his partner.
'Absolutely,' 'Jim' said. 'They're going to do a major water release; it was on all the news programs. It'll send all the garbage that's been collecting under the dam downriver. By the time they find her, she'll be under the Twenty-first Street bridge, if they find her at all. Fred's leaving the truck at Riverside Park. They'll never know where she went, unless she floats up.'
'Tom' grunted in the backseat. 'Let's get this over, with,' he said, in a calm and dispassionate voice. 'I don't like doing a job in the open like this. Too big a chance somebody'll come by.'
'Bob' took the Lincoln down past the dam, then made the unmarked turnoff that led to the tiny park. After they made the turn, there was a small sign that advised that the park was closed after nine in the evening, but he ignored it. There was no gate, and with the economy as bad around here as it was, there was no money to spare for cops to patrol this area.
That made it a good place to do a job.
If he'd had more time, he would have gotten a four-wheel drive vehicle and taken the mark down a little further, to an access road and the sand and gravel works. It would have been just as easy to get rid of her there, with less chance of discovery. But beggars couldn't be choosers.
Besides, 'Tom' still had on his uniform; they still had the dashlight. If anyone came by, they could claim to be police looking for pushers. That would get kids to clear out fast. And kids looking to neck or score would be all that would show up out here, this time of night.
The parking lot at the foot of the dam was completely in shadow. He pulled the Lincoln in under the shelter of some trees, just in case, and the three of them got out.
The mark moved a little when they opened the trunk, but 'Tom' was good with that club. She was still pretty much out, and her facial cuts had all been superficial enough that paper towels they'd put over her face and under her head had blotted up all the blood. Those would go into the river with her. Calligan, the pervert, had wanted them to rape her before they got rid of her. Asshole. Didn't he know that semen samples were as good as fingerprints for catching somebody? And what if they got blood on themselves? They had to think of these things. You never knew what a body was going to do; sometimes things got screwed up, and some kid found a stiff while it was still fresh. You just didn't leave anything of yourself behind; that was the rule. That was why all three of them wore surgical gloves, crewcuts, common shoes a size bigger than they usually wore, and brand new clothing.
Besides, 'Bob' didn't screw stiffs, and this one was the next thing to being a stiff.
Well, this was going to be quick, clean and professional, and screw Calligan. None of the three got any jollies out of pain or terror. With luck, she wouldn't even fight them.
'Toni' rolled up his sleeves and pants, picked her up, wrapped in the garbage bag they'd lined the trunk with. She whimpered a little; he ignored her, carrying her like a roll of carpet over one shoulder. There was a good place down at the end of the parking lot; all gravel, no sand to hold tracks. The other two didn't bother with saving their clothing; it came from K-Mart, and it would all be thrown in the Goodwill bin as soon as they got back to Tulsa. There was a gym bag with jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts in the backseat.
She started to come to just as they reached the water; she really woke up when they put her in. The water was a lot colder than he'd thought it would be, hardly much above freezing. Strange. It shouldn't have been that cold. The cold water woke her up, and that was when she put up as much of a fight as she could. Not much of one, really; she was tiny, and there were three of them to hold her down.
They held her under until she stopped struggling and stopped bubbling. Then 'Tom' noticed the lights of a car on the other side of the dam.
'No point in taking chances,' he observed. 'Bob' agreed.
Quick, clean, professional. Get out before anyone sees you. Leave nothing that can be traced.
They got into the Lincoln and left; 'Bob' noticed the lights of a car pulling into the access road in his rearview mirror, and congratulated himself on a clean getaway.
So, dying wasn't really that bad, after all. Curiously, after the lungs stopped straining for air, there was no pain. Only weariness, and complete detachment.
Kestrel perched in a tree high above Keystone Dam, and watched her murderers with a dispassionate eye, as if she were watching a movie that she knew she would not see the end of. No doubt about it, they were professional. She hadn't even guessed that they weren't cops until it was too late; they had the light, the uniform, even the regulation billy club. Not that it was particularly hard to buy any of that stuff through catalogs, but if you wanted to get rid of a mark without a fight, that was the way to do it.
Funny, though, that they brought her all the way here, just above the eagle nesting grounds, to finish the job. Ironic, in fact.
They probably would never even be implicated. She was certain that the car would undergo a complete cleaning and vacuuming as soon as they took it back to Tulsa. They had been careful not to let so much as a thread of theirs adhere to her, or anything of hers touch the car, wrapping her in a common industrial-sized garbage bag, which they left in the river. In a way, she could even admire them, as one admired any professional. They were good. Probably the best in the area. And the solution to a number of deaths which had always seemed rather odd to her suddenly presented itself, as the three men got into their car and drove away with the lights still off.
She flipped her wings a little to settle them, and continued to watch. There didn't seem to be any urgency in going anywhere, anymore. She might as well watch and see what happened next.
Mostly, she was tired, and rather numb. The flood of complete fear that had taken her over at the end seemed to have exhausted every other emotion.
But to her mild surprise, another car came screaming down the access road at a rather dangerous speed, not more than a minute after the Lincoln left. It was hard to tell cars in the dark, and from above, but this one looked rather familiar.
Then, as the doors flew open and David flung himself out of the driver's side, she recognized it as her grandfather's.
Poor David; just a little too late. . . .
She felt as if she should be angry that they hadn't come sooner, but-it just didn't seem important anymore. In fact, there wasn't much that was important anymore, when you came right down to it. Kestrel yawned a little, and blinked, feeling vaguely restless.
Shouldn't I be going somewhere?
David went right to the spot where she'd been left, as if she were iron and he was a magnet, with Mooncrow right behind him. He pulled her out, limp and dripping, and began frantic CPR. It would make a lovely dramatic scene in a movie.
She sighed. Too late, love. She knew. She'd been under too long; nothing, not even a miracle, would revive
