“We saw it on TV,” Carew said. There was wonder in his voice. This didn’t happen. Not here.
“The thing is, one of them worked at a McDonald’s over here, and they’re kinda dumb, and it’s remotely possible. .
“Haven’t seen them today,” Vivian Carew said, her fingertips going to her mouth. “But it was kind of chilly. They might not have been out when we were.”
“You haven’t seen a silver pickup around. .”
The Carews looked at each other, and then Carew said, “Virgil, there was a silver pickup in their driveway this morning. An old Chevy. . kinda crappy-looking. Broke-down. It was there when I got up this morning. It was gone by lunchtime.”
Virgil said, “Ah, man.”
“What does that mean?” Vivian asked.
“It means I need more cops. A whole lot of cops,” Virgil said.
Marshall didn’t have a whole lot of cops, but more than enough-maybe eighteen or twenty city officers, and ten or twelve sheriff’s deputies. Virgil walked back to his car, after warning the Carews to stay inside, called the law enforcement center, got the duty officer, and filled him in as he drove over.
When he got there, a city patrol car was pulling into the parking lot, just behind a sheriff’s deputy’s car. Virgil got out, said hello to the two cops, realized that he vaguely knew one of them, who said, “I’ve read about you in the newspapers, Virg. Goddamn, can I get a job like yours?”
“You’d have to fuck up first,” Virgil said, and they all went inside, where they were joined by the duty officer, who said, “I called everybody. We’ll have ten people here in a couple of minutes.”
The ten minutes seemed to take forever, but in something like six or seven minutes, the sheriff walked in, and Virgil decided to start: they all gathered around a computer and Virgil pulled up Google Maps and got an aerial view of the Box house; all of the city cops and all but two of the sheriff’s deputies knew the street pretty well. Virgil said, “We need to block it off.”
As he detailed the blocking action on the computer monitor, two more officers showed up; they were members of the drug task force, trained in SWAT-type entries, and the sheriff designated them to enter the house, with Virgil. Virgil didn’t have full SWAT equipment, so he’d go in last.
Virgil finished and said, “We need more planning, but we just don’t have the time. If they’re in there, and they don’t know we’re around, they could kill the Boxes anytime.”
“If they haven’t already done it,” the sheriff said.
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “We’ll block the place, then we’ll call. If they answer, I’ll take it from there. If there’s no answer, then we’ll approach the front door, and if we still get nothing, we’ll enter.”
“Better not have messed with my cheeseburger man,” one of the drug guys said, as he slapped the Velcros on his vest.
“You know him?” Virgil asked.
The drug guy said, “Sort of. By sight.”
“Anybody know him well?” Virgil asked. “Anybody know any of their relatives?”
“I don’t think they went to school here,” somebody said. “When they opened the other McDonald’s, I think I heard they came up from Worthington.”
“All right. . so we’ll have to do it cold,” Virgil said. He told the duty officer to hold any late arrivals at the law enforcement center. “We don’t know how it’s going to break. We might possibly need people with cars. So keep them loose.”
Half the cars went to an elementary school south of the Box house, and the rest went to Horizon, north of Parkside. They coordinated with handsets and cell phones, crossing backyards in the dark, until they had the target house surrounded.
Virgil called from his cell phone. The Box phone rang four times, then kicked over to an answering machine- but they’d gotten lucky: an answering machine, and not the phone company answering service. He said, “Mr. Box, this is the Marshall Fire Department. We’ve got a major problem at the McDonald’s. If you’re there, could you pick up, please? We need to talk with you immediately. Please pick up.”
No answer, no lights, no movement.
Virgil called on his handset, “Everybody stay in place, we’re going to make an approach.”
They came in from the garage corner, a blank windowless wall where they couldn’t be seen. Virgil and the two drug cops stopped there, and Virgil whispered, “Give me a flashlight.” One of the men handed him a Maglite, and he stepped around to the back of the garage, eased up to a back window. The inside of the garage was dark. He risked a peek, and could see almost nothing; he looked longer, couldn’t see anything that looked like movement. He risked the flashlight, and found himself looking into an empty garage.
Had the Boxes gone somewhere as well? But the silver truck had been there in the morning. .
He crept back to the two drug cops. “Nothing in the garage. Maybe they’re gone.”
“So now what?” one of them whispered.
“I want to look at the front door.” They moved to the front corner of the garage, then Virgil got on his hands and knees and crawled alone along the sidewalk, under a picture window and past a thawing flower bed, to the front door. He checked the door with the flash. No damage.
All right. One of the drug cops crawled up with what looked like a stethoscope, and put the sensor against the door. They sat for one minute, two minutes, then the cop said, “Nothing at all.”
Virgil said, “So let’s go in.”
The first cop continued to listen while Virgil crawled back to the second cop, alerted everyone to the entry, and brought the second cop back to the porch. The first cop, still listening, shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anybody in there. Not alive, anyway.”
Virgil eased the storm door open, tried the knob. Locked. Backed off. The second cop whispered, “Looks like a pretty good door. Metal.” He meant, hard to take down.
Virgil nodded. “Let’s take a look at the garage.”
They crawled back down the sidewalk, updated everybody on what was happening, tried the garage overhead door, which was locked down, and the side door, which was also locked, but had a six-pane window. Virgil used the stock of his pistol to silently pressure-crack the glass in the lowest pane, then picked out the pieces and tossed them in the flower bed. When he could reach through without cutting himself, he did, and turned the doorknob and the three of them eased into the garage. The connecting door to the house was locked, but was a hollow-core door, much flimsier than the front door.
“We can get a hammer in here,” one of the cops whispered.
“Let’s do it,” Virgil said.
The cop made a call, and two minutes later another cop snuck around the corner of the garage carrying a twelve-pound maul.
Virgil said to the maul-carrier, “I’ll turn on the flash, you hit it.” And to the two drug cops, “You get in line and go on in. There should be lights right next to the door. Go all the way to the back before you stop.”
When everybody was on the same page, Virgil lifted the flash and said, “On three,” and counted. On two, he switched the light on, and on three, the hammer smashed the door open. The first cop hit the lights with his hand, and stopped dead in the doorway.
Virgil said, “Go,” and the cop said, “Can’t.”
Virgil looked around him at two bodies in the living room, both facedown on the carpet.
The lead cop said, “Boyoboyoboy. .” and it flashed through Virgil’s mind that the bodies looked like cows lying in a pasture. He said, urgently, “Go on to the back. Step around them, go on to the back, make sure there’s nobody can get out in the hallway.”
The cop did that, following the muzzle of his shotgun down a hallway toward what looked like a bedroom wing until Virgil said, “Okay, hold it there. Watch the doors.”
He motioned the second drug cop to the kitchen, and the second cop cleared it and said, “There’s a couch here. They’ve barricaded a door.”
Virgil went that way and found a couch jammed end-wise between a hallway wall and a door that apparently
