must’ve picked up on my nervous energy because he was sitting up, looking over the dashboard, rocking back and forth like he was trying to see what I was getting excited about.
It was now five thirty and Bowerman was headed out on another county route to God knows where. I had a horrible fear that I was following the wrong person and that I wasn’t even going to be near a place where I could help Shony. The phone rang again.
“Duff,” it was Jerry. “I found some shit out on Bowerman.”
“What is it?”
“First of all, Bowerman is her maiden name. Her married name is something else.”
“What?”
“Dunston. She’s married to the bald guy.”
“Holy shit-anything else?’
“I can’t find any record of her social worker certification. She’s listed as one in several employment references, but when you go to the Department of State website she’s not listed. I’m betting a lot of nonprofits never actually check certifications. There are also gaps on jobs and residences.”
“Jerry, the second you find anything else, call me.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
I followed Bowerman as she headed south for about fifteen minutes. She then turned off the main road on to another series of dirt roads. I laid back and gave her a good mile head start because I didn’t want to get caught following her. I made two left-hand turns and wound up at a fork. It was hard to see, but when I pulled up close enough to read the street sign everything started to come together. I was outside County Road #2, exactly where I was this morning. Bowerman had just gone a different way to get here. She had come to meet her husband.
I drove the SUV down the road and parked it on the side in the tall grass. If I was going to go to Dunston’s house, I was going to have to do so without being noticed. I was also concerned about being able to maneuver Rudy’s car on these narrow dirt roads. If I played it wrong, it wouldn’t be hard to be cornered or run off the road.
I went in on foot and I didn’t waste any time. I left Al in the SUV, which he wasn’t pleased about, but I didn’t want anything else to think about.
I ran, trying to make up for the time I lost trailing Bowerman. I got within a hundred yards of Dunston’s house in about six or seven minutes. The van was parked behind the white truck and there were lights on in the house. I thought I heard some conversation, and I could see the silhouettes of several heads through the living room shade.
After about five minutes, Bowerman came out the front door with four young girls behind her in single file followed by Dunston and Tyrone. From where I stood, it looked like Shony was last in line, closest to Dunston. They loaded the kids into the van, Tyrone got in the driver’s seat and Bowerman rode shotgun. Dunston drove the pickup truck. They pulled out together and headed up the dirt road.
I gave them just a minute to get out of sight and I sprinted up the road behind them. I didn’t want to be seen, but I was more afraid of losing them. It was about five o’clock and the webcast was due to start in a matter of hours.
They must have been going pretty fast, despite the dirt roads, because before I knew it, I had no sight of them. I had misjudged how fast they’d be moving, and now I was scared I had blown it.
I sprinted the mile back to the SUV. When I got within a couple hundred feet of the Navigator, I could hear Al and he was going off in a big way. He must have caught sight of Dunston’s truck and remembered his visit. When I got closer to the SUV, it obviously was something else.
Parked in front of the Navigator was the silver Crown Vic, and as I got to it my two old friends banged open the doors and headed straight toward me.
“Dombrowski, what did I tell you?” Pockmark said without breaking his angry stride. “I tried to warn you.”
That was it.
I had had it with this asshole. It was clear that he thought he was some sort of badass, probably because of his badge, but I’ve learned that when someone thinks he’s a badass, he picks up bad habits. Pockmark stormed at me, all full of piss and vinegar like I was supposed to shit my pants in fear. During his strut he got lazy reaching for his gun.
I rushed him hard and fast and he wasn’t ready. His eyes went wide and he went back on his heels, and that was just what I wanted. I faked a right by just cocking my shoulder and drilled him with a straight left. That was all it took and he went down and out.
“Hands in the air!” Blondie yelled. I had forgotten that he was even there. I looked him straight in the eye and he was trembling. Even though he was in a textbook shooter’s crouch like you see on TV, something in his body language told me there was no way he could pull the trigger.
There was too much adrenaline in my system to feel fear. Al was barking and I was focused on Shony.
“Hands in the air!” Blondie said with even less conviction.
I ran to the Navigator and took off. In the rearview mirror, Blondie went to check on his partner, and at that moment I’m sure he felt he had made a poor career choice. Lucky for me that I had come across a fresh academy grad with no stomach for the job.
Al was beside himself with a bad case of sensory overload. There was the sight of Dunston, the Crown Vic boys, and me belting Pockmark. That was a lot of stress in his world, but I didn’t have time to be real nurturing and I floored the SUV, barely keeping control on the dirt roads.
I came out on Route 44 and took a guess and went left. I had the SUV up to ninety-five, which on a country route is pretty frightening. After a few minutes, I saw some tail lights up ahead and I slowed. I didn’t want to kill any innocent bystanders, but also I didn’t want Dunston and his gang knowing it was me. I followed the taillights from a quarter-mile distance for another fifteen minutes until they went around a bend very close to the entrance to the town.
I was just a few hundred feet before the stoplight that marked the beginning of Kingsville and there was no one at the light. They were nowhere in sight and a shot of panic raced through me. I went another block through town, trying to keep the vehicle at a speed that would get me somewhere fast but allow me to keep looking for things.
I was coming up on the new halfway house, and what I saw made the little hairs on my neck stand up.
There, in the small halfway house parking lot, was Bowerman’s van and Dunston’s truck.
36
I parked the Navigator three blocks away from the parking lot and killed the engine. Al recognized the pickup truck and started whining and shifting his weight back and forth again. I called Jerry to see if he had any new information. He said he was still working on it, but I let him know that I was outside the halfway house and I was getting ready to go in.
When I shut off the cell phone, I saw Dunston come out to the van and get the duffel bags that Bowerman had loaded. Then he went to the back of his pickup and got three tripods and a couple of brackets that held lighting. This was it; this was where the webcast was going down.
I sat in the Navigator trying to think things through. Chances were that there was going to be more than just a few people in there. Shit, Dunston was enough to worry about, let alone if he had any friends with him. I had ejected my Elvis tape and had the radio tuned in to the Yankees pre-game show. It was September 11 and the Yankees were playing the Mariners. They were doing a special moment of silence before the game. It was ironic- this was the game Gabbibb had offered me tickets to. Funny what a difference a couple of weeks made. Up until a little while ago, I was convinced the guy was about to set off a dirty bomb and ruin my hometown and maybe a good stretch of New York with it. Then, I thought of Clogger’s routine and how much it had changed his life around for him. I don’t know if he was the poster child for recovery, but he did seem to be happy with the slight changes he had made in his life. He had his wings back, he got to be involved with the Yankees, and was even making a decent buck flying Gabbibb’s electronic shit.
