I absently reached down and changed the siren from ‘‘yelp’’ to ‘‘wail’’; the constant up and down of the yelp gets irritating in a hurry.
‘‘Comm, Three.’’ I was getting curious.
‘‘Three?’’
Now, I knew that if she had anything she’d tell me instantly. I knew that. But I couldn’t help asking, after about a minute had elapsed since our last transmission.
‘‘Anything yet?’’
‘‘I’m working on it,’’ she said. Irritated, but sympathetic. In just the right tone to let me know to shut up and let her do her job.
‘‘Ten-four.’’
I slowed from about 120 to 90 as I entered a series of curves. All the way down to 50, as I came roaring up behind a pickup truck. The adrenaline was really flowing. As always, when you slow abruptly from over 100 to about 50, it feels like you could step out and walk faster. And we were in a double yellow zone, and this particular pickup was obviously being driven by somebody who was both blind and deaf. By this point, my bright headlights were flashing, red lights in the grille were flashing, a red light bar on my dash was flashing, my siren was blaring, and my air horn was going full blast. Dum de dum de dum. Finally, we crested a hill, and the yellow line in my lane was gone. Around I went, drawing a startled and confused look from the driver. Hadn’t a clue.
‘‘Three, Comm?’’
‘‘This is Three, go ahead.’’
‘‘Three, no contact with One. Two troopers en route from Unionville, ETA about twenty minutes. Subject on the phone says there may be an officer down.’’
Son of a bitch.
‘‘Ten-four, call out our people. Get an ambulance.’’
‘‘Ten-four…’’
I didn’t have my bulletproof vest on, since I was in plain clothes. It was in the trunk. With my rifle, my extra ammo, and my first-aid kit. My future in the trunk.
‘‘Comm, my ETA is about five. Get a description of the locations from the lady, and, uh, especially the location of the shooter, uh.. .’’ It’s hard to be glib at these times.
‘‘Ten-four.’’ She knew what I meant. Been there, done that.
I hung up the mike and reached over into the passenger seat and got my walkie-talkie. I shoved it into my breast pocket and hoped it wouldn’t fall out until I could get it into my pants pocket. I touched my left leg, feeling the spare set of keys in my pocket. Good. I could leave the engine running, with the flashing lights going, front and back, and wouldn’t drain the battery when I left the car. It’d be locked up, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Make it easier for the responding troopers to find us, with the lights still flashing. Thinking about that, I reached down and turned on my rear-facing yellow flashers in the back window. That’d help too. I had an awful feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to talk to the troopers after I arrived. Speaking of whom…
‘‘Comm, what troopers are responding?’’
‘‘884 and 732.’’
I switched frequencies to LEA, which is Law Enforcement Assistance. Runs off repeaters, and you can talk to any officer within 150 miles.
‘‘884, Nation County Three…’’
‘‘Three, go.’’
‘‘884, we may have an officer down. You comin’ in from Unionville on 288?’’
‘‘Ten-four.’’ You could hear the road noise and her siren over the radio. Moving right along.
‘‘Uh, 884, when you get to Porpoise Road…’’ A board had named the roads in the county, trying to use names that would be inoffensive.
While I was giving directions to 884, Sally apparently got through to One.
‘‘Three, Comm, ten-three!’’ Shut up, everybody, this is important.
‘‘Comm?’’
‘‘They’ve both been shot. I have One on the radio, need help FAST!’’
Fuck.
‘‘Ten-four.’’ What else could you say? I was going as fast as possible. I turned off Porpoise into Stritch’s lane, sliding from gravel to dirt. It was worse than I remembered, and I think I broke two shocks right away.
‘‘Where are they, Comm?’’ The calm in my voice surprised me.
‘‘She says the toolshed and behind a combine.’’
‘‘Ten-four, put me ten-twenty-three.’’ That meant I’d arrived at the scene. I hadn’t, not quite. But I knew that I’d be too busy to talk to her when I did arrive.
I came around a bend in the lane, locked into the ruts, and saw the house. White, two-story. Red barn. Three red outbuildings, one of which was probably the toolshed. Lamar’s vehicle, parked near the house. To my right, a pile of rusting farm equipment, metal roofing, fence posts, other junk. I accelerated to get out of the ruts, and jammed on the brakes just in time to miss his car. I hit the trunk release, and saw a combine parked near one of the sheds. My car slid to a stop, the cloud of dust I had stirred up slowly overtaking me and making it hard to see and breathe. I got out, and heard the crack of a rifle round. I ducked, grabbed my AR-15 from the trunk. Screw the vest, I thought. He’s got a rifle, and it won’t stop one of those anyway.
‘‘Lamar!’’
I couldn’t see anybody.
‘‘Here,’’ croaked a voice to my right. From a pile of rusting junk metal, about fifty feet away. Lamar.
I started toward the pile, and about ten rounds kicked in the dirt and splattered off some cast iron in the pile. I flattened. More rounds, kicking damp, black dirt in my face. I rolled to my side and crawled back toward my car. I couldn’t even tell where the rounds were coming from.
As I came around the rear of my car, I saw a black boot, toe up, in the grass off on the other side of the lane. Green pants leg. Pinkish-gray stripe. Sheriff’s trousers. Bud. The boot wasn’t moving.
‘‘Bud?’’ I hollered. Nothing.
‘‘He’s dead, the son of a bitch killed him,’’ yelled Lamar. ‘‘No reason.’’
I poked my head up, just enough to see into the trunk of my car, and got my first-aid kit. They’re small and not worth much. But better than nothing.
‘‘Lamar!’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘You hit?’’
‘‘Yeah, the legs, I think.’’
I could barely hear him, and wished I’d turned off my car. Too late now, it was running and locked.
‘‘Okay.’’ A dumb thing to say, as though he was asking if it was all right to get hit… What to do? As I pondered, my eye caught a black object on the ground between me and the junk pile. My walkie-talkie. Great. It had fallen out of my pocket when I hit the ground.
Well, I was going to have to have it. And I was going to have to either get to Lamar or get my first-aid kit to him. And I was going to have to find that son of a bitch with the rifle. So…
I half stood up, leaving my rifle at the back of my car, and ran straight toward my walkie-talkie. As I reached it, I bent down, scooped it up, threw my first-aid kit toward the junk pile, and spun around as the first shots rang out. Two of them hit my car, but I made it back all right. I grabbed my rifle and hunkered down behind my car again. I was breathing very hard and sweating a lot. And I hadn’t seen where the shots were coming from. I could live with two out of three.
‘‘Lamar!’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘You get the kit?’’
‘‘I can see it.’’
Oh, good. ‘‘Can you get to it?’’
‘‘Don’t think so.’’
‘‘Where is he?’’
‘‘I think he’s at the window to the left of the door…’’
