At that moment, Andy pulled into the Freer yard, just as I had. For all he knew, there was still time to creep up on the trailer. I heard his car more or less at my back. My whole attention was concentrated on Arlene and the rear door of the trailer. Weiss, Lattesta, and Andy came up behind me just as Whit and his friend burst from the back door of the trailer, rifles in hands.
Arlene and I were standing between two armed camps. I felt the sun on my arms. I felt a cold breeze pick up my hair and toss a lock playfully across my face. Over Arlene’s shoulder, I saw the face of Whit’s friend, and I finally remembered his name was Donny Boling. He’d had a recent haircut. I could tell from the white half inch at the base of his neck. He was wearing an Orville’s Stump Grinding T-shirt. His eyes were a muddy brown. He was aiming at Agent Weiss.
“She has children,” I called. “Don’t do it!”
His eyes widened with fright.
Donny swung the rifle toward me. He thought,
I flung myself to the ground as the rifle went off.
“Lay down your arms!” Lattesta screamed. “FBI!”
But they didn’t. I don’t think his words even registered.
So Lattesta fired. But you couldn’t say he hadn’t warned them.
Chapter 12
Though I was in an exposed position, none of them hit me, which I found absolutely amazing.
Arlene, who didn’t dive as fast as I did, got a crease across her shoulder. Agent Weiss took the bullet—the same one that creased Arlene—in the upper right side of her chest. Andy shot Whit Spradlin. Special Agent Lattesta missed Donny Boling with his first shot, got him with his second. It took weeks to establish the sequence, but that’s what happened.
And then the firing was over. Lattesta was calling 911 while I was still prone on the ground, counting my fingers and toes to make sure I was intact. Andy was equally quick calling the sheriff’s department to report that shots had been fired and an officer and civilians were down.
Arlene was screaming over her little wound like she’d been gut shot.
Agent Weiss was lying in the weeds bleeding, her eyes wide with fear, her mouth clamped shut. The bullet had gone in under her raised arm. She was thinking of her children and her husband and of dying out here in the sticks, leaving them behind. Lattesta pulled off her vest and put pressure on her wound, and Andy ran over to secure the two shooters.
I slowly pushed up to a sitting position. There was no way I could stand. I sat there in the pine needles and dirt and looked at Donny Boling, who was dead. There was not the faintest trace of activity in his brain. Whit was still alive though not in good shape. After Andy gave Arlene a cursory examination and told her to shut up, she quit shrieking and settled down to cry.
I have had lots of things to blame myself about in the course of my life. I added this whole incident to the list as I watched the blood seeping into the dirt around Donny’s left side. No one would have gotten shot if I’d just climbed back in my car and driven away. But no, I had to try to catch Crystal’s killers. And I knew now—too late— that these idiots weren’t even the culprits. I told myself that Andy had asked me to help, that Jason needed me to help . . . but right now, I couldn’t foresee feeling okay about this for a long time.
For a brief moment I considered lying back down and wishing myself dead.
“Are you okay?” Andy called after he’d cuffed Whit and checked on Donny.
“Yeah,” I said. “Andy, I’m sorry.” But he’d run into the front yard to wave down the ambulance. Suddenly there were a lot more people around.
“Are you all right?” asked a woman wearing an EMT uniform. Her sleeves were folded up neatly to show muscles I didn’t know women could develop. You could see each one rippling under her mocha skin. “You look kind of out of it.”
“I’m not used to seeing people get shot,” I said. Which was mostly true.
“I think you better come sit on this chair over here,” she said, and pointed to a folding yard chair that had seen better days. “After I tend to the ones that are bleeding, I’ll check you out.”
“Audrey!” called her partner, a man with a belly like a bay window. “I need another pair of hands here.” Audrey hustled over to help, and another team of EMTs came running around the trailer. I had nearly the same dialogue with them.
Agent Weiss left for the hospital first, and I gathered that the plan was to stabilize her at the hospital in Clarice and then airlift her to Shreveport. Whit was loaded into the second ambulance. A third arrived for Arlene. The dead guy waited for the coroner to appear.
I waited for whatever would happen next.
Lattesta stood staring blankly into the pines. His hands were bloodstained from pressing on Weiss’s wound. As I watched, he shook himself. The purpose flooded back into his face, and his thoughts began flowing once again. He and Andy began to consult.
By now the yard was teeming with law enforcement people, all of whom seemed to be very pumped. Officer- involved shootings are not that ordinary in Bon Temps or in Renard Parish. When the FBI is represented at the scene, the excitement and tension were practically quadrupled.
Several more people asked me if I was all right, but no one seemed to be anxious to tell me what to do or to suggest I remove myself, so I sat in the rickety chair with my hands in my lap. I watched all the activity, and I tried to keep my mind blank. That wasn’t possible.
I was worried about Agent Weiss, and I was still feeling the ebbing power of the huge wave of guilt that had washed over me. I should have been upset that the Fellowship guy was dead, I suppose. But I wasn’t.
After a while, it occurred to me that I was also going to be late for work if this elaborate process didn’t get a move on. I knew that was a trivial consideration, when I was staring at the blood that had soaked into the ground, but I also knew it wouldn’t be trivial to my boss.
I called Sam. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember I had to talk him out of coming to get me. I told Sam there were plenty of people on-site and most of them were armed. After that, I had nothing to do but stare off into the woods. They were a tangle of fallen branches, leaves, and various shades of brown, broken up by little pines of various heights that had volunteered. The bright day made the patterns of shadow and shade fascinating.
As I looked into the depths of the woods, I became aware that something was looking back. Yards back within the tree line, a man was standing; no, not a man—a fairy. I can’t read fairies at all clearly; they’re not as blank as vampires, but they’re the closest I’ve found.
It was easy to read the hostility in his stance, though. This fairy was not on my great-grandfather’s side. This fairy would have been glad to see me lying on the ground bleeding. I sat up straighter, abruptly aware I had no idea whether all the police officers in the world could keep me safe from a fairy. My heart thudded once again with alarm, responding to the adrenaline in a sort of tired way. I wanted to tell someone that I was in danger, but I knew that if I pointed the fairy out to any one of the people present, not only would he fade back into the woods, but I might be endangering the human. I’d done enough of that this day.
As I half rose from the lawn chair with no very good plan in mind, the fairy turned his back on me and vanished.
Not only did I talk to Bud Dearborn, I also had to talk to lots of other people. Later, I couldn’t remember any of the conversations I had. I told the truth to whoever asked me questions.
I didn’t mention seeing the fairy in the woods simply because no one asked me, “Did you see anyone else
