Zane’s blue eyes widened. “Where are you going?”
I jerked my head toward Peaslee’s idling truck. “To arrest that son of a bitch. If he’s lucky, that’s all I’m going to do to him.”
31
Peaslee must have been watching in his rearview camera because, as I neared his truck, he cut the engine and stepped out. He squared his shoulders to meet me. His clean-shaven face and scalp were red and shone with perspiration. He was dressed as he’d been the day before: in a blazer, open-collared shirt, and gray slacks. I spotted the bulge of an ankle holster on his lower leg and assumed the coat was covering another hidden firearm. He might even have had a derringer in his pants pocket.
“The idiot was driving down the middle of the road,” the big man said preemptively. “He wouldn’t move over.”
“And for that you drove him into a fence?”
“The horse spooked.”
“Like hell she did. That mare is accustomed to being around motor vehicles. Ike Stoll is unconscious with a compound fracture of the forearm and God only knows what internal injuries. Were you ever going to get out of your truck to check on him?”
“I was calling 911.”
“How about handing me your phone then?”
“Why?”
“So I can check your recent calls to confirm you’re telling the truth.”
“I’m not violating my own Fifth Amendment rights.”
“You know what, Gorman—”
“You and I are not friends. You will address me by my last name. And put a mister in front of it.”
“You know what, Mr. Peaslee? That man over there might not even live until the EMTs arrive, and I haven’t heard a contrite word come out of your mouth. What am I supposed to make of that?”
“Do you want to know who I called, hotshot? I called my fucking lawyer.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“He told me not to say a word to the cops. I’m not going to help you assholes build a case against me. I take it that’s your Scout parked back along the road.”
I ignored the comment. “Are you carrying any weapons, Mr. Peaslee?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“Turn around and bend over the hood with your hands straight out behind you.”
“You’re going to cuff me? Why?”
“I’m stopping you from fleeing the scene.”
“What?”
“Your failure to exit your vehicle combined with your refusal to provide aid makes you a flight risk in my opinion.”
His fat hands became fat fists. “Fuck you.”
“Don’t make me tell you again.”
“Fuck off.”
With that, he turned toward the open door of his truck, daring me to stop him.
It was a foolish move. Dani, the black belt, had been teaching me some jiujitsu takedowns.
As he raised his right boot to mount the running board, or nerf bar, I lunged into him and wrapped my arms around his waist, my head pressed flat against his lats, my hips lower than his. I pulled him backward, he stutter-stepped, and I pressed my right foot against his heel, causing him to totter over. As he lost his balance, I fell to my side, swinging him around with me. He landed hard on his enormous chest. As he tried to reach around at me, I snapped a cuff on his right wrist and gave the chain a twist. He cried out in pain from the torque, and I took the opportunity to snap the other cuff onto a strut supporting the nerf bar.
Gorman Peaslee was on the ground, manacled to his own pickup. The whole move had taken less than five seconds.
Before he could blink, I had pulled three firearms off him: a Smith & Wesson engraved 1911 in a shoulder holster, a Ruger .38 at his ankle, and a Beretta Pico in his blazer pocket. Plus an illegal dagger stuck in his sock.
He pawed at his chained hand with his free one. “Asshole! You nearly broke my wrist.”
“Tell your lawyer to file a complaint.”
“Don’t think I won’t!”
The lit screen of his cell phone glowed from where he’d dropped it. I snatched it up and pressed the phone icon and recent calls. Peaslee had reached out to someone in Portland. No doubt his lawyer. But the son of a bitch hadn’t phoned 911 as he’d claimed.
“That’s an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment!”
“Relax, Mr. Peaslee. I was picking it up for you. Here, I’ll put it inside your truck where it’ll be safe.”
I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. From his position on the ground, there was no way he could ever reach it.
I removed a laminated card from my wallet and read him his Miranda rights. Prosecutors preferred we read the statement verbatim as it closed off a line of attack from the defense at trial: the possibility we’d omitted an important phrase.
Meanwhile Gorman exhausted his entire vocabulary of four-letter words at me.
When I was certain he wasn’t going anywhere, I headed back to the ruined carriage where Zane Wilson continued to kneel above the unmoving Isaac Stoll.
Hurrying up the road were a pack of people, all dressed in black coats. A man whom I presumed to be Mr. Stoll was in the lead, along with his son, Samuel. The women and girls, in their plain dresses and nineteenth-century shoes, couldn’t keep pace.
The husband was at least a decade older than his wife and his brother. He was tall and rail-thin with a long face, a long nose, and a long beard the color of corn silk.
“Is he dead?” Of all the Amish I had met, he had the most pronounced accent. Dead sounded more like debt.
“No, he’s still alive. We’ve called an ambulance, which should arrive shortly.”
Anna hurried to the side of her brother-in-law. Samuel held his uncle’s black hat tightly to his chest.
Stoll glared in the direction of Peaslee and his truck. “That man ran Isaac down?”
“Mr. Peaslee claims your brother wouldn’t move aside.”
“Lügner.”
“He says the horse spooked, causing Mr. Stoll to lose control and crash through the fence.”
“That horse doesn’t ‘spook.’ Anna says you are an officer of the law. You are
