phone back up.
“My cell,” I said. I tiptoed back into the living room, found my jacket draped over the back of a chair, fumbled around in the pocket until I had my cell phone out. I flipped it open, but because I’d left it on for so long, and had neglected to hook it up to a charger on the drive up here, it was dead.
“Are you kidding me?” Don whispered.
“Do you have a cell phone?” I whispered. Don shook his head. “Okay, go find your bat. I’ll stay up here, you see what you can find.” I trained my sights on the living room window and saw part of a head rise into view. Then another shadow moved across the window in the door.
“Oh no,” I said to myself.
I could hear Don bumping into things in the dark basement. Then footsteps coming back up. I could make out what appeared to be a bat in one hand, and a length of two-by-four in the other.
He handed me the bat.
“There’s at least two,” I said. “One by the window, one by the door. He must have brought Leo with him.”
“We get on either side of the door, when they come in, wham,” Don said.
It was as good a plan as any.
We got into position. Standing perfectly still, we could hear the board creak under the two men-it sounded like they were both out there-as they shifted their weight from one leg to another.
Four men, all within a few inches of each other, two on one side of the wall and two on the other, doing their best not to make a sound. All poised, waiting to strike.
Don stood across from me, holding the four-foot section of lumber over his shoulder. I had the bat at the ready.
And then, a good thirty feet away from us, the back door burst open.
My mouth dropped. Don’s probably did too, but I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the four men storming into the living room by way of the kitchen, arms raised, weapons pointed, handheld lights blazing.
And then the front door burst open, and three more men came barreling in, similarly armed.
They were all screaming: “Police! Freeze!”
Just like in the movies.
Lights got flicked on. Don and I were pushed to the floor by two cops while others ran upstairs. I heard Claire and Trixie scream. Katie crying.
I tried to crane my head around to see what was happening, but a boot came down on my head and held it to the carpet.
I lay that way for a while, listening to the crackle of police radios, and then someone was told to let me up. I got to my knees, and standing there, waiting for me to get up, was Detective Flint.
“Mr. Walker,” he said, smiling and taking off his fedora.
And then it hit me. Why he’d let me keep Trixie’s car. Its built-in GPS system not only helped a driver figure out how to get around.
It could be used to track a missing car.
They’d let me lead them to Trixie.
Nice one, Zack.
30
THEY LED TRIXIE AWAY in handcuffs, but before they slapped them on her, they allowed her to change from her robe into some clothes. While she was getting dressed, I said to Flint, “I told you about Gary Merker. You told me about the stun gun marks on Martin Benson. Merker was there, he left Trixie a note. I can get it for you.”
Flint looked tired. He was a long way from home, and it was the middle of the night. But he still looked better than the rest of us.
“Mr. Walker, a man was murdered in her house. She fled the scene. She left you handcuffed so you wouldn’t be able to stop her from getting away. That’s what we in the police business call suspicious. Maybe even incriminating. Tell your friend to get herself a good lawyer.” He gave a tip of his hat. “And thanks again, for leading the way.”
“You called the car manufacturer,” I said. “You knew where I was all the time. I was being tracked by satellite.”
Flint smiled, but not as devilishly as he might have been entitled to. “So sorry to have disrupted your evening.”
Upstairs, Trixie was saying goodbye to her sister, to Don. And especially Katie. As Trixie came down the stairs, one officer walking in front of her and one behind, Katie stood, bleary-eyed, on the landing, clutching a yellow blanket and watching, baffled and sad. “When are you coming back?” she asked.
Trixie glanced at her and said, “I might be gone a while, sweetheart, but your other mom will take good care of you.” At the bottom of the stairs, they cuffed her.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Trixie. “It was your car. They used the GPS thing to find it. I led them right to you.”
She smiled tiredly. “It’s okay, Zack. I’m going to make it clear to them that you came up here to get me to turn myself in. Don’t worry.”
“You need a lawyer.”
“I told you about Niles. He handles all my difficulties.” She shook her head. “This one’s right up there.”
“We have to go, ma’am,” said one of the cops.
“See ya, Zack,” said Trixie, and Candace, and Miranda. “Maybe now you’ll catch a break. How much trouble can you get into with me locked up, right?”
I was on the road by six in the morning.
Trixie was right, there was something wrong with the Virtue. I tried to start it, but the engine, or the batteries, or whatever it was that made the damn thing go, failed to make a sound. So I hung on to Trixie’s car. If Detective Flint wanted to put the space shuttle and all the other resources of NASA into keeping track of my movements, he was welcome to. I no longer gave a rat’s ass.
I plugged my cell phone into the cigarette lighter. Long before I was home, it would be recharged, plus I’d be able to make or receive calls during my journey.
I called no one, and no one called me.
There was a lot of time to think on that drive home. And as I reached the city of Canborough and took the bypass, I felt a twinge of guilt. I probably should have driven into the downtown, parked outside police headquarters, and gone in to see Michael Cherry. I had some vague recollection of a promise I’d made to him two days earlier, that if I happened upon any information that would help him with the Kickstart massacre investigation, I’d pass it along.
It was fair to say I had a few new details he might want to have. I’d have a source for life in the Canborough Police Department, helping him crack a triple murder.
Moral dilemma time.
Maybe, for most people, this would be a no-brainer. Trixie had admitted to me that she’d shot and killed three men. Three men who’d raped her before, and were about to do it again. If her claim of self-defense was legit, she could tell it to a judge and jury. He might well agree. So might the jury.
But I could see the prosecutor-and in my mind’s eye he looked a lot like Sam Waterston-approaching the witness box. He was saying, “So tell us, Ms… whatever your name is at the moment. Is it Chicoine? Is it Snelling? So these men, they allegedly attacked you, allegedly sexually assaulted you, on this earlier occasion, you claim, and, let me just check my notes here, and then you went back to work with them? Just a couple of days later? And then, when they allegedly did this again,
