Dirty Harry 07 - Massacre at Russian River (7 page)

Harry said that he’d been arrested for jaywalking.

The young man’s face registered very faint astonishment at this. “Shit, I didn’t know they were cracking down so hard. But I’m not surprised. Ham wants to show everybody how fucking powerful he is. He was bad enough before but now with these outside cops showing up he’s a lot worse.”

“Ham?”

“The fat son of a bitch who brought you in, that’s Ham. Ham Kelso. His real name’s something like Bill but everyone calls him Ham.”

“I can see why.” Turk and Ham, Harry was thinking, this town goes in big for nicknames.

“You know, I’m related? Ham’s like my second cousin or some shit like that. The Reardons and the Kelsos have this blood thing going, but that doesn’t mean he won’t pull me in from time to time. He says he just wants to discipline me. Truth is the asshole hates my guts. He leaves my pa alone, and my uncle. Just me. He likes to pick on me is what it is. The name’s Tom Reardon by the way. Tom Reardon, Junior.” He stressed the last word.

“Harry.” That was all he said. Tom Jr. accepted it as enough, didn’t express an interest in what his last name might be or what he did for a living. Harry surmised that the only thing Tom Jr. was interested in was himself.

He asked Tom Jr. what crime, if crime it was, he had committed to arouse the ire of his second cousin Ham.

“I fucked around, you know,” he said ambiguously. “Somebody reported me. You know how it is?”

“Well, how exactly did you fuck around?”

“I hotwired some guy’s Mercury, no big deal. I would’ve brought it back.”

“Car theft. In some places they can put you away for quite a long time.”

“This isn’t some places.” Tom Jr. sounded practically indignant that Harry might think it was. “I told you it’s just because Ham has this thing for me. I spend a week here. Then they take me in front of that asshole judge they’ve got and he gives me this stupid lecture and my pa appears and he says, ‘Don’t you worry, the boy’ll watch himself next time,’ and he pays off a couple of people and that’s it.”

“That’s it? No probation?”

“Fuck probation. There ain’t any fucking probation, no record, no nothing. No sense paying everybody off if they kept my name on the books, would there be?”

“No, I guess not,” Harry agreed.

“ ’Cause it’s not just Ham we’re related to. We go way back, the Reardons, we’re related to every damn asshole in town. You think I get in trouble. You should see what my pa and Lou do. Lou, that’s my uncle.”

“Tell me, Tom, what do your father and uncle do?”

“Wish I could say but I can’t. You know how the Reardons get when somebody crosses them. Even one of their own.”

He made a slashing motion across his throat to emphasize the point.

“I see. Well, let me rephrase the question. What do they do for a living?”

“Oh well, they’re like farmers. We have some property at the base of Rain Mountain.”

“Rain Mountain?”

“You come from out of town, don’t you? You wouldn’t know it.”

“Don’t be too sure of that. Even outsiders learn fast in Russian River.”

The following morning, bright and much too early, Harry and Tom Jr. were awakened by the man who did double duty as warden and marshal of the court. “The judge is expecting you,” he said, addressing them both. “You got five minutes to get yourselves ready. The judge don’t like dallying.”

The judge might not have liked living from the looks of it. His skin was sallow, his eyes bloodshot, his hair sparse and white. His hands trembled, maybe from palsy, maybe from drink.

Aside from the judge and warden-marshal there were only three others in the courtroom at this hour: Ham Kelso and two disreputable specimens of humanity that Harry guessed to be members of the Reardon clan come to take possession of Tom Jr.

Harry would have expected someone other than Ham from the sheriff’s office. Maybe Davenport. But there was no one present who could provide him with support, moral or legal.

The judge was short on formalities. Adjusting his glasses, he peered down at the sheaf of papers in front of him and called out Harry’s name.

When Harry had duly identified himself, the judge asked him if he knew the charges against him.

Harry said he did not.

“The charges are breaking and entering and resisting arrest.”

“Now wait a minute, your honor, before these proceedings go any farther, I would like to be represented by a lawyer.”

The judge shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Callahan. I have been informed that all charges have been dropped. Is that correct, Officer Kelso?”

Officer Kelso stood up to attest to the truth of this.

“Consequently, Mr. Callahan, you are at liberty. However, I have been instructed by Sheriff Marsh’s office to inform you that you have embarrassed our local constabulary. With this in mind I must tell you that your advisory capacity in Russian River has been terminated. If you choose to remain here you can only do so in an unofficial capacity.” He paused, removed his glasses, and allowed his badly bloodshot eyes to fix themselves on Harry. “However, I would recommend that you seriously consider returning home as soon as you can, Mr. Callahan. I understand that your superiors in the San Francisco Police Department have been told of your change of status.”

Everything here is corrupt, Harry thought, everyone here is bought. Or crazed. Or both.

The judge asked Harry if he had anything to say.

Harry had things to say but not to this joker.

The judge banged his gavel. He seemed to like doing that, gave him the feeling that he actually mattered in the scheme of things.

“The next case, I believe, is Thomas Reardon, Jr. Will Mr. Reardon please rise?”

Harry was on his way out. He cast a sidelong glance at his former cellmate, but he had no intention of lingering in the courtroom to witness the mechanics of Tom Jr.’s fix. He had other, more pressing concerns.

Davenport arrived at the office before Turk. Harry was waiting for him.

“You’re up early,” Davenport noted, unlocking the door.

“That’s what happens when you spend the night in jail.”

Davenport seemed genuinely surprised to hear this.

“You mind explaining?”

“You were absolutely right. Kilborn does have some heavy protection.”

They were in the windowless office. Harry was gratified that Davenport felt no need of putting a song like “Whacky Dust” on the turntable right away.

Davenport was still mystified. Harry proceeded to describe in some detail what had happened.

“It began with the Cranston woman,” said Davenport. “It always begins with her.”

“I don’t believe she set me up. She didn’t know that I was going out to Kilborn’s van.”

Davenport didn’t seem to be listening. Harry was beginning to think that Davenport had this thing about her. The thought crossed his mind that the man wanted Elsie for himself and resented the fact that Turk had gotten to her instead.

The narcotics officer was talking about something else entirely. “Turk’s coming out of the hospital today.”

“They found nothing wrong with his brain?”

“Nothing that would show up in a CAT scan anyway.”

“So I guess he’ll be getting on with his little invasion,” Harry said.

“Guess so. And you’ll certainly come along to watch the show. It should be something.”

“I told you. I am no longer here in an official capacity. Your excuse for a judge made that very clear.”

Davenport’s expression reflected the disdain he felt toward the judge. “You should try getting a warrant from that bastard. When we do our number up in the mountains, we’ll hit the circuit judge for our John Does. Plinth can be bought and sold. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Don’t pay attention to what he says. If there’s any problem with the sheriff’s office, Turk’ll straighten it out.”

“Turk?”

“Don’t you know? Since you saved his ass from that chopper he has nothing but praise for you. That shooting changed everything. He has his excuse to make a major bust, his brain seems to be reasonably intact, he feels like he’s got the world by the balls.”

“Four men were killed,” Harry reminded him.

“Hey, it’s regrettable. But I told you. Turk’s a fanatic. You don’t expect him to go into mourning, do you?”

Harry didn’t respond. Instead he said, “So you want me to stick around, is that what you re saying?”

“That’s right. There’s no problem.”

Harry nodded politely. He wished he could believe it. But from what he could see there were nothing but problems.

C H A P T E R
S i x

P
oltergeists are the kind of ghosts you seldom see but one knows they’re around all right. To make their presence known, they fling cups and saucers, knock books down from their shelves, make disturbing noises in the middle of the night, pull open windows and doors, and generally make life miserable for whomever it is they’ve chosen to haunt.

Mike Kilborn was something like a poltergeist in this respect. He was known to be around somewhere even when one couldn’t exactly catch a glimpse of him. He gave off a certain vibration. At any moment, Harry expected to turn and find him standing there, his eyes barely discernible behind tinted shades, half a joint perched between his chapped lips.

He moved like a ghost too. Harry wouldn’t have been greatly surprised to learn that he passed right through walls. He had a lithe, nimble body. He could get over and go under things that very few other mortals could. He’d be excellent as a second-story man or as a limbo dancer. But clearly his ambitions were of a much higher order.

When he materialized in the rearview mirror of Harry’s car, pink glasses and pallid face, Harry was not so certain he wouldn’t put a gun to his head and blow his brains out. This did not happen. Kilborn had only wanted to throw a scare into Harry by slipping into his locked car without leaving any evidence behind of the break-in.

They were outside the county courthouse. It looked just like a county courthouse should look at eight in the morning with the sun shining down on it: pristinely white and all-American.

“What did you do, slip in through the tailpipe?” Harry asked, not yet daring to turn around.

“That’s not important. What is important is you skulking around my home last night.”

“You ought to hire a maid, you know that. You are developing some very unsanitary habits.”

“Didn’t I tell you when you came here that if you wanted me you could always find me? You don’t have to break into my van. The question is are you with me or are you against me? I told you I had connections. You ought to regard me as a local resource, not those two clowns in there.” He gestured toward the courthouse, where soon Turk and Davenport would begin plotting their excursion up into the mountains.

“Oh, I do. I do regard you as a local resource,” Harry said.

“Then what was it you were looking for last night? You want to know something, you have only to ask.”

“I would’ve asked. You just weren’t at home.”

“Man, I’m always around. You should’ve waited.” He paused, then said, “You weren’t looking for drugs, were you?”

“Now why should I do a thing like that?”

A sly grin took hold of Kilborn’s lips. “Oh I don’t know. Some people in this town think I’m heavy into drugs. I just hope you don’t buy what they’re selling. Well now, it looks like I got to be going. I just wanted to say good-bye. Understand you’ll be leaving us pretty soon.”

“I don’t know about that,” Harry said matter-of-factly. “I think I like it up in these parts. Very restful and bucolic, if you know what I mean.”

There was silence from Kilborn. “That’s not what I hear. I hear you’re returning to San Francisco.”

“Plans have a way of changing in Russian River.”

“If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t stick around. I’m just telling you that as a friend.”

“A friend,” Harry repeated skeptically.

“But whatever you do, it’s all the same to me.”

Kilborn opened the door of the car. “Have a good day.”

“No, thank you. I have other plans.”

Kilborn didn’t go too far. His decrepit Mercury was parked just a block up the road. Harry waited until he’d pulled away from his parking space and made a U-turn before starting up his own vehicle.

It looked as though Kilborn was heading out of town, south in the direction of San Francisco. Harry decided that it might behoove him to follow and see just where his destination lay.

Traffic picked up the closer they got to Highway 101, and it was possible, though Harry didn’t believe it particularly likely, that Kilborn hadn’t observed he was being tailed.

Kilborn was beginning to accelerate, exceeding by ten, then fifteen, then twenty miles the fifty-five mile-per-hour posted speed limit. To keep up with him, Harry was compelled to do the same.

Suddenly, from off to the right, Harry heard the high-pitched whine of a police cruiser. A glance into his rearview mirror indicated that the cruiser was beginning to thread its way through the lanes of traffic. He had no doubt that he was the driver the trooper intended to stop, not Kilborn. He also had little doubt that he’d be stopped and delayed for several minutes while his credentials were checked, not because he had violated the speed limit—that part of it was incidental—but because it was necessary for Kilborn to escape him. Kilborn would have a police radio in his car, Harry surmised, and he’d obviously put it to good use.

The trooper was signaling Harry to pull over to the side. Harry had no intention and increased his acceleration.

So did the trooper.

The cruiser’s siren shrieked more violently. Harry retaliated by depositing a red revolving light atop his own vehicle and triggering his own siren. Not that this would deter the trooper, but it might confuse him. Of course, Harry didn’t want to go too fast or he might end up outdistancing Kilborn. That would defeat the whole purpose of this exercise.

That was his dilemma: to beat out the cruiser while remaining behind Kilborn. Harry had maybe three quarters of a mile, a mile at the most, in which to accomplish this.

Off to the right was a billboard proclaiming the turnoff to the Marietta Vinyards/Home of Claudio Finaud Wines and Meschino Champagnes.