Jude Devine Mystery Series (26 page)

“I hear you,” Gossett said. “But since we’re out here, we might as well try to bring him in. You never know. Sometimes people just want a way out.”

Jude shrugged, unwilling to overstep and risk their ability to do business in Gossett’s jurisdiction. If she was going to screw up their working arrangement, she needed to wait until after she had the murder weapon. She could see where Gossett was coming from. Cops like him spent their whole lives fighting the good fight, invisible and taken for granted, never getting a sniff at a glamour case. If Gossett was looking to make his mark before retiring, this was it. No matter how badly it panned out, there would probably be some fat in it for a guy like him, maybe even a book deal.

“It’s your call,” she said.

Gossett picked up a bullhorn, identified himself, and announced, “Nathaniel Epperson. We have a search warrant for the buildings and vehicles on this ranch. My staff will now proceed with the search. Should you wish to view the warrant, please lay down your arms and step out of the building with your hands on your head.”

The rifles remained in position, their barrels moving slightly until they were trained on the four police vehicles.

Gossett continued, “We don’t want anyone getting hurt here. Come out with your hands on your head. I personally guarantee your safety.”

The tableau remained inert, then, in a crackle of static, Epperson’s reply boomed contemptuously from a bullhorn of his own. “My safety is guaranteed by God. Yea, I will dwell forever in his heavenly sanctuary, where the crown, the heart, the seed, the feet, are unified into the most precious metal, paving the very streets with gold. Thus is the alchemy of the doctrine.”

“I left D.C. for this?” Jude muttered.

“I don’t think he’s coming out.” Tulley fidgeted with his bulletproof vest. Lowering his voice, he murmured to Jude, “What are we doing here? Why didn’t Gossett call the FBI?”

“He’s trying to avoid an escalation.”

“Could have fooled me.” Tulley cast a pointed look at the beefy sergeant.

He was dishing out orders to one of his deputies. “Call the state patrol. We need road blocks before this turns into a circus, ’cos it’s going to.” Catching a frown from Jude, he explained, “Don’t want to take any chances. If this goes out of control, the plygs will swarm in from the twin towns.”

“Terrific.” He had the fever. Jude had seen it before. Adrenaline could divorce the sanest people from their common sense and situations could suddenly gather a momentum of their own. It was on the brink of happening here.

“I’m calling Kingman,” Gossett went on. “We better get the Tactical Operations Unit out here.”

“Good plan.” Jude was aware of the clock ticking. She needed to get that evidence and extract herself and Tulley before this went south in a big way.

She scanned the outbuildings until she spotted the one that met Naoma’s description. Her objective was a small barn in poor repair, the farthest of three southwest of the house. Part of the building was charred from a fire. Jude figured she could make it as far as the large new barn nearest it without being seen. Then there was a stretch of about fifty yards in the open, completely visible to anyone watching from the north-south wing of the house.

There was always the possibility that the outbuildings themselves were staked out. Jude could see no sign of the search party on the surrounding hills. It seemed more than likely that they were holed up with Epperson, busting to defend his right to break any law he wanted on the grounds of “religious belief.”

She said, “That’s the objective. Farthest building to the right.”

“You could take one of the cars,” Gossett suggested.

“No. We need to group the vehicles for a shield.”

Three Ford PLs, a pickup and seven officers. Not exactly a show of force. There had to be at least thirty adults in that house, all of the males armed. And, if Fawn Dew was anything to go by, Epperson’s wives were gun-friendly too.

Jude studied the outbuildings closest to them, looking for protruding rifles or signs of movement. The windows and vents were too high for easy access. Any prospective snipers would have to be hanging from the rafters. But she had a feeling no one was out here. Epperson wanted a Waco. That much was obvious. He would have everyone assembled in that house, so if the whole thing went up in smoke the body count would be as high as possible.

“I’ll come with you,” Tulley said.

Jude sized things up and decided Gossett needed the extra man more than she did. “No. Stay here.” The gentle command earned a whipped-puppy look. Ignoring it, she addressed the sergeant. “How long before the TOU makes it?”

“Assume an hour. The boss says they’ll bring a chopper.”

“We don’t want to be stuck here without a SWAT team for that long,” Jude said. “So I’m going in to collect that evidence, then we’re backing off.”

Gossett seemed to be having second thoughts about his Rambo role at last. “Yeah. We’ll only get our humps busted if these screwballs want to blow themselves up and blame the government.”

Jude thought about a house full of children whose parents would probably be willing to let them die to score points against the authorities. They couldn’t allow this to escalate into a showdown. Once she had her evidence, they could leave and do nothing for a few days. Let Epperson cool off and get distracted wondering what his head wife was saying. Keep the place under surveillance and wait for the plygs to drift away. They could escort Naoma to Cortez and come back for her husband at a later date with the right personnel. There was a sane way to get the desired outcome. All she had to do was collect that trash bag and they could take Epperson when the time was right.

“You’re right about that diversion,” she told Gossett. “How about if you move the vehicles in closer and exchange a few more words with Epperson while I make a run for the barn.”

“You got it.”

They piled into the cars, Tulley looking like his firstborn just died.

Weapon in hand, Jude moved away from the group and skirted the first barn, her back to the wall. The second had a grain silo on top. In a matter of seconds, she covered the distance to take refuge in its shadow. She allowed herself exactly a minute to calm her breathing and survey her surroundings once more for signs of activity. In an odd way it was like a training exercise at Quantico. She felt cold and detached, yet tightly coiled, adrenaline charging her muscles with tension.

Taking a quick, deep breath, she stepped out into the sunlight and ran. Within seconds she heard the familiar pop of a gunshot. She hit the ground and crawled on her elbows, thinking the whole time,
it really is like Quantico, only the bullets are real
. Her blood group leapt to mind. AB-negative with a few unusual antigens, rare enough that she made extra donations to the blood bank. She kept meaning to freeze some, just in case. Even though she could accept blood from a good proportion of the population, she supposed in a transfusion it was always better to use your own.

Gossett’s voice echoed through the late afternoon torpor. “Hold your fire. Mr. Epperson, you are placing your family in danger. Lay down your weapons.”

Predictably, the reply was a short barrage, but none of the shots came Jude’s way. She scrambled to her feet and bolted the final twenty yards to her target.

The barn was hot and dark and smelled disgusting. Jude tried to codify the choking stench. Urine, feces, putrifying flesh, rotting vegetables, burnt timber. Shafts of light from fissures in the roof cast zebra shadows across the dirt floor. As her eyes adapted, she saw what Naoma had described, a wooden ladder leading to a loft. She was a few feet away from it when she began hearing sounds other than the rush of blood coursing through her arteries. A grunt, low whines, a faint wheezing noise like a chuckle. Animal sounds, their source perhaps ten feet away, coming from the deep shadows beneath the loft. She froze and aimed in their direction. The rasp of rapid, heavy breathing made her fingers tighten on the pistol grip.

Her instincts urged her to shoot. Her mind reasoned that anything could be cowering there in the darkness, a frightened woman, a sick animal, a youngster like Zach. She had not been attacked. There was no justification for her to open fire. The smell was overpowering, burning her nose and throat.

Gagging, she identified herself and said, “I won’t hurt you. Step away from the wall. Put your hands on your head. Come out where I can see you.”

The wheezing grew louder. Something shifted and the outline of a figure came into view. He was virtually naked, hunched and drooling from a terribly misshapen mouth. As far as she could tell, he was also unarmed.

“Hyrum?” Jude asked.

The man made a gurgling sound.

“I’m glad I found you. We need to talk.” Jude reached slowly for her handcuffs and took several steps closer. Gently, she said, “I want you to come with me. I have food and water. First I need for you to lie down on the ground.”

He dropped into a crouch. Feral eyes glimmered a warning at her and between one breath and the next, Hyrum Epperson uttered a low, guttural howl and sprang at her, clasping her around the legs, throwing her off balance. Pain shot through her thigh as his teeth sank in. For such a mangled human being, he moved with power and agility, pinning her down, clawing at her throat, resisting her frantic attempts to throw him off.

The barrel of her gun was wedged to his chest. Jude shouted, “Get off me or I’ll shoot.”

He ripped her radio away and tore at her shirt with his teeth, then found her shoulder, gouging viciously into her flesh. His hands tightened around her throat and Jude understood she was not going to be able to fight him off unless she dropped her weapon to free her right hand. She could not even move the gun away from his heart; it was the only thing stopping his weight from descending completely. One last time, she fought to break his grip and roll him off her, but he was crushing her windpipe.

She had no choice.

Jude pulled the trigger, and the hands around her throat instantly relinquished their grip. His body was thrown back, blood spraying. She hurriedly elbowed herself away and scrambled up, her gun still trained on him. His eyelids fluttered and he released a single deep sigh. Then his gaze was unseeing. Gun gases and smoke stained the air. Jude tapped the barrel of her 19 against her shoe and a small clump of gore plopped onto the hay. Fuck, she thought. The same human tartare was all over her face and through her hair, too.

With one foot, she nudged him. Then she knelt and took his pulse, the 19 hard against his temple. Hyrum Epperson was dead. She had killed a person who belonged in a mental hospital, a suspect she’d hoped would help make the case against Epperson. Shaking violently, she lurched to her feet and leaned against the wooden ladder. Her blood-soaked clothing reeked of iron, and adding to the general foulness of the environment, Hyrum had emptied his bowels. Now she had to climb into the loft and find the trash bag.

“God damn these people,” she croaked, clutching her injured throat. “Fuck you, Nathaniel Epperson. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

*

“That was a gunshot,” Fawn Dew said. “Sounds like it came from over there.” She pointed at the barns on their side of the house.

Standing beside her, Summer clutched her belly. Liquid gushed from between her legs and an agonizing pain made her double up. “I think I’m having the baby,” she sobbed.

“Fetch the master,” Fawn Dew ordered.

One of the women cleaning weapons on the floor scrambled to her feet and ran from the room. Another, Thankful, stood up and came to Summer’s side. “Looks like your waters have broken,” she said, leading her to the bed.

Terrified, Summer lay down and curled onto her side. The pain intensified like a rubber band tightening around her middle.

“What are we going to do?” Thankful asked Fawn Dew, who was looking through binoculars.

Without turning around, Fawn Dew replied, “Get some water and keep her quiet. Birth pain is the price we pay for the blessing of children and the master expects that we bear it sweetly and silently.”