Killerwatt (18 page)

“The ambulance is on its way,” Rhetta said, hoping
her voice sounded soothing enough to reassure Billy Dan, even though she was
panting from her trek. “It’ll be here soon. You’re going to be fine.” She
patted the arm that wasn’t injured.

Billy Dan, lying on his back on the grass, made a
soft moaning sound.

“What happened?” she said, dropping into a crouch
alongside him. “Can you talk to me?”

“Shot,” he answered simply, turning toward her with
a great effort. He inhaled, and his lungs whistled and wheezed. “Tried to take cover.
They shot at me.” He panted, short of breath. “Got the bait box and my arm,
same time.”

Shot?
His answer wrenched a knot in her
gut.
What?
Why?

Once he said it, she how the bait box had
splintered. The gaping wound in his arm hadn’t only been caused by the shard
that still protruded. She began to feel ill. “Who shot you?”

A slow head shake. “Don’t know. Didn’t see ’em.”

Then she remembered the vehicle that she’d met on
the road.
The green SUV!
They had to be the ones who had made the
ruts in the driveway on their way in to kill Billy Dan. Had he not been in his
boat....
She had to tell the cops about the green SUV.

“I’m going to hold this tight against the bleeding
until the ambulance gets here,” she said, wadding a towel and pressing it firmly
over the angry wound. She was doing her best to sound calm, hoping to keep
Billy Dan quiet. She wrapped another towel around the part of his arm with the
shard, and tucked the towel ends under him.

Billy Dan didn’t answer. Under his injured arm, the blood
pooled, staining the grass a dark crimson, and darkening the white towel. Using
the heel of her palm, she increased pressure on the wound. He moaned. Billy Dan
was losing consciousness.
He’s losing a lot of blood. Where the hell is the
ambulance?

*
* *

Billy
Dan hadn’t spoken for several minutes. Rhetta was sure he’d passed out. She’d
taken another towel and wrapped it around his upper arm in a makeshift
tourniquet. She twisted it and held it for a few minutes then released,
repeating the tightening-release-tightening technique. She thought the bleeding
was diminishing, but maybe it was her wishing it were so. She couldn’t be sure.
Although the towel became soaked and blood covered her hand, she continued the
systematic tightening and releasing required of a tourniquet.

Finally, she heard the distant wail of a siren.
Gradually it grew louder and closer. Then it powered down, followed quickly by
the sound of crunching gravel and slamming doors. She glanced up and saw two
EMTs on the back porch of Billy Dan’s house.

“Down here,” she yelled, waving one arm. She wasn’t
ready to release the tourniquet yet. The EMTs scrambled down the steps and
rushed toward her.

When they reached Billy Dan, she released the
tourniquet and stepped back, getting out of the way so they could work.

“I think he’s unconscious,” she said, and felt
brainless as soon as the words crossed her lips. Of course, he was. They’d be
able to tell that right away. Weren’t they medical personnel? Her nerves were
frayed.

One of the emergency techs asked her what had
happened. While he talked, he began his efficient ministrations, checking Billy
Dan’s pulse, and then examining the horrific wound. When he gently unwrapped
the makeshift pressure bandage Rhetta had applied, she was relieved to see that
the blood, which had been spurting like a geyser, had slowed. The EMT
instructed his companion to bring more supplies. The other tech ran back to the
ambulance.

“He told me he got shot,” Rhetta said. “He was
fishing in his johnboat, and someone shot him. When I got here, he was under
the boat. I’m not sure how that happened.”

The tech plugged a stethoscope into his ears and
listened to Billy Dan’s heart and lungs. He merely nodded at her in
acknowledgement. The EMT who’d run to the ambulance returned with a rolled up
stretcher, bandages, and a bag of clear liquid and tubing. Within seconds, he’d
deftly inserted the tubing into Billy Dan’s arm. They loaded Billy Dan on to
the stretcher and handed her the bag.

“Carry this. Hold it up as high as you can while we
take him out of here,” he said. Luckily, the bag had a molded handle that she
could grab.

The EMTs scurried up the bank. It was all she could
do to keep up. While the EMTs loaded Billy Dan into the back of the ambulance,
another vehicle skidded to a stop alongside them.

Sheriff Frizz Dodson heaved himself out of the
passenger side of a white Chevy Tahoe bearing foot high black lettering on each
front door that said,
Bollinger County Sheriff
. Deputy Gordon Caldwell,
leaner than the sheriff by fifty pounds, leapt out from behind the wheel.

After exchanging words with the ambulance driver,
Dodson slapped the side of the ambulance in a signal for them to get rolling.
They sped away down the driveway, sirens wailing.

The Sheriff’s tan uniform shirt bore large half
moons of sweat under the arms. His radio crackled from his shoulder and he
paused, slapping at the transmitter to reply before approaching Rhetta. She
heard him relay his location.

Rhetta wasn’t sure what the Sheriff’s real first
name was, because everyone called him Frizz, due to the mop of wiry dark hair
that sprang outward from his head.     

Dodson was wheezing by the time he reached her. He
pulled a large red paisley handkerchief from a rear pocket and mopped his brow.

“Afternoon, Mrs. McCarter,” he said politely,
appearing to overlook the fact that she was covered in crusty dried silt and
Billy Dan’s blood. He glanced first at her clown-sized sneakers, then at her
hair, mud-plastered to her head.

“Sheriff,” she said, greeting him in return.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, swiveling
his big head, taking in the surroundings. He wiped the absurdly oversized
handkerchief across his wide forehead one more time before stuffing it into his
back pocket.

Rhetta replayed everything that had happened after
she arrived at Billy Dan’s. She also told the sheriff she’d nearly been run off
the road by a green SUV.

“Did you get the license plate number?” Dodson
asked, removing a damp, pocket-sized spiral notebook from a breast pocket.

She shook her head. “No, I was pretty busy keeping
Cami on the road.”

“Cami?”

She tilted her head toward her car. “My Camaro.”

“I see.” He flipped the notebook closed. “It’s a
good thing for Billy Dan that you got here when you did, but can I ask what
brought you out here today, Mrs. McCarter?” His bovine eyes stared down at her.

Rhetta sighed. She propped herself against the rear
fender of the Tahoe. “I wanted to ask Billy Dan about his last conversation
with my husband, Randolph. They were together before Randolph had his accident.
I tried calling Billy Dan. When I couldn’t reach him, I decided to come out
here.”

“All the way out here from Cape just to ask him
about a conversation?”

Rhetta heard the skepticism in the question.
I
guess every law enforcement person in Southeast Missouri knows about Randolph’s
accident
.

“Sheriff, I believe something bizarre, like a
terrorist plot is going down in our area. My client, Doctor Hakim Al-Serafi
died in an accident in the Diversion Channel. Then, my husband suffers a
similar, nearly fatal accident, and Doctor Peter LaRose died in his apartment.
The FBI agent that we first talked to is also dead. Now, Billy Dan gets shot. I
think it all has to do with a schematic I found in Doctor Al-Serafi’s car. All
of us have seen the schematic, and something terrible has happened to everyone
except me.”
And Woody, who may be next. I have to get out of here and warn
him.

“A schematic? Terrorist plot? FBI? What in blazes
are you talking about?” Frizz raised his thick eyebrows, fished out the notebook
again and fanned himself with it. For a moment, she thought he might write down
what she said. Not so. He only needed the notebook for a fan. “Doctor who?” he
said and flapped the notebook harder.

“Randolph showed Billy Dan a schematic I found in
the car that Doctor Hakim Al-Serafi died in.” Frizz’s eyebrow shot up again.
Before he could ask how, exactly, she came to have said schematic, she
continued. “Billy Dan told Randolph it appeared to be a schematic of the
transformers used in all the power substations. On his way home from meeting
with Billy Dan, Randolph’s car was run off the Whitewater Bridge, and now
somebody tried to kill Billy Dan.” She folded her arms and waited for Dodson to
answer.

Frizz Dodson couldn’t have looked any more confused
than if someone had just rattled off
Fermat's Last
Theorem
,
the most difficult math problem ever solved, according to the Guinness World
Records.

“More likely someone in the woods over yonder was
poaching and a stray bullet clipped Billy Dan,” Frizz said. “Besides, I heard
your husband had a high B.A.C., so I doubt if anything fishy happened to him.”

From the condescending tone of Dodson’s voice,
Rhetta concluded there was no use in continuing with her terrorist theory.
Feeling defeated, she merely rubbed her temples and stayed quiet.
I need to
warn Woody.

When Deputy Caldwell jogged back from where Billy
Dan had lain, Frizz glanced up at the late afternoon sky, then at his watch.
The setting sun spread long orange fingers deep into the horizon. “Dang, it’s
after seven. No wonder my stomach’s growling.”

Caldwell cut a sideways glance at the sheriff,
rolled his eyes, and ambled to the driver’s side of the Tahoe. Frizz aimed for
the passenger door and Rhetta eased away. Frizz yanked open the door. Before
pouring himself into the seat, he turned back toward her. “Stop by the office
in Marble Hill so we can get your statement.” It wasn’t a request.

“Sure thing” she said raising her hand in a small
wave.
Yeah, I’ll get right on that
.

The Tahoe backed, made a Y-turn, and left.

Rhetta stared at the plume of dust that marked their
descent to the county road. The hot afternoon sun had finally dried out the
surface of the gravel road, erasing any memory of the earlier storm.

She trudged to Cami, pulled open the driver door and
groaned. She eyed her muddy clothes, then the spotless white interior.

CHAPTER
39

Her shakiness calmed, Rhetta knew she had to get to
a phone again and warn Woody. She returned to Billy Dan’s kitchen and called
Woody’s cell phone. Good thing she’d gone back. She had failed to lock the door
earlier. The call didn’t go through. If Billy Dan had a long distance carrier,
Rhetta didn’t know the dialing code. Frustrated, she tried again, using 1, the
area code then Woody’s number. And received the same error message.

No more time to waste. After securing Billy Dan’s
house, she headed to Cami, and tugged open the door. She would have to use her
cell phone to warn him as soon as she had service. She paused before sitting.
In spite of the urgency, Rhetta couldn’t make herself climb in and sit on the
white seats with her muddy clothes.

She limped to the back of the car, opened the trunk,
and stared inside for something to throw over the seats. The small trunk
contained only the stereo amp along with a donut-sized spare tire and jack.
Cami
wouldn’t make a very good Mafia car. Couldn’t stuff a body in the trunk.
Silly thoughts tended to invade her brain when she was nervous.

Remembering the unlocked fishing shed, she limped
down to it. She was glad that she had. The door stood ajar. She needed to lock
the building. She ventured inside, inhaling the mingled smells of plastic,
paint, and a remnant of fish odor. To her relief, she found a new bright blue
plastic tarp still in a bag, tucked away neatly on a shelf. Snatching it, she
pushed the door closed and snapped the padlock shut.

Limping back to her car, Rhetta found she couldn’t
tear open the plastic package with her hands. Using her teeth, she tugged at a
corner and succeeded in ripping it enough so that she could pull it open with
her hands. She unfolded only as much of the tarp as she needed to drape over
the driver’s seat. When she was satisfied that the seat was sufficiently
protected from the filth of her clothes, she climbed in. Groping around the
passenger seat, she located her cell phone. Still no signal. She turned the
key, and Cami rumbled to life.

Darkness had begun to replace the waning rays of
sunlight when at last she reached the county road. Pausing at the end of Billy
Dan’s driveway, she tuned in her oldies station. She hoped the familiar music
would work its magic on her frazzled nerves. After cautiously checking both
directions for speeding SUVs and finding none, she eased out. She returned to
the main highway, driving even more carefully than when she’d come in. She
dreaded checking out what damage might have been done to her beautiful car.

This time, the rock ’n ’roll tunes didn’t help her.
She couldn’t chase away the images of the afternoon of bizarre events that paraded
across her mind. Everything swirled together. She’d been distracted, thinking
about her father when she’d met the SUV that had nearly run her off the road.
She tried to recall more details about the vehicle. She wished she’d seen the
license plates. Surely, the county authorities were searching for it. 

Who was she kidding? When she started talking about
a terrorist plot, Frizz Dodson’s eyes glazed over. From his expression, he
definitely wasn’t interested in her theory, preferring to believe that Billy
Dan suffered a poacher’s stray shot. She didn’t believe his poacher theory for
a second. She was lucky the lawman didn’t want to haul her in for smoking wacky
weed. Course if he did, he wouldn’t get home in time for dinner. Dodson had
priorities, for which she was grateful.

Then who shot Billy Dan?

A dread as cold as an Arctic blast washed over her.
She knew the answer. It was whoever was driving the green SUV. The tracks she
saw in the driveway had to be made by the shooters. She’d ask Frizz to check out
the tread marks. That is, if they hadn’t been obscured by all the traffic.

The terrorists wanted rid of
Billy Dan because somehow they’d known that he’d seen the schematic and
understood what it meant.

Pulling out on to Highway 34, Rhetta marveled at all
the twinkling lights glittering around her. Although she was several miles west
of Marble Hill, she realized that the area wasn’t nearly as isolated as she’d
always thought. Anytime she’d ever come out this way before, it was daytime,
and the landscape of trees and pasture always seemed to stretch for miles.
Tonight, lights blinked and winked at her from both sides of the highway as she
gunned Cami, rapidly reaching, then exceeding the speed limit.

Cami glided effortlessly around a gentle curve, and
Rhetta had just begun to relax when a flicker caught her eye. She glanced to
the side. House lights and pole lights winked out. The same happened across the
highway. She stole a glance in her rear view mirror. She saw nothing but pitch
darkness behind her. She’d just passed
Green’s Grocery
. The sign had
been awash in light from four old fashioned light fixtures that arched out over
the sign from the top, reminding her of gooseneck desk lamps. Now, there was
only darkness where the bright store lights had been.

A power outage.
Her heart thumped until she
decided that it wasn’t that unusual during hot days and heavy summer usage. A
single substation could easily overload and cause a temporary brown out.

As she raced eastward, the phenomenon of
extinguishing lights continued. She felt disoriented. There were no other cars
on the road, no headlights or taillights to give her a sense of the roadway.
The inky blackness made her feel like she’d driven into the
Twilight Zone
.
She felt eerily alone, as though everyone had left the planet and turned off
the lights on their way out. Her heart rate sped up again.
This ongoing
blacking out shouldn’t be happening!

Reaching the edge of Marble Hill, she sped past the
Welcome
sign before realizing that the normally illuminated sign was dark. In fact, the
whole town was in darkness.

This was no brown out.

An announcer interrupted her tunes. She turned the
volume up. “There appears to be a major power failure in rural Bollinger County
in Southeast Missouri. Listeners have reported an outage that stretches from
Grassy east to the Cape Girardeau County line. We are unable to reach Inland
Electric. As soon as we can confirm the cause, we will interrupt with a report.
For now, we take you back to our regular programming.”
The Guess Who
resumed belting out
American Woman
.

Rhetta reached over and lowered the volume.

A quick glance at her cell phone confirmed that she
had three bars. At least the cell towers were still working. She had to call
Woody. This blackout had to be part of the plot involving the schematic.

She didn’t stop at the sheriff’s office in Marble
Hill to sign her statement. She doubted anyone had worked on it. Besides, Frizz
Dodson would have his hands full with the power out all over his county. She
sped on through town. Approaching the east edge of town, she slowed,
remembering an intersection. At Merc’s, dozens of patrons spilled out of the
restaurant, heading for their rides. Several clusters of people milled around,
as though unsure what to do.

At the four-way stop, the traffic signal was out.
Although dozens of vehicles were maneuvering through the intersection, no one
honked and no one appeared to be impatient. Everyone acted calmly, each driver
giving the other a turn at going through. That, she reasoned, was a benefit of
the friendship and camaraderie of a small town. It still took forever for her
turn. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she inched forward.

Finally after several long minutes, she made it
through the intersection. She raced alon highway 34 toward Cape. Reaching the
power substation at Center Junction, she downshifted, slowing for the five
Inland Electric trucks parked along the shoulder with their emergency flashers
on. A dozen men in hard hats had gathered around the darkened substation. After
she was safely past, she shifted again, and Cami throttled forward.

They’ll get the power up soon
. She’d never known these summer
outages to endure more than a few hours.

“Not this time,” argued a voice inside her head. Her
gut agreed. This was more than temporary.

Flying across the bridge where Randolph had wrecked,
Rhetta cringed, not daring a look over the side where his truck had gone. She
checked her rear view mirror for the hundredth time since leaving Billy Dan’s.
At any moment she fully expected a green SUV to fill the reflection.

Her thoughts flew to Randolph. What about the
hospital? Was it also without power? She held her phone aloft and pushed the
button to illuminate the screen. She needed to talk to him, but all she saw was
“No Service.” She tossed it to the passenger seat.

A few minutes later, Rhetta approached the city of
Jackson, just west of Cape. She stared mutely through the windshield, a
horrible sense of déjà vu washing over her. The city’s lights began
disappearing. Soon, the city itself all but vanished. The only remaining
visible light came from a radio tower. She’d heard the towers had battery
backup in case of a power failure, allowing the position lights to remain lighted
so that planes wouldn’t run into them. Here and there, an isolated light winked
on. Probably from home generators that began kicking in.

She and Randolph had purchased a whole house propane-powered
generator three years ago after suffering a five-day loss of power during an
ice storm. She wondered if it had kicked on. What had the installer said? It
was supposed to kick in after ten seconds, or something like that. They’d never
needed it since the ice storm.

The car radio fell silent. She fiddled with the
knob, turning the volume up. Nothing but static. She hit the
search
and
finally found a weak broadcast from a Memphis station. The sporadic crackling
made the announcer difficult to understand.

Except that she clearly understood when he said,
“Major blackout in the Cape Girardeau, Missouri area.”           

*
* *

Crawling
along with the snarled traffic on Jackson Boulevard, the main east-west
thoroughfare through Jackson to Cape, Rhetta took time to snatch her phone and
speed dialed Woody. Approaching a vacant lot, she pulled in to talk on her
phone. With no traffic lights operating, the traffic was much worse in Jackson
than it had been in Marble Hill and the drivers much more impatient. Horns
blared, and headlights blinked as motorists expressed their unhappiness.

The call went through!

“Woody, it’s happening,” she said when he answered.

“What? What are you talking about?” She could hear
radio or television static in the background.

“The power grid. It’s going down. It’s the
terrorists. Don’t you see?”

“God, Rhetta, what are you saying? You can’t believe
that.” Rhetta heard shuffling and knew Woody held a hand over the phone while
he shouted, “Jenn, the generator is in the garage. I’ll get it.”

When he came back, his voice was strained. “Look,
it’s crazy here. I gotta go and hook up the generator.”

She couldn’t let him hang up. “Woody, wait, I’m
telling you, it’s happening. I haven’t told you about Billy Dan. I think the
terrorists are implementing their plan right now and—“

Woody interrupted her. “What? What about Billy Dan?”

“Someone shot him this afternoon. I found him badly
injured in his boat. Look, I’ll tell you about it when I see you. I’m almost to
Cape. I’m on my way to your house right now.”

She pulled back on to the highway and gunned Cami.
The Corvette engine delivering four hundred horsepower gave her plenty of punch
to roar ahead of a Dodge minivan.

“Find your hunting rifle, Woody and get it ready. We
have to stop them.”

CHAPTER
40