Mortal Dilemma (3 page)

“I always get a little nervous when somebody I don't know is looking for me,” I said. “He didn't give you any indication as to why he wanted to know where I live?”

“Nope. But it's no big secret, you know. If he asks around enough, somebody's going to point him in the right direction.”

Anthony brought out my lunch and the three of us talked about things of little consequence, whiling away the afternoon and drinking a little beer. I was concerned about a stranger looking for my home, but it was probably nothing. I thought briefly about going back to the house to check on Jock, but if anybody was intent on harming me, they'd be very surprised to run into Jock, who is more dangerous drunk than most men are sober.

T
HURSDAY
, O
CTOBER
30

J.D.
DROVE SOUTH
on Highway 98, turned east on Highway 27, and stayed on it until it intersected with Interstate 75. She turned south and headed for home. There were shorter routes, but the Interstate was the quickest. It saved her fighting the traffic as she neared Clearwater and St. Petersburg.

She was passing through Gainesville on I-75 when she noticed a low-slung black Chevrolet Camaro following close behind her. She was in the right lane, her cruise control set to seventy miles per hour, the limit on this stretch of road. She kept her eye on the car, waiting for it to pass.

As she got south of Gainesville and was driving on the causeway that crossed Paynes Prairie, the Camaro made its move, crossing into the middle lane of the three southbound lanes, moving up on her very slowly. He seemed to be hanging back in her blind spot. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the car had darkly tinted windows, much darker than the law allowed.

She checked her rearview mirror. Another car, a minivan with New York plates on the front, had slipped in behind her, taking the place of the Camaro, keeping closer to her bumper than was prudent.

The Camaro started to speed up and the right passenger window slid down. She saw a shotgun barrel poke out of the opening. Instinct
took over and she slammed hard on the brakes. She heard the squeal of tires behind her. The minivan. The Camaro shot ahead and braked. The shotgun fired, the slug passing over her hood. In the same second J.D. hit the gas and accelerated into the middle lane, winding up the Interceptor engine in her unmarked police car. She was going to ram the Camaro, but the driver must have seen her move into his lane. He accelerated.

J.D. pulled her pistol from the equipment belt on the front passenger seat. She didn't know what was going on, but she was pissed. She would take her shot if she had a chance. She was closing on the Camaro's rear bumper when she felt a hard impact on her right rear quarter panel. The rear of her car was pushed to the left. She steered in the same direction, trying to regain control, but she was hit again in the right rear.

She straightened out the front wheels and found herself headed directly into the low land of the prairie. She slammed on the brakes and fought to bring her car under control. She saw the minivan in her peripheral vision. Its front end had sustained severe damage and it had crossed the berm. It was out of control and was starting to roll over as it continued down the steep slope that defined the edge of the highway.

J.D. had regained some control and turned the front wheels slightly to the left, trying to stay on the shoulder. The brakes were gaining traction on the grass berm when her car seemed to teeter on the decline that sloped down to the prairie. It slid right and began to roll. It turned all the way over and came to rest on its wheels, finally coming to a stop. J.D. took stock of herself. Nothing broken. No pain. She'd have a bruise on her left shoulder where the seat belt strap had dug into her flesh as the centrifugal forces tried to throw her out of the vehicle. The device had done its job and held her in the cruiser.

J.D. let herself out of the car, pushing the crumpled door with her feet. She was still holding her pistol as she ran back toward the van.
The Camaro was nowhere in sight. The van was upside down laying just off the road's shoulder, several feet down onto the prairie. Was the driver part of the attempt to kill her? Was he working with the people in the Camaro? She didn't know, but she had visions of a family trapped in the vehicle. She approached at a run, her pistol still in her hand. As she neared, she saw a man crawling out of the driver's side door.

“Are you all right?” she called to him. “Anybody else in the car?”

The man was beginning to stand upright. She was about thirty feet from him when she saw the pistol he was holding. Her brain automatically assessed the situation. The pistol was a semiautomatic, a nine-millimeter perhaps, or a forty-five. Very dangerous, either way. The man was raising the pistol in her direction. Her brain was telling her to react, raise her weapon, defend herself.

The man took his first shot as J.D. was moving to her left and dropping to the ground, aiming at the man. “Police officer,” she said. “Freeze.” The man shot again, the bullet kicking up dust a foot to the left of J.D.'s head. She shot him. Twice. In the middle of the chest. In less than a second. He fell and she got to her feet and ran to the man, now lying on his back, his gun still grasped in his right hand. She picked up the pistol by its barrel and placed it on the ground out of reach of the shooter. She checked his pulse. Nothing. He was dead.

She looked into the van. Nobody was there. The dead man had been driving alone. Was he part of the group in the Camaro? No way to tell. She needed the local law to figure all that out.

J.D. pulled out her phone and dialed 911. “This is Detective J. D. Duncan of Longboat Key PD. I've been involved in an incident on I-75 in the southbound lanes near the north end of Paynes Prairie. I shot and killed the driver of one of the cars involved. Please send the highway patrol and sheriff's detectives. The other car involved was a new Camaro, black, very dark tinted windows, Florida license plate.
I didn't get the number. The men in the Camaro are armed and dangerous. It was headed south at high speed about five minutes ago.” She hung up before the operator could start asking a bunch of useless questions.

Cars were pulling to the side of the road and several people were walking toward the wrecked van. J.D. held up her badge and called out, “Police. Please back away. This is a crime scene. The highway patrol will be here shortly.” They complied.

Her next call was to Chief Bill Lester at the Longboat Key police station. She told him what had happened and assured him that she was okay.

“Did you get an ID on the guy who took the shot at you?”

“No. I didn't search him. I'll let the detectives do that. I don't want to corrupt the scene.”

“Good thinking. Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yes, Bill, I'm sure.”

“I'll call Matt. You need somebody with you.”

“Don't do that, Bill. You know how he is. He'll be on his way up here to take care of me. I don't want that. I'll call him when I have a better handle on what's going on.”

Lester chuckled. “Okay, but make it soon. I don't want him to think I'm holding out on him.”

“I will. I'm afraid the cruiser is a wreck. I'll rent a car and drive home as soon as I can get away.”

“I can send one of our guys up to get you.”

“No. Just pay for the rental.”

“The department will take care of it. Be very careful, J.D. Somebody's trying to kill you.”

“Yeah, I got that,” J.D. said, and closed the connection.

T
HURSDAY
, O
CTOBER
30

I
GOT BACK
to my house at three, carrying a large juicy hamburger and fries from Mar Vista. I heard the shower running when I entered the cottage. Jock was up. A few minutes later he plodded into the kitchen. He'd shaved, but not well. He'd nicked himself several times, and little bits of tissue were affixed to his face in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. His eyes were bloodshot, little ribbons of red running through the whites. “How're you feeling?” I asked.

“About like I look, podna.”

“Your eyes are so bloodshot you look like you'll bleed to death if you open them too wide. Here. I brought you some food.”

“Thanks.” He dug in, ripping big bites off the burger, going at it like a starving man.

“Slow down, Jock. You're going to choke yourself.”

He nodded and took a smaller bite. I'd put a glass of water on the table, and he gulped it down. I refilled the glass. “I'm sorry to be such a piece of shit,” he said.

I waved the apology away. “You want to talk about it?”

“The thing I value most in this world is your friendship and your opinion of me. Next in line is J.D.'s. I can't lose that.”

“You're family, Jock. There's nothing you can do or say that will ever change that.”

“But J.D.'s become part of that family,” Jock said. “You love her. She loves you, and she's the best thing that ever happened to you. She hasn't lived through what you and I have. I'm not sure she understands our relationship, or how we depend on each other. She may think the whole thing a little odd. And I know she doesn't approve of what I do for a living. I don't think our relationship, hers and mine, will survive this one.”

“You know I won't tell her anything you don't want me to.”

He shook his head. “She has to know what you know. If you, or we, start hiding things from her, all the relationships start to fray. I won't be a party to anything that causes a rift between the two of you.”

“You've been called on to do some terrible things, Jock, and you did them for all the right reasons.” And he certainly had. J.D. had shied away from that at first, but she'd come to understand that there's a jungle out there where laws and rules and ethics mean nothing. She came to realize that without men like Jock, the ones who took out the predators, the jungle and the people who thrive there would overtake us all, and thousands of years of civilization would disappear.

“Maybe so, but nobody can condone what I've done.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Not yet, podna. Maybe tomorrow.”

The phone rang. J.D. “Matt, about an hour ago somebody tried to kill me.” Her voice had a jittery quality, the sound of great stress.

That hit me like a punch to the chest. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I killed the guy. The one who tried to shoot me.” She told me what had happened on I-75. “I just finished with the statements and the paperwork. I'll be home in a couple of hours.”

“Where are you? I'll come get you.”

“I'm in a car with an Alachua County deputy. He's bringing me home. My cruiser isn't drivable. We should be there in a couple of hours. I'll come to your house. Is Jock okay?”

“Better.”

“See you soon.”

“J.D.?” I said, not wanting to hang up.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I know. I'll see you in a couple of hours.”

I told Jock what had happened. “She's pretty stressed out,” I said.

“I'm not surprised. Killing takes a lot out of you. I think a little part of your soul dies with every one.”

Jock's tone had a self-pitying element that I'd never heard before. “Are you all right, buddy?”

“Not yet, but I will be. It gets better every day. Time to stop the boozing.”

I was relieved. That was always the sign that he was better, that whatever had caused his pain was receding into the recesses of his memory. “Glad to hear it.”

“You got another problem headed your way. J.D.'s going to need all of your attention for a few days. She's not as tough as she wants everybody to believe.”

I laughed. “I know, but I'd never let her know that I know. She'd chew me up and spit me out.”

“Hold her close, podna. She's the best part of you.”

We talked for another hour or so, reminiscing about our high school days and the girls we'd loved, or maybe just lusted after. We talked about J.D., and Jock tried to allay my fears about what her near-death experience would do to her. We did not mention his recent experience, whatever it was.

Finally, as the sun lowered itself toward the Gulf's surface and the clock neared six, I heard a car pull into my driveway and saw an Alachua County sheriff's cruiser come to a stop. “J.D.'s here,” I said.

“I'm going back to bed,” Jock said. “You take care of your woman.”

“She'll want to see you.”

“Not right now. She'll need you to herself. You take good care of her or I'll have to kick your ass again.” He was grinning. A good sign.

“Again?”

“Yeah. You know, like that time in the seventh grade.”

I laughed. “You're still drunk. I'll wake you for dinner.”

“Nah. The hamburger did the trick. Let me sleep.”

T
HURSDAY
, O
CTOBER
30

I
WAS STANDING
at the front door as J.D. got out of the cruiser and walked toward me. She half-turned and waved at the deputy as he backed out onto the street. She looked a little deflated, somehow diminished, not quite the J.D. I saw every day. There was an absence of the confidence she always exuded.

I backed into the room and held out my arms. She came quickly to me and I enfolded her. She kicked the door closed and began to cry, sobs wracking her body. I said nothing, just held her quietly, letting the pain and fear leach out of her. I knew she'd been holding it all in, intent on not showing weakness to her law enforcement colleagues. She was tough, but like most of us, a soft core lurked beneath the armor.

Minutes passed. “Let's sit,” she said, and I led her to the sofa and held her some more. The sobs stopped and then the tears, and she slowly came out of the darkness. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't expect that.”