R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi (20 page)

.

Chapter Thirty:

Easing into the quiet yard of the art compound, I was relieved to
see lights on in Reina’s cabin.

“Thank God, she’s here,”
I said, getting out of the car.

“Wait up,
Lalla,” Caleb said, holding me back. He had Pearlie’s pink Lady Smith in his hand, but that didn’t diminish the testosterone-fueled tension in his posture.

“No Caleb, it’s dark and seeing you at her door will only frighten her.”

I had just raised my hand to knock when I heard the blast of a shotgun tear through the night. The sound ricocheted against the buildings and died in the hills behind us. Somewhere close by, an engine shifted noisily then faded away.

I jerked back my hand. “What the hell was that?”

Caleb pushed in front of me and tried the door of Reina’s cabin. It was unlocked. Nothing looked to have been disturbed, but no one was at home, either.

“The bedroom,” I said, pointing to her bedroom door.

He pushed it open and turned on a light.

“Nothing. Let’s go,” he said.

“I couldn’t tell where that gunshot came from, could you?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “
but it’s a good enough reason to ask Mac Coker. Come on.”

He pocketed the Lady Smith and started for the big house with me on his heels.

Using his fist, Caleb gave the door three hard raps. Without waiting for an answer, he turned the knob and the door swung open.

“I hear voices,” I said, pushing past him.

In the living room all the lights were on, but no one was there. I backed out and listened.

“It sounds like moaning, and it’s coming from the
kitchen,” I said, leading the way.

Caleb reached around for a wall switch, and suddenly we knew where the gunshot came from.

Deputy Abel Dick lay on the floor, clutching his abdomen. His eyes fluttered open, his mouth gasping to speak.

I knelt down and took his cold hands in mine. “Who shot you?”

“I tried to stop him,” he wheezed through clenched teeth.

“Who? Abel, tell me who did this?”

He grabbed my wrist with a bloody hand. “Terrible mistake. He stole your little race car. Said it was to make up for-for losing his investment. No honor. He lied. I should’ve known better. Reina. She threatened to go to the police ….”

“Save your breath, Abel. We’ll get help.”

“No! There’s no time. You have to-to listen. He’s going to kill Reina and my granddad.”

“Why?”

“I’m so ashamed. Said if I did what he told me to, he wouldn’t take my granddad’s place. I knew it was wrong, but Bethany was already dead, so ….”

“Abel, did the chief kill Bethany?”

“Yes, but Mac killed the chief. He force-fed Reina the last of Bethany’s oxycodone, and took her. He’s going to kill them both, the lying bastard.”

His grip on my wrist fell away and his eyes closed.

I gasped. “Abel!”

Caleb put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

“Hang on, Abel, we’ll get you an ambulance,” I said. “Caleb?”

Caleb slammed the phone back onto the cradle. “It’s dead, and I have no cell service here, either.”

“What about Reina’s cabin? She might have a land line we can use.”

“We don’t have time. Pull the
car around to the back door. We’ll call 9-1-1 and get the sheriff after Mac Coker on the way to the hospital.”

“Can you carry him?” I asked. Caleb was as tall as Abel, but Abel outweighed him by at least fifty pounds.

“You get the car, I’ll take care of Abel.”

I was halfway to the car
when Jason Stark drove into the yard.

I waved him to a stop and ran around to the driver’s side of his truck. “Abel Dick has been shot,” I gasped, trying to catch my bre
ath.

Jason looked at me and then at the lights in the big house. “Where is he?”

“In Bethany’s kitchen.”

“Hop in,” he said, and without waiting for me to close the passenger door, put the truck in gear
and braked next to the back porch.

He got out and limped
into the kitchen.

Seeing Abel on the floor, the dark blood pooling around his body, Jason quietly squatted and felt for a pulse.

“I’m sorry,” he said, using his hands on knees to get to his feet. “He’s gone.”

I backed into Caleb’s solid body, my hands shaking, tears marring my vision. Wiping my cheeks, I told Jason that we came looking for Reina, but found Abel
gutshot, his dying words were that Mac Coker was responsible for killing the police chief and that he took Reina with the intent of killing her and Abel’s granddad.

Jason’s jaw tightened. “How long ago?”

Caleb looked at his watch. “Five-ten minutes?”

Jason blinked. “What kind of car is it? Is it fast?”

Caleb said, “It’s very fast, very rare, but it’s also old, has a small gas tank and the tires couldn’t take him very far.”

“It’s also worth a million dollars,” I said.

“He’s gone to Abel Dick’s place,” Jason said. “The Dick’s have a flatbed car hauler. He could put it on the truck and haul it out of here tonight.”

“We can’t wait for the sheriff’s department to get here,” I said. “If we take the back way over Red Mountain Road we can get to the Dick place in less than five minutes.”

Jason held out his truck keys. “Do either of you have a weapon?”

Caleb nodded and accepted the keys with his thanks. “Call 9-1-1 and report the murder and where we’ve gone.”

Jason assured us that his cell would work, and unable to look at Abel Dick’s body one more time, I hurried after Caleb.

Buckling up, we took the rutted trail behind the house and climbed the steep hill, the beams of our lights skewering the dark a
nd pockmarked road ahead of us.

I le
aned against the restraints. “Can’t you go any faster?”

“We’ll catch him,” Caleb said, dodging a
pothole and coming dangerously close to the edge before swinging back onto the middle of the narrow road.

Just as the twin beams of the head
lamps shifted upward to the night sky, the big truck slid over the crest and we headed downhill, jolting, rocking and bouncing as the truck picked up speed.

I pointed to the mailboxes on the left and shouted. “Don’t miss the turn-off!”

“Got it,” he said, turning the wheel hard over onto the one-lane road and then jamming the gas pedal to the floor.

The Dicks’ security lights lit up the house and yard like a carnival show. There would be no place to hide, for Mac or for us.

Caleb let off the gas and coasted up to the yard.

“
There’s the flatbed truck,” I said. “He’s already got the Bugatti loaded.”

“Do you see him?”

“He’s not in the truck. I don’t know where he is.”

Caleb lowered the driver’s side window, turned off his lights, and crept up to the shadowed side of the house.

“Stay put,” he said, “I’m going to check out the car hauler.”

“Caleb, no,” I said. “He’s just killed Abel Dick and he won’t hesitate to shoot you, too.”

“I have your cousin’s revolver,” he said, and removing Pearlie’s pink Lady Smith from his pocket, he got out of the truck and crouched in the shadow of the house.

I pushed the passenger side open and ca
me around to squat next to him.

His brows dipped but he didn’t try to talk me out of staying. “Keep behind me, and for Christ’s sake, stay low.”

With me now glued to his shadow, he darted for the nearest window.

Beyond the bedroom
, Reina was out cold on the floor, and Mac Coker was busily taping an unconscious Mr. Dick to a dining room armchair. Satisfied with his handiwork, Mac turned off the interior lights and stepped through the front door.

I gave the old w
ood-sash window a heave. “We can get in this way.”

Just as I was about to climb inside, Caleb pulled me off the windowsill.

“Wait,” he growled.

I threw up my hands. “What the hell
, Caleb?”

“I’m not letting Mac Coker get away.”

“I’d agree with you, but Abel said he’s going to kill old Mr. Dick and Reina, remember?”

“He’s already outside,”
he said, shoving me behind him again. “They’re not going anywhere and he doesn’t expect us.”

.

Chapter Thirty-one
:

I was stuck to Caleb’s back, creeping around the corner of the Dick house. Caleb’s plan to overpower Mac Coker
went south when the barrel of his shotgun was aimed at us.

“Come out where I can see you!” Mac shouted.

“Go back to the window,” Caleb hissed. “Get them out of the house.”

I clutched at his shirt. “No, Caleb! Don’t—”

He swatted at me from behind his back, shoved the Lady Smith into the back of his pants, and stepped into the light with his hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot,” he said.

I was left in the shadows, now crazy with worry that Mac Cocker would shoot Caleb, but I did as he said, hugging the wall until I was back at the open window.

I removed my shoes and crawled inside.

Abel’s granddad was duct-taped to a dining room chair, his eyes closed and his chin on his chest. I put two fingers on his throat and was relieved to feel a steady pulse. Then I went to Reina. A quick check of her pulse assured me that she was alive.

I could’ve sympathized with Mac for killing the police chief. What father wouldn’t want to take the life of the man who murdered his daughter? But the bastard also murdered Abel Dick and was planning to kill both Reina and Abel’s granddad. So what did he have planned?

I tiptoed to the front door. Seeing it slightly ajar, I rubbed my sweaty hands on my jeans and jerked it open. He turned like I knew he would, and Caleb was on him in a second, wrestling for the shotgun.

In a sly movement,
Mac released one hand from the barrel and the other end of the weapon dropped, Caleb’s hand going with it. Mac used the maneuver to slam the stock into Caleb’s shoulder.

I heard the crack of bone and Caleb dropped to his knees.

Shock and fury blew away the last of my reservations and I threw myself at Mac’s back, sending both of us rolling on the ground.

He shoved me off and made a grab for the
revolver, and rolling into a squat, pointed the gun at my chest.

I raised my hands in defeat and when he waved me over next to Caleb, I meekly obeyed.

Caleb cradled his left arm.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I broke his collar bone,” Mac growled. “You’ll need to help him into the house.”

Caleb grimaced as I pulled on his good arm to get him to his feet.

With Mac behind us, Caleb and I staggered up the steps and into the house.

“You’ll never get away with killing all of us, Mac.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, motioning both of us over to a couple of side arm chairs. “Now sit down.”

Still shaking, I stepped over Reina’s legs to get to the chair.

“If Abel was helpful, then why did you have to shoot him?” I asked, as I crumbled onto the chair.

“I meant to shoot him here. It would look like his granddad did it before turning the gun on himself. The old man has dementia and a shotgun; a dangerous combination as you well know,”

Then his face darkened into a hateful mask. “I had a perfectly choreographed play until you two showed up and spoiled it all.”

“Just take the Bugatti and go,” I said.

“Yes, thank you, I intend to. I already have a buyer for it. But we must have a last act.”

I wanted to tell him that Jason Stark had already called 9-1-1, but that might hurry his departure and I wanted Mac caught and put in jail
for the murders of Abel Dick, if not the police chief.

His dark eyes narrowed in amusement again. Was he gloating over the fact that he’d bested all of us? Probably. Pearlie and I had naïvely accepted our parts in his murderous
game.

“How did it happen, Mac? Did you come to the house and find the chief in Bethany’s room?”

Instead of answering, he held out his hand for our cell phones, then handed me the duct tape. “Tape him to that chair.”

I wrapped Caleb’s arms close to his chest and around the back of the chair. At least his broken
collarbone would be immobilized.

“Now his feet,” Mac said. “I kept my trips to the caverns separate from my visits to my daughter. Nights for the caverns and days for Bethany, and since I had groceries I drove around to the kitchen entrance. That’s where I saw the stranger’s car.”

I handed Mac the tape. Seeing I wasn’t going to fight him, he quickly taped my hands to the arms of the chair while he continued his story.

“Inside I heard music and voices. It was coming from upstairs. I was surprised, to say the least, that my daughter was entertaining a man in her bedroom. At first
, I mistook the grunts and squeals for pleasure, but when the music stopped, it all became deadly clear to me. I took the stairs two at a time. My daughter’s nude body had been thrown on the bed like a discarded toy, and the bastard who murdered her was zipping up as he backed out of the room. I didn’t even have to think about it. I picked up the bat she kept by the door and cracked his skull.”

“You called Abel Dick to help because he would know where to hide a body.”

“Yes, but the chief wasn’t dead when Abel put him into that hole,” Mac said, and leaned over to tape my ankles together. “I went back, hoping he would regain consciousness. I meant to greet him with a Molotov cocktail and watch the bastard burn. Unfortunately, he had company.”

“
My father.
You
put my father’s jacket at Bethany’s property.”

“It seemed the thing to do at the time, but I didn’t know you all as well as
I do now.”

He rubbed his hands together, looking around the room. “Well, I believe my work is done here. Reina looks to be able to tolerate a much higher dosage of Oxy than I thought, and the old man will come around eventually, or not. Why don’t you relax and wait for the sheriff? It won’t be long now.”

At the door, he turned, and with a bitter smile on his lips, said, “Goodbye, Miss Bains.”

He switched off the wall light, and softly closed the door behind him. In another minute, I heard the
flatbed truck crunch over gravel and leave.

Goodbye? An innocent enough word, but ominous coming from Mac Coker. Thank God he’d be arrested …. Wait. How did Mac know that the sheriff would be coming? Neither
Caleb nor I told him. Jason had his cell phone to his ear when we left, didn’t he? But Jason Stark was also sympathetic to pot smugglers. Abel said Mac used everyone. Did Jason call Mac to warn him instead of calling 9-1-1?

My hopes for a speedy justice for Abel’s killer deflated with his final words—
He used all of us
.

Anger and fear at the possibilities fueled my determination to get free and I heaved the chair back and forth, the wood groaning with each assault. I
t would break, I knew it would.

“Caleb!” He’d passed out from the pain, poor dear.

“Yeah?” he looked up, his eyes unfocused.

“I think I can get it to come apart if you can kick my chair over.”

He took a breath to speak and flinched from the pain. Licking at dry lips, he tried again. “He turned off the light.”

The damp
yellow light from the porch filtered in through living room window, making his already pale skin look as gray as death. He wasn’t talking about the porch light.

“What light? I can see well enough to get to the door.”

“You don’t want to turn on the light switch next to the door.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said, stopping to sift a breath through clenched teeth. “I think he took a page from our homemade security system. The one he so easily deactivated when he stole your Bugatti.”

Sweat lay on his forehead. Hi
s shoulder must be killing him.

“
Ohmygod! The light switch is attached to blow up the house?”

“That’s my guess.
See the wires on the ceiling? They lead to the kitchen. It’ll blow as soon as someone else comes through the front door.”

“Caleb. Do it now. Kick the chair over.
”

He nodded, and clenching his teeth over the pain, jerked back his feet and struck out
.

I crashed to the floor, wood splinters digging into my wrists, but one armrest w
as now detached from the chair. I used my free hand to remove the tape and untied my feet. Getting up off the floor, I went to the kitchen flicked the wall switch, plucked a knife from the drawer and sliced the duct tape off Caleb’s chest, then went to work on his taped feet.

“It’s set up in the kitchen, just like you said
, and it looks a lot like your homemade bomb.”

Holding up the roll of tape, I said, “I can immobilize your arm to your chest if you like.”

“One time around, please,” he said.

When I finished, I helped him stand, and he wobbled into the kitchen. “You see
to Mr. Dick and Reina.”

I did as he said, and tried to rouse Mr. Dick.

He muttered, reached up and rubbed the back of his head. “Someone knocked me plumb out.”

“Mr. Dick, we have to
leave. Can you stand up, please?” I asked.

Caleb came back. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I’d say Mac Coker has had some practice with bomb building. I’d rather get everyone out of the house and let the bomb squad handle it.”

“Mr. Dick has a land line that works.”

“I already checked. It’s been torn out of the wall.”

“Okay,” I said, passing Mr. Dick over to Caleb. “You help Mr. Dick, and I’ll take Reina to the window.”

Caleb was helpless to do more than encourage the old man, but Mr. Dick became agitated and
peeled Caleb’s hand off his arm.

He l
eaned over to look at Reina. “Is she dead?”

“No, sir. She’s been drugged.
We interrupted Mac Coker before he could complete his plan to blow up you both in this house. Now we have to call the police so they can catch him.”

“
Told you he was a bastard. My phone—”

“—doesn’t work, sir,” I said.

“What’s wrong with your friend?” he asked, thumbing over his shoulder at Caleb.

I wasn’t certain if the old man was tracking too well, what with his dementia and a blow to the head, but I told him the most recent ev
ents, leaving out Abel’s death.

“You saved my life and hers.
Least I can do is carry her,” he said, squatting down and just as his grandson had done, lifted the unconscious girl in a fireman’s carry.

How was I ever going to be able to tell him that Mac C
oker had murdered his grandson?

I put out a hand before he could get to the front door. “Not that way. We have to go through your bedroom window.”

“Why the hell can’t I leave through my own front door?”

When I told him, he was shaken, but willing to do as I asked and followed Caleb to the bedroom window.

Caleb crawled out, then Mr. Dick slid out and gently took the unconscious girl across the windowsill.

Caleb helped take the weight of the girl on his good shoulder but not before I heard a groan escape his lips. I worried that the effort would further damage his broken bone, but Caleb wasn’t going to sl
ow down for anything or anyone.

He led us to the passenger side of Jason’s truck and opened the door.

Mr. Dick stood back, the girl still on his shoulders.

“You can put her inside now,” I said. “We need to contact the sheriff’s department and then get her to a hospital.”

“Not in this truck,” he said, nodding toward the rear.

Mac, damn him, stopped long enough to slash both the rear tires before he left.

“Come with me, children. I have other transportation,” he said, and with Reina’s head lolling on his back, he marched to a pole shed.

Inside was his old station wagon. After gently laying Reina on the backseat, he opened the front door, tipped down the sun visor and a set of keys fell out. He dropped them into my hands.

“Take Abel’s car,” he said, pointing toward a red Mustang “It’s faster than my station wagon. Find that bastard and see that he goes to jail. Just don’t wreck it, or Abel will have your hide,” he said and winked. “I’ll get this little girl to a hospital and notify the sheriff’s department.”

I opened my mouth to tell him the truth about Abel, but Caleb nudged me to keep quiet. I did, but only because Granddad Dick seemed
incredibly lucid. I shouldn’t have been surprised, Abel did say he was once Cochise County’s sheriff.

“Thanks, Mr. Dick,” I said.

After buckling Caleb in the passenger seat, I got in, started the engine, stepped on the gas, and the car leaped forward. This wasn’t just a Mustang, it was a souped-up muscle car and Abel Dick’s pride and joy. If his car could bring Mac Coker to justice, it would be worth it.