Smoke & Mirrors (31 page)

127

ALEXA REACHED THE BACKYARD UNARMED, AND
spotted Brad and the deputy lying still in the falling rain. She had gone to them, planning to slow only long enough to get a handgun before going inside as Winter had asked her to do. She saw that both of the men had been shot in their heads. A round had hit Brad’s head at an angle, taking out Brad’s left eye and chipping out a piece of the socket, where rose-colored blood coned down toward the ground. The deputy had two clean holes in his temple. She was lifting the deputy’s coat for his handgun when she saw Brad move his hand and blink his right eye. She could see now that the wound had entered his left eye socket and exited at his temple.

“Can you hear me?” she asked him.

He didn’t respond.

“Wait here and stay still. Can you do that?”

He nodded and closed his eye. She put his cap over his face to protect him from the freezing rain.

Taking his rifle, Alexa ran to the back door and turned the knob. It was locked. No surprise. Using the key Leigh had given her, Alexa unlocked the door and opened it slowly. Stealthily, she slid into the mudroom, feeling the heat as she eased the door shut. Using her hands to feel, she located the door to the utility room, where the breaker box was, and leaned the rifle against the wall. She heard Winter calling out to Styer at the other end of the house. As she opened the door she stopped when her foot struck something large. Reaching farther, she felt the warm figure of Estelle. Alexa found her neck, felt a weak pulse, stood, and stepped over the woman. Using only her hands, she found the open metal door to the breaker box. She followed the row of breakers with her fingertips, found the larger main button, and hearing the bat clattering on the stairs, she flipped it and was rewarded by white light.

Leaving the utility room to the sound of gunfire, Alexa shouldered the rifle and moved into the main hallway. When Styer moved into view, she realized her scope lens was iced over and fogged. She looked over it and squeezed the trigger, missing wide, the bullet shattering the glass in the front door behind him.

Still facing forty-five degrees from her, Styer swung the gun across his chest and aimed it at her.

Alexa kept firing, adjusting her aim.

Styer was hit and fell, dropping the gun as he went down.

As she came up the hall, her barrel pointed at him, he rolled onto his back and laughed, rose-colored bubbles issuing from his nostrils and mouth. The bullet must have entered his chest after passing through his left shoulder.

As she got to him, she kicked the Glocks away and turned to see Winter getting to his feet and bending down to get his gun.

“You all right?” she asked him. Her ears were ringing from the gunshots.

“No,” he said, limping painfully to lean against the handrail.

“Well, I guess you are going to have to arrest me after all,” Styer said from the ground below her as he groaned in pain. When he spoke, his words sounded wet, lubricated by the blood rising from his punctured lungs. “You know, Massey—”

His words ended in an explosion from the gun in Winter’s hand. Through the new ringing in her ears, she heard the crisp sound of a shell casing click on the floor.

Looking down, she saw that Styer was still smiling despite the new black hole below his chin. Whatever thoughts he’d had were scrambled somewhere in the knot of brains that trailed across the shiny floor beyond the exploded top of his head.

“Jesus Christ, Massey!” Alexa screamed. “Why did you do that?”

Winter shook his head.

Then she saw the small black object in Styer’s right hand, his thumb resting on the button. She reached down and carefully took the cell phone in her hands, snapped open the back of it, and, using her fingernail, removed and disconnected the battery.

“The remote,” she said. “Cell phone remote.”

“The remote?” he asked in total seriousness.

“To detonate the bomb.” She stared at him speechless for a long few seconds, shaking her head slowly. “I’d forgotten about it. Thank God you remembered. You
did
remember, right?”

Winter winced, snapped the safety on the Reeder up, pushed it into its holster, and sat down on the bottom stair, his face reflecting only a portion of the agony she knew he was feeling. Alexa walked over, plopped on the stair beside Winter, and put her arm on his shoulder.

“Christ,” she said. “Thank you.”

It hit her that Winter hadn’t seen the phone, nor had he remembered the bomb below them. It came to her as surely as if he opened his mouth and explained it to her. He had shot an obviously dying Styer because he didn’t want Alexa to have even a monster like Styer’s death on her conscience. As it was, she had merely wounded Styer to save Winter’s life. His bullet had removed the killer’s death from her gun and her conscience.

Winter had often told her that killing a felon, even in the line of duty, was only a little less damaging than dying yourself.

128

SUNDAY

THE REINFORCEMENTS HAD ARRIVED HALF AN HOUR
after Styer died. They took Estelle out to a waiting ambulance and put Brad in another, both headed to a Memphis trauma center. Both Estelle and Brad needed better medical care than they could have gotten locally. Winter rode to Memphis in a cruiser. Alexa stayed at the house.

FBI and ATF agents arrived, fresh from the equipment barn, and everybody waited in a shed away from the house while the ATF found the bomb in the basement, disarmed it, and carted it away.

It was almost noon on Sunday before the doctors at Baptist Memorial in Memphis told Leigh and the children that Brad was going to be as good as ever—except he would only have one eye. Hamp said it was a lucky thing he hadn’t lost the eye he aimed with.

Estelle had two .22-caliber bullets removed and the doctors were hopeful of her full recovery if there were no complications like migrating blood clots or infections. One of the bullets had hit her in the back of her head and knocked her out, and the second was stopped by her spine, thankfully not severing her cord. After the operation she had regained consciousness and had promptly asked for a Coke.

The FBI had found Jason Parr’s corpse in his suite at the Roundtable. Pierce Mulvane’s body was found near the exploded equipment shed. Best they could figure, he was dead from a gunshot wound in his forehead. He had been in the trunk of the limousine when the blast hurled his corpse fifty feet into a pile of tree limbs, where he’d hung across a branch like a Christmas-tree ornament. Woody had located Dr. Barnett’s body in a closet in his home.

Kurt Klein had left for Europe that morning after he’d given a statement. All he knew was that Mulvane had missed a planned dinner, and he was asleep in bed when the sheriff from the next county had awakened him.

Winter’s hip was sore from the bullet wound and he had three fractured ribs from his fall down the stairs. He ate a late breakfast in the hospital cafeteria and looked at the television screen, where a newscaster was getting about ninety percent of the facts wrong on the events in Tunica County. It was something he was accustomed to.

Sean had wanted to come back to Memphis, but he’d convinced her to wait for him to return to Concord.

Winter suddenly felt a presence over his shoulder and sipped his coffee as a man he thought he’d never lay eyes on again sat down across from him. The cutout put his coffee cup down on the table.

“Been a while,” he said.

“A year,” Winter said to the man whose name he had never gotten when they’d met at a small airport in Arkansas to discuss Paulus Styer.

“How’s the leg?” the man asked.

“I’ve had worse,” Winter said.

“We didn’t imagine you’d come out of this in one piece,” he said. “You never fail to surprise, Massey.”

“I’d sure like to stop doing that. What do I call you?”

“Mike.”

“Mike it is.” Winter waited.

“Odd you never mentioned you had Styer’s DNA.”

“You never asked.”

“That’s fair. I thought I owed you, so we’re taking care of the details on this one.”

“When have you not?”

“We also know you moved a friend of ours in the SUV. Took a while to figure that one out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. You know, we could use someone like you.”

“Work’s too hard, it’s dirty as hell, and I don’t like your management.”

“We have new managers now,” Mike said.

“Yeah, but you keep getting them from the same sewer.” Winter stood. “Try not to burn your mouth on that coffee, Mike. If we’re done?”

Mike opened his hands and nodded. “Call if you need anything.”

“I won’t.”

Winter used his crutches to walk over to where Hamp was performing magic for a bald child in pajamas.

Winter placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s you and me go upstairs and check in with the girls.”

“First, my big finish,” Hampton said, standing.

Winter waited, smiling as Hampton Gardner seemed to pluck two playing cards from thin air, placing one in each of the child’s small hands.

The child laughed, and his parents applauded.

The Great Mephisto put a hand to his stomach and bowed deeply.

129

IT WAS THREE O’CLOCK SUNDAY AFTERNOON WHEN
Alexa finally showed up in Winter’s room. “Hey, kiddo,” Winter said.

He turned off the TV. After the initial smile she’d been wearing evaporated, his antennae came out. She put the two manila envelopes she was holding on the table beside his bed.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Not really. I turned in your rental, and your gun’s in one of these envelopes.”

“They released my gun?”

“Nobody’s interested in keeping it since the shooting isn’t going to generate any inquest. The FBI and Homeland are handling the incidents. You know the ‘official’ statement drill. Massey, when you think about this, just remember that you did good. Real good.”

“You all right?” Winter asked her again, trying to get at what was weighing her down.

“Well, there’s something you need to know. When I was at Brad’s earlier, a deputy came in with Jacob’s coat from the wreck. There was a recorder in the pocket that was damaged and didn’t work. I put the tape into another mini and it worked. You need to listen to it. I put another cassette into the damaged machine so they won’t know I took it.”

“What’s on it?”

“Troubling shit. No one else has heard it. I’m headed to the airport, since I’ve been ordered to join an investigation in progress. I’m going to turn this over to you. You decide how you want to handle it and let me know. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

She gave him a gentle hug and kissed him on the cheek. He saw that her eyes were filling with tears. She moved to the door and smiled weakly.

“Massey, if it weren’t for a few people like you, I’d have written the world off a long time ago. Sometimes I just want to turn in my badge and go live on the side of a mountain.”

When she left the room, Winter turned his attention to the envelopes. He reached over to the table and lifted the manila envelope that had
Gardner
written on it.

He took the end of the red string and unwound it from the plastic disk, then poured out a pocket mini-recorder.

Winter pressed the
PLAY
button. The tape began with Jacob’s voice telling the date of the day he was murdered. That was followed by a confession, a surreptitiously recorded conversation with Leigh, and the unmistakable sounds of his flight from the house, which had ended with his death and the recorder’s destruction. As Winter listened, he felt like a trapdoor had swung open beneath him.

Before he closed his eyes, he had listened to the tape three times, and still had no idea how he was going to use the information.

130

LEIGH GARDNER TURNED AND SMILED WHEN
Winter walked into the room where Brad Barnett lay in bed, a bandage encasing the left quarter of his head. His left hand was locked with Leigh’s right.

“Look who’s here, Brad,” Leigh said.

“Massey,” Brad said, smiling crookedly. His voice was no more than a low rasping. “Leigh told me that German bastard clipped you. Sorry I wasn’t more helpful.”

“He chewed on me some.” Winter shook Brad’s free hand gently. “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

“Since you were injured in the line of duty, Tunica County has your medical expenses covered. Whatever you need.”

“We owe you everything, Winter,” Leigh said.

“I asked Leigh to marry me,” Brad said.

“I think it’s the meds talking.” Leigh giggled, squeezing Brad’s hand.

“Bullshit,” Brad declared. “I didn’t really believe it, but you were right about that bastard,” Brad said, meaning Styer. “Daddy never had a chance.”

“I was lucky,” Winter said. “And I had Alexa.”

“It’s over now,” Leigh said, frowning. “We bury our dead, help the wounded as best we can, and life goes on.”

“That’s that farmer realism talking,” Brad said. “Leigh’s a rock.”

“Yeah,” Winter agreed. “That she is.”

The door opened and Cynthia came bouncing in with a soft drink in her hand. She patted Winter’s shoulder playfully as she passed him, went to the bed, and kissed Brad’s cheek. “How you feeling, Pops?” She looked at Winter and her face lit up. “God, is that ever weird or what? I grew up in the same town with Brad and never knew he was my daddy.”

“Where’s Hampton?” Winter asked.

“Gone to spend the night with an old friend of Mama’s,” Cynthia said. “She works as a volunteer at the zoo. He’s helping her feed animals or some happy shit.”

“Cyn!” Leigh snapped. “Language.”

“Sorry,” Cyn said, shrugging.

“I brought you something,” he said, handing Leigh the envelope. “These are Jacob’s personal effects from the accident.”

“Thanks,” she said, dropping the envelope unceremoniously into a shopping bag beside her chair.

Winter’s cell phone rang. He opened it and put it to his ear. “Yeah, Billy. Leigh’s right here,” Winter said, handing Leigh his phone. “He needs to talk to you.”

“Yes? I can be at your office in an hour. Address?” she asked. “Yes, Winter can show me. Cynthia too? Sure, I guess so.”

Winter put the cell phone into his pocket and spent the next fifteen minutes making idle conversation with Leigh and Cynthia. He had thought it would be more difficult.