The Catch (16 page)

“That’s us, right?” Joe asked softly.

“Straight as an arrow,” Lester confirmed.

“Shit,” Chapman muttered, sliding down and looking around quickly. He pointed at a pile of small plastic bags and debris, barely visible in a ditch far behind them. “I bet the little bastard is dumping the garbage. I shoulda caught that detail.”

He addressed the radio again, “All units. We are assuming subject is on a garbage run. We will apprehend as he reaches our position. Stand by.”

In the meantime, Lester had snatched another fast glance, only to look back at them, his eyes wide, to report, “You got three seconds. He’s at a dead run.”

No sooner had he said this when the boy topped the low hill and came to an abrupt stop, the bag still swinging in his hand.

“Who’re you guys?” he asked.

Chapman didn’t bother answering. He lunged at the kid instead, hoping to gain control first, before any long-winded explanations.

He missed. Exhibiting surprising grace, the boy nimbly leaped backward and smacked Chapman across the head with his bag, blinding him with a sudden shower of strewn garbage. Joe and Lester looked like geriatric gymnasts as they stumbled to their feet and tried to give chase.

“Subject’s on the run, back to the house,” Chapman shouted into his mike, adding, “Hold your positions,” as the boy screamed, sprinting away at full tilt,
“Mom. Cops.”

Instinctively in pursuit, but trailing by several yards, Joe looked beyond the retreating boy to see the front door open and reveal a tall, skinny woman with long black hair. No doubt trained by past experience, she instantly assessed the scene, shouted something over her shoulder, and slammed the door against all comers, her son included. Even at a full run, Joe could appreciate her street smarts, if not her maternal instincts—the boy was in safer hands among cops than he might be inside that house.

Behind them, Les and Joe heard Chapman yelling,
“Hold it, hold it.
Go to cover. They could have guns in there.”

It was a good point—which Joe was embarrassed he hadn’t heeded. Abandoning the chase, he cut right and slid to a stop behind one of the boulders that dotted the landscape like oversized marbles.

Les skidded in right behind him. “That would’ve been awkward.”

“Yeah,” Joe growled, quoting the possible headline, “Idiot Vermonters Caught in Cross Fire; Local Police Baffled by Stupidity.”

Lester laughed between panting. “Hey, you might’ve caught the brat.”

But Joe was not to be comforted. “Did you see the distance he was putting between us? He deserves a track medal.”

They peered out from behind their rock to see what had happened to the subject of their conversation. The boy was pounding fruitlessly on the door with both fists, screaming for entry.

“Ouch,” Les said, “that’s not going to go down well at family counseling.”

Lenny Chapman had come to rest behind a boulder some twenty feet away from them. Picking shreds of garbage off his jacket with a disgusted expression, he shouted across, “You two all right?”

Les answered for them both, “Yeah—sorry ’bout that. Thought we could catch him.”

Chapman waved his hand dismissively. “No sweat. Might’ve worked.” They saw him raise the mike to his mouth again to utter more commands they could no longer hear.

But the day’s surprises had just begun. Lester pointed to the closed double doors of the slightly sagging attached garage and asked, “Hear that?”

Before Joe could answer, there was a large cracking sound, and the doors blew apart under the weight of an oversized, much-battered pickup truck. A man was at the wheel; the dark-haired woman sitting beside him.

“Jesus,” Les let out. “It’s Bonnie and Clyde.”

Joe wasn’t watching them as the truck fishtailed out of the garage and tore down the dirt driveway. His eyes were on the boy, who, with equal disbelief, watched, rooted in place, as his mother chose her companion over him. Whatever family counseling there’d be would be taking place in jail—and only if everyone was lucky.

Over the roar of the truck’s engine, Joe heard Chapman ordering up the roadblock. The ICE agent was running toward them as he spoke.

“The house empty?” Joe asked.

“We got people checking,” Chapman told him, pointing. “Better head for our car in the meantime.”

They began jogging back over the hill that had once shielded them from the house, just as the truck abandoned the driveway and went lurching ’cross country, rendering moot the roadblock around the corner. They could see several people breaking cover over the open landscape—a cross section of ICE and MDEA agents, along with a couple of uniformed locals, perhaps ten people in all not counting the few on the roadblock. Joe saw Cathy Lawless heading their way at top speed, ludicrously tearing off a netted hat.

“Smart boy, old Bob,” Lester gasped, picking up speed to keep up with Chapman, who was running at full tilt.

The three of them, now joined by Cathy, piled into Chapman’s black Suburban, its interior alive with radio chatter, and, with Chapman driving, tore away, tires spinning, hoping to catch up to the pickup before it was swallowed whole by the Maine countryside. Fortunately, there were few if any trees for miles around, and the hilly terrain—as on a storm-tossed
sea—afforded them occasional sweeping views of their surroundings.

There was also the radio. Chapman passed it to Joe as he concentrated on his driving.

“This is Gunther,” the latter announced. “We’re mobile in Chapman’s car. Any sightings or coordinates?”

“They’re headed southwest,” said a voice. “Toward where the road loops back around.”

Lawless glanced up at the electronic compass mounted to the Suburban’s roof. “Should be ahead of us somewhere.”

Chapman powered up a hill, all four wheels tearing into the delicate ground cover, before bursting upon a sweeping view of the terrain to the southwest, to startling effect.

“Bingo,” he said unnecessarily, as they were already staring at the pickup, careening over the rough ground ahead of them by about two hills, its skittery motion adding to the setting’s tempestuous maritime feeling.

Chapman accelerated. Joe flattened the palm of his hand against the roof to steady himself.

“They’re not gonna make it,” said a different voice over the radio.

“Why not?” Gunther asked.

“There’s a seasonal riverbed ahead of them, and it’s still got water.”

Chapman roared downhill, hit the bottom of the swale ahead with a bone-jarring thud, and flew up the opposing slope, as before. Joe began thinking that his final ocean-related metaphor might end up being seasickness.

“There they are,” Cathy called out, pointing between them from the backseat.

Not far in front, at the bottom of the hill they’d just topped, the pickup had reached the edge of a thin, sharp-edged stream, unbreachable at right angles. The truck driver, realizing the same thing, but too late and traveling too fast, cut to his left, either to find another way or hoping to flatten the angle. In any case, the height of the truck and his own momentum betrayed him, as his rear wheels slithered sideways, caught the downward edge of the embankment, and dragged the rest of the vehicle over.

Chapman finally slowed somewhat as they saw the truck first teeter—still driving fast with a forty-five-degree list—and then tumble onto its side and into the shallow water in an explosion of mud and debris.

“Jesus,” Spinney half whispered at the sight.

The Suburban skidded to a halt some fifty feet from the wreck, and all four occupants quickly got out, their eyes glued to whatever movement might emerge from the partially submerged truck.

“Slow, slow,” Chapman cautioned, his gun out, keeping near the hood in case he needed cover. “We don’t know if they’re armed.”

“We also don’t know if they’re drowning,” Cathy reasonably pointed out, nevertheless staying put.

But Joe knew Chapman was right. Officer safety came first, and Joe had acted precipitately once already.

There was movement from the truck at last. A head with long black hair appeared from under the water on the submerged passenger side.

“Federal agents,”
Chapman shouted.
“Move away from the truck and keep your hands where I can see them.”

On the wreck’s far side, something flashed, like the wave of an arm, and then another head appeared briefly, before ducking back down.

Chapman repeated his command.

Instinctively, Joe, Lester, and Cathy spread out along the riverbank, doubled over and guns drawn, taking advantage of whatever obstacles they could find for cover.

Jill Zachary stayed on her knees, perhaps partially pinned, her face now visibly looking in their direction. But her companion once more began moving on the far side of the truck, suddenly holding up something over his head.

A distant shot rang out and the arm vanished before any of them could figure out what the object had been.

Over the radio, a voice announced, “Suspect down, suspect down.”

Chapman and Joe exchanged glances from their respective places, before seeing—on top of the rise across the stream—a man in a state police uniform slowly stand up, a scope-equipped rifle in his hands.

“Shit,” Joe heard Lenny Chapman growl, before he broke cover and began moving cautiously toward the truck, his gun still pointed in its direction.

Joe and the others joined him as Jill Zachary began yelling, “
What’ve you done? What’ve you bastards done to him?”

“Do not move, lady,” Chapman repeated, getting closer. “Or you will be shot.”

Joe stepped into the cold, rushing water and, with Cathy close behind him, peered carefully around the edge of the upturned truck’s rear bumper.

Splayed out in the stream, his face down and submerged, his arms outstretched and with a rifle in one hand, lay the driver of the truck.

Joe and Cathy picked their way slowly toward him, noting the bloodred ribbon of water emanating from the body’s head, bright at its source, but a pale pink some ten feet farther down.

“I get him?”

They both glanced at the young trooper, now standing on the bank, impressed by the comment’s inanity. The man’s expression told them nothing.

Lawless couldn’t resist. “Gee—what d’ya think?”

Joe, shielded from Jill Zachary’s protests by the bulk of the truck and the sound of running water, stooped by the body’s head and gingerly reached out for the rifle. He retrieved it without resistance, wedged it against the truck, and then felt for a carotid pulse. There was nothing.

“He’s dead,” he told Cathy, who passed along the news over her radio.

Joe then took up the rifle again—a bolt action, iron sights,.223 Remington—and checked the chamber. There was nothing there.

“I don’t dare ask,” Cathy said.

He looked over his shoulder. Lester was standing beside her.

“Empty” was all he said.

“Could you see what he was trying to do, just before he went down?” Lester asked.

They looked at each other, knowing the implications. Joe took in the trooper, out of earshot but still staring at the body, his face as pale and blank as before.

“I’d only be guessing,” Joe answered.

Cathy didn’t respond. Lester merely said, “Me, too.”

On the truck’s far side, though, they could hear Zachary’s voice even better, now that she’d been pulled from the wreckage, accusing them all of murdering her husband.

Joe leaned over and twisted the body’s head to one side, allowing Cathy to see its face. Black flies were already hovering close by. “That Bob?”

She nodded once, undeterred by the blood still leaking from the hole in his temple. “What’s left of him.”

Joe sighed. “Great.”

Lenny Chapman, Cathy Lawless, and Joe Gunther stood side by side, looking through the one-way mirror into the interrogation room containing a bedraggled Jill Zachary Her long, matted, mud-streaked black hair contrasted starkly with the yellow blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“Technically,” Lawless was saying to Joe, “you’re the reason we’re all here.” She jerked her chin at the woman in the other room and added, “Including her.”

“You sure?” Joe asked. “This is a federal case, on your turf. Seems a stretch to give me first shot.”

Chapman laughed softly. “Jesus, you
are
the diplomat. Both those agencies are standing right here, Joe, telling you to take a crack at her. Go for it.”

Joe conceded with a smile. “You just don’t want to keep hearing how we murdered Bob in cold blood.”

“Right,” Cathy agreed with a smile.

In fact, none of them was particularly worried about that. They were all veterans; they couldn’t swear what Bob had intended—suicide by cop was common enough; and they knew the trooper was likely to be found innocent by Internal Affairs, if overly enthusiastic.
Plus, in the final analysis, they also shared the belief that Bob had made his own choices.

“We’ve got nothing so far, right?” he asked them. “From the house or the kid?”

“Not so far,” Cathy acknowledged.

He nodded finally. “All right, I’ll see what I can get.”

Zachary started violently at his entrance, as if she’d been dozing off, which she might have been, given her recent adrenaline rush.

“Ms. Zachary,” he said. “My name’s Gunther.”

“When am I getting out of here?” she demanded, twisting in her chair and glaring up at him.

He crossed to the other metal chair in the stark room and sat down.

“I have a child to take care of,” she persisted.

He didn’t show how that struck him, and didn’t plan to until he got a better handle on how to deal with her.

“I understand that,” he answered instead. “But you have to know we’ve got a couple of questions for you. Your son is with Child Services for the moment, and being well taken care of. He seems like a nice guy.”

“You saw him?” she asked, which he should have expected.

He hedged his answer, since he hadn’t seen the boy since the car chase. “Yeah. He’s doing fine.”

Her face hardened, as if he’d just delivered an insult. “He can be a jackass.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “Can’t they all?”