The Rented Mule (46 page)

The gunshot wasn’t quite as suppressed as Don had hoped.

The sudden pistol report made Cooper jump. He lit his lighter just as Mark’s legs went limp and his body slumped back down into the hole a few inches. It was obvious that Mark had just been killed when his bowels released.

Cooper stared at the motionless body, relieved that he was finally dead. He wondered who had killed him. The talking resumed, and Cooper was able to catch their last few sentences. Knowing it wasn’t the police, he fell back to where Grayson was waiting, saying a silent prayer for Kelly’s safety on the way.

Cooper’s hands shook as he decided that he’d wait only a few minutes, pull Mark’s body back into the cave, sneak out, and then shoot the men outside if they were still there.
I gotta do whatever it takes to save Kelly.

A
fter he answered the call on Cooper’s cell, Obermeyer had tried to pick up Don Daniel’s trail through the woods. Along the way, he coursed a muffled gunshot and then took off running while nervously unholstering his Glock. Three times in one night he had drawn his duty weapon—a landmark day in his career. Slowing down to navigate the thick woods, the big detective never looked behind to see if any other officers were responding to the shot. Due to the effects of the homemade suppressor, the shot seemed farther away than it actually was, and as a result the unknowing detective almost ran into the thick of the action before he realized it.

About forty yards out he could see the old man who he noticed earlier and Don Daniels. He could see a pistol in the old man’s hand. The wet leaves and falling rain allowed him to approach silently. He used trees to break his outline as he methodically but quickly closed the distance.

“Police officer! Show me your hands!”

The old man obliged and held up his hands. Don Daniels did not.

“Shoot him, Jubal,” Don Daniels whispered.

“All the officers heard that shot, and I know the whole story. I know everything thanks to Mark. Apparently, he tried to have his hired help killed to tie up loose ends here, and they found out, so they dropped the dime on him!” Lightning flashed, and he had a brief look at everyone, instantly being replaced again by darkness.

“Shoot him. He’s gonna hurt us,” Don Daniels anxiously whispered to his brother, this time a little louder and with more emphasis.

“Put the gun down! And I need to see everybody’s hands right now!” Obermeyer had his pistol trained on the silhouette of the old man holding the pistol. With his heart racing and adrenaline pumping, everything went into slow motion.

“Do it, Jubal!” Don whispered urgently, while holding his own pistol behind his back. He’d prefer Jubal make the move to distract the police officer.

Jubal glanced over at his brother and then began the motion of dropping his weapon.

Don Daniels cussed loudly, quickly aimed his pistol at Obermeyer, and fired a shot as the big detective simultaneously fired twice. Daniels’s aim was true, striking Obermeyer squarely in the center of the chest, causing him to fall backward, landing motionless in the wet leaves.

Screams and shouts from the direction of the old house sent Don into a panic. He wheeled around toward Jubal with the intent of killing him and then escaping deep into the woods. Jubal was to be his new fall guy. But the old man was one step ahead, and when Don made the turn, Jubal was already pointing his pistol at him.

“Jubal, now think about this. I’ve always been there for you. I’m the only one who’s taken care of you. I’ve got a plan for us to get out of this.”

“The only thing y’all have ever done is hurt folks. That cave’s evil. That house is evil. Mark was pure evil—evil as you can get—and you ain’t no better. I ain’t gonna be a part of this no more,” Jubal said with a shaky voice.

Before Don could raise his own pistol, fire flashed in Don’s eyes and a perfectly shaped round hole appeared just to the right of center of the tired banker’s eyes. After wiping off his fingerprints and then cleverly placing his pistol in Mark’s hand, Jubal ran as hard as he could into the dark woods, away from his past and into the future.

T
he police and sheriff deputies converged on the scene, weapons drawn. Flashlight beams probed the area. The rain was intensifying.

Visibility was minimal, and when Detective Obermeyer was first spotted, they all feared the worst. Two Montgomery officers quickly knelt on either side of Obermeyer. A young deputy shouted, “Officer down! Officer down!” as loud as he could, immediately elevating the tensions and voices of everyone.

“I’ve got a pulse!” the other one screamed, which caused everyone to begin shouting louder and calling in for medical support.

Several officers spread out in the direction from which Obermeyer would have been shot. Upon seeing a mound of rocks and something oddly out of place, all talking and shouting stopped as if on cue. The four officers closest to the rocks spread out and moved in while the others set up to provide cover.

High intensity flashlight beams illuminated the head and shoulders of Mark Wright. His head was hanging backward with eyes open and mouth agape. One side of his face was stained from the purple cattle spray.

Don Daniels lay crumpled, faceup next to a stump a few yards away. A small trickle of blood had run down the side of his head from the bullet hole between his eyes.

“Looks like Obermeyer finally got to discharge his weapon,” an officer kneeling next to the bodies said reverently.

“Yep, and he got both of ’em with headshots,” another responded. “I’d heard he was a master marksman, but I wouldn’t believe this if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes. Dead-center accuracy!”

The first trained medical personnel to reach Obermeyer was a tactical first responder from the Montgomery Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics Team. Both of the officers by Obermeyer’s side stood when he approached and then stepped out of the way.

The first responder quickly opened a large, black tactical backpack with a trauma kit full of advanced life support medical supplies and went to work. Everyone held their lights on Obermeyer so that the medic could see. A few silently prayed. No one said a word.

Shortly, Obermeyer’s commander arrived out of breath, took in the scene, and crossed herself. She was visibly upset. The commander watched the medic frantically searching the detective’s body as if he were looking for hidden money. She looked at Obermeyer’s face and forgot all of the headaches he had caused her; she saw a man, an officer of the law who loved his job and would be missed.

The medic sat back on his heels and placed his hands on his hips.

The commander interpreted his body language to mean that he had given up.

“Please don’t give up!” she begged.

“This man’s not wounded. He’s got on a bulletproof vest!” He pulled open Obermeyer’s shirt and stuck his finger into the hole in the officer’s black vest. “See?”

“What!?” the commander exclaimed, kneeling down. “Are you certain?”

“Ma’am, I’ve examined him from head to toe; he’s not shot.”

“And his vitals are those of a sleeping man,” said another medic who had joined in the assessment, taking the stethoscope out of his ears and showing his relief. “He’s just unconscious, like he passed out. He may have some type of head trauma from the fall, though.”

“So he’ll be okay?”

“I believe so. We need to get him outta here to make sure. But everything indicates that he’s not been hit.”

“That’s our O!” said the commander, smiling as she stood. “Everything by the book. He’s my only detective who wears a vest… but I bet that changes now!”

Everyone let out a nervous laugh and sigh of relief. All of them knew that the jokes were sure to follow, but for now their focus was on getting him to an ambulance.

“Hey! Can y’all hear me?! I need some help over here!” Cooper called out.

Dixie appeared and immediately started barking. No one had even noticed the dog.

Everyone jumped from the surprise of the yell for help and the dog’s barking.

“Identify yourself! Where are you?” a deputy called, not knowing where to look.

“I’m Cooper Dixon! I’m under Mark. I’m in the cave.”

Almost all of the officers rushed to where Mark’s body was sticking out of the ground.

“Are you all right? Do you have the boy?” the commander yelled back instantly.

One of the deputies began radioing for assistance. Two burly officers helped the commander pull Mark’s body out of the crevasse.

“Get back, dog!” someone yelled.

“Yeah, I got him right here. Is my wife okay?”

“Yes, she is! Come on out,” the commander hollered into the hole.

“I’m gonna send Grayson out first!” Cooper yelled. He could hear Dixie barking and smiled.

Realizing the carnage just outside the cave entrance, he paused before handing Grayson up.

“Hey, Officer?”

“Yeah, Cooper?”

“Be careful what you let him see. Okay?”

“Copy that. Send him through,” the commander answered, reaching down to help pull out Grayson.

When she had Grayson in her arms, she quickly turned him where he couldn’t see his dead father. She handed him to a deputy who wrapped him in a jacket and quickly carried him away.

The commander was extremely excited and relieved to see Cooper. She helped him out of the ground and onto his feet. They almost shook hands but hugged even though they didn’t know each other. Dixie immediately jumped on Cooper, demanding attention.

“Hey, girl. You saved our lives,” Cooper said, dropping to his knees as he grabbed her head, looking straight into her eyes and then hugging her. Dixie’s tail wagged at hyper
speed. Portable search-and-rescue lights now illuminated the entire area where the detective was found. Cooper stopped rubbing his dog and stood. Seeing Detective Obermeyer being attended to by several people, Cooper exclaimed, “Oh my God! Is he okay?” Cooper watched the detective being carried through the woods on a backboard.

“Yeah. Apparently, he got knocked out or something, taking care of these two,” responded the commander, pointing at Don Daniels’s and Mark Wright’s bodies.

Cooper didn’t respond to that observation but asked, “What about Gates; is he involved?”

“No, he isn’t. At least it appears that Gates is not involved. It’s complicated, and we don’t know all the facts yet. But I know that Obermeyer is gonna hate that he missed seeing you climb out of that cave. He received a phone call a few minutes ago explaining almost everything. We know you’re innocent.”

Pointing at Mark, the commander said, “It seems that fine pillar of finance tried to clean up loose ends by contracting the wrong person to kill his hired kidnappers. The details around that are sketchy, but obviously the hit didn’t go down—who knew about brotherhood among thieves?—at any rate, they knew who put out the contract, so they dropped the dime on their former employer. They called your cell phone, which Obermeyer had with him, and told him the whole story.”

When the commander paused, she noticed for the first time Cooper’s bloody, bandaged hand and asked, “Are you okay?”

Cooper looked at her, confused by all that she had just conveyed. “Ugh, yeah, I think so. I overheard a piece of what happened here, and I think I may know why they did it.”

“That’ll be helpful. We’ll compare what you know with what Obermeyer learned and maybe it’ll all add up to a motive.”

“So you caught the kidnappers?”

“No. Not yet. We’ll worry about that later. But we’ve got the masterminds,” she commented, pointing at the bodies of Don and Mark.

“I heard voices, and then a gunshot outside the cave. I tell ya, I was relieved when Mark’s boots quit moving. I… I… I just wish I coulda been the one—,” Cooper held up his pistol.

“Ah, okay, whoa… here, I’ll take that,” the commander said, holding out her hand for Cooper’s pistol. She dropped the magazine, unloaded the chamber, and then placed the ejected round into the clip. She handed Cooper’s weapon to one of her officers. “You’ll get it back when we finish our investigation.”

Cooper nodded his understanding.

“Come on. Let’s get outta here. Your wife’s waitin’ on you. Plus, it looks like you’re gonna need a medic to look at that hand.”

“How’s Kelly? Was she raped? She wasn’t raped, was she?”

“No. No. No. She’s gonna be fine.”

Cooper bent over and put his hands on his knees. “I really need to see her.” He was obviously exhausted from the ordeal and looked as though he might vomit.

The commander put her hand on his shoulder. “That’s good because she wouldn’t leave here without you.”

D
etective Obermeyer had regained consciousness by the time the first responders got him to the yard of the old house. He was too embarrassed to allow them to treat him on the stretcher. After they unstrapped him, he stood and tried to act as if nothing had happened.

He was secretly enjoying all the congratulations for stopping the bad guys’ escape, though he acted as if it were no big deal.

“All in a day’s work,” he commented and patted his service weapon.

He couldn’t remember actually aiming at the perps, and he was frustrated that he didn’t remember the gun battle even though the whole exchange had gone into super-slow motion. He was confident that his training and instincts had gotten him through the ordeal.