When the Killing Starts (28 page)

"No response yet?" I was starting to worry seriously. George was not the kind of man to leave the phone unanswered.

"No, I just checked before we got out of the car. Nothing." That was Elmer's partner, and he was on my side now. I guess Elmer had told his fortune for him, along with something of my pedigree.

"Okay, good luck with this guy." I turned and jogged to the corner. From there I turned and looked back. Sam was dividing his attention now, guarding Fernando but also keeping the two detectives away. He was snarling at them, but when I whistled, he bounded away toward me. I saw Elmer and his partner step forward to Guzman; then Sam was beside me, and I jogged back to my car and put him in and headed north, taking the automatic out of my pocket and laying it on the seat beside me.

 

 

 

NINETEEN

 

 

I flew up the highway, pushing my car as hard as it would go, ignoring every speed limit and overtaking the few vehicles on the road as if they were standing still. At a few minutes to five I was wheeling into the side road that leads down to Murphy's Harbour. It was still dark, but the birds were awake, and when I pulled in to the station and sat, I could hear the morning chorus.

There were lights on inside the station, although the police car was not parked outside. That was normal. I generally leave the lights on while I'm out on patrol. The only question was, why was George Horn still away? Had he taken the scout car to his home? I moved carefully. Without opening the door or killing the motor, I wound down the passenger side window and told Sam, "Seek." He squeezed out and ran in circles around the station, moving deeper and deeper into the bush that surrounded us. He even crossed the road and went up over the rocks on the far side, nose to the ground, searching for signs of anybody who might be hiding.

It was a kamikaze mission for him, and I hated doing it, but without his help I could have stepped out into an ambush, and once they had shot me, they would shoot him out of revenge and caution. This way we both had a chance.

After three minutes or so he came back into view, and I whistled him in. There was nobody within two hundred yards of us. From any farther than that they would not have had a clear shot. I cut the motor and ran to the back door of the station. It was locked, but I let myself in and checked around quickly. The place was tidy but empty. No clues to where George had gone.

I had to find him, and I thought for a few seconds about my firepower. Then I unlocked the shotgun. It was loaded with SSG, heavy buckshot that would give me a kill over thirty yards. I thought about that for a few seconds, then unloaded it and stuck in a couple of rifled slugs. They're a one-piece projectile, accurate up to maybe seventy-five yards and heavy enough to knock down a bear. Then I added three more SSG shells and stuck a couple of extras into the pocket of my light jacket. If I had to return fire, I could do it. I figured the shotgun would be a better street weapon than the rifle. And if all else failed, I still had the automatic I'd taken off Guzman.

My next move was to phone the OPP and see if they had managed to raise George. The constable at the other end was young and pushy. "Naah, no idea where he's gotten to. We've had our guys make a couple of drive-throughs. They haven't seen anything." I could almost hear him chewing gum, relaxed, wondering why we were in a lather over something he didn't understand.

"Listen, in case you didn't get the whole message, we're looking for two very tough characters, Dunphy and Wallace. They're trained soldiers wanted for suspicion of a couple of homicides. They're dangerous."

"Yeah, I heard," he said. "Why in hell'd a couple heavies like that be wandering around Murphy's Harbour beats me."

"They're out to kill my deputy, George Horn, that's why. Get the guys back on patrol here. If you can't do it yourself, let me talk to the person in charge."

He became a bit more respectful at that. "Yeah, well, I'm on my own, Chief. The sergeant went off at four. I'll call the guys back and send them over."

"Good. Have them show a lot of presence. I want their lights flashing, the works. We're talking about dangerous people."

"Will do," he said, and I hung up.
 

My next move was to call George's home. His mother answered and told me that George had been out all night. I didn't alarm her but asked her to give him the message that the colonel was in the area and to call me when he got home. She rang off, and I stood for a moment wondering what George was up to. He didn't have a girlfriend in town, not one that I had heard about. He must still be on patrol. And that could mean he was dead. There was nothing to do but search for him and hope.

I had Guzman's automatic stuck into my belt, and I went back out and into my car, bringing Sam and the shotgun with me. It was still dark, but the predawn chill told me that the sun was coming up soon. I left the windows down and drove off slowly, all through my little town.

This was the last week in August, tourist season still. Because of that the bait shop was already open, ready to cater to early-morning fishermen. I went in and found Jacques Perrault checking the minnows in his tank. He frowned when he saw me. "Hey, Chief. I thought you was on 'oliday with your lady."

"She's out west working. I'm trying to locate young George. Has he been by?"

Jacques shook his head. "No. I was open 'alf an hour already, 'aven't seen him."

"If he comes by, could you give him a message, please?"
 

"Sure t'ing. Shoot." He reached for a pencil and scribbled as I spoke.

"Tell him that Dunphy's here. He's to go to the OPP office at Shawinagan and wait there until I call."

"Got it." He knew that George and I had been involved in an adventure up north, but I guessed he didn't watch much TV. He didn't have any reaction to Dunphy's name.

I nodded thanks and went back to the car. It was gray light now, when the trees behind the town start to loom as individual points, like small mountains, and you're aware of having the world to yourself. It's a favorite time of mine, but this morning I didn't savor it. Where was George?

The scout car wasn't anywhere in town. I drove around all the main buildings, checking the backs of them, even getting out to check the garbage dumpster behind the liquor store where they were making renovations. I had a feeling that Dunphy might have taken pleasure in leaving George's body there and taking off in the scout car. Or, on the other hand, he might have stuck George in the car and driven it into the water somewhere. Unless George had been alert or somewhere else instead of here. But where?

It figured that the OPP car would have driven around my bailiwick once, so that meant they would have seen the scout car had it been abandoned by the road. Which meant that I should look deeper, checking all the places George might have driven into, the off-road areas we normally checked at night. There were dozens of them, but it had to be done.

I left the town behind me and headed north up the heavily wooded road that runs behind most of the lakeside houses along this shore. Some of them are visible from the road, but others are hidden behind the trees, and I pulled into one driveway after another, checking for the scout car. By now it was completely light, and I cut the headlights and drove quietly, hoping not to alert Dunphy if he was waiting somewhere. It seemed unlikely. If he wanted to nail George, he would be waiting at the station, hidden on the hill across the road, but Sam had already checked there and come up empty. Most of the cottages had cars outside them, and one had lights on in the house. I saw the owner at the kitchen window and got out and asked if he'd seen anything of George. The guy was an aging Brit with the racial stereotypes he'd picked up in English boys' books and never changed. "Goofin' off on you, is he? You can't trust Indians," he said amiably.

"This one you can. He saved my ass," I said.
 

I must have come across irritable, because he immediately backtracked. "Ah, well. I don't know this particular guy. Some of them's okay, I s'pose."

"Thanks for the help," I said, and backed out, leaving him wondering how such a bleeding heart had managed to become chief of police.

It took me half an hour to get up as far as the northern lock, but I didn't cross at the bridge there. Instead, I kept on north, stopping at the town dump to drive in and around the side of it over the flat field that had been the site of one of my most notable battles against some bikers. But the car wasn't there.

And then, a hundred yards farther on, I saw a car parked at the entrance to a cottage. The cottage itself lay down the slope toward the lake, fifty yards in behind a stand of spruce. I didn't stop but drove by at the same speed, glancing at the car. It was a 1987 model, and I didn't recognize it. I know by sight the cars of most of our longtime residents, but maybe these people, their name was Bull, I remembered, had visitors in from the city. Or maybe this was the car Dunphy had come north in.

I stopped my own car a hundred yards down the road and got out silently, carrying the shotgun. Sam was behind me half a pace, and I kept him there. If it was Dunphy, he would shoot Sam on sight, and I figured I could find him myself before that happened.

I reached down and patted Sam, then gave a quick jerk on his choke chain. That's his command for silence and attention, and he stood up very straight when I let go of the chain. I saw his nose moving as he sniffed the air. He would bristle if he sensed anything.

Now I left the road and took to the trees, moving as if I were on patrol. It was full daylight by this time, and I could see where I was stepping, avoiding sticks underfoot, moving in total silence through the trees.

The house had a driveway running down the north side of it, ending in a graveled area big enough to turn a car around in. As I edged through some birch trees, fifty yards from it I saw a car there. The police car.

I stood behind a tree and looked at it carefully for almost a minute. It was facing me, as if George had driven in and prepared to back up and drive out. The windows were all wound up as far as I could tell, and there were no bullet holes visible in them. That much was good. He hadn't been bushwhacked in the car. But where was he?

I glanced down at Sam. He was still on duty, sniffing the air alertly but not bristling. The wind wasn't making it easy for us; it was out of the north, behind me, carrying away any scents he might pick up on the air. I stayed where I was, scanning every bush, every tree as far as I could see, out beyond the house on its west side. To the right, the lake side of the house, the ground dipped away to water level, but I didn't think Dunphy would be down there. As a soldier, he would take the high ground. I could see nothing, but I was uneasy. The scout car could have been here for hours. George wouldn't have left it all this time.

Finally I stepped out from behind my tree and moved on, as carefully as if this were a patrol in enemy territory, stepping from tree to tree, shielding myself from the house.

I was twenty yards closer when I heard the click of a lock, and I froze. Then the side door of the house opened, and George stepped out casually. He had a smile on his face, and behind him I saw pale blue nylon and then the pink face of the daughter of the house, Eleanor. I grinned and relaxed. So that was how George spent his nights. Good for him. Eleanor was a pretty girl, a medical student at Queen's, I'd heard. I watched as George kissed her and then stepped out toward the car, deciding I would backtrack and josh him later. I didn't want to embarrass him or his girl.

Then a ruffed grouse exploded out of the bush in a whir of wings up close to the road on the far side of the drive from where I was standing. I looked up sharply, seeing the bird and following its trajectory back down to the ground, and there, crouching with a rifle in his hands, was a man.

I roared, "George, down," and the man whirled and fired at me, but I'd rattled him, and the triple burst of bullets was yards off the mark.

I fired back, missing him, tearing a chunk from the side of a tree inches above his head. If he'd been a soldier, he would have stayed put and fired before diving away, but he wasn't. He dived and rolled before firing again, and once more he was wide of the mark, but this time my return shot hit him. He flew backward, his rifle tumbling away out of his hands. Then he lay still. I pulled tighter behind my tree, heart racing, checking left and right for other men. If this was Dunphy or Wallace, he would have backup, and now that they had a man down, the other would stay in hiding, waiting for our first mistake.

George was on the ground, squirming toward the scout car. The girl was in the open doorway, screaming helplessly. I shouted to her, "Get indoors," and then ran toward the downed man, crouching and jinking as I ran. I stopped ten paces from him. His gun was lying four feet beyond him, and he was still, his left side a pulpy mess of blood.

I checked around and then told Sam, "Seek," and he ran up the slope toward the road, nose to the ground. I watched him go. He was following the man's track back to the car, I guessed, but then I heard an engine start, and the car roared away. There was a second man, and he'd gone.

I stood long enough to hear which way it turned on the road, back down toward the town. Then I ran down to the scout car, whistling for Sam. He bounded after me, and I tugged at the door as George stood up. "It's locked," he said.

"Gimme the key. There's a man down in the bush. Call the emergency people. Tell them we need a chopper, if they can get one; he's hurt bad. Take this gun and watch yourself."

He gave me the key, and I tossed him Guzman's gun, then unlocked the car and whistled Sam inside. As soon as he was in, I jumped behind the wheel, backed up, and roared up the driveway, bouncing almost to the ceiling on the ruts.

The car was gone from the driveway, but there was a trace of dust in the air where it had headed south, and I raced after it, reaching for the microphone. I called the station, but there was no answer. Damn. We had only one channel on the radio. We needed two, a second straight through to the OPP, but we didn't have it. The world was deaf to my emergency.