Wrong Turn (27 page)

Jake yelled, ‘Game’s up, Mack. Come out or we’re coming in.’

Lucinda heard movement inside, followed by the sound of breaking glass and another blast from the shotgun that she assumed was aimed in Jake’s direction. She took off, running straight for the line of shrubbery instead of returning the way she had come across the yard and down the drive. She heard the crack of a revolver and felt even more urgency to get back to Jake to stop him from firing on the house when they didn’t know if Rogers was alone or if he was using a victim for a shield.

She looked for a gap to slip through and saw no way out except for crawling through at the bottom. She got down on her knees just as another blast fired; this time right over her head, sending little bits of shredded leaves and branches tumbling down on her back.

The falling debris sent Prissy into a state of panic, whimpering and struggling to get free. Lucinda tightened her grip and forced her way through the lower branches, scraping her arms and face in the process. On the other side, she moved away from her escape route before another shot could barrel through the bushes.

‘Have you lost your mind?’ Jake shrieked.

‘What about you, Jake!’ Lucinda yelled back. ‘Firing into a house when we don’t know who is in there?’

‘Damn it, Lucy, give me a little credit. I fired a shot into the chimney hoping the distraction would give him pause and give you a little time to get out of the open. But you took a horrible risk for that mangy little beast. I like dogs as much as the next guy, but really . . .’

‘How could I possibly explain to Helen that we sat here, minding our own damn business while Prissy choked herself to death on that damn chain? Or even one of us hit her during a gun battle. I don’t know which would be worse.’

‘Jeez, Lucinda. What do you think I would do if you were hit?’

Lucinda shrugged.

‘And what are you going to do with the dog now?’

At that point, three members of the black-clad extraction squad raced up. One of them said, ‘Shots fired. Who’s down?’

‘I don’t think anyone was hit.’

‘The perp fired?’

‘Yes, three, four times.’

‘Either of you fire?’

‘Yes, I fired once, shooting the chimney as a distraction.’

‘Stand down. We’ll take over from here.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Jake said. ‘It is possible that he has a hostage – another potential victim.’

Lucinda’s mind flashed back to another shooter in another house – the time she aimed at a shadow and hit the little boy a man had held up to the darkened window. She struggled to keep the emotion out of her voice when she insisted, ‘We have to make sure – absolutely sure – that no one else is in that house.’

As they talked, another seven black-clad men joined the group. The man with sergeant’s bars, who acted is if he was the leader of the pack, said, ‘Don’t tell me you want to negotiate with the bastard?’

‘We’ll do whatever the hell we need to do to make sure no innocent life is lost in the apprehension. Is that clear?’

‘Oh, yeah, lieutenant. I guess you’ve gotten cautious after all your screw-ups.’

‘Jake!’ Lucinda said and thrust the dog into his arms. She stepped up, face-to-face with the sergeant, her nose nearly touching his forehead. ‘I would love an excuse to screw you over. Make one wrong move, violate just one of my orders and your ass is mine.’

He waited until she backed off and said, ‘No need to pull rank, lieutenant. We’re all on the same side here.’

‘Just don’t forget it,’ she snapped. Turning to Jake, she recovered the dog and walked down to the manned patrol car and handed Prissy to the officer for safe keeping.

She started her return trip, realizing that all eleven pairs of eyes – the ten-man team and Jake – were staring in her direction. ‘What?’ she shouted. ‘You can’t make a move without me?’

They moved around in place in a definite state of unease. When she got closer, Jake said, ‘These are all police officers, Lucinda. You call the shots this time – not me.’

The sergeant quickly added, ‘Just waiting for orders, lieutenant.’

‘Holy crap, sergeant. You know how to deploy your men in preparation for a takedown. Just do it. Maintain your positions and hold your fire till I say otherwise.’

E
veryone moved into place, including snipers perched high atop nearby houses. Patrol officers evacuated the homes within two rooftops of the location of the fugitive. Others circled the home on a reconnaissance mission, checking any possible means of entry and egress, looking for weaknesses to exploit in an aggressive maneuver and those that needed coverage in a defensive action. Thirty minutes had passed without a single shot fired.

A negotiator called the telephone in the house but it rang until it flipped over to voicemail. A message was left for Mack but they had no way of knowing if he listened to it.

The reconnaissance team reported back that they’d seen no signs of life within the home, prompting the negotiator to ask if it were possible that Jake missed the chimney and hit Rogers instead.

Jake stared at him dumbfounded. ‘He wasn’t on the roof. Do you really think I’m that inept, that I’d aim way up there and hit someone inside the house?’

‘Sorry, Agent Lovett, but I’ve seen stranger things.’

‘Could he have committed suicide with the last shot he fired?’

Jake insisted that it wasn’t possible since they saw the results every time he pulled the trigger. Nonetheless, the speculation didn’t end. Jake and Lucinda were guessed and second-guessed in one discussion after another, making them both frustrated and a bit testy.

The negotiator pulled out the megaphone and delivered the standard, scripted speech about the force surrounding the building, the desire for a peaceful ending without any deaths and the plea to surrender. When no response came from inside the house, the sergeant from the extraction team argued, ‘It’s time to go in and pull him out whether he’s dead or alive. If he had a hostage, he would have responded, using the captive as a bargaining chip. We need to go in now, without warning.’

‘No,’ Lucinda said. ‘A forced entry is premature at this time. We’ve been assembled and in our places for what? An hour now? Patience is a vital part of a successful effort – haste is a recipe for disaster.’

‘You have learned that the hard way, haven’t you, lieutenant?’

Lucinda reminded herself not to say what was in her mind; strip the personal out of his attack and lob back a gentler ball. ‘Sergeant, you don’t want – no one here wants – to go home wondering if something was done differently, would an innocent person still be alive? You do not want to carry the burden of knowing that the capture could have been done without the taking of life, if you’d only taken your time to do it right. Patience, sergeant, we’ll move when we feel we know all we can possibly know. We will not make a foolhardy rush into the house simply because we are growing antsy.’

The sergeant walked away grumbling. Lucinda believed she heard him threaten to call his captain to set her straight. It was his right to contact his superior officer under any circumstance but she hoped office politics wouldn’t inflame an already volatile situation.

For an hour, positions shifted as the team worked to find out what they could about the situation inside. Repeated attempts to communicate by telephone or megaphone produced no results. Movement was spotted from time to time and directional mikes picked up the sound of someone inside. But no voices were heard.

Lucinda was contemplating the firing of a flash-bang grenade followed by a forced entry, when a voice in her ear said, ‘Lieutenant, this is Briggs. I have a clear view of the subject. I see no one in the immediate vicinity.’

‘Take the shot. But shoot to wound. Everyone else, hold fire.’

Glass shattered. Followed by a loud crash. And then nothing.

‘Briggs, did you get him?’ Lucinda yelled in her headpiece.

‘Don’t think so, lieutenant. Sorry.’

‘Look for another opportunity.’

Snipers crawled across roofs and other team members checked windows. For five long minutes, no sound came from the house. Then, the back door opened ever so slightly and a white T-shirt moved up and down in the crack.

‘Hold fire,’ Lucinda said as she scrambled over to the negotiator with the megaphone. She held the device to her face and said, ‘Rogers. Mack Rogers. Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands up.’

The door opened further and a shotgun thumped on the grass four feet from the house. Crouching, a black-clad man raced up, grabbed the weapon and backed away.

The door slammed into the wall and Mack Rogers, hands held high, walked through the doorway. He stumbled, his hands dropped down as if to steady his balance but when they came back up, he had a revolver in his hand. He fired and hit an extraction team member’s bulletproof vest, sending him falling backwards, stunned but unharmed. Without Lucinda’s order, an immediate volley of fire opened up, making Rogers’ body dance before falling face first into the yard. Lucinda screamed, ‘Hold your fire! Hold your fire!’

Quiet roared in the aftermath. Then, sirens shrieked in the distance, coming closer with every second. Lucinda held her gun on Rogers as she carefully approached and kicked the man’s revolver out of the way.

Jake bent down and checked the body. He shook his head.

Lucinda blew out a sharp exhale. ‘Damn.’

The team swarmed around and past them, entering the home to search for any others inside, dead or alive.

‘Too many questions left, Jake.’

‘Yeah, I know. We’ve backtracked up till his last prison stay. Checked out every place he lived. Never was in one place for long before he rented from Plum. No signs of foul play at any of the others.’

‘So, if there were other victims, he must have killed them and dumped bodies away from his residence. How many families are missing someone because of Mack Rogers? How many will never get resolution because the only person with answers is now dead? I wonder if I should have sent the team in sooner.’

‘It probably wouldn’t have mattered, Lucinda. He was hell-bent on avoiding capture. Up-close contact with him could have resulted in an officer’s death. You never know. You used your best judgment and now, you’ll deal with the consequences. Looking back, no takedown is flawless. No sense in second-guessing your actions when it’s over.’

Lucinda only sighed in response.

From the house, a man in black hollered, ‘Lieutenant, the house is clear but there’s something you should see.’

Lucinda and Jake followed the officer into the kitchen. A spiral notebook lay open on a small breakfast table. Handwritten on the exposed page were notes about a girl: ‘Short, long blonde hair, blue eyes, very pretty. Leaves the school, walks down Campbell, turns right on Greene and then a left on Sycamore. House third on right. Arrives 3:45. X=thick shrub and overhanging trees at corner of Greene and Sycamore.’

Lucinda pulled a pen out of her pocket and flipped the page. ‘Average height, baby-fat pudgy, short brown hair, brown eyes, cute. Gets off school bus at Trinity and Glass. Walks down Glass to eighth house on left. Uses key to open door. X=inside the shrubbery encircling property.’

Lucinda kept flipping pages. One after another filled with notes of young women he stalked as he searched for his next victim. Each one with X= at the end, indicating, it seemed to Lucinda, the place he’d make the snatch. A couple of the entries had a question mark rather than a specific location.

Jake, looking over her shoulder, whispered, ‘Holy shit,’ several times as each page turn revealed yet another girl. ‘Wonder if any of these notes apply to bodies we’ve already found? Or are they all safe because he’s dead?’

‘There’s also the question of whether or not all of his victims were planned. Emily, for example, appeared to be spontaneous.’

‘Unless she agreed to meet him,’ Jake said.

‘Another question without an answer,’ Lucinda said. ‘At least no one else will die at his hand.’

‘And you rescued the only hostage.’

Lucinda furrowed her brow. ‘Hostage? Oh no, Prissy. I forgot all about her.’ She rushed up the street to the patrol car where she’d left the little dog. The driver’s door was open. A few feet away, an officer held a clothesline tied loosely around the dog’s neck as she squatted in the grass attending to an urgent need.

‘Thank you, officer. I’ll take her off your hands now and get her back to her owner.’

‘She wasn’t much trouble. But when one of the guys brought me a burger, I thought she was going to steal it out of my mouth so I shared it with her. Didn’t seem like she’d been fed for a while.’

‘Probably hadn’t,’ Lucinda said. ‘Thanks again.’ Lucinda took the rope and led the little dog back to the side yard, where she untangled the leash and collar from the chain and replaced the rope around her neck. She walked her over to the evacuated house next door and secured her in the fenced back yard while she took care of processing the scene.

Dr Sam arrived to take possession of the body. When he looked down at the bloody corpse, he said, ‘Pierce, did you do this?’

‘No sir, I didn’t fire a shot. Multiple weapons were engaged. If you find any bullets in the body, I’m sure they’ll match the weapons of the extraction team.’

‘I’m seeing a lot of exit wounds, Pierce. Might not find any inside.’

A team of FBI forensic techs arrived and started to process the scene, collecting evidence to add to what they’d recovered earlier from the rental house where Rogers once lived. They found bullets in the side of the house, embedded in the dirt, and then went inside where they recovered several more. Before they were done with the house, they removed everything that seemed to belong to or had been used by Mack Rogers.

With the departure of the black-clad team, the police presence dropped down to a few officers, giving Lucinda a moment to call Helen Johns. ‘Ms Johns, this is Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce. We found Prissy.’

‘Oh, my, is she OK?’

‘She certainly is. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get away from here and bring her to your place.’

‘Can I come and get her?’