Absolute Rage (25 page)

Cursing, she swept up the pieces of bright pottery. You didn't get plates like this at the Bi-Lo in town, or at Wal-Mart, she could not help noticing. It was, or had been, a lovely moss green with flowers painted on it in shades of rust, tan, and yellow. Rose Heeney had selected it in some New York boutique, a bit of her native heath brought into exile. Marlene found herself sitting on a hard chair, crying bitterly into a dish towel, and not just for Rose Heeney, either.

Then the dog growled. Marlene wiped her face and sprang to her feet, for it was that kind of growl.

Gog had been hanging around the kitchen, hoping she would allow him to preclean the dishes. Now he was standing stiffly, nosing the back door, the hair on his back bristling, making his bad-muffler noise. Marlene snapped the kitchen light off and looked through the back-door window. The floodlights illuminated a rough oval twenty yards out from the house; beyond that, the rural night hung like black drapes.

Marlene tapped on the door of Dan's bedroom and went in. He was lying on his bed with a set of headphones on, reading. He took the phones off and looked at her inquiringly.

“Turn off your light. Gog thinks we have company.”

He sat up instantly and snapped off the lamp. “What should we do?”

“I need a big flashlight, if you have one, and your pistol.”

He stalled for a moment, his eyes confused, but then leaped from the bed. A moment later she had Red Heeney's .38 Smith and a boxy camping flashlight in hand. She switched it on briefly to check the beam, then led him to the back door. They could hear Poole mumbling to no one by the picnic table.

“Stay by the light switch, watch me, and flick it off when I signal. I'll be outside in the shadow of the stairs.”

“Shouldn't we call the police?”

“Yeah, that's a good idea,” she said carelessly, “but watch my hand and stay by the switch.” As he dialed the kitchen cordless, she went outside with the dog and crouched on the storm door lying by the stairs. The dog was whining and panting eagerly.

A few minutes later, she saw two figures, one large, one smaller, pause on the edge of the lit area. They seemed to converse for a moment, and then they started toward the house, running in a ridiculous crouch, as if that would make them less visible against the floodlit lawn. The bigger one carried a shotgun. They were both wearing ball caps, but as they looked around, she could catch glimpses of their faces. The bigger one had a stupid, brutal look, like a child's sketch of the bogeyman: lantern jaw, shadowed with beard, a floppy mouth, a shapeless nose. The smaller was good-looking in a weedy country-boy way, the sort of look that had made the fortunes of Elvis and James Dean. Their eyes were hidden in the shadows cast by their cap bills.

When they had crossed half the yard, she raised her hand and brought it sharply down. The lights went off. “Get 'em, Gog!” she cried. The dog vanished into the blackness and she followed at a trot. She heard a cry and then a boom as the shotgun discharged. She stopped and turned the flashlight on.

Gog had the big man down, with his jaws clamped around the man's throat. James Dean was crouched, blinking, and waving a large silvery revolver around. Marlene put the beam on his face and said, “If you don't drop that pistol, son, I'm going to shoot you.” She held her weapon in the light beam so he could see it. He hesitated. Marlene snapped an order to her dog. The man on the ground wailed and made interesting noises indicating a deficiency of breath. She said, “I could have the dog take his windpipe right out of his neck, and I will, if you don't drop the gun. Now drop it!”

After one longing glance over his shoulder, he did. She made him lie down and called the dog off the other man, who sat up rubbing his throat, which oozed blood. Marlene tossed the shotgun away as far as she could, picked up the dropped pistol, and called out, “Dan! Hit the lights!”

The lights came on and Dan walked over.

“You know these guys?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “That's Earl Cade and his brother Bo.”

“Earl and Bo Cade, huh?” said Marlene. “So what were the Cade boys doing sneaking up on this house late at night, armed to the teeth? Hmm?”

“We warn't sneakin',” said Bo. “We was huntin'.”

“Yeah,” said Earl, “we was huntin', and you had no call to set that damn dog on us.”

“What were you hunting for?” Marlene asked.

They looked at one another briefly. “Coon,” said Bo.

“Yeah, that's right. Coon,” said Earl.

“Gosh, I thought you needed dogs to hunt coon,” she observed.

A look of confusion came over Earl's face, but Bo spoke up. “Shows you don't know much about huntin'.”

“Well, maybe not,” agreed Marlene. “We'll let the police sort it out. By the way, you guys murdered the Heeney family, didn't you? And you tried to run me off the road today.”

She was watching Earl's face as she said this, looking straight at his eyes. These were very pale blue and practically vibrated with the effort to keep meeting her eyes, which she knew was a habit particularly stupid criminals adopted to fake sincerity.

“No, we didn't,” he said.

“Mose Welch killed them folks,” said Bo. She examined him, too. Same eyes, but a more skillful liar. Get them isolated from one another, and a halfway decent interrogator would have the whole story out of them in half an hour. She reached out her foot and tapped the sole of Bo's boot. They were old OD combat boots, cracked and stained. “They caught him wearing your new boots. It must've hurt to toss them away like that. You should've worn those old ones to the murder.”

“I didn't kill nobody,” he said. “And I ain't got any new boots to throw away.”

A car sounded on gravel and red lights flashed against the foliage. Shortly there appeared a stout police officer in a tan uniform with a big American flag sewn to the left shoulder. He had a slack pie face and a boozer's lump of a nose, and his eyes looked squashed, as if he had just been awakened from a long sleep. The steel name tag on his breast identified him as Omar Petrie.

“What all's the problem here?” he asked, taking in the peculiar scene.

Dan said, “I made the call. We caught these guys sneaking up to the house with weapons.”

Bo Cade said vehemently, “Damn it, Omar, we wasn't sneakin'. We was huntin' and she set that dog on us. It just about ripped Earl's throat right out.”

At this, Earl started to get to his feet, the better to argue, but Gog barked at him and showed his impressive fangs.

“See! See!” Earl shouted, scooting away. “That's a bad dog, Omar. You ought to shoot him right now.”

Marlene moved to put herself between the cop and the dog. “Officer, that is a highly trained guard dog and it's under my complete control.” She lowered the timbre of her voice and ordered, “Gog! Off! Down! Stay!”

The dog seemed to forget about Earl Cade. He walked over to Marlene and dropped to his belly with an audible thump.

“See?” said Marlene. “He's perfectly safe.”

“Who're you?” the cop demanded. He still had his hand on the butt of his pistol.

Marlene introduced herself. “I'm a guest here and doing some legal work for the Heeney family. The dog warned us and we saw these two sneaking up to the house.
Sneaking
is definitely the correct word. Three people were murdered in that house a little while ago and we thought we should take precautions. It could've been the murderers coming back.”

Bo said, “Aw, shit, Omar, you know us! We ain't no murderers. Besides, they got the fella did it, that dumpy Mose Welch. We's just walking across the yard here and she attacked us. You ought to arrest
her.”

Marlene saw Petrie's eyes darting back and forth from the Cades to her. This is not going as it should, she thought.

The cop cleared his throat heavily and spat on the ground. “Well, what I see is one man chewed up by this dog and you got all the guns. Why don't you give them here for a start.”

Marlene turned over the two pistols and Petrie stowed them in his capacious uniform pockets. Turning to the Cades, he said, “Boys, whyn't you all run along now. It's late.”

Earl said, “What about my neck? That dog chewed the shit out of me. You just gonna let her get away with that?”

Petrie considered this. “You making a complaint here, Earl?”

“Damn right I am. And I'm gonna sue that bitch's ass for everything she got.”

The cop nodded wisely. To Marlene he said, “I got to take your animal with me. Go put it on a chain.”

“You are not taking that animal,” said Marlene in an outraged tone. “That dog did nothing wrong. He knocked down and secured an armed trespasser as he's trained to do.”

Petrie hitched up his gun belt and gave Marlene a cop stare. “You better do like I said, ma'am, or you're gonna be in trouble.”

“I can't
believe
this!” cried Marlene. “You're arresting my dog for defending private property? Why don't you arrest me, too?”

“I will, if you don't get the dog into my car trunk right now.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself!” she snarled, and turned to walk away.

Petrie reached out and grabbed her arm, hard, and jerked her back. This attracted the interest of the dog. Normally, he would not have broken stay for a major earthquake, but this was a special circumstance, the exception to the rule. He sprang up, barked, growled, and menaced. Petrie let go of Marlene, stumbled back a few steps, and unsnapped his holster strap. Marlene yelled, “Gog, hide!”

The dog whirled and ran. Petrie drew his pistol and took aim at the fleeing animal. Marlene flung herself on his gun arm. He grabbed her hair and yanked.

“Omar Petrie,” boomed a big voice. “Let that woman go! She's not one of your roadhouse whores.”

It was Poole, apparently cold sober and transformed. Petrie goggled and released Marlene's hair. She let go of his arm and stepped back. Poole walked up to the cop and laid an arm on his shoulder. “Omar, damnit, it's a good thing I was here. You almost made the mistake of your life.”

“Where'n hell did you come from, Ernie?” asked the cop.

“I was in the kitchen pouring some coffee when this commotion started. I saw the whole thing through that window. These young Cades apparently got lost during one of their famous midnight expeditions. Ms. Ciampi here observed that old Earl was carrying a shotgun, and since she knew that two people in this very house had been killed with a shotgun, she was naturally on her guard. Now”—Poole lifted the flat of his hand to stall Petrie's objection—“as to the dog: Do you know what kind of dog that is? No, you don't. That is not just some yard mutt you can shoot because you're feeling a little cranky. That is a rare prize animal, Omar. That is a ten-
thousand-
dollar animal. Well, you shoot a ten-thousand-dollar animal that's just doing what it's told, apprehending prowlers on private property in the hours of the night, in the presence of a sworn officer of the court, which is me, Omar, then I think you're looking at a world of trouble. I'm talking lawsuits, here, big ones. The town ain't going to pay for no ten-thousand-dollar dog, and Sheriff Swett sure ain't, and who does that leave, hm? You want to set down and figure how long it's going to take to make that sum up, plus court costs and punitive damages, out of what you take off those girls down by Amos's out on Route 36? Why, some of those girls'll be grandmas before you paid it off.”

Petrie was staring at him, as if at an apparition, Marlene noticed, and Dan and the two Cades were staring likewise. Poole clapped his hands briskly. “Well! Let's see now. This looks to me like a little misunderstanding. Ms. Ciampi here's from away, so she might not comprehend our local mores and customs. No harm's done, except to Mr. Cade's neck, and a couple of Band-Aids'll put that right. A little disinfectant, too, if you got it. In fact, I believe, Omar, that the wisest thing you could do right now is to get back in your patrol car and drive away. Given the situation, I don't think Sheriff Swett would appreciate having legal attention being drawn to this
particular
house and family, if you catch my drift. What I mean is, this could be worse than what happened with Commissioner Jakes. Situation like this, the best thing to do is not to do anything.” Turning to the Cades, he added, “Boys, why don't you just wander back where you come from. This business is all over.”

At this Bo Cade immediately started off, but his brother rose and stood there like a dead tree. “What about my shotgun?”

Bo ran back and grabbed Earl's arm. “Goddamnit! There
wasn't
no shotgun, you idiot. Come along!”

But Earl jerked his arm away, roared out a curse, and flung a roundhouse blow at his brother's head, which was ducked. Bo kicked him in the shin. Earl shouted threats of murder and ran at him, Bo took off like a hare, and they both disappeared into the darkness, yelling curses at one another. Officer Petrie holstered his sidearm, adjusted his uniform, and gave everyone a look of malevolent stupidity. Without another word he strode off. They heard his engine start and then the rattle of gravel as he sped away.

Marlene said, “That was extremely impressive, Poole. Thank you. I guess there's still a little cherry vanilla left in the bottom of the carton.”

“Thank
you,”
said Poole. “I must be becoming a functional drunk. Or maybe it's that shotgun blasts at night tend to sober me up.”

“But . . . they just walked away,” Dan complained. “They snuck in here with guns and they just walked away.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we could file a complaint for trespass,” said Poole, “but you know Judge Murdoch would dismiss it in two shakes.”

The phone rang in the house.

“Who's calling this late?” asked Dan.