False Witness (29 page)

“Nice shot,” Crowe said as he rummaged in the cupboard under the bar.

Sam’s face was pale but composed. “I found it in there,” he said, pointing at the cupboard. “What do we do now?”

Crowe emerged with a pair of automatic pistols and two clips of ammunition. He pointed one of the barrels at the pistol-grip shotgun in Sam’s hands. “You know how to use that?”

“Yeah.”

“You got five more shots in there. You need to get the women out of here.”

The rifle fire started up again from the doorway. Bullets tore more chunks out of the concrete behind them.

“How?” Sam asked, goggle-eyed. “We’re pinned down.”

From above came more shrieks. “There are more women upstairs,” said Crowe. He pointed across the room to the stairs leading to the second floor, then at Tess and Diane, who was breathing heavily. “Get these two up there, then get them and the others to the room at the end of the upstairs hall. The door is steel, lined with concrete; lock it when you get inside. It’ll be cramped, but you’ll fit. Stay low.”

Sam glanced at Tess. She gave him an odd look. “It’s okay,” she said, eyes wide. “You can save me.”

Crowe rolled his eyes. “Are you two done?”

Sam pumped the shotgun. “Yeah.”

“I’ll fire at them head-on, see if I can drive them out the front door.”

“That’s a little crazy.”

“You got a better idea?”

Sam shook his head.

“Give me to the count of five, then move. Run sideways, with the women between you and the wall. Shoot if you have to, but not at me. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“On three.”

Crowe counted down with three nods of his head, then straightened up with pistols in each hand. He fired four shots directly into the doorway some ten yards away. He estimated he had five seconds to cover the space between it and the bar before the gunmen recovered. As he ran, he spared a glance to his right – Sam and the women raced to the stairwell that led to the second floor and the screaming girls. Diane was hobbling.
Her and her fucking three-inch heels
.

Sam fired off a round at the door as he ran, blowing a scattered hole in the jamb. Crowe made it to the entryway and dropped to his back on the floor, leveling both pistols between his bent knees. No movement yet, but the cashier’s counter was blocking his view of the rest of the storefront. He rolled behind the counter and rose up, firing a single round from each pistol before dropping back down. Nothing. No return fire, no grunts of pain. Did they retreat? Or were they trying to draw him out?

He grabbed the leg of the stool where Pulaski’s rat-faced cousin had sat a couple weeks earlier and pushed it out past the edge of the counter. The chrome reflected nothing but an empty room. Crowe crouched low and stepped into the open, guns at ten and two o’clock. He scanned the area, looking for any sort of motion. Still nothing. Outside, the rain had stopped pounding against the Rosebush’s sheet metal roof, and the evening sun was starting to stream through the clouds.

He kept away from the window, creeping along the wall until he could risk a glance out the open front door. He immediately regretted it – the emerging sun left a black dot in his field of vision. Or was it something else that was giving off the light? In the distance, he could hear the wail of sirens. He waited until his eyesight returned, then leapt through the front door, rolling on his shoulder. He emerged in a tight package, one knee on the ground, one knee up, pistols leveled. The yard was empty. Up the street, a big, black SUV laid rubber and smoke as it raced away from the scene. So it hadn’t been the cops following him from Eau Claire. But then who was it? Trinh’s men? Whoever it was, they were the shooters.

Crowe felt as much as saw the flames that consumed the crabgrass around the Rosebush. Heat blasted toward him; they must have used gasoline to set the fire. It was the only way the grass and gravel would have ignited after the downpour. Yet the fire wasn’t moving toward him or the building. What the hell were they trying to accomplish by torching the place? The Rosebush was solid concrete.

He took one last look around – he was sure the shooters were the ones in the pickup, but he was a cautious man – then stepped back to get a long-distance look at the flames. He quickly realized the fire wasn’t meant to destroy, it was meant as a message.

After about ten yards, he could see it: a burning swastika.

#

Sam crouched low on the floor of the safe room, the shotgun pointed at the door, his pulse pounding in his ears. Around him lay Tess, Diane, and half a dozen attractive young women in various stages of undress. All of them were breathing audibly. The room’s design suggested it had once been a walk-in freezer. Judging by the weight of the door as he slammed it behind them, it had been reinforced with concrete to act as exactly what it was right now: a barrier between them and the person who wanted to kill them.

The girls huddled close to each other, not speaking. They had been easy enough to herd into the room; Sam got the impression they had been trained for this eventuality, or at least prepared for it as an occupational hazard. They were far from calm, but he was impressed with the composure they managed to show in light of the situation. Hell, he was impressed with his
own
ability to cope so far.

He checked his watch. There had been no shots for more than two minutes now, but he didn’t know if that was good or bad. Had Crowe managed to subdue the shooters? Sam was amazed at the man’s skills – Darcy Flowers had been right, he was obviously ex-military or paramilitary – but he was one man against at least two. If Crowe had fallen, the shooters could be combing the building, looking for the rest of them.

“Sam,” Tess whispered.

He turned to her with a finger to his lips, but as he did he saw the reason she’d broken the silence: Diane’s face was white as ivory, her breathing ragged and uneven. Her eyes were closed. Sam glanced down at the hem of her dress. It was soaked in blood.

“She was shot in the thigh,” said Tess, trembling. “I think it hit the artery. I didn’t see it in all the chaos.” Tears welled in her green eyes. Sam saw the toll the situation had taken on her in that miserable expression. “I didn’t even notice. I was too scared.”

Sam handed her the shotgun. “You cover the door,” he said. Tess looked startled but did as she was told. He tore open his work shirt and stripped it off, winding it into a tourniquet. He turned to the girls.

“Do any of you know first aid?”

A slim brunette raised a shaky hand. “I’m studying nursing,” she breathed.

Sam couldn’t believe his luck. “That’s great,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Katie.”

“Okay, Katie, what do I do with her?”

The girl looked down at Diane. “I don’t know. We never took gunshot wounds in class.”

“Where do I tie the tourniquet?”

She thought a moment. “Above the wound.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, above the wound.”

Sam hiked Diane’s skirt. Now that he was closer, he could see blood flowing freely from the hole in her thigh. It made him think of the plastic top on an old coffee percolator, liquid bubbling up over and over. He wrapped his shirt around the leg, almost to the crotch of her Victoria’s Secret underwear, and tied it tight. The blood continued to percolate.

Tess looked back at them. “Is it working?”

“Not yet,” Sam said.

“Put pressure on it,” said Katie. “Here, I’ll do it.” She shuffled over to Diane and crossed her palms over the wound.

“We need to call 911,” said Tess. She reached into Sam’s pants pocket and withdrew his phone. She looked at the screen. “No bars. Dammit!”

“It’s the concrete in here,” he said. “We’re on our own.”

Long minutes ticked by. Finally, they heard Crowe’s voice outside the door.

“Open up! It’s safe.”

Sam and Tess exchanged a glance.
Not for everyone
. Sam lifted the steel-reinforced two-by-four that had slammed into place when they closed the door behind them. Crowe pulled the door open from the outside.

All but one of the girls rushed out into the hallway. They dashed to their rooms and emerged fully clothed in moments. Crowe handed each of them a wad of twenties. “I’m sorry this happened, ladies. You know the drill.”

The girls ran down the stairs without a word. Sam heard the big back door to the building slam shut behind them.

“They’re witnesses,” said Sam, emerging into the hall. He’d retrieved the shotgun from Tess.

Crowe glared at him. “Do I look like I give a shit?”

“You’re okay?” Tess asked.

“Yeah. You?”

A tear streamed down her cheek. “We are. But Diane . . .”

Crowe seemed not to hear. He looked at Sam. “What happened to your shirt?”

Sam and Tess exchanged a glance. He stepped away from the doorway. Crowe looked down at the floor. Katie still knelt beside Diane, but she was no longer holding the wound. Diane’s eyes were closed, her chest still. Katie’s face was awash in tears.

“I tried,” she breathed. “I – I really tried . . .”

Crowe walked slowly into the safe room. Sam averted his eyes, but there was no mistaking the look on the man’s face. Someone was going to die for this.

Alex and Angie lay naked together on top of the foldout sofa that served as her bed, breathing heavily, damp skin and hair drying in the night air wafting in through the living room window.

“That was amazing,” Angie huffed. “Squeaky clean.”

“Yeah,” said Alex. “I just hope your neighbors didn’t hear.”

“I live over a grocery store, dummy. Who’s going to hear, the eggs?”

“I don’t know, I think I was loud enough to make people wonder if there was a sasquatch in town.”

She lifted herself onto her side and looked down at him. Her expression was serious. “I want you to know I don’t do this with every guy I meet.”

“Me neither.”

“I should hope you don’t do it with every guy you meet,” she said, poking him in the chest. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Alex picked up on the Seinfeld reference. “No, not at all,” he said in his best George Costanza.

Angie smiled and kissed him deeply. He felt a jolt in his nether regions that she must have seen. “Simmer down, Coop,” she said. “We have a concert to get to.”

“We could stay here and make some more beautiful music on our own.”

She rolled out of bed and stood up. Alex marveled at her body as she pulled on her shorts and a top. “That would be fun, but I want to
dance
first.” She looked down at him. “Okay?”

“Okay.” He pulled on his own shorts and tee-shirt. “So who’s this band again?”

“Just some locals. I think they play rockabilly stuff.”

Rockabilly. Of course
. It was just so Lost Lake. Everything here was about having a good time, a good
summer
time.

They both slipped on their sandals and headed for the door, Alex’s arm around Angie’s shoulder. As she turned off the light behind them, Alex didn’t know that he would never see the inside of the little apartment again.

Crowe was sick of answering questions. He was on his third detective, this one a big black dude named Ohene, who spoke with a faint African accent. The cop’s tan summer suit was half a size too small, no doubt to show off his prodigious biceps.

“Why was Diane Manning here tonight, Mr. Crowe?” asked the detective.

Crowe rolled his eyes. “I told the other two, she was here consulting on Rufus Hodge’s appeal.”

“Uh-huh. And the other three?”

“Walsh and Gallagher were here to interview Diane for a story. The other girl works for Hodge’s completely legitimate business upstairs.”

The cop wrinkled his nose. “
Legitimate
. Right. And they were the only people in the building during the shooting.”

“That’s right.”

The Rosebush was awash in cops and forensics people, dusting for prints, digging slugs out of the walls and generally going over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Crowe wasn’t worried; the Roses knew his rule about shitting where they eat. The Rosebush was always clean.

Or is it? I don’t know if I can trust them anymore. Not one of them was here for this.

“Where did the guns come from?” asked the cop.

Crowe frowned. “I don’t know, why don’t you find the fuckers that were shooting at us and ask them?”

Ohene didn’t flinch. “I meant the guns
you
were using.”

“Typical cop, blame the victim.”

“Victim. Right.”

“They’re all registered,” Crowe sighed. “And they were used in self-defense. That’s all I’m going to say without a lawyer.”

As if on cue, the paramedics wheeled the body of Diane Manning through the room and towards the battered storefront door. They had covered her with a sheet, but Crowe would know the curves under it anywhere. He felt a sudden stab through his guts, like a jolt of lightning.

“Looks like you’re going to need a new one,” said the detective.

Crowe’s nostrils flared. “If you weren’t wearing that badge, I’d break your fucking neck,” he growled.

Ohene glared back. “We can go outside and take it off, cop-killer. Right now, just you and me.”

I’d love that, but I don’t have the time
, he didn’t say. Instead, he said: “You holding me?”

The cop glowered. “No,” he said, finally. “I know you’d be back on the street in an hour.”

“You going after the Aryans? It’s pretty obvious they were looking for revenge after what happened to their boy in the Badlands.”

Ohene smiled. “Sure. We’ll get on that as soon as we have the manpower available. Shouldn’t take more than a few weeks.” He flipped his notebook closed and walked away. “Don’t leave town, Crowe,” he said over his shoulder. “We might want to question you some more.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Crowe.

Sam Walsh watched the cop leave as he walked up to Crowe. He’d grabbed a tee-shirt out of the Wild Roses’ laundry to replace the one he’d used trying to save Diane’s life.

“There’s already TV crews outside,” he said. “I just saw Barb Foster. Tess and I need to get out of here before we end up on the news. Assuming we haven’t already. I don’t know what the cops are releasing to the media.”