Flashpoint (16 page)

‘And you don't?'

She sat back. ‘Oh, I know lots of things Howard has done. Fairly recent things. He usually tells me that so-and-so has hired him to do such-and-such. He did some dirty tricks for a few politicians during this past primary season and made a lot of money. But this thing, he'd never talk about it; not from the start and not now. That's why I'm so worried. He likes to brag about how well he's doing and most of the time it's fun to listen to. But it's only about the usual stuff. The really important stuff he keeps secret from everybody, including me.'

‘When did you get into town?'

‘Three nights ago.'

‘Were you with him yesterday?'

‘In the morning.'

‘When was the next time you saw him?'

‘Just after midnight last night. I knew something was wrong right away.'

‘How?'

‘He seemed upset.'

‘Did you ask him about it?'

‘I always ask him but it rarely does any good. He wouldn't tell me, of course. After all we've been through together. I'm planning to marry him. We've talked about it many times. And then he treats me like this. Something bad happened and he won't tell me what it was.'

Perhaps even for Howard ‘Howie' Ruskin, killing somebody was too much of a burden. Maybe he was coming apart.

‘What does he want to talk to me about?'

‘I have no idea. He just wants me to set up a time and place to meet. There's a state park about six miles outside the northern city limits. Washburn is the name of it. He says if you pull in the entrance and then turn your headlights off, he'll come out. This would be at ten o'clock tonight. All of this – it's so insane. And he's so afraid. He's almost hysterical.'

I tried to puzzle through the setup. I couldn't see any danger for me. I wasn't important enough to be a player in Ruskin's games. I wasn't significant enough to bother with. But he was obviously in trouble and scared.

And so he wanted me to help him. Not because I mattered at all in the scheme of things, but because I was close by and because I had enough connections that I could lead him to the kind of protection he needed. What needed to be negotiated at this point was how much he was willing to tell me about his whole operation while I recorder-immortalized his every word.

‘Please say you'll meet him. Please.'

‘All right.'

‘Oh, thank God.' Her relief brought tears. ‘You don't know how happy you've made me. I am so afraid for him – for us.'

‘Is he armed?'

She sniffled up tears. ‘Yes. He's always armed. He has a Glock. I don't know anything about guns – I hate guns – but that's what he told me it is. But you don't have any reason to be afraid of him.'

‘Why's that?'

Without any humor at all, she said, ‘Because he wants something from you. That means he has to be nice.'

I
sat in a near-deserted Burger King parking lot and made calls to Jane – who'd been wondering what had happened to our supposed dinner – and to Michael Hawkins. I didn't tell him much except that I was working on a strong lead and planned to call him with more information later. He suggested that we meet up and work on this lead together. I remembered what Tom Neil had told me: how Hawkins liked to be the star of all investigations. I told him it would go better if I worked alone. He didn't try very hard to keep the disappointment from his voice.

There wasn't much traffic on the highway to the state park. On the curves my headlights took snapshots of fall trees and farm fields and a lone isolated convenience store. But on the straight stretches there was just my beams piercing the night.

On the left side of the park entrance was a life-size bronze statue of a Native American and on the right a bronze life-size statue of a man in the uniform of the northern army during the Civil War. A splash of headlights revealed both to be covered heavily with bird shit. Then total darkness, the road into the park dark with only a few signs to guide me. I pulled over to the side and waited.

I unlocked my glove compartment and reached in for my Glock. I kept it in my hand as I sat there. There was no reason for Ruskin to try to hurt me that I could understand. But maybe he had a reason
he
could understand. And this could be a trap, after all.

I was far enough in that the occasional cars and trucks on the highway sounded remote, far enough in that when I clipped off my headlights and sat in silence the sound of my engine was enormous, as if it had the power of a racing vehicle. I kept checking my rearview as well as left and right windows. I gripped my Glock tighter.

I was impatient so my sense of time passing was exaggerated. I kept checking my watch, certain that ten, even fifteen minutes had passed. No such luck. Five, six, seven minutes only.

I resented being made this vulnerable. Sitting in this deep a darkness anything could come at me from anywhere and surprise me so completely my gun may be useless. Strong wind rattled the leafy trees now and somewhere ahead of me I could hear a car engine. Then I saw headlights through the trees as the vehicle made its way around curves toward me.

The highway patrol car appeared and when it reached me it stopped. Of course. A highway patrol car would check the park at least once a night. The darkness vibrated with the red and blue of his emergency lights.

And just as it did, way back at the entrance, I saw the headlights of another vehicle pull in and then quickly back up and start to disappear. Had that been Ruskin?

The officer, a tall and heavy man, stepped out of his vehicle. Tan uniform, campaign hat. The motor was still running. I'd already pulled my license out.

‘The park is officially closed,' he said, taking my license. ‘There's a sign right at the front.'

‘I guess I didn't see it.'

‘Any special reason you're sitting in the dark?'

I knew a number of variations on the standard shit-eating smile. I used number six-B. ‘This is kind of embarrassing.'

‘Oh, really?'

‘Umm-hmm. I'm, uh, meeting someone here.'

‘A woman?'

‘Yes.'

‘Married?'

‘Do I have to answer that?'

‘No.'

‘Well, what the hell, I'll tell you. No, she's not married but she's got an ex-boyfriend who follows her everywhere she goes.'

‘Tell her about this new invention called a restraining order.'

‘She's had two of them.'

‘Then somebody should bust his ass.'

‘He's clever and has a good lawyer.'

‘You're clever, too, or trying to be. I don't buy anything you just told me. I'd like you to step out of your vehicle.'

Shit
.

He stepped back and to emphasize how serious he was, his left hand dropped to his holster.

Wind and the scent of coming rain. The first thing I did when I got out of the Jeep was look straight back at the highway. All I could do was try to hurry this along.

The first thing he did was shine his light inside the Jeep. ‘That a Glock?' This close he smelled of pipe tobacco, which always reminds me of my father. Instant image: him sitting in his easy chair with a glass of Burgundy, his pipe and his British detective novels from the forties and fifties. He hated everything that came after that.

‘Yes. A Glock.'

‘You have a permit to carry?'

‘Yes. You have my billfold. Look in where the folding money goes.'

He brought his small but intense light on the wallet and lifted the permit out. He studied it as if he was going to be quizzed on it in the morning. ‘Why would you need to carry?'

‘My business.'

‘What kind of business?'

‘I'm a political consultant. Things happen these days. I might have to protect my client.'

‘You call them “clients”?'

‘Yes. That's what they are. I do work for hire.'

‘Who's your client around here?'

Here we go
, I thought. He'd have a little fun at my expense. ‘Senator Logan.' But instead of following up he said, ‘Why do you keep looking at the highway?'

‘To see if the woman I'm supposed to meet got here yet.'

‘There is no woman. Not the kind you're talking about anyway.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

He sighed deeply, then put everything back in the wallet and returned it to me. ‘You're meeting somebody. That I buy. And maybe it's a woman. But what I don't buy is that this is about getting laid or anything. As soon as you said Senator Logan I knew this had something to do with politics. And if it's a woman that's why she's coming here. Now I'm ordering you out of this park. You're breaking the law. Do you understand?'

‘I do, yes.'

‘You pull out. I'll follow you.'

This was one highway patrolman who really didn't like Senator Logan.

‘Next time read the sign before you come in here.'

‘Will do.'

‘I'd say the same thing if you were working for the guy I'm voting for.'

‘I'm sure you would.' I tried to keep sarcasm from my voice. It wasn't easy.

Behind the wheel of my Jeep I waved to him. He was already in his car, waiting for me. His emergency lights were still on.

I swung the Jeep around and headed back up the road. When you have a law enforcement officer following you it's impossible to relax. Or to act natural. They can pull you over any time using any excuse they choose. They can even force you to get in the car and take you to the nearest police station. I was happy to see the highway no more than twenty yards ahead. I wasn't even thinking of Ruskin now. I just wanted to be away from the patrolman and his flashing lights.

But the game wasn't over. I supposed he would turn right. He was highway patrol, after all, and the greatest stretch of highway was to his right. Left would take him back to the city. But he turned left and for the first couple of hundred yards he kept his emergency lights on.

Irritation, agitation, fantasies of just tearing ass down the road ahead of him – I had to calm myself by force. And now I was back to thinking about Ruskin. What if the car that had pulled into the park entrance had been him? What if it had spooked him so much he'd no longer deal with me?

The highway patrolman took a right when we were about five minutes from town.

I needed coffee so I pulled into a Wendy's and went through the drive-up. I had a headache. I pulled into a slot on the lot and drank my coffee. I watched the teenage couples with great envy. In memory, lying memory, everything had been so passionate back then. And not just the sex. The feelings, too. It was all like driving a car that went six hundred miles an hour and you had no way to control it. New and startling and dangerous. There were in fact fates worse than death. The girl you loved could fall in love with somebody else. I knew men who never got over their first love; still talked about it even in their forties and fifties and sixties, partly in loss and partly in confusion. Why did they cling to those memories? Why couldn't they let go of them?

When my cell phone toned and I put it to my ear a male voice said, ‘What the hell was with the highway patrol?'

‘There's a sign that says you can't enter the park after ten o'clock. I guess he checks it every night. Or somebody does anyway.'

‘This is Ruskin.'

‘Yeah. I figured.'

‘We still need to talk.'

‘Where?'

‘You know where the college is?'

‘I can find it.'

‘There's a small park on the west side of it. Twenty minutes.' He clicked off. It was a good thing I didn't have any objections.

I found the college and the heavily wooded park. An asphalt road twisted through it. Lights from the dorms pierced the tree tops. They were even stronger than the ornate lights used to illuminate the road here.

When I heard voices I angled around in the seat. Another young couple much like the ones I'd seen in the Wendy's parking lot. Could anybody possibly be as happy as these laughing people were? I hoped my daughter was, and my ex-wife, for that matter. I couldn't quite bring myself to extend that much happiness yet to my ex-wife's new husband. I wanted him to be happy, but exultant happy I reserved for my loved ones. Maybe in a year I would outgrow my pissiness. I'd been promising myself that in general ever since ninth grade.

Headlights filled my rearview mirror. A plain blue Ford pulled into the slot furthest from me. Then a motor died. A car door opened. A man mostly in silhouette emerged from the car and started walking toward me. He was round, walked like a duck and apparently tripped over his own feet because he stumbled as if he was going to go splat on the ground.

That was when the gunshots started.

T
here is always that millisecond between the sound of the shots and your brain responding. Most people would take cover any way they could. Throwing yourself to the ground was always an option. But for a millisecond Ruskin froze. And that was why, when he was hit, he threw his arms up and danced like a puppet until he slammed into the asphalt about ten feet from my Jeep.

By now I had my Glock out and was working my way around the edge of the Jeep. Charged with adrenaline, crazed with both fear and anger, I hoped to be able to locate the shooter. Sarah Potter had mentioned somebody was after Howard ‘Howie' Ruskin. I was now a believer. Capturing the shooter could lead to a lot of places few people knew about.

But then another millisecond decision came to me. Ruskin started calling out for help.
Shit
, I thought. I had to at least see him before I went after the person who'd tried to kill him. I had to move around the back of the Jeep now and put myself in a position to be shot at whatever I did. I might as well check on Ruskin first.

From what I could judge the shots had come directly from the area behind Ruskin's car. I had to worry about myself first. All I could do now was wait to see if there would be any more shooting before I pushed out into the open. I used my cell to call emergency and was told that somebody had reported the gunfire. I said we also needed an ambulance right away.