Flesh Eaters (36 page)

“Captain?”

“What is it, Sergeant?”

“Sir, I have about two dozen Red Cross volunteers with me. Do you mind if I use them to relieve some of our officers?”

“No, I don’t want that. Let them back up the officers if they want to, but the officers themselves stay on duty. I need men I can trust with their weapons ready.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and for just a second, the tough veneer mellowed a bit. “Now, go on, Eleanor. Help me out, okay?”

She carried out her orders. The Army briefed her, gave her an M-16 and a flashlight, and sent her on her way.

She left the checkpoint feeling stunned and overwhelmed. Her head was pounding, her heart going a mile a minute in her chest. So many questions swirled in her head. So much had happened, and there were so many answers yet to find.

She felt disconnected, uncertain about the future, and she wandered over to the edge of the freeway and looked out across the city. The light was failing fast. Already the distance was lost in darkness. Closer in, the glare from the lights illuminating the military’s checkpoint spilled over onto the wrecked cars and buildings nearest the roadway, casting them in a bluish haze.

A figure was moving out there.

Eleanor leaned forward, and squinted into the darkness. At first she wasn’t sure, but then the man turned slightly, as if he was checking to see if anyone was following him, and at that point she was certain.

“Anthony Shaw,” she muttered. “What the hell are you doing?”

He was supposed to be up here with the rest of the officers, helping out. What did he think he was doing? And why did he look so paranoid?

As she watched, he picked his way through the obstacles in the water until he reached a pickup between two larger vehicles. Eleanor heard yelling behind her, and made a quick backwards glance. More fighting, she saw. When she looked back toward the water, she thought she’d lost Anthony, but he reappeared at the front of the pickup the next instant and was raising the hood.

Really curious now, Eleanor leaned forward some more. Most of the pickup was obscured behind the body of a school bus, but she could see just enough to realize he was pulling two duffel bags out of the engine compartment.

“What the . . . ?”

He opened one of the duffel bags and looked inside. Eleanor couldn’t see what he was looking at, but evidently Anthony was satisfied with what he saw, for he zipped the duffel bag closed again and put it back in the engine compartment of the pickup.

She wondered if they were the same duffel bags she’d seen him pull out of that Volkswagen the previous night, and it seemed like they probably were.

“I wonder . . .” she said.

Eleanor walked down the on-ramp and stopped at the water’s edge. She hadn’t, she realized, thought this through. She couldn’t exactly take a boat over there. A motorboat would make too much noise. Even a canoe would attract undue attention. And besides, what if she was getting all curious over nothing? She had a backpack for herself, after all. Every member of her family had one. What if Anthony Shaw was using the duffel bags to stash his MREs and first-aid kit, same as her? What if he had old family photo albums in there?

“Yeah, right,” she said aloud. There was no way. If it looks suspicious, that’s because it is suspicious. “You’re up to something, Anthony Shaw.”

There was no more hesitation. She walked into the water, which had receded to the point where it was a few inches below her hips now, and waded through floating trash and driftwood toward the cluster of vehicles where Anthony Shaw had been doing his thing.

The halogen lights from the military checkpoint threw a blue circle of light onto the water, and she skirted around it. No sense in giving her position away if she didn’t have to.

And that was probably what saved her life, for at that moment she heard the pickup’s hood snap shut.

She froze, looked around.

There was no where to hide. She could hear him splashing as he moved around the front of the big rig between them, and she had nowhere to go. Another second and they’d be face-to-face.

For a second she considered playing it off. She had seen something from the freeway but wasn’t sure what. She came down to investigate. And what exactly are you doing out here, Patrolman Shaw? Did you see something, too?

But in the same instant she knew that wouldn’t work. He’d never buy it.

And if he is up to something
, she thought,
he’ll kill me
.

The splashing was getting louder, and so she did the only thing she could. She dropped down into the water and held her breath and prayed he hadn’t seen or heard her. This had been a grassy field before the flood. She gripped a handful of St. Augustine and held on, uncertain how long she could do this. Certainly not long enough to wait for him to pass by.

Gotta get behind him
, she thought.

She swam toward the big rig. Maybe, if she was lucky enough, she’d come up close enough to the rig that she could use it as concealment. It had been, what, about sixty feet from her when she went under? She could do that.

Except that she didn’t dare open her eyes under this water. With all the chemicals and trash and oil and God knew what else floating around in it, she didn’t dare. She was probably taking twenty years off her life just by swimming in it.

That is, if Anthony Shaw didn’t get her first.

Luckily, she didn’t swim headfirst into anything. She’d felt the grass give way to asphalt beneath her, which meant she was lucky. She could have hit a guardrail or a drainage pipe or anything. She could have cut herself up pretty bad. But luckily that didn’t happen.

She swam until it felt like her lungs were going to burst, and then she slowly rose from the water, wiped it from her eyes, and opened them.

She was about ten feet from the rig.

Anthony Shaw was just a dim shape receding into the night. He, too, was skirting the blue circle of lamp light, and that little observation convinced her she’d been right to be cautious. He was up to something.

And this was her chance to find out what.

She slid back under the cover of the big rig and watched him go up the on-ramp. Concealed in darkness, she waited until he got to the top of the ramp. He glanced back, scanning the area around the trucks, just as she knew he would, and then went back to his duties on the elevated part of the Beltway.

When he was gone, she went over to the pickup, reached through the busted-out driver’s side window, and popped the hood.

The two black duffel bags were jammed into the narrow space between the fan belts and the radiator. She had difficulty pulling them loose, because he had really wedged them down in there, but eventually they came. She rested one on top of the engine and zippered it open.

It took her a moment to process exactly what she was looking at.

It took her a moment to process exactly
how much
cash she was looking at.

“Jesus,” she said. “Oh Jesus.”

Nervously, she glanced back toward the freeway, scanning the retaining wall as if it was the guard tower of a prison and she an escaping con.

“Holy crap,” she muttered.

Again she wondered how much money she was looking at. There were bundles of what appeared to be twenties and fifties and hundreds wrapped up in tightly sealed bricks. She’d seen heroin shipped like this, layer upon layer of cellophane strapped down with duct tape. The bags were wet, but the money looked dry as a bone. Whoever wrapped this money up, she realized, knew it would have to sit in the water for a few days.

And then she remembered when she had first seen Anthony Shaw with these duffel bags. She tried to play back in her mind the buildings around them. The Texas Chemical Bank was right there on the corner of Canal and Lockwood, less than half a block away. Anthony Shaw had been there with his brother, Brent, and some other guy that she hadn’t recognized.

And now Brent Shaw was dead.

She looked back at the retaining wall at the edge of the freeway.

“What exactly are you up to?” she said.

Thinking of the possibilities made her angry.

When she first came to Sex Crimes as a brand-new detective, Eleanor’s lieutenant had called her into his office to welcome her aboard the good ship Perversion, as her fellow detectives not-so-lovingly referred to the unit.

Entering the office she’d seen little porcelain birds all over the walls and on his desk. And not realistic ones, either, but cutesy ones painted in pastel colors, soft pinks and greens and blues, adorable little smiles on their cartoon faces.

“I collect them,” he said proudly. “Been doing it since I was in high school.”

“Wow,” she’d said, “that’s kind of gay.”

The words were out before she quite knew what she was saying. She regretted them instantly. But they couldn’t be called back.

And so had begun her awkward stay in Sex Crimes.

But the incident was typical for Eleanor Norton, who had a way of saying and doing things before she truly thought them through.

She was doing that now.

She had both duffel bags in her hands. They weren’t that heavy, which had surprised her at the time, but the thought slipped away and was forgotten as she walked up the on-ramp, looking for Anthony Shaw.

Eleanor found him standing near a broken-down Ford Econoline van, watching the line of refugees, many of whom were sleeping or playing cards or just sitting on their stuff, looking off into the distance at something only they could see.

“Officer Shaw, I need a word with you.”

He turned around. He had an expression on his face as if all of this was putting him out, as if it was a big giant waste of his time. But then he saw the duffel bags in her hands and his eyes went wide.

“What is this?” she demanded.

He was nervous, she could tell that. He was scared, in fact. But he moved quickly, too quickly for Eleanor to react.

He crossed the roadway saying, “Ma’am, I can explain that. It’s not what you think. That stuff is from my house. It’s our life savings.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her around to the back of the Ford van. She was out of sight of the other refugees and the Red Cross volunteers before she quite realized what was happening. Just like that, he had taken her out of view of everyone, and now here she was, alone with him.

“Let me go,” she said.

She backed up.

He took a few steps toward her, his hands still reaching for her.

“You stole this money,” she said. “You’re nothing but a common looter.”

“No!” he said, sharply. He stepped closer. “That’s not true. That money is my family’s life savings.”

She read his body language. He was like a cat about to pounce. He had that same predatory look in his eyes. Eleanor turned, suddenly terrified, and was about to run when she felt his hands on the back of her blouse, clutching at her.

“Let me go!” she screamed.

He yanked back on her blouse, slinging her up against the side of the van with a loud crash of dented metal. The impact knocked the air from her lungs and made her vision turn momentarily purple. When it cleared, he had his hand clasped around her throat, squeezing.

“Drop the bags,” he snarled. “Right now.”

He was constricting her air flow. She could feel her throat threatening to collapse under his grip, but before that happened she managed to gasp out, “You’re a thief.” She brought her knee up, aiming for his groin, but he was too quick for her, and she only managed to graze his knee.

He shoved her back against the side of the van and threw three hard punches to her gut. She doubled over onto her hands and knees, unable to breathe, and had just enough time to realize he was moving around to the side of her before he grabbed her by her hair and turned her face toward him.

He punched her twice in the mouth and she collapsed onto the pavement.

Then he straddled her chest and punched her twice more in the face.

But the next instant he was off her.

What had just happened? Why did he stop? She could barely see. It felt as if he’d knocked her head out of whack. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t control her hands. Using her elbows she managed to push herself up. All she saw were blurry shapes.

But the voice she recognized.

It was Jim, calling her name.

“No,” she murmured.

It was the only sound she could get out. Her lips felt like they’d been smashed. Dimly, she became aware of a long rope of bloody spit hanging from her mouth.

But the next instant, she was looking up at Anthony Shaw’s back. Jim was right in front of him, trying to pull Anthony out from behind the van. He was no match for Anthony, though, who came in hard and fast and threw three powerful jabs right into Jim’s mouth. Anthony followed the jabs with two big upper cuts to Jim’s solar plexus, and that dropped Jim down to his knees.

Eleanor felt as if she were moving through a dream. No matter how hard she tried to stand, her body just wouldn’t obey. She watched Anthony move in, so that he was standing over Jim. She saw Jim look up at Anthony and try futilely to block as Anthony slammed an elbow down on the bridge of his nose.

Jim collapsed into a heap.

Anthony took a step back, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a big black tactical knife.

Eleanor heard it click as he unfolded it to its full length. The knife was curved, at least five inches long, with wicked serrations down the length and an edge that gleamed, even in the dark.

She shook her head.

Her pistol, she thought. She had to reach her pistol.

But at that moment a shrieking scream pierced the night. Anthony Shaw folded the knife over, hiding behind his wrist. Eleanor looked past him, and to her horror, saw Madison standing in the middle of the road, about twenty feet away, screaming for someone to help her parents.

“No,” Eleanor groaned. “Don’t hurt her. Run, Madison. Run!”

Her voice was barely a whisper. Her vision was hazy, blurred. She wasn’t sure what exactly she heard or saw, but she thought she heard people yelling and shots fired. It was hard to tell, because the blood was roaring in her ears. She felt like she was going to faint, and the last thing she remembered was the sight of Madison screaming for someone to help her parents as Anthony ran . . .