Ice Fire: A Jock Boucher Thriller (25 page)

She didn’t move, her face still buried in his shoulder. He lifted her head. “Dawn?”

Her eyes were closed, her breath shallow. Near the center of her back he felt warm liquid oozing between his fingers. “Oh God, no.”

The police airboat arrived minutes later. He called out and they came to him.

“She’s been shot,” he said as he lowered Dawn down to outstretched arms. “Get that helicopter back here with a doctor on board.”

He jumped onto the flat deck. The airboat backed up, then sped away as quickly as uncertain waters and the dark of night would permit. Overhead the copter was looking for a place to land. It was flying low and the wash from its props whipped up the surface of the bayou, soaking the passengers in the airboat. Boucher leaned over Dawn, protecting her from the spray. The chopper found an open spot and settled to earth. The airboat nosed to the bank. An officer jumped ashore and the woman’s limp body was handed to him. No stretcher, he cradled her in his arms. Boucher jumped ashore and ran beside them, holding her hand.

Fitch was waiting in the helicopter. “We’ve got a doctor waiting in Morgan City,” he hollered above the wind from the rotary blades. “We’ll pick him up and get her to the closest trauma center.”

Dawn was lifted in, Boucher jumped aboard, and they were away. The small clinic was near the docks where dozens of shrimp boats were moored, it being a few more hours before they would begin their day. The doctor was waiting in the empty parking lot. He
was a big man, at least two hundred and fifty pounds. Somehow at this hour he had managed to commandeer several cars whose headlights illuminated a landing space for the chopper.

“You and me are going to have to get off here,” Fitch yelled in Boucher’s ear as the copter landed. “This bird won’t hold all of us.”

Reluctantly, Boucher jumped off. Both he and Fitch helped the large man board, and it was a job. He waved, then went to work. The helicopter lifted off. Boucher watched it fly away till there was no more sight or sound.

“You want to talk about it?” Fitch asked.

“No. Find out where they’re taking her and get me there.”

The Morgan City Police Department assigned them a car and driver to drive them back to New Orleans. Dawn was taken to the Spirit of Charity Level 1 Trauma Center at the Interim LSU Public Hospital on Perdido Street. She was still in surgery when they arrived, and though various members of the emergency team exited and entered the operating theater, their intense expressions made it clear they had no time for questions and answers. Finally a surgeon walked from the theater and approached them.

“Are you family?”

“I’m Detective Fitch, NOPD, and this is Federal District Judge Boucher. We’re friends.”

“Does she have family?”

“No,” Boucher said. “Her parents are deceased and her brother was killed in Iraq. How is she?”

“Her condition is extremely serious.” The doctor wrinkled his nose. The federal judge standing in front of him smelled like a sewer and looked like he’d been living in one. “Are you all right, sir?”

“I’m fine. I’ll clean up later. I don’t want to leave her.”

The doctor nodded. “We’ll keep you informed of her status. I’ll see to it personally.” He started to walk away, then turned back around. “Is your name Jock?”

“Yes.”

“She kept asking for you. Look, clean up and get into surgical gear. You should be prepared to see her. If it comes to that.”

“I will. Thank you, Doctor.”

Boucher was shown to a room where he stripped off his slimy clothes and showered away layers of filth. A surgical gown, gloves, sterile foot covers, and mask were laid out for him. He put them on and waited. And waited.

The doctor who’d spoken to him earlier burst into the room. “Come on,” he said, “quickly.” They rushed into the operating theater.

Dawn lay on her stomach. A spotlight hung from a spiral cord above her, now turned off. The doctor nudged him to the head of the bed and he knelt down to be at her eye level. He wanted to touch her. He brushed her cheek with a finger encased in the sterile glove. She opened her eyes. They were two slits, but she saw and recognized him. There was a tear in one eye, only one. Then her eyes closed. Forever.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. He wanted to say more. He wanted to say that the wound was too severe; that she had lost too much blood; that it took too long to get her here. But all he could say was, “I’m sorry.”

Boucher stood up. The doctor put a hand on his shoulder. “She said some things as we prepped her for surgery,” he said. “I don’t know what she meant, maybe you will. She said, ‘Get him.’ I assume she was talking about whoever shot her, and she kept trying to spell something but couldn’t get beyond the first three letters. She kept
saying over and over,
‘D-o-b.’
Did she know someone whose name began with those letters?”

“I don’t know,” Boucher said.

Wearing borrowed scrubs, he retrieved his wallet and keys from his filthy clothes, then called for a cab to take him home. As he reached the Quarter, in the sky was the first hint of morning.

F
ITCH CALLED HIM AT
noon. It was as much time for grieving as he could give, being a cop with a new homicide.

“You up for it?” he asked.

“As long as you do the driving.”

“Not after the night I had. We’ve got a driver.”

They sat in the backseat of the patrol car, on the same route Boucher had taken just one day earlier. Fitch, in the one gesture of respect he could grant, asked no questions as they drove. They came to Rexcon’s lab, the parking lot empty.

“Where is everybody?” Boucher asked, certain they had not been given another day off.

“Thing is, this place really isn’t operational,” Fitch said. “There’s a security guard—he’d been given the day off yesterday—and when he came in today he told us they just bought this place a few months ago and from what he understood the company was just beginning to hire staff for a new project.”

They walked inside, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape.

“Cantrell got away,” Boucher said; impossible to tell if he was asking a question or making a statement.

“We’ll get him.”

“There was another guy here, a real sicko, name’s Quillen. He had the idea to give us an acid bath. Dawn jumped him as I decked Cantrell. I think she may have scratched his eyes out. He was blinded and bleeding last I saw him.”

“Plucky lady.”

“Yes, she was.”

Fitch sighed. “We got the bullet that killed her. It was a 30.06, common rifle caliber.”

“Too much to hope that it was a .38.”

“They wouldn’t have used a pistol at that range. But that reminds me. I found the bullet that killed Dexter Jessup twenty years ago. Of course, finding the gun that shot it is probably impossible after so long.”

Boucher stared at him. “But if you could find another bullet fired from the same gun . . .”

“Well, yeah, but . . .”

“Cantrell fired two shots in here. I hit him with the chair and he got off a wild shot, then another shot at me as I ran outside.” He looked around. “They’re somewhere in the walls or ceiling.”

Fitch pulled out his cell phone and made a call, setting an investigatory team in motion.

“Has anyone called Perry?” Boucher asked.

“I called his office this morning. His assistant said he was out of town. I told her to have him call me the minute he gets back. You can bet he’ll have alibis up the ass. He’s probably meeting with lawyers right now.”

“Where could Quillen have gone?” Boucher asked. “He was blind, this place is isolated.”

Fitch walked to the vat and called to Boucher. “Come here.” One of the metal folding chairs was placed next to it and was bloodstained.
Fitch climbed up on the chair and peered into the reeking cauldron, nearly choking from the fumes. He stepped back down.

“There’s blood on the side like he was feeling his way. There’s blood on the chair like he was climbing up, and there’s blood on the rim. If he was a contract killer and your friend scratched his eyes out, I’d say that didn’t leave him much of a future to contemplate, wouldn’t you?”

“You think he fell on his sword?”

“That’s too noble an expression for a shit-heel like him. I think he took the only way out, the way he had prepared for you. If there’s anything left of him in that gumbo, we’ll find it.”

Boucher paced the floor, looking down.

“What are you looking for?” Fitch asked.

“I threw my cell phone at Quillen. It struck him in the forehead, he bled. That’s when Dawn jumped him. It’s not here. They must have come back for it.”

“Just for a cell phone?”

“It wasn’t just a cell phone. Cantrell said he wanted to know who I’d been talking to. The phone has a record of all my calls. They’re going to find out Palmetto’s alive. I’ve got to warn him. I’d like to get back home if we’re done here,” Boucher said.

“Sure. Let’s get you back.”

“Can I borrow your phone?” Boucher asked as they stepped outside. Fitch handed it to him and he punched in the numbers.

“Palmetto? Jock Boucher. Dawn’s dead. It was Cantrell and a psycho named Quillen. They’ve got my phone, Bob. That means they know you’re alive and they can locate you. Call the police up there. Tell them if they have any questions . . .” He looked at Fitch. Fitch nodded. “Tell them to call Detective Fitch, Eighth District. I’m on my way back to my place.” He shut the phone.

Though they’d not spoken on the way there, Fitch found the silence on their return uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry about your friend, but you’ve got to pull it together,” he said. “This thing isn’t over yet.”

“I know that. I was just thinking about what she said. ‘Get him.’ And she was trying to spell something that started with the letters
d-o-b.
”

“She was in shock, near death, and anesthetized. Forget what the doc thought he heard.”

“What about Perry?”

“Unless Cantrell turns on him, he’ll probably skate.”

“Not while I’m alive,” Boucher said.

The patrol car stopped in front of Boucher’s house. As Boucher got out of the car, Fitch asked him, “You pay your taxes?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Because you’re going to get your money’s worth, starting today. I’m putting a twenty-four-hour stakeout on your place.”

“I don’t want them parked in front of my house.”

“You won’t see them, but they’ll be close by.”

Boucher gazed at his block for a suitable observation post.

“Don’t worry,” Fitch said, “I’ll get the best, and I’ll stand some of the duty myself.”

Boucher clasped Fitch’s hand between both of his. “Thanks.”

“It’s my job. You’re the key witness. I want you to stay home, get plenty of rest. No restaurants. You want to order in, you call us and we’ll pick it up.”

“So I’m a prisoner in my own home.”

“You’re breaking my heart. You’re more like a bird in a gilded cage, I’d say.”

“How long?”

“Until we find Cantrell. I’ll let you know.”

“Visitors?”

“Clear them with me first.”

“Just like prison.”

“It’s nothing like prison, and you know it.”

The patrol car pulled away. Boucher climbed the steps to his front porch. It was like he was wearing lead shoes. He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. His antique collectibles, a décor and an ambience he had spent years trying to create. Fitch was right: this was no prison. This was his home and he was free to enjoy it. Closing the front door behind him, he faced an early-nineteenth-century Regency period rosewood sofa table, raised on lyre-shaped gadrooned end supports joined by a shaped stretcher and ending on scrolled legs with foliate carved block feet. He had memorized the description from the auction program when he first bought it and remembered it verbatim. It stood behind a George III–style camelback sofa with its original frame. A nineteenth-century American rosewood turtle top coffee table; a mahogany George III dining table and chairs; he could go on and on. Boucher had taken such pleasure and pride in restoring this house and furnishing it. He walked to the sofa, sat, leaned back, and the tears flowed.

The knock on the door was unexpected. He looked at his watch. His grief-stricken trance had lasted hours. Through the beveled smoked cut-glass inserts he could make out the shadows of two men. He walked to the door.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

“I’m Officer Peabo, NOPD,” one voice said. “I’ve got this guy here with me. Detective Fitch said if you don’t recognize him I’m to take him directly to jail.”

Boucher opened the door. A disheveled Palmetto stood before him.

“I know him,” Boucher said to the patrolman as he looked up and down the street to see if there were any observers standing around. He grabbed Palmetto’s arm and pulled him inside. “Thank you, Officer.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“If Cantrell thinks I’m in New England, this will be the last place he’ll expect to find me. I also thought I’d join your security detail. Another volunteer can’t hurt. I hope you’ve got a place for me to stay.”

“Sure. That’s no problem. Actually, it’s probably not a bad idea. There are guards posted somewhere on the block. I guess we’re both about as safe here as anywhere. The guest bedroom is upstairs. You want to get some sleep? You look exhausted.”

“I am. You kept half the folks at the Institute up last night. Let me go dump my things and I’ll be right back.”

Palmetto could barely lift his feet to the next stair as he climbed to the second floor and the guest bedroom. A toilet flushed, water ran, then he returned, his hands gripping the railing as he descended. He looked so frail, Boucher thought, but there was no weakness in his voice.

“How are you doing?” he asked when he got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Not great,” Boucher said. “Dawn took a bullet that was meant for me. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

“I know the feeling. Dexter murdered all those years ago, then Ruth Kalin. I carry the guilt of their deaths. We’ve got to put a stop to this bloody rampage.” Palmetto held on to the banister for support,
or perhaps it was to keep his hand from shaking. “I think Cantrell’s close by. I don’t think he’s running and I don’t think he’s looking for me. He and I are both obsessed with the same thing and he’s not going to let it go when he’s this close. He’s going to come after you again. You’re still in his way.”