Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (30 page)

“That's no joke.” Tony's thoughts were dark as he looked at the depth of the ruts and the small footprints leading uphill from the truck. “Unless she walked down through the trees, Angelina's still up here.” He thumped his chest as if to emphasize the need for body armor. “If she's been up there cooking meth and using it all this time, who knows what she's liable to do when we knock on the door.”

Nodding his wary agreement, Wade checked his equipment.

They left the Blazer on the downhill side of the pickup and walked up to the house. A careful study of the outside showed no signs of Angelina.

She didn't come outside to greet them. Tony presumed she had been using so many drugs, she would find it difficult to recognize her own mother.

Giving Wade enough time to make his way through the piles of garbage to the back of the home, he knocked on the door. It shuddered with each knock. There was no response. No dogs barked. Tony didn't see them outside. He couldn't imagine her taking the dogs for a walk. Knocking louder, he called out, “Angelina!”

At length, he heard a rustling and banging inside. It sounded as if a cow had been locked in the building. Finally, the door flew open. Angelina looked even worse than she had the first time he'd seen her. She wore only an oversized T-shirt. It might have been white before it became a combination of napkin and drop cloth, and to Tony's eyes it did not come close to being a satisfactory cover. The combined aromas of rotting food and her poor personal hygiene sent him reeling backward about two steps. She stared at him without apparent recognition.

He addressed her in English and then in his best high school Spanish, explaining what he planned to do. The search warrant held no interest for her. She accepted it from him and let it fall to the floor. It didn't require a medical degree to see that she was drugged to the point of being comatose, mentally if not physically.

“Sheriff?” Wade's voice came from outside.

“Come around to the front.” Tony didn't take his eyes off of Angelina for more than a couple of seconds. No one else seemed to be in the house, but he didn't want to take any chances. He didn't recognize the hound of dubious breeding that wandered by, pausing on its way outside to hike his leg and pee on the woman's leg. She didn't react.

“Sir, I've found something here that you should see,” said Wade.

“Angelina?” Eyeing the open sores on her arms, Tony pulled on a second pair of gloves before taking her elbow with his left hand. “Why don't you come with me? A little fresh air might make you feel better.” As he pulled, leading her, she moved slowly, as if sleepwalking.

Wade stood near the shed. After an assessing glance at Angelina's condition, he turned his head and avoided looking directly at her. “It's definitely a meth lab. I'm surprised it hasn't exploded.” He shook his head. “There's enough matches and white gasoline in there to blow up half of the mountain.”

Tony peeked inside and nodded. “I warned them. Call it in to the district. Tell them we need it cleaned up soon.” He pulled Angelina away from the shed. Cleaning up a meth lab was not for amateurs. It was dangerous and expensive.

“Mine!” She began to struggle. “Lousy sons of beeches. Don't touch nothin'! You bad.” Her English seemed to desert her about then and she filled the air with what sounded like curses in Spanish.

Not amused, Tony slipped one bracelet of his handcuffs on her right wrist and read her rights to her in English and Spanish. Leading her around to the porch, he found a railing that he judged sound enough for his purpose. He slipped the second bracelet between rails and attached it to her other wrist. Someone had discarded a long-sleeved plaid cotton shirt on the porch. Tony grabbed it and tied the sleeves around her waist so that she wore it like a skirt. To thank him for his consideration, she kicked him in the thigh, missing her target. Luckily for him, her legs were short. As he and Wade went into the house, the sound of her swearing followed them.

Tony stopped cold just inside the doorway. Trash covered every surface in the house. The amount of garbage surprised him. He assumed that the yard looked bad because they threw their garbage out there, but now he realized what was in the yard was just the overflow.

It would take a little while to become accustomed to the smell. The worst thing he could do would be to go outside for a breath of air. “I don't know why they haven't just up and died in here.”

“Man, oh, man, I think something did.” Like Tony, Wade pulled a second pair of gloves over the first.

Tony looked around. They stood in the main room of the trailer, a combination kitchen, eating and living room. It was a decent sized room that held a couch, a couple of recliner chairs and a table with five chairs. A narrow hallway led to the bedrooms. He hoped that one of the bedrooms was Hub's.

“Man, oh man,” said Wade. It was becoming his mantra and Tony didn't blame him. Rotting food covered the counters and the floor. Wade stepped in something that, by the look of it, indicated that the dogs were not constipated. “Ah, hell.” He paused to scrape the refuse off his boot with an empty soup can. “How are we going to know what belongs to Brown and what belongs to Quentin or Angelina?” Wade gestured to the hodgepodge of litter.

“I vote for grabbing any piece of paper that has either of his names on it.” Tony held up a North Carolina newspaper with a mailing label. The addressee was Harold Brown. It had been delivered to a post office box.

Soon they had a sizeable stack of papers belonging to John Mize or Harold Brown. Some empty plastic grocery sacks they found on the counter were pressed into service.

The largest bedroom was littered with men and women's clothes. “You think this stuff belongs to Quentin or Hub?”Wade held up a pair of long, narrow jeans.

“Definitely Quentin. Mr. Brown hasn't got the legs for those.” Tony didn't see anything in the room that looked like it might belong to Hub. “Let's check the other bedroom.”

Surprising both of them, the second one smelled better. Still, it was a mess. Piles of things filled the corners and spilled from open drawers.

Wade pulled a chair out of the corner near the door. A warning rattle met his ears along with the ominous sound of something slithering across paper. It was dark in the corner and old clothes were piled into a heap.

He froze. “Sheriff?”

Tony turned, alerted by the quaver in Wade's voice as much as by the sound of the rattle. He drew his pistol and aimed in the direction of the deputy's horrified stare. He couldn't see anything but trash. “It's probably in a box, but we'd better be certain.” Inching his way closer, he looked for a tool. Leaning against the far wall, he saw a broom. “Hang on. I'm going to grab that broom and move some stuff. You get ready to shoot the damned thing.”

“Quentin owns a broom?” Wade's voice still shook, but there was a touch of humor in it. “Who knew?” His right hand inched his pistol from the holster.

A couple of careful steps resulted in Tony being armed and able to check the snake's habitat. Holding the broom just in front of the brush, he poked the handle into the corner and lifted away a pair of worn jeans. Without the muffling effect of the cloth, the rattle grew louder. The geometric markings of a gray and black rattlesnake were in shadow but still plainly visible.

Tony held his breath, watching it even as it watched him. Coiled, tail erect, its rattles vibrated but all Tony could hear was the sound of his own heart.

“Jeez, it's loose!” Wade flipped the safety off and took aim, arms extended. He held the Glock with both hands, his aim steady. “You're in my way.”

Tony stared at the snake. Its tongue flicked in and out, the forked tip easy to see. The snake seemed to coil more tightly. The sound of the rattles intensified. Tony stayed motionless as he considered his options.

“I've got no place to go. You back up.” The words were no more than out of Tony's mouth than he realized that there was another snake working itself into a coil only two feet to their right. It looked just as mad as the first one.

“Wait. Do you see it?” He whispered. He had no way of knowing if the sound of loud voices irritated snakes or not, and he certainly did not want to take any chances.

Behind him, Wade did not seem to be breathing. A faint, “Yeah” was the response.

“On three, I'm going to hit snake one with the jeans and you take out snake two. I'm going left. Maybe you can get number one then.” He stared at the snakes. “Okay?”

“Yep.” Wade gradually swiveled his upper body, leaving his feet and legs still, and took aim at the second snake.

“One.” Tony tightened his grip on the broom. “Two.” He squinted as he visually measured the distance to the snake. “Three.” He swung the broom and jeans at the snake and jumped to the left. The blast of Wade's shot was deafening in that small space. Something caught his right ankle and he looked down. The jeans had hit the mark, pushing snake number one out of the way. Stunned, Tony stared at the creature attached to the outside of his leg. “Damn! Wade!”

Pivoting, Wade pulled the trigger and hit his mark. Two shots into snake number one. “Don't move.” The first two snakes dead, Wade turned toward Tony.

Tony didn't even breathe as he waited for Wade to fire. It was a half-second that felt like a lifetime. At the moment he heard Wade's fourth shot, he felt the bullet pierce the snake's body. Only the flawless accuracy of the shots meant that the snake was dead and Tony's leg was untouched by hot lead.

The slow-motion effect of the entire event allowed Tony to consider that if he, or any of his deputies except Wade or Sheila, had taken those same shots, two out of three snakes would be rolling on the floor, laughing too hard to slither anywhere. At the same time, Tony would be seriously injured. He shuddered to think how the impact of a bullet that size hitting the flesh and bones of his lower leg would feel. It would be devastating from that range. “Damn, you're good.”

“Wow! I didn't see that one.” Wade was checking for more snakes. “Where did it come from?” He didn't wait for a reply but babbled on. “It was hanging from your pants. Did it get you, Sheriff?” He picked up the discarded broom with his left hand, holding the pistol ready with his right and began to work his way through the debris, inch by inch. There was a broken snake box in the corner. A pile of papers stuck out of the false bottom.

“I think so.” Tony leaned against the doorframe to examine his ankle and found a pair of small holes in the bottom of his khaki pants leg. Without the light shining through them, they would go unnoticed. Lifting the pants, he saw dark spots on his khaki socks just above his shoe. He was certain that he had been bitten, but had to push down the top of his sock to see.

A double puncture wound was right next to his anklebone. One hole seemed slightly smaller than the other one. The heavy leather of his shoe must have deflected it. Blood oozed from the injury. “Grab those papers. We're leaving.” He pulled his sock back up. “We'll call Doc on our way.”

Wade scurried to add the papers from the box to the ones they had already bagged.

Tony walked outside, just ahead of his deputy.

By the time Wade caught up, Tony had refastened the handcuffs in front of their prisoner. It reassured Tony that he felt little pain. Wouldn't it hurt if it were bad? He'd heard of snakes biting people and not releasing any venom. With any luck, that would be what had happened to him.

Angelina bombarded them with a constant stream of invective. Swearing in two languages, she disparaged everything from their ancestors to their manhood.

Neither man paid any attention to the obscenities she screamed at them. They hustled her down the drive and around the bend, heading for the Blazer. Quentin's truck didn't look any better from this angle.

“Just as a matter of curiosity,” Tony inquired as he pointed to the crumpled truck. “When did you do that?”

Angelina's reply sounded like another curse. She didn't look remorseful at all. She was still squawking when Tony helped her into the back seat and shut the door.

“Sorry I asked.” He tossed Wade the keys and climbed into the passenger seat and reached for his phone.

This side of the mountain had terrible cellular phone reception. After one attempt to use the phone, Tony radioed Rex. He didn't bother to tell Rex much more than that they were bringing in Angelina, before he asked to be patched to the doctor's phone. It took only seconds to get Doc Nash on the line.

When the doctor wanted verification about the type of bite, Tony was offended.

“I'm damned sure that it was a rattlesnake, Doc,” he barked in response to the doctor's question. “It bit me. Wade killed it and there were rattles on its damned tail. Noisy rattles. Now there's a pair of bleeding holes in my ankle and it's starting to swell.”

“Does it look bruised? How much is it bleeding?” Doc's words boomed through the radio.

Tony pushed the sock down. “Yes. It does look bruised, but it's not bleeding very much.” He glanced through the windshield and then back at the swelling. “We're at Nellie Pearl's and moving fast,” he said. “I don't think it's necessary, but Wade's got the lights and siren on. Where do you want us?” His ankle didn't feel bad, but he'd swear that his tongue was swelling and his lips felt numb.

“You sound funny.” Doc's voice crackled in his ear. “How do you feel? Do you have the snake with you?”

“Muh wips and ton are bitting mum.” Tony was pleased that he was able to answer clearly because his thoughts were a bit jumbled. “No snake. Neber wad to see that snake again. Oh, man, it's really starting to hurt.”

“Tony, can Wade hear me?”

Tony nodded.

Wade spoke loudly, not quite shouting, “I hear you Doc. The sheriff is getting worse.”

Tony could hear Doc's voice. It looked like the sound was coming out of Wade's mouth. Fascinated, Tony heard Doc say, “Come straight to the clinic. I'll meet you in the back.”

Wade drove fast and carefully, pulling up in back of the building that served as doctor's office, emergency room and next to it, the county morgue. From there emergency patients were sent home, driven to Knoxville or airlifted to Knoxville. The parking area doubled as a helipad.