Plains Crazy (17 page)

Brown wiped a sudden bead of sweat from his brow. He did it with the hand holding the fifty caliber and never seemed to notice when he dragged its blued steel across his forehead. He looked around the room and searched the eyes of each member of the board of supervisors. “Well,” he told them, “you should have explained it real clear like that right off the bat. Now, how much do you need?”

***

Judy had repacked her luggage at least three times. It was that or climb walls. Would she wear that little off-the-shoulder number if Englishman didn't come with her? Or was the black dress with the daring neckline a better choice? She packed one, then the other, then both.

What about bathing suits? Should she go with the conservatively cut Speedo or the bold bikini she'd bought a few years ago and never worn, except to model it for Englishman? The Speedo came out and the bikini went in. Or, did she even need a suit in France? Weren't there nude beaches everywhere? The bikini came out. Then both bikini and Speedo went back, along with doubts she would have the nerve to indulge in public nudity, even if it was the norm.

Was one pair of hiking shorts enough? And, considering how full her bag was getting, should she pack another?

She was anxious to head for Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport, now that she had her travel money and new hairdo. Especially since running those errands might have turned her into Buffalo Springs' most wanted fugitive. And it was almost noon. She started to call Englishman to tell him she was ready to leave, except she couldn't. The girls had taken the station wagon. They were supposed to be helping at the potluck. She could walk over to get the car easily enough, but she might be spotted and end up spending precious time explaining the incident at the Farmers & Merchants. And, she admitted to herself, she wasn't looking forward to telling the Heathers about her sudden vacation plans, especially if Englishman wasn't going. While there was a chance he might, she waited, and considered outfits and European weather patterns and her fantasies of what two weeks in Paris could be like. Until the headache started.

Damn inconvenient time for a migraine, she thought. She popped a couple of super-strength pain killers and got ready for it. She closed drapes and turned the living room into the quietest, darkest place possible, dampened a washcloth and filled it with crushed ice, then lay down on the couch with it draped over her eyes and forehead.

Was this the price of getting old? She wasn't even menopausal yet, but already her hormones were doing crazy things to her body—like throwing these migraines at her. They didn't last long—that was the bright side. She just had to wait them out. Then the pain hit and there was no bright side, except the arc of lightning that danced inside her head.

She had just reached the stage where she wondered if she would have the strength to make it to the bathroom if the nausea got any worse when everything got worse. Something screamed in her ears and, for a moment, it felt like her head must have shattered into thousands of pieces that would cascade off the sofa and litter the hardwood floor. She surprised herself. She managed to sit up. The agony of rising was worth it if she managed to keep the phone from ringing again. For a moment she just held the handset, savoring the fact that it couldn't continue making that titanic assault on her eardrums. One end of the phone was making softer noises at her, insistent ones. She finally held it near an ear.

“Judy?” It was Mrs. Kraus' raspy voice. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

Making herself get the phone had carried her past the migraine's edge. She could handle the sounds Mrs. Kraus was producing if she didn't let the earpiece get too close. The dim light filtering past the curtains didn't blind her anymore, though she saw two of everything. Double vision—that would go away too, just like the nausea which had almost vanished. She thought she might be able to speak if she had to. Under the circumstances, she decided to give it a try.

“Yes.” The effort nearly exhausted her. She wobbled a little, but she knew it was over now. In a few minutes she would merely have an awful headache. By the time she got to Wichita, it would have subsided to a dull throb. By the time she was over the Atlantic it would be gone entirely. Until the next one.

“Are you all right? You don't sound like it.”

Judy concentrated. “I'm fine,” she lied. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, Englishman asked me to call, see if you were still there.” There was a space between the words and Judy's ability to comprehend them. And a moment more to decipher the hesitation in Mrs. Kraus' voice. Mrs. Kraus might have agreed to make this call for Englishman, but that didn't mean she was happy to get stuck with it.

“Englishman's not coming, is he?” Judy was suddenly sure of it. If he were, he would have called her himself.

“He's doing his best,” Mrs. Kraus countered. “There've been three bombs in town today, Judy. Notes claiming they're set by al Qaeda. He's got two deaths to investigate. And there's been an attempt on Mad Dog's life.”

“I'm still leaving by twelve-thirty, whether he's here or not. You tell him that. Then tell him I'll phone from Paris to let him know if I'll be back.”

There was a long silence. Mrs. Kraus sighed. The poor woman must have known she was stepping in a hornet's nest, but she hadn't realized the hornets were already riled.

“Okay, Judy,” Mrs. Kraus said. “I'll tell him he's got till just after midnight. Give him a little extra time if you can.”

“Not midnight,” Judy said. “Half past noon. I'm leaving here at half past noon.”

“You can't.”

“Why? Why can't I?” Judy was ready to argue.

“'Cause it's already five to one,” Mrs. Kraus said. And then she asked Judy if she were all right again, only Judy didn't answer because she'd dropped the phone and sprinted to where she could see the clock on the kitchen wall. It was twelve-fifty-six and she still hadn't gotten the car. Hadn't changed and wasn't on the road somewhere between Nickerson and Hutchinson where she'd planned to be…because somehow those few minutes on the couch had turned into more than an hour.

***

The sheriff was spotted with mud and mulched plant parts from the blast. So, he noticed, was Deputy Wynn, and neither of them had found anything in the ditch more enlightening than a discarded beer bottle and an empty chewing tobacco tin.

“That bomb's in a gazillion pieces,” Wynn Some whined.

“Let's make one more pass through the crater in the ditch,” the sheriff told him. He started to wade back down in order to lead by example when the woman who ran the cash register at the Texaco stuck her head out the door and hollered.

“Is Englishman still over there?”

He must be more of a mess than he'd thought.

“I'm here,” he said, trudging back to the edge of the blacktop and waving.

“Oh, sorry, Sheriff. Mrs. Kraus is on the phone. Says she can't raise your cell anymore. Nor your deputy's neither.”

The sheriff drew his cell phone and checked to see that it was still on. It was, but the display told him it was in desperate need of a charge, something he'd forgotten to give it last night.

“Thanks,” he told her. “Wynn, you turn this ditch into a grid and go back through every bit of it while Mrs. Kraus tells me what new catastrophe has struck. And check your cell phone, see if it's on.”

The highway was empty and there weren't any customers at the Texaco. According to his watch, the potluck had begun almost an hour ago. It didn't pay to be late to a potluck.

The front door was propped open to allow the woman at the cash register to share a day the sheriff would have described as perfect—but for its surplus of bombs and bodies. He paused to brush himself off and stomp the worst of the muck from his boots before he stepped in and took the phone she offered.

“Sorry,” the sheriff told Mrs. Kraus. “Cell's lost its charge, and Wynn probably didn't have his on.”

“Lots of people been trying to get you,” Mrs. Kraus said in the dulcet tones of a metal file taking a burr off a plowshare. “Doc first. Your latest delivery isn't anybody local, far as he can tell. Says he's amazed at your powers of deduction, though. Your motorcyclist was a she.”

“She?” That took the sheriff by surprise. The body had been badly mashed by the tree, but he should have at least considered the possibility. Too much going on, and all of it too fast. “What else? Any more bombs turn up?”

“Well, your brother just walked in with a hand grenade. Good thing I wasn't close to my Glock when he showed it to me or you might need to be taking him over so Doc could do his third autopsy of the day.”

“Hand grenade? Mad Dog?”

“Yeah, seems Hailey uncovered a cache of weapons over at the Bisonte. Mad Dog and Janie Jorgenson brought it here to show you. Your brother, he's a wise ass. Said maybe we should call the White House and tell them we may have found where Saddam hid those weapons of mass destruction.”

“Mad Dog still there?”

“Nah, sorry. Guess I should have kept him around for you to talk to, only I shooed them off. Thought maybe he and Janie might have some getting reacquainted to do. You know what a hopeless romantic I am.”

“Mad Dog say what else they found? Bomb making materials maybe?”

“Don't know. I figured you'd want to look for yourself. Judge Livermore came by to drop me off a plate from the potluck and I had him draw up a search warrant.”

“Good thinking.” Benteen County had such a small population and so few major crimes that the sheriff's department often didn't trouble with the legal niceties. Folks trusted the spirit of the law rather than its specifics, and the fact that everybody knew each other meant public guilt didn't necessarily require a verdict to result in suitable penalties.

“I don't think Craig Finfrock's at the Bisonte just now. The supervisors haven't come back since they went to the Farmers & Merchants. Could be across the street at the potluck, or downtown still, checking to see if the bank robber cleaned out their personal accounts.”

“They make that call for help Chairman Wynn promised?” A pair of butterflies fluttered in the Texaco's open door and landed on the paperback rack—on one of those romance novels that show a pair of impossibly beautiful people whose garments have been rent in tasteful but titillating fashion by their adventures. What one butterfly proceeded to do to the other would only be implied inside the cover on which they perched.

“Not that I know of. So, after I called Judy for you, I called the FBI.”

“You got Judy? She was still there?”

“Yeah. You owe me for that one, Englishman. I know you're busy, but that's a call you should have made yourself.”

“But she's waiting for me? She's not going?”

“I didn't say that. It was a peculiar conversation. She sounded preoccupied to begin with, then gave me a message to tell you she was leaving promptly at half past noon, only it was already later than that and when I told her so she stopped talking to me. That wasn't long ago, but I'd say she's probably on the road to Wichita, even as we speak.”

“Damn,” the sheriff muttered. “Well, the flight's not till four-forty. If this trip to the Bisonte breaks the bomber thing, maybe I can still catch her. Deputy Wynn and I came up empty here. We'll go to the Bisonte, now, and see if we can turn around our day. Call Wynn's cell if you need me. I'm going to relieve him of it.”

“Whoa,” Mrs. Kraus said. “Don't you want to know what the FBI had to say?”

The sheriff popped himself upside the head with the palm of one hand. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Kraus. Of course I do.”

“I spoke to the Wichita office. I spelled it all out for an agent—pipe bomb, letter bomb at the Farmers & Merchants, third device at the Texaco. Told him how we got notes claimed it was al Qaeda.”

“And?” the sheriff asked when she paused for longer than he liked.

“He said ‘Yes, ma'am' and ‘No, ma'am' and ‘We'll get right on it, ma'am.' Real polite fellow, but I could tell he thought I was some fruitcake. I begged him to check us out and get back to me.”

“And you haven't heard from him,” the sheriff guessed.

“And don't expect to. Not soon, anyway.”

“I'll try the KBI on our way to the Bisonte. They might take us seriously.” He thanked her again and hung up and found something resembling the creature from the black lagoon standing in the door and dripping on the tiles while it tried to give him a hunk of metal with its outstretched hand.

“Could this be important?” Wynn Some asked.

The sheriff took it and decided it could. It was a battered timing device. The blast had bent it up pretty badly, but it was clear you couldn't set the thing for more than sixty seconds.

***

If Hailey's wound hadn't already been treated, the blood on the front seat of the Cooper would have panicked Mad Dog big time. Instead, even though the car still had less than four thousand miles on it, the damage to the upholstery hardly fazed him. He pulled out his handkerchief and cleaned the passenger's seat for Janie, let Hailey make herself comfortable in the rear, then demonstrated that the little car had room for big people by joining them.

“Where to?” Janie asked.

“We're kind of late for the potluck. If we go, I need to stop by Dillons and get a couple of pies from the deli. We could do that, then see if there are any leftovers in the park.”

“Will the celebration still be on?” She shrugged and answered herself. “Of course it will. This is Buffalo Springs. If bombs are going off around town, people will want to get together even more so they can talk about them.”

“I expect lots of your old friends are there. They'd love to see you.”

She smiled. “That would be nice, but maybe not today. Can we get some sandwiches at that deli, put together a picnic lunch and go find a quiet spot where we can talk some more?”