Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (30 page)

Ernie put down the beer can next to his plate and forked eggs into his mouth. She waited nervously until he mumbled, “Go ahead, eat.” Then she ate. She couldn’t taste the eggs but he wanted her to eat.

The dog was still looking alertly toward the front of the house. Suddenly he barked and lunged out into the dining room.

Ernie threw down his fork, grasped his rifle with both hands, and motioned impatiently to Olivia. “Sofa,” he snapped.

She hurried to obey as Ernie added, “Watch ’em, Sarge.” The dog dropped to his haunches and glared at Olivia. Ernie flicked off the TV and took up a stance beside the window.

She could hear it now too, what was troubling the dog. Faintly in the distance, voices. Hope and terror twined tight as a braid inside her. The voices were drunken, yowling voices. Coming closer.

They were trying to sing.

They were trying to sing “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

They were coming up the drive.

Ernie muttered, “Shit. Couple of drunks. What the shit do they want?”

“The ann-sher,” yodeled Jerry’s voice, “is blowin’ inna wind!”

“Wind!” Nick’s baritone, just as uncertain of the notes and half a beat behind, came in at last. He added, “Whatsa next versh?”

“Next. Something something roads?”

“No. That’s firsh versh.”

“Look. Here we are!” Jerry declared grandly.

Someone started banging on the door. Sarge, distracted from Olivia, looked at it and barked.

“Watch ’em!” Ernie corrected him sharply. The dog’s attention returned to Olivia.

“A dog. Hey! Nice doggie! Nice pooch!” Nick’s head lurched by the window. She thought he saw her. Oh, God, they were upsetting Ernie. They mustn’t upset him! But the banging on the door resumed.

“Shit,” muttered Ernie. With sudden decision he stepped to the door and swung it wide, rifle at the ready. Jerry grinned at him boozily through the screen door.

“Hi,” said Jerry.

“What do you want?”

“What do we want.” He tugged vaguely at the door but it was hooked. His brow furrowed with the effort of thought but his eyes had found Olivia. She looked at him with despair.

“A phone!” said Nick’s voice.

Jerry beamed. “Thass right, a phone! The car went in a ditch.” He waved vaguely toward the road. “Need a tow truck.”

Nick stumbled into view, knocking Jerry aside, and grabbed the doorjamb for support. “Tow truck, yes! Need a phone.”

“Look.” Ernie gestured with the rifle. “You two get back to your car. I’ll call the truck.”

They grinned at him stupidly.

“The goddamn tow truck is coming!” he enunciated loudly at them. “Now move!”

“Move. Yessir!” Nick let go of the doorjamb to salute. Overbalancing, he fell against the screen. His fist punched through the wire. “Oww!” he howled. “I’m bleeding! Shit! Oh, God! Ow!” His thrashing arm loosened the hook as he jerked his hand out. “Look!” he whimpered at Ernie, pulling open the screen door far enough to thrust his scratched hand inside. “I’m bleeding!”

“You’re puking drunk.” Ernie was disgusted but wary enough to step back, keeping the rifle barrel from Nick’s drunken grasp. “Come on. Move! Get out of here!”

“Blood? Lemme see!” Jerry jerked the screen wide and stumbled toward Nick, peering at the arm. “Jesus! It is blood!”

The rifle cracked.

Olivia flinched at the sound. Sergeant Rock growled at her. Ernie pumped another round into the rifle. Jerry and Nick tumbled into the room, diving drunkenly over the low bookcase to escape the noise. “Hey, somebody’s shooting!” Nick yelped to Ernie. “Better come inside, buddy!”

“Jesus.” Ernie was exasperated. “Look, you guys see this?”

He jiggled the rifle. Except for the warning shot, it had remained pointed at Jerry, carefully maneuvered out of reach of their stumblings, swinging smoothly to follow their moves. He jiggled it again. “This is a rifle. Understand?”

Nick sat up, peered over the bookcase, blinked at it. He looked like a giant baby trying to focus. He said, “Yesh. Rifle.”

“I fired it.”

“That made the noise?”

“Yes!”

“Hey,” Nick said importantly to Jerry, “that rifle made the noise!”

Jerry was on hands and knees, staring queasily at the carpet. “I don’t feel sho good,” he murmured, and pitched forward onto his face almost at Olivia’s feet. Had he been hit? She couldn’t see any blood. But she could smell alcohol fumes.

“All right,” said Ernie patiently to Nick. “You know it’s a rifle?”

“Yeh,” Nick agreed solemnly.

“And what I shoot next is you.”

“Hey, no, not me!” Nick’s big-baby face crumpled, on the verge of blubbering.

“Then sit on the sofa!”

In an overanxious attempt to please, Nick clambered to his feet, teetered, and fell back into the end of the sofa farthest from Olivia. Satisfied, Ernie swung the rifle to point at Olivia as he spoke to Sergeant Rock. “Good dog, Sarge. Down.”

The dog dropped. Olivia, nerves taut, sensed Nick’s flicker of tension, acknowledgment that the animal too was a lethal weapon under Ernie’s control.

Ernie, still behind the bookcase, rested the rifle on the top of the TV, still aimed at Olivia. With his left hand he ripped the cords from the TV and stereo and tossed them to Olivia. “Tie him up,” he instructed. “Tie his hands behind his back. You! Turn so she can tie your hands and I can see it.”

Nick obeyed. The thought of faking the knot crossed Olivia’s mind but she rejected it instantly. Ernie would catch her, she knew. Become enraged. Shoot them both. Shoot them all three, because Jerry would try to help. And a second reason was that she was terrified that Nick might try something stupid. She knew better than he that Ernie was balanced on a razor-edge, barely in control. They all had to do things his way or he’d explode again.

Better keep Nick quiet, keep Ernie calm. She pulled the knot tight around Nick’s wrists.

“Now the other one,” commanded Ernie.

She obeyed, crossing Jerry’s wrists behind him and tying them as he lay reeking on the floor. He whispered, “Not so tight,” but she didn’t acknowledge him.

“Now get their ID. Maybe in their wallets. Put the ID here on the TV.”

Olivia obeyed. She found Nick’s driver’s license and pulled it out. With a sense of panic, she noticed the Actors’ Equity card behind it. Ernie mustn’t learn that Nick was an actor. Mustn’t even think they might be faking. She shuffled the dangerous paper behind a library card and, heart hammering, turned to Jerry’s ID. Hospital card would be best, she decided, and slid it with Nick’s driver’s license onto the top of the TV for Ernie to inspect.

“Sit down,” Ernie commanded her. She returned to the sofa. “Sarge. Watch ’em.” But Ernie didn’t wander off this time. He kept the rifle aimed at foggy, worried Nick, his eyes shifting from him to limp Jerry to oh-so-obedient Olivia. He studied the cards on the TV with quick little downward glances. “Doctor. Damn,” he said. “And the other one from New York. Not cops, anyway. You would of been in bad trouble if they were cops, Olivia Kerr.” His attention shifted back to the disheveled pair beside her. “Maybe old buddies celebrating.”

He seemed to be talking to her, so Olivia said, “Maybe.” Her throat was tight and dry, her mouth still puffy and unresponsive. It was hard to get the words out.

“Ole buddies,” Nick agreed in a worried voice. “Hey, buddy, easy with the rifle, okay?”

“Do what I say and things’ll stay cool,” Ernie said.

“Okay. Whassa matter?”

“The matter is, you didn’t leave when I said leave.”

Nick nodded solemnly. “Sorry,” he said. “Needed tow truck.” Sarge growled and Olivia tensed. She hadn’t done anything! But the dog’s ears were swiveled back. Emie looked at the door and Olivia followed his glance. “Shay!” Nick exclaimed in delight. “It’s my wife! Hi, Maggie!”

But it wasn’t Maggie. It was Detective Schreiner. An icy knot clenched in Olivia’s stomach. A cop. Bad trouble, Ernie said. He would erupt. They’d all die. She prayed that Detective Schreiner would accept Nick’s lie, not say she was a cop.

The detective scanned the scene, frowning, and asked calmly, “What’s going on here?”

Ernie seemed deeply uneasy now. “Get inside here!” he snapped.

“Hey, Maggie, honey,” Nick said, “better do what the man says. Got a gun and a dog.”

Detective Schreiner moved casually out of sight beside the front door. Ernie shrieked, “You call the cops, lady, and these guys are dead! Understand? Or do I have to shoot one to prove I mean it?”

Schreiner’s cool voice said, “I understand. What do you want?”

“Get inside here!”

“Okay.” Cautiously, the sandy-haired detective pulled opened the screen and stepped inside. The dog growled.

“Sarge, down,” Ernie snapped. Olivia was amazed again at the personality change that came over the muscular shepherd with the different commands. From the crouching menace threatening to lunge at the slightest move, he switched to docile, eager to please. Ernie added sharply to Detective Schreiner, “Go sit down. Not next to your husband. In that rocking chair.”

Slowly, the detective obeyed. Olivia saw her dark eyes moving in the same quick survey Olivia had taken, marking windows, doors, dog, rifle, beer cans. She sat in the rocker, sandaled feet neatly together, and asked Olivia, “What’s happening?”

Nick came in quickly, with a guilty-husband air. “Shorry, baby, we’re sloshed. You were right. We asked to use the phone just like you said. To get a tow truck. Din’t we?” he demanded of Ernie. “Din’t we ask for a phone?”

“Yeah.” Ernie watched them carefully, eyes shifting from Nick to the newcomer. Olivia could feel his discomfort and bewilderment at what to do with all these invaders, could feel his dangerous edginess growing.

Nick continued, “And we fell down in the door, and he din’t like it. So he made ush stay with thish young lady, whoever she is.”

“Jesus. You’re too smashed to make sense,” Schreiner said with disgust, rocking back in the chair. The dog growled and looked around, perhaps sharing Ernie’s unease. The detective halted and looked back at Ernie. “Guess he doesn’t like me rocking. So what do you want with us?”

Olivia watched Ernie puzzle over the question, hunting for an answer that would leave him some options. Finally he nodded to Olivia and said, “Reporter here had some questions. We were waiting for a call and then these two broke in.”

Everyone looked at Olivia, but she looked only at Ernie. “That’s right,” she said. “We were just waiting for a call.”

“And these two drunks broke in,” Ernie prompted.

“Yes. They’re very drunk,” Olivia managed to say.

“God. You idiots,” muttered Schreiner to Nick and Jerry, and then directed a question to Olivia. “So now we’re waiting for a call? Call from who?”

Olivia could sense Ernie’s tension bubbling, overheating. She said quickly, “I don’t know. From his boss.”

Ernie’s mouth twitched in a tiny grin and he seemed to ease down a notch. She’d guessed right, then, it would be okay to tell them what he’d told her.

“Who’s his boss?” Schreiner asked.

“I don’t know. We were mostly talking about other stuff. Ernie’s a farmer and a hunter, and he was in Vietnam, so we were just—”

“Nam?” A quiver of pain seemed to run through Detective Schreiner. Her eyes squeezed closed an instant. Then she looked at Ernie with enthusiasm. “You were in Nam? I was a nurse there.”

“You’re kidding.” He stared at her, wariness and fascination in his look.

“18th Surgical, Pleiku.”

“No shit! We flew out of Pleiku sometimes!”

“Helicopter pilot?”

“Roger. First Cavalry.”

“God. You guys were great. When were you there?”

“’69, ’70.”

“I was earlier, ’66 to ’67. You pilots were fantastic! Guys were always telling us how you’d snatch them out of impossible situations. You saved a whole lot of people.”

That pained grimace pulsed across his face again. “Not all of them.”

“I know. Me too. Couldn’t save all of them.” With surprising vehemence, the detective added, “Nam sucked.”

“Still sucks.”

“Yeah. Still sucks.”

“Sucks so hard we’ll never get away.”

Schreiner’s eyes closed again. Olivia, taut with terror that Ernie would freak out again, watched the detective fearfully. Schreiner was tense too, holding the seat edge of her rocking chair with both hands clenched as though fighting pain. She said softly, “We don’t get away. It’s still killing people. Even now.”

“Even now,” Ernie agreed, and looked at Olivia. “This lady was asking about Cap’n Corky. He thought he’d got away. Dead now.”

Olivia, panicky, wondered if she was supposed to say something. But Schreiner, tense or not, was in there quicker. “Because of Nam?”

“You better believe because of Nam. God.” Ernie wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand. His right never left the trigger, Olivia saw. The rifle was propped on the TV, still aimed at Nick, who blinked stupidly every few minutes but didn’t move. Jerry was faking sleep, snoring gently. Ernie said, “I thought then it would be over. I thought, hey Mike, we got even. But it didn’t—” He looked at Schreiner, bewildered. “It’s not over. It’s worse.”