Nantucket Sawbuck (26 page)

Chapter Thirty

Reasonable Doubt

Lonnie Fraker and I were on either side of the door, with Kyle Donnelly and another Statie named Huff behind us. The noise stopped from inside. Lonnie was about to knock again when the door ripped open. We had a split-second view of Rafferty on his knees in the living room, then Delavane was bounding into us like a pit bull into a crowd of taunting children. A lunging blow to the throat dropped Lonnie. I threw myself backward as Delavane jack-hammered Huff with a series of punches and threw him into Kyle Donnelly. The two cops went down in a thrashing tangle of arms and legs.

I got my balance, jumped the pile and took off after Delavane.

Behind us, Donnelly staggered to his feet just as Rafferty sprinted out of the apartment. The two collided and I heard them go down.

I burst out into the street, twenty feet behind Delavane, both of us running hard. Delavane tore across Arrowhead Drive and into the Toscana complex.

The big excavation firm had bought up all this land a few years ago. There had been a nursery here and some apartment buildings. They had bulldozed the greenhouse and gutted the buildings for storage space. It was a bleak industrial landscape now, with rows of big green trucks, stacks of concrete forms, piles of tires, hillocks of gravel and dirt. Delavane darted between two rows of pipes and vaulted a steel I-beam held off the ground by a block of wood at either end. I was right behind him. Various Toscana workers leapt out of our way.

I didn't shout out “Halt” or “Freeze” or even “You're under arrest.” I knew that was pointless. I didn't un-holster my gun, much less shoot it as a movie hero might have. This was real life. There were innocent bystanders all around us and in any case, actually hitting what you aimed at with a handgun while running was physically impossible.

This was a footrace, plain and simple.

I had a few advantages. I was in the best shape of my life and I didn't smoke anymore—cigarettes, much less weed or crack. I knew Delavane did all three. I could hear the breath tearing in and out of the big man's lungs as I closed the distance between us. I also knew the territory, and it held some surprises for the uninitiated. Delavane was clambering over a hurricane fence. Just past it gaped a massive sandpit, a giant L-shaped crater, thirty feet deep and as big as couple of football fields, dotted with humps of dirt and excavating machinery, a grim and forbidding gash in the earth, the rim edged by the airport's chain-link fence at one end and a series of marine storage companies at the other, the white shrink-wrapped pleasure boats stacked ten high on metal racks.

This side of the pit was overgrown with brambles. They blocked the view and slowed you down. Before Delavane realized where he was, I had leapt onto a pile of lumber and hurled myself over the fence at the ex-Marine's back.

We hit the brambles together and rolled, spiked stems tearing at our ankles and wrists and faces. Then the bushes ended and we hurtled over the edge, rolling down the steep dirt slope. We couldn't get to our feet or even slow ourselves down. Sand abraded our faces though the sleet had packed it a little. After a bruising ride, I landed at the bottom flat on my back. Delavane could have taken me out if he had noticed, but he had already jumped up running.

I struggled to my feet and launched into pursuit again, skirting the big eight-foot cones of dirt that covered this section of the pit in even rows, right to the edge. The sand was soft and the footing was bad. We couldn't really run until we hit the packed flats, but once we did I started gaining.

Finally, I was close enough. I took a dive and connected with Delavane's knees. The big man pitched into the packed dirt with an explosive grunt. The freezing rain, which had let up briefly, started again now, pushed horizontal by the wind. We grappled briefly, then Delavane threw a punch at my jaw. I reared back and the massive fist just grazed me. Even so, pain detonated inside my head and I stood helpless for a second or two. Delavane jumped to his feet and pulled me toward him. My vision cleared and I saw the .38 Special stuck into the drug dealer's pants. Then an uppercut rammed into my stomach and I buckled to my knees.

I had a moment of clarity. I was alone in this stark manmade crater with a desperate criminal who out­weighed me by thirty pounds of muscle. Delavane had been trained to kill. He was armed. He had nothing to lose. His two punches had made me stupid, turned my bones into concrete. My whole body was vibrating. It felt like that last punch had done some real damage. The pain and nausea came in waves with my pulse. The ground was tilting. I was in no condition to fend off the next blow, and when it landed I'd be helpless. After a couple more I'd be unconscious. But that wouldn't stop Delavane. I was going to die here. This sociopathic drug dealer was going to kill me.

Delavane turned away, digging into his waistband for the gun. Through the clanging tinnitus in my head I heard a shout and thought, “Lonnie, thank God.” But it wasn't Lonnie.

It was Rafferty. He'd gotten loose and followed us. “You owe me a thousand dollars, you motherfucking piece of shit!”

That was his battle cry. He was a psychotic vision of torn clothes, wild hair, and dirt-caked blood, brandishing a kitchen knife over his head. Delavane worked the gun loose and started shooting. The first three shots missed, echoing off the sandpit walls. But the fourth shot took Rafferty in the shoulder and the fifth one shattered his knee. He fell and the knife went flying.

I had my own gun out now. I had stumbled to my feet behind Delavane, some dense speckled fog in front of my eyes. There were actually three of Delavane for a second, then two. I chose one and brought the butt of the big Glock nine-millimeter down on the back of his head. Delavane staggered forward but got his legs under him, turning, bellowing with rage. There were two shots left in his gun maybe more.

I hit him again, harder. I felt the blow from my wrist to my elbow and all the way up to my shoulder. This time Delavane went down.

I fell to my hands and knees beside him and vomited into the sand.

Things went hazy for a while. Lonnie called the ambulance, they cleared everyone out of the pit. Ed Delavane, dazed but otherwise unhurt, was taken directly to jail. Donnelly and Huff got patched up in the emergency room. Rafferty was waiting there for knee surgery.

I needed some surgery of my own, it turned out. Delevane's punch had ruptured a hernia in my stomach wall. It was an inherited condition, Tim Lepore assured me, and he was the only doctor on the island I trusted. I'd been born with it, just like my father. My son probably had one, too. Fixing it was a minor operation. I would have to stay overnight at the Cottage Hospital, but only because of the anesthetic. Lepore, a veteran of Vietnam MASH units and Boston inner-city emergency rooms, was dismissive about my worries, but his brusque bedside manner was oddly reassuring.

“You'll live, Chief,” he said on his way out the door.

The arrest was on the Boston news, and Lonnie Fraker came in while I was watching it.

“It was touch and go for a while there,” Lonnie was saying on the television, perched on the brink of the sandpit, a cute reporter's microphone in his face. “But the state police are trained for this kind of thing. And the local police were very helpful. We appreciate their support…even if all it means sometimes is getting out of our way and letting us get the job done.”

I turned off the TV with the remote. “You look good on TV, Lonnie.”

“Listen, Chief—”

“Don't worry about it. We caught the guy. That's all that matters. Besides, you came up with the final lead.”

“That Sun Island stuff got dumped in my lap. I happened to be there and I answered the phone. That's all I did and you know it.”

“Lonnie—”

“I'm sorry, Chief. Things got out of hand with those TV people. They were interviewing me and they assumed that I was, you know—that I had—”

“Let it go, Lonnie. It's fine. We all have an interest in the state police looking good. And it's a nice boost for you. You deserve it. You worked your ass off on this case.”

“But you—”

“I have a glass ceiling on this job. You know what I mean? I'm not going to get a promotion. I give out the promotions. And I have to tell you, the last thing I want is more TV coverage.”

“Not everybody feels that way. Kyle Donnelly was saying this afternoon—”

“I'll talk to Donnelly. We have to close ranks right now.”

Lonnie stepped up and shook my hand. “Thanks, Chief. You gonna be okay?”

“I'll be out of here in the morning. Hold the fort till then.”

“No problem. See you tomorrow.”

I had other visitors: Haden Krakauer and a couple of other cops who were concerned and awkward and brief. My ex-wife who managed to both make it into her story (“I was so worried, I cancelled my whole afternoon. This is such a mess. God, I hate hospitals. They make me feel sick, as if there was something
contagious
in that awful disinfectant they use.”) and find the real estate angle (“The bright side is, with the drug dealers cleared out of there, the whole Hinsdale Lane area is going to get gentrified fast. It may be the new Naushop.”)

My kids came, and their reactions were predictably diverse. Caroline wanted to know all the details of the operation—where they were going to cut and how long I'd be under and why I had to stay overnight. She was worried about everything from the cuts on my face to the hospital food and offered to bring me a bagel and coffee in the morning. Tim wanted to know about the arrest, the chase, the fight with Delavane. He was especially interested in the sand pit and I promised to take him out to the Toscana yards so he could see it for himself.

Fiona came in next, after an uncomfortable moment passing Miranda and the children in the corridor outside.

“So how do you like your quiet small town life now, Chief Kennis?”

“I've been thinking about that. It occurred to me the other day that this place has most of the disadvantages of a city, and none of the advantages. You've got crime, traffic jams, dirt, noise, construction going on next door, terrible parking.”

She smiled. “But no traffic lights.”

I winced. A rope of pain tightened around my stomach, squeezing my ribs together. Fiona reached down and stroked my cheek.

“Are you all right, Henry?”

I took her hand and kissed it. “I'm fine. Apparently I should have had this operation twenty years ago. Delavane did me a favor.”

“What a horrible creature. Were you frightened?”

“Terrified.”

“But it's over now.”

“Except the adrenaline goes sour like old beer. Ever sniff a can of Bud Light that's been sitting out in the sun too long? It smells like skunk spray.”

She stroked my hair. “Ahh, that mind of yours. Always working. Always looking for the right word. Even here.”

“Especially here. There's nothing else to do but read old magazines and wait for nasal fatigue to set in.” I waved a hand to include the whole room, which was already crowded with bouquets from concerned friends and citizens. “Whoever said ‘stop and smell the roses' never spent much time in a hospital room.”

“I should have told you I decided not to bring flowers, for that very reason.”

“No, no. I like the fact that it never occurred to you.”

“You're a strange one, Henry Kennis.” She leaned down and kissed me. “Be strong. I'll see you in the morning.”

Ken Carmichael, the prosecutor from the Mass D.A.'s office, was the last visitor and he only had a few minutes before they wheeled me into the operating room. He looked rumpled and exhausted, wearing the same brown suit he'd been wearing since he arrived on island. He needed a shave. But he was obviously in a good mood.

“Nice work, Chief,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I guess your pal Mike Henderson is off the hook.”

“Looks that way.”

“Sounds like you got lucky in the sand pit. I have a little rule of thumb I'll pass on to you. Don't go one-on-one with an armed psychopath in some dirt trench in the middle of nowhere. Especially when your back-up is Lonnie Fraker.”

I smiled. “I'm sure that comes in handy a lot.”

“And people say I'm overly specific.”

We were quiet for a moment or two. A gurney rolled by on the waxed linoleum outside the room. On a television next door, Dr. Phil was haranguing someone to lose weight. We listened and Carmichael shook his head. “That guy could skip a few meals himself, Chief.”

“Yeah.”

“So anyway…we're pretty much wrapped up on this one now. It's open and shut. I wish they were all this easy.”

“Yeah.”

Carmichael squinted at me. “What?”

“I don't know. I just got my head rattled and my teeth feel like they're off-kilter. Maybe my brains are scrambled, too.”

“But?”

“There's still a piece missing, Ken.”

“Tell me.”

“It's Kathleen Lomax. I've been thinking about her. She told me she turned the alarm on when she left the house that night. But no alarm went off when Delavane and his crew broke in. That means either they had the alarm codes, and I want to know how they got them, since now we're figuring it wasn't from Mike Henderson. Or someone else turned the alarm off for them, and I want to know who. The Lomax house had just been hooked into the station. Most houses aren't and none of the other places these guys ripped off were. This alarm was going to bring the cops, bored cops with nothing else to do. Every cruiser on the island would have showed up in the first five minutes. You see what I'm saying? If the alarm was turned off, whoever did it had to know about the new set-up. That's a good place to start.”

I struggled to sit up. Carmichael took a step back and raised his hands, palm out as if to stop me from leaping off the bed. “Down boy. We're ahead of you. I talked to Kathleen Lomax myself. Turns out she didn't reset the alarm. She and her dad had always disagreed about it. She thought it was crazy to treat a house on Nantucket like a fortress. But he insisted. Sometimes she turned it on and sometimes she didn't. This time she didn't. And she felt bad about it. She felt guilty. She virtually let those guys into her house. She might as well have given them the key. She was distraught. She didn't want to deal with it, much less admit anything to the cops. But I made her realize that coming clean now was the only way we could sew up the case against these fuckers. Okay, she did something bad. But lying about it would make it worse. Martha Stewart went to jail for perjury, not stock fraud.”