Serial (35 page)

Wayne Westerley lay half asleep in Beth’s bed. Her head was resting in the crook of his arm, and he could hear her gentle breathing. They were both lying nude on top of the sheets, letting the air conditioner cool the room after the heat of their coupling. Westerley absently decided that the gradually dropping temperature had reached a perfect level. He felt satiated and peaceful and could easily doze off.

His cell phone began to vibrate where he’d placed it on the nightstand. Beth stirred but didn’t wake up. With his free hand, Westerley picked up the phone and glanced at it. The county sheriff’s department calling. A good part of the county sheriff’s department was here in bed with Beth. The thought amused him as he pressed the talk key and fitted the phone to his ear.

“Sheriff?”

It was Billy Noth, his deputy. “What’s up, Billy?” Westerley kept his voice low.

“We just got a call from the New York City police.”

Westerley snapped all the way awake, but he didn’t stir. “’Bout what?”

“There’s a warrant out for Link Evans to be arrested as a suspect in the Skinner murders in New York. You know, that nutcase who—”

“Yeah, yeah, Billy.”

“I figured you’d want to know,” Billy said.

“I did and I didn’t.”

“I know what you mean, Sheriff.”

Westerley broke the connection.

He was dumbfounded. Still trying to put his thoughts together. Beth had told him Link wasn’t due home until tomorrow from the numismatic convention in Denver. He played again in his mind his conversation with Billy Noth.

The Skinner?

Link?

Westerley considered contacting the New York police immediately; then he realized they’d be able to determine the origin of his phone call. Not only that, if his office got the message from New York, the state police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol almost surely received the same message. They might already be busting their balls on their way to see if they could apprehend Link here, where he lived, where Westerley was in bed with the suspect’s wife.

He wriggled back on the mattress and sat up straight, waking Beth, and switched on the light by the bed.

Beth lay on her side and smiled sleepily up at him. “Something wrong, hon?”

“A few things,” Westerley said.

Link Evans enjoyed being early. It didn’t happen very often. His visit with the woman he’d gone to New York to see had taken less time than he’d expected. She’d provided the opportunity for them to be alone together almost as soon as he’d arrived in town. He figured that if his luck held, he’d be home before ten-thirty. Beth might still be awake. He could surprise her.

Link’s luck did hold. The plane bounced gently twice on landing, then slowed rapidly with the engines roaring on reversed thrust. When the roaring dropped to a lower level, the pilot announced that they’d had a tailwind and were ten minutes early.

Deplaning was smooth and efficient. Link had no luggage to claim, so he was out of the main terminal fast. He’d left the pickup for Beth this trip and driven the Kia to the airport. The shuttle to the lot where he’d left the car was parked and waiting at the curb, as if just for him.

He was away from the airport and on the road in no time, driving fast toward home.

It was ten-twenty when Link slowed the car at the mouth of the driveway and let it roll to a stop. The house was dark. Beth must have gone to bed early.

Rather than wake her, he pulled farther into the driveway and left the car parked off to the side on the grass.

He wasn’t going to bother unpacking tonight, and he didn’t feel like lugging his suitcase all the way up the long drive. He left the suitcase in the trunk, then made sure the car was locked and began walking toward the dark house.

When he got closer, he saw the back end of an SUV that was parked behind the house, where it wouldn’t be seen from the road or driveway. And the house wasn’t completely dark. He noticed soft light escaping from where a shade hadn’t been pulled quite all the way down. Silently, he approached the steady bar of light showing beneath the shade. He moved aside the branches of an overgrown forsythia bush that he’d neglected to prune. Crouching low, he peered inside through the window.

It was the bedroom window.

Quinn tried not to look at the dashboard clock or his watch. Beside him, Pearl squirmed. They’d been making good time before traffic had slowed, and then gradually stopped, on the Interstate. Now they were creeping forward at less than ten miles per hour.

“Way it looks on the GPS,” Pearl said, “we’ve only got a few miles before our turnoff.”

“GPS tell us why we’re crawling along?” Quinn asked.

“Not even if you asked it nice.”

The highway curved, and ahead of them Quinn could see a long line of traffic and flashing red and blue lights. Though it was difficult to know for sure in the dark night, it appeared that traffic was being diverted to a single lane.

No. When he got a closer look, he saw that what had been a single lane was now realigning itself and again becoming two lanes.

There was a state patrol car parked just off the shoulder.

“Looks like an accident,” he said, “and they finally cleared the wreckage off the highway.”

Traffic began to pick up its pace.

They were doing fifty miles per hour and accelerating as they passed the twisted mass of steel that had been a car. A sheet or blanket covered a body that lay on the grass on the side of the road. Yellow lights flashed on the roof of a tow truck that was slowly bumping along, making its way against traffic by driving on the shoulder. A state trooper was frantically waving an arm in a circular motion, as if getting ready to pitch a ball underhand, urging drivers to keep up their speed. Quinn could hear a siren in the distance, probably an ambulance.

“No rush on the ambulance,” Pearl muttered, craning her neck and staring at the body as they passed.

Quinn made no comment, and she said nothing more. Each knew the other considered the accident scene a bad omen.

Concealed behind the forsythia bush at the bedroom window, Link held his breath as he watched Westerley climb nude out of his, Link’s, bed. Beside him lay Beth, Link’s wife. She was nude and on her side, one knee slightly drawn up, her hip rounded and smooth, in a pose Link had seen in dozens of old paintings. She reached out and ran a hand languidly along Westerley’s back as he straightened up.

Link clenched his teeth until his jaws hurt.

It was the way Westerley moved that got to Link—casually and comfortably, as he usually moved, with a well-muscled animal’s grace and power. As if he was familiar with his surroundings, as if this was his home, his bed, his wife. Pretending might make it so, if you wore a badge.

Mindful to be silent, Link backed slowly away from the window. As he did so, dark clouds scudded across the moon, changing the shapes of still objects and seeming to set them into motion. When Link was in shadow, he moved farther away from the house, toward the garage.

Inside the garage was his steel gun locker with its combination lock.

Inside the locker was his Remington twelve-gauge shotgun.

Westerley managed to slide one leg into his uniform pants, but the other got tangled in material halfway in. He hopped around for a while on one bare foot.

By the time he’d gotten his other leg through and was buttoning and zipping up his pants, Beth had her nightgown on and was frantically trying to arrange the sheets and fluff his pillow so it would appear that she’d been in bed alone.

Finished with the bed, she went to the window and pulled the shade back slightly with one finger so she could peek outside.

“We’ll hear them drive up,” Westerley said, trying to reassure both of them.

“You’ve gotta be outta here before then, Wayne.” Beth didn’t sound reassured.

“Don’t I know it.” He plopped his Smokey hat on his head, knowing he looked ridiculous standing there shirtless and barefoot, but he didn’t want to forget the hat. He could leave his shirt unbuttoned, work his feet into his boots without socks. The important thing was to back the SUV out from behind the house and down the driveway before the state police showed up. He’d have to do a hell of lot of explaining otherwise.

Beth, still at the window, said, “Holy shit, Wayne!”

Westerley stood frozen with his shirt in his hand. “What?”

“Link’s out there! And he’s got a gun. Gotta be a shotgun. He keeps one locked up in the garage.”

“He’s not due till tomorrow night.”

“Whenever he’s due, he’s here!” She stared at Westerley with huge eyes. “Remember he’s the Skinner, Wayne. He’s a killer!”

What Westerley remembered was that he’d left his nine-millimeter handgun in its holster hanging by its belt over the back of a kitchen chair. He broke for the kitchen but took only two steps before tripping over his boots and sprawling on the floor.

He started to get up and dropped back down hard when pain jolted like electricity through his right elbow where he’d bumped it on the floor.

Funny bone. I get the message.

I’ll be shooting left-handed!

He tried to stand up again and had made it about halfway when he heard the brass chain lock on the front door clatter. The chain rattled louder, Link testing the door.

Westerley barely made it out of the bedroom, and thought for a second he might make it to the kitchen and his gun, and maybe even out the back door. He would be armed then, out in the night, where he could formulate some sort of plan.

That at least might draw Link outside. Westerley wasn’t going to leave Beth here alone with Link and his shotgun.

But the sheriff didn’t have the time he thought he had. Link kicked the door open and stepped inside with the shotgun, looking at Westerley with eyes that might as well have been corneal transplants from a shark.

Quinn braked the Taurus and made a sharp right into the driveway. He almost hit the car parked off to the side, half on the grass.

“Ho, boy!” Pearl said, pointing ahead through the windshield.

They both saw the dark figure of a man kick open the front door and enter the house, carrying a rifle or shotgun.

“Let’s go into the kitchen where we can sit down and talk about this,” Westerley said. He kept his voice calm while his mind darted this way and that. He had to defuse this situation. “We can have us a couple of beers.”

“I don’t fancy one of my beers,” Link said.

He racked the shotgun’s mechanism and a shell popped out of the breech, bounced on the floor, and rolled in a half circle.

“I got more in the magazine,” he said.

“Don’t make a move,” a man’s voice said behind Link. It was an authoritative voice speaking slowly and carefully. “There are two guns aimed at your back, and we’re too close to miss.”

Link didn’t move. The shotgun remained pointed directly at Westerley.

Westerley gave him a level look and said, “Stand down, Link.”

Link said, “Get in here, Beth.”

Quinn heard shuffling on a bare wood floor, then saw a frail-looking woman with a pretty but haggard face walk stiff-legged with fear from the bedroom. She was wearing only a nightgown and a pair of oversized fuzzy pink slippers.

Link Evans hadn’t moved a muscle since Quinn and Pearl had entered the house. He remained still. “Come to me, Beth. Come to your husband.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Beth,” Westerley said.

Link laughed. It sounded like a dog’s single, guttural bark. “She doesn’t do it and I’ll blow your heart clear out through your back.”

“I think you’re gonna do that anyway,” Westerley said. So calm and easy it made Link want to kill him right then.

“This isn’t a walk in the park, asshole!”

“We all know that, Evans,” Quinn said. He kept his tone even, almost casual. Evans was revving up for something. On the keen edge.

Evans still hadn’t turned and looked at Quinn and Pearl. In a way, he was dismissing them. In Link’s mind they were part of the game but predictable and controllable. He was ready to lose his life, if that’s what it came down to. Quinn knew that. Knew how dangerous Link Evans was right now.

Beth kept her gaze fixed on her husband and moved softly and slowly, as if she didn’t want to wake something lightly sleeping, until she stood only a few feet from him. She was obviously trying not to tremble. Cold with terror.

“Got your car keys in one of those pants pockets?” Link asked Westerley.

Westerley nodded.

“Pull ’em out so I can see for sure.”

Westerley did, holding the keys at waist level away from his body.

Smoothly and so fast it surprised everyone, the shotgun barrel moved to aim at Beth.

“We’re gonna leave the back way, out through the kitchen,” Link said. “You, me, and Beth. You lead the way, Sheriff.”

Quinn and Pearl watched as the three of them went single file into the kitchen, the shotgun barrel steady and aimed at Beth Evans. Where she moved, it followed. It was a compass needle and she was magnetic north.

As soon as they were in the kitchen, Link Evans glanced quickly back at Quinn and Pearl. He actually gave them a thin smile as he pushed the kitchen door closed behind him.

Quinn heard the metallic cluck of a lock and what sounded like a chair being shoved beneath the doorknob.

He and Pearl were locked out of the kitchen.

Pearl looked at Quinn and silently mouthed an obscenity.

He motioned for Pearl to follow him, and they went out the front door fast and hurried around toward the back of the house, toward where he remembered Westerley’s SUV was parked. He figured Evans would make Westerley drive, with Beth in the passenger seat. Evans would sit in back with the shotgun, making sure the two up front didn’t misbehave.

As they crept cautiously along the side of the house, Quinn had that much figured out.

All he needed now was some kind of plan.

Link motioned with the shotgun for them to leave by the back door. It was such a small but unmistakable movement of the long barrel that the opportunity to jump him was here and gone in an instant, before Westerley could respond.

Beth was gripping Westerley’s right arm now. Squeezing hard. That didn’t help the sore elbow.

Link gave her a shove, and her hand fell away from Westerley. Link’s effort made the shotgun barrel momentarily drop. Beth was fumbling nervously with the chain lock on the back door, momentarily diverting Link’s attention from Westerley.

This time Westerley seized his opportunity. There was nothing to lose by rolling the dice. Link had come into the house to kill them. Now they were only alive because they had temporary value as hostages.

Westerley dived for the kitchen chair, where his holstered nine-millimeter dangled from its black leather belt draped over the chair’s wooden back. The belt came free even though the chair toppled. Westerley rolled, trying to be as difficult a target as possible while he wrestled the heavy Glock handgun from its holster. He was vaguely aware of Beth screaming, of Link shouting something at him, but it all seemed to be happening dreamlike and at a distance.

He was in a pocket of time and place that moved slowly as he slid the gun from its holster and began raising his arm to take aim at Link.

Westerley’s arm was still throbbing where he’d banged his elbow against the floor in the bedroom. His heart plunged as he realized he was raising the Glock slower than Link was swinging the shotgun around to point at him. Westerley fired a shot, but he was too eager and the bullet went into the floor. The arc of the shotgun barrel was as inexorable as fate.

There was an explosion and a blast of light. Something like a train crashed into Westerley’s chest and right shoulder. The floor hit him in the back, and he was staring up at the ceiling and kitchen light fixture. The ceiling wouldn’t stay still; it was like the underside of a floating rectangular object in a heavy sea. Westerley turned his head to the side and watched Link Evans get the back door to outside open and shove Beth through it ahead of him. He didn’t bother glancing back at Westerley as he rushed out into the night.

Westerley suddenly realized that his head, which he’d raised slightly so he could watch Link and Beth leave, was incredibly heavy. He let himself go limp, and the back of his head struck the floor. The kitchen, which had been dim to begin with, was now completely black.

Westerley understood why Link Evans hadn’t bothered glancing back at him as he was leaving. Link had already mentally subtracted Westerley from equation of what was happening this dreadful night. For that matter, probably so had Beth.

They think I’m dead or dying.

I think they’re right.

Quinn was ahead of Pearl when he heard the roar of the SUV’s big engine. The vehicle skidded around in the gravel in reverse until it was pointed down the driveway. Quinn dropped to one knee, holding his vintage police special with both hands and aiming carefully. He was aware of Pearl doing the same beside him, on his right side and back about a yard.

The SUV’s knobby tires threw gravel as it sped down the driveway and past them. A few small pieces of rock struck Quinn’s right cheek, stinging and causing him to squint.

It didn’t matter anyway. The angle was bad. There’d only been a second or two when Quinn or Pearl had even a difficult shot at Link Evans, who was on the far side of the SUV and crouched low behind the steering wheel. Beth Evans was in the passenger seat, between them and her husband. If they had managed to fire over her and hit Link, his frantic return fire with the twelve-gauge might have struck Beth. She was sitting forward, braced with both hands on the dashboard so hard that her elbows were locked. Not having her seat belt buckled was the least of her concerns.

The SUV had passed Quinn and Pearl so fast it left only what seemed a still photo in their minds: the speed-blurred vehicle, the driver bent over the steering wheel, the rigid figure of Beth, her mouth open wide in a silent scream. A study in speed and desperation.

Quinn remained kneeling but deftly switched positions and got off three shots at the SUV’s rear tires. He heard Pearl’s Glock bark twice. She was also trying to hit a tire, lying on her stomach in the dirt and gravel, keeping down so her bullets would follow a low trajectory.

The SUV didn’t seem affected by their gunfire. When it was near the end of the driveway, brake lights flared, as Link slowed to turn onto the state road.

Quinn and Pearl were already up and racing toward the parked Taurus.

Not that they’d be able to catch Westerley’s SUV, which doubtless had the police package and could outrun any rental.

They piled into the car. Quinn drove down the rutted driveway. Pearl dropped her gun and had to bend down and retrieve it where it was bouncing around on the floor. As she straightened up, she bumped her head painfully on the dashboard.

Quinn made a right turn out of the driveway, behind the SUV.

Once on the county road, it became obvious that the rental didn’t have the horses to catch the SUV. Quinn could see its taillights ahead like amused red eyes watching the Taurus recede.

The SUV took a curve and disappeared, then reappeared up ahead when Quinn followed in the Taurus. He lost control when the rental car’s tires broke contact with the road, and the car might as well have been on ice. Quinn wrestled with the steering wheel and mashed his foot down hard on the accelerator, powering out of the skid and causing the car to swerve from one side of the road to the other. Pearl had slid forward and was out of her seat.

He stole a glance over at her. “Put on your damned seat belt, Pearl!”

She scooted back into the seat, tucked her Glock beneath a thigh, and managed to buckle up. When she looked over at Quinn, she saw that he hadn’t fastened his seat belt.

Finally he regained full control. Beside him, Pearl was bone white, but she said nothing.

The state road straightened out where it began its approach to the Interstate highway, but the SUV’s twin red eyes were farther ahead and pulling away. Quinn kept the accelerator pedal flat to the floor, and the Taurus’s speed began to edge up. They were doing over ninety now. They couldn’t catch the SUV, but they might manage to stay reasonably close.

Red and blue flashing lights appeared up ahead. Something coming in the opposite direction. And coming fast.

Quinn figured that would be the state police, speeding toward the Evans house.

Quinn began flashing the Taurus’s headlights.

The state cops caught on fast. They had to. Westerley’s SUV passed them going the other way at over a hundred miles an hour. As Quinn watched, two state patrol cruisers made sweeping U-turns and gave chase.

Another showcase of dancing red and blue lights exited the ramp from the interstate. Another highway patrol cruiser. It was headed directly for the oncoming SUV. The two vehicles would pass or collide within the next twenty seconds.

The patrol car suddenly went into a skid and stopped so that it formed a roadblock in the narrow county road. To get around it in the SUV, Evans would have to leave the pavement.

As they neared the scene, Quinn sized up what was happening. He saw the uniformed highway patrol cop jump out of the cruiser, leaving it with its lights on and angled across the center line, and dash from the car toward the side of the road as Westerley’s SUV approached.

The SUV’s brake lights flared and it slowed. Quinn and Pearl were closing fast. Then the SUV built up speed, and Quinn knew Link Evans was going to try driving around the roadblock.

Link sped toward the parked highway patrol car. He left the pavement to drive around the cruiser, and chose the side of the road where the uniformed patrolman had run to take cover and wait.

Bad choice.

As Quinn and Pearl watched, the SUV veered off the road and around the parked cruiser. Quinn saw what appeared to be muzzle flashes, and the SUV made it back onto the road but was swerving drastically. What looked like chunks of tire flew into the night.

The other state patrol cars, and Quinn and Pearl in the Taurus, were closing fast when the SUV left the road on the opposite side.

“He’s lost it,” Pearl said.

The SUV bounced off the shoulder and sailed into the dark woods. Its headlight beams went crazy among the trees.

The scene ahead came at them even faster, and then they were a part of it.

“Stop this damned thing!” Pearl yelled.

Quinn was already standing on the brakes.