THE FOURTH WATCH (61 page)

He picked the bag up off the floor where it had
landed, shoved the few bills that had floated out of it back in,
and stuck it back in his pocket. He used a handkerchief to unscrew
the silencer and put them both in his pocket. He put the safety on
then took Sullivan's right hand and wrapped it around the grip and
pushed his index finger onto the trigger. "I hope you were a righty
there, Sully," he said to the dead man. He removed the gun from his
hand, flicked the safety back off and, having been to this type of
suicide many times before, dropped it on the floor where his
experience told him the recoil would have taken it. He stepped back
and cocked his head and looked at the scene. It looked right. If
his people weren't going to be in charge of this investigation,
he'd be worried about the lack of gunshot residue on the hand, and
about the entry wound, because of the suppression device. But he'd
make sure the right guy caught this one.

Matte took a quick look around the rest of the
place, to make sure he didn't miss anything, pulling on his driving
gloves as he went. Then he flipped the hood back over his head and
went out. He needed a power nap. He'd be going up to Baron Ridge
late.

*****

MADIGAN TURNED OFF
Route 122A into Rutland State Park and then
turned right onto a fire road and rolled up into the woods. The
snow was falling hard now, dancing in the Explorer's jouncing
headlights.

"I think you're gonna like it out here," he
said into the back seat. ''Nice and peaceful."

Walter watched the darkness close in behind
them like a seal. They bumped and rattled over the road, shadows
moving at the edge of the lights like demons running in the trees.
The truck cruised to a stop and Madigan cut the engine. The wind
whistling in the branches, sounded like moaning.

"End of the line, I'm afraid," Madigan said.
"Time to get you tucked in. Beds all turned down for
you."

"What's it all about, Madigan?" Walter said.
“You can tell me You're gonna kill me anyway."

"True enough. Not all that
complicated quiz kid. It's about money. You spend your life out
there doin' a job. At the top is a bunch of politicians second
guessing every move you make, setting
this
policy and passing down
that
regulation. Bunch
of IA pukes never been on the streets, passing judgment on
split-second decisions you have to make under fire. It gets old, so
you start taking back." He turned around and smiled at Walter. "But
I digress." He pulled on a pair of gloves. "Sorry, these are the
only ones I got." He climbed out of the truck and pulled a watch
cap down over his ears, then slammed the door.

Walter sat in the darkness. Please God, he
prayed, give me a shot at this asshole before he kills
me.

Madigan's mag-light went on and then he pulled
the back door open. He had the light in one hand and his gun in the
other. "Let's go pus-nuts, its cold out here."

Walter slid across the seat and dropped to his
feet. The snow was up over his shoes and up inside his pant legs.
He had on a three-quarter length overcoat that was not buttoned and
a flannel shirt. He could feel the wind going right through him
like he was made of screen.

Madigan pushed him in the back with the light.
"Let's go. This way." He put the light down on the road.

Walter walked in front of him. He kept slowing
his pace, hoping Madigan would draw close enough that he could turn
and jump him. But Madigan kept several paces between them. It was
bitter cold. Walter could feel his skin freezing in patches on his
face.

"Turn up that path," Madigan ordered. "Step
lively now. I don't want to be out here all

night."

The path went up a slope that was full of roots
and icy rocks under the snow. Walter's heart was pounding as he
climbed, and his breathing was labored. His shoes gave him no
traction and he slipped and scrambled his way up. Then the path
leveled off again and they plodded on.

Walter could hear the snow in the trees and
feel the ache of the cold in his bones. Up ahead there was a small
clearing. Dull moonlight filled it from a hole in the canopy.
Halfway there Walter could see dead branches along the side of the
trail. As they approached them Walter slipped and fell to the
ground.

Madigan stopped a few paces away. "Come on, get
up. Not far now."

"Yeah, fuck you, Madigan. Just get it over with
right here, the parade is over."

"Nope. A little further. Get up." He stepped in
quick and kicked Walter in the side of the head, knocking him over
on his back. The side of his head throbbed with pain.

"Fuck you," Walter yelled, and he thought:
please God, let him do that again.

"Get the fuck up you little prick," Madigan
said stepping in to throw another kick, and when he did, Walter
shot the bottom of his foot straight up, like a piston into his
groin.

Madigan groaned and pulled the trigger as he
doubled over. The roar of the gun was deafening. It couldn't have
been more than twelve inches from Walter's head when it went off,
and the muzzle flash burned white stripes on his retina. Madigan
was doubled over in pain, but trying to raise the gun for a shot.
Walter reached out to where he thought the branches were, his
cuffed hands digging blindly in the snow. They closed on a thick
limb and Walter turned to swing it with every ounce of strength he
had, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't tangled in snow or pine
branches. But it came free, and he swung it like a bat and felt it
hit Madigan in the head with a crack, just as the gun roared
again.

Walter felt the bullet tear white hot into his
side. He let go of the branch and rolled to his side and watched
Madigan go over backwards, pulling the trigger twice more, the
muzzle flash filling the trees with light. The mag-light had
dropped straight down in the snow, the effect like a wick being
doused. He heard Madigan groaning and moving around. Walter pushed
himself up on his arm and got his feet under him and tried to run,
his side burning, his legs heavy, but churning. Suddenly the beam
of the mag-light was crawling around him in the trees, and he heard
a shot and saw the muzzle flash going past him like a flash bulb
popping. He kept moving, trying to stay away from the beam that was
moving around him in the trees. Then he heard the roar of the gun
again and saw the flashes popping around him, and then he felt a
bullet core into his back like a lance, knocking him to the
ground.

Walter lay in the snow, gagging on the blood
that was filling his lungs. Bad, he thought.

He got his manacled hands underneath him and
pushed himself up on his knees and vomited. He could taste the
blood like copper coins in his mouth. Everything was quiet now. He
didn't see the beam of the mag-light sweeping around. The muzzle of
the gun had stopped flashing. Well that's good, he thought. He
tried to get up, got a knee under him, but then rolled and fell
over again on his back. He was lying in the moonlit hollow, he
realized. He could see up through the gap in the tree to the
tattered sky faintly lit by the hidden moon. It was sifting with
snow. He groaned and felt the heat leaving him, leaching away. He
felt incredibly tired, as if he'd been awake all his life, and it
was time to rest. He struggled to keep his eyes open. He wanted to
watch the moonlight making familiar shapes on the skin of the
clouds. He wanted to live this last moment, make it last a while,
maybe slide seamlessly into eternity. He watched as long as he
could, straining, arching his back to draw one more breath, and at
the very end he thought he saw a face in the clouds that he
knew.

41

ELLEN WHORLEY CRIED
herself to sleep. There was no rest in it. She
tossed and turned, never going down deep into the peace of it, just
rolling around at the top in the ache of it.

The dreams were horrific. The dead chased after
her. She couldn't get her legs to run in the dream quicksand. Her
heart pounded, her panting mouth was dry like molted snakeskin, her
skin crawled. Matte was on the bank of something like a river, but
with no water in it, reaching out to her, but she couldn't get her
arms to move to reach back. She turned her head and saw Carolyn's
boney grave fingers about to grab onto her shoulder, and she
screamed in her dream voice: 'Matte!' but her scream was choked off
by the bone fingers clamping down around her neck and...

Ellie jerked awake and sat gasping on the bed,
bathed in sweat. She could feel the throbbing on top of her head
and touched the bandage absently. The darkness had just a hint of
light in it from a moon that was clogged like a drain. Matte, she
thought, and then: What time is it? She looked at the digital
display on her night stand just as the last digit changed. 1:36AM.
"Shit," she said, her voice sounding small in the dark. She threw
the covers off of her and sat on the edge of the bed. She put her
feet into her slippers and pulled on a robe.

The night-lights were on in the hall. She
padded down the stairs and came out in the kitchen. She
double-checked the time on the stove clock. 1:38. He never
came.

Samantha would have been long in bed on the
other-side of the house. Maybe he came and Sam had told him that
she was resting. She would have supposed that he was there about
the accident and no doubt would have told him that she could not be
disturbed.

Maybe.

She went down the stairs into the great-room.
The fire had long gone cold. The flood lights were on in the back
and the filtered moonlight was brighter on the snow-covered lawn.
She stood at the window hugging herself, even though the room was
warm. Outside Mother Nature was raging, the snow, whipped by the
howling wind, was drifting into the paths Teddy had cut through the
last snow fall down to the garage and barn. The Herrera's had gone
home for the holidays and their cottage looked cold in the dark.
Ellie shivered. She knew she couldn't go back to bed. She was
too...stoked...to even think about it. She went to the cedar chest
and got a blanket and curled up on the sofa and watched the
storm.

*****

TEN MILES AWAY
Matte Genetassio was getting ready to leave his house on
Flagg Street in Worcester. He wanted to get going at midnight, but
he slept right past it. It didn't matter. Better to catch' em
asleep. Get' em while their groggy! He had to close this off.
'Ellen' had lost the Helena moxie of old. He wasn't sure he could
control her anymore. It had started to go bad when he had Meehan
clip the daughter and Knight. In retrospect, that maybe wasn't the
best thing to do. Perhaps he should have left that alone. Nobody
believed her anyway. But then she got that fuckin' Knight involved
and, Matte had to admit, that made him a little nervous. Knight was
stirring up the Loading Dock people, and talking about stirring up
the news people. So he'd listened to that bloodthirsty prick
Moltinaldo, who was now blaming him for shit going down in Seattle!
Give me a break! But, what are you gonna do? What's done is done,
no going back.

He'd taken a shot with Sullivan. A car accident
would have been best, would have kept him a step back from it, but
that didn't work out so now he'd handle it himself and try to
survive the blow-back. If the other woman was there, he'd have to
take her too. Either way he'd stage it up as a robbery/homicide and
then try to contain the investigation. Be tough now – all these
dead Whorley's, but what could you do? Beat the thing back a
little, get your shit together and run if you had to.

It wouldn't be easy. He'd have the Mayor and
the Chief and the newspapers all over him, but at least it would be
him dealing with it. He couldn't be worrying about Ellen baring her
soul in a fit of conscience and taking him down with her. She was
losing it. Knight looked fucked up when he saw him in the hospital,
and he hadn't heard anything from him since he'd been out, so maybe
that was taking care of itself. And Madigan had probably taken care
of DeMaris by now, although he hadn't heard from him. He looked at
the clock. 1:45. Come to think of it, why hadn't that asshole
called in?

He dialed Madigan's number, but it rang through
to the recording. At the tone he said, "Where are you? Call me" and
hung up.

He had another cold weapon to work with
tonight. This one was a S&W .357 magnum revolver. The Ruger he
left at Sullivan's had the serial number etched off deep with acid.
This S&W still had the number on it. Matte had bagged it from a
homicide scene at Bennett Field two years ago, before it made its
way into evidence. If the ballistics people ever made a match on
this, its last known use would look to be the shooting of a bank
guard in a robbery in Portland Maine. After tonight ... or this
morning ... he'd put the gun in his tackle box and drop it in the
reservoir next spring, when he went small-mouth fishing at the
cellar holes. If anyone ever found it, it would trace away from
him.

Wearing surgical gloves he loaded the gun and
put it with an extra box of shells on the kitchen table. He dressed
in his cop clothes: slacks, button down oxford shirt, tweed sport
coat over a shoulder-rig holding his department issue .45 and a
black, three-quarter length, top coat. In deference to the weather
he laced on a pair of over the ankle Timberlain boots. He put the
S&W and the shells in his coat pockets, grabbed the car gloves
and went out through the garage.