The Summer Man

Chapter THIRTY





I an Henderson pulled the patrol car into one of the designated slots at the back of the station, noting with some dismay that there were at least two news vans in the lot. Maybe because of the community theater…and what the f*ck was that about, anyway? The theater was a good ten blocks away, he couldn’t see it from the lot, but the air smelled like smoke, like burned trash. Was the fire out? Had anything else burned? He half ran to the back door, wishing to f*ck he’d had a cup of coffee at least, feeling like a little caffeine would at least prep him to face whatever was coming. He’d been snug and deep asleep in bed less than twenty minutes ago; it just wasn’t f*cking fair.

Through the back room, where the battered coffee pot was always gurgling, where the lockers branched out on either side. Margot Trent was talking to Dave Miller near the cafeteria table, and they both shut up when he came through, conspicuously looking away. Miller had a smear of what looked like ash on his forehead. Henderson considered stopping to tell them what might happen but still thought there might be time to avert the disaster, and he didn’t want to waste it talking to those two. Margot took herself way too seriously, and the only reason Miller wasn’t wearing jackboots with the rest of them was because he was a p-ssy.

He settled on saying, “Heads up,” and patted his Glock.

There were a couple of cops milling around in the squad room, part-timers. The press liaison from the council, a retired lawyer named Dawes, was talking to a trio of reporters in the waiting area plus a handful of summer people, some kind of impromptu press conference at the very front of the building, but Henderson ignored all of them. The man he wanted was where he’d expected, in his glass box of an office at the grand, old building’s northwest corner. LaVeau, Leary, and Trey Ellis were with him. Vincent’s team. All armed, including Vincent.

Henderson didn’t bother knocking. Leary and LaVeau both looked anxious, but Trey was bouncing on the balls of his feet; he looked wired, like he was going to jump out of his skin. The naked gratitude in Vincent’s eyes made Henderson feel sick. He closed the door behind him.

“You’re here,” Vincent said. “Good, that’s good. They’ll be here anytime.”

“You said Wes Dean was coming, with county IA?” Henderson asked.

“A f*ck and his rat,” Trey said, and barked laughter. Henderson and Vincent both ignored him.

“They have questions,” Vincent said.

“Are you going to answer them?”

“Whatever I do, Dean’s going to nail me. Us.” The chief drew himself tall, his chin up. “We going to let that happen, Ian?”

Henderson answered carefully. “I don’t want to die, Stan.”

“Anyone dies, it’ll be that f*ck and his f*ckin’ rat,” Trey said.

“Shut up,” Henderson said. He kept his gaze on Vincent’s, but the chief’s kept darting away. He looked crazy, his face twitching, his attention all over the place.

“No one’s going to die,” he said.

“Yeah, I might think that, except all of us are carrying, and you know they will be…and none of us are exercising much self-control lately; you know that, right? You gotta know something’s weird.”

“Weird?” That from Frank LaVeau, who’d watched the exchange with some interest. Frank had taken it upon himself in the last six weeks to roust anyone with a seedy look, to convince them that Port Isley was not a good place for them, and he’d used his fists to do it. One of the drifters he’d beat up had traveled on and died at a shelter in Port Angeles from injuries sustained during his run-in with the cop. Upon being informed of the death, LaVeau had said, “Well, that’s one less coming back, right?”

“The way things are, the way everyone is this summer, since June,” Henderson said, still looking at Vincent. “Think about it. You know what it’s been like. Like what those people were saying, the reporter and that doctor, how violence is up, how we’re all…” Henderson trailed off, grasping at the concept, applying it to himself for the first time.

“We’re all what?” Leary sneered. “Seems to me, you’re either on the team or you’re not, Ian. You’ve been here, haven’t you? Man up. That f*ck is coming in here to bust us for running things the way they should be run, and you know it.”

Trey laughed, a high, whinnying sound. “Straight up.”

Frank LaVeau looked to Vincent, who wasn’t looking at any of them. His attention was fixed on the squad room outside the glass box of his office, on Wes Dean and a pretty woman with a decidedly unhappy face at his side, at the pair of uniforms that accompanied them. Debra had stalled them for a moment at the front desk, but they were about to go around her. Henderson recognized one of them, his counterpart on the county, Dean’s right-hand guy, Brett Rusch.

Early. He might have gotten somewhere with Vincent, but he had been counting on another five minutes, at least.

“Don’t do it,” Henderson said, giving it all he had. “Surrender your weapons, lay them down now, we can get out of this, whatever it is. Don’t let it get out of hand. Think about Ashley, Stan. Ashley and Lily. You want her to grow up without her daddy?”

“Get out,” Vincent said.

Trey Ellis had his hand on his weapon; so did Leary. Henderson had no doubt he could outdraw them, but Vincent was letting him go; he should get out and be f*cking thankful. Vincent had gone Brando from whatchama, that awesome flick; Henderson had tried to read the book it was based on like four times and couldn’t get past the flowery descriptions, guy’s name was…

Get out! Go!

He half turned and walked sideways to the door, not wanting to turn his back on Trey, who wanted to draw down. The dumbshit was looking forward to the confrontation; that was written on his face and in his stance. Henderson backed out of the office watching Vincent’s face, a brave commander witnessing an act of cowardice. Henderson respected war veterans all to hell; his family had always had someone in the military, a cousin, an uncle. When he was a kid, he hadn’t understood how people could put themselves on the line for an ideal, for a principle…but after some time as a cop, he’d started to get it. Soldiers fought for the guys standing next to them, because they’d all been stuck with a shit deal, because they didn’t want to die…but this wasn’t a war, and these weren’t his brothers because they all wore badges for the f*cking PIPD. He had been sincere and honest with Vincent; he did not want to die, and if that meant a dipshit rookie or a fat shit like Leary or some closet Nazi thought he was chickenshit, so be it. Vincent’s reproach didn’t hurt nearly as much as the idea of being dead, of no more f*cking or watching movies or eating fresh fish he’d caught himself. And all because they’d been infected with something, maybe. That was like eating a bullet because you caught the flu.

He backed into Wes Dean, but it was his guy who stepped up, Rusch.

“You want to watch it, Ian,” Rusch said, working to get in his face, but Henderson couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous, more useless at the moment.

“Vincent’s crazy,” he said, speaking as he backed past the posse. “Get out of here.”

The unhappy-looking woman spoke. “Officer Henderson? Perhaps you could make yourself available to us for—”

“Shut the f*ck up, he’s 5150, you get it?” The name from the movie and the book suddenly came to him. “Kurtz, he’s gone Kurtz. Back out or you’re looking at a situation, you copy? Anyone?”

Debra, at the front desk, gave him a wide-eyed look and then hurried for the back room, pulling one of the rookies with her.

Dean spoke up, his voice naturally commanding. “Someone get those civilians out of here.”

“All over it,” Henderson said. He stepped around the front desk, grabbed Henry Dawes, and whispered in his saggy ear that everyone needed to be evacuated ASAP, that there was an emergency. The press liaison barely skipped a beat, turning a calm, solemn face to his group of listeners.

“Excuse me, I’m told that we need to clear this area immediately,” Dawes said. “If you’ll come with me—”

Two of the three reporters started snapping questions at him—the third was apparently involved in an important cell conversation, one he just couldn’t walk away from—but Henderson was still really feeling the whole not-wanting-to-die vibe. He was tempted to keep moving in spite of the sudden blockage, to just push his way through…but he also wasn’t such a selfish dick that he would leave without trying. He turned to the nearest person, a summer man with a cane, his fat wife at his side, and spoke low and clear, so that everyone around might hear.

“Bomb threat,” he said loudly, making eye contact with the surprised tourist. “Everyone get out, now.”

A half dozen shocked expressions, and then they were all turning, heading for the door, quickly, Henderson right in the middle. The third reporter had finally snapped his cell phone closed.

“What? What did I miss?” he asked, and the guy with the cane called him a dumbshit, and his fat wife agreed, her frightened face bobbing on a couple of chins. Henderson didn’t disagree. He pressed with them at the doors. There weren’t enough people for anyone to get squashed so long as they kept walking, and he found himself ducking a little; he was a tall man, and he wondered if all those myths were true about not hearing the shot that killed you.

He was outside then, all of them were, and he headed for the parking lot at the side of the building. At least it was a wall between whatever was going to happen and—

The shots were sudden and terrible. Henderson automatically counted, and lost count before he’d gone two steps; there were at least four or five weapons firing: 9 mm rounds punctuated by heavier thunder, had to be the .357 Smith and Wesson revolver Rusch liked to carry. Around him, the herd of civilians ducked, shouted, ran faster for the possible safety of anywhere else.

Henderson headed for his patrol car in the lot. More shots were fired. Nothing more from the .357.

“Get down! Get down!” Dawes screamed from the front of the building, his courtroom voice carrying. “Keep low!”

Henderson didn’t duck now that he was out of the direct line of fire. He’d been too late, after all.. He was going to go home, pack a bag, and he was going to get out of town for a while, until this shit was resolved. He was officially on vacation until further notice.

In the low, ugly square hedge that separated the parking lot from the station, a woman crouched, her eyes rolling in her head like a rearing horse’s. She was so terrified that she’d frozen in an unlovely squat, clutching her purse with both hands, nothing about her moving but her eyes, her teeth gritted in a weird parody of a smile.

Henderson sighed.

“Ma’am? Come with me, please,” he said, and reached down and helped her to her feet. She let herself be pulled, a middle-aged woman who might have looked nice, it was impossible to tell through her rictus of fright. She clutched her purse tighter, and Henderson looked back and saw that at least four of the people from inside had followed him.

“This way,” he said, steering away from his car. He’d at least have to get them out of harm’s way, establish a safe perimeter. Inside, three shots from a Beretta 92FS, the M9, weapon of choice for most of the county sheriff’s office—Henderson had one himself—and then there was nothing. In front of the station, people were shouting.

“I haven’t even had coffee yet,” the middle-aged woman said. He still held her arm and thought that if he let go, she might fall. She’d fixed on him with her stunned expression, but he was noting the time on his watch. Last shots fired at 7:48. Maybe. Henderson finally heard what she’d said, and nodded.

“Tell me about it,” he said, passionately.