“It’s what we’re here for.”
I handed the radio back to Williams and sprinted to the back of my truck, where I always kept a first aid kit. Somewhere among all the bandages and wet wipes, ointments and surgical gloves, I knew there was a packet of aspirin. The profusion of tiny containers was maddening. Finally I found it: a single foil pack containing two aspirin. With trembling fingers, I tore open the foil. Both pills popped out, skittered across the truck bed, and began rolling toward the gap in the tailgate. As the first pill rattled down into the recesses of the bumper, I lunged desperately, snagging the other just as it reached the opening. My own heart was pounding now.
Kitchings had regained consciousness by now, so Williams and I propped him against one wheel of the Jeep. As he chewed, grimacing from the acidity of the pill or the pain in his chest, I told him about the shooting, the crash, and Waylon’s pursuit of the shooter. He quizzed me closely about the shell cases—
how many? “Five,” I said. What caliber? “Waylon said thirty-thirty. Long, like a hunting cartridge. Your deputy has ’em in his pocket.” Kitchings looked at Williams and held out his hand.
Williams fished out the bandanna, untied the knot, and placed the nest of cartridges in the sheriff’s upturned palm. “Careful; there might be prints on them,” I said. Using a corner of the fabric, the sheriff carefully lifted one shell and studied its flat base. His face—already a mask of pain and anxiety—did not change expression. “Yep, Winchester thirty-thirty,” he grunted. “Leon, that mean anything to you?”
“Hell, Sheriff, there’s gotta be a hunnerd thirty-thirty deer rifles in Cooke County alone coulda fired those, and a few hunnerd more in spittin’ distance.”
Kitchings nodded grimly, retied the bandanna, and fumbled with the button on his shirt pocket. “Sheriff, I was gonna take them back to the office and get ’em off to the TBI crime lab. Like the doc here says, might be some prints on there. Maybe some ejector marks or firing pin impressions in the TBI ballistics database, too.” The sheriff tucked the bandanna into the pocket. “Sheriff, with you goin’ to the hospital and all, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be carryin’ evidence off with you. Gonna break the chain of custody; hell, they might even get lost.” Williams reached toward the sheriff’s pocket, but Kitchings knocked his hand away.
“Goddamnit, Leon, I ain’t dead yet,” he growled with surprising force. “I am still the damn sheriff of Cooke County, and I am taking custody of these damn cartridges.” Just as Williams opened his mouth to argue, an orange and white helicopter skimmed over the ridge and dropped to the valley floor. The instant the wheels touched ground, the flight nurse and paramedic were out the door with a litter. Ignoring the deputy and me completely, they set it on the ground and laid the sheriff down, snapping a safety belt across his hips and another, loosely, across his chest. Then they called us in to help. The four of us hoisted the stocky sheriff, bore him to the chopper, and slid the litter through the double doors. Even before the doors slammed shut, the two turbine engines were spooling up.
Through the window, I glimpsed the nurse starting to rig an IV bag. But it was only a glimpse. The helicopter leapt off the ground and banked westward with the speed of a combat aircraft. As it vanished behind the ridge, I checked my watch. Twenty-three minutes, give or take one, had elapsed since the sheriff sank to the ground. If the first hour was golden, I hoped that made the first halfhour platinum. In any case, if speedy diagnosis and treatment were as crucial as the cardiologists claimed, Kitchings should be back on the job within a few days.
But I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. I also wasn’t sure I’d ever see those cartridge cases again. I turned to Williams. “Deputy, once the dust settles and the sheriff’s back on his feet, you might ought to get him to write you an evidence receipt for those shells.”
“You bet, Doc,” was all he said. But the expression on his face—a swirl of anger, frustration, and fear—spoke volumes more. Trouble was, I couldn’t quite catch hold of the meaning.
CHAPTER 36