“I know that,” DeMarco mumbled.
What Huston did next seemed a strange thing to DeMarco. Huston laid his hand atop the sergeant’s head; he leaned against him, their bodies touching, heads touching side to side. He remained motionless, eyes closed, for several seconds. DeMarco felt like a little boy again, and his breath caught in his chest. Then Huston moved away from him and returned to the rear of the car.
For the better part of five minutes, Huston struggled with Inman’s body, dragging and lifting and pushing until he had it crammed into the trunk. There was plenty of slack in DeMarco’s rope so he was able to turn and watch the struggle. Inman had regained consciousness but was far from fully alert. He squirmed against Huston’s efforts but with his legs bent back at the knee and tied to his wrists with nylon rope, his mouth taped shut, his resistance accomplished little more than to slow Huston down.
Next, Huston went to the opposite side of the garage where a dozen cement blocks were stacked underneath the stairs leading to the apartment. He laid two of these blocks on the floor behind the driver’s seat. Then he picked Inman’s knife off the floor and stuck it under his belt. When he returned to the shelf, he picked up the handgun and stuffed it into his waistband, then faced the car and closed the trunk lid. DeMarco grunted and moaned as loudly as he could to get Huston’s attention.
Huston peeled the tape off DeMarco’s lips but left one end attached to his cheek.
“Don’t take my service weapon, please,” DeMarco said.
“I’m sorry. I need it.”
“Thomas, c’mon. I’m too old to be demoted again.”
“I have no choice,” Huston said. He started to press the tape in place again.
“Wait, wait, wait. In the compartment for the jack on the side of the trunk. Take that weapon instead. It’s unregistered.”
Huston popped open the trunk again. With the service weapon now aimed at Inman and keeping him cowered to the side, Huston recovered the other handgun. Then he slammed shut the trunk.
“Thank you,” he said and pressed the tape over DeMarco’s mouth. “I’ll leave your service weapon on the shelf for you. Out of reach for now.”
He smiled one more time. Then he climbed into the car and drove away.
Sixty
Through the barn’s open door, the early morning mist was cool and as gray as a shadow. For the first few moments after Huston’s departure, DeMarco did nothing but inhale the morning in one deep breath after another. He was clearheaded and unhurt except for a dull throb at the base of his skull. It looks like you’re probably not going to die today, he thought and was a little disappointed in himself because of the shiver of pleasure the realization brought.
Even more pleasurable was the realization that Inman would die soon. DeMarco would do his best to prevent that because it was his duty to do so, but he knew he had small chance of success, and he considered his first priority keeping Huston alive despite the man’s obvious intent to subvert that duty.
DeMarco stood close to the wall and surveyed the possibilities. No nails within reach that he might employ as a scraping tool against the duct tape and nylon rope. But he soon discovered that if he moved as far from the wall as the rope allowed, held the rope taut, and rotated his hands downward, he could, with small, quick movements, saw the edge of the tape against the rope. Three minutes later, the tape around his wrists broke free. Now he could peel the tape off his mouth and pick at the knot on the rope. The latter was not easy with his upper arms down to the elbow taped to his body, but by bending forward, he could raise the knot to his mouth now, pull on it blindly with his teeth, lower it to check on his progress, then repeat the process until the knot finally gave way.
No longer tethered to the wall, he shuffled to the corner of the tool shelf, lifted the machete from its hook, and very carefully held the cutting edge against the layers of tape circling his chest. The tape split easily against the sharpness of the blade. With his arms free, he quickly unshackled his ankles.
He knew he should call in for backup, get an alert out on his car. But if he did that, he would have to report that Huston was armed. Any police officers encountered would be inclined to disarm him by whatever means necessary. And how would Huston react to that?
DeMarco felt certain he could track his friend down without such a confrontation. “You better be certain,” he told himself. “Because either way, you’re going to pay for this.” He recovered his service weapon and headed for the house.
In his living room he grabbed his cell phone off the floor, scrolled through the list of recently dialed numbers, found the one he needed, and hit the dial button. The clock on the DVR read 4:54.
He was grateful to hear Rosemary O’Patchen’s sleepy voice answer. “It’s Sergeant DeMarco,” he told her, “and I’m sorry to call you so early but I need your help, Rosemary, I really do.”