“Toss it. The whole jacket.”
He did, wincing once more.
Shaw fished out and pocketed the keys.
“The wall.”
Merritt knew what Shaw meant and he complied, feet spread, palms flat against the ugly green wallpaper. Despite the lifted-shirt routine Shaw frisked him carefully, with his left hand, keeping the Glock muzzle near his neck. Shaw relieved him of a phone.
“PIN?” Shaw asked.
Merritt gave him the numbers. “But it’s not working, hasn’t been for a half hour.”
Unlocking the unit, he saw that the screen didn’t say no service. It was simply blank, though the unit was powered on.
“The radio.” He pointed outside to Kristi’s sedan.
“It’s not a sheriff’s cruiser,” Merritt said. “It’s her private car.”
Shaw said, “We drive out.” He looked at Merritt. “With you restrained.”
The man shook his head. “We wouldn’t get fifty feet. They’re up the ridge, those two, waiting for you. They’ve got long guns. With scopes. The Buick’s a half mile up the road. After dark, I’m thinking we’ll start the Chrysler.” A nod toward Donahue’s car. “Gun the engine. That’ll distract them. Then hike north through the woods to the Buick. Get to Millton.”
A look outside. Yes, if they were on the ridge — and it was a logical place to be — they could pepper the car with hunting rounds. Merritt’s plan was not a bad one.
Parker asked, “How long till dark?”
Shaw glanced to the sky, a rich blue, bleeding to gray. “Forty, fifty minutes.”
He then said, “Sit,” and Merritt did.
He looked over to his ex-wife sitting on the floor. “A.P., how is it, your leg?” Using what must have been a pet name from the old days.
She didn’t answer. She seemed capable only of staring at the man.
Shaw answered for her. “It’s not a bleeder. I’ve done what I can, but I want her in a hospital soon.”
“In the backpack,” Merritt said. “Pills. Painkillers. I took ’em off a tweaker about two miles from here. He told me you’d been hit.”
The shot he’d heard. Was it Bee he’d had the run-in with? And was the young man no longer of this earth?
Shaw unzipped the backpack and pulled out a plastic bag, large, though it contained only one small bag of white pills.
“Oxy,” Merritt said. “The real thing. Stolen from inventory. It’s safe. No fent or anything else mixed in.”
Parker said, “Not now. If I need it.” Maybe thinking of her husband’s addiction.
“No, A.P. You’ll have to be able to move. And move fast. Take one. Hannah? There water here?”
The girl’s cool façade had dissolved, and uncertain she glanced at Shaw, who nodded. She stepped into the kitchen, ran a glass and brought it to her mother, who took the pill that Shaw offered.
He looked at the larger bag, dusted with meth residue.
Noticing his eyes, Merritt said, “The kid had some deliveries of ice in there too. I dumped it.” He shrugged. “Once a cop...” He examined Shaw. “I saw you on your cycle, at Alli’s rental. I decided you weren’t blue, but that pat down, maybe I was wrong. You’ve done this before. You ever law?”
Shaw didn’t answer. He nodded to the backpack. He asked, “Other weapon?”
“Sort of.” The men’s eyes met and Merritt seemed almost amused at his own ambiguous response. “It’s wrapped up in a towel.”
Shaw dug through the bag. He found a bottle of Bulleit bourbon, what looked like an antique metal desk clock, food, papers, clothing and, at the bottom, something heavy wrapped up in terry cloth. He opened it. For a moment he didn’t move.
No...
He was holding the scorched metal frame of his Colt Python, the grip burned away. The last Shaw had seen of the weapon it was in the fire pit at the lodge on Timberwolf Lake. Merritt said, “Had to be yours.”
Shaw nodded.
“A fine weapon,” Merritt continued. “Thought you wouldn’t want to lose it. A gunsmith can fix it up. Good as new.”
Shaw now studied Merritt and was aware that prison had not been kind. He was pale, and eyes sallow. The thinning hair added to this image. He’d lost muscle recently. He slouched.
Hannah spoke in a whisper of disbelief. “You shot her!”
It was Colter Shaw who responded. “I don’t think Kristi was who she seemed to be.”
Merritt added, “She was a Marshall County deputy, that’s true. But she was working with them, those two who burned up your camper.”
“But,” Parker whispered, “you hired them...”
Merritt appeared confused. “Me? Where’d you get that idea?”
“This’s a trick,” Hannah blurted. She turned her fierce eyes toward him. “You killed Mom’s lawyer!”
“Oh, David? He’s fine. Well, pissed off, I don’t doubt. But fine. He’s out by now.”
“Out?” Parker asked.
“I thought he knew where you were hiding. He didn’t. After we had a talk I was convinced of that. But I didn’t know if I could trust him, so I taped him up in the basement of one of the old factories on Manufacturers Row. I mailed letters to the police and his paralegal telling them where he was. Mail, you know, with a stamp. I didn’t want him out too soon.
“No, Han. I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t hurt anybody, the past couple days. Not seriously. Shot a clay pot of your friend Dorella’s.”
“What?”
“No danger. Just needed her and her shotgun back in the house. And I stole this woman’s Buick. Mrs. Butler. Threatened her, scared her some. But I didn’t hurt her. That tweaker I got the drugs from? I shot him, yeah, but only in the foot. I couldn’t have him running back to his kin. I needed to get on your trail. He probably got a concussion when he fainted and hit the ground. Felt bad about it. But, then again, that boy did not make a very wise career decision.”
Parker seemed to be wrestling with all this. Trying to decide whether or not to believe him.
Colter Shaw was inclined to. About seventy to eighty percent.
A chill voice, Hannah’s, asked stridently, “And Mr. Villaine?”
“Villaine? What about him?” Merritt’s pale brow furrowed. “Oh, no... is he?” His shoulders slumped farther.
“He’s dead,” Parker said angrily.
“Jesus Christ... No, no...” He looked in the direction of the hill in front of the cabin. “They found out about him because of me.” Dismay flared. Merritt lowered his head to his hands. “I was so stupid...”
Parker said, “I don’t understand... Any of this.”
But Colter Shaw did. Finally. He looked over the former cop as he sat placidly in the stern wooden chair. “He hasn’t been trying to kill you. He’s been trying to save you.”
“That’s a fact, sir.” Merritt directed a smile toward his daughter. “And what’ve you two been doing the whole time? Playing hide and seek.”
81
“Something about me being released from County was wrong from the start.”
But then Merritt stopped talking, glanced at his daughter. “You colored it. Your hair. It’s nice.”
She gave no response, just looked back with a steady gaze, then returned to surveillance duty.
Shaw said, “You thought you were being set up.”
He nodded. “Didn’t make sense. Good behavior? Doesn’t get you out earlier, not unless it’s in the plea deal. And to free up beds? Since when does County give a shit about conditions in a fucking lockup?” To Hannah. “Sorry.”
“Look around,” the girl said. “Let’s take language off the table.”
“Somebody wanted you on the street,” Shaw said.
“Yessir.” He eyed the glass of rusty water sitting on the coffee table. “Can I?”