“She’s armed. She showed us a handgun. Durham may be dead. They’re saying it looks like his head is taped to the headrest.”
“She killed him?”
“That’s my guess.”
Sophie sat straight-backed in the pickup. There was another bullhorn attempt to reach her, and her head didn’t move.
“Anybody try walking up?” Marquez asked.
“She held a gun out the window and fired into the woods. She almost got herself shot.”
“I’ve been out at Johengen’s this morning. I was thinking about Nyland’s hunting shack last night, the watch and ring.
There’s a ladder in the barn, and I worked along each wall checking the top of the wall between each truss. I found a bloodstained towel with a knife in it. It’s out there sitting on top of the wall above the bear cages.” Now Kendall took his eyes from the truck and looked at Marquez. “I left it and drove here from the barn.”
“On the wall above the cages?”
“Yeah, and I also found a mark that could be one of the truck skids they rolled the Honda down.” He didn’t add that he thought they loaded the bear cages at the same time. Let Kendall come to that on his own. “How long has she been sitting there?”
“Forty minutes. Her father’s on the way.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“He volunteered and no one had a better one. Someone monitoring the police band got a hold of him.”
He listened as Kendall called for a county unit to block off and guard the entrance to Johengen’s. Ten minutes, a bullhorn warned her, they were going to shoot her tires out and she still had time to get away from the truck. She didn’t move, and a marksman shot her rear tires out. The pickup sagged, then Sophie’s door swung open and she got out holding a rifle that must have been behind the passenger seat. She kept the barrel pointed at the road, though ordered by bullhorn to drop the weapon. Officers scrambled for better cover, but she didn’t move.
“I’ll go out there,” Marquez said, because she stood paralyzed as though guarding the road from intruders. “Troy’s the wrong guy, keep him back.”
“You’re a fucking nut,” Kendall said and picked up a bullhorn. “This is Detective Kendall, Sophie. I understand your situation and want to help you. But you need to put the rifle down.”
Instead, the rifle barrel rose slightly and Sophie stared in his direction. Officers near Marquez sighted on her, fingers on triggers.
“Do not lift the rifle any farther,” Kendall ordered, and clicking the bullhorn off said, “Oh, fuck.”
But it wasn’t Kendall she was looking at. Troy was coming up from behind them. He passed Marquez, muttering, “Goddamn her,” and with his booted pigeon-toed steps strode away from the deputy escorting him and toward her as though nothing could happen. “She’s mine, I’ll take care of it,” was all he said and stopped only when she ordered him to a second time. The steel and anger in her voice carried to where they were, and Marquez heard weapons adjusted again.
Troy raised a hand perhaps to try to convince or reassure her, and maybe she saw the hand that had struck her as a child or maybe she knew the bullhorn promises were lies. Her gun rose abruptly and Marquez stood and yelled across the police line, “Don’t shoot her.” He yelled to Sophie, “Wait,” and stepped out in front of the cruiser onto the road. He raised his hands shoulder high to show Sophie and turned back at the police vehicles and lights, calling, “Don’t shoot her.”
Her eyes were on Marquez, watching his slow advance toward where Troy stood frozen. “Sophie,” Marquez said. “It won’t make anything better. It won’t change anything.”
He thought he heard her say, “It’s already over.” Her eyes returned to Troy, and Marquez heard her say, “I should kill you, you bastard.”
“Put the goddamn gun down,” Troy said.
“Shut up!” Her yell carried down through the police lines, the fierce anger in it unmistakable. Marquez saw it happening but before he could reach her she kicked the shoe off of one foot, dropped the rifle stock on the other foot, and put her mouth over the barrel. With the shoeless toe she found the trigger.
Blood and brain blew across the wet road.
49
When she crumpled Marquez went to her, but Troy, for reasons only he could explain, spat on the ground near his feet and walked back toward the police cruisers. A piece of skull with hair attached lay in the mud ten feet away, and Marquez gripped the arm of a deputy who simply didn’t see it and almost stepped on it in the hurry to get to the truck. Marquez moved back to Sophie, knelt near her, curiously unsure of himself, stunned by what she’d done. He heard Kendall backing people off and asking him to get away from her body.
Marquez backed away, walked to the truck where Hawse and several others were cutting the duct tape wrapped around Durham’s neck and the headrest. Someone called out “He’s alive.
We’ve got a pulse,” and paramedics rushed forward. Marquez watched them extract him. He’d been gutshot. His shirt, coat, and pants were soaked with blood, a lot of it already dry and black.
Turning back to Sophie’s body, he saw Kendall leaning over, pulling a handgun from her waist. He removed the clip, bagged the gun, and looked at Marquez. “Insane. All of this is insane. You tell me why she did that.”
Because she couldn’t face what came next. Because of the things she’d done and what she’d become, what there was no returning from. Because she’d probably showed Nyland where Vandemere was doing his research and may have been there when he was shot. “I want to get them to check Durham’s arms for wounds,” Marquez said.
“He’s just barely hanging on,” Kendall said. “You know that’s Vandemere’s truck she’s driving. They painted it, put different plates on it.”
Marquez nodded. He’d figured it out a few minutes ago. He walked over to one of the paramedics, a husky bald man, leaned near him to say, “There may be another bullet wound on one of his arms.”
Durham wore an expensive-looking down parka, North Face logo on it. The paramedics slit each arm down the inseam, cut his shirt off. There weren’t any wounds on his arms, only the one shot to his lower abdomen.
One of them glanced up at Marquez, said, “You owe him a coat.”
“Will he need it?”
They were pumping fluid into him, Durham ghostly, his face slack. Hard to believe he’d make it. Marquez watched as they started moving him, looked in the truck again, and then straightened as it started to rain. Sophie’s body was getting photographed. Her hair glistened.
“She must have shot him before taping his head,” Kendall said.
“He’s got a good-sized lump on his temple.”
“Doesn’t matter, he isn’t going to make it.” Marquez saw Troy starting to drift back, heard Kendall mutter, “He looks like he knows something.”
“Are you going to try to do anything out here with the truck?”
Marquez asked.
“Not with the rain. We’ll close it up and tow it in.” Kendall nodded toward Sophie and asked, “Did you know that was coming?”
“No, but I have a sense of what she was missing inside.”
“I’ll tell you what Durham is missing inside, a couple of quarts of blood.”
They both turned as Troy argued with a deputy, Troy trying to get through.
“You’ll have to wait to see her, Mr. Broussard.”
“I don’t care about seeing her. I want to talk to him.”
He’d looked their direction so Kendall walked over, said, “What is it?”
“Not you. Him.”
Marquez walked over, and Troy spoke as though he’d rehearsed what he had to say.
“I don’t care much for you or any of you people, but I know what you’re after and I’ll lead you out there. God didn’t put bear on earth to be in cages.”
“Where is it you’re going to lead me?”
“Nevada.”
“Give me an address.”
Marquez wanted to phone ahead. He wanted to secure the area around the ranch, enlist the help of anybody they could get in Nevada.