Grass Roots (30 page)

The sound of singing reached him from the demonstrators.

It was a hymn he had sung many times as a boy in church. He pulled the curtain away from the wall and draped it over his knee, holding it away from the window. He shoved a full clip into the rifle, screwed the tripod fitting into the stock, and checked the distance. About four hundred feet, he reckoned. He saw a column of steam coming from a manhole and noted that it rose straight into the air. No wind;

excellent. He worked the action of the rifle.

He adjusted for distance, then sighted through the scope.

A policeman’s black face leapt at him, magnified by a factor of ten.

Ferkerson panned from the curb to the front door. With the rifle set back from the window and not protruding, he could still pan through three-quarters of the distance. But it should not be a moving shot; Milton and the woman were supposed to stop. He panned again anyway, for practice, just in case. Five minutes to nine. A red van pulled up in front of the clinic and stopped.

They were early! Good! He’d be more relaxed, not having to wait. A man he immediately recognized as Milton got out, then turned and helped a woman in a white nurse’s uniform from the van. They hurried toward the clinic door as the voices of the demonstrators rose in a cacophony of shouted slogans.

Ferkerson leaned into the rifle and made a conscious effort to relax.

He had not had time to position himself perfectly; he’d have to shoot quickly.

As Milton was about to reach for the door, a demonstrator flung himself onto the walkway in front of the doctor, stopping his progress. Milton turned to one of the policemen and raised his hands with a shrug. What are you going to do about this? he seemed to be asking.

The turn was perfect for Ferkerson. He moved the cross hairs to the center of the doctor’s chest, took a breath, let half of it out, and squeezed. The doctor flew backward as the bullet struck home. At the end of his vision, Ferkerson could see a policeman diving for the woman. The rifleman panned left two feet and squeezed off a second shot. The nurse’s head seemed to explode.

The noise coming from the demonstrators changed character immediately.

The chanting turned to screaming as people ran or flung themselves onto the ground.

Ferkerson did not wait to see what happened next. He left the window open and moved his knee, letting the curtain fall against the wall.

Quickly, but calmly, he disassembled the rifle, packed it into the briefcase, folded the tripod and the stool, put them into the raincoat’s inner pockets, draped the coat over his arm, and stood up.

He looked around him to be sure he had left nothing behind, then walked with long strides toward the elevator. When he walked out onto the loading platform downstairs, his pulse and breathing were up, but not much.

Ferkerson tossed the briefcase and raincoat onto the front seat, got into the car, and punched the remote control. The door slip upward, and he nosed into the alley, pointing the controller at the door behind him. He turned left and stopped. The alley before him was filled with an enormous garbage truck. Two men were emptying cans into an automatic feeder.

Ferkerson made a conscious effort not to make quick, panicky motions.

He turned and looked up the alley behind him. A large, brown UPS truck sat there, twenty-five yards behind him, empty. He turned and faced forward again, sitting very still. His pulse and breathing were suddenly up sharply. What were his options?

He could abandon the car and walk. Not a good idea;

the police would be all over the place in a minute or so;

a good two minutes had already passed since the shoot, the whoop of police cars could already be heard in the distance. He could back into the garage again and leave the building by the front entrance—an even worse idea;

he’d be walking straight toward the police. Or he could sit here and wait for the garbage truck to move.

As he considered his options, he glanced into the rearview mirror and saw the UPS deliveryman climbing back into his truck. Momentarily, the truck moved toward his car and came to a halt a few feet behind him. He could see the driver drumming his fingers on the wheel.

There was nothing to do but wait. He couldn’t even shout at the rubbish collectors; he didn’t want to attract attention to himself. He reached into an inside pocket, retrieved his sunglasses, and put them on. He crossed his arms and rested a hand over his mouth. The garbage men weren’t paying any attention to him, but if they did, he wanted them to see as little as possible. Now they would see a hand and some dark glasses. He glanced into the rearview mirror again; the UPS man was climbing down from the truck. Ferkerson’s blood was pounding in his ears now. Sweat broke from his brow and poured down his face. He checked the side mirror; the UPS man was walking down the alley toward the garbage truck. He would pass a foot from Ferkerson’s window.

Ferkerson mopped his brow with a gloved hand, and then a miracle happened: the garbage truck moved forward. Ferkerson let his car creep forward behind it. He could see the UPS man in his side mirror, walking back toward his truck. The police whoopers were no more than a block away now.

The garbage truck stopped again. But this time, it moved to the left and the alley was wider here. One of the rubbish collectors waved him on. Rubbing at his face with one hand to keep it covered, Ferkerson pulled slowly around the huge truck, managing the gap between the truck and the wall by inches. He was free.

At the corner of the next street, Ferkerson jammed on his brakes as two police cars crossed his path from right to left. Slowly, deliberately, he turned right and began to accelerate. A traffic light loomed ahead at the next corner.

It turned red. Ferkerson stopped and checked the rearview mirror in time to see two police cars careen around a corner to their left. He looked up and saw two more heading toward him. The light changed as they sped past. He accelerated moderately and, as soon as he could, turned left, looking for the expressway. Five minutes later, he was driving north.

Ferkerson turned up the air-conditioning full blast and loosened his collar. The cold air stopped the sweat.

Breathing deep breaths, he drove north at fifty-five miles an hour. He got off at Piedmont Road and drove to the Lindbergh MARTA station. The parking space from which he had stolen the car was still vacant. He pulled into it, got out with the briefcase and raincoat, checking the car for anything left behind, then walked away from it. When the commuter returned in the late afternoon, he would never know the car had been taken.

Ferkerson stripped off the driving gloves he had worn since stealing the car and walked briskly to another part of the car park, checking to see that he wasn’t noticed. He found his own car, tossed the briefcase and raincoat into the trunk, and drove away, heading north to Marietta and his comfortable new apartment. He switched on the radio.

“We have a preliminary report of a disturbance, no, it’s a shooting, at an abortion clinic in midtown. Our mobile unit is on its way there now, and we expect to have a report directly from the scene in a very short time, so please stay tuned.”

Ferkerson drove languidly, letting the sweat dry on his body. The satisfaction came with a rush. He was back in business.

mickey Keane got there almost as soon as the police;

he had heard it on his car police radio, which was illegal, except for a retired cop. The paved area in front of the clinic was chaotic when he arrived.

There were four black-and-whites parked every which way, lights flashing; women were crying, men trembling; the bodies lay where they had fallen, while a patrolman took Polaroids, waiting for the medical examiner and a photographer to arrive.

Keane flashed his badge, which, as a retiree, he had been allowed to keep, at a uniformed youngster and stepped under the yellow tape that separated the crime scene from the sidewalk. He glanced at the bodies, at the way they had fallen, then looked up the street. There were low trees planted along the property line; he reckoned the shots had come from an elevation. Quickly, he scanned the opposite side of the street. People were gathered at office windows, looking down; in some cases they were hanging out the windows, pointing. Except for one building.

The storefront at street level had its windows soaped, and on the third floor, a single window was open.

If he had still been on the job, he would have had to follow procedure, start questioning witnesses; but now, he could follow his hunches. As he started to move, an unmarked police car screeched to a halt at the curb, and the first detectives got out of it. Keane ran over and grabbed the first man’s sleeve.

“Come with me, Frank, and right now; let your partner work the scene!”

The detective waved his partner to the crime scene and trotted after Keane.

“What you got, Mickey?” he panted.

The man was pushing fifty and overweight.

“Just come on, Frank. We might have a shot at this guy. Probably not, but maybe.” Keane crossed the street, dodging traffic, and ran to the storefront. There was a doorway to one side, and Keane already had the picklock in his hand.

“Shit, Mickey, what the hell are you doing?” the detective asked.

“Just shut up, Frank, if you want this guy. You can blame everything on me.” He got the door opened, pulled his gun, and ran straight ahead up the two flights of stairs.

At the top, he stopped and listened, putting a finger to his lips. From there, they worked automatically, covering each other as they searched the floor.

“Nothing,” the detective said disgustedly.

“Wild-goose chase. Thanks a lot, Keane.”

“He was here,” Keane said, holstering his pistol. He walked down the hallway and paused at the entrance to the empty showroom. He ran his fingers along the wainscoting.

“Dust,” he said, holding up his fingers.

“Thick dust.”

“So, dust,” the detective said.

Keane squatted and looked along the carpet from a low angle toward the windows.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing.

Indistinct tracks led to and from the windows, traced in the dust on the gray carpet. Keane and the detective crossed the room, avoiding the footprints, “Your shooter was right there at the corner of the window. He left the little ventilating window in the plate glass open.

Two to one you find powder on it.”

“Okay, I’ll buy it,” the detective said.

“He didn’t leave by the front,” Keane said, punching the elevator button.

“Watch that. Prints.”

“This guy didn’t leave any prints,” Keane said.

“He didn’t leave nothing, not a shell casing, not a cigarette butt.

Nothing. You won’t even get a shoe size from those tracks in the dust.” They rode the elevator down a floor and Keane walked to the loading platform.

“He came and went this way,” he said, pointing at the tire tracks in the dust on the garage floor.

“Your best shot is a witness in the alley.”

The detective began speaking into a handheld radio.

He gave the address, asked for a crime-scene team with a tire ID kit.

“We’ll have some kind of idea on the car in half an hour, if the tires have never been changed,” he said to Keane.

“Jesus, Frank, you wait half an hour, then forget it.

Somebody didn’t see him in the alley, you’re fucked, anyway.

This guy’s a pro. You know who he is, don’t you?”

The detective looked puzzled.

“Huh?”

“It’s the guy who greased Chuck, don’t you see that?”

“What’s his name, Perkins?”

“Ferkerson. Harold Ferkerson.”

“It’s been weeks, Mickey. I’m not gonna get fixated on that guy. I heard you were.”

“It’s him, Frank, I can feel it in my bones,” Keane said.

“Old Harold’s back. Come on.” He stepped down from the loading platform, taking care to avoid the area where the car had been parked, found the switch for the garage doors, and opened them. He stepped into the alley, followed by the detective, and looked both ways.

“Now looka there.” Keane grinned. At the end of the alley was a garbage truck, but there were no garbage collectors.

“I’ll bet our witnesses are at the scene of the crime,” he laughed.

They went back through the building, meeting the crime-scene team on the way, then stepped out into the street. There, behind the yellow tape, were three uniformed garbage collectors. Keane pointed.

“There’s your witnesses, if you’re lucky.” He let the detective handle them, then went back to the crime scene and had one more look around.

The bodies were being loaded into a meat wagon, and somebody from the clinic was hosing down the pavement. It was all over here. He went back to find the detective and his witnesses.

“You were right, Mickey,” the detective said, as Keane approached.

“We got witnesses, but no description. No body got a good look at the guy.” He grinned.

“We got half a license number, though.”

“Good luck with it, Frank,” Keane said, waving goodbye and heading for his car.

“Don’t you want to stick around while we run the tag?”

“Nope, you can have all the glory.” Keane got into his car, started it, and punched a number into his new car phone. He picked it up and listened.

“Pearl,” a voice said.

“He’s back, Manny,” Keane said, unable to keep the grin from his voice.

“Is it the thing at the abortion clinic? It’s on TV already.”

“Yeah, it’s him, I can feel him. He’s gone, though.

They’ve got part of a license number, but if they ever find the car, Ferkerson won’t be in it. He’s long gone.”

“Damn it!” Manny Pearl shouted.

Keane took a breath.

“But not too far gone. He’s around. Now I’m going to find the son of a bitch.”

will arrived at the cottage at dusk, exhausted. He had made fifteen campaign stops during the past three days, flying himself from town to town. It was Saturday night, his parents were in Atlanta, the servants at the main house were off, and he looked forward to a Sunday of rest and solitude. For days he had been unable to think about anything but the place he was visiting and the question he was being asked. He needed a few hours to think about nothing at all, and he was determined to get them.