Marcie's Murder (53 page)

Savage
felt his ear gingerly, then looked at his hand. The blood had already stopped flowing.
“Yeah. But I’m definitely going to beat that bastard to an inch of his fucking life
.
”

They slowed as they entered the compound.
On the left were two portable buildings that likely contained offices and workstations used by the staff. There were several privately-owned vehicles parked
in
front of them. On the right, at the edge of the road, was another portable
building surrounded by
small
sheds
. Hank could see an assortment of meteorological measuring devices, suggesting the
sheds
were specialized weather stations.
T
he door of the portable
building
opened as they
came up
.

A man wearing a white hard hat frowned at them. “Who the hell are you? What’s going on with that damned helicopter
?
”

Savage held up his badge. “State
p
olice. Go back inside and lock the door. Anybody else
up
here right now?”

“Yeah, of course, everybody’s here today.”

“Get them the hell inside and lock all your doors. Call
all your people
right now
and tell them
.”

“Why? What the hell are you doing up here?”

“Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office,” Muncy said, holding up his badge. “There’s a fugitive loose on this ridge. Now shut the fuck up and get back inside.”

“Make them calls!” Savage repeated.

The man went back inside and slammed the door.

“Look,” Hank said, pointing down to
the big tower that had been their destination
.
“
T
here’s the ATV.”

The four-wheeler was sitting in the compound just past the tower. There was no one in sight.

“Shit.” Muncy began to move forward
.

Hank grabbed his arm.
“Wait. Look.”

Behind
the tower was a
Quonset
hut.
A man in a yellow hard hat
emerged through
the front door of the hut. Right behind him was
David Morris,
restraining
him in a choke hold, a gun pressed against his right temple.

“Easy does it!” Morris shouted.

Savage suddenly broke right, heading for a waste barrel sitting at the side of the road. He was six feet away from it when Morris reached around his hostage and calmly shot Savage in the left
leg
. The detective went down heavily
, weapon flying. He
rolled behind the barrel
and
lay still.

“All right, all right! Muncy shouted. “Hold your fire, Morris! Let’s talk this thing through!”

“There’s nothing to talk about.
Throw down your weapons and w
alk slowly toward me, both of you, hands on your head. A little further apart. Now!”

Hank
obeyed,
dropp
ing
his Glock,
and began to walk slowly across the compound. Muncy was on his left. Hank took a step to his right for every
two
steps forward, approaching Morris on an arc that soon p
ut the sun directly behind him.

Muncy got the idea. “
We’ve got the girl in custody,
” he
called out
, to
draw
Morris’s
attention. “
You’re by yourself now, no more backup.
Let’s just do this easy. Let the guy go.
”

“
No
t
a chance
,
buddy
.
Hey!” He swung around and pointed his gun at Hank. “Stop the horseshit and walk straight toward me.”

He was squinting, so Hank knew he’d succeeded in positioning himself so that the sun was in Morris’s eyes when he looked at him. He half-expected to be told to move back to his left, but instead Morris swung the gun
over
to Muncy
again
, who was now about fifty feet away from him. “Far enough.
Stop there. I want your backup guns out, right now. Index finger and thumb only. You first, Muncy. Draw it and toss it over here to me.”

Muncy slowly lifted his right trouser leg, removed his backup weapon
,
and threw it toward Morris. It landed about halfway between them.

“Show me the other leg.”

Muncy slowly lifted his left trouser leg to show Morris there was no weapon strapped there.

“Last chance, asshole,” Morris said. “If I search you and find something else, I’m gonna put a round through your fucking
knee
, understand?”

“There’s nothing else,” Muncy said in a bored monotone.

“Now you, Maryland.”

Hank reached down and pulled up his right pan
t
leg. “No backup here. I don’t like them.
”

“Bullshit. All cops carry a backup. Show me the other leg.”

Hank showed him the other leg, which was also bare. “Not
hing here
, Morris. I don’t like guns.”

“Your funeral. Now d
own on your knees, hands on your head.
Both of you
!”

Hank knelt on the ground, his hands lightly touching the crown of his head. He saw that Morris’s gun was
large
, a revolver of some kind.
He couldn’t tell for certain what it was from this distance
.
Morris also had a knapsack on his back and a rifle of some kind slung over his left shoulder. It was probable that there was ammunition in the knapsack, perhaps another handgun. Morris might also have another gun in his pocket or tucked into the waistband of his jeans. The odds were pretty good, even without factoring in the hostage, that Morris could outgun them in a
short-term
stand-off.

The hostage wore a plaid shirt, jeans
,
and scuffed work boots. He had a tool belt buckled around his waist that contained several electronic devices as well as a hammer and other tools. His hands gripped
Morris’s
choking
forearm. As Hank watched, Morris
used
the
barrel
of the revolver
to knock
the man’s
hard hat off his head onto the ground
. He
pressed the muzzle against the man’s temple
.

“Let go.”

The man
immediately
lowered his arms
.

“That’s better.” Morris looked at Muncy, then Hank. “Either of you give me any trouble, I’ll shoot you like a dog. Got it?”

“Sure,” Muncy said.

Morris peered into his hostage’s face. “What are you, some kind of worker?”

“I’m a lineman. I came up to do some work on the tower.”

“Well, this is your lucky day, isn’t it?” Morris moved him around, trying to see what was in his tool belt. “You got something I can tie these fuckheads up with?”

“I don’t know. There’s spools of wire back in the hut.”

“Yeah, well that’s back there, not out here where I need it. Down on your knees, asshole.
M
ake any moves I don’t like and
I
’ll blow your head
right
off your neck.”

“Okay.”
T
he man knelt down on the ground
a
s Morris eased his chokehold
.

“Put your hands on top of your head. Now, let’s take a look.”

With his gun stuck in the middle of the man’s back, Morris made a quick search
of
the
tool belt. “Hey, look here!” He removed a bundle of plastic locking str
a
ps that were held together
by an elastic band. “Long ones
! Just what the doctor ordered.”

He removed one of the locking str
a
ps with his teeth and dropped the bundle behind the lineman on
to
the ground. “Okay, bring both hands slowly down and behind your back. Too fast and I’ll shoot you dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“
Y
ou two fuckheads don’t move a muscle or he dies, got it?”

“Sure,” Muncy said again.

He knelt behind the lineman and used his free hand to
cross
the man’s wrists, then took the locking str
a
p out of his mouth and bent it around the underside of the lineman’s wrists. “Good. Long enough.” With a warning look at Muncy and Hank, he used his gun hand to cup the str
a
p underneath the wrists while he looped the
end
through the
cap
with his free hand
and jerked it tight
.

The lineman winced.

“Hurt?” Morris grinned. “Good.” He retrieved the bundle of locking straps, stood up, gun out, and looked at Hank. “If you move, I’ll kill you.”

“Okay,” Hank said.

Morris waved the gun at him a couple of times, as though firing
,
then turned and began to walk toward Muncy.

Hank dropped his right hand down from the top of his head, reached behind
and
under his jacket, removed from
the
holster
at
the small of his back the SIG Sauer P
-
225 he’d bought this morning from Jeff Davis’s army surplus store
,
and shot David Morris in the ribs.

Morris’s revolver went flying as he jerked sideways and fell, striking his head on the
ground
. Hank scrambled to his feet and raced acr
oss the intervening fifty feet. He stomped on Morris’s right wrist as Muncy tugged the rifle from Morris’s left shoulder and threw it aside.
Muncy
did a hasty pat-down, found a small pistol in his left jacket pocket and threw that aside as well.

Morris opened his eyes and drew in a ragged breath. The wound was bleeding copiously. Hank looked at Muncy, who shook his head.

“Why’d you do it, Morris?” Muncy asked, crouching low so that he could look him in the eyes. “Why’d you kill her?”

“Didn’t mean to.”

“You choked her to death,
you bastard.
”

“She,” he coughed and swallowed, “beautiful
. E
ver saw.”

“
Y
ou
strangled
her, Morris. Watched her die.”

“Didn’t. Mean to.”

“Was it because she was pregnant? It was your kid, and she wouldn’t have an abortion? Was that it?”

Morris
grunted
, blood
flowing
out of his mouth.

“She was a beautiful woman and you killed her, Morris,” Muncy growled. “You
goddamned son of a bitch.”

“Muncy,” Hank said.

“All she wanted to do was live her life and you killed her. I should let her husband come up here with a hunting knife and skin you alive, you bastard.”

“Muncy,” Hank repeated.

“What? What the
hell
?”

“He’s gone.
Let it rest.
”

3
6

Saturday was a beautiful day that featured a deep blue sky, scattered white cumulus clouds
,
and pleasant temperatures. After checking out of his hotel room, Hank followed Karen
into Tazewell and turned in the Grand Cherokee
,
loaded
his stuff into the trunk of
her
Fire
bird
,
and strapped himse
lf into the passenger seat.

It was a little after nine o’clock in the morning. Karen turned onto Highway 61
,
and they settled down for the drive to Burkes Garden.
Traffic was much heavier than the previous two times she’d been here because it was the day of the fall festival
. B
y the time she reached Gratton and turned onto Highway 613
,
she’d resigned herself to a slow, winding drive in the middle of a stack of traffic with no opportunity to pass.

“It’s nice along here
.” Hank
uncurl
ed
his fists and rubb
ed
his sweating palms on his thighs. “Good day for a pleasant, slow drive.”