to the Middle East. Troops in Iraq came up with that. He was referring to an incident that occurred after my last case. That was about a week or so ago.
I was in a shootout with a couple of bad guys. Killed them both. My fifteen minutes of fame.
I didn’t know then that that little gunfight would fuck up my life forever.
But it did.
It started out as a simple stakeout of an OSHA claimant. A normal run-of-the-mill case. My client is the insurance company. I was parked in the apartment complex where the claimant lives, watching his activities. Same old boring stakeout scenario. Sit in the car, drink coffee, watch the guy, pee in the jug. All night. Finally about midnight, the guy comes out of his apartment and goes to his car. I flick on my video camera. He opens the hood, checks the engine’s dipstick, and begins to add oil. Now that’s no big deal unless you’re claiming to have been blinded in a workplace accident. My video camera on the dash clearly shows him opening the hood, checking the dipstick, reading the label on the oil container, and filling the engine. Not bad for a blind guy at midnight.
But behind him, way farther back in the parking lot, a very different movie was being shown. It caught my attention. Two guys were struggling with a bound and hooded young thing and were trying to shove her into a van. My bit for my insurance company client was done. I had the evidence of fraud on video. That was the extent of my job. I turn the video over to the corporate types, and they pay me. They can do with it as they please. Rarely does it go to court, but if it does and I’m called as a witness, I get paid a flat rate for that. So I didn’t care. This one was a quick and easy job. And this job was done.
I was free to go home and go to bed. It was a compelling option.
But the abduction going on behind the fraudster had my undivided attention. Two physically fit males shoved the girl into the side of the van, and one perp got into the driver’s side. Perp two was having trouble with the kicking and thrashing girl. I saw him punch her in the face a couple times. Shoved her into the van. Then he closed the van’s slider and got into the cab on the shotgun side. The van roared off.
Well now. I’m an ex-cop, and to me that looked like a crime in progress. I put the Jeep in gear and slowly followed them out of the parking lot. They took their time, not speeding or doing anything rash, so I dropped way back. In the wee hours of the morning, it wasn’t hard to keep them in sight. They drove around the residential areas aimlessly for a while and finally headed for the Clearwater Municipal Cemetery.
No good can come of that. Abducted girl. Midnight. Old cemetery. Not good.
That cemetery dates back to the very beginning of Clearwater, and it was nearly full. Had been for decades. It’s what you’d think an old cemetery should be. A whole city block, with large oak trees, paved walkways, ancient marble and granite painstakingly carved headstones dating back a century and a half. A couple of huge ornate mausoleums. A perfect setting for a scary Halloween movie. Names on the headstones were founders and early movers and shakers in Clearwater. Some of my kin are buried there, and my family still had a plot. And unless you’ve got flowers for a grave or a prayer for friends or relatives residing therein, there’s not a lot of good reasons to be there. Especially so in the wee early-morning hours.
I just hoped there wouldn’t be a Halloween-style movie being shown here tonight.
I hoped wrong.
I killed the headlights on the Jeep when the van turned into the main cemetery driveway. Slowed down and crawled to the curb and watched. They were just about in the very center of the relatively small cemetery. The van had stopped next to an ancient grandfather oak. They thought it might provide some cover, I suspect. Perp two was pulling the still hooded and slightly more subdued young thing out of the van’s cargo area. They were near an old mausoleum, and I could guess what they were up to. I left the Jeep on the street and stealthily headed in their general direction. There are no lights in the cemetery, and the street lights on its perimeter cast scant, faint illumination there in the interior. I made my way over to one of the oak trees, maybe twenty-five feet away from the side of the mausoleum. Perp one had pulled the girl’s top off and had his pants down around his ankles. He was trying to flip her over. She was having none of it. They were clearly about to take turns on her. I watched for a moment to see how far they were going to go. Mr. Brain was deciding how to handle it. If it became a worst-case scenario. Then I heard them speaking a foreign language. It sounded like Arabic or Farsi maybe. I dunno. Guttural. Hard consonants. Just great. What the hell had I wandered into?
I carry a Kimber Ultra Carry chambered in .45 ACP. Always. As I watched the scene unfold before me, I pulled Mr. Kimber from my holster. Kept it pointed down with my arm straight along my right side. Finger off the trigger. Thumb on the safety. I stepped into the gravel driveway behind and slightly to the side of the van. Its engine was still hot and making little clinking noises as it cooled in the night air. My alligator boots made a crunching noise on the gravel alongside the paved drive as I walked up. Perp two saw me first and immediately pulled a pistol from his waistband and aimed it at me.
“Hey! Who the fuck are you? What you want?”
His English was passable, but noticeably accented. Even in the dim light, I could see him clearly. Definitely not a native son.
“Evening, gentlemen.”
I nodded in the direction of the now topless girl.
“It’s OK. Y’all go ahead. I’ll go last. I’ll just wait over here until it’s my turn.”
“What? Your turn? You get no turn! You got no business here. You get out of here.”
His pistol came up higher. Face high. My face. Nine millimeter, I guessed. I’d had guns pointed at me before. Lots of times. But I don’t intimidate easily. I scanned the scenario. Perp one was trying to get his schlong back in his pants and grappling to reach his own pistol.
Perp two was nervously glancing around. Looking at perp one, then back at the girl, then back at me. The girl looked dazed. Out of it. She was pushed back on the steps of the mausoleum, her top still off. She didn’t even try to cover herself up. Dazed. She looked to be of a lighter complexion than these two.
“Sorry, boys. I can’t do that. I need you to put down your weapons. Raise your hands so I can see them, and step over here with me. Leave the girl alone.”
Perp two was the excitable type. He was starting to jitter around erratically. Waving his pistol at me. Saying something unintelligible under his breath. Amateurs do that when they’re rattled. And scared. I knew he would fire at me any second.
My arm came up with Mr. Kimber. I always carry in condition one, which means I’m cocked and locked with a round in the chamber. It’s how you carry single-action autos.
My thumb clicked the slide safety off. It made an audible click. Perp one got his pants up and came up with his own pistol.
Pointed at me.
“Put your weapons down, and step away. Last chance.”
“Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here?”
Perp one made that demand. And perp two had asked the same questions. Asked and answered. Amateurs.
Perp two fired first, but he was unfocused and the shot went wild. I hoped it hadn’t hit anybody’s house in the neighborhood. I went into a crouched Weaver stance and double tapped him center of mass. He dropped like a stone.
Perp
