of weeds, dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. There’s a red bandanna knotted around its head.
Ike bends down and pulls a rifle from the dead hand. “An old Remington thirty-aught-six. Seen better days too.”
Kelly says, “The shooter on the levee probably saw him moving up to get a shot. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.”
Ike puts both hands under the corpse and rolls it over. Below the dead man’s left eye is a small black hole. Small but obviously fatal.
“I’ve seen a hundred shitkickers just like him,” says Ike. “But I don’t know this one.”
As I stare, the slack features suddenly coalesce into a coherent whole, and a feverish heat shoots through me. The dead man is a nightmare made flesh, a physical echo of the most terrifying night of my life.
“I know him,” I say, grabbing Ike’s arm.
“Who is he?”
“His name’s Hanratty. I convicted his brother of capital murder. He was just executed.”
“I’ll be damned. That Aryan Brotherhood bastard?”
“Right. I also shot his other brother four years ago.”
“No shit,” says Kelly, with respect mingled with surprise.
“This one was the last.” The fever heat has disappeared, leaving a chill in its wake. “The youngest.”
Ike kicks the corpse’s leg. “No more boom-boom for this Aryan papasan.”
He kneels and starts going through the dead man’s pockets, quickly turning up a wallet. “Hanratty, Clovis Dee,” he says, reading the driver’s license.
“Brother of Arthur Lee,” I say absurdly.
“And white people make fun of African names,” Ike mutters, getting to his feet. “’Least we know what happened now. This shitkicker was out for revenge, and he picked the wrong night to try it. He was crowding that ninja assassin up on the levee, and he paid for it. The question is, who sent the assassin?”
“Portman?” I suggest. “The hardware looked pretty sophisticated.”
“John Portman would definitely have access to people like that,” Kelly says quietly. “Retired Bureau. Agency. Former CT operators.” He looks at Ike. “In any case, I hope you appreciate this enough to take care of any problems that might arise.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Ike replies. “We’re in the county here. Me and the sheriff understand each other. Although three killings in one day is big-time trouble for this town.”
“The district attorney could be a problem,” I tell them, thinking of Austin Mackey.
“Fuck that tightass,” Ike mutters. “We got three witnesses telling it one way, dead guys got nobody. Mackey got no choice.”
“I was thinking of Kelly’s submachine gun. It’s illegal.”
Kelly smiles and draws a pistol from his holster.
“What you gonna do with that?” Ike asks, dropping his hand to his own gun.
Kelly fires three quick rounds into the night sky, then holsters the pistol. “Browning Hi-Power,” he says with a smile. “Chambers the same nine-millimeter cartridge as the MP-5. Very convenient, as long as they don’t do a ballistics analysis.”
Ike nods as if noting this for future use. “Well, let’s get this over with. Let me call the sheriff.”
He starts back toward the warehouse, but I take his arm and stop him. “Who sent the sniper, Ike? Who’s trying to kill me?”
He looks back, his face indignant. “How you know he was shooting at you?”
He pulls his arm free and walks on, but I stay where I am, breathing the cooler air blowing off the river. The stars are bright here, the water close. A few minutes ago a silent bullet passed within inches of my face. But I am still alive. And the last Hanratty brother is finally dead. My daughter is a lot safer than she was before Daniel Kelly did something not many men could have done.
“Thanks, Kelly,” I say softly.
He gives me a self-deprecating smile. “Just doing my job, boss.”
Right.
The sheriff’s office looks like an armed camp when we arrive. It’s a modern, fortress-like building, with a state-of-the-art jail occupying its upper floors. Uniformed deputies swagger through the halls like cowboys in a western, stoked by the air of incipient violence blowing through the city. Ike disappears for a few moments, leaving Kelly and me in the entrance hall.
Five minutes later, he returns and escorts us into the sheriff’s office. I sense immediately that we’re going to benefit from the jurisdictional rivalry that exists between the police department and the sheriff’s office. Had we reported the levee shootings to the police, the chief would have kept Kelly and me all night, mercilessly grilling me as payback for the constitutional lesson I gave him earlier in the day.
The sheriff is tan and fit-looking, with the watchful eyes of a hunter. He seems to view the death of the youngest Hanratty as a fortuitous event, though the timing could have been better.
“When those black kids shot Billy Earl Whitestone,” he says, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his neck, “they turned this town into a powder keg. The Sports Center sold out of ammunition at four o’clock. They sold mostly to whites. Wal-Mart sold out of everything but paintball rounds. They sold mostly to blacks. We may have a world of trouble coming down on our heads tonight. And all because of that newspaper story.” He looks at me like a wise poker player. “You think going after Leo Marston is worth all this trouble?”
“The built-up resentment in this town is none of my doing, Sheriff. What’s happening now would have happened eventually, whatever the cause.”
“Maybe,” he allows. “I sure hope you’ve got some evidence, though. Messing with Judge Leo ain’t generally good for your health.”
“Any leads on the Whitestone shooters?” Ike asks.
“The P.D. has an informer working it. They’re not telling me squat, of course, but the word is, it’s some kids from the Concord Apartments. Nobody’s been arrested yet, though. And we need an arrest. Jailing those two might go a long way toward calming people down. Maybe you ought to take a ride over to those apartments, Ike. See if you can shake something loose.”
“I’ll do it.”
The sheriff smooths his thinning hair. “Think you can give me some overtime tonight?”
“Glad to get it.”
“I want you to stick to the north side, try to keep everybody indoors.”
