Stillborn Armadillos (John Lee Quarrels Book 1) (13 page)

Chapter 25

"Damn, I take a day off and convince Mama to let me take her down to Crystal River to see her sister, and I miss all the fun!"

"Trust me, it wasn't much fun," Greg said.

"I'll tell you what," Maddy said, "between this fool running around shooting at us and Fig punching out patrol cars, it's a good time to be in the auto glass business."

The deputies assembled for the hasty meeting that the sheriff had called all laughed loudly, then stopped quickly when Flag and D.W. entered the room.

"Okay y'all, I appreciate those of you who are off duty comin' in, and we'll try to make this quick so you can get out of here," the sheriff said. "We don't have any leads on who's doin' this shootin', but there's no question in my mind that it's the same person. We sent that bullet that we recovered from Carson's car over to the crime lab and they jumped right on it, since this is the second incident in a couple days. The bullets found in John Lee's car and the one from yesterday were all fired by the same rifle. It's a 30 caliber, most likely some kind of huntin' rifle. This is our number one priority right now, findin' out who's doing this. I need y'all to be talkin' to everybody you can, find out if anybody's been sayin' anythin' about it, if anybody's heard any rumors, anythin' at all."

Several deputies nodded, and Andy asked, "D.W., do you think this is tied in with those skeletons they found out there at the construction site on Turpentine Highway?"

"The reporters asked me the same thing this mornin'. The first time it happened, that's what I thought. But after yesterday, I'm not so sure."

"Could it be somebody who's got a hard on for the Sheriff's Department? Or maybe Greg here in particular, since he was at both incidents?"

"That's a good question," D.W. said. "Carson, do you remember arrestin' anybody or givin' someone a ticket that got particularly upset?"

"I've been thinking about that," Greg said. "And the only thing that comes to mind is a fellow by the name of Earl McRae. I pulled him over a couple of weeks ago for wandering over the center line while I was following him. He didn't want to do a field sobriety test and wanted to argue with me about it. I wound up arresting him for DUI. Ray Ray came out to back me up and McRae was making all kind of threats. But it was nothing I haven't heard before."

"I know that old boy, he does have an attitude," said Deputy Paul Schaffer. "I've stopped him two or three times. He always wants to mouth off and give me a ration of shit."

"We need to find out where this guy is," Flag said. "Maddy, have Dispatch run a records check, see if we can get a current address for him."

Maddy was tempted to say something to the effect that there were nineteen deputies and three city officers in the room, and many of them were closer to the door than she was, but she knew that to the Chief Deputy she was always going to be just a woman and never quite measure up, and that nothing would be gained by challenging him about it at that time.

"Okay, anythin' else anybody can think of?"

There were a couple of suggestions. One was a man who had been arrested recently for domestic violence who was known to be aggressive towards the police. The other was a man who had blamed the Sheriff's Department for setting up his son for a drug bust. It was the son's third conviction, which had earned him a long sentence in the state prison. In the first case, they learned that the man in question was back in jail, this time down in Hernando County after an altercation with his estranged wife at her parents' home in Brooksville. The second possibility, the aggrieved father, could account for his time and had alibis for when both shootings took place. That left Earl McRae.

The man lived with his wife and four kids in a rundown place six miles from town. He was known to carry a gun frequently, and all of his neighbors had learned to keep their distance. If somebody complained about one of his teenage sons driving too fast down their gravel road, or of his dogs running loose and killing their chickens, McRae instantly went on the offensive and wanted to fight. There had been more than one case of slashed tires or sugar poured in automobile gas tanks after someone had lodged a complaint with the Sheriff's Department when talking to the man directly had failed. One elderly woman who lived nearby had reported that McRae had come onto her property with a shotgun after she had called and told him one of his sons had smashed her mailbox with a baseball bat. In that case, as in each other one, there had never been enough evidence to act upon.

"We need to go have a talk with this clown," Flag said. "And we need to do it now!"

***

Four marked cars pulled into the McRae place at once, with two deputies in each vehicle. Two more parked on the road and deputies moved in on foot. Four or five large dogs surrounded the cars, barking and snarling. A girl who looked to be about seven or eight years old was playing in a tire swing, and two shirtless teenage boys were bent over the hood of an old International Scout.

"Call these damn dogs off," Flag ordered.

One of the boys put his fingers in his mouth and whistled and the dogs backed off at a distance.

"What the hell you want?"

"We want to talk to your father," Flag said.

"He ain't here."

"Where is he?"

"How the fuck do I know? It ain't my day to watch him."

"What's your name, boy?"

"Puddin Tane. Ask me again and I'll tell ya' the same."

"You a smart ass, ain't ya'?"

"Better to be a smart ass than a fat dumb ass like you!"

Before Flag could respond, one of the deputies out near the road came on the radio and said, "Heads up, suspect just passed us and is pulling in the driveway."

McRae was driving a rattletrap old Ford pickup that looked like it would blow away in the first strong windstorm, and he jumped out before the vehicle even came to a complete stop.

"What the hell you doin' on my property? Get the hell out of here!"

"We've got some questions for you, Mr. McRae," John Lee said.

"Yeah? Well stick your questions up your ass. This is private property and you ain't got no business here. Now move it!"

Earl McRae was a small, bald, thin man, not much over five feet tall, and he wore bib overalls with no shirt under them. He had a stubbly beard, thin, mean lips and a mouth that had never met toothpaste. But though he might not be large in stature, every ounce of him was full of malice and venom.

"We can do this easy or we can do this hard," Flag said. "Makes no never mind to me."

"I told you to get off my property," McRae shouted, pointing towards the road. "And I ain't goin' tell you again!"

"Just settle down," John Lee said. "There's no need for all this screaming and hollering. All we want to do is ask you a few questions."

"Oh yeah? Let me get my shotgun an' I'll let it do the answerin' for me."

He turned back towards the truck, where a battered old sixteen gauge pump action Mossberg shotgun rode in a rack across the back window.

"Stop right there. Don't you move another step!"

The man ignored John Lee's orders and jerked open the truck's door. Instantly half a dozen deputies pointed their weapons at him.

"Don't do it!"

"Freeze!"

"Put your hand on that shotgun and you're a dead man, McRae!"

He ignored them all and was reaching inside the truck when Flag strode forward quickly and kicked the door with all of his might. The door slammed on the man's arm and he howled in pain. Forgetting all about the shotgun, he charged at the much larger Chief Deputy. Flag, for all his size, had spent many years fighting with drunken rednecks and was quick on his feet. He stepped aside and shoved a leg out, tripping McRae, who sprawled on his face in the dirt. Before the little man could move, three deputies had pounced on him. He put up a hell of a fight, but they managed to get him handcuffed and jerked him to his feet.

"What the hell's the matter with you? For such a little man, you're 'bout the biggest idiot I've ever seen," Flag said.

McRae cursed him and spat at the Chief Deputy."

"You got no right comin' on my property and treatin' me this way!"

"All you had to do was answer a couple of god damn questions, ya idiot."

Before the man could respond, John Lee heard a noise behind him and two deputies shouted warnings. He turned to see one of McRae's sons coming at him with a raised hammer. The boy swung it at his head, but John Lee managed to duck, hearing the air swish past his ear from the narrow miss. He drove his shoulder hard into the young man's chest, knocking him backwards against the International. The teenager still had the hammer, so John Lee grabbed his wrist and twisted, at the same time slamming his elbow into the side of the boy's head. Two more deputies swarmed over him and brought him to the ground, while another put his hand on his holstered pistol and ordered the other son to keep his hands up and not to move.

Just about the time John Lee thought the hostilities had ended, the door of the home flew open and a woman as short and thin as her husband, and just as mean, came out with a baseball bat.

"Y'all get your hands off my husband and boy or I'm gonna knock some son-of-bitch's head off!"

"Drop that bat right now," Bob Patterson ordered. "Do it, I won't tell you again!"

The woman ignored his orders and advanced toward him, the bat raised over her shoulder. John Lee knew that if she swung it she could kill the deputy. He drew his Browning from its holster and pointed at her.

"Stop, lady. Stop or I'll shoot!"

She ignored him, and just as John Lee centered his sights on the side of her head Maddy fired her Taser, sending 50,000 volts through her and sending her to the ground, where she convulsed in spasms, wetting herself.

The dogs were barking and snarling and threatening to attack, but the second son managed to keep them at bay. Meanwhile the girl on the swing had run inside, where she hid with her younger sister in the bathroom.

Finally, with three of the McRae's in handcuffs and lodged in the back of police cars, and a call in to a relative to come and take charge of the remaining children, the deputies searched the property. They found a dozen firearms, from the shotgun in Earl's truck and a small .25 semiautomatic pistol in the pocket of his overalls, to an assortment of .22 rifles and shotguns, and three other handguns. But there were no center fire rifles of the type that were used to shoot at the deputies' cars.

"So was all of this is just a big waste of time?"

"Don't know, John Lee," Flag said. "Let's haul these three back to town and do some talkin' to them. If nothing else, we'll charge 'em with assault on police officers and be'in stupid and ugly."

Chapter 26

It took most of the rest of the day to interrogate the McRaes and do all of the paperwork associated with the raid upon their home. And it all led to nothing.

While they were able to charge all three of them with assaulting police officers and resisting arrest, when they finally were able to get Earl to talk to them, he had an alibi for the day before.

"I spent the whole day at my brother Jerry's house helpin' him put a transmission in his car. You can ask him or his wife or his kids. Hell, ask his neighbors, we was workin' right there in the front yard!"

"Well then, why the hell didn't you just say that instead of actin' like such an asshole and startin' a big fight?"

"Cause it's the principle of the thing! I told y'all to get off my property and you didn't. None of this would'a happened if you'd a just listened to me."

"And none of this would've happened if you would've just acted like a rational human be'in," Flag said.

"I got my rights and I exercised 'em."

"Yeah, well you done exercised yourself into about 90 days in jail is what ya' did. Not to mention that you could've got yourself and your kid and wife all shot."

"You'd a liked that, wouldn't ya'? The law's been after us McRaes forever and we never bothered nobody."

"Yeah, you're just a god damn prince, ain't ya'?"

"Call it what ya' want, I made my point."

"Yeah, ya' sure did. If yer point was that ya' can't fix stupid!"

***

Like she did a couple of times a week, Beth Ann was waiting for him when John Lee got home. He didn't even try to talk to her about it. They grilled steaks on the back deck, and after they ate and washed the dishes they went into the bedroom. There had been no discussion about that, they both knew why she was there and they both accepted it for what it was.

Afterwards, lying together in the dark bedroom with her head in the crook of his arm, Beth Ann said, "You're awfully quiet tonight. What are you thinkin' about?"

"I almost shot a woman today, Beth Ann. My finger was on the trigger and I was just getting ready to pull it when Maddy zapped her with a Taser and put her down."

"That's awful, John Lee."

"Yes, it is. I don't know which is more awful, the fact that it came so close to happening, or the fact that I was ready to do it. I don't remember making a decision that I was going to, a lot of things were happening at once and I was just reacting."

"Well, ain't that what you're trained to do?"

"Yeah, but then what? No amount of training is going to prepare you for what has to happen if you do pull that trigger."

"You didn't think you'd ever have to shoot somebody?"

"I don't know. I mean, I always knew it was a possibility. Twice before I've had to pull my gun on somebody, but both times they backed right down. Not this time, not this crazy lady."

"Well, I'm just glad you didn't have to."

"Me, too."

Beth Ann rolled on top of him. "You just forget about almost shootin' that crazy lady, John Lee. 'Cause you've got a crazy lady right here, wonderin' if you're ready to shoot again."

As it turned out, with just a little bit of effort, he was. Later, with her sleeping beside him, John Lee stared at the ceiling wondering if Doris McRae had any idea how close she had come to being dead, and how people like the McRaes could be so hostile toward authority that they were willing to die to make whatever kind of crazy point Earl thought he had to make.

***

John Lee wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. After filling out the report on using her Taser, Maddy had returned home and tried to get some rest before going on her shift in the afternoon, but she was too wired to sleep. It had been a quiet night, with only a handful of routine calls. Obie Long was working the shift with her, and she had spent a long 90 minutes parked beside him in the Dollar General parking lot, listening to him complain about everything from his electric bill to the fact that Flag knew he only liked working the day shift, which was why he routinely assigned him to nights. Maddy wanted to remind him that it was a rotating schedule and everybody worked all shifts at some point. She also wanted to say that he should like the night shift, when there usually wasn't much happening and he could spend most of it sleeping, but she didn't want to encourage him.

When she went off duty at midnight she hung around the office for a while, talking to Kathleen Whitman. She and the dispatcher had gone through school together and been casual friends since they were girls. Kathleen had married her husband Steve right after graduation and they had spent ten years moving from one Air Force base to another, from North Dakota to Texas to Germany, and then back home after Steve was injured on duty and had to take a medical discharge.

It was after 2 AM when Maddy left and started home, but she knew sleep wouldn't come easy. She checked on her mother, who was snoring away, thanks to the sleeping pills that she took every night, and then watched half an hour of late-night infomercials.

"Screw this," she finally said. She went out to her car and drove away, with no real plan in mind. But she knew where she would end up. She circled the courthouse square and waved at Emmitt Planter, sitting in his city police car at his usual spot in the parking lot of Dogs-N-Suds. She drove out past the abandoned gas station where the sniper had shot at Greg Carson, and then found herself cruising slowly toward John Lee's house.

Would he be awake? What would he say or do if she showed up at his door in the middle of the night? Was this a bridge she really wanted to cross? And if she did, what would happen afterward? How would it affect them long term? Should she just turn around right there and go back home and forget the whole thing? How many times had she made this same late night drive and backed down at the last minute?

No, not this time! John Lee was her friend, if nothing else. It wasn't like he was going to laugh in her face. It didn't have to mean anything more than just a night, did it? No, this was the night she was going to stop.

She slowed down at his driveway and started to turn in. Her headlights illuminated the Ford Focus and she stopped.

"Shit! God damn it!"

She shifted into reverse and backed out and drove away.

Inside the house, Magic had barked when the car pulled in the driveway. Still awake, John Lee had heard it and got out of bed and walked into the living room. By the time he got there all he could see were a set of red taillights driving away. He watched them for a moment until they were gone, then reached down in the dark and patted the dog's head.

"Good boy. Must have just been somebody turning around."

He went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and took a long drink of milk from the plastic bottle. He put it away, thinking about how Emily had always complained when he did that, and how he had always asked her what the problem was, since it was just the two of them there and it wasn't like they hadn't exchanged plenty of other bodily fluids.

"John Lee? Where are you?"

He walked back into the bedroom.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, getting back into bed and spooning Beth Ann. "I was just getting something to drink."