The Next To Die

"C"mon!" Nick rapped the back of Larry"s skull with the gun muzzle.

"Ah, f.u.c.k!" he growled, wincing. He pulled onto the highway again. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," he grumbled, rubbing his head.

"I hope it hurts like h.e.l.l," Sean said. She adjusted the volume on her recorder. "Though I happen to think you"re sc.u.m, I"m still willing to cut you a deal, Mr. Chadwick. If you tell us about these friends of yours and your organization, I might get you a reduced sentence."

"Hmmmm," was all he said, as if to ponder whether or not he wanted to cooperate. Sean didn"t like it; he seemed too cool under fire.

"I don"t think Larry"s interested in making any deals," Nick said. "Still, you want want to tell us about your organization, don"t you, Lare? In fact, you"re just itching to tell us how powerful and righteous you guys are." Nick nudged his shoulder with the gun muzzle. "C"mon, educate us, Lare." to tell us about your organization, don"t you, Lare? In fact, you"re just itching to tell us how powerful and righteous you guys are." Nick nudged his shoulder with the gun muzzle. "C"mon, educate us, Lare."

Larry Chadwick glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled a little. "Neither one of you have heard of SAAMO, have you?"

"Is that an acronym?" Sean asked. "What does it stand for?"

He turned his attention away from the road and gazed at her for a moment. "It stands for the future. That"s something you don"t have any more of, Ms. Olson Ms. Olson, because you"re going to die. You, your buddy here, and your other unfortunate friend, Avery Cooper."

Avery sat on the dusty wooden bench with his hands cuffed behind him. He numbly gazed at the young policeman, facedown on the dirty floor, a bullet in his back. Taggert was in the little office, on the phone with one of his cronies. At one point, he raised his voice: "Hey, he identified the prisoner, I had no choice! What was I supposed to do?"

He"d taken the other cop"s gun, but hadn"t unclasped the keys from his belt. Avery wondered if one of those keys might fit his cuffs. He inched his foot over toward the fallen policeman"s belt. With the tip of his shoe he tried to nudge the key ring from its clasp. For a second, it looked as though the dead policeman flinched. Avery hesitated. He checked on Taggert again, then slowly stood. Twisting to one side, he squatted down to reach for the keys.

"Fine," he heard Taggert say on the phone. "So we make it look like he killed the son of a b.i.t.c.h, or you send somebody here to get rid of the body and the squad car." He chuckled. "Yeah, no kidding. Bye."

Avery vainly groped and tugged at the key ring. He heard Taggert hang up the phone. The cop sneezed and blew his nose. Avery almost stumbled backward, but quickly regained his footing and landed on the bench. He was still catching his breath as Taggert ambled around the corner.

Avery reminded himself to act dumb. It was his only chance of throwing this creep off guard. He innocently gazed up at Taggert, who kicked at the young policeman"s foot. "Why did you shoot him?" Avery asked, with a meek, obtuse look. "Was he a crooked cop or something?"

The stocky officer gaped at him, not quite sure someone could be so ingenuously stupid. Finally, he folded his arms and snickered. "Yeah, him heap big crooked lawman. Injun no good. Me fix."

Avery wanted to vomit, but he merely nodded. His eyes downcast, he thought he saw the young cop breathing. Then again, it might have just been air escaping a dead man"s lungs. He wondered if Taggert had seen it too. "I hope we can clear all this up once the federal men arrive," he said quietly. "When are they due?"

"In an hour." Taggert blew his nose. "Just hold your water."

"Well, that"s why I"m asking," Avery replied timidly. "I almost peed in my pants when you shot this guy. And I"ve had to go for about an hour now." He nodded toward the men"s room door. "Could I? Would it be okay?"

Taggert sighed. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"

Avery stood and stepped around the body on the floor. "Thank you," he said. He pushed the men"s room door with his shoulder.

Taggert followed him inside and switched on the light. The bathroom had a sharp rusty odor. It seemed cold and damp after the heated waiting room. A toilet stall occupied the corner, and two tall porcelain urinals lined the graffiti-marred wall. Avery stepped up to one of the urinals, then glanced over his shoulder. "Um, Officer Taggert? Could you-help me out here?"

The cop looked at him as if he were crazy. "Oh, yeah, sure. f.u.c.k that."

Avery shrugged helplessly and wiggled his hands in the cuffs behind him. "I"m sorry...."

Shaking his head, Taggert grabbed A very"s arm and unlocked the cuffs. He left one hand shackled, then stepped aside and drew his gun. "Okay," he said in his congested voice. "I don"t have all day."

"Thanks very much," Avery said, unzipping his trousers.

Taggert nodded distractedly. He put the keys back in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He looked as if he was about to sneeze again. His eyes were closed and he had his mouth open in a sinus-blocked grimace.

Instead of reaching inside his pants, Avery suddenly lunged at Taggert. The cop was in the middle of his sneeze when Avery punched him in the face.

The gun went off, and the shot echoed within the tiled bathroom. Avery felt a sharp burning pain in his left thigh, but it didn"t slow him down. He slammed his fist into Taggert"s face again. The policeman dropped his gun, then flew back against the toilet stall part.i.tion. Avery kept hitting him. He was like a crazy man. He wasn"t thinking about escaping. He was pummeling the smarmy son of a b.i.t.c.h who had amused himself with an injun impersonation after shooting that young cop in the back. Avery punched away at Taggert until the crooked cop slid down to the dirty tiles, half dead.

Standing over him, Avery suddenly realized he"d been shot. Blood trickled down his leg and wet the top of his sock.

Taggert stirred a little and reached for the gun on the floor. Avery kicked it away. But he was overwhelmed with fatigue, and his movements were labored as he grabbed Taggert by the front of his shirt and dragged him toward the urinals. "Who killed Libby Stoddard?" he asked. "Who set me up?"

"f.u.c.k you!" Taggert snarled. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose.

Infuriated, Avery let out a crazed yell and swung him against the urinal. Taggert"s head hit the porcelain, and he howled in pain.

"Give me a name!" Avery demanded. He pushed the policeman"s face toward the bottom of the smelly receptacle.

Officer Taggert started crying. "All right, all right! It was all arranged by higher-ups in the organization...." Blood and saliva dribbled down from his mouth to the rusty drain. "The one who did the job on her is dead now. His name was Lyle Bender. They used your sperm samples from a fertility clinic to make it look like you"d raped her. That"s all I know about it, I swear." Taggert started coughing and choking. Avery let go of him. It took a few moments for the cop to recover. He sat up a little, wiped the tears from his eyes, then spat a wad of blood and phlegm into the urinal. "G.o.dd.a.m.n p.r.i.c.k," he gasped. "You f.u.c.kin" broke my nose."

With his last drop of adrenalin, Avery reeled back with his fist and punched Taggert in the face. The policeman flopped over on the tiled floor.

Avery s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gun, then braced himself against the wall.

Almost out of nowhere, a set of handcuffs flew past him and hit the unconscious Taggert in his shoulder. Avery glanced up. The Native American cop had dragged himself to the doorway. "Cuff him to that pipe over there, will you?" he said, nodding toward a corner conduit by the urinals.

"Jesus," Avery murmured, starting toward him.

Officer Pete impatiently pointed to the set of cuffs by Earl Taggert. "Hurry up, okay?"

Avery backed away and grabbed the handcuffs. He managed to drag Taggert over to the corner of the bathroom, then cuffed him to the pipe.

"It was-a-a rewarding experience, watching you-beat the c.r.a.p out of Earl," Officer Pete said between gasps for air. Sweat covered his forehead. "I"ve been wanting to do-to do that for three years. Pat him down, take away his keys."

Avery followed his directions. "This guy"s with a hate group out of Opal. They"re responsible for several celebrity deaths. They tried to set me up for murder and rape. Did you hear any of what he said to me?"

The young cop nodded. "I knew he belonged to some kind of-of good ol" boys" club, but I thought it was just about keeping Opal white."

Pocketing Taggert"s keys, Avery hobbled over to Officer Pete and helped him up. He walked him to the bench in the waiting room. His leg started to go numb, and he tried to ignore the burning pain in his thigh. "You need to lie on your side and not move around," he said, lowering him on the bench. "Is there someone I can call? Someone you trust?"

Pete nodded. "Just dial 9-1-1. It"ll patch through to my boss, Sheriff Goldschmidt. Tell him Peter Masqua is badly wounded-and so are you. We have someone in custody. We"re in the old train station. Tell him I said to move his a.s.s. We"re expecting some more trouble here within the hour."

In the last two hours, Dayle hadn"t moved from the kitchen table. Now she pushed aside the script, picked up Fred, and tiptoed down the hallway to the guest room door. She checked for a strip of light at the threshold. It was dark and almost too quiet. She didn"t hear any snoring. Maybe Ted was lying there with the lights off, listening for her.

With the cat cradled in her arms, Dayle retreated to the foyer. Every creaking floorboard seemed like a loud groan. She checked the front door"s peephole. She couldn"t see the guard, but her view was limited. Quietly, she unlocked the door and opened it. To her immediate right, the guard sat in a folding chair with a c.o.ke, a box of Archway cookies, and a walkie-talkie on the floor beside him. A husky kid in his late twenties, he had curly brown hair and a baby face. His tie was loosened. He"d been reading The Fountainhead The Fountainhead. Dropping the book, he jumped up from the chair. "Ms. Sutton? Um, is everything okay?"

She smiled and shifted Fred in her arms. "Oh, hi. Yes, everything"s fine." Down by the elevator, she noticed a second guard muttering something into his walkie-talkie.

"I really don"t think you should be out here," the husky kid said.

"Oh, I thought I"d go for a walk before bed. I"m kind of keyed up. Maybe it"ll help me sleep. I just need some fresh air. In fact, I figured I"d go up to the roof. It"s perfectly safe up there...."

"I"m sorry, ma"am. I"ll have to clear that with Ted first."

"Oh, now don"t be silly-"

"He"s right, Dayle."

She spun around.

Ted stood in the foyer with her. He"d thrown on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and his shoulder holster. He had a walkie-talkie in his hand. "We"ve taken all these precautions for your safety," he said. "If you want to step out of the apartment, you need to see me about it."

Dayle frowned at him. "I"m not sure I like that."

"I wouldn"t like it either if I were you, but it is necessary." He smiled at her, then set the walkie-talkie on the hallway table. "It"s late, Dayle. Why don"t you get some sleep?"

Sighing, Dayle retreated back into the apartment. Ted stepped inside after her. She heard him close and lock the door.

Sean"s tape recorder picked up everything Larry Chadwick had to say. It wasn"t so much a confession as it was an hour"s worth of steady gloating. Despite the stranger with a gun in the backseat of his car, Larry seemed to think he had the upper hand. He was still at the wheel, still in control.

Yes, he knew who she was. His friends were quite aware that Avery Cooper"s lawyer was in town, and they had a full description of her. They also had Avery Cooper in custody: "Last I heard, he was being held just outside Lewiston, two hours from here. He might still be alive. I"m not sure. My friends were trying to determine his exact whereabouts when you lured me away with that phony phone call."

He explained about his friends, the Soldiers for An American Moral Order, who were going to bring back family values and G.o.dliness to the people of this country. He defended the torture and mutilation deaths of Tony Katz and his friend: "f.a.ggots aren"t human beings. And right now, those two deviates are burning in h.e.l.l."

Larry freely admitted to having partic.i.p.ated in the murder of Leigh Simone. They had made it look like a drug overdose: "Leigh Simone got what she deserved. She advocated h.o.m.os.e.xuality, abortion, and the restriction of our const.i.tutional right to bear arms."

They didn"t set out to kill people. They merely wanted to silence those celebrities who posed a threat to moral order and traditional family values. Often, all it took was a little research into their pasts or intimidation. A good scandal could always discredit a loudmouth liberal celebrity"s cause.

"And if you can"t dig up dirt on someone, you manufacture it," Sean said. "Did SAAMO arrange the murder of Libby Stoddard?"

"Yes." Larry studied the dark, winding highway.

In the last hour, they"d encountered only six cars on this road. The most recent was a minivan, which had been keeping a steady, respectable distance behind them for several miles now. They were driving through a forest preserve. The unlit two-lane snaked around cl.u.s.ters of trees.

Sean adjusted the volume on her recorder again. "You had a nurse named Laurie Anne Schneider steal Avery Cooper"s sperm samples from the fertility clinic. One of those samples was planted in Libby Stoddard. Is that correct? Yes or no?"

"Yes," he said, with a hint of a smile. "And we still have some of those samples, Ms. Olson."

"You framed Avery Cooper for murder, because he"s a threat to your fundamentalist agenda. Is that correct?"

"He"s no threat anymore," Larry replied.

"Dayle Sutton, she"s the next to die, isn"t she?"

Larry didn"t hesitate to answer. "Yes. But I"m not in on that one. The wheels are already in motion. We have people in L.A. handling it. She"ll get hers on the set of her movie. It"s slated to happen in the next day or two."

"Talk about a cold-blooded b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Nick whispered from the backseat. "Lare, you must p.i.s.s ice water."

Unfazed, Larry scratched his chin, then glanced at the tape recorder in Sean"s hand. He seemed so blase. It was almost as if he somehow knew that all the information he was revealing would never make it outside of this car.

Sean looked over her shoulder at the minivan, still trailing several car lengths behind them. Nick caught it too. Frowning, he turned forward and tapped Larry"s shoulder with the gun. "Both hands on the wheel, Lare. This is the fourth and last time I"m telling you. See the little trail up ahead? That"s where we"re going."

With a sigh, Larry pulled off the highway onto a gravel road that dipped into the woods.

"Are they still following us?" Nick asked Sean.

"I can"t see," she said, twisting around in the pa.s.senger seat to check the rear window. "They might have moved on, I"m not sure."

Engulfed in darkness, they steadied themselves as the car bounced over the rocky trail. Eventually, the gravelly road gave way to a smoother, narrow dirt path.

Sean wondered if perhaps the minivan had switched off its headlights and was now following them. She couldn"t see a thing back there. Larry and his hunting buddies probably knew every inch of this forest. No doubt, he and his friends could maneuver these trails blindfolded. Meanwhile, she and Nick were totally out of their element here. The deeper they moved into the bowels of these woods, the more doomed she felt.

Ahead, she could only see as far as their headlights pierced the blackness. The path grew more narrow and hazardous with tree roots and rocks. An occasional branch from above sc.r.a.ped against the roof of the car. Twigs snapped under the tires.

She turned to Nick. "As soon as we can," she whispered. "Let"s swing around and head back to the main road."

He nodded distractedly. "In a minute." He tapped Larry"s shoulder with his gun. "Someone in Dayle"s camp has been providing you guys with information. It"s how you know I was here. Who"s the stoolie?"

Larry studied a curve in the path ahead. "It"s a guy who works for her, his name"s Dennis Walsh."

"Well, well, that fat piece of s.h.i.t...."

Sean watched Larry casually slide his left hand off the wheel, down to his lap. She wondered why he kept doing that. Nick had already warned him about it four times.

They hit another b.u.mp, and she dropped the recorder. It landed between her seat and the car door. She went to reach for it.

"Slow down," Nick barked.

Sean heard Larry laugh a bit. "Sorry." He sounded so d.a.m.n confident. What did he know that they didn"t? Or was he just so self-righteous that he figured no one could hurt him? Why wasn"t he scared? It had become so dark in the car, she couldn"t quite see his expression. But somehow she knew Larry was smiling.

Sean pried the recorder from under her seat, and an image suddenly hit her. She remembered the first time she"d set eyes on Larry Chadwick-in the parking lot of the My-T-Comfort Inn. He"d pulled up in his car, opened the door, then reached under his car seat, and taken out a gun.

"Nick?" she said. She sat up and stared at Larry. For a moment, her heart stopped. He had only one hand on the wheel, and in the other he held a semiautomatic, pointed at her.

"Oh, G.o.d, no," she whispered.

A loud shot rang out. Sean felt as if someone hurled a punch in her shoulder. The force of it took her breath away and sent her slamming against the pa.s.senger door. The back of her head hit the window.

Another shot resonated, and the car lurched forward. Sparks exploded from the dashboard. A third blast immediately followed, and Larry let out a howl as the gun flew from his hand. Sean felt a spray of blood hit her in the face. Dazed, she watched Nick club Larry over the head with the b.u.t.t of his gun. Larry flopped against the driver"s door. A pungent smoke from the singed fuse box began to fill the car as it rolled to a stop.

Sean slouched against the door, not wanting to move. It was as if someone had stuck a hot steel rod into her upper chest-beside her right shoulder. Larry was still half conscious as Nick climbed out and opened the driver"s door. He yanked him out of the car. Larry vaguely grumbled in protest, then fell to the ground.