The dogs were no longer barking. It was like a mournful keening, as if someone very loved by them was suddenly taken away. They almost sounded like wolves calling out for a moon that no longer existed.
“OK, you know the drill,” Blood said to Elle, “I take the front and you take the back. We don’t know what this Coffey asshole’s state of mind will be when we go in. But we do this by the book. No matter who they got in there, we’re still professionals.”
“I gotcha,” Laura said, pulling her hair back in a hasty ponytail. She was filled with trepidation and Blood hadn’t seen that look since she was a rookie.
“Look, I know that’s your kid brother in there. That’s why I’m doubly countin’ on you staying frosty and doing the right thing, alright?”
“Don’t worry about me. Just worry about Coffey if he tries to keep me from my brother.”
“Yeah, that’s what I am worried about,” Blood said as they exited the Lincoln that was parked on the dirt road below the house.
They stiff-armed their guns pointing down then split up when Blood nodded. They tried to get backup from their agency but were told there was no one they could get in the area within the time Oliver wanted to infiltrate the house. The homing beacon had emitted a shrill, constant signal when they came upon it, meaning at least the kid’s skateboard was still on the premises. He just had to trust that Elle knew her brother as well as she claimed and that he’d never leave behind his skateboard.
Blood could hear shouting. He could hear Coffey yelling, “Where’d he go?!” and some woman yelling back “I don’t know!” He could also hear dogs, three or four maybe, barking and baying in the back yard and he hoped they were fenced in or tethered to something sturdy because they sounded fucking huge.
He kicked in the front door and trained his Browning 9 mm at Coffey who had his back to him and his own 9 mil pointed at the ceiling. A second later, Elle came in through the rear, her gun also aimed at Coffey’s head. Every room was dim and Blood instantly realized every light in the house was off, which was odd considering it was well into dusk and almost dark out.
“Drop it, Coffey! Federal agents.” Coffey released his grip on the gun and it swiveled upside down so the barrel faced the floor.
“Where’s my brother, you piece of shit?!” Elle hissed through her teeth as she took his gun, flung it across the room and pushed Coffey face-first on the couch in one smooth motion. “Answer me, Goddamn it, or so help me God…!”
“Elle, lemme handle this. You go secure the area.”
“Oh, fuck that keep-the-recruit-busy bullshit. The area is secure.”
“Moss, I said stand down.”
“Look, my brother doesn’t know where he is, either. The boy just… disappeared.”
“Bullshit, lady. People don’t just vanish into thin air. Now where did you put him, Ed? I’m not going to ask you again.”
“I told you, that prick came in, tried to snatch him, he dropped your brother after I pumped a few rounds into him and then he just… Poof.”
Elle looked up at the ceiling. Right where the top of the wall met the ceiling she could barely see in the gloom three bullet holes and she wondered why in hell Coffey would be firing 12 feet in the air if he wasn’t telling the truth.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Laura asked the buxom redhead.
“Virginia Hobbes. I’m the homeowner and Eddie is my brother. And he’s telling you the truth. Some flying asshole in a Nazi uniform suddenly appeared above our heads, your brother Adam was dangling five or six feet in the air then suddenly the place was full of ghosts.” Elle knowingly looked at Blood and he returned the look.
“What?” Ed asked his sister. “Full of ghosts? Right here?”
The lights suddenly came on when the solar panel batteries began expending their reserves and everyone looked up. The air vents of the centralized heating system also kicked in.
“Yes. I could only see the Nazi scumbag who tried to take Adam but I felt the presence of the others. They were protecting the boy.”
“So that’s why it was so fucking cold in here.” Coffey turned around on the sofa and sat normally. For a half minute there he was facing the back of the couch and it was obviously playing hell on his back. “Look, Laura, what we’re saying is true. That fascist fuck just popped in here, tried to snatch Adam then he just disappeared.”
“What about Jodl?” Blood asked, holstering his weapon. “Did they go at the same time or did Adam vanish first?”
“I… don’t know. I think they disappeared at the same time. I noticed Adam disappearing first because he was still on the ground. The other guy, the Nazi, was flailing around like he’d been attacked by a swarm of bees. Then I looked up and he was gone, too.”
Blood passed his large hand over his close-cropped, snow white hair and puffed out his lips in a deep sigh. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Coffey and Virginia.
“What do we do with them?” Elle asked her boss.
“They’ve seen too much. Cuff ‘em.”
“What? Bullshit, you fuckin’ dandelion.” But Elle still had her Glock 26 trained on him.
“Shut up. Adam wouldn’t be missing if it wasn’t for you, asshole.”
“Oh, you got a lotta nerve. The kid couldn’t even trust his own sister. I didn’t tell him to run off. He took off on his own.”
“And if you hadn’t been tailing us, you fucking asshole,” Elle said, taking a quick step toward him, “he wouldn’t have had anywhere to run. What the hell were you doing following my brother, let alone federal agents?”
“E-nough! Moss, chill. The. Fuck. Out. You sound like you’re arguing with your baby brother. I will handle this, capish? Now cuff the lady. I got Coffey. They’re comin’ with us.”
“With us to where?” Elle said as she broke out her set of cuffs.
“Back to headquarters.”
So I was finally getting a taste of what some of my suspects experienced when I'd put them in the back of a cruiser. It didn’t give me any more empathy over what brief misery we must’ve put them through when we racheted the cuffs too tight and shoved them in and making them tighten up some more. Those pricks I’d arrested as a patrol officer and a homicide detective deserved what they got. I didn’t.
I had a lot to think about as I spent a big part of the ride to the nearest airport in the back seat trying to reach the handcuff keys in my right front pocket. Since my wrists were cuffed behind my back, it was virtually impossible and I could only move my arms and shoulders so much to the right. So far I was barely able to get the tips of my right fingers into the opening of my side pocket.
What happened back at my sister’s place made a lot of sense and it helped answer some questions about the murder scene at the Ritz Carlton on Halloween night. The first thing that came to mind was the drop in temperature. It was colder and bitterer than my mother in law when I got plastered and threw up at our wedding reception. But after Adam fell, it was almost like a freezer and Virginia and I could see our own breath. That was pretty consistent with what I’d seen and felt in the aftermath of the Halloween massacre. I thought of the ice crystals on Mrs. Dumont’s face.
And even though I knew Adam’s dance card was for some reason filled by Beetlejuice and company, even I had a hard time believing his stories about that Nazi prick who’d offed the Christianson family until I saw him with my own eyes. The flashlight that I shined at him actually went through him even though he looked solid. But it was the look in Adam’s green eyes that terrified me. He may have been defiant up until the moment he disappeared at Virginia’s feet but the look on his face was absolutely identical to the one that Chaz had on his face just before Clossey…
In a way, I tried to empathize with Laura because if anything she was even more emotionally attached to the kid than I ever had a right to be. It wasn’t quite the same thing as what I went through but her brother disappeared under the most incredible of circumstances and she had no idea if she’d ever see him alive again. Right after she cuffed my sister and before Blood led us outside, I saw her pick up Adam’s skateboard off the living room floor. She cried and had hugged it against her chest exactly the way I did Chaz’s after he was taken from us.
I looked over at Virginia as I slowly twisted my shoulders to try to get my hands deeper into my pocket. She stiffly sat up straight, her eyes closed as if in concentration. Years of seeing Virge indulge in weirdness when we were growing up taught me to never interrupt her when she was doing that yoga shit. So I left her alone while I tried to get my handcuff keys and prayed that where ever he was, Adam was nowhere near that Nazi prick.
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