The Shack series

Chapter 20

It's not gonna come up hot on a ballistics check, is it?"

"Not this one." Car compactors are great for getting rid of evidence. Nobody wants to deal with a two ton steel origami wrapper that just might have something in it.

He looked upward for a moment, probably praying for patience, "Fine. You'll probably get it back. Hell, I'm sure you have a half-dozen more anyway."

I gave a non-committal gesture. Hell, I had another 1911 in the trunk, in a "hide" under the carpet, but I didn't plan to share that.

He leaned back. "I do have one question. Where's Mooky?"

Delaney shrugged. "In the trunk. What else was I supposed to do with him?"

We walked around Sally and Delaney popped the truck. Mooky was snoring peacefully, drooling on my trunk liner.

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow at Delaney. "You stuffed him in there by yourself?"

She grinned. "I lug wheels and tires around half the day. I kinda got his top half in and poured the rest of him in."

I looked him over. "We probably outta drop him at the hospital and get him checked out. I think he's okay, but he's got some smoke inhalation and maybe a light concussion."

The Sheriff sighed. "I'll get an ambulance headed this way."

Delaney twisted her mouth, eying Mooky. "Be a pity to wake him up just to put him in an ambulance."

I nodded. "He does look peaceful, doesn't he? We can drop him off, I want to see how Hyatt is doing, anyway."

Delaney closed the trunk.

I fired up Sally and had Delaney call Sheree.

After a few minutes of quiet conversation, Delaney hung up. "Sheree says that gives her time to clean up before we use up all the hot water. She's glad we rescued Mooky and Hyatt. Especially since there's no way it was our fault this time."

When we popped the trunk at the hospital, Mooky looked up at us bleary-eyed. "Dude, I had, like a really bad nightmare." He pulled himself up to sitting and got out of the trunk. He was completely unsurprised by waking up in a trunk in the first place. "Those two suits, they took my s**t, and they like burned my place and..."

He trailed off, staring up at the hospital sign, then touched the side of his face, wincing at the pain. "Awwww, Nooooo. They burned my place didn't they?"

I held my hands up. "It was all we could do to pull you out. It was too late for the trailer."

"One of them took my seed, too."

"I'm pretty sure it's gone this time. Your 'suits' got in a shoot-out with Deputy Hyatt outside our trailer, they ended up dead and the fire burned the whole area."

His face fell. "Gone?"

I nodded. "Gone."

Mooky looked down at his feet. "This sucks man."

Delaney glared at him. "Hyatt got shot trying to stop those two. That's why we're here."

He rubbed his forehead and looked down with glassy eyes. "Nobody's supposed to get hurt. It's just w**d, man, not meth. This isn't like "Breaking Bad" or some shit." He looked up at the sign. "Is she here? Can we see her?"

We led him in and ran right into the Sheriff standing in the waiting area outside of surgery. There's an advantage to having lights and sirens when you want to get somewhere fast.

He gestured us over. "Doc says she should be okay. No promises, you know how they are. He said you kept her from losing too much blood and it looks like nothing vital was hit. She won't be able to see anyone until tomorrow afternoon if everything goes well."

"She was doing pretty well when we loaded her into the ambulance, or I'd have ridden with her. She's tough; she should be okay."

He pulled out his notebook. "I talked to her a little before she went in. The pain meds were working well enough for her to concentrate. From what I can put together, they wounded her when she did the initial traffic stop, shot her through the door when she started to get out. She blocked the road, started shooting back, so they took off back toward Mooky's place."

"That fits."

"Once there, they re-engaged and... the perps became shot. It'll probably take til morning for us to get in there to see what's left. Whatever was there, it's probably burned to ashes by now. The fire can't really go anywhere, and Chief Simmons isn't really interested in risking his people." He glanced at Mooky who was still trying to get his brain around the disaster. "Which brings us to whatever the hell was going on in the first place."

I sighed. "Believe it or not, I think this is about a few ounces of m*******a seed."

"C'mon, Needles, nobody kills anyone over w**d anymore."

Delaney looked up at a glassy eyed Mooky. "Just tell him the truth, Mooky. He's a good guy." She smirked. "Besides, all the evidence is gone."

Mooky sighed and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

The Sheriff eyed me. "I'll get his story now, but I'm dropping by to get yours later tonight. I know it'll be late."

"One of your deputies got shot. There's no such thing as late when one of your people gets hurt. I'll let Sheree know."

"Damn right."

As we left the parking lot Delaney bit her lip. "Do you really think this is over that package he had?"

"I don't know. It fits. It doesn't make any sense. But it fits."

"How much could it have been worth?"

"Not much, a few thousand bucks, tops. Sure as hell not enough to kill for. Unless..." I stopped. The whole idea was ridiculous.

"Unless what?"

"Unless somebody really believes what Mooky said about it curing cancer, but that's nuts."

Delaney stared out the window. "A class of new drivers started the week we left Texas. They sent two guys home because they tested positive for marijuana."

"They'll do that."

"Kurt told us why. He said it slows your reflexes and makes it harder to think clearly." She shuddered. "I can't imagine wanting to make it harder to think or read or..." she stopped, looking a little sick.

I could see where she was going. Delaney already felt "stupid' sometimes, because of her dyslexia, no matter how much Sheree and I supported her. She'd come a long way, but reading was still hard and always would be. "Yeah, it's probably not something you'd want to use."

She nodded slowly, then forced a smile. "I know I'm a pain in the a*s, but at least you don't have to worry about that."

"Just wandering power-sanders."

She shrugged dramatically. "So with all the shooting and the burning and s**t, it's the sander that bothers you?"

"I'm used to the 'shooting and burning and s**t,' but I hate it when my tools aren't where they're supposed to be."

Delaney rolled her eyes. "Oh. My God. The end of the world. A misplaced power-sander."

I shook my head sadly. "It's a sad world when sanders get misplaced." She always left the sander exactly one foot in front of the shelf cubby it belonged in. Carefully oiled, cleaned up and with a new sanding pad in place if it needed one. It was one of those weird little "us" things that people have. She knew she could be "bad" and I would growl about it, but we both knew it was okay, that it was just how we were.

We both knew what it really meant, and I could see her settle comfortably.

As we reached the cabin and pulled up to the right of it, Delaney glanced over her shoulder. "Damn, the Sheriff must have left just after we did."

I glanced in the mirror and caught blue and white disco lights coming up fast behind us. I slammed Sally into park. "Take the phone. Get into the woods and call the Sheriff."

She looked at me in shock. "What?"

"The Sheriff and his men use red, white, and blue lights. Not blue and white. That's a state cop thing."

"s**t. What are you..."

"Go, dammit."

She flew out of the car and dashed around the cabin as I hit the trunk release and dropped out the door to the ground.

I was planning on trying to get to the 1911 in my trunk, but bullets were already slamming into Sally's a*s end.

I didn't recognize the passenger, a bullet-headed man with a grey T-shirt, but as soon as I saw the driver I hoped Delaney was making good time.

Stein, looking like a frazzled racoon with his two black eyes, was shouting at his partner. "Just put him the Damn down and get that little b***h!"

I was moving as fast as I could, but the guy had a clear shot at me and he seemed to have his s**t together. I'd pretty much resigned myself to getting shot for the fourth time in my life when the overwhelming boom of a shotgun from the front window of the cabin shocked everything into silence.

The guy staggered back, red blossoming across most of his chest. A second deafening shot pitched him over backwards. The peculiar jingling of shattered glass raining to the ground was the only sound at all for a second.

Stein dropped into a crouch to take himself out of the line of fire and began quickly working his way around the car to get a shot at me. Asshole or not, he was well trained and losing his partner hadn't shaken his nerve at all.

He was just getting around the car, grinning, when something buzzed from the side of the cabin, cracking him across the face and falling to the ground.

He staggered back a couple steps, his nose spouting fresh blood. I dove for his partner's Kimber.

Delaney crowed wildly from around the corner. "Asshole!"

He straightened up snarling. "You little b***h!"

I rolled to my feet, thrust the muzzle of the Kimber against his temple and fired. He collapsed and I stared down at him. "I Damning warned you about calling her that." Not that he could hear it.

Sheree stalked from the front of the cabin, shotgun cautiously leveled. "Is that all of them?"

"I think so." One glance at Stein's partner told me he was dead.

Delaney crept around the corner of the cabin. "Sorry. I know I was supposed to run, but the cell fell out of my pocket when I ran." She walked over and picked it up from the ground. "So I kinda improvised."

I shrugged. "Well, I'm kinda glad you did. If you hadn't, I'd have had a real problem."

Sheree looked over Stein and his man suspiciously until she was convinced they were dead. "I was finishing up my hair when I heard the shooting. Wasn't 'xactly planning on having a gunfight just now."

Delaney gave a chirping laugh. "I was gonna ask about that."

Sherree tugged her pink "Virginia Beach is for Lovers" t-shirt down a bit in a vain attempt to cover her red lace panties. "Next time we do this, y'all call ahead and let me get into some coveralls, too, okay?" She tried to sound surly, but her amusement still peaked through.

I pretended to study her. "I dunno, I kinda like it."

Delaney gave a long dramatic sigh. "God. Of course, you do. Eeewww." Then she broke down in a giggle.

I watched Sheree carefully, trying not to be obvious. She seemed more composed than I would've expected.

"Somebody's coming." Delaney pointed to a pair of headlights coming up the road.

We looked at each other for a second, then Sheree hefted the 12 gauge and moved behind Stein's car. I stuck the Kimber in my belt and pulled the back-up 1911 out of the hide in Sally's trunk. Delaney picked up Stein's g*n; she took a deep sigh and looked at me.

I gave her a nod. "Stay close to Sheree."

The Sheriff's Tahoe slowed to a crawl as he took in the scene. He stopped. Once I could see his face clearly in the light from the cabin, I put the 1911 on the hood of Stein's car.

He slid out, hand hovering over his sidearm. "I'm sure there's one hell of an interesting story here, Needles."

"Stein."

"s**t. You guys okay?"

"Car's shot up, but all of us are fine."

"Any more of them.?"

"Just the two of them."

He keyed his mike and called it in, looking over the bodies.

He glanced over at Delaney. "Aw hell, you're letting Little Miss Mayhem play with guns now?"

Delaney looked startled and hastily placed Stein's g*n on Sally's hood. I cut in before she could say anything. "That's Stein's piece. We weren't sure it was you coming up the road. Been a long Damning evening."

He nodded, pacing the scene and eyeballing angles. "Leave it to you two to end up in two unrelated firefights in one damn evening."

The Sheriff looked over the shotgun pattern on Stein's man, then over at Sheree's shotgun. "You okay?"

She met his look with a steady stare. "They went after my baby and my man. I'd do it again tomorrow. And the day after. As many times as it takes."

"Good call. We'll put that in your statement. Should stop any questions right there. Stein was an 'armed and dangerous,' so this should pretty much be a walkover. I'll have to collect your guns, though."

I pulled the Kimber out and put it on the hood. "Never fired mine, had to use one of theirs."

"Still have to check." He chuckled. "Is this 1911 going to come up hot on a ballistics check?"

"Shouldn't. It's practically brand new. I haven't shot hardly anyone with it yet."

"With all this s**t going on, I don't really want to leave you unarmed. You need to borrow a piece?"