Barely a Crime Read online

  No more laughter.

  The doctor, still without expression, took a step backward, moving toward the entrance to the living room. His arms hung straight at his sides.

  Crawl waved his H&K like a metronome. “Too late,” he said. “Now we want more than five hundred dollars.”

  The doctor retreated farther into the room.

  Crawl lowered the gun, pointing the muzzle at the doctor’s waist, and moved with him.

  Kieran stayed at his side.

  The doctor said, “What is it you really want?” His voice was low and even. He took another step back. “When you leave, what, exactly, do you want to have with you?”

  He was staring at Crawl, not at Kieran.

  “We want seven and a half million of your dollars,” Crawl said evenly. “Not cash this time. This time, U.S. dollars transferred to the accounts we’ll give you. We want no police involvement. We want to disappear with your seven and a half million and never see you again. And we want you to know you’ll never see us again.”

  “Is that all?” the doctor whispered.

  “Okay,” Crawl said, nodding. He stopped moving. “You don’t like that, we’ll settle for something else. Maybe come back to that later.”

  With that, he raised his automatic, pointed it toward the large gilded mirror hanging over the fireplace in the living room, swung it around slowly to face the doctor, then slowly lowered it and began to circle the doctor, walking between him and the bookcase. “How about, instead, we start with mama and the baby Jesus?” he said. “And we take them out of that nice white car right about now.”

  The doctor’s eyes rounded with a threatening fire.

  And in that moment, with Crawl smiling and Kieran looking deadly serious and the doctor’s eyes boring into Crawl without blinking, the sound of a single gunshot cracked through the woods outside like a blast at the end of the world.

  Crawl exclaimed, “What the hell?” He raised his gun instinctively, pointing it at the doctor’s chest. He said loudly, practically shouting, “Kieran! Sit him down! If he moves, blow off his kneecaps.”

  Kieran jumped to follow orders. His heart was pounding. He yelled, “Sit down there!” and waved his weapon in the doctor’s face, forcing him toward the couch in the living room.

  Crawl left running to get back to the car.

  Brenna was screaming.

  Marie jerked off her seat belt and groped to get away from the deflated air bag.

  Brenna shouted hysterically, “Back it up! Back it up! Oh, God!”

  But Marie was already out of the car, crying and screaming and suddenly running as fast as she could up the road toward the house.

  Brenna screamed at her to stop, then raised her gun, aimed it over Marie’s head, and fired three times, quickly.

  But Marie didn’t stop.

  Crawl heard Brenna’s three shots as he pulled away from the house. He muttered and bit down hard, then exploded into a shout, “Damn it to hell! What are you doing?”

  He wheeled the car onto the entrance road, pounding on the steering wheel as he went. His automatic was on the seat beside him. He started to grab it, but didn’t. Instead he just pounded the steering wheel again and screamed in sudden fury at whatever had happened and whoever had caused it, “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! What are you doing?”

  The doctor sat on the edge of the couch, studying Kieran. His mind flitted from one possible point of attack to another. And attack would be needed. They knew about Marie and the baby, they knew about the car, which was due back home at that very time. Shots meant that others were here, not just these two. And not even Crawl or Kieran knew at what, or at whom, the shots had been fired.

  He could see Kieran was scared. That might be useful. It might also be a hindrance. Scared young men did stupid things. But it was a start. Kieran was scared. And now he was alone.

  He thought about the young Irishman’s father, dying young. Did that absence bind Kieran closer to his friend Crawl, making it harder for the doctor to turn one against the other? Or could it be the wedge, with him now becoming a father figure to Kieran; someone older, accepting him at last?

  He didn’t know as much as he wished he knew about the boy’s mother. But he knew about the old wounds and the newfound religion. What could he do to pry an opening into Kieran using memories of the mother?

  A gray satellite phone stood on a glass-topped table next to a leather chair by the fireplace, its thick antenna sticking up like an arm signaling for attention. Kieran walked around the couch to grab it.

  The doctor stared after him, his mind racing furiously.

  Better yet—much better—there was the sister, the dead Colleen. She may be buried, but surely she was there to resurrect if needed. Love or guilt. It didn’t really matter which of the two would be his most powerful weapon, did it? With the dead sister, the doctor had both to work with.

  Kieran’s automatic swayed at his side. He tossed the satellite phone onto a green chair that stood against the wall behind him. “You won’t be using that,” he said.

  The doctor rubbed his scar with the thumb of his left hand. Four shots. And God only knew what was happening now, with the more violent of the two already joining whoever else was down the road.

  No, he decided. He would not take the time for cat-and-mouse, for love or guilt, for twisting memories of a broken family. The Smith & Wesson was waiting for him in the bookcase just ten feet to his left, already propped up for easy taking, the safety off, ready to fire.

  Brenna cried, “Oh, God! Is this really happening?”

  She dropped the gun in the road and stood, paralyzed, watching Marie get farther and farther away, then staring at Michael like a child staring at roadkill. She felt overcome with the horror of things she had never seen before as a question pounded in her head: “Is this really happening?”

  Michael’s eyes were open. He was staring back at her, blinking. Blood leaked out of the left corner of his mouth. Sounds were leaking out with it, helpless, gasping sounds coming in shallow breaths.

  Brenna felt her whole body shudder. She willed herself to think, move, do something.

  Realizing the Lexus was stalled but still pressing against Michael, she raced to open the door, instinctively wanting to start it again and drop it into reverse, but the driver’s door was locked. She cried, “Damn! Damn! Damn!” and, for the first time, even as she cursed the locked door and this whole day and the whole of her life, she looked at Leah behind the deflated air bag. The back of her head was a wad of blood. There was blood on the headrest, blood on the back of the seat, blood on the old woman’s delicate white sweater.

  Brenna breathed deeply and tried to steady herself. She heard herself whimper, “How did this happen?” and forced herself to move on shaky legs to the front passenger door of the car, which Marie had left open. She was trying not to look at the woman who was dead. She heard herself sobbing. She tried not to look at Michael, either, who was staring at the darkened sky and dying, his face barely visible to her, just six feet in front of the car’s windshield.

  Then she realized: she didn’t have to back up the woman’s car to help Michael. All she had to do was to pull the Chevy pickup forward. She burst into fresh tears and forced herself to try to think more clearly. She was alone now, with what was left of Michael. And the woman was really dead and the girl was really gone. She had to do the smart things, now more than ever.

  Oh, Jesus!

  Walking away from the car. Walking now toward the truck.

  Keep breathing, she thought. Deep breaths. Don’t look at the lady. Don’t look at Michael. Don’t faint.

  Listening. Hearing Michael’s breathing but still not looking at him. Thinking, thank God he’s alive. Focusing on walking all the way around the front of the truck to the open driver’s door on the other side. Thinking, Michael’s not dead yet.

  The old lady’s dead. Michael’s dying, for sure.

  Just not dead yet.

  He would be, though, by the
time Crawl got there.

  She felt what little strength was left in her legs drain away like water. She thought, oh, God, Crawl will kill me, him and Michael being so close. He’ll go crazy. He’ll kill me, for sure.

  But Crawl wouldn’t know she had started it by saying something to the lady about the baby. How could he know that?

  Unless he caught the girl and the girl told him.

  She was still crying, but softly now, and breathing in more regular breaths. She started the Chevy’s engine and pulled the truck ahead, moving it slowly away from Michael’s body. She hoped he wasn’t stuck to the rear bumper and being pulled along with her, tearing open his wounds, maybe, or turning a broken neck.

  Maybe he had just died anyway. She couldn’t hear his breathing anymore, not from inside the truck. But how could all this have happened? How could all of this awfulness have actually happened?

  She was sure she was going to be sick.

  She turned off the pickup’s engine and closed her eyes. Her head sunk to her chest. Her hands went limp on the steering wheel.

  What was she doing here? Why was this happening so far from home?

  With her head still lowered, she grabbed her hair with both fists and screamed a scream that was high and long and pounding with pain.

  14

  Crawl nearly ran Marie down. He spun onto Ridge Road and she was there, running right toward him, not watching where she was going, panicked and crying and out of breath.

  He slammed on the brakes with a new and overwhelming rage at whatever had totally screwed up the easiest job in the world; an old lady and a kid, and here she was, the kid running loose and four shots going off at God-knew-what.

  Marie screamed and tried to pivot and run in the opposite direction as Crawl jumped out of the car, but she slipped in the gravel and went down. Crawl, even with his limp, had her by the arm before she could get up.

  “What do you want?” she shouted. “What do you want?”

  Crawl said, “Get in the car!” He jerked her hard to her feet. “And if you screw with me, I’ll break your neck.”

  Marie cried out, “Leave me alone!” and swung at Crawl, catching him squarely in the cheek with her fist.

  Crawl staggered, then swung back at her, cracking her across the face with his open left hand hard enough to buckle her knees. He reached into the car, grabbed the automatic from the front seat, thrust the barrel hard between her upper lip and her nose and said, “Get in the car right now or I’ll hurt you, girl.” His cheek was already flushed by her blow. “If you try and run, I’ll shoot your legs. Then I’ll drag you into the car, anyway.”

  Marie looked past the cold steel and nodded. As she let him force her into the passenger seat, she said, for the third time, more weakly than before, “What do you want?”

  Crawl slammed the door and walked quickly around to the driver’s side. He looked down the road before he got in, trying to see Michael and his truck, but all he could see was empty road and a wall of trees and the curve that began a hundred yards down the road.

  “Why are you doing this?” Marie asked as Crawl tucked the automatic between his legs and spun the tires in the gravel, roaring toward the curve in the road. When he didn’t answer, she steeled herself and announced, “He killed my aunt.”

  Crawl’s foot went limp on the accelerator. He stared at her.

  She began to cry, then said, “And she killed him.”

  Crawl’s mouth dropped open. His eyes flooded with disbelief. With raging panic his hands tightened on the steering wheel and his foot drove the accelerator to the floor.

  The doctor said thoughtfully, “Do you know what war is, son?”

  “I know what war is.”

  The doctor leaned forward. His long hands wrapped over his knees. “War,” he said, “is the purposeful pursuit of disintegration.”

  Kieran said, “I’m thinking I’ve been closer to it than you have.”

  The doctor let ten seconds pass, during which he stared at Kieran without blinking. Then he said, speaking softly, “Of course you have. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”

  Kieran’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t answer.

  Ever so slowly, the doctor rose to his feet. “Here,” he said, “let me show you what a very brilliant man named Fendholt said about war. And about you and me.” He turned and moved toward the bookcase. “His book is called The Delicate Art of War.”

  “Back down!” Kieran said sharply. He raised his automatic and took two quick steps backward, bumping into the chair holding the phone.

  The doctor didn’t even turn to look at him. He said a quiet, “Nonsense, son. You’re in this description. You’ll be surprised,” and kept moving.

  “Get back!”

  Four more feet.

  “It’s just a book, son. And if you kill me, you get nothing, do you?”

  The air exploded.

  The doctor flinched and froze.

  A small black hole showed in the wall just above the bookcase.

  “You know I hit what I aim at,” Kieran said coldly from behind the doctor. “And I’m not your son. If you turn and look, you’ll see I’m aiming at your right thigh, five inches above your knee. If you take one more step forward, or one step either to your right or left, I’ll blow your bone into a thousand pieces. You’ll still transfer our money. You’ll just be hurting really bad when you do it.”

  The doctor didn’t move.

  “Step back now. Only step backward. That’s all. You’re on the floor if you don’t move straight backward, so help me God.”

  The doctor took a single small step backward with his right leg and turned slowly around.

  Kieran stood next to the green chair, ten feet away. He was braced. His gun hand was extended straight toward the doctor’s leg. His left hand gripped the heel of his gun hand. His gaze was locked on the doctor’s thigh, not on his eyes.

  “So help you, God?” the doctor said incredulously.

  He moved slowly back to the couch and, just as slowly, sat down.

  Kieran shifted his automatic to his left hand. “Bad people in your house. . .” he said in a soft voice. “Shots going off outside. . .” He walked to the bookcase, keeping his eyes on the doctor. “One of the bad guys telling you we’re ready to kidnap your niece if we have to. . .” He began to sweep the books off the top shelf of the case, one handful at a time. “Ready to take her and her freak baby with five lungs and no stomach, too. . .” The books tumbled in a slow cadence to the hardwood floor. “And you want to show me a book about war?”

  The Delicate Art of War and two other books tumbled to the floor. Kieran stared at the exposed Smith & Wesson.

  The doctor watched, still sitting erect, looking impassive.

  “I don’t think so,” Kieran said softly.

  He picked up the weapon, engaged its safety with a flick of his thumb and pressed it behind his back, into his belt. Then he remarked calmly, “You’re a liar and a thief and a violent man, Dr. Cleary.”

  The doctor’s dark eyes flashed. “And you,” he said slowly, in a deadly whisper, “are a twenty-two-year-old man who helped kill his own sister and who is now at war with almighty God.”

  Crawl was doing eighty-five on the straight section of the road, kicking up clouds of dust and gravel. He saw Michael’s pickup with the hood up, saw Brenna climb out the driver’s door. She didn’t wave at him, Crawl noticed, and there was no sign of Michael. His heart pounded. There was no aunt, either. There was just Brenna with her back pressed against the side of the truck and her fists clenched against her cheeks. An echo of the niece saying, “She killed him!” rang in his head.

  He felt his stomach twist into a knot and heard himself shouting in a silent rage to God, or to fate, or to whatever it was that made sure everything he did turned totally bad: “Is this you again, getting back at me one more time, letting them kill Michael now like they killed my father, saying everything was my fault?”

  He careened to a stop beside
Brenna, who turned with sagging shoulders to the side as though she wanted to hide.

  Her expression said she wanted to be anywhere but here.

  Grabbing the keys, Crawl tumbled wild-eyed out of the car. “Where’s Michael?” He looked past the trembling redhead to the bullet hole in the windshield of the white Lexus and the woman sagged over the wheel behind a spiderweb of glass.

  Then he saw Michael and he screamed: no words, just a high-pitch sound, like that of an animal dying.

  Brenna whispered, “Crawl?” as though his name were a painful question. Then she was silent again.

  Crawl dropped to his knees beside his brother, who was lying in the road with his face turned up and his eyes still open and his breath still coming in terrible whispers. “What happened?” he screamed. He touched his brother’s face with the fingertips of both hands. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear to God.” Brenna was crying hard. “He just stepped in front of her car, and she went crazy and ran into him, and he shot her as the car hit him. I don’t know why she did it. And I don’t know why he didn’t move. Honest to God, though, she just went crazy. I didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did he. I just told her I was having car trouble, and she started to open her door to get out, and the girl started to get out, and then she saw his gun, maybe, I don’t know. He was out of the pickup, and she saw him and freaked out. She said, ‘Who’s that?’, and she slammed her door again and locked it and just plowed into him. And he shot at her without getting out of the way. He just froze, Crawl, honest to God.”

  She noticed motion to her left and wheeled to see the passenger door of Crawl’s car opening and Marie suddenly jumping out and running fast, not back toward the house but into the woods. Brenna shouted, “Stop!” and sprang after the girl.

  Crawl barely paid attention. He talked to Michael, breathing like a man who had just run for miles, saying, “You’re all right, brother, I swear to God.”

  “We’ll be at the doctor’s in just a minute. He knows what to do.”

  “Michael, I didn’t want this. It isn’t my fault, you know that.”