I decided what I needed was a drive through the mountains. Mix-up seemed content snoozing in the sun, so I left him to his dogdreams and followed my muse, circling through the Gorge until the road somehow dumped me several miles distant, in Campton. Being so close to Cherry’s office, I was compelled by civility to stop and wish her well.
She was at her desk, hair pulled back in a streamlining of red, a pair of silver earrings bobbing against her milky cheeks. She wore a white blouse and dark pantsuit that would have turned any buxom starlet du jour into a sexless manikin, and I wondered if Cherry was – consciously or not – aping the drabness of the Feeb’s palette.
She looked up and I thought I saw a spark of smile, quickly extinguished in favor of nonchalance. I spun a chair in front of her desk, where I saw a grouping of photos from Powers’s death scene.
“You’re back on the case?” I asked.
Cherry shrugged. “I figure Krenkler’s first day push-away was a shot over my bow, making sure I knew my place.”
“Which is?”
“Making multiple copies of all case materials,” she said, keeping her face and voice emotionless. “Making runs for coffee and burgers. Smoothing the lady’s way into interviews with locals.”
“Ever think she’s keeping you close to keep you open to blame?”
“That thought has occurred, Kemo Sabe. I’m watching my flank.”
I’ve watched it a time or two, my mind said. My mouth said, “Krenkler making any headway?”
Cherry leaned back in her chair and sighed. “She wants to do all the interviews herself, like I’m too incompetent to ask a question. Trouble is, she’s got this imperial attitude. And she’s got all these guys in dark suits with her every step she takes, no idea how scary it is to a lot of the populace.”
“People clam up the second Krenkler appears,” I said.
Cherry nodded, silver earrings bouncing. “They pretend to be as dumb as she thinks they are. It seems to validate her suspicions, so she treats them even more like ignorant children and the circle keeps spiraling down. She has no concept of mountain folk.”
I nodded understanding. Any group from a relatively isolated and low-money background learns the ritual as a form of protection. When you don’t know how the rulers will use information, the best play is playing dumb. To the well-heeled, knowledge is power. To the poor it’s usually just a target on their backs.
“What’s Beale doing?” I asked.
“He’s turned the Woslee police force completely over to Krenkler. She uses them for errands. She uses everyone for errands.”
Cherry’s cellphone rang. She pulled it from her jacket. “What? Where? How bad?” she said, listening between the words. She snapped the phone shut and shook her head.
“Caudill’s got a problem. Some preacher has gone O.K. Corral and is holed up in a church shooting anything that moves.”
“Anyone hurt?” I asked.
“A county worker brush-cutting a side road got hit in the thigh. He found cover under the tractor, but Caudill can’t get to him. Uh, Ryder …”
“I haven’t been to church in a while.”
Within a minute we were on the Mountain Parkway, Cherry standing on the pedal, the speedometer in the hundred-ten-plus range. We veered on to an asphalt road that was barely a car and a half wide, changed direction on a switchback, climbed a couple hundred feet, swerved off on to a dirt road.
I saw a trio of wooden crosses in the distance, the center cross twenty feet high. Behind them, on a rise of three mowed acres, was a single-wide trailer with a large cross painted in white across its front. A hand-lettered sign said Solid Word Church. A hundred feet behind, at the edge of a woods, was a second trailer, living quarters, a small garden to its side.
A slug thudded into the side of the cruiser.
“Damn!” Cherry yelled. “Get down.”
She aimed the car into a steep drainage ditch beside the road, a few feet of cover. I saw a single-lane bridge two hundred feet ahead, a county-cop SUV and dark FBI cruiser on the far side. The occupants were safe behind a four-foot rock wall. Caudill and the Feds.
We jumped out as a round thudded into the dirt. Cherry pulled up a walkie-talkie, waved it at Caudill. He pulled his own unit from his belt.
“What’s the story, Caudill?”
“We been stuck here since I called you. I’ve got two ambulances waiting a quarter-mile away.”
“Where’s Beale?”
“Hunting squirrel.”
“Who’s in there, Buddy?” Cherry said. “Who’s the shooter? Over.”
“It’s Brother Tanner.”
“Ezekiel Tanner?” Cherry said. “Uncle Zeke?”
Cherry set aside the communicator and stared at the church.
“You’re related to the guy in there?” I asked.
“His father was my uncle’s wife’s cousin’s brother third removed or something like that. I can’t keep it all straight.”
“He’s a for-real reverend?”
“Self-ordained. Zeke has always seemed more sick with the spirit than inspired by it. He used to give the blessing at family reunions. You ever been eight years old and told you’re gonna end up as cooked as the supper chicken, only in the devil’s oven?”
“I had my own problems. You got field glasses in the cruiser?”
Cherry thumbed the trunk mechanism on her keys. I duck-walked to the trunk, lifted the lid. A shot from the church blew out half the light bar as I found a set of high-powered binocs. I scrabbled back to Cherry’s side and peered over the top of the gulley, staying low.
The church-trailer was atop a rising hill, a small rocky creek at the base, a hundred feet from us. A narrow asphalt county road angled the side of the church. Between church and creek and slender lane, the scene was postcard pastoral. Until you saw the big green John Deere tractor tipped into the gulley, its bush hog attachment like a giant lawnmower on its side. The injured operator sprawled beneath the tractor, his right leg red with blood. He wasn’t moving.
Another shot rang out. A headlamp exploded on the tractor, glass raining down on the wounded man.
“AVANT THEE, SATAN,” screamed a voice from the church. “Yea though I WALK through the VALLEY I FEAR NO EVIL!”
It was Cherry’s turn to duck-walk to the trunk, returning with a bullhorn. She aimed the cone over the wall. “Zeke? This is Donna Cherry. You remember me, right? I always loved your preaching.”
“BITCH DEVIL!” the man screamed, punctuating his words with a volley. “SPAWN OF SATAN! WHORE OF BABYLON!”
“Not working,” she said, ducking back down as the guy started talking in tongues. “ARM-A-LACKEE TATALODO. SHEM PAYLA RAS! HARWHALLA DEEM-ADAYDA!”
“He’s losing whatever’s left,” Cherry said. “Mad as a hatter.”
“The guy under the tractor looks passed out,” I said. “Probably in shock.” I gauged the width of the creek, deep-cut banks, the creek a good yard beneath the level of the land.
“I think I can get to the wounded man with the car,” I said. “There’s a rise I can use as a ramp.”