Ghost River, Jon Coon [ebooks online reader TXT] 📗

SUV as it roared away down the street with squealing tires.

“Officer down and two men dead,” Gabe shouted into his phone and then gave the address. “Suspect is fleeing in a late model dark green SUV, with broken rear glass and bullet holes in the driver’s side doors.” Gabe holstered his pistol and pocketed the cell phone.

Neighbors were cautiously coming into their yards, one holding a shotgun.

Gabe held up his badge, “Police. It’s under control. Please stay off the street.” Then he went back inside to check on Nick. “How bad?” he asked.

“Hurts, but I’m okay. You get the other one?” Nick had pulled himself up against the desk and was holding pressure on the wound with a couch pillow.

“Don’t think so. I hit the car, but who knows? Pretty smart to make us think they were leaving and then double back like that. And with those silencers we know they weren’t amateurs.” Gabe knelt beside Nick to check the wound and Nick’s pulse and respiration. He was breathing okay. Hopefully that means no lung damage. Gabe put a second couch pillow behind Nick and tried to make him more comfortable. They heard sirens, and within minutes, two uniformed officers burst into the room, guns drawn. Gabe flashed his badge. “Where’s the ambulance?”

The officers holstered their weapons, and the taller one answered, “Right behind us, I’ll bring them in. How is he?” he asked nodding at Nick.

“I’ll be okay,” Nick replied. “But the captain didn’t make it.”

Gabe was going through the pockets of the dead shooter and found a wallet and badge.

“I don’t believe it. He was a cop!” Gabe said to Nick.

“What?”

Gabe held up the badge and driver’s license. “Look at this, state police, Dade County. He lived in Miami.”

A paramedic hurried into the room, quickly examined Nick, and called for a gurney. On his way out Gabe knelt again by the dog. He put his ear against the dog’s chest and heard a faint heartbeat. He gently stroked the soft head as he prayed silently. One of the uniformed officers approached as Gabe stood above the dog.

“He’s still alive. Can you get him to a vet? I think he may have gotten a piece of the other shooter.” Gabe said, “See the blood on his muzzle? Make sure the forensics guys see it and ask them to do a mold of his teeth. The guy who got away was holding his arm like he’d been bitten when they met us at the door. If our perp goes in for treatment, that old rascal,” he said nodding toward the dog, “might have the last word after all. Hope he makes it.”

Gabe walked out to his truck and locked it. He shook his head in disgust and had a brief talk with God as he climbed in the ambulance with Nick. On the way to the hospital he said, “Captain Brady had something to tell us. Now we need to find out what that was. If I dive again, maybe whoever is behind this will try to stop us. Then we’ll find out who the captain meant when he said this goes up the food chain. What do you think?”

“Just wish I was going to be there to cover your six, my friend. This is serious stuff.”

Orderlies and nurses rushed Nick to surgery. Gabe, exhausted, dropped into a waiting room chair. Nick was single, and Gabe wasn’t sure if there was family to call, so he called the office, gave them a status report and a location, and said he would wait with Nick.

Fifteen minutes later Detective Bob Spencer dropped in the chair beside him. “You okay?” Bob asked.

“Yeah, guess so. Still rattled, but I’m okay. The one who shot Nick was a Florida trooper.”

“They told me on the way over. We’re looking for his partner. Think you tagged him?”

“Maybe. I took out the rear glass,” Gabe said.

“What were you doing at Brady’s?”

Gabe shifted in the chair and stretched his neck and shoulders. The adrenaline was gone, and he needed caffeine. “He knew what was going on and was ready to talk. He’d asked us to meet him. Did you see a coffee machine anywhere? I’m fading fast.”

“Sit still. I’ll find some.” Bob went down the hall.

Gabe got up, stretched, and began pacing. They were cops! And somebody sent them to kill Brady and keep us from finding out what he knew. Who else could have known about our meeting, and how could whatever Brady knew have been damaging enough to get him killed? Could it have been Jim? That doesn’t make sense. If Jim is on the other side, he’s had plenty of chances to keep me from diving or worse.

Bob rounded the corner with two steaming paper cups. “Careful, it’s hot.”

“Yeah, me too. Cops killing cops pisses me off.”

The driveway to former state engineer Peterson’s home was a half-mile long with pecan groves along both sides. The house looked like it was from Gone with the Wind with massive live oaks, hundreds of years old and hung with Spanish moss, and shaded manicured lawns. Gabe parked on the circular cobblestone drive in front of the three-foot diameter Doric columns on the front porch. Peterson was waiting in a wheelchair next to a glass-topped wicker table.

“Six generations, since well before the war of Northern aggression,” Peterson said as Gabe admired the house and grounds. Peterson extended a weathered hand. Slight and pale, thinning hair and mottled skin, but there was still a vitality of spirit in this old man, intense and cunning.

“At one time nearly four thousand acres and over five hundred slaves. But of course it’s not politically correct to talk about that anymore,” he snorted and went on. “All that’s left now is the house and the pecan groves. Hope you like tea. It’s the strongest thing Miss Harriet will let me have these days.” There was a painted china pot of hot water with matching cups and saucers on the table.

Gabe settled into the