Too Far Gone

81

Deputy Boudreaux cut back his boat’s motors as soon as Manseur’s receiver registered that the tracker’s location was within a few hundred yards, and they started looking for the channel that they thought would lead them to the briefcase’s present location. Bond had dropped one of the floating markers at the last turn. Although nobody said so, it would allow any one of them to pilot the boat back out if Boudreaux wasn’t able to navigate. It was always good to be practical.

A waving wall of cattails extended between two fingers of ground, breaking the water like quills. There was a wide-enough gap in the reeds to allow a boat to pass through. The deputy pulled to the bank and Bond and Kennedy climbed from the boat, their boots disappearing in the muck. They made their way slowly in the direction of the tracker, rifles slung on their backs.

As Boudreaux began to move the vessel, Alexa caught sight of a tin roof visible above a line of reeds. He cut the wheel hard to the left and gunned it, plunging into an inlet protected by a V of land covered with bushes, trees, and waist-high foliage. The listing cabin was hemmed into the back corner by a floating wood dock that was grounded on either side. A boat was tied to the dock, just to the left of the cabin.

Manseur had put on his windbreaker and stood at the bow, with the shotgun at port arms. Alexa scanned the area, watching for movement.

The small structure, with corrugated metal walls, was listing about ten degrees. The steel pontoons beneath it-which may have once been LP gas tanks-were rusting, and the one on the low side was three-quarters submerged. The edge of the roof was peeled up like some giant had lifted the corner to peer inside. It rose and fell with the breeze.

A large fish broke the choppy surface beside the boat, startling Alexa. She racked a shell into the chamber of her shotgun and fed another double-ought round into the gate at the bottom of the receiver. Alexa had never killed anyone, but if Leland Ticholet or Andy Tinsdale made it necessary, she would kill either of them, and she would do so without hesitation.

The deputy pulled back the power lever and allowed his boat to drift toward the cabin. When it was almost to the pier, Alexa and Manseur jumped onto it. With shotguns aimed at the building, they moved toward the door. As she passed Leland’s boat, Alexa saw dried blood in the stern. She stepped over the carcasses of four skinless animals. Flies swarmed above their wet skins lying side by side on the weathered wood planks.

“Leland Ticholet! Police!” Manseur yelled out. “Come out with your hands up!” His command was answered only with the sounds of insects in the trees, a fish breaking the surface of the water.

Under the porch roof, chicken-wire crab traps served as tables for jugs with thick monofilament line wrapped around them, tiny spring-loaded jaw traps, and a jar filled with rusted fishhooks. Manseur nodded at her and, using his left hand, turned the knob. He pushed the door open and swept the dim interior with his shotgun.

The cabin’s interior, illuminated by sunlight pouring in through the windows and open door, smelled of mildew and rot. A still form lay on an Army cot. With Alexa aiming her shotgun at the figure, Manseur moved to the cot and gazed down at the man lying there.

Andy Tinsdale-still dressed in the black running suit he’d been wearing the night before-stared back, his partly open eyes clouded and dry. From the underside of the cot, accumulated blood had dripped through the canvas, forming a dark puddle. Alexa spotted the briefcase on the table, decorated with five bullet holes that could have all been covered with a five-by-seven index card.

“What’s up, Doc?” Manseur said.

“There’s the briefcase,” Alexa said, pointing the barrel of her borrowed Mossberg.

“It would be nice to find somebody still alive just once, so we could interrogate them. We seem to be spending all our effort collecting evidence and stacking corpses.”

Alexa crossed to the table.

There was a great deal of dried blood smeared on the case’s leather exterior. Carefully, she opened the briefcase and looked at the stack of bearer bonds, most having been penetrated through-and-through by Casey’s. 380 rounds. Alexa wasn’t going to count the papers. Two of the holes in the front side of the case were duplicated on the back panel, but larger and not perfectly round, due to the expansion of the hollow points as they violated the stack of bonds. “Ransom’s here.”

Manseur lifted Doc’s sweatshirt to examine the deceased man’s entrance wounds. He was a homicide detective, and naturally he wanted to see exactly what had transferred Doc from life to death. Alexa wasn’t nearly as curious about what exactly had killed Tinsdale as she was about where Leland Ticholet was. “Chest wounds have irregular margins,” Manseur told her. “Bullets lost enough energy to prevent them from penetrating his lungs or heart,” he said.

She watched Manseur roll Andy up by lifting his arm, so he could get a better look at his backside.

“The one in his liver did the trick,” Manseur reported. “Another in his leg. He suffered before he died.”

Alexa saw something shiny on the floor, and reached down to lift it by its edges.

“Michael,” she said, holding the object out so he could see it. “Game and fish badge.”

“Man alive,” he said. “I guess we solved that mystery.”

Alexa looked up to see Boudreaux, shotgun at the ready, peering inside.

“Tinsdale’s dead in here,” Manseur said. “No Ticholet.”

“He heard us coming,” Boudreaux said. “Probably a long time before we got here. Leland could be a quarter-mile away by now.” He turned on the shotgun’s attached flashlight to peer down through the jagged hole in the boards. “Jesus,” he said.

“What?” Alexa asked.

“He’s got some cottonmouths in a box under the floor. Looks like at some point some uninvited company got a big surprise.” He reached down and flipped over a hinged sheet of plywood to cover the snake hole.

“Might have been one of those missing game wardens,” Alexa said, showing him the badge she’d found.

“I’ll radio it in,” Boudreaux offered. “If Leland’s on the run, we’re done here. With luck, we’ll find his bloated corpse after the hurricane’s done with it. Unless the crabs beat us to him.”

Manseur lifted his walkie-talkie and pressed the TALK button. “Bond, Kennedy, Tinsdale’s DOA. Ticholet is out there somewhere. Based on the boat and some fresh nutria skins, he’s close by. Use extreme caution.”

“I can see the cabin’s roof,” Bond said. “We’ll be in position to cover you in a minute.”

Three sharp cracks, followed by something heavy falling on the deck, ended the transmission. Alexa moved to the door and looked out, to see Boudreaux sprawled on the dock.

“Boudreaux’s down,” Alexa said.

“That’s a. 22,” Manseur said.

“We have to get him inside,” she said.

“Damn it,” Manseur said. He keyed his radio. “Boudreaux’s down. You see Ticholet?”

There were two sharp cracks as rounds smacked into the outer wall of the cabin.

“Negative!” Bond yelled, excitedly. “We’re in position. He’s in his boat!”

Then a boat motor sprang to thundering life.

“Damn it, Bond, stop him!”

Stepping out, Alexa aimed her shotgun at the moving boat, whose bow was raised out of the water. She fired just as Manseur opened up beside her.

There was a swift succession of thunderous explosions as Kennedy and Bond fired high-powered rifles from the shore. The powerful outboard motor sputtered, but the boat was still gathering speed. Alexa looked out, aiming the shotgun at the boat. She couldn’t see the person piloting it because he was crouched behind the pilot’s backrest. She fired at the outboard. The motor seized, silenced by the shotgun and rifle rounds that had hit it. The boat turned sharply. As its bow ran onto the bank, Alexa had a bead on Ticholet, but when she squeezed the trigger, there was a dry snap. She had run the Mossberg dry.

Running, Leland leapt from the boat.

Mumbling curses, Alexa fed fresh rounds into the shotgun. Manseur fired in haste, missing the fast-moving target-who, armed with a. 22 rifle, scrambled with remarkable speed and disappeared into the shadowy tree line.

As Alexa watched over the bead sight of her shotgun, there were four quick cracks from the. 22, and she turned in time to see Kennedy collapse into the foliage. Ticholet was firing at the two detectives from cover. Bond returned fire.

She and Manseur moved to the deputy. Kip Boudreaux was dead. Blood pooled in his right eye socket-his aviator glasses, lenses shattered, lay six feet away, by his boot.

“If Ticholet gets away, we’ll never find him out here,” Alexa said.

Manseur keyed his radio. “Bond?”

“Kennedy’s hit in the lower leg. Looks like it broke the shinbone. It’s not bleeding too badly, but he isn’t going to be walking anywhere.”

“Deputy Boudreaux’s dead. I’ll radio it in.”

“Ticholet may double back on you. Give me a couple of minutes to tie off Kennedy’s leg. I’ll swing around your flank and cover you.”

Manseur lifted Boudreaux’s radio from his belt and keyed it. “Dispatch, this is Detective Michael Manseur. Patch me to Sheriff Tolliver.”

Manseur spent the next few seconds with the radio against his forehead like an ice pack.

Alexa loaded their shotguns, then watched the tree line over her barrel.

“You got Leland in shackles yet?” Tolliver’s voice asked.

Manseur lowered the radio and keyed it. “He killed Deputy Boudreaux and wounded one of my detectives. He’s still active and armed. We need medical, ASAP, and some backup.”

“We’re coming, Manseur,” Tolliver said, excitedly. “Just hold what you got.”

Alexa caught something-a flash of movement where Leland had vanished into the dense foliage. “Michael,” she said. “He’s coming this way. I saw him.”

Straightening, Alexa sprinted down the dock, hoping to cut Leland off before he moved inland from the point. Manseur was right behind her. Seconds later, they were kneeling side by side in the soft dirt, ten feet apart, watching the foliage from behind trees. Leland Ticholet would have to come by them. Alexa knelt beside a tree, her shotgun aimed toward the point. She glanced to her left at Manseur. He was aiming in the same direction.

Now they had him. He could still surrender and be taken into custody. If he chose to resist, Alexa was confident that one. 22 was easily divisible by two twelves.