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O’Conner cursed again. I was just opening my mouth to say something reassuring and probably wrong when a crack split the air. “My God, somebody’s shooting,” O’Conner said, and his head spun toward the ridge angling alongside the house. I saw sparks fly from the chopper’s tail boom as another shot rang out. “Top of the ridge,” he said. “That’s a high-powered rifle. Those aren’t warning shots — somebody’s trying to bring him down.”
As if the pilot had heard him, the chopper halted in midair, then veered sharply to the left and began weaving toward us in violent zigs and zags. Orbin had been an army pilot, I remembered. I hoped he recalled enough of his combat training to outmaneuver the sniper.
Wheels began turning frantically in my head, and I flashed back to my pot patch excursion with Waylon, and to the rage he’d shown when Orbin shot Vernon’s dog. “We need to find Waylon,” I said urgently. “Where’s Waylon?” Suddenly, magically — mercifully, even — Waylon’s truck stopped in front of the porch. O’Conner waved frantically and pointed toward the ridge just as another muzzle flash erupted. Without a word, Waylon roared to the treeline, then leapt from his truck and sprinted up the mountainside.
As bullets continued to slam into the chopper, the aircraft wove and dodged toward the spot the shots were coming from, as if Orbin wanted to confront his assailant face to face. Sparks flew as a bullet glanced off the main rotor. Suddenly a spiderweb of fracture lines painted the front windshield, and the plastic bubble burst. The helicopter seemed to leap up in surprise, then pitched forward and rolled to the left, plummeting toward the valley floor.
When it hit, it collapsed with surprisingly little resistance, the remainder of the Plexiglas windows shattering, the metal tail boom crumpling like cardboard tubing. The impact was followed by near silence — a few groaning aftershocks, little else. For some reason I was expecting alarms and sirens, so the quiet seemed eerie and wrong. Then, as O’Conner and I ran toward the wreckage, came the searing rush of intense flame. Within seconds fire engulfed the cockpit, making our approach — and his survival — utterly impossible.
O’Conner shielded his face, peering into the flames. “Jesus. What a godawful mess. What the hell is going on here, Doc?”
“I wish I knew. Just when I think things can’t get any worse up here, they do. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Cooke County over the years. I didn’t realize they were all understatements.”
O’Conner took out a satellite phone — the nearest cell phone tower was several ridges away — and dialed the sheriff’s dispatcher. He told her the sheriff’s helicopter had just crashed and burned and that the pilot was dead. He gave directions, including a description of the kudzu tunnel, which the dispatcher asked him to repeat. Prompted, he gave his name. But he did not say that the helicopter had been shot down, and he did not stay on the line, as I could hear the dispatcher instructing him to. “When they get here, tell them about the shots. I don’t think it’s wise for me to be here when Tom Kitchings finds his brother dead in my front yard.” He turned and trotted toward the house.
I was about to go after him when Waylon emerged from the woods and stumbled across the clearing toward me. “Got away,” he gasped. “Some boot tracks heading down the back side of the ridge — they’s a old logging road down there. Heard a ATV leaving about the time I got to the top. Sorry.” He bent over, hands on knees, to catch his breath. “Did find this, though.” He fished a knotted bandanna from a pocket and untied it, revealing five brass shell cases, about two inches long, shaped like miniature artillery rounds. “Winchester thirty-thirty,” he said. “Hunnerd-fifty-grain load; muzzle velocity ’bout twenty-four-hunnerd feet a second. Same ammunition used by half the deer hunters in this county.”
“Waylon, did you touch these?”
“Nossir. Picked ’em up with my hanky here.”
“There might still be fingerprints on them. Hang onto them till the sheriff and his folks get here. Then make sure somebody gives you an evidence receipt for them.”
For the first time since I’d met him, Waylon suddenly looked nervous. “Doc, the sheriff might take these better coming from you than from me,” he said. I frowned, puzzled. “He’s gonna be out for blood, and it might not be good for my health if I was to be the one to give him these. Can I turn ’em over to you, and let you give ’em to him?”
“Sure.” I took the bundle from him and retied it. Then I pulled a small notepad from my back pocket and scrawled two makeshift evidence receipts. I signed and gave one to Waylon; I tucked the other away for later, to be signed by whoever I gave the brass to. “Keep that in a safe place,” I said. He nodded.
I looked around for O’Conner, but he was nowhere in sight. “Sounded like Jim was going to make himself scarce for awhile,” I said.
“Sounds like a good idea. Them Kitchingses don’t like me all that much, but they’s a whole lot less kindly disposed toward Jim.”
“You think they’ll find him?”
“Not if he don’t wanna be found. Hell, he was a Army Ranger, and he grew up in these hills. He could stay hid and live off the land for the rest of his life, if he wanted to.”
He was probably right. “Hey, Waylon?”
“Yeah, Doc?”
“I’m glad it wasn’t you up there shooting.”
A half-dozen expressions crossed his face in quick succession. “So am I, Doc. But then again, I ain’t, too. You know what I mean?”
I knew what he meant.
CHAPTER 35
Williams arrived just minutes after the emergency call, the strobes firing atop his black and white Cherokee. He skidded up to the front porch, then caught sight of the smoldering helicopter in the field below and careened down to where Waylon and I stood. He leapt out and stared at the wreckage, then whirled to face us. “What happened here?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he drew his revolver and pointed it at Waylon. “Put your hands up and get over here to the vehicle.” Waylon blinked in surprise, but slowly raised his arms.
“He had nothing to do with it,” I said. “He was pulling up in his truck when the shooting started. He was running up the ridge toward the shooter when the helicopter came down.”
Williams wheeled on me. “And what the hell were you doing here? And what kind of secret operation is O’Conner running? And where the fuck is he?”
“I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know,” I said. “You willing to put down the gun? Makes it hard for me to concentrate, being afraid you might accidentally shoot an innocent bystander who also happens to be a witness.”
Williams glowered. “I’m not so sure he’s just a witness, I doubt very much that he’s a bystander, and I’m damn certain he ain’t all that innocent.” But he holstered the weapon anyway and allowed Waylon to lower his hands while he told what he’d seen when he reached the ridgetop. When Waylon told him he’d found the shell cases, Williams held out his hand. “Here; let me have them.”
“I ain’t got ’em no more. I give ’em to the Doc.”
Williams turned to me, his hand still extended. “Sure,” I said. “Why don’t you finish with Waylon first, and then you and I can discuss all this in private.”
After a few more questions, the deputy allowed Waylon to go. “Don’t even think about leaving town,” he warned as Waylon climbed into his truck. Waylon nodded. As he drove away, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I gave Williams my account of the events, starting with my tour of O’Conner’s camouflaged ginseng farm and ending with the crash. “Waylon did his best to catch the shooter,” I said. “Those shell cases could be important. And it might help to get some pictures or a cast of those footprints.” Williams looked thoughtful. “Here are the shell cases.” I removed the knotted bandanna from my shirt pocket. He reached for it, but I pulled it back. “Deputy, would you mind signing this receipt?” I fished out my handwritten note: “Received from Dr. Bill Brockton: Five brass cartridge cases in red bandanna, recovered from ridge above Orbin Kitchings murder s
cene.”
Williams reacted as if I’d spit in his face. “You think I’m gonna forget I’ve got shells from the gun that killed Orbin Kitchings? Think I’m gonna throw this ratty bandanna in the washing machine or the trash can?”
