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I find another tree and lean back against it, trying to catch my breath and think, just as another shot hits the tree solidly enough that I feel the impact.
“What the hell do you want?”
Nothing.
I know I have no great options. I can run for the woods to my right, but to get there, I have to run through a clearing of at least fifty yards under the bright goodnight moon.
No gun. No phone.
Is he waiting me out, or am I waiting him out?
In the end it doesn’t matter, because he’s the one with the gun, and I’m the one being shot at. It’s why I’ve never thought hunting is a sport, or much of a fair fight, because only the hunter has a gun.
I can’t stay here all night—I know that.
Either he’s still here or he’s gone, having accomplished his mission of scaring the shit out of me. I crouch where I am and think,You’re going to die anyway.
I just don’t want to die tonight.
I told Jimmy Cunniff one time that I could find my way out of these woods blindfolded. I’m not blindfolded now, because of the light of the moon. Like I’ve got some compass in me, I work my way south, and east.
No more shooting.
Just all the night sounds, sounding even louder than before, especially the cicadas, covering the sound of me making my way slowly through the woods.
I don’t know how long it takes me to get back to the small parking lot. It feels as if it might have taken an hour.
Who is he?
Or, on a more optimistic note, whowashe?
I know I’ve pissed off a lot of people in my career. This is the first time that somebody has started shooting at me. Whether they wanted to miss me or not.
The shooter, I know, could be almost anybody in town who wants to see Rob Jacobson go down for this, and that includes even the rich people breathing the same air as him.
By the time I get to the car, my breathing has returned to normal. The first thing I do is reach into the glove compartment for the Glock. The feel of it in my hand, the heft of it, is suddenly quite comforting.
As I come around the front of the car, I see the note pinned between one of the wipers and the windshield.
now you know
putting cops on trial to
save a killer’s ass could
get YOU killed.
Underneath:
he did it, bitch.
I stand there looking at the note and think that maybe I am a gold-plated scum bucket after all.
Hediddo it, didn’t he?
Twenty-Three
TUESDAY, SECOND WEEK OFthe trial, Ahearn’s first witness is Gus Hennessy.
