Chapter 20
TEN MINUTES EARLIER
The muddy pond formed by the flood plain on the West Fork of the Trinity River served as a passable site to dump Hiram Dietrich’s body.
Moffit had insisted on taking two vehicles.
He led the way in his International Scout, while Pink drove Duvall’s pickup.
Duvall, still gimpy from Moffit’s beatdown, slumped in the passenger seat and grimaced at every bump.
Dietrich’s wrapped body was in the bed of the truck under a canvas tarp.
It seemed to Pink that two vehicles made them much more likely to get caught.
It had also occurred to him that Moffit only planned to keep him and Duvall alive long enough to do the grunt work of lugging around the dead rancher’s body, after which he’d use his fancy Browning Hi-Power to do the Mozambique drill on each of their faces, disposing of three problems for the price of one.
Moffit must have seen the concern in his eyes and assured both men that if he’d planned to kill them, he would have done it the moment they walked into his barn. Pink almost believed him. Duvall could hardly see out of one eye and was in no position to argue.
They ended up changing dump locations when Pink found an old Velveeta cheese box in the muddy cutbank beside the river.
A cursory search with the flashlights revealed some rusted Vienna Sausage cans, along with a broken red-and-white fishing bobber tangled in a rat’s nest of line.
The catfish would have a field day if they dumped Dietrich there, but it was too risky to get rid of a body in someone’s fishing hole.
They bushwhacked through twenty yards of briars and grapevines—which nearly killed Duvall, judging from his whining—but they finally found a spot with deep water and no litter.
Moffit carried a twelve-foot length of logging chain.
He had Pink help him unroll the body and then wrap it up again in the chain before they heaved it into the water.
Moffit explained that if they left the body wrapped in plastic, the trapped gasses would float Dietrich as he decomposed.
The chain would keep him down long enough for the fish to take him down to bone.
Moffit was apparently not only accomplished at Mozambique drills but an expert at getting rid of the aftermath.
True to his word, Moffit didn’t shoot them. It was well past one in the morning by the time Dietrich’s body sank below the surface of the muddy water without so much as a glug.
Duvall, who was keeping a one-eyed lookout, called out the alarm. At first, the other two men thought it was just more of the man’s whining. That would have been easier to deal with.
“Cops,” Duvall hissed.
They’d not passed a soul on the drive in from the south end of Lake Bridgeport and were surprised to find the marked patrol unit pull up and stop on the other side of the fence.
“What’s the plan?” Pink asked.
“Run,” Duvall said. “Leave our lights off and head south in the field, cut across, and duck out on the other side before he can get around.”
“You have any idea what’s between us and the other side of the field?” Moffit snapped.
“Er … no.”
“Neither do I,” Moffit said. “So that’s out. There’s no reason to run off screaming into the night.”
“What then—”
“Follow me,” Moffit said. “Do it now. We have to hurry.” Moffit led the way in his Scout, headlights on, slow and steady over the lumpy ground, as if he had nothing to hide.
Pink followed directly behind him in the dually pickup, lights off.
Fifty yards from the road, Moffit stopped, headlights aimed straight at the patrol car.
Pink rolled up behind the Scout and waited for instructions, window down.
He wasn’t scared, just curious as to what Moffit planned to do about this.
The cop just stood there, tilting his head so the brim of his hat shielded his eyes. He was alone. That was good.
The cop aimed his flashlight at them and waved it back and forth. At first Pink worried that he might be able to see them with the flashlight, but his worries were unfounded. The headlights were just too bright.
The cop shouted, ordering them to come closer.
Hidden behind the glaring curtain of his headlights, Moffit eased open his door and came back to the driver’s side of the pickup. His voice was calm, but his eyes brimmed with excitement. Pink couldn’t help but like this guy.
“That cop can’t see shit,” Moffit said. “I need to take care of him before he calls in a description of our vehicles.”
“We should haul ass,” Duvall said from the passenger seat. “He’s probably called in backup.”
“No doubt,” Moffit said. “There can’t be more than two cops handling the entire county at this time of night—on a Monday to boot. We’ll be good as long as he doesn’t see what we’re driving.” Moffit shot a withering look at Duvall. “Are you able to drive?”
Duvall seemed to realize that any answer other than yes would make him useless, and useless people got shot in the face at times like this.
“I can drive,” he said, losing the whine.
“Good,” Moffit said. “Stay behind the headlights, but get in my Scout. Both of you rev the engines every ten or fifteen seconds to keep that cop guessing. Move up fast when you hear the signal.”
He turned to go.
“The signal?” Pink asked.
“You’ll know it when you hear it,” Moffit said over his shoulder, and then disappeared into the darkness behind the pickup at a dead run.
Duvall had barely climbed into the Scout and eased the door shut when Pink caught movement on the road, just outside the pool of light at the rear of the cop car.
Pink revved the pickup. Duvall followed suit with the Scout. What happened next played out in front of them in the glow of the Scout’s headlights like a slow-motion movie.
The cop touched his hat and craned his neck for a better look at the oncoming vehicles. He had something in his hand. A radio. Pink wondered if he’d been able to get a description of what they were driving. If that had gone out over the radio, they were as good as dead.
Seconds later, Pink heard a sheer whistle coming from the direction of the cop car. That couldn’t be the signal. Could it? Maybe it was. Moffit was still in the shadows. Window down, Pink put the pickup in gear.
Then a gunshot split the night air. Moffit’s Browning nine-millimeter.
That had to be the signal!
Miraculously, the cop was still on his feet. Moffit stood some twenty feet away, facing him, hands in the air. He’d returned the Browning Hi-Power to his belt holster.
The crazy bastard wanted a gunfight.
The cop had drawn his sidearm at the sound of the first shot and spun, gun in one hand, radio in the other. His night vision destroyed by the headlights, it had to be impossible for him to see much of anything.
Pink switched on his headlights and punched the accelerator, swerving around Duvall as both vehicles drove straight toward the barbed-wire fence. They’d go right through it rather than worrying about the gate a hundred yards to the south.
Closer now, illuminated by both oncoming vehicles, the gunfight seemed to play out in slow motion.
Moffit was fast. Too fast. It wasn’t so much a fight as it was an execution.
Yeah, Pink thought. He could learn a lot from this guy.