48. The Natives Are Restless Part II
FORTY-EIGHT
The Natives Are Restless Part II
Lillian
I t happened four days later when I was in the backyard with the dogs.
I had two tennis balls I was throwing. Lucy and Linus were chasing after them and bringing them back.
Smokey wasn’t a fetch kind of dog. He was sitting next to me, watching his brother and sister going for it.
I was doing this at the same time looking at the leaves all over the ground and remembering Harry’s edict that I was not to rake them. He told me he’d do it on Saturday.
I’d noted he seemed very evolved, what with his stellar clothes-folding and vacuum-pushing abilities, but there were some things Harry had strict gender role rules about.
For instance, even though I’d been raking my own leaves for years, now, he’d let me help him rake them, but if he came home to the leaves being raked, he would not be happy.
We wouldn’t fight. Harry wasn’t a fighter. He was a discusser.
That said, he didn’t have a problem with sharing what didn’t make him happy.
I could remember maybe two fights my parents got into. Perhaps they hid it from me the other times they did it, but I didn’t think so. They just got along. If something was miffing one or the other of them, they’d disappear into their room, discuss it and come out all lovey.
I’d hated fighting with Willie because I knew that proved I hadn’t picked the right one. Not that couples shouldn’t fight, just that Willie and I did it a lot. He could get mean, he had zero ability to self-reflect, but he was a whiz at deflection, and it always felt icky.
I sometimes wished Stormy would fight with me, so maybe he’d let loose the control he held on the wrath he felt at what Angelica had done to him, and he could start to heal and move on.
But this, with Harry, was what I’d always been looking for.
We didn’t agree on everything (case in point, the leaves—I had time, a looser schedule and partially worked from home, his job was crazy, and he needed to relax when he wasn’t doing it—pointing out the obvious, I lost that discussion).
It was just…he and I had learned life could bring you to your knees, so you didn’t sweat the small stuff. You talked it out and got on with it.
Though, I’d add that Harry was kind of stubborn.
But honestly, if he wanted to rake leaves, if that meant something to him, who was I to argue?
It was on this thought that Smokey shot to his feet on a ferocious bark.
And then he took off like a shot toward the back gate.
Linus was running back to me.
Lucy was grabbing a ball I’d thrown.
At Smokey’s actions, they both stopped and watched him.
And then Karl Abernathy burst through the gate after putting his shoulder to it.
He was carrying a gun.
Smokey went right at him, and Linus and Lucy raced that way, barking up a storm.
Abernathy raised the gun toward Smokey, my heart squeezed so hard, I felt the pain, and every ounce of it was in the word I screeched.
“ No! ”
A shot rang out.
“ No! ” I shrieked again just as Smokey leapt and hit Abernathy right in the chest.
He staggered back.
Lucy leaped and chomped on his gun arm.
Linus attacked a leg.
“ Smokey! Lucy! Linus! Come here! ” I screamed, racing to the side door. “ Come! Now! Come now! ”
I got to the door, and to my shock, all three dogs were zipping toward me.
Abernathy seemed to be looking for his gun in the leaves.
Thank God, we had a reprieve.
And thank fuck I didn’t rake those damned leaves.
“Come! Come on now! Come!” I encouraged, frantically slapping my leg.
Smokey dashed in first, then Linus, then Lucy.
I slammed the door and locked it, right before I heard the shots and the terrifying thumps hit the door.
I flattened myself against the side wall, staring in shock at the door.
More strikes I knew were bullets, but they didn’t go through the door.
Dad had installed that door. I knew why now, since Harry had told me about the break-in I’d never known about in LA.
It was a security door. Like the one in the front (though that one had windows, this one did not), it was reinforced, and there was a knob lock and a deadbolt.
No one could shoulder through that door.
And apparently, it stopped bullets.
“Come on,” I pushed out to the dogs as I ran to the side door and into the mudroom off the kitchen, pulling my phone out of my back pocket.
I heard more gunshots, and it seemed now there were different ones.
I got the dogs in the house, locked the side door and then raced to the bathroom, the dogs coming with me as I engaged my phone.
That was when I heard a shotgun blast, somewhat close, but also somewhat far away.
Fuck!
What was happening?
Once the dogs and I were in the bathroom, I closed and locked that door too, hit go on Harry and put the phone to my ear.
I wasn’t even sure it rang before I heard a curt, “Lill.”
“Karl Abernathy?—”
“I know,” he said, and I could tell he was running.
Oh my God.
He was probably running to me.
“Where are you?” he bit off.
“Locked in the bathroom.”
“Stay there. I’m coming.”
He disconnected.
Oh God.
He was coming.
And people were shooting.
And Karl Abernathy was there.
Oh God.
Harry
Harry burst through the front door and slammed it shut behind him, shouting, “ Lillian! ”
She and the dogs came out of the bathroom, dashing to him.
She threw her arms around him.
He gave her half a beat to hug him then he set her away, scanning her head to toe as the dogs clamored around them.
“You good?” he asked.
“I’m good. The dogs are okay. It’s a miracle. He shot at Smokey, but somehow, he missed,” she stated breathlessly.
That fuck shot at his dog.
Harry tamped down the fury that threatened to consume him, something, right along with paralyzing fear, he’d been doing since dispatch called his office to report shots fired and Abernathy was sighted in his own fucking backyard.
“Stay here,” he said and ran to the curtains.
He was closing the ones behind the couch when the front door opened.
He whirled.
“It’s us, just us,” George said as he and Ronetta hurried in.
George shut the door behind him. He had a gun in his hand.
Ronetta hastened to Lillian.
George saw what Harry was doing and ran to lower the kitchen blinds.
Harry returned to Lillian.
“I nicked him,” George was saying. “I think I nicked him, Harry. And Allen got him in the back with his shotgun in the alley.”
“He down?” Harry asked.
“Man took the hit, got up and kept on running,” George told him, finishing with the blinds and joining them.
“Which way did he run?”
“Toward Main.”
Fuck!
People.
Lots of fucking people.
“You stay with her. Doors locked. You do not open to anyone but me, Rus, or one of my deputies,” Harry ordered.
George nodded.
He turned to Lillian. “I’ll be back.”
She swallowed and nodded.
But her heart was in her eyes.
His heart, because hers belonged to him, as his did to her.
“I love you too,” he said.
No matter all that was happening, her lips curled up in a sweet smile and tears filled those gorgeous green eyes.
Memorizing that expression, Harry sprinted out the front door to the cruiser he’d parked in Lillian’s drive.
He got in, started her up, and the radio was going berserk.
“Suspect sighted. Cinema,” dispatch said.
“In foot pursuit,” Rus’s voice panted.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Harry chanted, slammed the cruiser in reverse and hightailed out.
He turned on his lights and siren, and on a screech of tires, he tore down the street.
“Alley, behind the cinema,” Sean was saying. “Headed east.”
Harry turned right at the end of the street, grabbed the mic of his radio and pushed the button.
“Do not shoot,” he commanded. “I want him subdued and brought in.”
“Copy that,” Rus said.
“Copy,” Sean said.
“Copy,” Wade said.
He had four more copies before he ordered, “Shut down Main. I want our civilians inside with doors locked.”
He heard dispatch sending out the call to units to fulfill his order as he swung a left off Main and then another quick left down the back alley.
And there he was, a block and a half ahead.
Karl Abernathy.
Harry could see he was leaking blood at his shoulder, but that’s all he took in when Abernathy cut down a side alley and Harry lost sight.
Rus and Sean were in foot pursuit half a block away. Harry raced down the back alley and into the side one just as Abernathy darted out of it.
Harry made the end, he could hear other sirens, and he saw Wade tearing across the street.
He also saw Abernathy doing the same.
Harry threw the cruiser into park, powered down and shot out of it just as Abernathy ducked into Kimmy’s shop.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he bit out as he sprinted across the road, all traffic had stopped, cruisers were angling, deputies were everywhere.
A gun blast came from Kimmy’s shop.
Shit!
Harry raced up the sidewalk, unclipping and unholstering his weapon, just as Abernathy reeled out of Kimmy’s shop.
He saw Harry, raised his gun and shot wild.
People screamed.
“ Down! ” Harry yelled, his command mingling with the same one from Rus, Sean and Wade. “ Everyone down! ”
Abernathy had turned to run from Harry, but he stopped dead as Pete, Polly’s husband, and the owner of the Double D, came out of the diner, the butt of a shotgun to his shoulder, his eye squinted at the sight, the barrel aimed at Abernathy.
Harry raised his own gun and slowed to a creeping gait, ordering, “Karl, drop your weapon and put your hands behind your head.”
Harry could see the wet stains on the back of his dark sweater, many of them, clustered around his left shoulder.
Buckshot.
Allen did get him.
“Lower your weapons!” Rus shouted, causing Harry to stop moving and cast a quick look around.
Pete wasn’t the only civilian training a gun on Abernathy.
“ Lower your weapons! ” Rus bellowed.
“He preyed on our women!” Tim, the manager of the tack shop, who was pointing a revolver at Abernathy, shouted.
Abernathy swung around wildly.
Shit!
“Lower your weapons!” Rus repeated.
“He killed Sonny and Av!” Chuck, the owner of the greengrocer, who was pointing a rifle at Abernathy, yelled.
“ You are putting my deputies and my civilians in jeopardy! ” Harry boomed. “ Lower! Your! Weapons! NOW! ”
Weapons lowered.
“Back away from the suspect!” Harry ordered.
Everyone backed away but Harry’s crew.
Abernathy turned on Harry.
Harry’s adrenaline spiked.
Quick assessment: gunshot wound to the shoulder, probably from George. Mangled gun arm, one of his dogs. Torn leg of his pants, blood visible, another one of his dogs. Further weeping at his side, maybe Kimmy.
Hollowed cheeks, sharpened cheekbones, that slight gut Harry saw in the video from his house was gone. Too busy hunting or not enough money meant he’d done without food, and from the sunken look of his eyes and the dark circles under them, also sleep.
“You’re injured and you’re surrounded,” Harry told him. “Lay down your weapon. Put your hands behind your head. And get on your knees.”
Abernathy just stood there, staring hate at Harry, his gun aimed at Harry’s chest.
Harry had put on a vest, but he didn’t like this one fucking bit.
He’d already shot at Harry, but Harry knew it, he saw it.
The man was already dead, he understood that. He just had to make it happen.
“Lay down your weapon, Karl,” Harry commanded. “Do not?—”
Harry didn’t finish that.
With a primal yell, Abernathy ran toward Harry, raising his gun’s aim to Harry’s head.
“Don’t shoot!” Harry shouted, tilting his eye to the sight of his weapon and lowering his aim to the man’s thigh.
His shout was drowned by a blast.
Abernathy’s chest exploded in a cloud of crimson, and he collapsed to his back, his gun clattering off to the side.
Harry turned and looked up to see Karen on the roof two buildings down. She had a tactical rifle.
She always got the blue ribbon in their marksmanship competitions.
Christ.
Harry holstered his weapon and raced to Abernathy.
Wade was kicking away Abernathy’s gun.
Rus had already gotten to him, and he was on his knees putting pressure on the wound while yelling, “Get an ambulance here!”
Harry dropped to his knees on Abernathy’s other side, and he put his hands over Rus’s.
He looked to Abernathy’s face.
He was staring, glassy-eyed, at the sky. A weak buck of his body, and blood bubbled out of his mouth. He expelled a breath, and it sprayed his skin and once-obsessively trimmed, now scraggly beard with crimson dots.
“Do not fucking die on me,” Harry demanded.
How did you get Sonny and Avery out of their motel?
How did you subdue Sonny enough to put bullets in Avery, and him?
Where is his wallet, her purse?
Did Leland tell you to target them?
Why did you take it that far?
Why did you hurt women the way you did?
Where is Cheryl Ballard?
Why did you waste your life?
Why?
Another bubble of blood erupted from Abernathy’s mouth.
“Do not fucking die on me,” Harry whispered.
The tension leaked out of Abernathy’s body, and the light winked out in his eyes.
“Goddamn it,” Harry kept whispering.
Rus took his blood-covered hands from under Harry’s and checked for a pulse in Abernathy’s neck.
Harry looked to Rus.
Rus caught his gaze and shook his head.
Harry surged to his feet and shouted, “ Goddamn it! ”
“Stay back. Back. Stay back,” he heard Wade order and felt his deputies milling around them, keeping the perimeter clear.
Another siren was heard and then Harry and Rus were shifting away as the paramedics moved in.
They did what they’d been trained to do, but for naught.
He was gone.
“Goddamn it,” Harry whispered once more, fifteen minutes later, as he stood on the sidewalk outside Kimmy’s store and watched the paramedics load the sheet-draped body of a monster in the back of their ambulance.
He had a fresh shirt on and was conferring with Patterson and Bakshi in the open hall beside the bullpen when it happened.
A hush came over the bullpen.
He turned toward the front of his station and saw Lillian, with George and Ronetta following, coming in.
Her gaze came right to Harry.
Raul opened the front bench to let her in, and Lillian ran toward Harry.
He turned fully to her and started walking her way.
She hit him like a rocket, so hard, he went back on a foot.
He thought this was a demonstration of her relief it was over.
But she pulled away and patted him down frenziedly, mumbling, “You’re good. You’re safe. You’re good.”
“I’m fine, honey,” he murmured.
She looked up at him.
He caught her face in his hands and put his to hers.
“It’s over, Lilly.”
The tears hit her eyes before she planted her face in his chest and circled him with her arms.
He wrapped both of his around her shoulders and held her close.
He looked over her head at George.
George’s expression was a study of concern and relief, more the latter than the former.
Much more.
George nodded to him.
Harry nodded back.