Chapter 23
Unlike the movies, the vast majority of felony arrests went down without a hitch, either by proper execution or dumb luck. There was little reason to think the arrest of Darrell Church would go otherwise—unless a curious moose or brown bear wandered onto the scene.
The troopers led the way out of Ketchikan. Marked patrol units were in the area daily as AST offices were located at that end of town near Ward Cove. Green US Forest Service pickups were ubiquitous and wouldn’t likely raise an eyebrow even with a wanted felon unless they followed too closely.
Cutter and Lola hashed over this new information about Jessica Stone while they drove to the pinch point.
Homicide investigations were well outside Marshals Service swim lanes, but after one of their prisoners and two informants with the same wolf-head brand were murdered in recent months, the chief gave them the go ahead to poke around as long as they didn’t get in the way of other agencies.
The body of a young female that had washed up in Kodiak had seemed to hold promising leads, but five months later, it remained unidentified.
Lola tended to turn up the heat on her usual banter when she was flummoxed about something.
“What do you think’s up with that creepy-ass mantra?” she mused. “It’s always exactly the same. They’ll kill me, they’ll kill you … What does that even mean?”
“Seems straightforward enough,” Cutter said. “Means exactly what it says if we go by past events.”
“But who are the they that’ll do the killing, and what gives them the juice to scare the shit outta everyone from Anchorage to Ketchikan?”
Cutter and Lola had this same conversation at least every other week. She talked it out until they turned away from the ocean and into the National Forest.
Stone and Church would have to pass by Ward Lake Park on their way to the fire access road that led to their squatter cabin.
Forest Service LEOs, troopers, and Detective Barr set up on either side of the main road, with Cutter and Lola in a shadowed picnic area under massive spruce trees along the shore of the lake itself.
The tree nearest Cutter was well over a hundred feet tall and at least three feet in diameter.
It forked at the base in a wide arch like a bowlegged cowboy.
“That’s one of those ghost trees,” Lola said, flitting from conversations about the strange wolf brand to whatever happened to cross her path. Cutter had grown accustomed to her pinball thought process. He’d come to think of her as a wicked smart but goofy kid sister.
“Yep,” he said, eyes constantly moving. He’d learned about nurse trees and ghost trees on his first trip to Southeast Alaska, but Lola explained anyway, bleeding off nervous energy.
“When a tree dies it decays, nourishing a bunch of little tykes that sprout up along its rotting trunk. That’s the nurse tree.
As the little trees grow, they put down roots on either side of the nurse tree to the actual ground.
The OG tree slowly decays away, leaving that vacant space between the roots, like a tunnel.
Some say the spirit of the old tree stays around as well. ”
“Hard to argue with that.”
Cutter had finished the dessert spoon and given it to Willis Barr before they left the PD. He needed another piece of wood to help him think. He spied a likely hunk of yellow cedar about seven inches long and big around as his wrist at the base of the ghost tree and got out to retrieve it.
Lola sighed when he got back in the car. “The sun sifting down through the evergreen boughs like stained glass. I swear, Cutter, doesn’t this place remind you of a church?”
Cutter tapped his steering wheel and nodded at the road. “Speaking of Church.”
A rusted white Mitsubishi Mirage barreled toward them. What happened next flowed like a well-rehearsed dance.
Almost.
Two uniformed Forest Service law enforcement officers stepped out of their vehicles on either side of the road. One of them raised his hand to flag down the Mitsubishi. Jessica Stone, now visible behind the wheel, stomped on the accelerator. Church ducked down in the passenger seat.
Focused as they were on the two Forest Service LEOs, neither Stone nor Church saw Trooper Murphy appear from behind a thick spruce and deploy accordion-like spike strips directly across the roadway.
She jumped out of the way as the vehicle flew past. An instant later, all four tires on the Mitsubishi went flat—hollow spikes deflating them in seconds.
Trooper Murphy yanked a cord on the near end of the strip, drawing the spikes back toward her and clearing a path for her partner and Detective Barr in a pursuit vehicle.
The Mitsubishi fishtailed, then skidded into the ditch, slamming into a tree on the driver’s side.
Cutter and Lola sped forward, less than fifty feet away from the suspect vehicle, handguns up providing lethal cover for the troopers with their less-lethal impact weapons.
Barr stood at the door to his undercover car with a public address mic in hand, ordering first Church and then Jessica Stone out, one at a time.
Church came out easily, arms high, stunned from a combination of the explosive jolt he’d gotten from the airbags and the large number of guns pointed in his direction.
Barr ordered the wanted man to walk backward toward the sound of his voice.
When Church was far enough to the rear, Trooper Murphy had him kneel and then stepped forward and cuffed him behind his back.
Stone remained in the vehicle with her Bren Ten pistol raised high enough to be visible. Cutter had a clear shot through the shattered side window. He put the Colt’s front sight over her torso and paused. They all had good cover and she’d yet to point the gun at anyone.
Barr called out to her for the third time. And still she just sat there.
Lola gave a little air smooch to get Cutter’s attention from her side of the rental car.
“Can I try something, Boss?”
Cutter stayed aimed in. “I have her. Go ahead and clear whatever you’re going to do with Barr.”
Lola holstered her Glock and ducked behind their Subaru to join the KPD detective at his vehicle. Cutter was close enough he could hear the buzz of her words, but he couldn’t tell what those words were. A half a minute later, Lola’s Kiwi accent poured out of the PA speaker.
“Jessica Stone,” she said. “I’m deputy US marshal Lola Teariki. Listen to me. I have no idea what you’ve been through, but I want you to know something. We’re not going to let anyone hurt you. We can protect you, but you have to trust—”
A maniacal laugh shook the car. “You got no idea who you’re dealing with!” Stone shouted. “But I do.”
Barr took the mic again. “Jess,” he said. “It’s Will. You know me. The marshals don’t have any charges against you. They really do want to help.”
“Help?” She laughed through her tears. “That’s funny. They’re probably part of it. You all are!” She raised the gun to her chin.
“Jess!” Barr called out—too late.
Cutter stayed sighted in, forcing himself not to blink at the sound of the gunshot. Stone’s body toppled from view, but the evidence splattered against the glass left no doubt she’d taken her own life.
Detective Barr holstered his weapon and rushed forward. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Willis!” Lola grabbed him around the shoulders and held him close. “Let us do it. You went to school together. Don’t let this be the last memory you have of her.” She turned to Cutter and shook her head, mouthing, Who are these people?