Sixty-Nine
MAYOR LARSON IS already at McDonald’s by the time I get there, but I can see as soon as I get out of my truck that she’s not the one in charge of the scene, because Helene Mayes so clearly is.
I hang back and watch her because I know enough not to get in her way.
When she finally stops stalking around the parking lot and ordering people around and telling the cops out on the road to keep the crowd on the other side of Old Cross Highway, she walks over to me.
By now Burt is on his way to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, the one with the best trauma facility in this part of the state, about forty-five minutes away.
Helene tells me she’d considered ordering a medevac helicopter, but after the EMTs had examined Burt and managed to stop the bleeding, at least for now, they told her there was no point, they had all the equipment they needed in their ambulance, that by the time the helicopter got here they’d already be at Wake Forest Baptist.
“So they’re sure they can keep him alive until they get him there,” I say.
“As sure as they can be.”
“Is Taylor with him?” I ask.
“They wanted her to ride in the front,” Helene says. “How do you think that went for them?”
“Helene,” I say now, “how could something like this have happened in broad daylight, for fuck’s sake?”
“What can I tell you, Silas?” she says wearily.
“It was a goddamn drive-by. Somebody inside sitting at one of the windows, a car guy, said it was some kind of old-fashioned Fairlane, which meant absolutely nothing to me. Before she left, Taylor said she saw the same car slow down, right before she saw the flash of the muzzle. But damn if she didn’t have the presence of mind to get the license plate before the car drove off. ”
“Course she did.”
“Read it off to me right before she got into the ambulance. When I asked if she was sure, she just gave me a look like I’d insulted her.”
“She’s one of the most visual people I’ve ever known,” I say.
“We’ve already run the plate,” she says. “Car was stolen in Greenville a few days ago.” Helene shakes her head disgustedly. “These assholes are dumb, but even they aren’t dumb enough to get something like this done in their own car.”
“What was Taylor even doing here?” I ask.
“She said she was going to surprise Burt, just for fun,” Helene says. “Some fun. She was about to pull into the lot when the Fairlane slowed. She didn’t know right away it was Burt or recognize his car, because for some reason he was using an unmarked today.”
Helene is staring at the unmarked now, and it’s as if I’m not even there, and she’s just talking to herself.
“Shot to the chest caused what the EMTs say was massive blood loss. From the looks of the head wound they say he was lucky the second shot didn’t blow his head clear off, but that he must’ve turned it slightly at the last second.
And that maybe it might have deflected off the top of the car before it caught him over the ear. ”
“At least he’s alive,” I say.
“Barely, when he left here. Not gonna lie to you, Silas,” she says. “The lead EMT told me that the blood loss basically has him in a coma already.”
“He’s as tough as anybody I’ve ever known,” I say, almost as if I’m the one talking to myself.
“Tough doesn’t do shit for you in an ambush,” she says, spitting out the words.
She walks us away from the car, probably just to get us away from having to look at the blood all over it, and on the asphalt.
“Now this really is a fucking war,” she says. “They just shot a fucking cop.”
She turns to face me and says, “He’s my friend, too.”
One more time she takes in the whole scene.
Parking lot crawling with police, hers and from the town PD.
Traffic being stopped and turned around on Old Cross Highway, coming from both directions.
Even this far outside of town, there’s a decent crowd forming, people having had to park their cars up and down the road and walk from there, held back by more yellow tape, the kind of which I’m thinking there’s been a run on lately in Cross Rivers.
She turns to face me again. She shouldn’t be tall enough to stand eye to eye with me. But somehow in this moment, she is.
“I’m gonna tell you my real philosophy of policing, not that you asked, but especially now that we are in a war like this,” she says. “Go fast. Hit them with every fucking thing you have. Repeat.” She pauses and says, “For as long as it fucking takes.”
Then: “You fixing on heading over to the hospital?”
I nod. “And probably about to break a lot of records for speeding on the way, I’ll just give you a heads-up in advance.”
“No need,” she says. “You’ll be in a police escort with me.”
For some reason, I take one last look across Old Cross Highway then and see Roof Crockett standing there.
“Gonna need a minute,” I say to Helene Mayes.