Chapter 15
Lottie was halfway from Knox’s trailer to hers on Saturday night when she heard the distinct sound of a vehicle driving slowly up the gravel driveway.
She slipped into the shadows between two trailers and sure enough caught sight of a pickup truck heading down the gravel road with its lights turned off.
“That can’t be good,” she whispered.
She pulled her phone from her hip pocket and sent Knox a quick text: Come quick. Trespassers.
One came right back: Where are you?
She typed in her location and then watched the shadow of the vehicle.
It came to a stop right in the middle of the road in front of the rec hall, and four doors opened.
From where she stood, she couldn’t tell if the people who got out were men, women, or teenagers.
But when they didn’t close the pickup doors, she figured they were up to no good.
The lights around the rec hall lit all of them up enough that Lottie could tell they were all guys.
The metal of a chainsaw shone when the tallest one took it from the bed of the truck.
Another one laughed when he slid a suitcase of beer down from the open tailgate.
A third one twirled a wrecking bar around like it was a sword, and the last one seemed to be bringing two large bottles of liquor.
Even from a distance, she could tell by the shapes of the bottles that one was Maker’s Mark, and the other Jack Daniel’s.
“What’s going on?” Knox whispered so close to her that she could feel his breath on her neck. He held a shotgun in one hand and a fistful of shells in the other.
“I believe we are about to get vandalized,” she whispered. “We should video whatever is going on just in case…” A popping noise caused her to stop in the middle of the sentence. “There went the door to the rec hall.”
“Chainsaw?” Knox asked as he loaded the double-barrel shotgun.
Before she could answer, the saw revved up, and music that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard and a jackhammer on steroids made Lottie put her hands over her ears.
“We have vandals.” Knox handed the shotgun off to her and slipped his phone from his back pocket. He punched in 911 and told the lady at the other end what was going on.
“There are two patrol cars in that area. They can be there in ten minutes,” she said.
“Thank you,” Knox said. He returned the phone to his pocket and yelled above the noise. “Ten minutes, and I agree about videoing whatever they are doing.”
Lottie could tell by the change in the sound of the saw that it was cutting through something. “I’m not waiting,” she said and headed toward the rec hall.
Knox nodded and reached for the gun.
She shook her head. “I know how to use one of these. What’s it loaded with?”
“Number 8 bird shot,” he answered.
“That should sting if I have to use it,” she said and kept walking.
“When I open the door, shoot into the air, and stand back in case they are armed with more than a chainsaw,” Knox told her.
“Why into the air?” she asked. “I’ve got a good aim. I’ll patch whatever holes I blow into the wall.”
“Protection,” Knox said. “I’ll explain why later.”
The door stood wide open, and four boys with scraggly beards and bloodshot eyes didn’t even see them until the sound of the shotgun rang out. One of them immediately touched the screen on his phone, and the music stopped.
Knox set his phone on a nearby shelf and hoped that he was getting the right angle to film all three of them having a great time with a chainsaw and spray paint.
One of them took a long gulp of whiskey from a bottle and then threw it at Knox. It shattered on the floor right as the boy with the chainsaw finished cutting the table and turned off the saw.
“What the hell?” the kid yelled. “You didn’t leave any of that for me, and I’m doing…”
That’s when Lottie stepped into the room with the shotgun raised.
The kid shook the chainsaw at Knox. “This is our party, not yours, old man. Get out and take the gun with you, but you can leave the pretty lady.”
The look in the boy’s eyes made Lottie’s skin crawl.
“Not happenin’, son,” Knox said. “You are going to sober up in jail for all this damage.”
The teenager jabbed the saw toward Lottie that time. “ Are you crazy? My old man wouldn’t let that happen!”
The other boys pointed spray-paint cans sideways at Knox, like gangsters with guns in a mob movie.
“We have called the police,” Lottie told them.
“So what? My dad is a lawyer, and I won’t spend a single night in a cell.”
“You will need him,” Knox said as he picked up the phone and turned it around to video two holes in one wall, spray paint streaking two others, and the table that had been sawed in half.
“Turn that damned thing off, or I will saw it and you in half,” the kid growled.
“Boy, you talk a big game, but…” Lottie started.
The boy grinned, wiggled his head, and took a step toward her. “Don’t you call me ‘boy,’ woman,” he yelled above the noise.
“If you want the notoriety for your deeds, then I’ve got the proof right here, and I’m going to keep filming until the police get here,” Knox growled.
“Y’all let us leave, and I won’t hurt either of you, but if I have to cut my way out of here, well…” The kid sneered at him. “That video was taken without my permission, so it won’t stand up in court anyway, so have fun.”
“No one is leaving until the police get here,” Lottie said and wished that she had a good old peach-tree switch to teach these kids a lesson. “Now, sit down with your back against the wall that you just drilled holes in. And the rest of you boys drop those spray cans and line up beside him.”
The kid dropped the saw. His expression changed into that of a pouty little boy and his tone changed to a semi-whine. “We didn’t do anything. You shot at us, so we ran in here for protection. All this was done before we had to take cover or be killed. Right, bros?”
“You got it, Boss,” the youngest one said.
“There’s another shell in the gun,” Knox told him, “And I’ve got more in my pocket. I would do whatever she says if I was you, boys. How old are y’all anyway?”
“Don’t say a word, Devon,” a freckle-faced kid with a curly red mullet said.
“You idiot!” Devon’s expression changed from contrite to angry in an instant.
“You are never to use my name, and you know it. I’m Kingster.
That’s your third strike, and now you are out of our gang.
You can turn in your colors, and my daddy ain’t bailin’ you out this time.
” He whipped to face another boy. “Baby D, I want you and the others to take that phone from Mister Smart Ass and smash it.”
“You guys ever heard of the twenty-one-foot rule?” Knox asked, trying to scare the kids with something he picked up from a television show.
“In case you haven’t, it says if you are twenty-one feet or closer and you come at either of us with intent to harm with a knife, or in this case a chainsaw, we are within our legal rights to shoot you dead on the spot.
You just threatened both of us. That’s a crime worse than vandalism. ”
“And, honey, I can pull this trigger and reload so fast that I can load and fire again before you get anywhere near me,” Lottie said.
The one who was about to be thrown out of the little gang threw down his paint can, jerked a purple bandanna from his low-riding jeans, and tossed it toward the almighty Kingster.
“I didn’t sign up for this if you’re going to get one of us killed.
You can have my colors. I don’t want to run with y’all anymore.
My mama is going to ground me for eternity if she sees that video. ”
Sirens sounded in the distance, but Devon didn’t seem the least bit worried. He sat down on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. Three of the others followed his lead.
Red and blue lights flashed through the open door, and four policemen rushed inside, guns drawn as they scanned the room. “We’ll take it from here,” one of them told Knox and Lottie.
“What have you done this time, Devon?” one of them asked with a groan.
“Them two shot at us, and we rushed in here to get away from them. See that hole in the wall? I had to duck down to keep from getting hit. This place was all messed up before we even ran in here, and now they’re framing us for doing it. We’re waiting for you to come rescue us.”
“Here you go.” Knox handed his phone to the officer. “You can transfer that over to your phone. The first part they did not know was being filmed.”
The officer holstered his gun and tapped the two phones together. “I’ll go ahead and send it in to the lab while I’m at it,” he said and then watched the video. “Looks like you boys might be in some real trouble this time. The kind that even your daddy can’t get you out of.”
Devon laughed at the man. “My dad takes care of me and my friends, and besides, it’s their word against ours, and that can’t be shown in court because…”
Knox didn’t give him time to finish but butted in to say, “You will find Devon’s fingerprints all over the saw that he threatened us both with.
And the other three boys’ prints on the paint cans.
Mine will be on the shotgun shell lying out in the yard.
I’m Knox Callahan, and the gun is mine. It is registered.
Papers are in my trailer. This is Lottie Johnston, and we are both employed as carpenters here. ”
“I’m Officer Harrison. These guys are Officers Tisdale, McBride, and Lowry. We will need to take the gun for now, but you can claim it at the station tomorrow morning.”
Lottie broke the shotgun, removed the shell, and handed both to McBride.
“I’m the one who fired the gun into the air outside.
You’ll find the spent shell out there, and when you test this, you’ll find that they are only loaded with Number 8 bird shot.
It might sting their sorry little asses, but it wouldn’t kill them. ”