Chapter 12

 

3:31 PM

"Still no answer," said Richard, slapping the cell phone closed as they passed his house on the way back to Blue Creek.  "If she'd listened to me, she'd have this damned thing instead of me.  Then I could get in touch with her when I need to."

He drummed the steering wheel impatiently, resisting the urge to accelerate beyond the speed limit.  Ahead he saw the turn off to route N and slowed.

"See something?" asked Guidry.

"I'm going to go back and leave a note at the house.  She can all me when she gets home.  Then we go to Harold's.  He has to come home sooner or later."

As soon as he topped the ridge in the drive, he braked.  There were three vehicles at the house.

"He's here!" said Guidry.  "The bastard's here!"

"So are the women," said Richard grimly as he backed up slowly until they were out of sight from the house.

"So how are we gonna do this, Carter?"

"Let me think."

He took out the cell phone and punched in a series of numbers.  Guidry frowned at the number of digits.  A moment later he spoke.

"Marta?  This is Richard."

"Yes, there may be something wrong.  I don't have time to explain, but this is important.  I need you to do something for me.  There's a man in my house who may be dangerous---  Yes, they are."

"Me too.  Now, calm down.  I need----Marta!---I need you.  Hear me?  Good.  No, we don't have time for that.  What I need is for you to use the video thing on your e-mail to kind of eavesdrop . . . let me know what's going on in there.  Can you do that without letting whoever's in there knowing what's going on?"

"No way to stop that?"  He thought for a moment.  "We'll have to risk it."

"Well even if you can't see anything, you can hear what's going on in the room, right?"

"Oh.  Well, I want you to try it anyway.  Keep the phone with you and tell me anything you hear."

He held his hand over the phone and said to Guidry, "I'm talking to Jill's friend, Marta.  She lives in Mexico.  They talk over this video e-mail thing.  Jill sets it for automatic response when she goes out.  It's got an answering machine feature but she likes to leave notes and pictures on the bulletin board behind the seat facing the machine."

"So anyone there can just look into your house at any hour of the day or night?"

"Marta's the only one with the address.  Besides, all they would see is a wall with the bulletin board on it."

Richard drummed the steering wheel unconsciously. 

"I told not to have anything to do with him.  Why in the hell didn't she listen to me?"

"They're probably just talking," said Guidry, trying to sound reassuring.  "From what we saw at his place old Harold probably isn't capable of doing anything else.  Besides, there weren't any pictures of your wife in his collection."

"That other car is Raven's," said Richard.  "And no one was answering the phone."

 

3:40 PM

Harold frowned as the opening notes of Song of Joy rang out on the computer.  He glanced at the blank screen wondering how it could be making noise if it was turned off.

"I wouldn't have one of those darned things in my house," he muttered.

 

Marta peered intently at the screen, seeing only the back of the empty swivel chair facing Jill's computer and the bulletin board with yesterday's note still on it.  To the left side, in the blurry background, was the living room, the half toward the kitchen.  The other half was beyond reach of the small camera mounted above the monitor.  She heard a soft shuffling sound, but couldn't identify it.  She picked up the phone and almost spoke before remembering to click off the microphone.

"There is someone in the living room, I think . . . walking maybe," she said.

Richard, trying to quell his rising fear.  If Jill were okay she should have said something when the call went through.

"Can you see anyone?"

"No," she said.  "I mean, I can see part of the room, but no person.  Richard, if it is okay, Jill answers . . . she says something."

"Maybe she's in another room and didn't hear it."

Or maybe she can't hear anything, he thought.

In Merida, the same thought occurred to Marta.  She chewed her lower lip painfully, straining to see or hear something that would help.  Suddenly a figure appeared in the periphery of the screen, too far from the small camera to be clear.  She studied the awkward gait of the figure and decided that it was a man.

"Richard, I see someone . . . a little man---muy delgado, skinny.  He walks this way and that way," she said, trying desperately to convey something of use to Richard.  "He is at the edge of the screen.  I cannot see him very well."

"Can you hear anything?"

"I hear him walking . . . a little.  Nothing else---wait!  He is . . . he says something.  No, I cannot comprehend."

The picture jiggled and suddenly a man's face loomed on the screen.  She sat frozen with the phone to her ear.  The man tapped at the screen with a long thin knife, a puzzled expression on his face.  Marta realized that she had failed to turn off the camera above her own monitor.

 

Harold would swear the woman could see him, except for the fact that her startled expression didn't seem to be in sync with his own movements.  Then the baby started squalling again.

He turned to see what Miss Carter was doing, but saw that she was just rocking it.

When he turned back it seemed the woman on the screen was staring at him.  He moved his face quickly toward the screen, making a sudden scowl, and felt foolish when she didn't react.

 

Marta held her pose before the camera trying to act as if she hadn't seen him.  At that moment Mirabelle began to cry again, and the man looked away.  She hoped the delay in transmission had kept him from seeing her flinch.  She quickly turned the camera away from her and toward the wall.  She didn't know what else to do.  Turning off the camera might let him know what was happening.

She tried to center the camera on the picture hanging next to the computer.  He turned back and stared with a puzzled expression.  She glanced quickly at the camera to make sure that it hadn't swiveled back in her direction.

 

Harold stared at an off-center view of a framed picture. 

One of them pictures of Mary that Catholics stick up everywhere, he thought dismissively.  So that's the Internet.  What the big deal?

He poked experimentally at the keyboard, hitting keys at random, but nothing seemed to happen other than a few beeps.  After a few minutes he lost interest.

 

Marta held her breath, fearing that she had given the whole thing away.

"Richard," she gasped.  "He knows!  He looked right at me.  And he has a knife!"

"Was there blood on it?" he gasped.

"No.  I do not think so."

"Okay.  Let me think.  What's he doing now?"

"I cannot see him."

"But he hasn't broken the connection?"

"No."

"Then he doesn't know.  You're doing good.  The important thing is that you can still see in the room and hear what is going on.  I'm going to make another call right now.  I need you to keep an eye on what's going on in there.  There's another officer with me.  His name is Ron Guidry.  I'm handing the phone to him.  You tell him everything you see and hear, okay?"

"What is happening Richard?"

"I'm not sure, Marta.  I need you to be brave . . . for us---for me and Jill.  Can you do that?"

"I will . . . yes.  I can do this."

"Good.  Here's Ron."

"I've got the phone now," said Guidry.  "Marta is it?"

"Yes."

"Marta. I'm not going to distract you by talking a lot.  You just pay attention and tell me everything you hear and see.  I'll be listening all the time, even if you don't hear me.  Just tell me everything you can."

Richard radioed Shug, apprised him of the situation and what he thought was happening.

"Carter, I'm putting deputies on the road, but well back.  I'll be there as soon as I arrange a perimeter.  In the meantime do not attempt to enter the house.  Got that?"

"Right," said Richard.

 

"We need a hostage negotiator," said Guidry when Richard was through.

"Hand me the phone, Ron."

He took the phone, considered what he was about to say a moment.

"Marta, I'm going into the house.  You listen real careful to what I say when I get inside and repeat everything to Ron."

"You're not going to do any such thing, Carter," said Guidry.

Richard held his hand over the receiver so Marta wouldn't hear.

"We don't have your hostage negotiator, Ron.  That son of bitch has been in there with my family for I don't know how long.  If Jill could, she would have answered Marta.  So don't tell me what I am or am not going to do."

"You know better than this---"

"Here's what we are going to do.  I'm going in there just like I'm coming home for the day.  I figure to get surprised and disarmed, which is okay because it: one, buys us some time; and, two, lets me tell you what the situation is in there.  I'll talk as long as I can.  Marta will relay it to you."

"This is crazy."

"I'm doing it," said Richard, taking a key from his ring and handing it across.  "At some point, I'm going to distract him so that you can use this to come in the back door.  Once you're in, play it by ear."

"And what?"

"Blow his damned head off when you get a chance."

"Don't you think---"

"We're running out of time.  Now get out of the car and stay out of sight.  Slip down the hill and come around to the back.  Keep the phone with you.  Once I'm inside I'll say ‘off duty' to let you know the plan's a go.  If I say ‘drop it' that means he's looking for you."

He chewed his lip in concentration.

"If I say ‘Hellfire' that means come in shooting."

He took his hand off the phone and told Marta to listen for the three code phrases.

"I can't talk you out of this?" asked Guidry when he was through.

"I'm doing it.  Now get out of the car."

Guidry opened the door.  "Wait a minute, Carter.  Give me your piece.  I'm not letting you take that in there."

"Good thinking."  Richard ejected the clip and emptied it and the chamber, leaving the cartridges on the seat.  "I've got to take my pistol in or he'll think something's up.  If he notices that it's unloaded, I'll tell him I never bring it in the house loaded.  Best case scenario---he'll take it from me intending to control me with it."

"Then you rush him?" asked Guidry dubiously.

"You don't think I can take him?"

"Not if he keeps the knife."

"I'm not going to do anything stupid."

"The whole damned thing's stupid, but I'm with you.  I think we're running out of time."

 

3:48 PM

Harold jumped at the sound of car door slamming.  He ran to the window clutching the filet knife.  With his back to the wall beside the door, he peeked through the curtain and saw Richard Carter coming toward the house.  He ran back to the couch.

The first thing Richard saw when he came in was Jill, wide-eyed and with duct tape wound around her head and over her mouth.  Then he saw Mirabelle in the crook of Harold's arm.  The filet knife was terrifyingly close to her neck.

"Don't do nothing stupid, Mr. Carter.  I got your baby here.  Don't make me hurt her."

Richard smelled gas, and then noticed the plastic covering the kitchen doorway.  The first though he had was that Harold had been accidentally knocked loose the line to the range while struggling with one of the women, and that the plastic was Harold's ersatz way of controlling a gas leak.  He hoped the fool had been smart enough to open the kitchen window.

Or maybe the back door!  Ron can come in unnoticed, he thought, his hopes soaring.  All I have to do is distract him, make him keep his attention on me.

"So, Harold," he said, "How do we solve this problem?"

Harold's face took on an intensely suspicious look.

"You don't want to help me."

"I'm not a policeman right now, Harold.  I'm off duty," he said, making sure to emphasize the phrase for Marta's benefit.  "All I care about is my family.  I just want them to be okay.  I don't give a damn about you or anything else."

"I don't believe you."

Richard shrugged.  "Well, you've got the women tied up and you're holding my daughter.  And even though you've got that knife, it doesn't look like you've hurt anyone yet.  I figure that you probably won't be in a whole lot of trouble if you just give it up before it goes any further."

"I'm not a moron."  Harold said angrily shaking the fillet knife in Richard's direction.  "Tell you what, Big Man.  Give me that gun . . . real careful like . . .easy."

Mirabelle kicked her feet angrily, suddenly resuming her cry and then turning it into a full-fledged scream.  Her daddy was home and the stranger she didn't like was still holding her.

Harold adjusted his hold on the squirming infant, frustrated with his inability to control her.

Richard carefully unsnapped his holster and took out his pistol.  He extended it, but first.  He hoped Porter would take it and put both the knife and Mirabelle down.

Harold shook his head.

"Lay it on the floor and scoot it under the couch---way under there."

Richard did as he was told, hoping Marta was relaying everything to Guidry.  His partner should already be coming through the screen door onto the back porch.

"Why don't you put Mirabelle down before you hurt her by accident?"

"You're bigger than me, Mr. Carter.  I ain't so stupid that I'm going to get in a rassling match with you.  Now you just take out your handcuffs and sit in that chair.  Once you got yourself cuffed, I'll put down the baby, and we can try to figure things out."

Richard nodded, thinking, Trying to figure things out!

If he had Guidry's hypothetical hostage negotiator, he might be able to defuse the situation.  Maybe he still could.

He sat in the ladder back chair and attached the cuffs to his right wrist.  He was about to latch the left one when Porter stopped him.

"You know better than that.  Loop your hands through that wrung back there first.  I don't want you getting some stupid idea about getting out of that chair and bull-rushing me."

The little weasel's caution was good and bad.  He was rational and therefore more likely to behave predictably, but he was also wary and smarter than he had at first appeared.  Richard's eyes fell on Raven for the first time.  She had been trussed and posed.  He reconsidered the rational part of his evaluation.

He finished handcuffing himself to the back of the chair, thinking that, if he stood he might be able to sling the chair around.  It wouldn't make much of a weapon, but it maybe enough to help when Guidry got inside.  He could at least be a distraction.

When satisfied that Richard was secure, Harold handed Mirabelle back to Jill.

"Take your little baby and hush it up, Miss Carter.  I cain't think with it squalling like that."

"Untie her hands.  Mirabelle probably needs her diaper changed," said Richard.

"Maybe later."

"At least do something about Raven.  You've got her tied up so she can't even move.  Can't you get her in a more comfortable position?  I mean, is that necessary for them to all be crowded together on the couch?" said Richard loudly, hoping that Marta was relaying the information.

"Don't you worry about that one," he said dismissively nodding at Raven.  "Miss Carter will be all right too."

"Why did you put the plastic over the door, Harold?  And what's that I smell?  Did you turn on the gas in the kitchen?"

"That won't work, Mr. Carter," said Porter with a contemptuous smirk.  "I know what you're doing."

Richard flinched as if from a physical blow.

He can't possibly know!

"Calling me by first name," continued Harold, shaking his head.  "I read about that.  You're trying to ‘establish a personal connection.'  Ain't that what they call it?  Hostage negotiators do that.  They try to make a personal connection."

"They do, Harold.  You know why that is?  Because their business is to stop things from going too far."

Harold looked at him suspiciously.

"You've got a microphone on you!"

He unbuttoned Richard's khaki shirt, breathing raggedly and glancing nervously over his shoulder toward the door.  Harold pulled out the shirttails, paying careful attention to the area at the small of Richard's back.

"Guess not," he said.

"You mentioned establishing a personal contact, Harold," said Richard trying to sound calm.  "You know why they do that?  They want to defuse dangerous things like this before things go further than anyone wants them to.  They want to save lives---all the lives, hostages and hostage takers alike."

"Yeah. The police are real soft-hearted," said Harold sarcastically.  "Kind of like prison guards."

 

3:45 PM

They were all too far from the computer for the words to come through distinctly.  That paired with the fact that English was Marta's second language caused her to make an understandable mistake.  A coincidental discovery by Guidry would soon lead to a dangerously false evaluation of the situation inside.

"Mr. Guidry, Richard smells gasoline in the house," she said.

At that precise moment, as he started up the back porch steps, Guidry caught the scent of gasoline.

"Got it," he said softly.

The smell grew stronger as he warily ascended.  A small rivulet of gasoline had run under the screen door and onto the top step, evaporating quickly.  The door opened on silent hinges.  He eased in, pistol in hand, into the air lock Richard had fashioned with plastic sheeting.  The air inside was rank with fumes.  On the shelf by the door leading a gas can lay on its side, gasoline seeping from its closed cap onto the corner of a basket of folded towels.

It could have been an accident, but the circumstances suggested differently.  The saturated towels would serve as a wick once ignited.  The heat would melt the plastic covering the nearby window creating a chimney pulling the flames toward the wood frame wall and the asphalt-shingled roof.  He correctly divined Harold's intention to burn down the house to cover his crime.  The man had an affinity for fire.  Unfortunately, despite Richard's best efforts, he remained ignorant of the propane now filling the kitchen.

He considered moving the basket outside, but feared soaking his own clothes with the flammable liquid, which would not be a good thing if he then fired his pistol.  He instead only set the nearly empty gas can upright.

"Richard is handcuffed to a chair and Jill and Raven are tied up on the couch," said Marta.  "Richard repeats this.  The pistol is under the sofa and the man has only a knife."

"Got it," he said as he inserted the key into the back door lock.

It turned silently.

"Wait!  Richard said that he should put the knife away and put the baby down."

"Got it," he said.  "You're doing good, Marta."

The door swung in as silently as the screen, but then met resistance.  Peering through the crack and saw more of the plastic.  It had been fastened to the doorframe.  There was no way he could enter silently.  He considered rushing through and trying to take out Harold, but rejected the idea.  He had visions of a standoff with Harold using the baby as a shield.  And there was one other thing.  He had never shot at a person, much less killed one.

He glanced at his watch, saw how much time had elapsed, and decided that he had to get back to the driveway to intercept the sheriff before he blundered into a situation that he didn't fully understand.  He carefully retraced his steps, easing the door closed, but leaving it unlocked.

On the way back, he caught the faint smell of something like a dead animal.  Then the phone beeped, and he forgot about it.  Looking down at the liquid crystal display he noticed the low battery warning.

"Not that!" he said.

"What's wrong," asked Marta.

"The phone's losing charge.  It'll probably go dead soon."

"No!  Wait.  Write my number.  You can call back if ---"

"If it's not too late," said Guidry, reaching for his pen.

It was gone.  There was no time to find another pen.  He would have to trust to his memory.

"Okay.  Tell it to me." 

Marta recited the number, giving the area code and prefix, then the four digit number in the form of two double digit numbers: forty-eight fifteen.

"Got it," he said, reasonably sure that he would remember at least the last seven digits.  The area code he could get from an operator.

"Mr. Guidry!" said Marta quickly.   "He takes the handcuffs from Richard."

"He took them off?"

"Yes . . . I think, but first he . . ."

He waited vainly for her to finish, but the phone remained silent.

"Marta?  Marta, are you there?  Oh no.  Don't do this to me."

Guidry hurried down the hill behind the house and followed the brush and stone filled wet weather creek at its base, taking a circular route back to the driveway in order to stay out of sight from the house.

 

4:04 PM

The house was unnaturally quiet.  Mirabelle was safely back in Jill's arms and seemingly content for the moment.  Her quiet seemed to calm Harold.  Richard hoped that was a good sign, but any hopes that the man might get careless had been overly optimistic.  Although undoubtedly of low intelligence, the strange man had an intuitive cunning.  No doubt he would have fastened Richard's ankles to the chair also had he not run out of tape.  Elbow ligatures now pinned his arms behind him making it almost impossible to sling the chair without falling.  Richard was still trying to figure out why he had removed the handcuffs.

Porter was inspecting his plastic barrier.  When Richard first came in it had only been stapled, but now its entire perimeter was sealed, floor to ceiling with duct tape.  Harold nodded his head in apparent satisfaction, then walked slowly across the living room and opened a window.

"Thanks for opening the front window, Harold.  The smell of the gas was getting to me," he said to make sure Guidry would understand the situation.

"You all messed everything up by coming home."

Jill wasn't meant to be part of it, he realized.

"Well it may have been a good thing for you that we did."

Porter didn't respond.

"Maybe we kept you from doing something there'd be no cure for.  As it stands, you haven't really done anything too bad.  You probably won't have anything to bad happen to you now.  That is if you stop it right here."

"You think I'm stupid, Mr. Carter?  How about kidnapping?  What'll they do to me for that?"

"A hell of a lot more than for ‘unlawful restraint,' which is all you've done so far.  This isn't kidnapping.  You haven't taken anyone anywhere.  At the worst it's second degree assault.  I won't lie to you.  It will put you back in prison for a few more years, but you could still---"

"What?  Get out when I'm sixty years old?"  Harold shouted, shaking his head.  "No thanks.  I ain't going back.  Not for a minute!  They done took too much of my life away."

 

4:06 PM

Shug's face burned beet red, not entirely from the exertion of hauling his large frame up the hill.  He took a moment to reply, both to catch his breath and to find alternatives for the curse words that came to his mind at the news.

"You mean to tell me Carter just went right on in there, and you let him do it?"

"I couldn't stop him, Boss.  But save firing me for later.  My partner's in there," said Guidry, shaking the cell phone in Shug's face, "and I got to get me another one of these."

"What for?"

Guidry explained the situation with Marta and the video e-mail relays.

"I've got to know what's going on inside when I go in there or else I'll get somebody killed.  And we're running out of time, Boss."

After a moment Shug gave a slight nod.

"I'll think about letting you go in," said Shug.  "You in good enough shape to run down to the road real quick and see if anyone there has another cell phone?"

"I don't know about the real quick part."

"Better than me," said Shug still breathing heavily.  "I'd have a stroke half way down there.  Get going."

Guidry started to leave, but Shug grabbed him by the shirt.  "Bring me up my deer rifle too.  I might be able to see inside using the scope."

 

Richard tried not to look toward the sheeting covering the kitchen doorway, as he listened intently.  Guidry should be in the house by now.  If so he had to find a way to come through the plastic quickly in order to maintain the advantage of surprise.

Maybe he opened the back door to vent the kitchen.

But that couldn't be right.  Even opened even a crack, there would be a draft which would cause the plastic to move.  He thought that Guidry had discovered the plastic and had decided to take another course of action in which case Richard was out of the loop.

By now, there should be deputies down on the road, perhaps surrounding the house.

Whatever the situation, his role was still the same:  keep the man talking so as to get as much information as possible to Guidry.

"Harold, why don't you stop pacing and put that filet knife down?  We're no threat to you."

"You hush.  I got to think."

He seemed genuinely distressed.  Richard could almost believe that the man wanted to find a way to resolve the situation peaceably.

"Harold, I'm curious.  Do you think any of this would have happened if Preslar had just left you alone when you came back home?" he asked, trying to engage the man without making him suspicious.

"Preslar's stupid and mean, but this ain't his fault," said Harold dismissively.

"Whose fault is it then?  Mine?"

"Hers," he said pointing the knife at Raven.  "That . . . bitch . . . over there beside your wife.  Sorry, Miss Carter.  ‘Bitch' ain't really a cuss word . . . it's . . . that's what she is."

"What did Raven ever do to you?  Explain how she deserves this, Harold?  I'd really like to know that."

"You gotta be blind, Mr. Carter.  What did she do?  She did what she does to you---what she does to every man.  She come on to me . . . pretending she liked me, but real reserved like . . . like she's a . . . a real lady like Miss Carter.  She ain't!  She's one of them teases who get off on frustrating you . . . laughing at you behind your back.  What makes it worse is that sweet and innocent act.  Makes me sick."

"I've never seen her act like that, Harold."

"You ain't looked too close, or maybe you're just real dumb when it comes to women.  Just like that . . . that boyfriend of hers---talk about a loser!  You should see the way she shoves it in his face all the time."

"Do you have the right to pass judgment like that, Harold?"

"People been passing judgment on me my whole life," he said softly, a far away look in his eye.  "Got throwed in prison for something I never done . . . spent nearly my whole life there."

Harold whirled where he stood, slashing the air with the filet knife.

"I was just a kid!  They shouldn't have done that to me!  And why?  Because Marie Preslar was such a perfect little angel, that's why!  Well, I knew her, and she weren't no angel.  No sir.  What David done to her was wrong and I wish he hadn't done it.  But she had it coming."

Harold turned toward Jill and lowered his voice pleadingly.

"I'm real sorry she's dead, Miss Carter.  I've wished a thousand times David hadn't done it.  But, in a way, she put me in prison.  What I done was wrong, but I didn't deserve no twenty-five years for it.  They shouldn't have did that to me.  It was wrong.  Cain't you see that?  Wrong!"

"You seem to think a lot of my wife.  Are you going to do something even worse to her than was done to you?"

"Ain't nothing worse than what happened to . . . a boy I knew in prison . . . a friend of mine."

The thinly disguised revelation didn't surprise Richard.

"Harold, about that boy . . . that friend of yours . . . that thing that happened to him---"

"You just shut up!  I ain't gonna talk about that."

Richard thought he saw a way to break through Porter's shell.  He had to make him see Raven as, not only a person, but also a fellow victim.

"Listen to me, son," he said though the man was a decade and a half older than he was.  "That girl over there on the couch isn't what you think she is."

"No.  She's not what you think she is!" said Porter, waving the knife threateningly in Richard's face.

Mirabelle began to cry again.  Jill cradled her closer.

"Harold, listen to me," he said calmly, trying to break through to the man, trying to stir some scrap of empathy.  "That girl was . . . was abused the same way I think that . . . that boy you knew in prison was.  It was terrible for her . . . humiliating . . . something no person should have to live with."

Porter curled the corner of his mouth skeptically.

"She was sold to men before she was even twelve.  Her mother was a prostitute . . . sold to her to get drug money.  Can you imagine the way a little girl like that must have felt?  How betrayed?  A helpless little child treated like that by the one who was supposed to love and protect her?"

Porter nodded almost imperceptibly.  "Her momma was a whore?  That figures," he said.

"Is that all you heard in what I just said?"

"No, Mr. Carter.  I heard it all.  I ain't deaf or stupid.  But maybe you are . . . stupid, that is.   Tell me something.  Who told you that story?  It were her, weren't it?  And you fell for it.  All lies, except that part about her momma being a whore.  I imagine that was right.  Boy, has she ever got you fooled.  But not me---not for one minute."

 

4:25 PM

Five deputies stood near the three cars were parked at the bottom of the hill about half way up the drive.  None had a cell phone, but one said that he thought another deputy further back near the road carried one.  Guidry retrieved the sheriff's rifle and prepared to start back up the hill.

"John, run on down and see if you can get me that other phone.  The rest of you need to make your way out into the woods around the house.  Each of you take a side, but don't approach.  And stay far enough back that you can't be seen.  Only come up if you hear shooting.  Got that?"

As the deputies dispersed, Guidry made his way back up to the sheriff.

"Anything happening?" he asked as he handed the rifle over.

"Not that I can tell," said Shug, fixing the scope first on one window and then another.  "I don't see any of them."

Guidry rolled onto an elbow and looked at his watch nervously.  Twenty minutes had elapsed since he last had contact with Marta.  He heard something behind him and saw a deputy stumbling up the slope holding out a cell phone.

"That was quick," he said.

"Ran track in high school," wheezed the man as he collapsed onto his side.

Guidry punched in Marta's number, getting only a beep and a no service message on the liquid crystal display.  He looked around at the terrain.

"Damned hill's blocking us," he said, looking around for a higher spot.

"Frank told me service was marginal out here in the east end of the county," said the deputy.

A ridge ran off to the left.  Guidry moved upslope and tried again.  Still nothing.  He went further up, trying to conceal himself behind the tree trunks.  Still no service.  He pondered the problem.  From where he stood he could see that the ridge fell away rapidly to the northwest.  Though the ground on which the house stood was quite a bit lower than where he now stood, it appeared that he might have line of sight to the cell phone tower out on the highway from there.  He hoped that the problem was terrain, not the phone itself.

Below him the sheriff peered through the rifle scope.

"See anything?" he called softly.

"No, I---Yes!  I got him.  He's pacing.  No.  He's got the baby in his arms," said Shug without taking his eye from the scope.  "Contact that Mexican girl yet?"

"I'm still trying," said Guidry, punching at the small buttons on the miniature phone.  "Why in the hell do they make these things so damned small?"

"Asians are small people," observed Shug.

At that moment, the variables of geography and random atmospherics fell into a combination that allowed the call to go through.

"Marta!" Guidry almost shouted in excitement.  "Thank God.  I thought I'd never get through again.  What's going on in there?  Anything new?"

"Nothing has----I think-------talking---this-----Richard.  I think Ji------someth---mouth."

"Your voice is breaking up.  Repeat that.  Did you say someone was gagged?  Richard?"

"----the word.  What are-------to do?"

He hesitated.  "We're going to get them out."

"Yes."

"Marta, what are they talking about?"

"Richard tries to----him------planning---do."

"What's that?"

"I can't understand . . . I don't know," she said as if she were about to cry.

Then her voice suddenly came through clearly.  "If my English is better, maybe I can understand . . . do this better . . ."

"Your English is fine.  We wouldn't know anything if it weren't for you.  Now you hang in there, you hear?"

"Yes.  I will do . . . what I can."

He thanked God for whatever atmospheric quirk was allowing clearer communication, but knew that he could lose it at any time.

"We really need you, you hear?  We can do this, Marta."

"I am fine, Mr. Guidry," she said, recovering her equanimity.  "I will not. . . how do they say . . . fall apart on you?"

"Hell no.  I know we can count on you."

His mild oath reminded him of Richard's code.

"Marta!  Has Richard used any more of the code words we talked about?"

When she paused he said, "How about ‘drop it?'  Did he say that?"

"No me recuerdo . . . I do not think so.  Hellfire, I would remember.  He no---did not say that."