Free Nightzone by Steven F. Havill Page B

dream.
    I turned south on Grande Avenue toward State 56, letting Miles Waddell cruise on ahead. I didn’t need to eat his dust when, in twenty-six miles, we would turn off on County Road 14. But I didn’t even make it out of town. I was still a quarter-mile north of the Posadas Inn and the interstate’s overpass when I saw Waddell’s brake lights flash, and then another light show of a different sort. A mammoth RV trundled northbound toward me, passing under the interstate with a sheriff’s patrol unit glued so close to its back bumper that the county unit might have been a vehicle in tow.
    Sergeant Jackie Taber, having already worked most of the night out at the crime scene, was starting her day shift by catching a speeding snowbird. By the time I passed McArthur Circle, the first street a long block north of the interchange, the RV had heaved across my path and into the Posadas Inn’s parking lot, angling far off to one side. It halted beside one of the towering light poles. Taber followed in close formation, and as the RV came to a stop, pulled forward and to one side so she had a clear view of the RV’s front door.
    I glanced ahead to see Waddell’s ranch truck enter the sweeping bend to State 56 far ahead, a burst of dark exhaust telling me that he had his foot in it. I was poking along, true to habit. As I came up on the parking lot, I looked across and saw that Jackie Taber had gotten out of her car and was moving around the driver’s door. The door of the RV had opened, and I could see a figure on the top step, bare knees and shins just visible.
    Body English is everything. Even at a quick glance, I could see the tension in Taber’s body. Left hand extended in the universal “halt” gesture, right hand drifting back toward the butt of her service automatic, her knees had flexed as she turned. And sure enough, the figure in the doorway of the RV appeared to be holding a weapon of some sort. That’s what I saw, and that’s what I acted on.
    Too late to turn into the parking lot’s last entrance before the interstate interchange, I braked hard and cranked the SUV around to the left, executing a U-turn directly under the overpass. The turn continued, bringing me 270 degrees around to face the parking lot entrance. And there I had an unobstructed view of the huge, square ass-end of the RV, tinted windows revealing nothing inside. Ahead and off to my right was Jackie Taber, hand on gun and barking orders. The bulk of the RV hid the doorway from my view, and I swung right just wide enough that I could make out the figure standing there. Stopping well to the rear and just to the left of Taber’s unit, I slammed the gear lever into Park.
    I knew all the ways a civilian could get himself into trouble by arriving in the middle of a crime scene, running the risk of upsetting what might be a delicate balance established by the responding officer. Who knows what the mind-sets of those involved might be. At that point, I acted out of that zone that cops sometimes call “trained instinct.”
    My Dodge Durango was bright red—not obviously a police vehicle, but who the hell knows these days. With an armed confrontation going on, I wasn’t about to look the other way and cruise past. Nor could I just sit in the car and wait and see what transpired. The sheriff’s department radio that was bolted under the dash was silent, the idiot light dark, and I didn’t take the time to reach down to turn it on. No doubt Sergeant Taber had called in the stop, and even as I got out of the SUV, I saw her left hand snap up to the little microphone on her shoulder epaulet.
    I had time to take two steps forward, putting me immediately beside the left front fender of my SUV. The figure in the stairwell of the RV shifted position, and I saw the long barrel of a gun swing down. Distinctly, I heard three words, barked out in command by Sergeant Taber.
    â€œPut the