Cooked Goose

They were good men, not scum like you.“
    “Well, this is what I call justice. Marshal Dunn strikes a blow for law and order and takes out the brother who betrayed him. Maybe they’ll carve that on my tombstone.”
    “Your tombstone? You’re the one holding the gun.“
    “We’re both dead. But you’re goin’ to get to hell first, buddy... just a few seconds before me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

    2:42 p.m.

    W hen Dunn made the comment about the tombstones, Savannah and Dirk knew it was time. For the longest four minutes she could remember, they had been standing outside the slightly ajar motel door, listening to the exchange inside.
    The case was solved; now all they had to do was get their least favorite police captain out of the room, hopefully without having his hide or vital organs perforated.
    Dirk gave Savannah a nod, she pushed the door open, and he rushed inside, weapon drawn and trained on Titus. Savannah did the same.
    Titus hardly even flinched. He glanced over his shoulder at them, but immediately turned back to Bloss.
    Even under the stress of the moment, Savannah was shocked at Titus’s appearance. She had never seen anyone— at least, not anyone living—who was so gray, so bloated, so miserably ill. She couldn’t believe he was still conscious and functioning.
    The golf shirt he wore was crusted with black, dried blood over his torso. His slacks were just as badly stained, and a swath of clumsily applied, filthy bandages were wrapped around his left shoulder.
    “Coulter, Savannah , this is between Bloss and me,” Titus said. “Just turn around, the both of you, and walk out that door.”
    “That’s not the way it’s going to happen,” Dirk said quietly. “You know that. You know what we’ve got to do here.”
    “Yeah, and I know what I’m going to do,” he said. His voice sounded a bit quivery, but his resolve was solid.
    Savannah braced herself, holding the Beretta in her right hand, her left beneath to steady the weapon. In all her years on the force, she had only been forced a couple of times to sight down that barrel at anything other than a paper target.
    And now, her finger on the trigger, every muscle flexed, she couldn’t believe she was sighted on Titus Dunn.
    This couldn’t be happening. The inevitable wouldn’t occur. Not if she could stop it.
    She took a step closer to him. “Titus, don’t...” she said, pleading. “This isn’t the way any of us wants this to end. Put down the gun. We don’t want to hurt you, but you know we will if we have to.”
    “We all gotta do what we gotta do,” he said with a wry chuckle. “And I know what I’ve going to do: I’m going to shoot this sonofabitch here, and then you two will shoot me... unless, of course, I get one of you, too.”
    As in other moments of high drama, Savannah experienced a surreal slowing of time passage. Titus was raising his gun slightly, his finger tightening on the trigger. And in that split second, a series of thoughts raced through her mind: Titus sharing pancakes with them at the restaurant, Christy weeping on her sunporch with the Christmas angel tree, Charlene Yardley’s bruised face and broken spirit, weeping for her dead mother with the sweet, Southern accent, and Margie crouching, terrified, behind a pile of dirty tires in a dark service station lot.
    Then three shots exploded, filling the room with smoke and the smell of cordite.
    Three bullets seared burning paths through living flesh.
    Two bodies hit the floor.
    And when the smoke had cleared and the noise was only a roar in their ears, another thought went through Savannah’s head.
    Titus was right. It had gone down just the way he’d called it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

    2:45 P.M.

    B oth Titus Dunn and Harvey Bloss lay on the floor of the motel room. Bloss’s hand was still cuffed to the chair. Both shot. Neither one breathing. Neither had a pulse.
    Just a quick examination told Savannah and Dirk that Titus Dunn was beyond resuscitation. They had fired one bullet each. Both had struck him in the region of the heart. His death had been almost instantaneous.
    Bloss was a different story. Titus’s aim had been low, nicking him on the inside of his thigh. While it was a bit more than the proverbial flesh wound, the injury shouldn’t have been fatal.
    Quickly, they ripped his shirt open, yanked down his trousers, and looked for another wound. But there was none.
    “What’s wrong with him?” Dirk asked, shaking his captain by the