The shooter had moved silently across a dozen lawns to the back of the Vissers’ house. The basic plan was simple enough: noise outside that back door—thrown stones—should bring Flowers outside. Simple... but frightening. If the arrow missed, the cop would be right there with a gun, and the shooter was twenty yards away. There’d been a couple of stories on the internet that hinted that Flowers was not the best pistol shot in the world, but he couldhardly miss at twenty yards when a body hit anywhere would be sufficient...
Then the back porch light came on, a yellow bug light, and the shooter’s arrow was already nocked. Flowers stepped out on the stoop and posed there like one of those range targets showing an ISIS terrorist staring at you with mad eyes...
The bow was up, the arrow on its way and flying true, and Flowers tumbled back into the house, and then the shooter stood up, and Flowers shouted, “He shot me with an arrow...”
Trap.
—
Virgil heard somebody shout “Going now,” either Jenkins or Shrake, and the other one yelled, “Are you hurt?” Virgil wasn’t registering which one, and he pulled the arrow out of his armor, sat up, looked out into the dark, and shouted, “I’m okay, I’m good. I’m coming.”
He could see nothing at all, but he did hear car doors slamming and the thumping footfalls from somebody running, and then more, and then Shrake yelled, “There he goes, he’s running west toward Sherburne... Jenkins... he’s going across the fences in the backyards.”
“You guys... be careful... You can’t see him, you can’t hear him... Be careful...” Virgil yelled into the radio. He rolled to his feet and ran out the door and saw Jenkins running in front of the light coming from a neighbor’s window, and he ran that way, shouting, “Jenkins, I’m behind you. I’m back here, don’t shoot me.”
Jenkins shouted back, “Virgil, go out to Westfall. Shrake, get up on the corner of Sherburne, he has to cross the street. I’ll push him out of these yards... I’m gonna put some light on him.”
Jenkins, who was carrying a superbright tactical flashlight, turned it on and lit up the backyards, as Virgil jogged out to Westfall Road, crouched behind a tree, and turned on his own light. He could still see Jenkins, on his knees, gun up, playing his light over the area between the houses. A block away, Shrake was lighting up a cross street. Unless the shooter had been moving very fast, he should be boxed in in the backyards.
More lights began coming on in the neighborhood as they called back and forth. Jenkins shouted, “Moving up one. This yard is clear.”
—
Jenkins was moving slowly back and forth across the wide backyards; the side yards, between houses, were mostly clear of bushes and didn’t have good hiding places. The backyards, though, were a tangle of fences, grape arbors, decorative grasses, and last year’s gardens, with their foot-high, now dead plants. The shooter, he thought, was wearing camo, and in the harsh shadows thrown by Jenkins’s flashlight, and with the snarl of folliage and fence, could be hiding almost anywhere.
If he wanted to shoot his bow, though, he’d have to come up at least to kneeling height, unless he were concealed behind a tree or hedge; and Jenkins’s light was designed to be blinding.
So Jenkins didn’t hurry; he sent the light into every nook and cranny, his pistol tracking with the light.
—
The shooter crossed a lot of fences and shrubs in a hurry, had to get south, to the Wilsons’ house. The Wilsons had a hedge that ran all the way out to the street. It would provide cover. And if the cops were out of sight for only ten seconds, then it would bepossible to cross the street, and, once there, it should be possible to shake them free altogether.
The biggest threat would be if the neighborhood woke up, and it probably would, sooner or later. Once all the backyard lights and garage lights came on, getting lost would become impossible.
No time, no time, had to keep moving...
And a cop ran by in the street, carrying a flashlight that appeared to be as bright as any searchlight...
—
Shrake had run up to the first street corner and thought he’d gotten there in time to keep the shooter from crossing it. Not being absolutely certain of that, he lit up the spaces between the houses across the street as well.
A man called something to him, and he shouted back, “Police... Police... Go inside. Go inside, lock your doors.”
Virgil had gotten back on his radio, and said, “He could live in one of these houses, and he’s already inside.”
“That would cut down the possibilities,” Shrake said. “Basically, if he’s inside, we’ll get him.”
“Unless he’s inside somebody else’s house and he just killed them,” Virgil said.
Jenkins: “Virgil, keep moving up. I’m sweating like a motherfucker over here. We’ve got to be pushing him into a corner.”
“We need to get some deputies down here, wrap up the entire neighborhood, and wait until it gets light,” Shrake suggested.
“That’s seven hours away, but it’s not a bad idea,” Virgil said. “I’ll call Zimmer, get some guys started this way.”
Shrake said, “Jenkins, if he’s in there, he’s gotta move. You’re only a hundred feet out from me.”
