83

Waiting for Leland to break through the brush, Alexa was perspiring heavily beneath the vest, and her hands were clammy where they gripped the shotgun. She and the other detectives had firepower on their side, and even though they were unfamiliar with the place, she didn’t see how Leland’s knowledge of the immediate area was adequate to tip the balance to his advantage in the present situation.

Alexa could feel the positive weight of the Glock in its high-rise holster on her right side. To her left, she could see the wind-rough dark scummy water through the brush behind Manseur.

As far as she could tell, Leland had stopped coming toward them. Likely he was waiting for them to go to him. She was still looking at Manseur when some reeds in the water swayed suddenly. The surface of the water parted as Leland’s head and shoulders broke above the waterline and, to her horror, she saw he was aiming the gun.

Leland fired twice as Manseur was turning his shotgun toward him, and the detective fell sideways. The instant Manseur was down, Leland shifted his gaze, saw her, and swung the gun toward Alexa. She had reflexively put the tree beside her between them, and heard the twenty-two rounds smack the bark. She swung the shotgun up, jerked the trigger, and the gun roared, the recoil jarring her. The pellets had churned the water, but Leland had vanished below the surface. She thought she must have hit him, but there was no evidence of it.

Maintaining her aim, she scrambled over to Manseur, who looked up at her with dazed and frightened eyes. Alexa saw immediately that he had been hit twice in the head. There was a small hole in his cheek and another just above his lip, under his nose. When he opened his mouth to speak, blood poured out. He coughed and spit. Along with the blood, Alexa saw that he had expelled broken teeth and what appeared to be bone chips.

Alexa helped him sit up against the tree, his back to the water. “Stay still,” she told him. “Let me take a look at you. Can you open your mouth for me?”

Alexa was trained to evaluate gunshot wounds. While keeping the water in sight, Alexa laid the shotgun aside on the soft ground where she could grab it up quickly. She took a few seconds to hold Manseur’s head still while she inspected the bullet wounds. She quickly decided that, despite the amount of blood in his mouth, neither wound should be fatal. He seemed alert, and, for the moment, not going into shock.

“Michael, the round through your cheek exited your jaw. You’ve got some broken teeth, maybe some damage to the gums, and some tissue damage where the jawbone is hinged. The second went through your lip, hit your upper gum, and is probably lodged in your upper pallet. You understand what I said?”

Manseur nodded, and pointed behind him.

“I fired at him, but I don’t know if I hit him. I think I closed my eyes when I fired.” Admitting that she had flinched when she fired would have been embarrassing normally, because she had fired pistols and shotguns more times than she could count, and she had been trained and drilled, and drilled again, to teach her not to close her eyes when she fired a weapon. Watch the bullet hit your target. Don’t fire wildly and empty the magazine. Two-one-two-one. The firing range wasn’t real life, and more or less a stress-free environment, which this certainly wasn’t.

Manseur had been lucky. If Leland had used a larger caliber weapon, and had fired with the same degree of accuracy, the round placed under his nose would have penetrated his brain. He wouldn’t die from the wounds, but she had to get him to a hospital for treatment. Then she noticed the blood on his upper arm. He had also been shot in his left shoulder.

She heard footsteps behind her, grabbed up the shotgun, and aimed. Carrying his rifle at the ready, Larry Bond moved beside her, knelt, and looked gravely at Manseur.

“You okay, Michael?”

Manseur nodded mutely. Alexa told Bond what had happened, pointed to where Leland had surfaced, and told him she may or may not have hit him.

“I don’t see him floating,” Bond said.

“The sheriff’s people are on the way out,” Alexa told him. “It’s going to be a long wait, based on how long it took us to get here. They’ll have to launch boats.”

“We can’t just sit and wait. If Ticholet isn’t hurt really badly, he’ll pick us off before we get out of the channel,” Bond said grimly. “We have to kill him.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Alexa said. She had no problem with killing Leland Ticholet.