Deadline(114)

            “I’ll take you down,” Muddy said. And quickly, to Virgil: “I’ll get you there and then I’ll come right back here. Promise.”

            Virgil said, “All right. You just get us close.”

            —

            INSTEAD OF TAKING the road, they went through the woods. Virgil passed around the insect repellent before they went in—Muddy said, “This stuff still stinks”—and then they followed Muddy along a game trail that paralleled the creek, on the opposite side from the road. The going was slow, with Muddy whispering warnings at two shallow ravines and a fallen tree trunk, and ten minutes after they left Muddy’s house, they were behind Sharf’s place, looking down the hill.

            There were at least two people inside, because they could see the light from at least two flashlights, one on the bottom floor, one in the upstairs bedroom. Virgil sent Muddy back home, and after he disappeared, he, Jenkins, and Shrake began easing down the hill.

            They were fifty yards away when somebody came out of the house. Whoever it was had turned off his flashlight before leaving the house, but turned it on briefly, two or three times, as he crossed the bridge to the road. They could see that he was carrying a bundle, which he left by the road. Then he hurried back to the house, and Jenkins, leaning close to Virgil, said, “That looked like a woman.”

            Shrake: “Yeah. If your Sharf guy is in there, he’s the one upstairs.”

            —

            AS THEY CLOSED on Sharf’s cabin, they could hear what sounded like a dresser drawer opening and closing, and then a man’s voice calling: “Get the TV.”

            At that moment, a dog started barking. Not a big dog, a small, yappy dog, starting inside, and then, from the sound of it, moving out on the side stoop. They couldn’t see it, but it sounded like it was barking right at them, and a woman called, “Wayne! There’s somebody out there. Wayne!”

            “That’s our guy,” Virgil said. “Let’s go.”

            Virgil turned on his jacklight, illuminating the entire cabin and a good piece of the woods around it. Jenkins went right, and Shrake went forward, as Virgil shouted, “Police! Police! D. Wayne Sharf—you’re under arrest!”

            Shrake, who’d run ahead, called, “I’ve got the front door, watch the side door, Virg—”

            A woman screamed, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! We give up.”

            Jenkins came in from the dark, into the lighted circle, gun out, to the side door, where a Chihuahua was jumping up and down and barking its tiny heart out. Jenkins peeked in the door and shouted, “Come out of there, keep your hands over your head. Come out of there!”

            The woman shouted, “I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t shoot me. Don’t hurt my dog.”

            The dog was still yapping and the woman appeared at the screen door, hands over her head. She was a large woman, with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved man’s shirt. Behind her, they heard a POP! and she half-turned and screamed, “Wayne! Wayne! Come out of there.”

            From the front, Shrake shouted, “Fire! There’s a fire!”

            Virgil saw the flickering lights of a fire, and the woman bolted out on the porch, stumbled off the side, and fell flat on her face, screaming for her dog. Her hands were empty, and Jenkins grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, and the small dog launched itself at Jenkins’s ankle. Jenkins shook it off and the woman screamed, “Don’t hurt the dog, don’t hurt the dog . . .” and wrenched free and crawled toward the dog, trying to catch it. The dog eluded her and went after Jenkins again.

            Jenkins shook it off again and the woman scooped it up as Virgil pushed through the screen door and shouted, “Sharf. Where are you? Sharf?”