Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(17)

The knife had fallen into the snow. It was a Gerber tactical model: black, with a tanto point and a serrated edge. The blade was wet.

Blood was dripping from my arm. It spotted the smooth patch of ice at my feet. The cut wasn’t deep, but it stung as if it had been rubbed with salt. I couldn’t put pressure on the wound without reholstering my weapon, which meant I had to deal with Spike first.

I used so much strength pulling him from the running truck that he sprawled on the ice at my feet.

“Don’t hurt me,” he whined.

“Shut up!”

I used my second set of cuffs to secure his wrists. The effort pumped more and more blood from my arm onto the snow. When I was convinced that both of them were restrained, I finally put my gun away and clutched at the wound. Only then did it occur to me to raise my eyes to the house. For all I knew, there was someone else inside the building; someone else out of their drug-crazed mind, only maybe this person was armed with a gun instead of a knife.

I retreated back to a position of cover behind an oak tree at the edge of the drive.

All the while, the wolf dog watched me with keen interest. He didn’t run off, nor did he approach. He just studied me with his eerie eyes while I called for help.

“Can you describe your injuries?” the dispatcher asked.

“She struck me in the back first, but the knife barely punctured the skin. Don’t ask me how. I’ve also got a cut across my left forearm. I’m losing blood, but I’ve got pressure on the wound, and it seems to be helping.”

“You’re sure your back is all right?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Stay on the line until backup arrives. Nearest unit is five minutes away. Ambulance is right behind.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Keep talking to me.”

“What should we talk about?”

“Is there anything else we should know about your situation?”

“You’re going to need an animal control agent, too. Make sure he brings the biggest carrier he’s got.”

“Is there a vicious dog on the property?”

Even from a distance, I could see his luminous eyes. They looked possessed of an intelligence I had never seen before in a domestic dog. “Not exactly.”

Above my head, the dead leaves of the oak made a sound like whispers whenever the breeze touched them.

The wolf dog kept watching me intently.

*

I lost count of the units that responded to my 10-74 call. That is what happens when a report goes out that an officer is down; every available cop—sometimes even those off-duty—rush to the scene.

The first to arrive was a Cumberland County Sheriff’s deputy. He drove up with lights blazing and sirens wailing and emerged from his salt-splashed cruiser with his weapon already drawn. I think he was a little disappointed to find me alert and upright, albeit leaning against an oak tree, with only a bleeding forearm.

The deputy’s name was Moody. He was about my age, black-haired, brown-eyed, with a smirky way of talking out of one side of his mouth. “You’re sure you weren’t stabbed in the back?”

“See for yourself.”

He examined the holes in my clothing. “Man, all I can say is you got lucky. You owe your guardian angel a big tip.”

He fetched a pressure bandage from his cruiser while we waited for EMTs to arrive. I pressed it tightly to the wound.

“This isn’t my first visit to Casa Michaud,” Moody said.

“When was the last time?”

“Halloween. Carrie had a party. One of the girls who showed up had too good a time, if you know what I mean.”

“Overdose?”

“Heroin cut with fentanyl, according to the coroner.”

I’d been trying to understand why she’d stabbed me over a wolf dog. You only had to look into her eyes to see that the wires had short-circuited a long time ago. Where there are drugs, there are almost always guns. If Carrie Michaud had come at me with a pistol instead of a knife, I would have been seriously screwed.

“I shouldn’t have let her sneak up on me,” I said.

He shrugged. “Looks can be deceiving.”

Carrie Michaud had been unconscious for such a long time, I had begun to fear she might be dead, the way boxers sometimes die from single punches in boxing movies. But she chose that moment to wake up. She began flopping around, trying to get to her feet, shouting obscenities the whole time.

“You’re not going to bleed to death while I go get her?” Moody asked.

“I think I’ll survive.”

Moody pulled Carrie Michaud, kicking and screaming, to the back of his car.

Meanwhile, Spike continued to lie compliantly on the cold ground, never making so much as an effort to move.

The ambulance arrived next. The EMTs made me sit in the back while they applied a serious bandage to my arm. I would need to go to the hospital and have a doctor look at the wound, they said. From the way the cotton was drinking up the blood, I would certainly need stitches. The doctor would also want to take a sample in case the blade had been contaminated with some pathogen.

More and more cruisers were arriving. The flashing lights—blue and red—gave the scene a disco vibe. All the attention made me uncomfortable. No one had ever thrown me a surprise party, but I imagined it would have felt slightly less embarrassing. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I could smell my own sour perspiration. I was going to have to file a detailed incident report about the assault, and the information I included would determine whether Carrie Michaud was charged with aggravated attempted murder.