She had the shovel in her hands. I saw her lifting her arms, raising the shovel overhead like an axe. I had to admire her strength. What she was doing wasn’t easy. The shovel looked heavy and I hadn’t thought she’d developed that much upper-body strength. Still, from her perspective, this was an emergency, so she might have been calling on reserves she didn’t know she had.

As with many moments of crisis in life, the swiftness with which the ensuing events unfolded created the reverse effect, emerging with the soft, dreamy qualities of slow-motion footage. Like a sequence of time-lapse photographs, Justine’s arms continued to rise until the shovel reached its apex. I saw the first shimmering instant of its descent. I curled to my left and lifted my right arm, trying to aim and fire Dolan’s S&W before the shovel hit its mark. If she’d brandished the shovel with the blade perpendicular, striking me side-on, she probably would have chopped my arm to the bone. As it was, the flat of the shovel collided with my forearm and the gun spun off into the dark. I never even heard it land. The shovel came down again. A ringing pain radiated outward from my left shoulder and disappeared. It was odd. I knew she’d landed a blow, but I was so flooded with adrenaline the pain vanished. I staggered, my knees buckling, nearly felled by the impact.

I spotted the Smith & Wesson lying six feet away. The shovel came down again, this time clanging against the top of the truck cab with a force that wrenched the tool from her grip. I ran at her and shoved her as hard as I could. She stumbled backward but managed to catch herself before she hit the ground. She was making guttural sounds, probably trying to marshall her forces to yell for Cornell. I grabbed the shovel and used it like a scythe to crack her across the shins. She screamed. I looked back and saw she was down. Cornell came running from the building. Just as he spotted me, I saw Justine scramble to her feet and reach the truck door. She yanked it open and got in on the driver’s side, screaming at him, “Get in the truck! Get in the truck!”

I scrambled forward, snatched up the gun, and pushed off the safety.

He flung himself at the tailgate as she started the truck. She backed up and shifted gears, gunned the engine, and turned the wheel, peeling out. I watched him haul himself over the side and into the truck bed, disappearing from view. I turned and extended my arms, both hands on the gun as I aimed. It helped that I was pissed off. I was talking aloud, admonishing myself to take my time. There was no reason to panic. The ground was flat and I’d be able to see them for a long time. I located one of the rear taillights between the niche in the gun’s rear sight and the niche in the foresight as I squinted down the barrel. I hadn’t paid attention to Dolan’s choice in ammunition, but if I remembered correctly, the baseline 9mm 100-grain slug moves out at muzzle velocities of between 1,080 and 1,839 feet per second, depending on slug rate. My figures might have been off, but not by much. I fired. The recoil was like a quick sneeze, kicking the barrel up and back. I missed, corrected, fired again, and heard a tire blow. Cornell had flattened himself in the bed of the truck. I altered my sights slightly and fired again, missing. I took aim again and fired four more rounds, trying to make each one count. By the time I paused, both back tires were flat. After that, the truck veered off course and came to a stop almost of its own accord. I approached on foot, taking my time, knowing I had sufficient rounds left to take care of business if Justine and Cornell still felt like arguing.

Epilogue

Justine was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, with a string of related offenses thrown in to sweeten the pot. Edna and Ruel prevailed on Cornell to hire a lawyer of his own, and his lawyer, in turn, persuaded him to make a deal with the DA. After all, he’d had nothing to do with the murder of Charisse Quinn and he’d had no part in Pudgie Clifton’s death. That Saturday after I’d gone to the house to talk to Justine, she’d panicked and begged for his help in moving Pudgie’s body and subsequently burying the tire iron with which she’d killed him. Cornell pled guilty to being an accessory after the fact, for which he’s serving one year in the county jail. Edna and Ruel have taken on the responsibility for Amelia, Mary Francis, and Cissy McPhee until their father’s release.

Justine’s motivation wasn’t difficult to fathom. She’d killed Charisse for seducing Cornell and trying to steal the life she’d envisioned for herself. It was indeed Pudgie who’d stolen the Mustang and loaded Charisse’s body in the trunk. While Justine packed the dead girl’s clothes and forged the note explainingher fictional departure, Pudgie drove the body to Lompoc and dumped it at the quarry Iona’d told him about. Justine waited a week and then called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, pretending to be Charisse’s mother and claiming her daughter was safely home again.