Roswell Fanatics

No, Max wasn't unobserved as he'd crossed the football field to sneak in the back of the gymnasium.
The young student who saw him was a freshman, and probably in the lower quartile when it came to assertiveness. He'd only been at West Roswell for a few weeks and it had been a big change for him – socially - from junior high school where he'd been an older student to the more intensive social pecking order of high school. The youngster had never actually met Max Evans, but knew his name be reputation because of the fight he'd been in earlier the day of the water tank incident, and he knew Max's appearance because he'd just seen the kid hauled away by the Sheriff's deputies in hand-cuffs not too long ago.

The young freshman knew – because of the freshman orientation handbook – that students were not to enter the high school by the gymnasium locker room entrance unless they were coming to or going from a gym class, and that the door should have been locked in any event. Clearly, Max Evans was up to something. Even before Max was done with the computer the young freshman had gone around to one of the proper doors, gone in to the admin office and signed in. As Max drove away he was sitting quietly – reading his freshman orientation handbook – and waiting for the freshman class counselor to come in and talk to him.

It would be another fifteen minutes before the freshman class counselor would arrive and her appointment with the young man would be further delayed a few minutes by her being briefed by the vice-principal that a telephone call had come from the police asking them to be on the lookout for Max Evans, that the young man had apparently escaped jail and was considered armed and dangerous. When – minutes later – she talked to the young freshman and he told her he'd seen Max Evans sneaking in the locker room her actions were immediate. She called 911 to notify the Sheriff's Office and activated the school emergency lockdown procedure.

Already well east of Roswell, Jim and Deputy Pemberton got the word on their radio. Pemberton started to reach for the strobe lights and siren when Valenti put his hand on the controls.

"What are you doing," said Pemberton. "We need to get back there..."

"No we don't," said Jim, "What we need to do is to keep going. There is a procedure for that particular contingency, and it doesn't involve either the Sheriff or a detective. They'll pull in the SWAT team and the team leader will be the on-scene commander, and the guy doesn't need a couple of extra wheels - one of the senior to him - to second guess his actions. That's what SWAT trains for and that's why we have those procedures."

What Jim said was literally the truth, but there was more to it than that. His son had told him - repeatedly - that there was no way Max Evans would ever hurt Liz Parker. Despite the evidence against the kid - and even his jailbreak - that kept running through Jim's head. Which made the lack of communication from the farmhouse all that much more worrisome.

"OK," said Pemberton, continuing to drive east. "You are the boss...."

Once again the issue of resources asserted itself on the Chaves County Sheriff's department. There were at that time eight patrol cars manned by deputies in the entire county. Realistically, only about four of those could hope to get to West Roswell High School in any reasonable time. All four had been assigned to watch roads for one Maxwell Evans, escaped fugitive, armed and dangerous, driving a stolen Sheriff's Department patrol car, but that tasking was sort of overtaken by events since that fugitive was NOW known to be located in the High School. The teenager - known to be both psychologically unstable and adept at science - was thought to be possibly taking advantage of the resources of the science building to do heaven-only-knew WHAT sort of mischief in there, from do it yourself nitroglycerin to TNT to RDX. Faced with that sort of a threat, the response to the school was automatic.

As Max headed east, the two patrol cars that MIGHT have spotted him came racing instead toward the school – lights and siren on. Max both heard and saw them coming and successfully dodged them. Those cars would arrive at the school only minutes later.

It would take them a half hour before those two officers and two of the other officers from the west side of the county would be relieved by the SWAT team. But even then they would be retained for traffic control around the school until the 'emergency' was over.

It would take another full seventy minutes before the SWAT team would finish searching the building and be able to say with any certainty that Max Evans was no longer there - seventy minutes when most of the law enforcement personnel in Chaves county would be tied up far away from the Parker ranch - and from the eastbound Max Evans.

Back at the ranch:

Williams drove his pickup down the road casually - as if there was nothing special about this. Just a neighbor dropping by to be neighborly. Possibly Jeff Parker hadn't even noticed that the telephone line had been cut. If that were the case, the handgun under his jacket should be more than adequate to control the man and his daughter and a simple call on the walky-talky could bring both Abernathy and McCarthy in while he held the man and his daughter at bay.

Within a few minutes there'd be the three of them against the two Parkers. It should be a relatively easy thing to fake a murder suicide then. He could see the headlines now .... 'angry father kills girl over unwed pregnancy - then kills self'. It was going to be sooo easy.

He drove the pickup truck down next to the old ranch house and got out.

"Jeff! Jeff Parker... are you home?" he asked loudly, an innocent smile on his face.

Even before he saw the man step from his vehicle, Jeff Parker started to grin as he saw the pickup drive slowly down the driveway. He shouted to Liz and Diane, "I think that truck is Arthur Williams, he's our neighbor. Do you know commissioner Williams, Diane?"

"I've certainly seen him around the courthouse," said Diane, from the lower floor bedroom, where she was keeping look-out in the other direction, "... but I can't say that I know him well."

"He's my nearest neighbor out here - has a big ranch where he lives most of the time - at least when he's not staying in an apartment he keeps in the city. I sure hope nothing happens to him - but I was thinking - if the person who was up on the ridge doesn't know that we know he cut the telephone line, he may let Art walk in and walk out without messing with him."

"...And then he could go call the police," finished Liz.

"Exactly," said Jeff.

"Well, let's hope nothing happens to him and we can explain the problem quickly and let himm get back to his place," said Diane.



"Jeff...? You at home?" Arthur Williams repeated as he stepped up on the porch. He saw the door open up and heard Jeff Parker's voice.

"Hi Commissioner Williams, step inside why don't you?"

Williams looked around the side of the door and saw Jeff Parker standing there, He had a little single shot 22 in one hand, but it wasn't even cocked.

"Jeff, I've told you before - you don't need to call me Commissioner. We are neighbors, for Pete's sake. Call me Arthur ... or better yet just Art."

Williams walked casually in to the ranch house, noting the Parker girl coming in to the living room from the kitchen. She was totally unarmed, and Jeff Parker was still holding the little rifle in a way that made it unusable - at least for as long as it would take for him to reach for his own pistol. The thing to do was to let the girl come into the living room ... get them both in front of him and if possible looking outside when he made his move.

"I'm afraid we have a real problem here," said Jeff,looking out the window.

Williams maneuvered himself to get both Liz and Jeff in front of him.

"What's the matter Jeff?" Williams asked, "...you sound sort of worried."

He reached his hand casually down to his waist, while keeping a bland expression of slight puzzlement. As soon as he had both of them looking out the window he'd make his draw.

"You know that someone has been trying to kill my daughter...?" he said, nodding to Liz, "Well somebody cut our telephone line, and Diane saw someone up on that ridge line to the west. We think the person may be out there," said Jeff, looking outside again. Liz peeked out through her window as well.

Arthur had already started to make his draw when the thought stopped him.

"Diane?" he asked.

"Diane Evans, she's Liz's lawyer." said Jeff, nodding toward the bedroom door.

Arthur looked up and did not quite lose sphincter control. Fifteen feet away was Diane Evans - cradling an ancient double barreled twelve gauge shotgun with both the hammers back - obviously loaded and locked.

Williams realized immediately that, had he pulled his pistol out and pointed it at the Parkers, the woman would have undoubtedly blown a hole through him a foot wide before he'd have gotten his first shot off.

Williams knew a lot about guns, and a pistol going up against a shotgun at fifteen feet was not a good trade-off, even though the barrel was currently pointed in a safe direction.

"Uh, the barrister and I have met," said Williams, casually moving his hands away from his own weapon, " A - uh - litlle bit awkward isn't it Ms. Evans, ... what with your son apparently being the chief suspect in your clients attempted murder?"

"Max would NOT do anything to hurt me," said Liz, glaring at Williams and now moving away from the window - back toward the kitchen.

'I am going to kick Abernathy's ass,' he thought, remembering the reassurances the man had given that there were only the two Parkers in the house. ' ... but this can still be salvaged.

"Actually," said Diane, "... we are pretty sure that Max was being framed for the attempts on Liz's life. Precisely why, we don't have any idea."

"But the immediate concern," said Jeff, ".. is the guy up on that ridge line - the guy who cut the telephone line."

"Oh, I'm sorry. The reason I started over here was to ask if I could borrow your phone. Mine quit just a little bit ago. Apparently it's a general outage though." He held up his walky-talky. "One of my hands said there was an accident up by the main road - a dumptruck hit a utility pole. Maybe that's responsible."

Williams smiled inwardly as he saw the wave of relief go around the room.

"Well, if that's it," said Jeff, "This situation might not be as bad as we feared. Could I ask you to get a message to Deputy Pemberton? To tell him that we are under observation by someone, and we'd like a police escort before I move Liz out of this ranch house?"

"Well Jeff, if you think that's necessary, I'll be glad to do that. I can get one of my hands to drive past the busted up utility poll and find the next phone. I do think you may be over-reacting though - not that I wouldn't do the same thing for MY daughter you understand. It may take awhile though."

"That's OK. We have food - water - we can just sit tight."

"Well Jeff, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send one ranch hand off to make that telephone call, and another one and I will come back with some serious armament and wait with you. If you don't mind me saying so, that little 22 isn't much firepower and that 12 gauge doesn't have any real range. With four of us here - armed and watching the little lady - she'll be as safe as she can be until the deputies get here."

"Thanks Com ... thanks Art," said Jeff Parker.

"Don't worry Jeff," said Williams, "the pleasure is all mine," ..and it will start,' he decided,'...with tearing Abernathy a new one for damn-near getting me killed.'

But that didn't matter. Now that he'd gotten their confidence - gotten them to think that cutting off the telephone line had just been an accident, they could quickly come up with a new plan. One that would account for the fact that Diane Evans was present.

They say that hindsight is 20/20, and it was sort of like that for Arthur Williams. As soon as he was out of sight of the ranch house he was on the walky-talky, ordering both Abernathy and McCarthy to meet him back at the end of the driveway to the Parker house. He did a lot of thinking on the quarter mile long driveway.

It was apparent from the way the Parker girl had practically thrown her protestations of the Evans boy's guilt at her father that there had been conflict over the Evans kid. Was Max Evans actually responsible for that bun in her oven? Could be. Alternatively, the Sheriff's department - and Jeff Parker - apparently had not wanted for Diane Evans and Elizabeth Parker to get together which was likely the reason Jeff Parker had his daughter squirreled away so far from the city. Under the circumstances, it seemed entirely possible that it really hadn't been Abernathy's fault that he hadn't seen the Evans woman. Chances were she'd sneaked up on the ranch house herself to avoid having Jeff Parker intercept him.

Under other circumstances, Arthur Williams might have decided to wait for a better opportunity, but he realized - not without some reluctance - that he couldn't afford to do that. Considering he'd damn near fainted when he looked up and saw the Evans woman standing 14 or 15 feet away with a double barreled shotgun just as he was starting to draw his pistol and shoot Jeff Parker, he thought he'd recovered quickly. Lying to the three of them about the cut telephone line had seemed - at the time - like a stroke of genius. Right now, all three seemed to be less nervous - and more trusting of him as well. But telling them that lie ... well, it had a downside too.

Right now all three people back in that farmhouse believed that the telephone outage was due to a truck hitting a utility pole, but no truck HAD hit a utility pole, and even if he had one of his men take one and ram a telephone pole somewhere, that still would not explain the simple fact that the Parkers' line was cut to the three people in that ranch house. That left him no real option but to get this over fast - before he became revealed as a liar, and attracted their suspicion.

However in retrospect, cutting that line had been a stupid risk for the story of murder-suicide he'd planned on setting up any way.

'What if the police had DISCOVERED the severed line.' Arthur thought to himself, '...how would THAT have fit in to the murder-suicide story?' The answer was obvious. It wouldn't have.

Far from being a disaster, the presence of Diane Evans had kept him from making what might have bee a very serious error. He just needed to weave her presence into the story.

The clump of brush and small trees across the road was really the only place the Evans woman could have hidden a car, and it took Williams and his two men only a few minutes to find it.

"McCarthy... could you get that trunk open without leaving a mark on it ... no fingerprints either?"

McCarthy smiled, as he took out his small case of lockpicks, "You better believe it...."

"OK, we have a new story," said Williams. "...half the town knows how crazy Diane Evans is about those kids she adopted. Her son gets locked up for attempted murder so she comes out here to get the truth out of Jeff Parker because she knows that her son didn't do it..."

"Since we did," chimed in Abernathy.

"Well hopefully no one is going to figure THAT out, but we make it look like she came out looking for the girl to get the truth out of her. We clean off the prints and put the wire-cutters that we used to cut the telephone line in the back of her car once we get her fingerprints on them. That makes it look like she wanted to confront the girl without Parker being able to call the sheriff to have her taken off the property. It also explains the cut telephone line. They have a verbal altercation ... both get mad ... somebody grabs a gun... ," Williams smiled. "The woman already has her fingerprints all over an old 12 gauge, Parker has his all over a 22. It ends up looking like the two of them had it out right there in the ranch house. The girl ... she just gets caught in the crossfire. Shit happens when you shoot a 12 gauge indoors."

"So how do we set this up?" asked McCarthy.

"Well, you and I go back in there - after I make a short trip home to pick up some weapons. You keep your hood up, and look out the other way, like you are looking for watchers or intruders. I don't want to take the chance of the girl seeing your face. I'll go in and put a couple of rifles, a couple of pistols, and some ammo on the kitchen table. As son as they put down their current weapons and pick up those, I'll make my move."

"That don't seem too bright... giving them guns and ammo and then trying to jump them," said Abernathy.

"The ammo I'm bringing them only fits the guns I'm bringing them, and the guns won't have any firing pins. If they try to shoot me, it won't make any difference. There'll be a click and they'll know they've been had. They try to do anything else, I threaten to shoot the girl."

"I thought she was going to die anyway - all three of them. Why not just open fire on then right from the get-go?" asked McCarthy.

"Because I don't need a whole bunch of their blood all over MY rifles and pistols. We'll tell them to put their hands up, separate out everything we brought in, then I'll shoot the girl and Parker with the shotgun, then the woman with the 22. We need to then shoot the weapons another time - using the dead hands of Parker and the woman, so the paraffin test will be right. We quickly clear out - making sure we wipe down anything we've touched and bring out everything we took in. We go back to my ranch - wash the clothes we've worn - or burn them. I put the firing pins back in to my weapons - wipe any prints but my own off - and put them back in the safe. Then I go back alone and unarmed later and 'discover' this terrible tragedy at my neighbor's place. I drive a half hour east until my cell phone starts to work and call 911 and report it. Hell, you wouldn't believe how nice I'm going to be to the grieving widow - at least until she sells me that land."

"What do I do," asked Abernathy.

"You have a critical job," replied Williams. "I want you to stay right here in the bushes and watch that driveway. If anyone turns in, get on the radio and let us know. Nobody's going to be able to do much more than 10-15 miles an hour on that gravel driveway. That'll give McCarthy and me at least 60 seconds to set up for them if we DO get any unexpected visitors and you are in place to come in behind them and catch them in a crossfire if needed. Diane Evans is the LAST surprise visitor I plan to have sneak by us..."

It was a half hour later when Jeff saw Williams's pickup truck drive back down the driveway and he was relieved to see he'd brought someone with him. Maybe he was being alarmist and it was all just some freak accident, but the cutoff of communications had been sort of unnerving. He knew better than to say anything to Liz - she was adamant that Max Evans wouldn't have threatened her but the evidence still seemed so overwhelming.

OK, considering the Evans kid had been minding his own business just doing his school project and hadn't even meant to get drunk - let alone what had happened afterward - Jeff was RELUCTANTLY inclined to give the kid a pass on his part in the pregnancy. While Jeff definitely did not WANT to think of his princess acting like that - well, she wasn't the first girl to get carried away after a few drinks, and it sounded like it barely took a sip to get Max drunk out of his mind.

But even if it had happened by accident - Max had more of a motive than anyone else - particularly if he thought the kids would be mentally not-quite right.

'Kids...,' thought Jeff. 'I wonder if he even knows there are two of them...?'

Then Jeff's mind turned back to all the evidence against Max Evans. If the kid really was guilty it was going to break Liz's heart, 'but how could he not be with all that evidence against him?' he asked himself. There were certainly no easy answers to that question, however much Liz wished there were....

"OK, keep your face scanning up toward the ridge line, like you are looking for anyone that may be out there," said Williams, "Jeff Parker is right up ahead. Stop the pickup about fifty feet ahead and get out and act like you are on guard while I get the weapons out of the crew cab. As soon as I've been inside the ranch house for five minutes - or if you here me call you before that - come on in with your gun drawn."

"You got it, boss," said McCarthy.

The truck stopped fifty feet from the door and the driver - a fairly good sized guy in a hooded sweatshirt - got out with a scoped deer rifle and started scanning the adjacent ridge line with a large pair of binoculars. In the meantime, Arthur Williams opened up the back of the crew cab truck and extracted two long guns - 20 gauge short barreled riot gun and a rifle that brought a warm feeling to Jeff's heart, an M1 Garand.

Of course it wasn't a real M1 Garand - the 30-06 caliber weapon that had gotten many a GI through WWII, but rather a latter day reproduction from the Springfield Armory in the current NATO standard 7.62 mm ammo, but the ballistics of the weapon and its rock-solid reliability, long distance hitting power, and accuracy were pretty much unchanged.

Art Williams clearly had his hands full with three boxes of shells and the three long guns and Jeff quickly opened the door for him and Williams brought the two weapons plus his own hunting rifle in and laid them down on the kitchen table.

"Here," said Williams, handing him the M1, "... hopefully it won't be necessary but if it is, it'll beat hell out of that little pea shooter you have there.

"Haven't seen one of these since basic training. We used M-14s, but we still walked tours with M1s," said Jeff.

"Well this ammo is a lot heavier than those little 5.56 mm shells, but you hit something with this it'll damn sure stay down," said Williams. Jeff ejected the shell from the 22 and put the rifle back in the gun cabinet and reached for the ammunition to load the more potent rifle. As he did, Williams handed the shotgun to Diane Evans.

"This isn't any more potent at short range than what you already have, ma'm," said Arthur, '...but it's got six shots instead of two, half the kick so it won't leave a bruise on your shoulder or knock you on your bottom, but mostly, these double-ought buckshot will triple the range of that birdshot you have there in that old antique.... and if you need them, these rifled slugs will crack the engine block of truck at 30 yards. If you don't know how to use a pump I can show you."

Diane broke the 12 gauge double and removed the shells before putting the shotgun and shells both back into the gun cabinet.

"I've used a pump before," she said as she fed shells into the underside of the 20gauge, alternating double ought buck and rifled slugs. with a determined look.Williams smiled.

"Well," he said, "...looks like the lady knows what she's doing. I didn't bring anything for your daughter - wasn't sure what she was used to...," said Williams.

"That's OK," said Jeff hefting the M1, "... we have Liz covered. Since she seems to be the one the guy is after, there's no sense arming her and putting her out front with a gun. I'd rather she just kept a low profile."

"Not an unreasonable decision at all," agreed Williams. He smiled and slowly walked over to the door and whistled and the other man turned around to come in to the ranch house.

As she saw his face in the light for the first time, Liz's mouth opened in surprise as she recognized "Beavis' from the shooting incident at the Crashdown.

"Daddy, that man ... he's one of the ones that wrestled with the gun at the Crash..."

Jeff looked at the man and instinctively brought the M1 to bear on him, his finger pushing forward on the safety as he did so. The scream brought his attention back to Liz and Jeff looked in disbelief at his daughter - being held in a choke hold by Williams who was brandishing a pistol.

"Jeff, Ms. Evans, I'd like you to put your weapons down right now and get down on your knees along the wall. Otherwise I may just have to choke the life out of your little girl here."

Jeff couldn't believe what was happening, but his Marine training took over. The man wasn't covering Liz with his gun and was wide open for a head shot. It had been many years since boot camp but he swung the Garand quickly around and when the iron sights were just coming to bear on Williams' forehead, he steadied and squeezed. The release of the sear caught him totally by surprise, just as it was supposed to, but instead of the crack of the discharge there was simply an internal click - without any recoil at all.

Williams stood there smiling as Diane's shotgun - covering the door as McCarthy entered, also just clicked. She worked the pump quickly, ejecting the shell on the assumption it was a dud, and trying to fire the next one - with no better result.

"Surely you didn't think I was actually going to give you working weapons, did you?" taunted Williams, "...now lay those weapons down. I really don't want to have to strangle this young lady," That was true. He intended to shoot her with the old double 12 gauge - her and her father, before finishing off Diane with the little 22. A pity that last. It wasn't much of a gun. She was probably going to take a while to die. Fortunately they were way out in the country and that wouldn't be a problem...

Diane looked at Jeff and it was like they'd read each others thoughts. Whatever was going on, Williams held all the cards. If they didn't cooperate, Liz was going to die. Jeff first - then Diane - put their weapon on the kitchen table and got down on their knees along the wall.

With the Evans-woman and Jeff Parker on their knees against the wall, with McCarthy there to cover them and with his arm around Liz Parker's throat, the situation seemed well in hand to Williams.

The trick would be to think this through - set up the shots with the 12 gauge and the little 22 in such a manner that the forensic investigators would have little choice but to think there had been a shootout between Jeff Parker and Diane Evans and the Parker girl had gotten caught in the crossfire. Unfortunately it soon became obvious that McCarthy's mind was wandering from the difficult problem of forensic ballistics at hand when he looked meaningfully at Liz ... then let his eyes go to the open door to the nearest bedroom.

"Seems a shame to just let that go to waste," the man said,leering at Liz before looking back at Diane and Jeff.

"Keep your mind on business." hissed Williams.

"Jeez Williams,... just because she's too old for you...," chuckled McCarthy.

In fact Williams had met McCarthy and Abernathy at the brothel south of the border that specialized in what was known in the trade as 'young stuff.' And although Liz was three or four years older than the girls he typically utilized at that brothel, her sexual attractiveness - with his hand around her throat and her body held tightly against hers - was all too obvious to Williams. But you don't become politically powerful without being able to defer - or even forgo - immediate satisfaction when you have to. No, there wasn't going to be any stray DNA inside Liz Parker other than that put there by whoever had knocked her up. That the forensic people would certainly spot, and if that happened there was no way they would write this off as an argument between Jeff Parker and his daughter's lawyer.

"Keep your mind on the job, McCarthy," said Williams.

'Damn it, that woman being here has changed everything,' thought Williams, '...this should have been over by now.'

Jeff Parker finally found his voice. "What job. What are you doing here?"

"Sorry Jeff. Nothing personal."

"Nothing PERSONAL!" screamed Jeff.

"Quiet!" said Williams, '...or do you want your daughter to suffer for your mistake?"

Jeff shut his mouth and just knelt there, looking daggers at Williams. Even now neither he nor Diane really understood what was going on. Apparently neither did Liz.

"Look, can't you just take whatever you came for and leave us?" asked Liz.

"You be quiet too," said Williams. 'Dammit,' he thought, '... if McCarthy spooks these people, they are going to wind up having gunshot wounds in all the WRONG places, and the police will never let this go....'

"Listen everybody, this isn't going to take too long and we don't want to hurt anybody," he lied, "but we will if we have to. Now I'm going to let go of this young lady but I want you to realize that if anyone does anything but just kneel there and behave yourself, the young lady will be the first one to get hurt."

With that Williams forced Liz to kneel alongside her father, and then stepped back, his eyes watching them carefully and his pistol centered on Liz. He slowly sidled back toward the gun cabinet.

"Keep them covered," he told McCarthy, and he looked over to make sure McCarthy was doing that before he tucked his pistol into his waistband and drew the pair of vinyl gloves from his pocket. He reached into the gun case and carefully brought out the double barreled shotgun - then broke it to insert two shells from the gun cabinet. He carefully closed the shotgun - trying not to smudge - any more than he could help - whatever fingerprints Diane Evans had left on the weapon, then carefully pulled back both hammers, making as little contact as possible with the hammers themselves. He stepped forward toward Jeff and Liz, making sure that Diane wasn't in the line of fire.

'After all,' he thought, '...it wouldn't do to have one of the dead people wounded with a weapon that she was supposed to have been firing.'

The world was moving in slow motion for Jeff. He didn't know why - but it had been Williams that had been trying to kill Liz - it was the only thing that made sense. And one look at the vinyl gloves and the awkward way that Williams - an expert in weapons - was holding the shotgun told him what was going on. Somebody was about to be shot and Diane Evans framed for it - not that she'd be alive to know.

There was no chance of actually getting to the man before he fired - not from a position of kneeling on the floor -but that didn't mean the former Marine wasn't going to try. He waited - willing for the man to come closer - every step Williams took giving him that much more of a chance of actually being able to reach him as he died - do something that might - however briefly - protect his daughter. He would need to move before the trigger finger reached for the trigger guard - and no doubt the other man would manage to put a bullet in him before he actually reached Williams - if he actually reached Williams - but in one surprising moment, everything changed.

"Look alive in there," came Abernathy's voice over the walkie-talkie that was in Williams' pocket, "...there's a patrol car coming with two people in it, and they're slowing to turn in the driveway."

All three men were surprised by the radio call, but Jeff had been prepared to try to jump Williams even before the thought hit all three of them almost simultaneously.

'That's only a half-mile away ... close enough for them to hear the gunshots.'

With that thought came action for Jeff Parker. He brought his hands down to the floor and pushed off as he pushed his foot at the wall - lurching to his feet even as he brought his hands up - one knocking the shotgun barrel aside while the other grasped at the throat of Arthur Williams. And if he'd had just another few seconds he might have actually crushed the man's larynx, too. Unfortunately, before that happened the butt of McCarthy's rifle impacted the side of his head and a stunned Jeff Parker slid to the floor.

"Man, this is one empty part of the county," said Deputy Pemberton as he turned the car off the narrow county road down the even much narrower gravel driveway leading to the Parker Ranch House.

"Yeah, It's outside the aquifer that most of the county gets its water from. The wells have to be drilled too deep to be affordable and most people store their rainwater in cisterns to flush their toilets and take their showers - and water their stock. Not much of that either, stock that is. Too little moisture means not much grazing. You need twenty or thirty acres per head out here. Even then in dry years, you have to truck in water for them ...and use flamethrowers to roast the spines off the prickly pears so they have something to eat. That's why most of these old homesteads like this one have folded. Jeff Parker keeps his because he grew up here and it really doesn't cost him anything but property taxes and at maybe $100 an acre assessed valuation, even that isn't much. Besides that, I think it's encumbered in some kind of a trust. The only prosperous one around here is Councilman Williams' place. He has a couple of seasonal creeks on his ranch and back when he was married to Janice - back before little Debbie ran off and everything went to pieces on him - he had a well drilled as well. Damn thinng went down three thousand feet I hear."

"Hell of a lot of space to not get any use out of it...." said Pemberton, looking around.

"Well, there are maybe a dozen or so summer cabins up by the Lincoln National Forest. They have those composting toilets and they use disposable dishes and stuff. Over time this part of the country is going to grow."

"Maybe," Pemberton said doubtfully, "...but I wouldn't expect it any time soon."

They drove slowly down the gravel driveway wordlessly until just before the ranch house would have come into view. There in front of them was a crewcab pickup truck parked not too far from the front of the Parker ranch house.

"Hmmm..." said Jim Valenti as he saw the pickup truck, "... If I'm not mistaken, that's Williams' pickup truck right there."

"I think that's probably his alright," said Pemberton. "There he is sitting up on the porch...."

The two law enforcement officers parked and then got out of the patrol car. Williams was sitting on the porch of the ranch house, an M1 Garand leaning against the wall next to him and a drink in his hand."

"Sheriff... Officer Pemberton," he said,"...good to see you. Care for some iced tea?"

"Uh, maybe later, Councilman," said Jim Valenti, "... we sort of need to talk to Jeff Parker."

"That might take a little while. I was over here visiting and the telephone went out. Jeff thought - you know - with all that's been happening to his little girl, that he'd better get the telephone company moving on fixing it sort of pronto. He'd off to my place to use my phone to light a fire under them and asked if I'd just hang around and kind of do guard duty until he gets back. You can talk to his daughter though - she's right inside with her lawyer."

"Her lawyer?" asked Pemberton incredulously,"you mean Diane Evans?: he asked, and Williams nodded," Well... son of a bitch!"

"Yeah, I kind of hear about you having her son locked up in jail as the prime suspect. Jim didn't seem real happy to have her here either. Still, I guess the little lady is entitled to a lawyer of her choice, and the young man is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law..."

"Innocent?" asked Pemberton in disbelief. "Damn kid has broken out of jail - stolen a police car - with weapons in it. He was seen at the school - same place he hid his gun after he took the shot at the girl - and we thought the SWAT team had him cornered, but somehow he got away. We have an all points bulletin out and everyone is combing the area within five miles of the high school trying to find him. Everybody but us, that is..."

"My word," said Williams, ignoring the M1 Garand as he stood up from the chair, I suppose we'd better go tell the young Parker gal - not that she's going to believe you. I think she's sweet on the young man. I suppose Diane Evans needs to be told too. Sort of awkward that, your victim and perpetrator having the same lawyer.

"Tell us about it," said Pemberton.

Williams opened the door and gestured the two peace officers inside.
"After you, gentlemen," he said.

Fortunately for him, it went pretty much as Williams had planned it. He was extremely fortunate in that regard he realized, because it hadn't been much of a plan at all - just some quick improvisation with the materials he found at hand. 'Sometimes,' thought Williams, '...it's better to be lucky than good. The harder part is to figure out where we go from here...'

Williams and McCarthy had little more than a minute from the time that McCarthy had put a rifle butt into Jeff Parlers head and the patrol car had become visible down the driveway - but they'd used it well.

The Parker girl had instantly gone to help her father and Diane Evans had gone with her - partly to assist the girl in helping her father who even now was not completely recovered from the blow but mostly - Williams believed - to protect the girl herself from him. Still, outweighing her and still with a weapon in his hand - even if he could only pistol-whip her with it - neither of the females had been much trouble.

McCarthy had quickly ransacked the storage area and come back with the roll of duct tape. That had burned about fifteen seconds. They'd duct-taped the hands of their victims behind them - that had only taken about thirty seconds - and then he'd grabbed the glass of ice tea and gone outside to look casual - to look as if he actually belonged here - while McCarthy was busy duct taping the mouths of the three to keep them from shouting out. That probably hadn't yet been necessary for Jeff Parker, who was only now starting to be fully awake.

The rest had been surprisingly easy. Jim Valenti had known him for almost fifteen years, and Deputy Pembroke for about three. Between that and the fact that he was the next-door neighbor, neither had really expected anything when they'd entered that door.

The sight of Diane Evans, Liz Parker, and Jeff Parker lying bound and gagged on the floor - the latter pretty much unmoving - had surprised Pembroke, shocked him into immobility for just a fraction of a second. It was enough. Enough for McCarthy to come from behind the open door with another rifle butt that pretty much took Pembroke out of action. Of course Williams himself had been going for the handgun in his waistband from the start and Jim Valenti was clubbed to his knees before being able to reach his own handgun. Thirty seconds - and another half-roll of duct tape - later, there were now five prisoners - and one fairly perplexed Arthur Williams who had no idea what he was going to do next. He needed time to think but he also knew the clock was ticking.

Jeff Parker seemed to be coughing and - despite their duct-taped mouths - both Liz and Diane were looking at him with alarm.

"Let's get their mouths untaped," said Williams, nodding toward the two women and Jeff, "... if somebody winds up with their lungs full of vomit, the medical examiner will get suspicious."

"Suspicious? Hell, Williams, there ain't no damn scenario to cover this! And there damn sure isn't anyway that you can then somehow wind up owning the ranch it happened in. You got to know that. Three schmucks - that they might easily have bought off on. Killing a couple of cops? Hell, this case isn't going to close until they find the perpetrator and neither Abernathy or I are going to be around to watch that happen. Time for us to off these witnesses and leave."

"Well that's fine for you - go ahead and walk away from a few million dollars if you want. But I've got a lifetime invested in this and I'm not going to quit until I can make this work. There's got to be a way... because I AM going to be governor of this state - then who knows how high I might go..."

"Probably should of thought of that before you started doing your step-daughter," muttered McCarthy, as he started pulling duct tape off from Jeff Parker's face.

Jim Valenti's mouth wasn't taped but he was speechless when he heard the comment. He'd known Janice Williams back when she was still Hargreaves and cute little Debbie had once been Kyle's babysitter. He'd never understood how the happy outspoken young girl could turn inward and eventually lose herself in drugs and prostitution. If what the man said was true...

The thought that the man before him could have actually done something like that - that would have driven the girl to become self-destructive - inflamed Jim at a very visceral level. He tested his bonds wishing they were his own handcuffs rather than duct tape. Like most cops, he kept a spare key secreted in his clothing for that eventuality. Being cuffed with your own handcuffs was an occupational hazard for any cop, Duct tape? Not so much.

"It was you all along - setting up the Evans kid..." It came out of Jim's mouth as a statement, not a question, but he wasn't really looking for a denial, he was looking to buy time.

Time was the ally of any captive, and Jim knew the captives in this house were going to need all the help they could get. Most of the force on duty was in Roswell itself right now and what few of them weren't were on the other side of Roswell. If the nearest deputy knew that he and Pembroke were captive it would still be seventy minutes before he or she could get here and then what? The place was a log cabin built in the days when Indian raids still occurred. It was practically a fortress and these two were heavily armed. It sounded like there was one other guy out on lookout as well. It'd take at least an hour and a half for the SWAT team to get here - and that was after they were sent. He and Pembroke wouldn't really be overdue for another hour and a half.
'Three hours or so - before we have any real likelihood of seeing any help,' he thought, '... by that time there might just be five cold bodies and no witnesses.' He had to work the man's ego - keep him talking.

"Look, Art ... can you at least tell me HOW you set up the Evans kid. Strange as it may seem, my professional curiosity is bothering me almost as much as the throbbing headache you gave me."

There's an old saying to the effect that knowing you are going to die greatly concentrates the mind. In fact, Detective Pemberton still couldn't quite believe the Evans boy hadn't taken the shots at the girl, but he at least knew that Jim was trying to stall for time and it wasn't going to hurt anything to play along.

"No way, Jim," he said, "The kid's prints were on the soda can we got from the site - the ballistics matched on the rifle we found in his locker, the bullets were in his jeep..."

Williams mind quickly turned from the one he hadn't been able to solve - salvaging his plans for a political career from this mess - to something he could enjoy thinking about - showing this brash young cop how gullible he was.

"The can was a plant. I went out where the boy was doing his community service work on the guard rails after he was sentenced. I got the soda can then, and saw to it that it was put at the scene. The rifle was planted - before the shots was even taken."

"But the ballistics...."

"I fired the rifle into my swimming pool and put the barrel marks on the bullets, then put the bullets in plastic sabots and we fired them from a .308. That's why the ballistics tests matched."

"What did my son ever do to you," demanded Diane Evans, as the tape came off her mouth. Williams looked at her and shrugged his shoulders.

"I actually had nothing against your son one way or another, Mrs. Evans. Apparently some sort of circumstantial evidence got Deputy Pemberton believing it was your son after the first two tries at killing the girl. That was fine with me except that they kept a guard on her. I thought that if we actually gave them a perpetrator they'd assume that once he was locked up, they didn't have to guard Miss Parker any more, and until YOU showed up I had rather planned on simply killing them both. Frankly, I rather expected that once law enforcement found their bodies they'd realize they had the wrong man. I have to admit that you coming out of the bedroom with that old double barrel - well that required a rapid change of tactics. Come to think of it, it seems to be the day for Evanses to foul up my plans. If your crazy son hadn't escaped from jail, these two probably would never have shown up in time to become so inconvenient."

"So what did I do to you," asked Jeff, "... what did Liz do to you.."

"Don't be like that, Jeff, I told you that it wasn't personal. As I'm sure you know, when Janice, ah...left me, shall we say?...., a considerable amount of my fortune went with her - as well as her families political connections. But the critical thing was the money - with enough of that you can buy the political connections. Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Abernathy .... you haven't met him yet ... are - or at least once were - wildcat drillers. We met south of the border in an establishment I go to occasionally. We got to BS'ing at the bar while we were waiting for our ... uh rooms to be prepared properly. The subject came up of the well I drilled and the fact that every rainy season it tasted funny - sort of like a cross between paraffin wax and petroleum jelly. They told me that it sounded like the well was on the edge of an oil pool. I brought them back with me and they did some seismic testing and - guess what - they were right. Unfortunately, there were two problems. The first was that much of the oil was actually not on my property, it was on yours. The second was that it wasn't clear that the oil was mine even if it was underneath my land..."

"You don't own the mineral rights...." said Diane.

"Bingo," said Williams, pointing his finger at Diane," ... the lady gets it on the first guess. Unfortunately I had to pay an El Paso lawyer almost ten thousand dollars to tell me the same thing. Of course, it didn't do him much good."

"Yeah," said McCarthy with an evil grin, "... not only did the man know too much, but I've never really liked lawyers."

From the look Diane Evans gave him it was clearly mutual.

"I saw the date of ownership when I looked up the property in the assessors office. It was an original homestead, and a mining claim was filed at that same time. Way back then the mineral rights for a mine included all rights, including oil. They changed that only some time back in the 60's, but anyone who already had them was grandfathered..."

Williams shook his head sadly. "It took the man in El Paso weeks to find that out," he said in annoyance. "Clearly I should have asked YOU to begin with and saved myself time and money."

"Not to mention," said McCarthy, flashing the same evil grin"... it wouldn't be HIM that has been dead for the last five months."

"So you always planned to kill both of them - Liz and her father..." said Diane.

Williams shrugged his shoulders. "The land is in trust. He couldn't have sold it to me even if he'd wanted to. Nor could she. If they were both dead, the widow Parker could have put the place up for sale, though. I was prepared to pay top dollar, too. It'd only be later that I'd discover the oil."

"You bastard..." shouted Jeff Parker.

"Now Jeff... I told you, it was never personal..."

McCarthy shook his head in disgust as he walked away from Williams and opened the door to the pantry. He'd found what passed for the ranch wine cellar. Well, not wine really. Even ex-Marines weren't much in to wine. They preferred a cold beer for recreational drinking on a warm afternoon and a nice single-malt Scotch for more serious evening drinking. McCarthy had found Jeff's small stash during the frantic search for rope that had lead to the discovery of the two rolls of duct tape. Now he felt a real need to empty that three quarter-filled bottle of Scotch.

Williams was still talking to the prisoners - bragging really - when he saw McCarthy grab a glass out of the cabinet and pour himself about three fingers of the amber fluid. "You better damn well remember to wipe that glass and bottle down, McCarthy. McCarthy downed the whiskey in one continuous swallow, grabbed a napkin from the table and carefully wiped the glass off, before glaring at Williams and flinging the glass into the fireplace.

Williams leaped to his feet,"McCarthy, what is your problem?"

"My problem? My problem is you. What in the hell do you think you are doing? We need to get this over and be out of here. Time is not on our side here, Williams."

"I'm thinking of a way to get us our money..."

"You are jaw-jacking with these people and you are wasting time. It doesn't matter if they know that you are the smartest guy in the world, because either they are going to be dead pretty soon, or you and me and Abernathy are going to be looking at murder one. "

"I am just pausing for a few moments before I work out a plan that will take care of this problem AND get us our money."

" Bullshit. Here we sit down at the end of a dead-end cul-de-sac, just waiting for another car full of cops to come looking for these guys..."

:"McCarthy, I'm in county government. Hell, I almost AM county government. I KNOW the manning and capabilities of the Sheriff's department. There is no way they have enough deputies on duty to get anyone else out here, not with most of the force tied up in Roswell, chasing after that Evans kid...."

Which is when Abernathy's voice came over the walkie-talkie;

"Heads up in there. We got another patrol car coming up the road and it seems to be slowing down more the closer it gets..."

Max Evans wasn't exactly normal today. Normally Max Evans was a very bright young man. Normally he was probably in the top 3 or 4 % - intellectually - of any room he was in, excepting perhaps one drunken night some weeks ago when he and the somewhat intoxicated young lady with him had sort of been on a par. But a lot had happened since then.

His guilt and fear since that night had worked on him continually - incessantly - and he hadn't averaged four hours of sleep a day since that fateful night when two lives ... make that four lives ... had been changed forever. None of those sleeping hours at all had occurred in the last 36 hours however and Max Evans was not only emotionally wrung out but more physically and mentally fatigued then he had ever been in his entire life.

Only one thing was driving him right now and that was fear. Fear - not for himself - but for the girl that he had somehow loved his entire life yet somehow violated so terribly while overtaken by some inner demon he did not understand. Nothing mattered to him now but the need for atonement for that sin - to save Liz no matter what the cost and it was that alone that was now driving him - past fatigue and approaching physical collapse - to find her and to -by whatever means - terminate what he'd implanted in her. To terminate the monster that threatened her existence. Max was long past the point of fatigue. He was running on fear and determination and desperation - a potent mixture that will keep you awake perhaps, but doesn't necessarily leave you all that bright. Which is why he wasn't exactly normal today.

Diane had almost missed the entrance to the Parker ranch in the darkness. Even in broad daylight, heavily fatigued Max was unsure if the seldom-used gravel driveway was the right driveway to get him to the Parker ranch and to Liz. That's why he pulled over to the shoulder of the road and stepped out of the car, computer-generated map in hand - to try to figure things out...

Across the road in the bushes - not far from Diane Evans' concealed car - Abernathy was watching and talking quietly on the walkie-talkie to the people in the ranch house.

Back at the ranch house, Abernathy had the undivided attention of Williams and McCarthy, although the five people who were duct-taped and laying on the floor were suddenly real interested in the conversation as well.

"How many in the car - and how heavily armed are they?" asked Williams nervously.

"There doesn't look like - it looks like there's only one officer in the car - hell, I don't know if he's even an officer - looks too damn young. He's stopped the car and he's getting out. He's wearing a jumpsuit."

"A SWAT uniform?" asked Williams.

"Not likely. It's dayglo-orange jumpsuit with something on it. Let me get the binoculars."

"Dayglo Orange...?" said McCarthy, looking confused.

"It says on the back - Chaves County Jail.... Son of a bitch... it's that kid ... the one we set up."

"Is he armed?" asked Williams.

"Well, the car has what looks like a 12 gauge riot gun in its holder up front. I don't know if the kid has the keys to it or not. He's certainly got nothing on or under that jumpsuit.... Looks just like the one I wore in the pen in Colorado. They don't put pockets in them."

On the floor where Liz lay next to Diane she looked into Diane's eyes guiltily. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't done that - gotten him drunk - none of this would have happened."

"Liz, you couldn't have known that Max is hypersensitive to alcohol. Besides, NONE of this is your fault. Those bastards...," she said, nodding her head at Williams and McCarthy, "...are the cause of this. Not you or Max or any of us."

The discussion was just between two captives - two captives that knew they were likely to die soon. Two captives who - each in their own way - both loved that young man out there that was at risk of becoming involved in this mess and losing his life as well. But it was something that Williams overheard too..

"Son of a bitch!" Williams shouted suddenly, a grin breaking out on his face.

"What's the matter," asked an alarmed McCarthy.

"Nothing is the matter. Nothing at all. This is great. This is the break we needed. Have I got a plan," said a suddenly joyous Williams. " Damn, sometimes my brilliance even amazes myself." He put the walkie-talkie to his lips and said, "Abernathy listen up. This is what you have to do...."