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Skarda was pointing again. Jimmy was first out the door, carrying a white tote bag by the handle with one hand and his clunky automatic with the other. He was followed closely by Josie. She was clutching a plain brown grocery bag to her chest as if it contained baby formula. Roy came out of the supermarket a moment later, backside first, training his weapon on the entrance as if he were expecting a swift counterattack. Jimmy was in Jill’s car and the car was motoring halfway out of the parking lot before Josie reached hers. She shouted something as she climbed in, and Roy turned and jogged after her. He jumped into the car, and the old man stomped on the gas, spinning his tires like a teenager trying to impress his rivals.

That’s when the Silver Bay PD arrived.Advertisement

The patrol car came slowly up Shopping Center Road without siren or lights.

I saw it first in my sideview mirror and again when I twisted in my seat to look at it through the rear window. It was dark blue and scary as hell. At the same time, I saw the elderly man backing his red Toyota away from the café and steering it toward the entrance to the parking lot. At his current speed, I estimated that he would reach the entrance just before the cop car did.

“Hold on,” I said.

I cranked the wheel of the Cherokee and hit the accelerator. The coffee cups spilled out of the cup holders and fell to the floor of the passenger side, the tops popped off, and coffee splattered Skarda’s feet and ankles.

“What are you doing?” he shouted.

I ignored the question and sidled up next to the Toyota just as it entered Shopping Center Road in front of the cop, its sideview mirrors nearly touching the Cherokee’s driver’s-side door. I leaned hard on my horn. The elderly man looked at me, panic etched across his face—and did exactly what I wanted him to do. To avoid a collision, he spun his steering wheel violently to the left away from me, stomped on the accelerator, and promptly crashed into the Silver Bay Police Department patrol car. There was no squealing of tires, no blaring of horns, just a satisfying crunch as the Toyota’s fiberglass composite front end folded around the cop’s high-grade steel push bumper.

I drove straight ahead, crossing Shopping Center Road, shooting down the alley between the public library and the police department, hanging a hard right on Davis Drive and then another on Outer Drive. I followed it at high speed past Blazers Northshore Auto, Silver Bay Municipal Liquor, and the City Arena to U.S. Service Highway 11. We were not followed. It wasn’t until we were a good five miles out of town that it occurred to me that the Silver Bay cop might not have received a call about the supermarket robbery at all; he didn’t have his lightbar and siren working. He might simply have been patrolling in the wrong place at the wrong time. Skarda, however, didn’t see it that way. He was full of praise about how my superior driving skills once again not only made good our escape, they also delivered his family from sure arrest.

“You’d make a great Iron Range Bandit,” he said.

I started laughing out loud, but, of course, Skarda didn’t get the joke.

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It took several hours to return to Lake Carl, mostly because of the roundabout way I took to get there. The Iron Range Bandits were gathered on the deck when we arrived. None of them looked pleased. They were drinking beer from a cooler set beneath the picnic table; the empties suggested they had been drinking a lot. There were five stacks of U.S. currency on the table along with the white tote bag and paper grocery bag, both emblazoned with the name of the Silver Bay grocery store. A single rock had been placed on top of each stack to keep the bills from blowing away in the light breeze. Neither of the bags moved despite the wind, and I decided there must be something inside weighing them down.

“Where have you been?” Josie wanted to know the moment Skarda and I started up the steps that led to the deck.

“Silver Bay,” Skarda said. “We were watching.”

“I told you to stay here.”

“You’re lucky we didn’t. The cops came just as you were leaving the parking lot. If it wasn’t for Dyson, they would have caught you.”

There was a murmur of voices. Josie turned to me. “Is that true?” she asked.

“More or less,” I said.

“Did any of you know that Silver Bay had a police force?” Skarda asked. “Did you know that the police station was five hundred yards away from the shopping mall? You could see it from the parking lot.”

“I only know that we took $2,347,” Roy said. “A lousy $2,347. That’s $469 each.”

“And they say crime doesn’t pay,” I said.

“I need more than that,” Jimmy said. “I have a townhouse to pay for. I’m getting married.”

“No one gives a shit about your problems,” Roy said. His face was flushed with anger and alcohol.

“Shut up, Roy,” Josie said.

“You shut up. This is your fault. You’re the one who picked the supermarket. $469. We can’t live on that.”

“None of us can,” Jimmy added.

“What are we going to do?” the old man asked. He had been standing at the railing and now moved to a frayed lawn chair at the head of the picnic table. He lowered himself into it the way the elderly sit when they’re afraid something might break. He sure got old in a hurry, I thought.

“Ask your daughter,” Roy said.

“Josie,” the old man said. “Josie, what are we going to do?” pqdm.com