Runner-up 3

Hauser pressed the green cellphone answer button with his bad arm. Pain drove through his shoulder as the bullet seemed to lodge itself further inside. But he needed his other hand to search for the wallet of the goon whose phone he now held.

“Yo,” he said, hoping to sound convincingly stupid.

“Is this you, Malcolm?” the voice said hurriedly.

“Yo,” Hauser answered. There, he found it. He fumbled for the driver’s license. California -- expired April 2007 -- Malcolm Mac Murphy. Hauser took a wild guess. “This is Mac.”

The voice exhaled almost visibly. “Good, it didn’t sound like you at first.”

Hauser took an educated guess this time. The caller ID number, area code and prefix was the appellate courthouse. “It doesn’t sound like you either, judge.” He heard the man clear his throat like a steam engine. Hauser pulled the phone away from his ear and pain seared through the shoulder again.

“Your case comes up for appeal next week. Remember, I can send you back to the slammer. Do you have that flash drive yet?”

Ah what a tangled web we’ve weaved ourselves into, thought Hauser as he devised his answer. “I’m on the trail now, and it’s leading to Antonio Falco’s house.”

“Falco?” said the judge. “The congressman?”

“Yes, that dude,” Hauser said. So, the judge didn’t know Falco was involved. “I am outside his house now, and it looks like he’s got company.”

“Palmieri,” the judge mumbled.

“Who?” Hauser asked, but he had heard the name.

“No one,” said the judge. “Remember, if my name is mentioned, the deal is off.”

The sound of a shotgun -- his shotgun -- ripped through the air, followed by a crash and high-pitched tinkling like a sudden downpour of rain.

“Gotta go.” Hauser slung the phone to the ground and whipped around to see through the bay window, grimacing in pain.

The foyer chandelier had crashed into the dining room table, its crystal baubles strewn across the table like party souvenirs. Hauser could see Evelyn at the entrance, shotgun in one hand, the other on her hip, her silver-gray hair flung wildly behind her ears. She looked like a one-woman vigilante. She turned and opened the front door.

“Come on in, Hermann,” she said. “I have everything under control.”

Hermann instinctively hid Baby Doll under his shirt, safety back on, grabbed the goon’s cellphone, then edged himself to standing using the window ledge for help. He grimaced as he cradled his injured arm across Baby Doll and entered the web.

Deborah Henry is a brain surgeon whose “book club is enjoying” the novel contest.