A Living Grave (11 page)

“There's something else, though,” he said. “I've been hearing talk about someone dealing meth here.”

“Here? As in within this establishment?”

“That's what I've been hearing,” he said. “And that does seem to fit the biker lifestyle.”

Billy looked eager to get back to the musician's life so I let him go. That seemed to annoy him even further. I didn't have time to worry about what was going on with him.

Johnny Middleton needed to answer some questions, but he was still missing. I stuck around and pressed the staff for a while, but Middleton never showed and no one admitted to knowing where he was. A few of them did say they had seen the bikers around but didn't want to talk about it. They acted vaguely scared, although if it was of their boss or his friends I couldn't sort out.

After half an hour I left, making a pass through the parking lot to look for white sedans before getting onto the road.

* * *

Nelson's cabin was dark when I got there. So dark it was almost a negative, like a house-shaped black hole on a cliff. The headlights of my truck swept over the garage doors and surrounding trees showing nothing as I pulled in to park. Once outside the truck, though, I had the feeling that something was wrong. Some people claim to feel danger like a sixth sense. I don't: With me, it's more of a mental registering in the lizard brain that the monkey brain missed something.

It was there at the corner of the house, a slight glint of chrome. Then the cherry of a cigarette glowed with an inhalation. As I reached for my weapon I caught a smell on the breeze. It was old sweat and beer, an unwashed animal smell that managed to mix threat and testosterone.

I responded with both fight and flight, stepping away from the scent coming from behind me and turning to raise my weapon at the same time. The blow that was aimed at the center of my skull whipped through my hair, grazing the back of my head. It was a graze like a freight train sideswiping a car. Stars exploded behind my eyes. By the time I had gotten turned, bringing my automatic up, the blunt object had reached the limit of its swing and returned. The strike on my weapon jolted up my hand and arm like a hot spark of Tesla's best. I dropped the automatic, but had the sense to get my arms up as soon as it fell from my fingers.

Another blow hit my left forearm close to the elbow and went off to my side. That gave me a moment. I brought my left arm around and down, following the club and trapping the attacking arm under it. At the same time I pulled and extended my baton. As I raised it, I put my left foot forward between the assailant's legs, forcing his left knee into the open. I brought the baton down as hard as I could on the outside of the exposed knee.

“Motherfu—” He couldn't even finish the expletive as he rolled to the asphalt in pain.

I would have had him. I
did
have him, until the other man—the smoker hiding by the bikes—hit me with a body block in the ribs. That hurt, but it was the impact of my temple with the rocker panel of my truck that put me down. At that point I'm not sure which of us was luckier that the bikers ran for the motorcycles and roared away. I was hurting but pissed off enough to put up a lot more fight.

I knew who they were, though not enough for a jury. Smells and being sure are not as well accepted as a good look at a face. But I knew well enough for me. They just had to be tracked down.

And I will track them down
.

* * *

The smart thing would have been to get up and call in. I stayed down and didn't call anyone. It had already been a wild night. The last thing I wanted was to fill out a report and department protocol would have required me to be checked over at the hospital. My one concession to smart thinking was to secure my weapon.

After lingering on the driveway, leaning against the tire of my truck for a while—I had no idea how long—I managed to get myself up and to the house. There was a broken pane of glass in a door that led into a back mudroom. In there was the circuit-breaker box standing open with the main breaker pulled. That was much more ominous than I had thought. It was an ambush.

I went to the garage and got a couple of boards that I wedged between the wall and the washing machine and across the base of the door. It would hold the mudroom door until the glass could be repaired.

Upstairs I tried not to snoop as I grabbed a few bits of clothing and shoved meds into a shopping bag.

There are so many
.

In the bathroom, I took Nelson's razor and toothbrush but only after I looked at myself in the mirror. I was a mess—in more ways than showed in my reflection. The bruises were starting to show up, burning in from angry red to purple and green. The worst was just below the left elbow where I had been hit by the pipe or whatever it had been. That could be hidden, though. The one turning into a shiner around my right eye may as well have been a neon sign. It hurt too, right up on my temple and around the orbital bone where I had gotten to know my truck, face-first. If it was a contest, the blue ribbon for pain would go to the knot throbbing higher by the minute on the back of my skull.

I chewed up a handful of aspirin and washed them down with water from my cupped hand at the bathroom sink. Then I looked at myself again. That time I didn't see the bruises or the rat's nest of hair on my head. There were two women staring back at me from the mirror. One was the same angry woman who had to face a squad that refused to obey her orders while under fire. They believed that I had abused the system to harm the careers of the men I accused of rape. Individually, they were almost reasonable. Collectively, they believed a woman in the military was a dyke or a whore and either way deserved anything that happened to her. That woman had chambered a round in her .9-millimeter automatic and aimed it into the eye of the loudest-talking noncom. She was very, very angry. The other woman in the mirror was the one who had not undressed for a man in more than ten years. She was so very afraid.

Both women were there, but it was the scared woman who I felt was in the most danger. There was a lot to like about Nelson Solomon and a lot of risk.

“Don't be a pussy,” I told the reflection. Then I went downstairs.

On a whim I stopped by the easel and painting supplies in the main room. There was a smaller version of the painting kit that had been impounded along with Solomon's truck. I took it with me.

It might make him feel better
.

U
ncle Orson was waiting for me when I got back to the dock. It made me feel a bit like a kid sneaking home after curfew. At least it did until he offered me a beer. Dad had never offered me a beer when I came home late.

I took the bottle and sat beside him at the table. “What do you want to talk about?” I asked as I twisted the cap off.

“Who says I want to talk?”

I gave him a who're-you-kidding look that he ignored, instead taking a long drink. After a long drink of my own I settled into the chair and allowed the day to fall away.

“You know what you're doing?” Uncle Orson asked.

“Nope,” I answered.

“Just checking.”

I nodded and we both took drinks.

“He seems like a good guy.”

“I think so,” I agreed.

“Just be careful.”

“Of what?”

Uncle Orson looked from me to his beer. He pursed his lips a little and took a stab at peeling the label. When the paper wouldn't come up he looked back at me and said, “Everything.”

“Yeah,” was all I had in me to say. There were some questions rattling around my brain as well that I wasn't sure how to approach. When Uncle Orson tilted up his bottle and sucked it dry it made me wonder if this was the best time. When he grabbed another one I wondered how long I might have to wait for a better time. “I want to ask you a question,” I told him as soon as the bottle left his lips.

“Ask away,” he said.

I didn't. I still had to think about it and wonder if it was wise to question such things. While I was thinking, Uncle Orson was drinking with one eye on me. Once his bottle was half empty he set it down, then slid it aside. He reached across the table and took my bottle from my hands and slid it to the side as well. There was nothing between us then. It was his way of saying I had his full attention.

I still didn't say anything.

Uncle Orson nodded knowingly, then said, “Okay, maybe I understand. You see, when a man likes a woman in a special way he wants to do things with her—”

“Uncle Orson.” I couldn't help myself. I laughed and pulled my beer over and took a drink. Then I said, “It's nothing about
that
.”

“Oh, thank God,” he said, pulling over his own beer. “Because that was a bluff. I had no follow-up. You know I beat the ladies off with a stick, but I try not to talk to them.”

“I know. It shows.”

He was grinning as he brought the beer to his lips. After a big drink he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned again. “So, spit it out,” he said.

That time I did. I asked him, “Did you arrange to have a man killed?”

His grin faded and his eyes focused like two cameras on my face. It wasn't a hard look, just attentive. The surprising thing was that he didn't look surprised.

“One of the men that I had—the problem with—in Iraq.”

“He's dead?”

I nodded and looked at my beer.

“How do you know?”

“I heard about it a long time ago. I had been kind of keeping tabs on him. The other one left the Army and I don't know anything about him.”

“That's all?”

I told him about Reach and how he had popped up and accused me of killing Rice. I told him about the night Reach had followed me. It told him everything I knew while staring at a beer bottle.

“Why are you asking me?”

“You're the only one I know that could . . .”

He kind of laughed. It was a little tired-sounding snort. “But I probably couldn't, you know. I've been a killer and I'll stand up and fight anyone that needs it. What you're asking about is something else.” His beer found its way to his mouth and he swallowed the last of it in a gulp. When the bottle was finished Uncle Orson looked back at me and said, “Your father's the bad one in this family.”

“What?”

“He's the one you should be asking, but I wouldn't, because you probably won't like the answer and some questions are best left unasked.”

“But—he couldn't.”

Uncle Orson looked over at the cooler and seemed to consider another beer. I could see him wanting it, then I could see him corralling the need. “You're probably right,” he said and the pronouncement sounded half sad and half prideful. “When we were younger men . . . Well, there was a time I would have put nothing past him. Now, we're the old guys. Hell, I run a bait shop.” He gestured around like I might have somehow missed the fact we were in a bait shop. “And your dad . . .”

“He's a consultant.”

Uncle Orson smiled carefully and nodded, touching a finger to his nose. Then he stood and went upstairs to bed without another word.

I sat there for a few minutes longer while I finished my beer. The more I thought about it the sillier it seemed. My father was the spit-and-polish soldier who loved parades and visited the wall in D.C. The talk had lifted a weight from my heart, though. I believed Uncle Orson when he said that he hadn't had anything to do with killing Rice. Daddy obviously knew something, but I believed that he didn't know the whole story. Even if he was the kind of man who could make a killing happen in another country, he didn't know about Rice until recently.

I need to go to bed
.

For a second there I thought about—wished that—Nelson was in my bed waiting. But the houseboat was empty. Uncle Orson had put Nelson up in the apartment, probably making sure that I didn't disturb him. Or making sure that my night was as frustrating as possible.

* * *

I woke the next morning to the undulations of the lake and the sound of my phone. It felt early and I was tempted to ignore the call, but it was work. The phone was in the pocket of my jacket and I climbed out of bed to get it. Everything hurt.

It was Sheriff Benson calling. “I know it's early,” he said without a greeting. “But I'd like you to come in and have a little talk.”

“About last night?” I asked him.

“About a lot of things,” he said. “As soon as you can get here.”

I cleaned up quickly, pulling on a pair of the old jeans I kept on the boat and a shirt that I left untucked. When I got to the door of the shop there was a note waiting.

It was signed simply
Uncle
.

Nelson must have been stronger this morning. I hadn't seen him after I came in last night.

Usually weekend mornings were the busy time at the dock. I was surprised that Uncle Orson would give that up. At the same time, I wasn't. Not for the first time I wished I was a better daughter and niece and person in general. Then I went to the truck and headed in to see what kind of music I was facing.

As I was pulling up to the sheriff's department there was a white sedan pulling away. That suggested to me the kind of tune I would be expected to dance to.

The sheriff was in casual clothes, jeans and a pair of hand-stitched Mexican boots. The boots were up on his desk looking carefree, but his face didn't match his posture.

“Close the door,” he said.

I did. Then I decided to beat the punch and turned to him, saying, “There's a lot you don't know—that Reach didn't tell you.”

“He told me enough, goddamn it. Enough to explain a lot. Hell, I always thought you were gay.”

The profanity didn't surprise me. The blunt statement about being gay stunned me. Sheriff Benson was the kind of man who fell into casual cursing whenever he got flustered or angry. But always in private and always within bounds. This was already going beyond his usual bounds.

The shock must have shown on my face because he put his feet down and tried to physically wave it away with his hands. They looked like he was shooing flies.

“I know. I know,” he said. “I'm not supposed to say that kind of thing and I'm sure as hell not supposed to say it to someone that works for me. But honestly, I never cared and I wish it was true after hearing what that son of a bitch has been telling me.”

“You should let me explain—”

He waved me off again. “You know he was here again this morning? Stirring the pot.”

“I need to tell you—”

“
He
told me. The son of a two-dollar whore stood right there, and told me that you, one of my officers, had conspired to kill a superior officer while serving in the U.S. Army.”

“I—” I choked. Tears were welling in my eyes and the words I needed were caught in my chest and pressing against my heart.

“Of course I understand why
you
didn't tell me. He told me about the charges you filed. And he said that when the Army could find no basis to proceed with criminal charges, you made waves.” As if the word was not enough, the sheriff undulated his hands to show waves. “
He said
you were angry and talking to journalists and lawyers and doing everything to make the Army look bad. Then,
he says
, you had the bastard killed.

“And I said ‘good.' I told the motherfucker, ‘justice is justice,' and ‘I have a daughter,' and ‘if he didn't have any charges to file, get the hell out of my county.'”

“What . . . ?” I was confused by the tirade, and it was slow coming to me that his anger was directed at Major Reach, not at me.

“That's why I wanted to talk to you today. That man is here as part of an ongoing investigation. He came to see me as a ‘courtesy visit,' to let me know that one of my officers is a suspect.”

“I'm sorry about that,” was all I was able to say.

“
You're
sorry? Goddamn it,” he said. Then he added, “God
damn
it. I apologize about my language but, son of a bitch and God help me, I told the major, I hoped you
did
kill the man that did that to you. And
I'm
sorry. I'm sorry that ever happened.”

He was too. I could see it in his eyes and in the tension of his body. He hadn't asked me in to tell me that I was fired or under investigation. He called me in because he thought I should know he had been made party to my secrets. He was trying to say he was behind me, but what he had learned had wounded him. The sheriff was hiding behind anger and language. I could understand that.

As shocked as he might have been by what Reach had told him, I think he was more shocked when I came around the desk and hugged him. I got tears and snot on his shoulder, but he just stood there and accepted it. I couldn't see his face. I was sure it was red with embarrassment. The world needs more men like Sheriff Chuck Benson.

When I stopped crying, he told me I didn't have to tell him anything. He only wanted me to know, he was behind me all the way. Then he asked where I got the shiner.

We talked for about an hour more. I told him about the biker connection to Angela Briscoe and the follow-up work I'd done to find Leech. He knew most of it because I'd copied him on all the e-mail correspondence with the feds. Then I told him about my suspicions that the kids, Danny Barnes and Carrie Owens, knew more than they were telling me. I also shared my opinion that something inappropriate might be going on at Carrie Owens's home. After that, I told him about keeping Billy out at the crime scene and followed up with the developments on the entirely new and confusing case of whiskey, bikers, and fine artists. I closed with a rundown of the previous night. I had to admit that I was at Moonshines with Nelson Solomon and that I'd taken him to my uncle's and that led to why I was at his home and fighting bikers at almost midnight.

The sheriff seemed actually glad that Nelson was with me last night. He didn't say so, but I think he was happy to believe I wasn't gay. He did get a little annoyed about overtime for Billy staying out at the river where Angela had been killed.

I told him that Billy had volunteered and was on his own time.

He asked if I thought he was the kind of boss who would expect his officers to work without pay. He wouldn't do that to Billy or anyone else, he said, but it was his decision, not mine.

It was a fair complaint.

Early morning had become simply morning, so I decided to get back into work. I checked e-mail and voice messages, deleting the one from Reach without bothering to listen. As far as Angela Briscoe went, bikers and Leech had taken up most of my attention. I couldn't shake the feeling that the Barnes kid and Carrie Owens had more to share if I could shake it loose. I'd made calls to both homes and, while I was tracking down bikers, talked with Lloyd Barnes, Danny's father. It was a waste of time. He barely knew his son's age, let alone cared what he was doing as long as he “didn't get trapped by some little bimbo.”

Carrie was the key, I'd decided. I'd gone back to her house looking for her mother or father. Nothing. Each time, I left a card in the door with a note to please call. Each time I went back, my card was gone. I'd called and left messages that had never been returned. Now, sitting on my desk, were sheets on the parents that I'd requested to be pulled. They didn't paint a pretty picture. Deputies had been called to the residence a dozen times. Carrie had a juvenile file that was mostly vandalism. Because of issues at home and because she'd gotten herself into the system, the court had assigned a caseworker. She'd be able to tell me a lot more than what was in the files. That was another round of calling, leaving a message and following up with e-mail.

Even when there is a murder investigation there is other work to be taken care of. I went through the piles and returned the calls I'd been putting off. An hour later I was starved. Uncle Orson did say breakfast was my responsibility.