Jack Stone - Wild Justice (3 page)

Another cop got out of the second car. He looked about the same age. He stood by his vehicle with his thumbs tucked into the bulky weapons belt around his waist, like gunslingers
used to do in the old movies. The guy was chewing gum. He looked down at the two men still rolling around at Stone’s feet and blinked.

“Freeze!” the first cop shouted. He raised the gun, pumped the action and aimed it at
Stone’s face. It was all high drama. Stone didn’t move. Hadn’t even planned on moving. He saw the look in the young cop’s eyes and figured he was nervous. Stone wasn’t about to do anything to find out. He raised his hands slowly above his head and just stood there.

“Freeze!” the first cop shouted again for no apparent reason. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the back-up guy. “I got him covered, Marv. Pat him down and cuff him.”

The second cop pulled his thumbs from his belt and took out his handcuffs. He glanced down at the two bleeding men again, and approached Stone cautiously.

“Hands behind your back!” the guy with the cuffs shouted. The shouting was supposed to intimidate, sound authoritative. It was supposed to dominate the scene and the suspect – encourage their co-operation.
Stone wasn’t intimidated, but he did co-operate. He lowered his hands and slid them behind his back. The cop standing behind him snapped the cuffs in place.

“I got him, Larry! I got him.”

The first cop sighed a visible breath of relief, let the tension go from his body like a balloon deflating. He set the shotgun down on the hood of his patrol car and came to Stone, suddenly full of swagger.

Stone
didn’t move. Behind him, cop number two was patting him down. Found his wallet, nothing else. He held it up to show his partner. The wallet was all cracked and worn along the creases. He flipped the wallet open and turned it so he could read the license details.

“His name is
Jack J. Stone,” the cop called out. “Apparently he’s from Massachusetts.”

The first cop frowned
. “What does the ‘J’ stand for?”

“John”

“So your name is Jack John Stone?”

Stone
shrugged. “That’s right.”

The cop made another face. “A
nd you’re from Massachusetts? You’re an awfully long way from home.”

Stone
sighed. “Any law against that?”

The cop was getting agitated.
Stone could see the angry rash rising higher up his neck from below the collar of his shirt. “Do you want to tell me what you are doing so far from home?” he asked impatiently.

“Travelling.”

“To Windswept?”

“Through,”
Stone said. “Travelling through Windswept. Travelling through Arizona”

“To…?”

“Parts unknown,” Stone answered vaguely. He wasn’t being elusive. He didn’t know where he would end up next. Everything depended on what he found when he got to Windswept.

“On the ground
. Face down,” the cop in front of him had had enough. He barked the command, his voice suddenly loud again.

Stone
stared at the officer. Expressionless. Didn’t react, didn’t move. He just stared, eyeball to eyeball for a long time. “The ground is dirty,” he said after a minute. “This is my only clean t-shirt.” There was no way he was going to lay face-down on the ground. Not for these two country cops. No way.

The angry rash on the young guy’s face suddenly began to creep up around his cheeks. He had a red bumpy face, pitted with acne scars and misaligned yellow teeth. His eyes did a funny thing, and he was just about to bluster and get rowdy about
Stone’s attitude when the waitress from the diner came storming out through the glass door. She was waving her arms at the cop, making angry gestures.

“Not him, Larry
Peyton. You got the wrong man!”

The young cop turned towards the woman, saw the look on her face and took a shuffling step backwards.
Stone just stood quietly and watched it all unfold.

“He’s the good guy, damn it,” the waitress started doing an angry little temper dance. “It was those two. They’re the ones you need to be handcuffing!”

The cop with the skin problem backed off another pace, his face clouding over in confusion. Stone had to fight off a little smile. The kid was no match for the waitress. Stone wondered what the cop behind him was doing. Maybe calling for more backup.

“Them?” the young cop looked at the two men
Stone had left bleeding on the ground.

“Yeah, them! They came into the diner looking to cause trouble. One of
them had a gun. It’s inside.” The waitress put her hands on her hips. “Where is Jim Cartwright? Why ain’t he here?”

From behind
Stone the second cop named Marv answered. “The sheriff ain’t workin’ this week, Miss Lilley. Got himself cut on his arm. Pretty bad, apparently. He even has a sling. Larry and me are the law round these parts until next Monday.”

The waitress stared in disbelieving silence and then just rolled her eyes. “Well this is the wrong man to be arresting. He’s the one who put these men down after they tried to make trouble.”

The young cop’s eyes went from the bodies on the ground, slowly back up until he was looking into the serene expression on Stone’s face. Stone finally let the little smile come on. He raised his eyebrows as if to say,
“go figure!”
and then he nodded his thanks to the waitress.

The cop blustered about for a few more seconds and then sighed. “Undo the cuffs, Marv. Put ‘
em on those guys. And you better call the station and ask for the paramedics. They don’t look too good.”

Stone
felt the cuffs fall from his wrists, but he didn’t do anything rash, just slid his hands into his jeans pockets, waiting. The second cop handed him back his wallet. He tucked it into his back pocket, but said nothing.

The cop named Larry turned to the waitress, still uncertain about exactly what he should do with the tall dangerous looking
stranger in the t-shirt and faded jeans. “I’m putting him under your supervision, Miss Lilley,” he jabbed a thumb at Stone. “While he’s in town, you are responsible for him – just in case I hear different about what happened and need to ask more questions.”

Another ten minutes and it was all over. The paramedics arrived and
put both men on gurneys. The cops turned off their flashing light bars. Passing traffic on the highway began to speed up again now there was nothing left to rubber-neck at.

Stone
went back inside the diner, sat down with a weary sigh, and finished his Coke.

Five.

“I thought you were a waitress,”
Stone said.

The woman smiled at him, but it was a tired little thing that only just tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I am,” she said. “I’m the waitress, the cook, the cleaner, and the owner.” She held out her hand
, resting her slim hips against the edge of the table. Her fingers were long, the skin scrubbed pink. No nail-polish. No rings. Stone wondered if she was married. Maybe she took her rings off while she was at work. “The name is Lilley,” she introduced herself. “Lilley Pond.”

“Lilley Pond? Really?”

The woman nodded. “Really.”

Stone
made a bemused face. “Jack Stone,” he said. “Nice knowing you.”

It was late in the afternoon. The sun was low down on the horizon
now, casting long golden shadows across the desert now the afternoon had finally lost most of its heat. Stone scraped his chair back and reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Have I got time for another Coke?” he asked. “What time do you close?”

The woman glanced at her watch. “There’s time,” she said. “Do you want coffee?”

“No. Coke, thanks. Coke when it’s warm and coffee when it’s cold. It’s warm.” Stone liked to keep things simple. There was black or white, good or bad, friend or enemy, coffee or Coke. Simple choices and decisions a man could live his life by. He slid a couple of crumpled dollar bills across the table. The woman smiled.

“It’s on the house,” she said.

She brought him back his Coke in a tall frosted glass, dewy and beaded by moisture. “Even made a special effort.” She set the glass on the table, and then on impulse she went across to the door and locked it. There was a cardboard sign hanging against the glass. She turned the sign over so it read
‘Closed’
, and then came back to Stone’s table. Slid out a chair opposite him and sat down, crossed her legs all in one smooth delicate motion. Stone drank thirstily, and watched the woman over the rim of the glass.

She was staring at him with
an expression of open curiosity, maybe fascination. He set his glass down and stared back. “Do you want something?” He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. She really was an attractive woman. She had her hair up in a bun at the back of her head, but Stone guessed, if she took the pins out, it would hang down past her shoulders. Her hair was black, and she had spectacular green eyes – like the color of a mountain lake. The zipper was down a few inches at the top of her uniform, giving just the suggestion of cleavage without making a display of herself. Stone liked that. There was still room in the world for a woman to be demure and discreet about what she did – and did not show off to the world. It was sexy.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked. “It was impressive. We don’t get a lot of violence out this way, and when we do it’s more like a push and shove at the local bar over a spilled drink. What you did to those two men… was brutal.”

Stone shrugged the comment off. He wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. He stared at the woman for a long time and said slowly, “I’ve had some practice.”

She noticed the two scars on his forehead. The first was old and faded by time, shaped in a curve above his right eye. The second was fresher – a line about an inch long high up near his hairline.

“The military kind of practice?”

Stone
nodded. “A few years back.”

“But not now?”

“No. Not now.”

The woman bit her bottom lip between her teeth like she was unsure how much more to ask. But curiosity is a powerful thing, especially in a small community when nothing much ever happens.

“What do you do now?” She asked it warily, as though she was expecting him to shut her down.

“Travel.”

The woman sat back in her chair and thought about that for a moment before saying anything else. Stone deliberately wasn’t volunteering too much about himself yet, but he recognized the difference between this woman and the blonde who had given him a ride that morning. The blonde had been going from point A on a map to point B. This woman was a local. That meant she might be helpful, and if he was ever going to find the answers he was looking for, he knew he needed help.

“In my experience, people don’t visit Windswept. Hell, people don’t even pass through Windswept since the highway detoured past the town. The only reason we get visitors is if a traveller’s car breaks down – and you don’t look like a man who has a broken down car.”

Stone arched an eyebrow. “Well what kind of man do I look like?”

She thought about that too. “You look like a determined man,” she said. “You look like the kind of man who is relentless.
I see it in your eyes. It’s like you’re gazing at a far away horizon. Know what I mean?”

Stone
nodded. Finished his Coke.

“You look like a man who is here for a reason – a reason that was worth coming a long way for.”

Stone didn’t respond. He sat back for another long moment, staring hard at the woman. He had plenty of experience with people, good and bad. He figured he was a good judge of character. He figured this woman was someone he could take the chance on. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the article he had torn from the newspaper. Laid it on the table, pressed out all the creases.

“Do you
know anything about these girls?” he asked.

The woman barely glanced at the article.
Stone figured she probably already knew the story word for word. “I know the girls. Don’t know any more about what happened other than what I read in the paper, though. Why?”

Stone
sat back and sighed. “I’m looking for another girl who went missing,” he said.

“From here? From Windswept?” the woman sounded suddenly shocked.

Stone shook his head. “No, from back home in Massachusetts. My kid sister. She went missing three years ago. She was sixteen. We thought she was dead, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been following leads. They brought me here. And when I arrive, I find that two other girls have gone missing.”

“And you think your sister’s disappearance three years ago is somehow connected to the two girls who disappeared from here last week?” She frowned, trying to make some kind of logical connection in her head.
Did a fluttering thing with her hands and then absently peeled a paper napkin from the steel dispenser on the table and began tearing it into little shreds. Stone watched her. Maybe it was what she did when she was concentrating.