Jake Caldwell Thrillers

by Weaver, James

  Bear pointed ahead as Jake drove. “There it is. 6117. White siding, black shutters.”

  “You sure that’s white? Might be gray.”

  “Might be dirt.”

  Facing south, they pulled to the curb facing south and climbed out. Jake peered down the driveway. The trunk of Luther’s sedan poked out behind three concrete steps leading to the back door. Bear noticed the car and ticked his head toward the front door. Jake rang the doorbell, nose tickling from the overflowing garbage can sitting on the screened-in front porch.

  The front door screeched open, and a girl with platinum blonde hair slipped her head through the opening. Cute, in a trashy kind of way, like a makeover and money would catapult her into an entirely different kind of life. Her feline eyes were bloodshot and she reeked of pot. “Help you?”

  Jake resisted the urge to push through the door. “Looking for Eli and Willis. I heard they’re here.”

  “Who’re you?”

  “Their uncle. You going to let us in?”

  Her eyes widened when Bear stepped from behind Jake in his sheriff uniform. “Open the door right now, sweetheart, and I promise I won’t bust you for a little weed. We need to talk to those boys. It’s important.”

  The door closed, followed by the rattle of a chain. She swung it wide revealing a living room covered in fast food bags, empty beer cans, and a fog of marijuana smoke. Dressed in a Metallica t-shirt two sizes too big, she swept a hand toward the interior. “Sorry about the mess. I’ll go find Eli.’

  The familiar scratch of a bad starter trying to kick over sounded through the open back door. Jake told Luther to get the thing fixed a month ago. “Don’t bother. I know where they are.”

  Jake clipped across the house, through a tiny kitchen overflowing with dirty plates, and out a back door with a busted window covered in duct-taped cardboard. Eli and Willis hunched in the front seat trying to start the car. They closed their eyes and slumped down when they spotted Jake.

  Jake yanked open the driver’s side door. “Out. Do you know how many people are looking for you two idiots?”

  Eli, an inch shy of six feet with a mop of red hair climbed out of the driver’s seat and pushed back against the side of the jalopy, arms crossed and a frown covering his acne-spotted mug. Willis trudged around the back end of the vehicle and assumed the stance of his older brother. Bear stepped out the back door talking on his cell phone.

  “Whatcha doin’ here, Uncle Jake?” Willis asked.

  Eli shot a sharp elbow into his brother’s shoulder. “What do ya think, dumbass? Mom sent him.”

  “She did. Who’s the girl?”

  “My girlfriend Cheyenne. Met her at the State Fair. Hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks. Mom was gone and Dad was passed out. Figured we could get up and back in time, but the car wouldn’t start, and I didn’t know what to do. Cheyenne said her old man could fix it, but he ain’t been home in a couple days.”

  Jake patted him on the shoulder. He couldn’t tell the boys about their father. He just needed to get them back to Warsaw and let Janey deliver the bad news. “Listen boys, you need to get back home. Your mom needs you.”

  Willis’s eyes rolled up. “Let me guess. We forgot to clean our rooms.”

  Eli sneered. “We stole dad’s car, dipshit. Dad’s gonna kick our asses.”

  A shroud of guilt settled on Jake’s shoulders, pulling him into the cracked concrete driveway. If it weren’t for him, Luther would still be alive, and these boys would still have a father. Luther may have been a piece of shit person, but he was a decent enough dad.

  Bear stepped over and slipped his cell phone in his pocket. “Got a unit coming to take the boys back to Warsaw. We’ll figure out something with the car.”

  Jake realized he would have to take a more active role in the lives of these boys. He could count on one hand the number of his interactions with them in the last year. Pathetic. He’d let his animus for their father stand in the way of being their uncle. “I’ll meet you two at the station house later. Bear and I are tracking a very bad guy.”

  Eli’s eyes narrowed. “Is it Shane Langston?”

  Jake drew back in surprise. “Why would you say that?”

  “Heard those Blood Devil guys talking when I stopped by their house…I mean when I walked by their house.”

  “You can cut the charade. I know about the meth, and if I catch you with that shit, you can forget about turning another year older. What did the bikers say?”

  “I don’t know. Something about meeting up with Shane. Didn’t mean anything to me until Mom said he busted out of prison the next day.”

  That was news. The Blood Devils knew Shane was busting out before he even did it. Which meant Garvan knew at a minimum and helped orchestrate it at the max. Was sending them after Shifflett part of some plan or a wild goose chase meant to throw them off the scent of Shane?

  A Pettis County squad car pulled into the weed-sprung driveway, and a rail-thin deputy opened the door. Bear strode to talk to him.

  “Listen, boys,” Jake said, “I gotta go with Bear and catch Langston, so you go with this deputy. He’ll take you to your mom, but you have to stay with her. Got it?”

  Jake patted their backs and directed them toward the deputy’s car, and he tracked the car until it disappeared. “The Blood Devils were well aware of the escape.”

  “Sounds that way. I’ll call Homer Taylor, the Sheriff, and have him meet us at the prison. Let’s go fuck up Shifflett’s day.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The parking lot lamps buzzed to life as Shifflett jiggled along the walkway from the administration building toward the parking lot. A battered, tan briefcase swung at his side. He was just imagining the noose tightening around his neck when a truck whipped to the curb and cut him off, Jake Caldwell behind the wheel. Shifflett felt his bowels loosen to a dangerous degree.

  Bear stuck his head out the open passenger window. “Going somewhere, Shifflett? Looks like you’re in a hurry.”

  Shifflett’s face grew hot, and he was sure it had to look a shade of red normally seen in choking victims. “I’m late for a meeting.”

  “Where? It’s after five on a Friday.”

  Panic washed over him, his eyes scanning for an escape route but knowing there wasn’t one. “What business is it of yours, Sheriff?”

  Bear opened the truck door and dropped to the pavement. “You have the look of a man on the run.”

  Shifflett’s eyes darted to the briefcase then toward his car. “I…I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Now, please excuse me. I have somewhere to be.”

  Bear stepped in front of him and Shifflett bounced back. “That might be true, but you’re not going anywhere until you answer a few questions.”

  Shifflett felt the blue vein in his temple throb. “You listen to me, Sheriff Parley. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I won’t be a part of it. I suggest you get out of my way. You and your partner can’t do a damn thing. You have no jurisdiction in Cole County.”

  Bear’s lips curved upward. “You’re right, Shifflett, we can’t do anything. But he can.” Bear turned to the Cole County Sheriff who leaned against his car at the end of the row. “Homer and I go way back. You’re busted.”

  An hour later, Clayton Shifflett parked in an interrogation room waiting for his lawyer to show up. His stomach churned and he was one offensive odor from throwing up over the evidence Parley and Caldwell laid out on the table before him. His dream of escaping his wife and his mundane life lay in tatters.

  Parley talked, but Clayton heard little, the words turning into an incessant buzzing noise, like a fly whizzing around his head that he couldn’t swat away. His eyes darted across the documents fresh off the printer—bank accounts, the ownership documents for PMA, the links to Xtreme, Kappelmann Laundry, and The Asylum. The evidence appeared circumstantial at this point, but the steel ball settling in his ample gut told him it wouldn’t be hard to tie it all together. The shady attorney mus
t’ve done a shitty job setting up the shell companies.

  Bear’s pounding fist on the table rocked Shifflett back to attention. “You getting this, Clayton? We got you.”

  Shifflett licked the perspiration from his upper lip. “This means nothing. I’m a business owner, nothing more.”

  “You really want to go that route?”

  “What route?”

  Bear’s bearded lip snarled. “The dumbshit route. We can already link you to an outlaw biker gang peddling guns and drugs, trafficking women, and helping a convicted drug dealer and murderer escape from your own prison. And we’ve just scratched the surface. Wonder what we’ll find when we comb through your house, your tax records, and your bank accounts? Bet you squirreled away a nice little nest egg, didn’t you?”

  The truth of the fact was like an open-handed slap across the face. How had he been so stupid? A little bit of turning the other cheek at the prison for a few extra bucks evolved in a matter of a few years to a full-blown criminal enterprise. He’d allowed himself to be talked into doing a little more, day by day, week by week. The money rolling in smelled of freedom from his shitty life. Now it represented the noose around his neck.

  Under the bright lights in the interrogation room, Shifflett realized he was no better than the scumbags he’d kept under his thumb in the walls of the JCCC. His worst fear of his mugshot blasting all over the country now a cold reality. Jesus, what would the inmates do to him when they locked him up? He tried to swallow through a bone-dry throat when the question popped in his head. They wouldn’t lock him up in his own prison, would they?

  Caldwell lifted Shifflett’s chin, forcing him to stare into Jake’s hazel eyes. “He looks kind of green, Bear, don’t you think? Guilt’s boiling away in your stomach, isn’t it?”

  Shifflett jerked away from Caldwell’s fingers. “I have nothing to say until my lawyer gets here.”

  “That’s your right and probably the right move. Probably.”

  “What do you mean, probably?”

  Jake stretched his hands out. “Your lawyer’s heading back from vacation up in Minnesota. It’ll be a good eight hours before he arrives, and a lot of things can happen in eight hours. Right now, you’re facing some time to be sure, but one thing you don’t have is blood on your hands. At least not that we know about.”

  Clayton’s eyes narrowed. Where was he going with this? He ran back through what they’d insinuated he did, and a slight hope glimmered. Maybe they didn’t know as much as he feared. The bodies near The Asylum could constitute blood on his hands, but they hadn’t mentioned it. Clayton knew he could be linked to the death of Barney Combs and his money-grubbing wife, but they’d have to prove his part in the escape. Only Barney, the man in the diner, and Shane Langston knew for sure. It was unlikely they knew the man pulling Clayton’s strings.

  Shit. Langston.

  Shifflett’s nostrils flared. “This is about Shane Langston, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you say that?” Bear’s fingernails drummed the table.

  “I’m no idiot, Parley. Langston escaped and you think I can help you find him. This other stuff is bullshit you’ve trumped up to corner me into talking to you.”

  “It’s not bullshit. It’s evidence which is gonna put your fat ass into an orange jumpsuit. The choice is yours whether you get shanked in the shower and buried in the jumpsuit or you relish the prospect of breathing the sweet air of freedom ever again.”

  The bare wisp of hope which, a moment ago, was as visible as the illumination from a dying flashlight now flared like the sun. “I’ll talk it over with my attorney when he gets here.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time.”

  The shipment darted across Shifflett’s racing mind. Would he be better off letting the shipment take place? The payoff would be great, and he’d at least have something in the nest egg if and when he got out. But what if he didn’t get out? What if his days ahead were destined for those dark recesses of the prison where the guards wouldn’t even go? Where animals like Shane Langston roamed? He could give them shipment specifics and buy some good will toward the inevitable charges against him. Maybe get them to disappear and go into witness protection. Why was his stupid lawyer all the way in Minnesota?

  He needed time to think. Rash decisions produced stupidity. “Like I said, I’ll talk it over with my lawyer.”

  Bear’s lips disappeared in a line, and he pushed to a standing position with his knuckles on the table. “You better hope Shane doesn’t kill anyone else while you’re dicking around waiting on your lawyer. If he does, you will have blood on your hands, and I’ll make sure you’re thrown in with the sodomites in your own prison. Imagine what they’ll do to you, Clayton. You’ll be begging for death.”

  Another wave of nausea flitted through Shifflett’s body. Footage of interrogations, courtrooms, newspaper articles, and television anchors raking him across the coals ran through his mind. Worse yet, the hungry faces of prisoners as he trudged the same aisles he used to command authority over. Parley was right. He would be begging for death.

  Shifflett tracked Parley and Caldwell as they stomped to the door, anger and frustration pulsating in their temples above clenched jaws. He didn’t have to give them everything. Just enough to nab Langston.

  “Wait,” Shifflett said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  When the word of Shifflett getting picked up outside the prison reached the man from the diner, he hurled the glass of whiskey against the wall. His breath came in panicked gulps as he watched the amber liquid dribble down the wall over framed pictures of him with NFL Hall of Famers, the governor, and yes, even the President of the United States when he swung through the State of Missouri.

  His capped teeth clenched together. The slimy worm Shifflett would sell his own kids up the river if the outcome boded well for him. The diner man knew he’d rolled the dice when he went into business with him, but the prison trade was too lucrative to turn away. Still, Shifflett must know talking about the operation would mean death. Maybe he planned on turning evidence in exchange for lesser charges. Maybe he planned on telling the cops everything. And, the man had to consider the possibility Shifflett wouldn’t say anything and wait for the attorney like he should.

  The man stepped across the room and picked up pieces of the shattered glass. The whiskey streaked the paneled walls of his office like blood. Maybe he should have Shifflett killed. Dead men don’t talk. But, if Shifflett already gave him up and turned out dead, it would look even worse.

  The diner man dropped the shattered glass into the trash can by his desk, wiping his palms to remove any tiny fragments. Grabbing a towel from the bathroom, he returned and wiped the drying whiskey from the walls. His father taught him to clean up his own messes, and whether the mess came from broken glass due to his flared temper or his ill-fated trust in a sniveling dullard, it remained his mess. First order of business was to figure out what Shifflett told the cops.

  Returning to his desk, he snatched up his cell and dialed the number. Their insider, a greedy cop by the name of Petry, answered on the third ring. “We have a problem.”

  Petry’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You have a problem. You and you alone.”

  “I have to know what Clayton has told the cops.”

  “I have no way of finding that out.”

  “You’d better find a way. You might think this is only my problem, but you’d be wrong.”

  “I have zero reason to know what they’re asking. It’d be suspicious as hell if I poked my nose in there.”

  The man dropped to his chair and ran his fingers through his thinning grey hair. “Find a way. I don’t give a damn how you do it but find a way. If Shifflett runs his trap, we’re all going down, you included.”

  * * *

  Shifflett squirmed like an impatient toddler, trying to find a comfortable position for his ample ass in the narrow wooden chair in the interrogation room. The lawyer was on his way and unwilling to negotiate a
nything over the phone. He told Shifflett to sit tight and don’t say a word until he arrived.

  Parley, Caldwell, and Sheriff Taylor continued to grill him, offers of leniency and deals to be made if he gave them information leading to Langston’s capture before he spilled any more blood. Shifflett knew the psychopath wouldn’t go down without a fight. Someone would bleed in the process, so any offer based on that contingency would be worthless.

  The man from the diner worried Shifflett. Rich, ruthless, and craving power like a junkie scratching for his next fix. The diner man’s plan held a certain genius, though it appeared to Shifflett a slow road to travel. Regardless, Shifflett knew the man wasn’t anyone he wanted to cross. If he told Parley and Caldwell what he knew, the results would be quite unhealthy. He had to figure out a way to give this dynamic duo enough to get him some leniency on the mountain of evidence stacked before him, but not so much he’d burn the man from the diner and spend the rest of his days looking over his shoulder, waiting for the inevitable bullet.

  “I’m through dickin’ around with you, Shifflett,” Parley growled, towering over the table, his shadow cloaking Shifflett. “You told us to wait and spent the next half hour hemmin’ and hawin’. It’s past my dinner time and I’m getting grumpy.”

  Caldwell slipped on a fake smile. “You wouldn’t like him when he’s grumpy, Clayton. Trust me on this one.”

  A shiver rippled along Shifflett’s spine. These two wouldn’t be above beating the information out of him and enjoying every minute of it. He recognized the look because it was the same one he wore. “What do you want to know?”

  Caldwell slammed his palm on the table, the impact jumping the soda can off the top. “Goddamn it, are you as stupid as you look? How many times do we have to ask the same question? We want Shane Langston. Where are we going to find him?”

  Time to dribble information. “The Asylum. He’s holed up at The Asylum. You know where that is?”