“Hands! Let me see your damn hands!” Rusty said, allowing his controlled anger to be released.
The kick had brought the gaunt man’s hands in and away from the gun, but now they were no longer visible as he lay face down in agony. The sound of Jasper’s low growl as he continued to tug at the man brought a barely noticeable smile to Rusty’s face.
“He won’t stop until I tell him to. Hands!” Rusty said, with composure.
The gaunt man’s hands crept out between anguished screams. Empty. No weapon. Rusty held the gun steady as Fontaine clamored over, out of breath.
“Cuff him!” Rusty hissed.
Fontaine fumbled with his handcuffs. Rusty heard the click as the stainless-steel bracelets ratcheted down on the man’s bony wrists. Secured. Fontaine stood and nodded at Rusty.
“Foos!” Rusty commanded. With that one word, Jasper released his grip and sat next to Rusty.
Jasper licked the blood from his lips, never taking his dark eyes off the man on the ground. With the man in custody, Rusty immediately ran his hands anxiously over his partner. He searched both by touch and sight for any sign of a gunshot wound. Nothing. The only blood was that of the captured man’s. Rusty slumped next to his best friend and pulled him close. He let out a sigh of relief, rubbing him between the ears.
Rusty leaned close to Jasper and whispered, “Good boy, Jasper! Good boy!”
Chapter 3
“I don’t understand. That’ll make it two times this week alone. We’ve got to figure this out,” Nick said, in a combination of frustration and defeat.
“Mr. Lawrence, this is actually quite typical of someone in her condition. She is in a new environment and your mother hasn’t adapted to it yet. This takes time. She will have moments of confusion and lapses in judgment as a result. Her inability to recognize a familiar face or her surroundings can be devastating. Violent outbursts are very common reactions and you shouldn’t be too alarmed,” the doctor said, speaking clearly and slowly.
The tone of the physician’s response bordered on condescending, but Nick was too absorbed in his sense of guilt that he hadn’t picked up on it. She’s lashing out because she is lost. Nick felt the burden resting heavily on his shoulders. He’d brought her out here and put her in a place foreign to her. She’s surrounded by people she doesn’t know and now she was lashing out as a result. His sweet frail mother was attacking people.
“Is the nurse okay?” Nick asked, concerned for the nurse and the potential liability that might follow.
“She’s fine, Mr. Lawrence. Your mother scratched her arm, but the injury was superficial,” the doctor said.
“I’ll be by later today to visit with her. Are you sure you don’t need me right now? I’m stuck at work but can finagle my way out if you think this circumstance dictates.” Nick’s response did little to hide his annoyance.
“Later will be fine. Depending on what time you arrive, I may still be here. If so, please have me paged. We need to discuss some potential changes in your mother’s situation,” the doctor said.
Nick understood the implication of this last comment. He took a moment to compose himself and then replied, “Doc, you just said this was a normal reaction to her adaptation to the new environment. You told me it’s a minor incident and that the nurse was fine. What changes are you referring to?”
“We have protocols here at Pine Woods. Protocols that monitor any declines in behavior or mental state. Your mother is showing signs of both. And yes, I did say the injury to the nurse was minor, but that’s not to say the next one won’t be. Earlier this week your mother shoved another resident into a wall and now we have today’s incident, albeit a minor one. We have a wing here that may be more suited for her.”
“Another wing? What? Like a padded room? I didn’t place my mother at Pine Woods so she could live out her remaining years in a cage.”
The doctor took Nick’s words in stride, having heard similar sentiments before and much worse from some. He allowed a moment to pass before he continued, “I hear your frustration and I understand it. The wing I referred to has a higher staff-to-resident ratio and your mother would no longer have a roommate. Aside from that, the accommodations would be the same.”
“But I thought that was one of the benefits of your facility. I was told that having a roommate would help stimulate her and keep her more alert. Now you’re telling me she’ll be in isolation?” Nick quivered as he let the words trickle from his mouth.
“Not isolation, but more of a separation. The staff here is devoted to our residents and would make sure she is interacted with on an hourly basis.” The doctor paused, hesitating briefly before he continued. “You could try to come more often, Mr. Lawrence. I don’t mean to pressure you, but we discussed this seven months ago when you first came here with your mother. Your daily interaction with her is more critical to her sense of balance than you may realize. I know you have a demanding work schedule, but you haven’t been here in four days. To your mother, that’s an eternity.” The doctor let those last words hang in the air. They came to settle heavily on Nick’s conscience.
Nick sighed. The blow delivered by the truth of the doctor’s statement had landed a sucker-punch to his heart. Deflated, Nick had no steam left in his verbal repertoire to continue the conversation. He conceded. “Doc, sorry for my outburst. You and your staff have been amazing. I know I need to be there for her. I have no excuse worth giving. Hopefully, you and I can finish this later this evening when I get over there.”
“I look forward to it. You take care of yourself, Mr. Lawrence. And please know that your mother is in good hands here at Pine Woods.”
Nick hung the phone up and slumped forward. Pressing his hand against his head, Nick stared at the sticky note on his desk. Call Det. Jones at APD. He took a deep breath and blew out his personal frustrations, refocusing his attention to what he did best: helping those who could not help themselves. He thought selfishly that it was too bad he’d never managed to apply those skills to his own life.
Chapter 4
“How many?” Nick asked, cradling his desk phone in the crux of his neck while he scribbled on a notepad.
“Seven,” Detective Kemper Jones said. His voice held a slight twang, but the sharper points of his West Texas drawl had been subdued during his post-graduate work.
“Damn! Ages?”
“Eleven to sixteen,” Jones spoke, matter-of-factly. It was a disconcerting aspect of the job when tragedy and trauma become commonplace.
“Do any of them speak English? Correction, are any of them speaking English?” Nick asked, knowing that Jones would understand the distinction.
Many of the people that the two investigators typically crossed paths with spoke English, but they often elected to revert to their native dialect of Spanish in the hopes that it would deter communication.
“One. Correction, one so far. The sixteen-year-old. But she’s refusing to cooperate. She’s been in too long,” Jones said, sounding slightly put-off by the teenager.
Nick and Jones had developed a rhythm. In the short time since he’d been back in Austin, Nick had crossed paths with the APD detective on several occasions. Each time the experience had been pleasurable, even if the circumstances of their encounters were not.
Each understood the other’s lingo. Nick quickly grasped that the sixteen-year-old had been involved in the sex ring too long for her to give up any information about the organization. There is a loyalty, more out of a brainwashing process, that blocks long-timers from opening up about their captors. Time and patience played a huge part in getting these victims to share. The downside is that, for every minute of waiting, another girl was being added to somebody’s roster.
Nick had worked several cases with Jones in the recent past and had come to respect him. His tenacity in an investigation was only rivaled by his passion for brisket. Judging by his ever-expanding midriff, Jones was amassing some serious cases lately.
“Next stop, St. David’s?” N
ick asked, referring to St. David’s Children’s Hospital in north Austin.
“Yup. I’ll have two uniformed guys stay with them while we process things here,” Jones said.
“All right. Sounds like you’ve got things running smooth as always. I’ll hang with you if that’s okay?”
“Of course. I assumed we’d be teaming up again on this one. This has obvious ties to federal jurisdiction anyway,” Jones said, with no hint of sarcasm or resentment.
“I wonder if it’s the same crew we went after last time,” Nick said.
“That’d be nice. But you know how these things go. Each case seems to hit the reset button. The demand is so high, and everyone seems to be buying in.” Jones’s cynicism was evident after years of witnessing depravity at its root.
“Who’s the room rented under?” Nick asked.
“Jose Torres. That name should be easy to track down.” Jones laughed at his own joke. “Probably didn’t use his real name anyway.”
“True. How long were they here?” Nick knew most of this would do little to further the investigation, but it was the standard back-and-forth.
“A week. Well, five days to be exact. Patrol showed up to investigate a noise complaint. Management said they received several calls from patrons about the volume of the television coming from the room. The patrol guys said they could hear it through the door. When they knocked, they heard what sounded like a girl’s scream. They entered with management’s key and found the eleven-year-old tied to the bed. The other girls were locked in the bathroom.” Jones paused only long enough to wet his dry throat with a slurp from his morning’s Diet Coke before continuing. “The perp is already being booked. A real-estate broker from Pflugerville. The guy’s married with two girls about the same age. Sick bastard!”
“There’s a special place in hell for assholes like him.” Nick’s didn’t bother hiding the disdain on his face. “That guy is going to spend some serious time in the box with me on this. I’m going to drain every last bit of information from him.”
Jones chuckled. “I would expect nothing less than your best Jedi mind tricks.”
“Did he have a cell?” Nick asked.
“Yup. Snatched it. Hopefully, we get something back from digital. Sanderson is already typing the search warrant for it.”
“Sounds good. I’m walking out of the building now and should be there within the next half hour or so,” Nick said, ending the call as he walked into the oppressive August heat.
The weatherman had said today’s temp would be tolerable because there was going to be low humidity. Tolerable my ass. One hundred and four degrees is hot no matter the dew point!
Chapter 5
The white concrete parking lot of the Stagecoach Inn was ravaged by the late afternoon sun. The layers of hot air created shimmering tendril waves of light above its surface. Nick’s black Volkswagen Jetta, an asset forfeiture vehicle seized from some long-since-forgotten case, rolled to a stop behind a marked cruiser. Nick had driven the distance from his office with the windows down. He found it easier to adjust to the heat when he wasn’t shut inside an air-conditioned car. It was his way of acclimating from his temperature-controlled cubicle to the outside world.
A patrolman stood talking to a maid under the minimal shade provided by the second-floor walkway. He held his notepad at the ready and jotted information down as she spoke in broken English. Sweat poured profusely from the officer’s brow and he continuously swiped at it with his forearm. Nothing seemed to stop the flow. His dark uniform and twenty-plus pounds of gear did little to ease his struggle. Nick gave him a friendly nod as he passed. The patrolman returned the gesture and then quickly went back to his obligatory task of listening and sweating.
Nick ascended the metal staircase located in the center of the motel. He found the room he was looking for. It was hard to miss with three uniformed officers standing on the landing outside the open door. These were the water-cooler conversations of men and women that didn’t have a traditional office. Their low-voiced discussion stopped as Nick approached.
A short officer with a bald head and ruddy cheeks turned to face Nick, obviously preparing to give the “sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to go around” speech. One he’d probably given countless times since his arrival to the scene. Nick preempted this by lifting his untucked Tommy Bahama shirt to expose his badge, clipped on the right side of his hip. Nick smiled as he did this, lessening the brashness of the move.
“Detective Jones?” Nick asked, knowing that his friend was somewhere inside room 204.
“Right in here. Um, sir, you’re going to have to sign the log,” the bald officer said, with some hesitation.
“Sure thing.” Nick was well aware of the department’s protocols about signing in and out of a crime scene on major cases. His signature was in many logbooks already and he knew, sadly, that it’d be in many more to come.
“Hey, Nick, come in and check this out,” Jones called out to him.
“What’s up?” Nick asked as he handed the signed log to the bald officer, crossing into the room.
It was like stepping into another world. Poorly lit even in the daylight, Jones had his flashlight on. A paltry layout, furnished with a small round table, a dresser and a rickety end-table that separated the two twin beds. Nick hated the fact that he knew why the handlers would choose a room with two beds. Double the profit. They could run two girls at the same time. One of many pieces of information he wished he’d never had reason to know.
“What do ya make of this here?”
Nick noticed Jones always allowed more of his West Texas accent to slip in when he worked a scene. It was like his mind was so focused on the task that he couldn’t devote the extra mental resource to masking his twang.
Nick bent and examined the area spotlighted by Jones’s flashlight on the cheaply made dresser. He saw the etched markings on the side closest to the bathroom wall. The spacing between the dresser and wall was small. Maybe a foot and a half gap, at best.
Los Sirvientes Del Diablo. Underneath was a crude drawing of what appeared to be a snake.
“My Spanish is pretty weak, so without me breaking out my phone and Googling it, then I’ve got no idea what it says. Well, except for devil. I got that part,” Nick said, waiting for Jones to translate.
“Loosely translated, it means The Devil’s Servants. Ever seen or heard it before?” Jones stood, audibly cracking his back as he righted himself.
“No. It could mean nothing. One of the girls must have wedged herself in the corner. Maybe she was just venting. Trying to separate from whatever evil was taking place at the time,” Nick said.
Everything in a crime scene like this had to be evaluated for potential leads, but Nick also knew many were dead ends. The mark of a good investigator was to eliminate those dead ends quickly so they didn’t deter from the true path. Nick wasn’t just good; he excelled at this ability to differentiate. But for some reason whether it was the words or the drawing, he couldn’t discard it outright yet.
“We have to photograph each girl’s hands. In particular, their fingernails.”
“Okay, but why?” Jones asked.
“I’m guessing none of the handlers would let these girls anywhere near a sharp object, so this was probably done by fingernail,” Nick said, softly.
Jones nodded. “I see where you’re going with this.”
“A girl willing to write may be willing to talk.” Nick let this settle with Jones and then continued, “You may’ve found the first potential lead.”
“That’d be nice, but I don’t think we’ve even come close to scratching the surface on this thing,” Jones said.
Nick understood the city detective’s statement. Too many years and too many cases prevented Nick from getting excited about any one clue.
“The manager said the room was rented for the week and paid for in cash. She also said the do not disturb sign has been up since they arrived, and no maid service was used or requested,” J
ones said and paused, waiting for Nick to come to the same conclusions that he already had.
“No trash? Well, that speaks volumes about this crew and the way these handlers operate. This isn’t amateur hour. They’ve probably been cleaning up along the way. We may be hard-pressed to find anything of potential value.” Nick let out an exasperated sigh.
“We won’t know ‘til we look, but you’re probably right.” Jones’s drawl was thick now.
“True. Very true. I wouldn’t be surprised if the handler or one of their lookouts is watching the room right now. Or at least when the patrol guys arrived earlier. Whoever was running this room is definitely aware of our presence.”
“Shall we divide and conquer?” Jones asked.
“Absolutely. I’d like to head to the jail and take a crack at the John who was with the eleven-year-old. Lots of ways to break a guy like that in the box. He’s got a lot to lose. I’m calling dibs, unless you want him?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m going to stick around here for a bit and see if I can find something else to work with. Let me know as soon as you’re done roasting that pervert.” Jones slapped a hand on Nick’s right shoulder.
The shockwave from the impact sent a tingle into his arm. The pain of his repaired arm had dissipated since the explosion that had nearly torn it off, but the muscle spasms returned sporadically. The physical discomfort provided a constant reminder of that terrible day, but the memory was also bittersweet, a reminder of the woman who had saved him. A fleeting image of Izzy drifted into his mind as he departed the room into the dazzling midmorning sun.
Chapter 6
Her small frame dragged. She stayed close to the road, using it as a guide, but worked to avoid being spotted by any of the cars and trucks that passed. The road did not seem to be well traveled, which might not be as advantageous as she’d originally thought. The walk was becoming nearly impossible without food or water. At one point, as daylight broke behind her, she thought she saw a hamburger stacked atop a rock in the distance. She ran to it, starvation driving her forward, only to find it was a rattler catching the warmth of the morning’s light. It would not have been a fitting end for someone who’d endured so much.
The Lion's Mouth Page 2
