by W L Ripley
Jake started the Lincoln and drove back to the McKee house. Jake watched the man and Caroline in a tug-of-war with her door. Jake pulled the Lincoln in front of the Camry blocking it and jumped out of his vehicle. The man saw Jake and he bounded off the steps and ran to the Camry but Jake intercepted his flight.
“Get out of my way,” said the man.
“What’re you doing here?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“You could be wrong about that. Consider size difference.”
“You’re bigger, so what?”
“And you don’t think that will be sufficient?” Smiling big.
The man started to walk around but Jake grabbed the front of the man’s raincoat and pulled him back, twisting the man’s coat in his grip. The man squirmed to get loose, but the coat slipped up behind his neck and Jake held firm.
“See how easy that was?” Jake said.
“Get your hands off me.”
“Talk to me or you talk to the police.”
“Who’re you?”
“You already know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I’m starting to imagine you with a broken nose.”
“I’m a licensed private investigator,” said the man.
“Who sent you?”
“I won’t reveal that.”
“Already know who did. Someone in the Mitchell family.”
The man began to look uneasy. “Doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”
“Not until you answer some questions.”
“I will not.”
Christine McKee walked across the lawn and joined them; she was visibly shaken but composed herself. “He tried...tried to break into my house. What’re you doing here?”
“I just wanted to ask some questions.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you, and you forced entry. That’s B&E, assault, and trespass. Could be a problem for you with the local authorities. Might even pull your ticket.”
“I’m leaving.” He started to pull away, but Jake gripped him tighter.
“Your name and I want to see your license.”
“I don’t have to show you shit.” Still struggling but not loosening Jake’s grip.
“I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” Jake said reaching into his pocket. He produced his Ranger Star. The man looked at it, then at Jake, deflated now. “I... I didn’t know.”
“Now I see yours or you’re going downtown and things escalate. You’ve involved yourself in a homicide investigation. You could be charged as an accessory after the fact. Sound like fun? Good thing I arrived when I did wasn’t it, Missus McKee?”
“Yes, it was,” she said, picking up on Jake’s line. “He was making threats and I was worried for my life.” Smart lady.
“What? No,” said the man. “I was just going to ask what you were talking to her about.” The man reached into his jacket and showed Jake his private investigator license. His name was Wayne Cross.
“Why are you here?” Jake let him go.
“Gathering information,” he said.
“Why Missus McKee?”
“I was charged to follow you. When I called back my client wanted to know what your business was with Missus McKee.”
“And?”
Cross tried to maintain some dignity while being held, so he said, “May I ask why you are interested in Missus McKee?”
“Sure,” Jake said. “But I won’t give you an answer.”
“I showed you mine,” said Cross, hopefully.
“One-way street, Wayne,” Jake said. “You don’t have anything to trade.”
“May I leave now?”
Jake looked to Christine. “What do you want to do, Missus McKee?”
“You won’t see me again, Lady,” said Wayne Cross. “I promise.”
“That’s nice, isn’t it? We’re all getting along now. Maybe go bowling as a group later,” Jake said, then to Mrs. McKee, “I believe we can cut this one loose.”
Christine nodded. “Let him go.” She took her cell phone and snapped a picture of Wayne Cross, P.I. “My husband sees him around here, a trip to the hospital will be a sure thing.” She leaned in and said directly to Cross, “He used to wrestle in college as a heavyweight and he’s very protective.”
Jake looked at Christine McKee now, seeing a different person than the cookies and coffee Mrs. McKee.
Jake saying now to Wayne Cross. “I see you again, even by chance, my shadow falls on you, I’ll rip your fucking eyes out. Got that?”
Cross looked up at Jake, exhaled heavily, shrugged his coat back into place and nodded his head twice. “Got it.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jake returned to Paradise. In his possession a small box containing hair follicles of one Christine McKee. She promised to send him copies of the lab report on her blood test. He also had Caroline Yoder’s yearbooks and the small square tiger eye ring.
His next steps would have to be measured and careful. Wayne Cross was sure to report back to Pam Mitchell or whoever sent him.
He stopped at PPD to see Cal Bannister before heading home, hoping to see Harper but she was running background for Jessup at the University Library in Jamesville. Jake then checked in with Cal Bannister.
“Anything on Haller?” asked Jake.
Cal shaking his head. “They’re still looking.”
Recalling his training at the Florence Ranger facility in Texas. “Fugitives are like rabbits,” his trainer, an ex-Marine with combat experience, told him, “They run for a while but then they sit. The trick is to determine where they decide to hunker down and hide. And often it’s close to home or someplace familiar.”
Where would Fat Boy go? Where would he hide? Checking the man’s background, Haller had only lived in Paradise and rarely ventured very far outside the county. Once outside the county limits Haller would be uncomfortable. He would have to eat, sleep and have shelter so Jake was figuring a fifty to one hundred-mile radius.
Would Haller have had time to get to his place and pick up supplies? Doubtful as that would be the first place authorities would check, that is, if Doc Kellogg really wanted to find him and law enforcement would seal it for the investigation.
For Haller’s flight to be effective he would need funds and supplies? Would he go to a relative’s place? No. that would be the second-place law enforcement would look.
Unlike Texas, where Jake could tap into a budget, here he had limited resources, but he had training and a nose he trusted. Checking with Leo the Lion Jake learned the Mitchells had a lake cabin located about an hour’s drive south of Paradise. Would Haller go there?
Jake believed Pam, for whatever reason, lied about knowing where Haller had gone to ground. She bailed him out and if she did that what else was she doing for him? The lake cabin? It was a long shot but a starting point and worth checking.
Jake loaded his service .357 SIG, also his father’s Remington pump shotgun, the home defense model that held 6 rounds. He loaded it with buckshot backing that with a slug load. Cowboy up. He placed some provisions in a hunter’s rucksack and put all of it in Leo the Lion’s dilapidated pick-up, a Ford F-150 from another era that was rusting behind the wheel wells, and the heater didn’t work.
“Why do you need my pick-up?” Leo had asked, suspicious of Jake’s request.
“You get to drive around in style in dad’s Lincoln.”
“Are you going to tell me or not?”
So, Jake told him of his intention to find Haller and that not only would Haller recognize the Lincoln, but that Sheriff Kellogg would notice it.
“I’ve also been followed by a private detective,” Jake said. “Don’t want to pick up another one. They’re watching me.”
Leo thinking about it. Not excited about lending out his truck. “Okay, but I go with you.”
“No.”
“I could help.”
“I’m telling you something, Leo.” Making his friend
understand, calm but serious. “You’re a football coach. I played football but you coach, and I don’t, wouldn’t be good at it. There’s a reason for that. This is the same thing. Just like you know how to game plan, this is what I do. You’re the real deal, you’re tough and smarter than me, but I’d be worrying about you the whole time.”
“I can handle my end.”
Jake considered Leo before saying, “Haller may not go peaceably. I can shoot to kill if I have to. Can you do that? Kill Haller?”
Leo dropped his head, knowing the answer. “You know I can’t. Disturbs me you say that with such coldness. I know you but I don’t know some things about you.”
“There it is. Sorry, not this time.”
“Well, good luck,” Leo said, shaking his head now. ”No one can say you’re not relentless.”
“Intrepid,” Jake said. “Rangers are intrepid.”
Leo saying now, “Be careful, Jake, the world would be less fun if you weren’t around.”
The Mitchell’s lake cabin had a view of a large private lake, bordered by White Oak and Pine rising away from the cabin, the lake blue and placid in the pale rose-colored dawn.
Jake had driven to the place before daybreak wearing camouflage and a baseball cap. He settled in to observe the cabin seventy-five yards up the rise where he could glass the area with his binoculars. He spooked a deer coming in, the animal near invisible in the pre-dawn light. He parked Leo’s pickup a half-mile away and hiked in, carrying his rucksack and the shotgun, his service weapon holstered at his hip.
Wondering now if this was a complete waste of time and effort. He could be sitting watching an abandoned cabin while Fat Boy was two states away. The lake breathed a cloud of fog over the valley. As the sun rose over the lake, piercing the fog, Jake noticed a glint of sunlight reflecting off a metal object. The bumper of a vehicle? In the vapor it was yet hard to tell.
He waited. Then he waited some more. Surveillance was patience. Years of deer-hunting as a kid made this almost a joy particularly in such a setting. A cool morning breeze rising up from the lake rustled the oak leaves and within an hour the animal life of the forest adjusted and accepted his presence, an acceptance that most never experienced. Squirrels barked and scampered, birds whistled and chased. Familiar smell of damp earth and pine.
He felt at peace with the quiet morning and finally, at peace with what and who he was. He was a cop. A Texas Ranger. This is who he was, what he did and that had changed him from the careless high school quarterback he once was.
What that would mean going forward with Harper was the next chapter and as yet unknown.
The morning passed uneventfully. No one came or went so he moved to get a better angle on the glint of metal he’d seen earlier. Carefully he picked his way through the woods, keeping to the shadows until...
There it was. Dodge Ram SUV. Gage’s missing vehicle.
Remembering now a photo of a proud owner who sent him a text photo of the vehicle. A friend.
Was Gage’s killer here? Haller? Or someone else?
Crazy to have it here. Confident no one would check on it? He pulled out his cell phone to take a picture but, damn, he’d forgotten to charge his phone. Dead.
Who was here? Move in or wait it out?
Silently Jake made his way down the hillside careful to keep in the shadows of the forest. That’s when he saw a vehicle appear and head up the rough road. Leaving now it had been hidden from Jake’s view by the cabin. A car he recognized.
Cadillac convertible.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Doc Kellogg thinking things were fouled up and getting worse, Vernon murdered and Haller skipping bail, when Deputy Sheriff Bailey came into his office and said, “Doc, I need to tell you something. In private.”
Kellogg nodded, saying, “Shut the door.”
Bailey thanked him and stood until Kellogg offered her a seat.
“How is the search going?” Bailey asked, trying not to appear nervous but wetting her lips.
“Not well. Going to be heat if we don’t find him soon. The media is going to eat me alive. Have to find Haller.”
“He’s saying he didn’t do it.”
Kellogg stared at her. The room was quiet, and she could hear herself breathing.
Kellogg sat up higher in his executive chair his chin raised and looking at his deputy. “Listen, Bailey. They all say that. Prisons are full of men who say they didn’t do it. Noah Haller is a liar. Been a liar for his entire life. He’s dangerous. He’s killed and has no reason not to kill again now. I don’t see him wanting to return to jail. He’s willing to do anything to get out of this. Why he ran.”
Bailey considered Kellogg’s response, before speaking again.
“Well, sir,” she said. “There is something else you should know.” Gathering her courage now. “Something I was asked not to share with you.”
And then she told him.
He didn’t like it telling her, no yelling that she had a job as his deputy and loyalty was one of the requirements.
“Damn it, Sharon. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I didn’t want to hurt Pam,” Bailey said, knowing it sounded weak.
Kellogg’s chest heaved, his lips pursed. He picked up his coffee cup and threw it across the room where it bounced off the wall, hit the floor and shattered.
“I’m sorry,” said Bailey, about to cry.
Kellogg seated his hat and stomped to the door. “Clean that up. And don’t ever withhold information from this office again. Ever.”
He slammed the door as he left.
Now things were even worse than the sheriff thought. Nothing to do but ride it out and do what he had to do. Tommy Mitchell would pay, and Vernon would not be around to intervene.
Thinking, dammit, Vernon, I told you that boy was going to break your heart someday. Just didn’t realize it was going to be posthumous.
Time to deal with Noah Haller.
Tommy had few choices left. Deciding now to head out of town until things cooled off, which was probably what his bitch sister-in-law wanted. How did it get like this? One minute, things are going great, and the next, everything gone to hell. That asshole from Texas comes to town and everything goes to shit and the hogs eat it. Taking after his girl, ex-wife, whatever she was.
Lay low for a few days. Think. Get his head clear. Score some good weed, some beer and maybe some tequila to work on.
But where to go? Someplace to kick back, consider his options.
The lake cabin. Closed down now for the approaching winter months. Yeah, that’d work.
Jake looked through the lake cabin window, cupping his hands against the glass to cut the glare and saw Haller, his back to Jake, something laid out before him. Hard to see through the screen window. The television boomed loudly. Walking around to a back entrance he picked the lock, a skill not taught at ranger training, and slipped quietly inside, the television covered his entry.
Haller was sitting at long wood-hewn table playing solitaire, an open can of Miller High Life and a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam on the table. Also a stack of money and a semi-auto pistol.
Jake thumbed the hammer back which made an audible ‘click’ and said, “Black Jack on the Red Queen,” startling the big man.
“You,” saying it to Jake like an accusation.
“Me.”
Jake moved to the side where he could watch Haller. Haller looked at Jake, Jake smiled back at him. Haller’s eyes moved to the pistol on the table, thinking about it.
“Never get there in time,” Jake said.
The big man huffed, making a face. “How’d you find me?”
“Followed your odor. Surprised no one told you about that. Hands behind your neck, lace your fingers together.”
“What if I don’t?”
“You’re a homicide fugitive, I’m a duly appointed officer of the law with a .357 who doesn’t like you. You work it out.”
Haller complied. Jake removed the gun from t
he table, ejected the magazine and slid the action to pop a cartridge in the air which he caught with his free hand, smiling as he snatched it out of the air. He nodded at the pile of cash.
“How much there?”
“What?”
“Who’s paying you off?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Defiant but his confidence slipping away.
“I saw her leave. You’re too big to hide under the bed. Why was Pam here?”
“She’s helping me.”
“Helping you do what?”
“Not telling you shit. People don’t like you you know?”
“Kind of dashes my political aspirations. What’s her interest?”
Nothing. Mean-mugging now. Being a tough guy. Jake took the butt plate of his SIG Sauer and rapped Haller’s laced fingers.
“Fuck,” Haller said, flapping his hands in pain. He started to rise and as he did Jake kicked the chair out and Haller crashed to the floor.
Haller attempted to scramble to his feet, but Jake stepped on his shoulder. Shaking his head now and saying, “No. Like you down there. No more thinking you can talk ugly at me. I’m beaucoup pissed off about Gage’s death and not sure how long I can maintain my composure. When I ask a question, you give an answer. You don’t, I’m taking you back, maybe not alive. That compute for you, shit-for-brains? Why’s Pam helping you?”
Resigned to it now, Haller said, “She knows I didn’t kill Vernon.”
“How does she know?”
“Because I didn’t do it.”
“Her father thinks you did it, the evidence says you did it. I know guys like you. Every tough guy inside is innocent, just like you. They just keep saying it over and over but they’re still marking the days off and keeping their ass against the wall so nobody tries to date ’em in the shower. How’re you different?”
“I liked Vernon. He treated me good. Tommy’s my best friend. Why would I mess that up?”
Jake asking himself the same thing.
Haller saying, “I didn’t do it. My fingerprints were on the gun because I fired it to show Pam how to – ” Dawning on him now, eyes wide, mouth open. “I handed her the gun.”
