Tertiary Effects Series | Book 3 | Bite of Frost

by Allen, William

  “Come on, lay off the guilt,” I grumbled. “I feel bad enough not doing something before they died. If I’d just approached Byron sooner…”

  “He would have turned you down,” Wil interrupted me, and my self-pity parade ground to a halt as I heard the pain in the younger man’s voice.

  Well, he had known these people on a level I never would. He had grown up with Ethan, and Wade was like his big brother. Little wonder he ended up marrying Susanne. Seemed a little incestuous, but despite the tight relationship between the families, they were not related by blood. I knew from my own background how tightly knit some of these country families could be.

  From what little he’d said about his own family situation, Wil had spent more time at the Husband’s place than he did his own house after his own mother died. When he called Esther Husband ‘mom’, it wasn’t in the semi-ironic way most sons-in-laws did. Unless I was misreading the situation, she really filled that roll for the younger man. Which didn’t surprise me, as I had mad respect for the woman myself.

  “Sorry, but that old man was a hermit-and-a-half by the time he was murdered. Only person he allowed in the house was Wally, and he didn’t seem too keen on having his own son around too much. After Byron’s wife died, he pretty much rolled up the welcome mat and told the rest of the world to screw off. I told you, I knew them since forever, man. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “You win,” I conceded, lifting my hands from the steering wheel as I mimicked my surrender.

  “How’s Esther doing? I really miss that mean old woman,” I continued, giving voice to my earlier words. “She fitting in with Doyle and his crew alright?”

  With half her children staying with their uncle and Wade’s house getting a little crowded already, she had volunteered to stay with Doyle and Brigitte and help out at the chicken operation.

  Wil grimaced. “As good as can be expected. She sounded okay, but I know she’s struggling with playing second fiddle after running things at Wade’s for so long.”

  I nodded my understanding. By running things, Wil meant working as office manager for Wade’s construction company, not the household itself. I’d been surprised at first to realize Esther handled the books and ordering for Wade’s business, as well as taking care of his taxes and withholdings, but she did it all and as far as I could tell, she did it well.

  “You tell her if she gets fed up with Doyle, she can come stay with us.”

  “Ah, man, you don’t have to do that. If she wants, she can move back over here. We aren’t that cramped for space…”

  Pat laughed, with that sharp bark of his that seemed out of character for his usual quiet, easy-going demeanor.

  “Man, Bryan isn’t trying to be nice,” Pat explained, flashing a rare grin. “He’s trying to poach Doyle’s talent. I don’t know your mother-in-law all that well, but from what little I’ve heard, she is a whiz at running schedules and managing operations. Sounds like a heck of an asset to me.”

  “And we are here. Alright, Mr. Husband, you are the tour guide,” I announced, interrupting Pat as we pulled up into the circle drive in front of the main house.

  I crawled out of the truck cab, trying to regain my equilibrium. I knew one of my many faults included taking more responsibility than was necessary, or even right. Knowing I had a problem sometimes helped me adjust for it, but I still felt a sting of guilt despite Wil’s words. By all accounts, both of the Fitts men were also assets that the community could have used, but now they were dead and buried, lost to us. It was a terrible waste, and a symptom of the greater danger we all faced.

  “We’ll take the front door, but I want to do a quick circuit first,” Pat softly directed, his voice pitched so only we could hear him.

  “Buddy said the place was empty, but he also said they didn’t do much besides clear the house and lock up. Let’s stack up, but loose. Bryan, five steps behind me, and Wil, you take drag. Same interval and watch our back.”

  Squatting behind the engine block of the big truck, the three of us took turns gearing up in our tactical rigs. Body armor first, cinched tight, then layered over with our combat harnesses and magazine carriers, and our rifles attached by the slings for quick access. I checked the Sig Sauer 365 holstered in the now-familiar chest holster configuration, adjusted the pressure of the body armor with my thumbs on the shoulder straps, and decided I was ready to move out.

  With our rifles out and snug to our shoulders, attached to our harnesses by single point slings, we snaked around the footprint of the main house as Pat checked the windows, saving the ones in front of the house for last. Pat moved carefully but covered ground fast, and I struggled to keep pace, glad for all the exercise I’d been getting in recent months. I purely hated running and hiking, but the results were clear. I was in the best physical condition of my life at this point, and my love handles were now a distant memory.

  All of the windows had their mesh screens still in place, and I didn’t see any signs of tampering, so that was a good thing. Either that, or the squatters inside were more skilled than we expected. We hung close the red brick walls but did not touch them, as both Pat and Wil cautioned me about that mistake. Bullets liked to follow the walls, and both men had seen it happen in combat. Best to keep a four or five inch separation if possible.

  Finally completing the circuit, Pat had us take a knee on the narrow, rickety wooden porch just out of sight of the two narrow windows flanking the sturdy front door. He still had the ring of keys and he crouched down, taking a position out of line with the door. He slid the key into the first lock, on the door knob, then twisted.

  “Good lock,” Pat noted. “Now for the deadbolt.”

  The deadbolt retracted with an audible click, and Pat tried the door, leaning away as he did. I knew that entering a potentially hostile building from the front door was always a bad idea. However, unless we wanted to bust through one of the few ground floor windows blow our own entry with explosives, this was the only way we were going to tour this particular dwelling. Hell of a way to evaluate the real estate on the market these days, I thought idly as Pat exploded through the door.

  Pat was up and right, so I went low and left, my rifle tucked tight against my shoulder as I scanned frantically in the gloom for threats. Had there been squatters in that foyer or the open living room, I sincerely doubted my ability not to pull the trigger. Repeatedly.

  “Clear,” Pat called out.

  “Clear,” I repeated.

  “Clear and hold,” Wil finished for us as he rushed deeper into the gloom before taking a knee and sweeping deeper into the house with his rifle moving in smooth, practiced arcs.

  “Lights,” Pat warned as he flipped a series of switches by the front door and a series of 100 watt recessed light bulbs came on. I’d narrowed my eyelids in preparation but the suddenly increased light conditions still caused tears to form. I was just glad the power was back on again.

  Pat and Wil leapfrogged through the downstairs, clearing the living room, bathroom, master bedroom and kitchen while I stayed behind, covering the stairs. I felt like I was somewhat exposed there, squatting down at the corner of the wide grand stairway and not able to see up around the landing situated halfway to the second floor. My breathing, harsh and labored only a few seconds before, evened out as I tamped down the fight or flight chemicals in my system.

  This was all going according to plan so far. I trusted the other two men to move faster and more thoroughly than I did myself. No matter how hard someone trained, experience was always a valuable commodity, and both men had cleared buildings like this many times in the past. They might have served in different branches, but the practiced motions and subtle use of hand signals apparently transferred between Army and Marine Corps.

  When I heard them moving back down the hallway, I sighed with satisfaction as Pat softly announced, “Ground floor looks clear.”

  “Still wish we could use flashbangs,” Wil grumped, and a slight smile tugged at my lips.

&n
bsp; “Nothing moving on the stairs,” I added. Then softly, I inquired, “Upstairs or basement?”

  Wil had already identified the door under the stairs that led down to the basement, and I was relieved from having to watch that door by the simple expedient of Pat using a plastic wedge and kicking it under the bottom edge of the door. Pat had a bag of the cheap little door wedges stowed in his pack, and he always had one or two in a pocket for just such a purpose.

  “Upstairs, then we need to check the attic. See how the structure looks up there,” Wil suggested, and Pat nodded in agreement as Wil continued. “Wouldn’t want you guys to spend money on this place and find out the roof needs replacing, or the termites have eaten everything up.”

  “But isn’t that always the case on those home improvement shows?” I teased, and Wil shook his head in disgust.

  “I try not to watch that trash, and it drives Wade crazy. It’s like they pick a house that needs asbestos abatement or has a busted sump pump with a basement full of water and nobody catches it until they are halfway into the project. Should revoke all their inspectors’ licenses,” he complained.

  “Well, pretty sure there’s nobody here,” Pat admitted, then went on, “but pretty sure has killed more men than I’d care to count, so let’s finish this up and check out the bones of this house, shall we?”

  Pat didn’t need to say anything more as we got back on mission and cleared the second floor, followed by the cluttered but finished attic. We then prepared to complete the tense tour by securing the basement as well. During the process, we found the massive home to be much more impressive on the inside than the bland and depressing exterior suggested.

  Nice, high end fixtures in the bathrooms and bedrooms, only slightly out of date, though the mattresses in the bedrooms were decades old and the curtains were a bit moth-eaten and faded by the sun. The game room even featured a full-sized pool table and air hockey game that still worked, as well as a projection television that had been state of the art fifteen or twenty years ago but appeared to have been recently used and still in working condition.

  The inspection also revealed that the late Mr. Fitts turned out to be a bit of a hoarder in his old age.

  One of the upstairs bedrooms turned out to be almost completely filled with meticulously rewrapped and bundled newspapers. Thousands of newspapers, stacked nearly to the ceiling. We didn’t waste any time, but I found copies of the local weekly paper as well as the Houston Chronicle, with the oldest ones going back to the nineteen eighties, but there were likely older ones in the mix as well.

  “Good kindling,” I pointed out, and Wil snorted but didn’t disagree except to suggest we save the comics sections for the kids.

  The bedroom at the end of the hall really caught our attention, though. In it, Mr. Fitts had set up a reloading station complete with a high-end Dillon turreted press, numerous tumblers, and a whole filing cabinet full of dies and tools. Oh, and enough gunpowder to blow the whole house into low-Earth orbit should the place ever catch on fire.

  “Wow. Just. Wow.” I had to exclaim. “Mike is going to be so jealous.”

  “Does this come with the house and other property?” Wil asked as he approached one of the benches and began examining the stacks of sorted casings and shotgun hulls.

  “As is, according to the county judge,” I explained. “Not that he would probably know what this stuff is, or how it might have some value in the future. Of course, there’s already a whole lot of ammunition out there in the world. This stuff only represents maybe twenty or thirty thousand extra reloaded rounds added to the mix. Granted, that’s a lot for our group, and will allow us to reload some of the oddball stuff Mike has sitting around in his safes.”

  “Makes me wonder, though.” Pat mused.

  “What’s that?” Wil asked,

  “Even with him reloading this many different calibers, he’s obviously not doing it on a commercial basis. So where’s his gun collection?”

  That got us to thinking.

  The basement, as it turned out. The safes weren’t anything fancy, more like stackable lockers than the heavy duty bank vault styles I was expecting, but then I studied the stairs and realized even getting these lightweight models down here must have been a pain in the ass. What was amazing was the sheer number of the darned things, as Byron had filled one entire wall with nothing but a solid row of the green metal safes. If they were the same as the ones I was familiar with, each one might have held twelve rifles or shotguns in the upright cradles made for the units. I counted ten lockers and whistled.

  And it only took us five minutes to locate the keys to Byron’s gun cabinets down there. He hadn’t bothered to try hiding them, and Pat found the key ring hanging on a hook behind one of the shelves along the wall. While most of the cabinets contained firearms, I wasn’t surprised when we also found one of the cabinets contained bags of junk silver and more gold coins in protective cases. Wil opened an old suitcase stowed in one of the other lockers and gave a low whistle.

  “Well, looks like you have more cash to add to your kitty. This might help make a dent in that down payment.”

  This time, the bills were simply held together with rubber bands. Twenties, mostly, though I saw at least one bundle that appeared to be strictly hundreds. I let Pat and Wil count the cash while I continued trying to inventory the cache of coins.

  These weren’t like the collectible coins we’d recovered from Sergeant Bailey’s ride, the coins blackmailed from Mr. Fitts’ collectibles, but simply uncirculated Krugerrands, Maple Leafs and Gold Eagles as well as other investment grade coins with which I was unfamiliar in one-tenth, half-ounce and one ounce denominations.

  Ironically, Byron Fitts was murdered because he must have slipped up somewhere, and the sheriff discovered he collected the old gold and silver coins, but Bailey and his thugs must not have known about these investment grade coins. I thought Byron was killed because he’d been spotted at a coin shop or something similar, but why had they stopped at only taking the collectibles and left behind all the investment grade metals?

  That reminded me of something that I’d thought about earlier. I had previously suspected the Sheriff had someone, or several someones, tipping him off about targets in the community. His maps just had too much detail on them to simply be based on observations by his deputies. And this was more proof as I worked to build the profile.

  Somehow, Landshire had learned that Byron was a numismatist. Neither the sheriff nor his vicious henchmen had known the man had also converted what must have been a large chunk of his retirement account into gold. No, they had wanted his coin albums, and that was it. When Bailey decided to go out on his own, he clearly used information provided by the sheriff to identify his targets.

  They also had no idea that the man had a passion for collecting firearms. Granted, most of them were old cowboy guns, originals or reproductions, but still, they would find a use one way or another. We were hoarders, too, after all. Fitts had dozens of lever-action rifles in .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .45 Colt, and too many others to identify for now. Mainly Winchester ‘73s and ‘76s, but I even saw what I thought might be an old, original Spencer carbine of Civil War vintage.

  I noted some old original Colts mixed in with some Ruger and Ubertis, and even a Uberti remake of the venerable Model 3 originally made by Smith & Wesson, commonly referred to as the Russian.

  Most of the shotguns were double-barreled coach guns, and I wasn’t that interested in them except as last-ditch defensive arms. Mike knew more about them, and I was sure he would be drooling over the collection. However, the fact that Bailey failed to raid the house for what must have been some highly collectible, and therefore valuable, firearms added another piece to the puzzle in my mind regarding possible sources of information.

  “Funny, he had all these weapons, and I can’t ever remember hearing him shoot all that much,” Wil commented, looking around to take in the wide basement room.

  “I think he was a collector more
than he was a shooter,” I said, thinking about all we had seen. “Even the reloading station makes sense. He had most of the common molds and dies, but did you notice which ones saw the most use?”

  “The oddballs,” Pat replied immediately, realization dawning. “I mean, you don’t see 44-40 for sale at WalMart or down at Tractor Supply. He was reloading for what he couldn’t acquire locally.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” I added, then moved to change the subject. “We’ve still got the rest of the house to survey as well as the outbuildings, but listen close, guys, and put on your thinking caps.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound scary at all,” Wil quipped, but I could tell his attention was focused squarely on me and I continued.

  “We all saw that map at Landshire’s. That old man was keeping tabs on just about everybody in the county, and even with him gone, the hair still stands up on the back of my neck every time I think about it.”

  “Somebody was helping him gather intelligence,” Pat observed without hesitation. He’d probably figured it out as soon as he’d seen the notations on that map. “Maybe more than one person.”

  I nodded, touching finger to nose before adding, “I’m thinking post office. I saw something upstairs, but I want to double check.”

  “What was it?” Wil asked, his earlier joking absent as he thought about the implications of someone reading his mail.

  “A coin collecting magazine. I want to see if it has a subscription label on it, or was the magazine something he bought in a store somewhere.”

  “Well, that takes care of the firearms. What are you doing with the coins and the cash?” Wil asked innocently, and I shook my head.

  “Shoot, Wil, we can’t leave it here,” I replied. “I’ll haul those bags of silver up if you and Pat will box up the gold and grab that case full of cash. We’ll split that like we did the haul from the Landshire’s.”

  “But I didn’t do anything, and you guys are the ones planning to buy this place,” Wil protested, and it wasn’t just for show. That was the kind of man Wilton Huckabee was, and it was one of the reasons I was glad he was our neighbor. More, I was glad he was our friend.