“We got to stop meeting like this,” Buddy commented as he drew close to me, then took in my scowl and held up a hand, more serious now. “What you got?”
“Body dump, just over there,” I pointed, then swept my arm back the way I came. “Blood back over there, where I got some shots off at the start of the ambush.”
Bud turned to the other two officers, and said something under his breath, sending them over to survey the carnage. I saw one of them had his phone out, and tamped down my anger when I realized he was probably going to get crime scene photos. Albany County didn’t have a dedicated Crime Scene Investigation unit, after all, and I didn’t see the deputy who’d taken the photos the other night at the Hostetler’s.
“Thinking they took their guy to the hospital?”
I shrugged. “Lot of blood. I might have killed him, but if not, then probably. Need to alert the hospital in Jasper, and that clinic over in Royer, though, just in case.”
“Yeah, they’re getting too many gunshot wounds these days for us to run them all down like we did before,” Bud admitted. “You ID any of the bodies?”
“No, I didn’t want to touch them yet,” I said, not admitting that I didn’t want to see their faces. Afraid I might recognize some of them. “This is evil, Buddy. Why didn’t the department respond before we called? This has probably been going on all day.”
“Riot at the refugee center this morning,” Buddy replied with a tired sigh. “Plus, until your girlfriend called it in, we hadn’t gotten any reports from out this way.”
“This is five miles from town, Buddy. Even with a riot, there should have been a patrol roll through here at some point,” I protested, letting the girlfriend comment slide, and Bud held up his hand to stop me.
“Had one pass through at 1020, and he reported nothing. Their spotters probably warned the roadblock gang, and he never saw them.”
I sighed, running my hands through my hair. I’d been wearing a ballcap when this mess started, but the thing disappeared somewhere along the way. Probably lost it in the back of Mike’s truck, I thought absently.
“They had an old truck, faded red, 1980s Dodge, I think. Hood open like they were working on it. Parked right there,” I pointed again. “I didn’t get the plates, but the thing looked like a rust bucket. Obviously still runs, though. I had the ladies drop me off a bit further down the road, and by the time I got back on scene, it was gone. Must have headed back towards town.”
“Gawddamn highwaymen,” Buddy cursed. “We’ve been seeing reports about this happen more often these last few weeks. That’s one of the reasons the sheriff wanted you and some of the others out there, watching for things like this.” His reminder struck a nerve, but I refused to be embarrassed by the words. We’d sniffed out the ambush and called it in, which is more than his full-time Barney Fife had managed to do.
Just then, I felt my phone vibrate, and when I checked the number, I grimaced.
“What?”
“Pat’s on his way,” I said before I even answered the call.
“Yes, Patrick,” I said evenly, pressing Accept.
“You find anything?” he asked without preamble.
“I hit one pretty good, but if he went down, they took the body. Got six dead here I counted, likely hijacked. Shot execution style and dumped in a ditch. Is Nikki okay?”
The long pause made me worry that my sister was more injured than I knew.
“I had Mike sit on her to keep her from coming back with me,” Pat finally replied. “So, no leads?”
“No, but you can walk the scene when you get here, give us a breakdown on the numbers and tactics,” I replied. “Who’s covering the hospital?”
“We’ll go back after and make the pickup,” Pat assured me, “but we came as soon as we heard. How did you know I was coming?”
“Heard the road noise over the phone, and I know you.”
“Alright. I’ll be there in five minutes or less.”
“Don’t get a ticket,” I chided, trying to lighten his mood.
“Fuck you,” he replied laconically, but he said it with love, so I could tell he got my message.
“Later.”
Buddy cleared his throat.
“You think he’ll find anything?”
“Patrick might have been a medic in the Army, but he was a Special Forces medic,” I explained, “and for the twelve years he was in, I think he spent the better part of eight or ten years in very bad places killing very bad men. He reads sign like your or I can read a roadmap. From what little I’ve gathered, he was highly sought after by the CIA as well as in the private sector when he finished his last enlistment, and like I told the Sheriff, I have little doubt he did some work for the alphabet agencies before, and likely after, he left.”
“Jesus,” Bud exhaled. “Why was he…”
“Working as an EMT instead of working executive security and pulling down five times his salary? Because he got to go home most nights, and his wife told him it was time. Plus, I think he genuinely likes helping people. But the people who did this? I wouldn’t want to be them.”
“Duly noted,” Bud agreed. “We need to get word out about that truck. I think that’s the best lead we have right now. Even if they ditch it somewhere, that will give us something to work with.”
“I’ll leave that up to you professionals,” I admitted. “You find out where they’re holed up, though, just let us know. Pat will be willing to help out in the takedown.”
“And what about you?”
“Buddy, two of my favorite women in the world were in that truck when those bozos opened fire. Plus, I really hate seeing my neighbors murdered in cold blood. You get me their location, and I’ll be there with you every step of the way.” I promised. “I may not be as good as Pat or Mike, but I get the job done, and I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”
“You know, back before, I just thought you were another back-to-his roots city boy,” Buddy mused. “Then I start counting the bodies piling up around you like it was nuthin’. Definitely showing us a different side of your personality, counselor.”
“What can I say? I’m a man of many parts,” I proclaimed majestically, hamming it up and spreading my hands out in front of me in an effort to break the tension.
Buddy snorted, giving me his take on my humble act.
“If this disaster had never happened, I would still be writing wills and doing divorces. just like always. And if, Lord willing, things ever go back to the way they were, then I would be happy to go back to that same profession. In the meantime, I do what I can, and what I must.”
I didn’t really feel like playacting to Buddy, but I also didn’t want him thinking too hard on what I’d become in the crucible of this ongoing catastrophe. I’d become a cold, calculating killer of men, and I didn’t know if there was ever a route back from that avocation.
Then I saw Pat’s truck in the distance, and I cut out my ruminations and worries for later. Now, I needed to focus on the hunt for clues as the best bloodhound I knew was coming to check out the scene.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
After Pat walked the banks of the creek for the next hour, he was satisfied he’d uncovered what there was to find. He called me over to huddle with Bud and the other two deputies, the tall black corporal named Tanner and the shorter, beefy white deputy named Hansen. They were familiar to me from around town and both had been with the department for a few years but, at least according to the internal investigation, had not been implicated in Sheriff Landshire’s illegal shenanigans.
While Pat was busy, the three of us had been down in the gulley, photographing the dead and trying to get identifications on them. I was wearing disposable latex gloves provided by Corporal Tanner, and I still felt like I needed to full-body condom for what we were doing. Buddy, as befitted a man of his rank as well as his age, remained with the radio and provided updates to the sheriff as well as directing a search for the missing Chevy pickup.
As suspected, all
six had been executed on the side of the road, their bodies shoved into the cut in the earth after being robbed of all their valuables. Using a collapsible stretcher retrieved from the Tahoe, we managed to muscle the dead men up the embankment one at a time, and then laid them out in a row while we waiting for transport to come pick them up. The county coroner was missing, and since the closure of the local hospital, the county was using a refrigerated truck as their temporary morgue.
Two of the dead men wore monogramed work shirts identifying a national trucking company, and three of the others all had signs of one type or another that showed them as being delivery drivers. At least, that was what Tanner and Hansen explained after examining their shoes.
“Orthopedic work shoes with steel-toed reinforcements,” Tanner explained, pointing to the thick soled black shoes one of the corpses was wearing, and also giving a little more detail about himself as he did. “Lighter than the boot variety, but still protects the feet. I worked for FedEx for a summer, and the drivers wore them. See them? That’s Timberland work boots. Expensive but really comfortable and your feet don’t sweat.”
I nodded, thinking about what we now knew.
“In addition to the bait truck you reported, we need to watch for any trailers in the county, and the rigs,” Hansen added. “They would also have needed drivers for at least two, probably three tractors. You can’t just hop in one of those things and expect to drive them away.”
While the two deputies were educating me, Pat stalked back over to us and gave me a nod. I took that as confirmation that my hit had almost certainly been a kill shot. No reason to take a dead body to the emergency room, but the fact they took the corpse told me something.
“Six shooters, four in the middle and one on each end,” Pat began, gesturing where the men had been set up. “Another group over there,” Pat gestured to where the Chevy truck had sat parked before, “of three men, then two, then the third one came back. They used the truck to cut off the trucks they picked out, then got the driver and shotgun rider out of the cabs. Killed the drivers, then sent the trucks off to strip at a secondary location.”
“No way they could ambush that many and nobody got out a CB call, at least,” I added.
“Well, I can’t read radio traces, so no help for you there, but sounds likely. Once I could accept, but getting away with it a second or third time, I don’t buy it. I agree, probably had some kind of short-range radio jammer,” Pat concluded.
“Any idea where they’ll strip or stash the trailers?” Bud asked, holding the radio to one ear while listening in to us with the other.
Pat threw up his hands, once again being asked to speculate beyond his observations.
“That’s a local question. I wouldn’t know the county well enough to guess where,” Pat explained. “I can say it will need to be an extra-long, drive through building. They’ll want to strip out whatever they want, then likely repaint or otherwise disguise the trailer or trailers they will take.”
“I’ve already got every deputy we can spare out combing the roads radiating out from town. They’re looking for that rusty Dodge pickup and any tractor trailer rigs parked up anywhere. If they stayed in the county, we’ll find them.”
“You might want to get on a phone line and alert the neighboring counties,” I advised. “If they went towards Jasper, Woodville, or Kountze, we’d be willing to lend them a hand in apprehending these criminals.”
“What about back towards Orange?” Tanner asked, and Buddy Cromwell answered almost immediately.
“Aren’t you forgetting something? There’s still that Guard unit maintaining the cordon towards the coast, patrolling just south of Martelle,” our former chief of police explained. “We’ll give them a head’s up, but I doubt anybody in their right mind wants to try running that gauntlet with big rigs.”
“I doubt their base of operations is here in Albany County,” Pat supplied helpfully. “This isn’t something you do in your own backyard.”
Unless you’re the sheriff, I added silently to myself. I knew Pat might be holding back to make sure we found the supposed hideout first.
“Anything else?” Bud asked drily.
Pat looked at me and I shrugged.
“Don’t know this for a fact, but they are likely known to law enforcement from prior interactions.”
“What makes you think that?”
I took that question, since it was a softball even I could handle.
“They weren’t squeamish, but they took their dead. That makes me think they had criminal records, and the boss or bosses don’t want you to run any prints. Those ‘known associates’ in your database might spit out more IDs.”
“How did you know Pat would be coming?” Buddy asked, and I could tell the other two deputies were curious as well, though they had managed to keep their questions to themselves. Buddy, however, was nominally over us in the ranks. Plus, he was a nosey old fart.
“They took shots at Pat’s wife. Now he’ll find them, fix them, and…” I was going to give the final step in the old Army saying, ‘fight them’, but Pat interrupted me with his own version that was the unofficial motto of his old Special Forces team.
“Fuck them up,” Pat finished for me.
“Yeah, what he said,” I added, pointing at Pat for emphasis. Pat usually never cursed, so I could tell once again this attack had him worked up. “If Pat will run me back to the ranch, we’ll gear up heavy and wait for your call. I still think they have your encryption cracked, so best to stick to phones for now.”
With that, Pat and I exchanged handshakes with the three deputies and drifted back over to Pat’s truck. Before we made it to the doors, Buddy called out to me.
“You get a chance to check out the Fitts place?”
“Yeah, we looked it over. House is 1950s construction and shit,” I lied, “but we can use the fields for grazing our cattle.”
“Figured,” Bud grumbled. “Judge got with the county attorney. If the Lovetts aren’t going to cause a stink, they sent you an offer by e-mail to your old office account for that property. Cash or check, mind you. No way you’ll get a mortgage these days.”
“I’ll check that out in my copious spare time,” I managed to jab back, then crawled into the truck to join Pat.
“What do you think?” Pat asked me as we buckled up. A chore made more difficult by the belts and gear we wore.
“About what?”
“The property. Bud made it sound like it was a done deal.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Let’s stay on topic, because I got a feeling you think you know where they’re hiding out. You do, don’t you?” I said, more free with my words now that we were away from prying ears and in the confines of the truck cab.
“Maybe,” Pat retorted, then started the engine and made a J-turn in the road and headed back towards our place.
I let the silence build for over a minute before I asked, “You going to tell me?”
“Better. I’ll show you,” Pat replied too-casually, and my mind was spinning through what we knew. Then I had an epiphany.
“Forget it,” I replied with my own show of nonchalance. “I figured it out.”
“No, you didn’t,” Pat countered. “You’re just trying to bluff me.”
“Suit yourself,” I responded, trying to keep the grin off my face.
“Alright, I’ll give you another thing to chew on, and you can tell me what you think,” Pat offered, again his face giving away no clues.
“Lay it on me.”
“They’re all wearing the same brand of boots. I recognize the tread but I can’t place the manufacturer right now, but they are based on a military pattern and style.”
More pieces began to line up in my head from this revelation. I caught the edges and filled in the rest with a bit of deductive reasoning.
“They’re part of the militia group Kyle mentioned. Some outfit that evacuated together out of Baytown.”
“Dang, I hate that,” Pat mut
tered, then shifted his truck into gear. “Goes with the boots. Tactics, too. Somebody had at least a basic understanding of how to run an ambush, but them going after targets that close to town was foolish. Overconfident.”
“Once we get home, I’m sure we’ll figure out at least where they are doing the transfers from the trucks,” I replied confidently.
“Okay, either you actually did figure it out, or you’re spending too much time at night working on your poker face. Which is it?” Pat retorted with some irritation in his voice. I knew he was still stressed over Nikki being in danger, and honestly, I was just as ready to do some killing.
That realization stopped me cold. Where the hell did that come from, I thought furiously. I knew I could perform the act without risking the nightmares that plagued my brother, but this was something else. Something about my personality that I needed to keep under firm control. I knew part of it was related to how my feelings for Nancy had grown, but another part…
“What’s got you thinking so hard?”
“Is it a bad thing that I’m looking forward to killing these guys?” I asked without trying to justify myself, or obfuscate my feelings.
“Is it about the ambush? Is that what’s driving your feelings?”
I thought for a second and shook my head.
“Not really. More about how worried I was about Nancy. And Nikki, too,” I added. “Plus, I keep thinking about those guys in the ditch. Slaughtered like sheep. I’ll never go out like that,” I vowed. “I might die, but I would go out on my feet, fighting.”
“Good, and I agree,” Pat replied. “I can’t say if its good or bad, but I think you know, I’m feeling the same way. I know you’re intellectually aware that a lot of people are going to die during this long winter. That’s in your head, but you’re starting to see the events play out, and your heart’s still trying to accept the truth.”
“Thanks. We’ll know soon enough where they’re hiding,” I replied, trying to replicate my earlier playful tone.
“Alright, seriously. I still think you’re just bluffing now.”
Tertiary Effects Series | Book 3 | Bite of Frost Page 19
