Strong to the Bone--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  “Take your pick, because there’s more. Not long after he got out of prison, Masters’ girlfriend was gunned down. His two sons would’ve been killed, too, if a Texas Ranger hadn’t saved their lives. They’ve been an item practically ever since.”

  “Masters is a fag?”

  “The Texas Ranger is a woman.”

  “Caitlin Strong?”

  “I see you’ve heard of her.”

  “All of Texas has heard of her, for Christ’s sake. And you’re telling me they’re a goddamn couple?”

  The sheriff nodded. “I guess it’s a good thing you were polite and reasonable when Masters paid a visit. It would be a real bad idea to involve the Texas Rangers in our affairs.”

  “Am I breaking any laws I’m not aware of?”

  “You’re pure as the driven snow, as far as I’m concerned. Elk Grove not being on the state tax rolls will certainly roil some folks in Austin, though, if the Texas Rangers make it their business to raise a stink.”

  Fisker weighed Gaunt’s words carefully, gaze cheating back to the garage where he’d left the son who’d made all this trouble for him. “What would you suggest, Sheriff?”

  “What did Cort Wesley Masters want?”

  “I don’t really know, because we didn’t get that far into the conversation.”

  “He didn’t mention the Texas Rangers?” Sheriff Gaunt asked, the degree of foreboding in his voice palpable.

  “We back to that again?”

  “A pissed-off father can’t do much damage to what we’ve built here, Arm. The Texas Rangers, well, that’s something else again.”

  Fisker took a sudden step forward that pushed Gaunt all the way into the sun, where the steaming rays resumed the roasting of his face. For some reason, he took even more pleasure in the man’s discomfort.

  “I believe you’ve developed an inflated opinion of your worth here.”

  The sheriff looked ready to stuff his hat back on his head, only to realize he must have left it in his cruiser. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You keep saying ‘we,’ Donnell. There is no we. We didn’t build anything here—I did. You’re just along for the ride and the walk to the bank to deposit the money contributed to make sure you hold office comfortably.”

  “Hey, you called me on this. You want my help or not?”

  “You mean the help I’m paying for?”

  “Then here’s some more of your money’s worth, Arm: there’s a whole bunch of weird shit that came up when I cross-referenced Caitlin Strong with Masters.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Can’t say exactly. All I can tell you is that they’re both involved with somebody in Washington who wants to make sure that association stays secret. What matters to us—excuse me, partner, to you—is that these are people you absolutely don’t want prying into your affairs. So I’m gonna give y’all my advice, even if you didn’t ask for it or pay for it. Make him go away, Arm. Whatever it takes, even if that includes your boy’s left nut.”

  Fisker thought about how little value that would have, but kept it to himself. “Masters didn’t exactly leave a number where I can reach him.”

  “Let me see if I can track it down for you.” Gaunt squinted into the sun. “Beats risking the Texas Rangers showing up, maybe with warrants in hand.”

  Fisker took a single step closer to him, the bulbous man seeming to shrink in his shadow. “I don’t like your tone, Donnell.”

  “Well, that’s too fucking bad. I’m the only cover you’ve got when it comes to shit like this, and you damn well better appreciate that fact.”

  “The monthly stipend I’m paying you isn’t enough for your efforts all of a sudden?”

  “Not if it means going up against the Texas Rangers. You don’t want to make me choose sides.”

  “I don’t?”

  Gaunt held his eyes, which looked swollen over with excess flesh, on Fisker, not squinting anymore. Then he stepped back, turned around, and surveyed the town, virtually all of it visible from this vantage point.

  “You think you’re the first man in my county I’ve done business with over my years in office?” he said without looking back toward him. “You think I’ve been reelected a dozen times taking chances and making enemies I can ill afford? Like I said, we got a good thing going. But it’s fragile and prone to breakage.”

  “What would you suggest we do to shore it up, Sheriff?”

  Gaunt looked back his way, his face glowing with sweat. “Glad you asked, Arm, glad you asked.”

  35

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “When I asked for a sketch artist,” Caitlin said, closing the door to the Ranger Company F headquarters conference room behind her, “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  The honorary Texas Ranger known as Young Roger popped his laptop open. “That makes two of us, since I didn’t think the description would be coming from you directly.”

  “Day for surprises, then,” Caitlin said, taking the chair directly across the table from Young Roger as he fired up his computer.

  “What’d you think of the show at Antone’s, Ranger?”

  “Your band keeps getting better, the Rangers just might lose you to the road.”

  “No worries there.” He grinned. “I enjoy my day job too much.”

  Young Roger was in his midthirties now, but still didn’t look much older than Dylan. Though a Ranger himself, the title was mostly honorary, provided in recognition of the technological expertise he brought to the table that had helped the Rangers solve a number of Internet-based crimes ranging from identity theft, to credit card fraud, to the busting of a major pedophile and kiddie porn ring. He worked out of all six Ranger Company offices on a rotating basis. Young Roger wore his hair too long and was never happier than when playing guitar for his band the Rats whose independent record label had just released their second CD, the contents of which had made up their set at Antone’s. Their alternative brand of music wasn’t the kind she preferred, but it had grown on her, and hearing it live had given her a fresh perspective on the band’s respective talent.

  “I’m dating Patty,” he said, looking at his screen.

  “Who’s Patty?”

  “Our blue-haired guitarist.”

  “I think it was purple a couple nights back. If you’re going to keep dating her, that’s something you should maybe notice.”

  Young Roger looked up, the program he needed to access to compile Caitlin’s sketch open before him. “You ever color your hair, Ranger?”

  “Not like that. But I did go through a blond phase as a little girl for a while that led me to take some lacquer to my bangs.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was. The can I found in the garage looked blond, but it was actually yellow to match the shutters on our house. Needless to say, things didn’t go well.”

  “Well,” said Young Roger lightly, “you always said you were socially impaired as a kid.”

  “I was paint impaired until my hair grew out. I had to beat up a whole bunch of boys who razzed me.”

  “No girls?”

  “Sure, but it seemed wrong to hit them. And you don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Try making it easier. I’m doing this because I want to, because it might help another victim.”

  Young Roger laid his fingers on the laptop’s keys. “Then let’s get started.”

  * * *

  Creating a usable sketch of the man who may have sexually assaulted her eighteen years before meant revisiting that night and all that came with it. The doubts, the questions, and the guilt. What could she have done differently? Why did she take that Solo cup from the young man named Frank? How could she have made it so easy for him to overpower her?

  Revisiting all that made Caitlin feel weak and vulnerable, bringing back not only the memories, but also the feelings of inadequacy and angst that had dominated her life for months afterward. The Texas Ranger Cai
tlin had become had been forged from that experience, and she had forgotten how badly she wanted to leave all of it behind her for good.

  I’m doing this because I want to, because it might help another victim.

  True enough, Caitlin thought of her words just spoken to Young Roger. The real truth, though, was the person she really wanted to help was herself. Deal with this last bit of her past that remained unresolved that had led her to nearly kill a man two nights before.

  “You want me to come around to that side of the table?” Caitlin asked Young Roger.

  “No, I’d rather you form the face, to the best of your recollection, in your mind. I don’t want my work to distract you from that.”

  “Whatever you say. It’s been some years since I laid actual eyes on the man in question, so hopefully my recollection proves to be good enough. Houston police did a sketch eighteen years ago, but it didn’t lead them to a suspect. According to Doc Whatley, the same DNA was found on that more recent victim I told you about.” Caitlin watched Young Roger’s eyes flash, as if he’d gleaned the gist of what she was saying. “Where should we start?”

  “As basic as it gets. Eye color?”

  Caitlin closed her eyes and pictured the young, good-looking man named Frank. Though eighteen years had passed, his face came back in a heartbeat, frozen like a snapshot.

  “Blue,” Caitlin said, “but dark, not icy or pale.”

  “Got it,” Young Roger said from behind his computer, keys clacking away.

  “Why are we starting with the eyes?”

  “Windows to the soul, as they say. Getting the eyes right gives me something to build the face around, and everything else will fall into place.”

  “Navy blue. Seems strange to describe his eyes that way, but that’s what I remember.”

  “How’d they ride his face?”

  “As in…”

  “Flat, protruding, sunken, or set back. Pick one.”

  “Flat.”

  Young Roger went back to working the keys. “That’s the most popular answer.”

  “Do I get a Kewpie doll?”

  “No, another question: hair color?”

  “Dirty blond.”

  “Describe it.”

  Caitlin closed her eyes again. “Shaggy, hanging low over the ears and shoulders.” She opened them. “Like a musician.”

  “You mean a rock star.”

  “Not a star, more like the drummer in your band.”

  “Steve.” Young Roger nodded, clacking away. “So far, he’s the spitting image of the man you’re describing.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “Steve’s a drummer. He’s used to that.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Young Roger turned the laptop her way so Caitlin could get a notion of what he’d done so far, before the real detail work was added.

  “Close,” Caitlin said, “real close.”

  Twenty minutes after that, his rendition of the young man she knew only as Frank looked more like a photograph, to the point that Caitlin shuddered, dredging up her last memory of him just short of the dance floor before her world had faded to black.

  “Houston police never found him?” Young Roger asked her.

  Caitlin couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. “They tracked down as many guests from the party as they could find.”

  Young Roger looked down, then up again. “And you’re saying, after all these years, he did it again?”

  “During a college graduation party at Stubb’s Barbecue.”

  Caitlin watched him swallow hard. “We’ll need to age the picture then. How many years was it again?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Young Roger started clacking away at the keys again. “Let me do a basic aging, so you’ll have a better idea of what he looks like today. Give you something to work with while I come up with some more options.”

  A knock fell on the door, and Caitlin turned as Captain Tepper poked his head in. “A minute, Ranger?”

  * * *

  “Jones wants to see you,” he said, once they were in the hallway.

  “He couldn’t call me himself?”

  “Maybe he figured you wouldn’t like what he had to say. Maybe he asked me to deliver a message. Maybe I told him to eat dirt and tell you himself.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “You’re the one who keeps dragging this asshole to Texas, Caitlin.”

  “You want to give me a hint, Captain?”

  “I don’t believe Jones, or all of Homeland for that matter, is prepared to be blown over by Hurricane Caitlin.”

  “That bad?”

  “Doesn’t make any sense from where I’m sitting.”

  “You’re standing, D.W.”

  “But I was sitting when I took the son of a bitch’s call. He said to tell you he’s on his way.”

  “Call him back. Tell him to meet me at our usual place in Marble Falls.”

  “Why Marble Falls, Hurricane?”

  Caitlin pictured Young Roger in the conference room, clacking away at coming up with a rendition of the man she knew only as “Frank,” aged eighteen years beyond the night of her assault. “So I can stop there on my way to Austin.”

  36

  MARBLE FALLS, TEXAS

  “Is one of those for me, Jones?” Caitlin said, noting the two heaping pieces of chocolate cream pie set before him in a corner booth at the Bluebonnet Café.

  Jones checked his watch dramatically. “It’s still Pie Happy Hour, Ranger. Order a slice, plus one, for yourself. You can mix and match, if you like.”

  “Kind of describes your work at Homeland, mixing and matching. But I’d go easy with the calories, if I were you. That six-pack of yours is already down to one.”

  Jones forked a chunk of pie into his mouth, leaving whipped cream across his upper lip. “I don’t drink, so this is how I relieve stress. Just so you know, my diet was going great until you called yesterday.”

  “Nothing of note at that apartment building, as it turned out. So why you still around?”

  “Because maybe I was wrong and you found a whole new pile of shit to step in.”

  “You want to say that in a language I can understand?”

  “Tox screens on those two bodies we pulled out of the complex came back with the same anomaly.”

  She settled into the booth across from him. “Doc Whatley didn’t say anything about that.”

  “Maybe because he didn’t know. Maybe because the analytics I have access to are a thousand times beyond that museum you call the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office. Jesus Christ, all that money I’ve funneled here from Homeland, you’d think you could spring for a used electron microscope or something.”

  “Right, I’m sure all the accident victims we scrape off the freeways would appreciate that.”

  Jones took another bite, more whipped cream left drizzled across his upper lip. Caitlin was going to tell him to wipe it off, then decided not to.

  “What do you mean by an anomaly?” she asked him.

  “A drug we can’t identify.”

  “Whatley told me both victims had received organ transplants, a liver and a kidney respectively.”

  Jones finally dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Maybe I should reevaluate my assessment of his office.”

  “So the two bodies, otherwise not connected, were both taking something you can’t identify. We need to share pie for you to tell me that?”

  Jones dabbed at his mouth again, as if forgetting he’d already wiped it clean. “I need you to back off your latest crusade.”

  “What crusade would that be?”

  Jones worked his fork, but didn’t lift another piece of pie toward his mouth. “You rescued a potential rape victim from Stubb’s Barbecue in Austin, then interviewed her outside the presence of the Austin PD. Now I understand you want to show her a sketch of a man who’s a potential suspect. Have I got that right?”

  “Not really. First off, there was no
thing ‘potential’ about Kelly Ann Beasley being a victim. Secondly, the official police term is ‘sexual assault,’ not rape. And I had permission from the lead Austin sex crimes detective on the case to interview her. As for the sketch, it’s somebody I’ve got something of a history with I thought might be connected.”

  “And what made you think that?”

  “Guess you don’t know as much about me as you think, Jones.”

  He pushed a double forkful of pie into his mouth and spoke while chewing. “You mean the fact that you were raped—excuse me, sexually assaulted—yourself, when you were about the same age as Kelly Ann?”

  “Where’d you go to charm school?” Caitlin asked him. “I think I might enroll.”

  “Good. You could use it, the way you plow through the state of Texas with no regard for the collateral effects of your actions or any respect whatsoever for jurisdictional boundaries.”

  “You’re sounding very official today, Jones.”

  He laid his fork down and glared at her across the booth. “I need you to back off this, Ranger.”

  “Back off what?”

  “The investigation you’ve got no part in, anyway. It’s a local matter, not a Texas Ranger matter.”

  Caitlin glared back just as hard. “Texas Rangers don’t need an invitation to join an investigation, Jones. And this happens to be a personal matter, in case I didn’t make that clear.”

  “You made it crystal clear, Ranger, just like I’m making my order to you.”

  “Order,” Caitlin repeated.

  “Call it whatever you want.”

  “Does bullshit count?” Caitlin asked him.

  She eased from her pocket one of the copies Young Roger had made for her of his sketch of the man she remembered only as Frank, aged eighteen years. Unfolded it and slid it across the table toward Jones.

  “This man mean anything to you?”

  Jones gave the picture a first look, but not a second. “Should it?”

  “He may have been the man who raped me eighteen years ago.” Saying those words made Caitlin feel as if needles were jostling around her stomach.

  “You mean, sexually assaulted you.”

  “It was called rape back then.”

  “So is that who you were picturing when you shot that lowlife in Stubb’s?”