by J. S. James
“Just keep your eyes and ears open for now, okay?”
* * *
A week later, and for the umptieth time that day, Gus glanced at his desk clock. Five forty-five and no call from Bannock. He tapped the point of his pen on the notepad where he’d scratched in two words: stick in small letters, carrot in caps. The wait was exasperating. The com phone buzzed, making him jump, then pick up.
“Yeah, Annie.”
“Sheriff, you have a call.”
“That naval commander?”
“No, Perry Barsch.”
“Oh, for cripesake. Bet he wants me to make another jail remodel pitch at the Dallas Rotary.”
“Mr. Barsch didn’t say.”
“Put him through.” Gus leaned back in his chair, clicking the pen. “Perry, how the hell are you? Keepin’ happy?”
“Uh, no, quite frankly.” Perry’s ragged exhale rattled in the phone’s earpiece. “Gus, I’m letting you know up front. Regardless of my objections, Republican leadership wants to back another horse in next year’s election.”
Gus clenched his jaw, heard a crack, and glanced down. Shards of black plastic littered his lap. The pen’s filler tube was bent double between his thumb and his closed fist. In this county, the sheriff was nonpartisan in name only. What’s more, the county GOPs had a history of using the office as a pipeline into the state legislature. No reelection, no senate seat later on.
“Oh? And why in hell would they do that, Barsch? Somebody gunning for me from my own staff? Schenkel, maybe? He been lobbying you?”
Perry’s answer came back evenly spaced. “No, Gus, it’s all on you. The mess you’ve made of the department’s budget won’t stand public scrutiny, not to mention the staff you’ve driven off.”
Gus sat up, feeling the festering sore at the base of his nose. How’d a county DA political hack get access to internal financial documents? How far back had he looked? His mind spun. Perry must have gotten word of another possible defection. Charlie Lukovsky, Gus’s number two in Investigations. Charlie had seemed disconnected at the last situation debriefing. Right after he’d taken a three-day leave. And he’d done none of his usual clowning around. Not one lame joke.
Besides a limping investigative section, Gus was down to a skeleton crew of deputies. Rumors flew in the law enforcement community. Word got around. Even the reserve officer pool was drying up.
“Barsch, you wanted a small government advocate and you’re getting it. Crime numbers are up, but I’ve kept a tight lid on staffing. For that, I expect a certain amount of budgetary leeway. You’re not reneging on our agreement, are you? Because—”
“Don’t force my hand, Grice. You and I both know you’ve taken way too many liberties on that agreement.”
Silence followed, long enough to send needles of fear into Gus’s scalp. So he’d padded travel expenses a little, dipped into the snitch fund now and then. Granted, quite a few more nows than thens.
“Where are you taking this, Barsch?”
Another pregnant pause. “Let’s say, sometimes a person just finds he does his best work in the field. How about we meet at the Blue Garden for a drink and talk futures? If we don’t see a way out of this, I can pull some strings over toward the coast, maybe Tillamook or Clatsop County—”
“Back to wranglin’ cases? Bustin’ backwoods tweakers? Like hell. Yours isn’t the last word.” He slammed the phone onto the cradle and hurled what was left of the pen at a wall.
Dirty son of a turd-floater.
Gus stomped over to the nook, yanked out the Bacardi, and stared at it. Nothing would be better than to lace his coffee with a hefty slug.
He’d borrowed from his pension fund a few times too many and needed to ride out another four-year term. A step backward was out of the question.
He stowed the unopened bottle in its hidey spot.
Back at his desk, Gus worried the scab off the sore and flicked it onto the carpet. Gradually, he worked his way around to truth time.
Perry was the last word.
Taking a long count to calm down, he lifted the phone and hit the speed dial.
“Barsch here.”
“Perry. God, man, sorry I torqued on you. Real sorry.”
Again a long pause. “Okay, but the message stays the same. Gus, you need an attention diverter. Otherwise, your prospects are grim.”
“But not impossible.” Gus could almost hear Perry shrug.
“What do I need to do?”
“Pull a big hairy rabbit out of a hat.”
* * *
On her way out to the assigned patrol car and her last night shift for the week, Delia stopped by Harvey’s desk, woke his Dell, and entered his password. The head of Investigations let her use it when the antiquated deputy-access system was cranky or slow, which was often. The screen had just brought up the shift schedule when a cardboard box plopped onto the desktop beside her. It overflowed with a compacted mixture of trash, including shredded, sliced, diced, and crumpled paper.
Annie stood close by. She had her arms folded, a big grin on her face. “Bet Colombia’s in there somewhere.”
Incredulous, Delia pushed the paper overflow back into the box. “Girl, what’d you do, toss Grice’s office?”
“Nah. Theo, the custodian, has a stiffy on for me. Asked him real nice to set aside Tuesday night’s paper discards. So how about we kill a cat and bring it back to life?”
“You do know I have a cat at home, right?” Delia pushed the lidless box to the corner of the desk. “Take it away, back to … wherever.”
“The dumpster? Don’t you want to know what we’ve got here?”
“Not this way. Not without a solid reason—”
As if on cue, Grice tooled around a corner thirty feet down the aisle from them.
“Mierda. Distract him.”
Annie complied, snatching up a folder and scurrying toward the sheriff. Meanwhile, Delia yanked open the desk’s empty file drawer and crammed the box inside. Seeing that he was focused on the folder’s contents, she eased the drawer shut, fumbled up a desk key, and locked the entire desk. Harvey wasn’t coming back soon, so she pocketed the key as a reminder to herself to remove the box after her shift was over.
She didn’t know why. She hadn’t done anything, really. But a knot the size of a grapefruit had taken up residence in her gut as she stood and straightened her uniform, set her duty hat, and hustled out toward the waiting cruiser.
6
That same night, sheriff’s deputy Delia Chavez was well into the doghouse shift when her radio squawked.
“Six-two. What’s your loc?” It was the sheriff’s trusty dispatcher.
Delia pressed her radio’s send key. “South of the Independence–Coast Highway Y. Headed for the Octane Stop and a coffee break. What’s up, Annie? Did the sheriff say anything about that box of paper?”
“We’re good. But war’s broken out again on the lower Luckiamute. Farmer alongside the Willamette greenbelt north of there is complaining about gunfire somewhere below his pastures. Afraid his Jerseys will stop giving milk with all that racket.”
“Gee, I wonder who the racket-makers are?”
“Give you four guesses.”
Twenty minutes and a long dirt-road drive later, the old Gatlin place once again appeared in her headlights. Dull glimmers showed from the windows as she cut a sharp right into the front yard, diagonally blocking a pair of vehicles. Both faced toward the Luckiamute. She knew the cars and their drivers, ran the plate numbers anyway.
Leaving the engine running, she flipped on the cruiser’s halogen spotlight. By chance, it pointed at the big willow that bordered the river. She could just make out an empty longneck perched in its crotch. The mounds of broken glass at the base had grown considerably over the fifteen weeks since the Gatlin homicides.
She redirected the beam toward the front porch. A familiar foursome burst out of the abandoned house. Bryce Adkins, his twin brother Lonnie, and their two amigos. The guys approached, h
ands shielding their eyes. They stopped between her cruiser and the back of the ringleader’s tricked-out Prelude.
She switched off the spot so they’d notice her slow headshake. She sighed for effect.
“Bryce, Bryce, Bryce,” she said, scanning their faces. “The rest of you, too. What do I have to do to get through to you guys?”
Central High School’s onetime quarterback was the first to lip off, spewing foul language and throwing in the tired complaint about having no fucking place to blow off steam.
Thirty seconds into his rant, Delia hand-signaled time-out for a call-in. She confirmed her location, making sure they heard there was another unit close by. Delia wasn’t worried about these guys—she’d tutored two of them in grade school as a junior at Central High—being extra-cautious was part of the job.
When she dropped her hand, Bryce started in again. “This is all bogus, Chavez. You cops don’t cut us no slack. Can’t even night camp up at Helmick.” He jabbed a thumb in the general direction of the state park a few miles up the Luckiamute. “Highway patrol ran us out, so we came down here.”
“Camping, huh?” Leaving the headlights on, she cut the ignition and stepped out.
The pride of Central’s former Panther offense shouldered up to their spokesman, each in an arms-folded, defensive posture. “Lotsa guys hang in this old house, Chavez.” Brice was heating up, his blockers crowding forward. “It’s already a mess. So give us a break.”
Delia unsnapped the tactical flashlight from her utility belt and swept their faces with a blinding glare. “I’ll say it once. Back. Off.”
Bryce and his compadres shuffled backward until they were against the Prelude’s trunk.
She lowered the light. “Everybody cool your jets. Doesn’t matter if this place is abandoned and falling apart. You guys are trespassing.”
Bryce shrugged in conciliation. “Sorry, Deputy. We’re cool, but … well, this sucks.”
“So does getting pried out of a sound sleep by gunfire.”
They traded looks.
She aimed the light past the front of the Prelude and picked up brassy glints among the clumps of yard weeds. Lots of them. The groupings of expended casings were consistent with rapid fire. Very rapid fire.
“Somebody have a birthday? Get a new toy?”
No one moved. Nobody spoke.
“Let’s have a look.” She nodded toward the rear of the Honda.
“Uh, don’t you hafta have a warrant or somethin’?”
She swept her light over the casings. “Not when I’ve got piles of probable cause.” Then back on Bryce. “So open up.”
Bryce fished keys from his pocket, inserted one in the lock, and paused. “Just doin’ a little plinking. You know, gettin’ ready for deer season ’n’ stuff. Nothin’ wrong with that.” He popped the lid.
The trunk light came on, and Delia felt her eyes go wide. “Not unless you plan on decimating a herd.” She’d expected maybe a hunting weapon equipped with a bump fire stock to simulate rapid fire, not AR-15s and 60-round magazines lying around. Both were older-model Colts, capable of accepting M16 fire control parts.
“Stand over there.” She pointed toward the second vehicle, a Nissan pickup hiked up on tractor tires. The four complied, even though the highboy sat square in a giant rain puddle.
Making sure one of the ARs was unloaded, Delia retracted its bolt and dry-fired. Pulled the bolt again with the trigger depressed. The bolt closed, no click. They’d probably been modified for full automatic fire.
She turned toward the four. “Do you have any more weapons?”
Four heads shook. She had them show their waistbands, turn full around, and hike their pant cuffs. Next, she carefully scanned the insides of both vehicles, including the truck bed. Bryce used the time explaining, as much with his hands as his mouth. “Really, Deputy. Those are my dad’s. Me and Lonnie kinda reworked them at his store. Y’know, Nimrods-R-Us? Got the paperwork there.”
It figured that Bryce and his brother still lived with their parents. “I’ll do more than that.” Delia gathered up clips and rifles and stowed them in her brown-and-white. Then she squared off in front of them.
“Okay. Assume against odds the firearms check out as legal. I want to get something through those thick heads. The four of you are experienced hunters. Right? You all know how far a slug can carry from a long gun.” They studied the puddle, as if polliwogs were about to wiggle out. “So then, what the hell were you thinking, shooting out across an open waterway?” The two who weren’t brothers glanced at the twins, but that was all she got.
“I’m not saying some boater’s crazy enough to chug around out there in the middle of the—”
“Ha.” Lonnie’s head snapped up. “Took off like a bat anyway, so we didn’t—umpf.” Bryce had stifled his brother with a sharp nudge to the ribs.
“You have something to tell me, Lonnie?” Delia got back a tight-lipped mouth shrug.
She stared off toward the river a few beats, then back at their faces. “You guys are too young to mess up your lives getting hauled in for manslaughter or negligent homicide. Let alone possessing illegal guns.”
She ran her light across the back of the deserted two-story. The house must’ve decayed five years in the months since she first climbed those porch steps. Chunks of roofing hung off the eaves. Blackberry vines probed through window frames bristling with glass shards. The bloodstained lawn chairs were gone, likely tossed somewhere into the yard. Delia pursed her lips, trying not to let grisly images trip through her head. Like a forlorn country song stuck in replay, she couldn’t leave off speculating on the misery Rose Gatlin had endured inside those rotting walls.
“Look, guys, there’s been too much tragedy here without somebody getting shot. Or knocking over a lantern and burning up in that tinderbox.” Blank stares.
“What’s up at the house?” She aimed her question at Bryce, who unfolded his arms and cleared his throat.
“Uh, nothin’ much. Camp lanterns and a pony cooler. Snacks ’n’ stuff.”
Stuff. Delia canted her head. “Well, tell you what. Before we pay a visit to your dad and have a look at those papers, you need to hike back in there, dowse the Colemans, and collect your gear.”
Bryce opened his mouth again, and Delia poured words into it.
“Because if I enter the premises and discover the presence of illegal substances, I guarantee you won’t be happy campers.”
* * *
A few minutes past three AM, Delia wheeled off Highway 20 into the lane between Rickreall Winery’s floodlit parking lot and an unlit mom-and-pop store. She rolled to a stop beside what had to be one of the last pay phones anywhere, got out, and set her lunch on the hood. Besides gym workouts, her hip-slimming regimen consisted of a Vegan Delight pita, followed by dessert a la Annie. Maybe a blow-by-blow of her latest bar cruise. To avoid flapping ears, their chick chats took place via landline.
An hour and a half had passed since she’d followed Bryce and crew to his parents’ house and awakened them. Mom was fairly passive, but Dad owned a gun shop and thus valued his relationship with local law enforcement. On his promise to reconvert the firearms for legitimate resale, she’d let Bryce’s dad deal with the gang of four.
Leaning against the fender, she tilted her head up and inhaled a grapey essence she could almost taste. Trucked in from vineyards flanking the Coast Range, the crushings of first frost spiked the air. She tied into her sandwich, the pungent spiciness helping to chase off the memory-stink of river bottom and mildew that had hung over the Gatlin house, and a closed case. Except for the missing relative, whoever Robbie was.
Okay, so air-wine and vicarious sex made poor substitutes for the real thing. Both kinds were safe. And Annie could be … deliciously graphic. Too bad the men Delia’s relatives tried hooking her up with were all big little boys.
She tossed the pita wrapper in a receptacle, picked up the phone receiver, and punched in the numbers.
“Polk County
Sheriff’s Office.”
“Hey Annie, how ’bout capping your nail polish and helping me get through the last half of a super-dull night shift?”
“Give me a sec.”
On hold, Delia removed her hat, let her French braid fall free, and reset the holding band. Grice insisted on a trooper’s hat and hair tucked underneath. At shoulder-blade length, her choice of hairstyle honored a mother’s wish and a memory. She’d kept it long since she was nine, since the day her parents were buried.
“Dried and buffed, Chavez. Done chasing young men around in the woods, are we?”
“We?” Delia chuffed.
“Uh. Gimme a sec.” A bit of radio chatter followed, then Annie was back. “Have you talked with Charlie?”
“About what killed the cat and brought him back?” Charlie Lukovsky had ridden the sidekick detective desk since before Delia joined the department; knew Grice like the back of his hand. “Been meaning to, but he’s been on leave. Now I hear he’s going off duck hunting with his brother.” She bit of the end of one of the carrot sticks that came with the sandwich.
“Not about that, but you’d better catch up with him soon,” Annie said. “Remember the other night I let slip things were about to happen? Word has it Charlie’s ready to jump ship.”
Delia straightened up. “Charlie? Leaving?”
“Offered chief of police. Some small town in Minnesota. Montevideo, I think he said. Sure gonna miss the guy. Him and his left-field sense of humor.”
The chewed bite Delia swallowed went down hard. “Me too, Annie.” She’d interned with him during her law enforcement training. Now she regretted thinking the guy was too jolly. Too … comedic to make a first-rate detective.
A whiff of freshness wafted past. She inhaled deeply and flushed away the guilt for picturing herself a stepping-stone away from Charlie’s desk. Leastwise, not before he was gone.
“That isn’t the half of it. Harvey hit up the sheriff to shift you into Investigations on interim assignment.”
Delia pressed the phone into her ear, as if she hadn’t heard right. “Yeah? For real?” The boost from Annie’s words lasted about two seconds before she slumped back against the cruiser. “Don’t need to guess how Grice reacted to that proposal.”
