“I’m not sure what you mean. This case has nothing to do with the Church.”
“Blair, it is naive to think any scandal involving any Christian church will not force more of the faithful from ours.”
“Scandal? This is a double murder, Father.”
“Yes, yes, and the killer must be caught. I know that. It’s just that a person capable of such evil may say anything to justify his actions.” He looked down into his cup.
Blair began to get an uneasy feeling. He needed to focus. He watched a brunette in form-fitting jeans and a tight sweater make her way to the counter as he thought of what he should say. She was well into her forties, but her body didn’t show it. Maybe that’s what he liked about this place. He looked back to Father Greg.
“Father, they all make crazy claims about why they kill. Truth is, we don’t care. We look for the who; the courts deal with the why of it.”
“Yes, I suppose. It’s just that if those claims in some way dredge up old wounds… Well, we can’t have that happen, can we?”
“Hang on a minute, Father. If you know something, anything that is going on here, you need to tell me about it now. My head is ringing, so subtle hints may fall short this morning.” He sipped his own coffee and looked at Father Greg. The priest’s shoulders sagged. Cam’s body language behind the collar. Something was bothering him.
“Burying the truth is exactly what chased people from the Church in the first place, Father. Please don’t hide behind the confessional.” Blair’s head began to ache, and he didn’t think it was from the punch.
“Blair, please, you know even if I did learn something, I could never share it. The sacrament is the cornerstone of our faith. Jesus granted it first upon his resurrection. We do it now in communion with his risen spirit.”
“I know, Father, I know. But you are here. That tells me there is something you want to share. Help us catch this killer, tell me what you know.”
“This is not about what I do or don’t know. It’s about what you can do.” The priest’s eyes stayed glued to the coffee cup. “When you catch this killer, and I pray that you and Cam do that soon, please find a way to protect what you believe in. That’s all I can or will say.”
“You mean cover something up.”
“I mean think of the Church.”
So there it was. The lies of the past on the lips of the future.
Chapter 11
I balanced on my left foot, forcing my shoulders back. My fists were in front of my face, my right leg extended. I snapped three final kicks into the heavy bag before dropping the foot to the floor. Ring rust was showing. Maybe it was age. The kicks should have been at head height. They weren’t close. Maybe I was thinking about kicking Jimmy Williams. My morning workout over, I grabbed a towel and headed for the shower.
My cellphone belted out a familiar guitar riff before I got halfway across the garage. Nothing like Bon Jovi in the morning. Blair had loaded the musical ring tone because he knew I had no idea how to get rid of it. At least I knew who was calling. I walked over and grabbed the phone from the workbench.
“How’s the head?” I asked.
“Feels like I went three rounds with Phil Murphy. Funny, I’m pretty sure it was only one.”
“How’s the eye?”
“You know that picture of you hanging above the ring?”
“Yep.” I looked over at it.
“Think of the guy lying on the mat behind you.”
“That bad.”
“Maybe worse.”
“How’s Sue?”
“Oh, she’s fine.”
“You tell her where it happened?”
“Yep.”
“That was smart.” I picked up my towel and draped it over my head.
“Hey, I got hit in the head. Wasn’t thinking clearly. You check in with the office yet?” he asked.
“No, I was going to call before I head out on the ride. How was the briefing?”
“What you’d expect. You’d better get ready for MacIntosh. One minute he’s ripping me a new one for wasting my time at a strip bar, the next he’s making noise about you being a lousy partner for not being with me.”
“He’s an asshole, but he’s right. I should have been.”
I didn’t say anything about his going and not telling me. He was hurting enough. I drank from a water bottle as he filled me in on the briefing. The Special O team reported on Bobby Simms having spent an hour with my brother at the basilica. I figured they were planning a funeral, but I’d ask Greg when I saw him.
“What’s the plan with the dancer?” I asked when he finished filling in the blanks.
“No plan. MacIntosh says there’s no connecting the dots between her and the murders. Says we can’t afford the resources on a long shot.”
“What about the beating?”
“Told him I didn’t see who attacked me.”
My partner was planning something private. Couldn’t blame him.
“When you’re ready, I want in.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The dancer was a long shot, but I didn’t like agreeing with MacIntosh. Maybe I needed to rethink it. The beating could have been Williams off the leash. Could be a thousand reasons for him to want Blair out of the club, and none had to do with a dead preacher and his housekeeper.
“I’ll see Murphy and Williams at the house today. I’ll let them know payback is coming. Feel Gunner out, too. See what he thinks about his goons beating a cop.”
“You think it’s connected?”
“No, I thought about it all night. Hate to agree with MacIntosh, but I can’t connect it, either. It sure as hell feels wrong, though. I’ll see what Carla thinks. She’ll be here in an hour.” I knew what was coming.
“Carla? You and Sergeant Cage having morning briefings of your own now? Well, can’t say I saw that coming. You dog.”
“Nothing there. MacIntosh doesn’t trust me with the old gang, that’s all. Told her to ride along.”
“Damn. Can’t wait to tell Sue.”
“Let it go, Blair. Listen, I’ll call Greg to see what he and Bobby talked about.” Sometimes I have to refocus my partner.
“Done. I just finished a coffee with your baby brother. Simms was looking for absolution.”
“Simms a Catholic?”
“Guess so. Greg can’t say what his confession was about, but he does say he still thinks Bobby is innocent. Guess that tells us enough.”
Tells us something, but not close to enough.
“We’ll talk later. I gotta grab a shower.”
“Okay, but I’ll want to hear all about your play date.”
I hung up.
I twisted the throttle and held the bars steady as the front tire lifted. I kept it up there for half a block before easing it back to the pavement. I slowed, pulled the clutch lever hard against the bar, twisted the throttle all the way and let the clutch lever fly. The bike slid hard right before snapping into a rolling burnout. There’s nothing like the smell of scorched rubber and raw exhaust in the cool morning air. Heading out on a run gets my blood pumping. I love to feel the power, hear the bark of a finely tuned, high-compression race engine. I also wanted to see if Carla could keep up. I glanced in the tiny mirror above my right hand as I came to the end of the block. There she was, glued to me. Her front tire beside my rear. Perfect. Last night’s gixxer was a pleasant surprise, but it was her brother’s ride. She arrived this morning on a jaw-dropping custom, her own bike. Almost slow enough to be a Harley, she said. She had the attitude and the ride.
I laughed into the wind, feeling the pure joy that only comes in the saddle. I dropped my right hand from the throttle and gestured for her to pull up beside me. I wanted another look. Carla was boots in the wind on a Sean’s Non-Stock Customs bobber. She didn’t have to worry ab
out being accepted into the Harley cult. Her ride was a step above most Stallion bikes.
Green flames swept over the black coffin-shaped tank that rose in front of her. A set of curved risers reached back from the glistening springer front end to put a short set of drag bars in her hands. The V-shaped engine below the tank drove its power into an open primary below her left heel. Its thick black belt spun at better than two-thousand rpm as it brushed the dangling cuff of her black jeans. If it caught, it would pull her off the machine and slam her into the pavement. I listened to the backfiring as she neared. The sidewalk sweepers sticking out of her EVO engine blew a mixture of carbon and unburned fuel into the curb, as she geared down to keep from overtaking me. The only thing legal on that machine was the cop straddling it. The bike was one-hundred-percent badass. The good sergeant was going to fit in just fine.
She matched my every move, every throttle twist, as we rode boot to boot, outlaw style. The sound of our bikes merged into a window-rattling roar. It’s only a short blast from my place to the Stallion compound. I glanced over at her and wished it was a longer run.
The morning glow faded as we approached the house. The memorial run is a mandatory mountain of PR bullshit. It started as a way to honour fallen club members and was a patch-only run. It meant something then. While I was off trading lead with the holy warriors, Snake decided to invite every RUB club in Halifax to join the Stallion for the day. The rich urban bikers with their bullshit patches raced to the outlaw clubhouse like groupies.
Hundreds of bikes lined the street leading to the house. Even more packed the parking lot beneath the dump where Sandy Gardner played to his final crowd. The ugly hacking of big-inch engines exploding against rev limiters drowned out the smooth rhythm of our bikes. I cringed at the damage being done inside those machines, as the look-at-me-now clowns twisted throttles on parked thirty-thousand-dollar rides. Just noise, no smoke. Not one of them with the balls or brains to let a burnout give all that pent-up power somewhere useful to go. A black-leather mob filled the pavement, making it almost impossible to get through even on a bike. Carla started to ease back behind me. I grabbed the brake, put my feet down, and let her come back beside me.
“Stay tight. We don’t change how we ride into the house for these guys,” I yelled to her over the roar. She nodded and stayed beside me as we inched ahead, dragging our boots on the pavement.
Snake was in the middle of the crowd, posing for pictures and back-slapping the presidents of the RUB clubs. Proof that the Stallion was just another riding club. The reporters who came to the event didn’t buy it. Our badged brethren knew it was an act. Still, everybody in blue and silver played along. Patches and prospects smiled and mingled with the wannabe outlaws.
“Hey, there’s a spot.” Carla nodded to an opening between two parked bikes on her side of the street.
I shook my head and looked toward the gate. “Inside,” I yelled over the deep barking of her bike.
“It must be full. Look around,” she yelled back, leaning closer to me to be heard.
“We have a reservation.” I smiled at the thought of parking with the RUB clubs. Never happen.
A uniformed officer stepped in front of us, blocking the gate. Same shit, different day. A member of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang team stepped up behind him, a camera dangling from a leather strap around her neck. She patted the uniform on the shoulder, said something to him, and then smiled at Carla as she stepped away. The uniform waved us in. Wouldn’t be a Stallion party without the OMG crew manning the gate.
A thicker crowd jammed the parking lot outside the house. Almost as many bikers, fewer bikes. The RUB clubs had to park outside, but mingling in the compound was allowed. I backed into a spot along the outer fence; Carla slipped in beside me. I felt my teeth grind as I looked through the crowd to the line of Stallion bikes in front of the house. Getting through the gate put me above the crowd outside. Having to park this far from the Stallion line reminded me of what I’d given up. I was now one small step above a RUB.
“What was that all about?” Carla nodded back to the officer in the street as she removed her helmet.
“Assholes in the biker unit stop anyone the club lets inside the gate. They jot down licence plate numbers, snap photos, make a show of it. Welcome to the one percent.” It was out before I realized how angry it sounded.
“Jesus, Cam, you playing the role, or do you mean that?”
“Sorry. It’s just such bullshit it still pisses me off. Five-hundred bikes out there get ignored. Two dozen in here get a close look. You and I both know there are better things for that uniform to be doing right now.”
“Why bother? They know you guys.” She flushed red as she adjusted a do-rag and shook her hair free. “I mean the club members.”
“Only members or special guests can ride across that line. They like to see who shows. Members expect it, so it’s a drug-and-weapons-free ride. I suppose that’s good police work.” I tossed my helmet over the mirror on the high side of the bike. She dropped hers over the foot peg below mine. Maybe she had a little ol’ lady in her after all.
The joy I’d felt riding here was gone. In its place, a dangerous anger. No way the cop at the gate had me that pissed off. I looked at my father’s bike near the end of the Stallion line. Maybe it was more about feeling like an outsider in the compound, being forced into it by MacIntosh. Whatever it was, I had to shake it.
I looked for Gunner among the scuffed leathers and backward ball caps milling around the yard. Instead, I saw a sea of cartoon cut-outs stitched to leather backs. I bumped shoulders with a few as I walked to the row of bikes, Carla in my wake. When I rode with the club, these ridiculous one-piece crests would never get near the house. The easiest way to tell a RUB club from the real thing is to look at the patch its members wear. A single bit of fabric covered in any design is the mark of a bullshit club. The one-percent clubs wear three-piece patches and make sure no one else in their territory does. Prospects wear one piece of the club patch, but only full members wear all three. The diamond-shaped one-percent crest is also reserved for full-patch members.
My anger found a target as I spotted a black-and-white three-piece patch near the gas pump. Black and white doesn’t mix with blue and silver in the outlaw world. A rider from a rival one-percent club was pissing on Stallion turf behind the safety of the open ride.
I caught a glimpse of his bottom rocker before the crowd blocked my view. It said Nova Scotia. Asshole was calling out the Stallion. There’d be blood, memorial run or not. A real biker will kill or be killed for colours and territorial rockers. Wearing black and white over a Nova Scotia rocker was saying the province was no longer blue-and-silver territory. I wished I had my badge on my belt as I headed over to walk the guy out of the compound. A brawl now would bring in the outlaw-biker detail and end this thing before I saw any security video.
I finally saw his back clearly as I got closer. I shook my head. The fool was wearing a Sons of Anarchy knock-off patch. He was a full rung beneath the RUBs, walking around real outlaws in his made-for-TV patch like he belonged. SOA was a hit inside the clubhouse, but that didn’t mean this moron would get away with posing in a three-piece patch outside. I saw two prospects working their way through the crowd. He’d be leaving without his TV colours.
“What’s that about?” Carla asked, as she watched the man remove his fake cut and hand it over.
“Nothing. Guy is too much of a poser.” I took another look around, couldn’t find Gunner.
“Hard to imagine that around here.” She looked at the leather-covered RUBs filling the compound.
She had me there.
“I’m going inside. Mingle, but don’t mention the badge,” I said.
“Yes, sir.” She locked eyes with me.
“Sorry. You’ll have to show the women out here you know your place or you’ll never get inside the house.”
“Fine.” She turned and walked toward a group of women wearing blue-and-silver T-shirts over tight jeans and black riding boots. I hoped she had followed the no gun rule. It wouldn’t help our cause if she shot an ol’ lady while I was inside.
The prospects were standing on either side of the steel door at the side of the clubhouse. They were laughing and fist bumping. They draped the Sons patch over the faded wooden fence that hid the door from the police cameras that sprout on the hilltop behind the Stallion property. Good for them; at least there was no blood on it. The fence jutted out from the side of the building, cut ninety degrees, and ran to the parking lot, stopping just short of the line of Stallion bikes. Two nose-to-nose Harley baggers with Stallion logos blocked the path leading to the door. The big touring bikes kept the squares from accidentally wandering from the parking lot to the side of the house. It was a subtle sign by Stallion standards. The open invitation to the memorial run had its limits.
They stopped the celebration as I stepped around the baggers and headed down the fenced alley. The prospect on the left was a long hipless leather strap with sunken cheeks and sullen eyes. His partner was a head shorter and twice as wide. Guy looked like an NFL running back, the Emmitt Smith, tackle-breaking kind. I didn’t recognize them. The running back moved in front of me. He’d be the muscle.
“Turn around, man. Private party inside.” He pointed to the crowded lot beyond the parked bikes. He looked at his partner when I didn’t turn away.
“I’m on the list, except we know there isn’t a list,” I told them as I stepped up close to meet the muscle. “You try to stop me, you’ll get hurt. Patches won’t think much of you getting dropped on door duty. You could avoid that problem and just let me in. But then, we also know you’ll get seriously hurt if I don’t belong. Sucks to be you, prospect. Make a choice.”
I was being an asshole, but they were prospects, and I was still pissed off. The running back squared off, making the wrong choice. His skeletal pal put a hand on his shoulder and stepped forward.
Disposable Souls Page 22
