Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1

by Harvey, JM

  Val cocked his head toward the voice and narrowed his eyes. By the thin light of the moon, he saw Hockley lying on his back ten feet away, one hand trailing over the lip of the septic tank, his head resting on a filthy Adidas bag. The Sheriff’s Captain had his hands clasped over his abdomen where blood was spilling out at a fatal rate.

  But where was Jasper Smith?

  Val’s eyes panned the yard and the dark row of hedges, but he could see very little. Still, he had the sense that Jasper was not nearby. Was Jasper making a run for it? No, Val knew in his gut that the ex-con was not running. Jasper had a death to repay. He had gone after Victoria.

  “Help me,” Hockley said again, the words barely audible. He spit up a lungful of blood onto his shirt. “Help me.”

  “Sure, I’ll help you,” Val slurred. “Right into a coffin.” There would be no trial, no lawyers, no prison, and no parole for Hockley any more than there had been for Lamar or Lemuel. Val raised the silenced .22 and tried to focus on the front sight.

  A woman screamed inside the house, the noise huge in the silence of the deserted neighborhood. Val froze, but a second even louder scream acted like a starter’s pistol. He turned his back on Hockley and headed for the house at a shambling, weaving trot.

  Hockley was as good as dead, anyway, but there was still one man left standing.

  One man left to kill.

  64

  Victoria came off the step like a sprinter out of the blocks, lunging inside the gun’s arc just as Gruene squeezed the trigger.

  The gunshot lit up the right side of Victoria’s face with pain that was like a blast from an acetylene torch, the flash instantly blinding her as the bullet whipped past her cheek and blew splinters from the step behind her. Her arm-sweep missed the gun completely, but collided with Gruene’s flashlight, knocking it from the woman’s hand. It hit the dirt floor and winked out, pitching the room into utter blackness, but Gruene didn’t stop shooting; she desperately worked the trigger, firing again and again, blasting ragged holes in the stairs and lighting up the room with staccato flares of yellow light. Just enough light that the wild punch Victoria threw connected solidly with Gruene’s jawbone a split second before Victoria’s shoulder slammed into Gruene’s sternum and drove her over backwards,

  They hit the dirt floor in a tangle, Victoria atop Gruene. The pistol in Gruene’s hand went flying, but she didn’t go for the one tucked into her waistband, she was too busy trying to escape Victoria,

  Gruene was slender, but she was whip-steel strong. She heaved her hips and bucked Victoria off then threw a brutal right cross of her own, clipping Victoria over the right eye. Even from a position flat on her back, without any leverage, Gruene managed to put some zip on the punch. She knocked Victoria sprawling then scrambled to her knees and dove on top of her, pinning Victoria to the floor. There was almost no light in the basement, just a gray trickle from the window at the top of the far wall, so Victoria never saw the boney fist that caught her solidly in the temple and lit up her brain like a road flare, or the next punch that smashed her lower lip into her teeth. The taste of blood filled her mouth. Gruene threw another punch, a hasty blow, much less well aimed, that glanced off the top of Victoria’s forehead with a flat ‘Pop!’ as one of Gruene’s knuckles gave way.

  Gruene screamed and jerked her injured hand back as if she had been bitten, already starting to rise. Before she could stand fully, Victoria lunged up from the floor and viciously raked her nails across Gruene’s face. Gruene gasped, staggered away and fell to her knees. Even in the darkness, Victoria could see the shimmer of blood on her face.

  Gruene didn’t speak, didn’t curse or scream, she gave a rasping hiss, a primitive sound first heard in the caves of Neanderthal man, and boiled up off the dirt floor. She lunged at Victoria, the gun tucked in her waistband forgotten in her rage.

  But Victoria was no stranger to a fistfight, she was already on her feet and ready for Gruene. She sidestepped Gruene’s charge and threw a perfectly timed right hook, getting her body weight behind it, driving her fist into Gruene’s ear. The blow and Gruene’s momentum sent the woman tumbling into a drunken roll that ended when she hit the far wall with a bone-jarring thump.

  Victoria fell as well, the force of her punch carrying her off her feet. She hit the dirt, but she didn’t lie still. Gruene still had another gun! Victoria rolled away from the female detective, spinning across the floor, only to come up against a wooden workbench placed against the opposite wall. She scrambled up and ducked around the corner of the bench then crouched there as her eyes spun around the dark basement, seeing nothing but murky shadows. Where the hell was Gruene? Victoria had lost her bearings, though she thought the female detective was straight ahead and to the right. Victoria tried to listen for movement, but her heart was beating too loudly, her breath coming in ragged, panicky gasps.

  “It’s not over yet,” Gruene said in a choked, winded voice. She was straight ahead, maybe fifteen feet away. “Your husband is dead. And Laroy will be here soon.”

  Victoria said nothing. She crouched tensely against the wall, trying to pinpoint Gruene’s exact location.

  “Maybe we’ll give you to Jasper Smith,” Gruene said.

  Again Victoria made no reply. She knew Gruene was trying to provoke her, to make her talk and give away her position.

  “Maybe we’ll give him your little boys too. He’ll carve them up like baby pigs. He’ll—”

  “He’ll end up with a needle in his arm down in Huntsville just like you,” Victoria snapped, her anger overwhelming her good sense. “I’ll be there to watch them give you the juice—”

  A gun flash lit up the basement and a bullet blasted cement chips from the wall beside Victoria’s head, sending a fistful of rock-shrapnel into her already damaged face, drawing quick blood. But in the brief flash of light Victoria had seen Gruene seated on the floor, leaning against the wall, her pistol resting on her knee.

  And Gruene had seen her as well.

  Victoria fell away from the workbench just in time to duck another bullet that knocked sparks from the wall. She hit the ground on her knees but came instantly back to her feet and charged across the room. Another shot ripped the air near her left ear, but she had almost closed the gap by then, just feet to go. Just feet between her and a pistol that was undoubtedly tracking her approach.

  Victoria did the only thing she could do; she dove for Gruene’s shadow just as Gruene squeezed the trigger for the fourth time, sending another shot whipping past Victoria’s head to blast a hole in the ceiling.

  Victoria landed atop Gruene, grabbed the gun and wrenched it down, trapping it between their bodies. Gruene squirmed and thrashed desperately beneath her. Knees and elbows drove into flesh and the air was thick with heavy breathing and grunts of pain and rage as they fought for the gun, a fight that Victoria was winning; her weight and leverage overwhelming Gruene. And Gruene knew it. In desperation, she began to squeeze the trigger.

  “No!” Victoria screamed and wrenched the gun down and sideways, twisting her body hard to the left. A muffled gunshot and then another. Victoria felt intense heat followed by agonizing pain and a wet flush of blood. She released the gun and spun away, her hands clasping her bloody stomach. This time she didn’t try to rise, didn’t try to run, she just lay there, bracing herself for an agonizing death. The throbbing pain in her belly at that moment was nothing compared to what she knew was coming. Soon all the pain sensors would light up and she’d be screaming. Right up until the moment Gruene delivered the coup de grâce.

  “Oh, God,” Gruene moaned, followed by a soft thumping sound that Victoria instantly identified as the detective’s heels drumming the floor’s packed soil. “Oh, God,” Gruene said again, her voice weak, shivering, slurred.

  Still, Victoria didn’t move. Gingerly, she tested the flesh of her stomach. Pain raced through her like she had been hot-wired to a car battery, but she found no gunshot, just powder burns and plenty of blood. Blood that was not her own.r />
  “Jesus, help me,” Gruene said with that same sloppy lilt to her voice. “Help me.”

  Carefully, still fearing for her life, Victoria rolled to her knees. But she didn’t go to Gruene, instead she crossed unsteadily to the staircase, the only object in the room she could make out clearly in the darkness. She dropped to her knees at the base of the steps and felt around in the dirt. It took her a moment to find the flashlight. When she did, she turned it on, but nothing happened. She shook it and the light came on then went out again. The base cap was loose. She tightened it and the beam came on solid and clear.

  Victoria panned the circle of light onto Gruene. The detective’s head was cocked against the wall, her legs splayed wide, her arms slack at her sides. Blood was bubbling from her chest. Gruene flinched away from the light, squeezing her eyes shut. Her arms flapped weakly at her sides, making a bloody snow angel in the dirt.

  Victoria could see by the amount of blood that Gruene was dying fast. Gruene had just tried to kill her, but Victoria couldn’t just stand there and watch the woman bleed out. She wasn’t built that way. She had to do something. And then she thought of Valentine, outside with a trio of killers.

  To hell with Gruene! She had to get to Val!

  Victoria turned and charged up the stairs. She was halfway up them when a flashlight beam hit her square in the face, dazzling her.

  “You ain’t leaving the party so soon, are you, honey?” Jasper Smith asked from the doorway at the top of the steps.

  Victoria froze as her eyes locked up on a B-movie monster coated in black slime, broken teeth glimmering like shards of gray pottery. Instinctively, she backed away, moving quickly, back down to the bottom of the steps.

  Jasper had a flashlight in his left hand and a dingy gray satchel in his right. He dropped the satchel with a heavy, clanking thump, but his hand wasn’t empty, he was still holding something.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she breathed, as her eyes made out the axe in Jasper’s hand.

  He grinned at her as he hefted the axe to his shoulder, his one good eye shining with a merry light. He came down the steps toward her at a leisurely pace, drawing the moment out, the stench of an open sewer preceding him, filling the basement, settling over Victoria in an unbearable fog. Her eyes remained on the axe, her feet rooted to the dirt floor, frozen like a deer pinned in a car’s headlights. She remembered the women murdered in this basement, the crime scene photos of their dismembered bodies, memories that cinched off her air and stole her voice.

  Jasper stopped in front of her, close enough to touch, but Victoria remained frozen, her attention fixed on the axe. He didn’t say a word; he just hit her in the face with the flashlight, striking her with enough force to knock her off her feet. The flashlight in her hand went flying. It skittered across the dirt floor and came to rest in the far corner, still on, aimed into the middle of the room, casting a watery yellow ribbon of light across the floor.

  Victoria landed on her face, but quickly rolled over onto her back in a panic, dazed by the force of the blow, but not so dazed that her heels didn’t scrabble at the dirt, propelling her along on her butt, away from Jasper Smith, until she came up against the workbench once again.

  Jasper didn’t pursue her. He stepped over to Gruene’s prostrate body and dropped his own flashlight to the floor. “Hey there, detective Sally.” he said. Gruene blinked up at him and said nothing. But Jasper wasn’t interested in conversation. He planted his feet wide, hefted the axe like a demented Paul Bunyan and brought it whistling down, swinging from his heels, driving it straight through Gruene’s ribcage with a sound like breaking chicken bones.

  Gruene screamed. Coughing gouts of blood expelled from her mouth and her arms and legs thrashed wildly, but only for the briefest of moments before they drooped like dead vines to the floor.

  Gruene lay still, her flesh going the color of cigarette ash.

  Jasper watched Gruene die, a satisfied smile twisting his battered face into a gargoyle’s mask. When Gruene went slack, he turned in Victoria’s direction and his smile grew wider, contorting his face even further. He walked toward her, leaving the axe jutting from Gruene’s chest.

  “Turn out the lights,” he sang in a rich baritone, “the party’s over. But, sweetheart, I saved the last dance for you.” As he crooned, Jasper dug a lock-blade knife from his hip pocket and flicked it open. Four-inches of well-honed steel reflected the light of the two flashlights lying in the dirt. “You and me is gonna slow dance, darlin’,” he told her.

  Victoria pushed herself up from the floor. Her knees were so weak that she had to lean against the wall for support. As Jasper took a step toward her, waving the knife in front of him, cutting lazy figure eights in the air, she slid along the wall to her left, her shoulder blades dragging along the rough rock, heading for the far corner of the room.

  Jasper kept coming, the offal smell wafting off him engulfing her. She gagged and her stomach heaved.

  “Why, ain’t you a delicate little thing?” he said. “I know I don’t smell so pretty, but I am a very rich man. That’s supposed to go over big with the ladies.” By then, Jasper had crowded Victoria into the corner. Her only way out was through him. Past the knife blade. “You might say I was filthy rich,” Jasper added as he reached for her with his free hand.

  Victoria ducked the hand and lunged toward the steps, but Jasper was too close. He snatched a fistful of her hair, jerked her to a stop and threw his arm around her throat, squeezing her shoulders tight to his filthy chest, choking off her air, lifting her feet clear of the ground. She kicked his shins and scratched at his bare forearm, but Jasper only tightened his grip. There was a sudden, sharp pain and a brittle crackle as her larynx fractured. Her lungs began to burn and her vision went gray. She was on the edge of unconsciousness when a sound from the top of the basement steps drew her and Jasper’s attention and caused Jasper to slacken his choke hold.

  The sound was unmistakably the double ‘click’ of a pistol’s hammer being cocked.

  Someone was there in the hall doorway at the top of the stairway, only a dim silhouette, but Victoria recognized him anyway.

  “Valentine,” she said, her voice plaintive and thin, whistling through her damaged larynx, “I’m ready to go home now.”

  65

  Val crossed the lawn with long, unsteady strides, keeping his balance as much by forward momentum as equilibrium. He must have blacked out for a moment along the way, because the next thing he knew the porch steps were dead ahead. But he didn’t manage them well. His toes wanted to catch every runner. He fell on the second tread, banging his shins hard against the lip of the porch. The pain was so bright and fresh that it briefly swept away the fog that had settled over his brain. But only briefly. He dragged himself up the steps and used one of the roof supports to haul himself erect. He had to tuck the .22 into his hip pocket to accomplish the task. It was as he pulled the pistol out again that he considered the low-powered handgun.

  How many shots had he and Parker fired from it? Five? Six? Six at least. Val clamped the pistol between his knees, released the cylinder lock and spun it open. Eight shiny brass primer caps stared back at him. Six of them were dimpled, only two were unfired. Two low velocity .22 shorts. The kind of round that a farmer would use to kill barn rats. But Val didn’t have the strength to return to the clearing for Hockley or Parker’s heavier caliber weapon. Or the time. He flipped the cylinder closed, shrugged himself off the post and crossed to the front door.

  Zeke was still lying in the living room. And he was still dead. The last of the Suttons.

  Val laughed, high and giddy. He was really losing it. Blood loss was finally taking him down, making him lightheaded and stupid. He choked back the laughter and continued down the hallway, stopping just short of the open basement door. A filthy canvas sack half blocked the doorway, the smell of urine and feces wafted up from it. Val eased quietly around it and into the doorway, the .22 up, the front sight locked to the center of his eye, tracking as a
single unit.

  The room below was lit poorly by a pair of flashlights lying on the floor, spilling crisscrossing yellow swaths across the dirt, just enough light for Val to make out Gruene lying there with an axe buried in her chest.

  Time overlapped and warped for Valentine. He was sucked back four years, back to the corpses of two dead women and a bloody axe. And then Val saw Jasper and Victoria in the far corner of the basement.

  Val lined up the sights and cocked the hammer on the .22. Both Victoria and Jasper looked up at him, their eyes yellow in the wan light.

  Victoria spoke; “Valentine. I’m ready to go home now.”

  There was something wrong with her voice. It sounded reedy, but surprisingly calm considering the knife Jasper Smith was holding at her throat.

  Smith grinned up the steps at Val. “Damned party crasher,” he said. “Whyn’t you pitch that there gun down the steps,” he added, “before I start making stew meat out of the little lady here.” Jasper stroked the knife’s edge along Victoria’s throat, gliding it up and down like a barber’s razor. He dug it in at her jawline and a trickle of blood appeared. It traced a thin red line down to the hollow of her throat.

  Val de-cocked the pistol and threw it down the steps to thump to the dirt floor.

  Jasper shook his head, still grinning with his broken teeth. “Like I said, I can’t say as I’m impressed with you, Vicious.” With that he released his chokehold on Victoria, grabbed her by the roots of her hair and flung her headfirst into the wall. Her skull ricocheted off the stone with a rotten-fruit thump and she fell hard on the dirt floor, twitched twice, and lay still.

  Val bellowed a wordless roar as he charged down the steps, moving too fast for his leaden feet to keep up. He skidded down the last three stairs and went down in the dirt. For a moment he blacked out, but then he was rising, shoving himself up by force of will alone. He lurched around to face Jasper, the floor seeming to buck under his feet like a ship in a gale, the room spinning. He took a step forward, but that single step was as far as he got.