Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  “Talk.”

  I didn’t appreciate being issued a command or the tone it was given in, though I knew better than to let anything show on my features. Much like with Lipski, I had to play the game, give them the impression of being in control, if I was going to get what I needed out of the interaction as well.

  What that yet was, I didn’t know for certain, only that it needed to be fast.

  There was a reason Uncle Jep had been left here, the place no doubt under surveillance.

  “How far back?” I asked.

  Her face maintaining the same look, Lou replied, “Start with your uncle and this cabin. The rest we’ll get to in time.”

  Far from the answer I wanted, intimating that this was going to take a while, I forced no reaction, staring back at her.

  “Jessup Lynch was my father’s best friend, two guys that grew up together in the fifties, were completely inseparable. Played ball as kids together, went to Vietnam and back together.”

  A crease appeared between Lou’s brows as she listened, a silent indicator that she had no idea what any of this had to do with the situation we were now standing in.

  I would get there.

  “From the day I was born, he was known as Uncle Jep,” I continued. “And when my parents both passed, it was never a question who I would go to live with.”

  I didn’t bother expounding further on that part of things. In communities as small as the ones we each grew up in, that kind of news traveled fast.

  It was certain she had heard about their sudden deaths when we were in high school, would know at least that much was true.

  “For the last six years, I’ve called every month on the eighth to catch up with Uncle Jep,” I said, pushing ahead. “And on every last one of them, he has answered.”

  “Until this month,” Lou replied.

  “Until this month,” I echoed.

  Glancing to the side, Lou raised a hand to her face. Using the back of her thumb, she wiped away a streak of sweat, cleaving a line through the middle of the moisture on her skin.

  Clearly, the heat in the room was beginning to get to her as well.

  I couldn’t help but wonder about the growing smell of blood.

  “So you came running?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, “I flew, but yeah.”

  I almost added that I’d gone to his house first before pulling up, not wanting to add any more detail than necessary. Right now, I had no idea how much she knew, what the details of the investigation even were.

  Which meant it was time for me to turn the conversation around for a while.

  “And, somehow, you ended up breaking in here this morning?” she asked.

  Lowering my head, I glanced at my shoes for a moment, droplets of sweat running down the length of my nose. Letting them fall, sucked up by the laces crisscrossed over the top of my feet, I looked up, doing my best to sound contrite.

  “I haven’t been able to get ahold of him yet. I went by his place, all his old haunts, but there’s no sign.”

  “So, again, you came here?” she asked.

  “This was our house growing up,” I said. “I was running out of options, clutching at straws, so I thought it couldn’t hurt to take a look.

  “That’s when I saw the crime scene tape.”

  It was patchy, had more than a few holes that someone objectively listening would poke to hell, but it sounded close enough. Given even a modicum of emotion on my part, it might be sufficient to get past her.

  I just needed to steer her in that direction before she had a chance to dwell on it.

  “Look,” I said, again glancing down, “I know this is bad, and if I’m in trouble, I’ll accept it, but can you tell me if the person found here was my uncle?”

  Turning to look up at her, I could see the same hardened features staring back at me, silently trying to measure me up, before softening just slightly.

  “What makes you think...?”

  “Come on,” I said, my head shifting an inch to the side. “Do you smell that? Either someone butchered a pig for dinner last night, or there’s been a shitload of blood from something else in here recently.”

  Shifting to look past her into the kitchen, I added, “I was in the army for ten years. Believe me, you don’t ever forget that smell.”

  The last part I threw in by way of an explanation, wanting to put her at ease as to how I was so certain the coppery tang in the air was blood.

  I would have recognized it even as a teenager, not needing the military to tell me that, but it didn’t hurt to throw in.

  For almost a full minute, there was no response, Lou continuing to stare at me, before shifting her gaze to the side.

  “Yes,” she eventually said, the word curt, tone sharp. “Your uncle was found here two days ago.”

  She stopped there, so I prompted, “Dead?”

  Flicking her focus to me for just an instant, she added, “Yes.”

  Since hearing the voicemail back in Portland, I had known that, though hearing it out loud spiked the wrath that was in me, lurking just beneath the surface. Closing my eyes, I clenched my hands atop my thighs, raising my face up toward the ceiling.

  Breathing slowly through my nose, I held the pose, entire body gripped tight.

  “I’m sorry,” Lou offered, the words barely penetrating as I maintained my stance, not trusting myself to say a word.

  Opposite me, Lou let it happen, neither of us speaking for two minutes as I parsed through anger.

  This was my fault. I had known it all along, but hearing it now, everything heightened, rushing to the surface.

  I had caused it, and it was on me to finish it.

  “How?” I asked, not bothering to look at her, to even open my eyes.

  “Huh?”

  “How did he die?”

  When no immediate response came, I cracked my eyes open, turning to look at her.

  “How did he die?” I repeated.

  Her lips parting slightly, Lou again looked off, trying to avoid my stare. “He, uh...”

  “Was tortured,” I finished for her, drawing her gaze my direction. “Right? That’s what you’re trying not to tell me?”

  Closing her mouth, the previous moment bled away, bringing the law enforcement officer in her back to the surface.

  “How do you know that?”

  The way that I knew that went back quite a while, involving things I hadn’t spoken of in years. Things I had never told a soul beyond Uncle Jep and Lipski and her team.

  Whether I was ready to now or not was up for debate, but I didn’t much have a choice. I needed Lou’s information, and I needed to start moving.

  Now that I was out in the open, every moment was important.

  “Is there somewhere else we can talk?”

  Chapter Forty-One

  The sounds of the shop below had been going for the better part of two hours already. While it was important to get the place turned down low at night, to abide by the predetermined curfew hours of the county, there was nothing to say that they couldn’t begin right as the sun rose.

  Each morning like clockwork, regardless of the day of the week, the enormous roll-top doors along the side of the warehouse were pushed up and classic rock music was piped in. Men with blowtorches went to work, sending spark showers over the ground.

  Hammers pounded away at aluminum, interspersed with the occasional sound of men yelling.

  To anybody that just happened by outside, it was a perfectly reasonable assimilation of an auto body shop. Everything was there in plain sight, right down to the junked vehicles sitting outside that were rotated through once a month, looking like the next ones up in order.

  It wasn’t until somebody made it inside and actually scrutinized what was being done that the truth of things came to light, an eventuality that had only occurred once in the years the Baxters had been in this line of work.

  On that particular time, his well-funded contacts in the local scene had been able t
o provide him enough lead time to get the place shifted to an actual mechanic shop, leaving a whole lot of federal agents in fancy jackets standing around with their dicks in their hands.

  Far and away the best day Vic Baxter could remember in a long time.

  This, however, held all the promise of being a close second.

  Fresh off a follow-up call with Radney Creel, the early report was confirmed, a fact made real by the photo currently splayed across Baxter’s computer screen.

  A still shot from the surveillance camera Creel had put up, it was a little grainy, and the light and angle weren’t perfect, but everything sufficed to confirm what Baxter needed it to.

  The man in the image was a little older, a little hairier, had a lot rougher edges than the previously squared away soldier, but that didn’t keep Baxter from seeing right through him.

  It was Tim Scarberry, of that there was no question.

  With his gaze on the image, it was all Baxter could do to keep from smiling, his elbows resting on the chair to either side, his fingers laced beneath his chin.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, prying his stare away from the image to regard the trio of men standing before him. All in their late twenties, two wore leather welder’s aprons, the front stained with spots of soot and sweat.

  The third had been wearing long gloves, paint flecks dotting his upper arms, clear lines across his elbows indicating where the protective gear had ended.

  Each with hair cut short, they all weighed north of two hundred pounds, had clearly spent some time in the gym. Under the overhead lights of the office, sweat could be seen tracing the contours of their muscles, their look being the reason these three in particular had been chosen.

  To say nothing of their expendability.

  “I have a task I need the three of you to do,” Baxter said. “You are all to go downstairs to the locker room right now, get changed, and head out immediately. Don’t call your mom or girlfriend to tell them where you’re going.”

  Sliding out the top drawer beside him, he extracted a prepaid cell phone from it and tossed it across the desk.

  “As a matter of fact, don’t even take your phones. Take this. Already programmed inside are the only two numbers you’ll need.”

  At that, he paused for a moment, measuring the three men, waiting for some form of response.

  After a bit of glancing between them, the one with paint on his arms asked, “Who are the numbers for?”

  Not quite the question he was hoping to get first, but a reasonable place to begin.

  “One is mine,” Baxter replied. “The other belongs to Radney Creel.”

  At the mention of the name, a round of slight fidgeting broke out, the young men clearly familiar with Creel and his reputation.

  Which wasn’t surprising, Baxter had made a point of letting his employees know just what they would be facing if any of them ever considered trying to run afoul of him.

  “Don’t call him until you’re close,” he added. “He’ll be able to give you instructions from there.”

  “What’s the job?” the man on the right asked, a tattoo of a mermaid stretched the length of his shoulder. Done in a single color, the lines were a bit blurred, most likely something he had woken up with after a night spent with a bottle of Jack.

  Exactly the sort of person Baxter was looking for.

  “Something in need of a little muscle,” Baxter replied, leaving it at that. “Creel will give you the details when you arrive.”

  Resorting to this sort of thing wasn’t how Baxter would prefer it, but under the circumstances, there was no chance he could open things up to outsiders. Not with this target, the stakes as high as they were.

  The only person he truly trusted for such an engagement was Creel, but in the event a few extra hands were needed, he preferred to pluck them off the production floor.

  Besides, scrapes around the workplace weren’t entirely unheard of. These three he had seen throw a few punches, knowing each was more than just a pile of inflated gym physiques.

  Damn sure not Creel, or Pyle, but enough to slow Scarberry down if it came to it.

  “For your efforts, you’ll each be given an envelope with five thousand dollars cash in it.”

  Whatever trepidation they might have had evaporated, their response practically Pavlovian, each on the verge of salivating as they stood before him, ready to be on their way.

  In his line of work, money did tend to guarantee the only sense of loyalty he could trust.

  Trading glances, the three took a moment, pretending to debate whether or not to accept, before the man on the opposite side stepped forward, grabbing up the phone from the desk.

  “We’ll be on the road in twenty.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The first place suggested to talk was back at the Sheriff’s Office, a notion that Talula Davis wasn’t exactly thrilled with. Every time she walked into the place, things tended to go awry fast, someone either making a comment or giving her a look or doing something that undermined her credibility.

  Doing that in front of Tim would be something she couldn’t allow to happen, especially given that thus far, he was the closest thing to a lead she seemed to have.

  Not to mention there were still far too many questions to risk taking him anywhere near the place, the thought of Charbonneau spotting someone that everybody in the area had thought dead for years being enough to make her stomach turn.

  Though, to be fair, it also brought the slightest hint of mirth with it, thinking about the fat bastard toppling out of his chair, clutching his chest as he tried to make sense of it all.

  The almost part being because she herself still felt like she was in the exact same position.

  Tim Scarberry was someone she had first met more than twenty years ago, a scrawny kid with a bad haircut and sharp elbows that was more tenacious than skilled.

  Maybe that was why they had gotten along, in the limited interaction they’d had.

  Throughout high school, they had crossed paths a handful of times, one of her friends even going on a date or two with him, though as tended to happen in the time before cell phones and social media, distance kept it from going anywhere.

  From what she could remember, he was a nice enough kid, the sort that everybody felt really bad for when his parents passed in a most unexpected and tragic manner.

  After that, her glimpses of him had grown far less frequent, him still playing sports – and being pretty good at them, as she remembered – but becoming a self-imposed social pariah.

  Not that she could blame him. When her dad passed more recently, she had returned home, inherited the house, but it wasn’t like she was tracking down the old gang to hang out anymore.

  Once graduation hit, people went their separate ways. She remembered hearing snippets over the years, that he had gone into the military.

  Where he had eventually met his maker.

  Seated behind the wheel of her Bronco, Davis cast a couple of glances his way, remembering distinctly the day she had heard he was killed. At the time, she was still playing ball, overseas in a corner of Spain whose name she couldn’t even pronounce.

  As much as she wanted to say she had been filled with sadness, maybe even shed a tear or two, all she could recall was saying, “That’s too bad,” before going on with her day.

  Practice, or dinner, or some other such nonsense.

  A perfect microcosm of the state of things in the world, everybody so consumed with the two inches in front of their face they often missed the bigger picture.

  Once the notion of returning to the office was dismissed, they had bandied about a couple of other ideas.

  Coffee shops and restaurants were briefly considered before being cast aside, the places too public to allow for any sort of meaningful conversation. There was no way she was taking him back to her place, same for the motel on the opposite side of the lake he said he was staying in.

  Which meant the best spot for any sort of dialogue to oc
cur was inside her Bronco, both confined to a space less than five feet across.

  At least it had air conditioning.

  “You have ten minutes,” she said, wanting to set clear immediately how things were going to be run. Back at the cabin, she had allowed her surprise at seeing him, her shock at everything coming at her, to let the conversation become a two-way street.

  Right now, she needed to steer things back into her control.

  No matter the circumstances of his surprise arrival, of their past interaction, the fact was he was virtually a ghost, one that had shown up at her crime scene and entered uninvited.

  The details surrounding his story were the only thing that had kept her from bringing him in immediately, but that was a precious little latitude that would disappear fast if things didn’t start making sense.

  “To what?” Tim replied.

  “Put it together,” Davis replied. “Why you’re here, what is going on, how the hell you’re alive?”

  The first response was a sigh, the sort of gesture that was loaded with meaning, giving her the distinct impression of something she didn’t want to hear.

  “And remember, I can and by all means should hold you for cutting the tape back there, so don’t even try to lie to me.”

  In her periphery, she could see him flash a look her way, one eyebrow cocked, before turning back to face forward.

  Driving to nowhere in particular, Davis wound her way around the lake, keeping the water just out of sight to her left, letting the serpentine path of the shore guide them.

  Overhead, the morning sun was climbing higher into the sky, another hot day just starting, waves of heat rising from the asphalt before them.

  “I was in the army,” Tim began, “but obviously I didn’t die.”

  Once more, he paused, casting her another glance. “But more than once I wished I had.”

  Not sure what he was saying, where this might be going, Davis steeled herself, already thinking through how she would react if this was to get ugly, if he were about to confess to suffering from mental illness, to having done those horrible things to his uncle. Sweat appeared on her brow as she slowed the Bronco, reaching down and tapping at the heel of her weapon.