Savage Rising

by C. Hoyt Caldwell

  Her expression turned serious.

  “You’ve got a hint of a Cajun accent. Most people wouldn’t notice.” He started for his car. “But I’m not most people.”

  She called out to him, and he turned to her. “I’m looking forward to finding out more about you, Jack Spivey.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, turning back to his car.

  “Oh yeah, why’s that?”

  “Because knowing too much about me never works out well for folks.”

  Chapter 29

  Hospitals reminded her of moments from her life that she had no interest in remembering. Dani breathed in the smell of the sterilized air and pictured herself lying in a hospital bed. Her face swollen and bruised. Tubes in her nose. Her left earlobe stitched back into place. Ribs, collarbone, and hand broken. The stench of the man who’d put her there still stuffed deep inside her nasal cavity. All of them surface wounds, compared to the crushing anguish from her best friend being dead. Dani had witnessed her agonizing demise, and in some ways had even had a hand in causing it.

  These memories shuffled randomly in her head as she sat in Laura’s hospital room listening to the various machines beep and groan and click. The other mommas sat huddled around Sarah. The girl hadn’t spoken a word or raised the remotest expression on her face since the shooting. She stared blankly and intently at the comatose Laura, so focused that she was lost.

  Otis sat bedside with Laura’s hand in his. His head was down and his eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep. He was just trying to shut out the world around him.

  They were all zombies sitting around an unconscious woman, afraid to speak, afraid to hope, afraid of their own thoughts.

  A ruckus from outside the room momentarily shifted their attention away from Laura. It was a loud noise, followed by an angry woman shouting, “You can’t go down there! She has too many visitors as it is!”

  Dani stood quickly and pulled her sidearm. The mommas formed a shield around Sarah. Otis placed himself between the door and Laura.

  “Stop!” a man shouted right outside the room.

  Dani gestured with her hand for everyone to stay still while she moved to the door.

  “This is a restricted—”

  “Son, you best get the fuck out of our way,” a familiar voice said.

  “Now, hold on,” another familiar voice added. “Let’s all take a breath and behave dignified. There’s a lot of sick folks within earshot that got enough to worry themselves about.”

  Dani sighed in relief and put her weapon back into its holster before opening the door. She saw Kenny gently pulling Step away from a gigantic orderly.

  “Dani!” Kenny said excitedly.

  She grinned and immediately felt guilty for showing even the smallest bit of happiness. “It’s okay. They’re family.”

  The orderly shook his head. “How many folks you got in your family?”

  “Clear out of the way,” Step demanded.

  “You got a real attitude problem,” the orderly responded.

  “You’re gonna have a foot-up-your-ass problem if you don’t move the fuck out of the way,” Step said with a growl.

  The orderly relented, but not without a long, disdainful look in Step’s direction first.

  Kenny wrapped Dani in a hug before heading into the room.

  Step eyed her and simply said, “Deputy,” before he followed.

  Dani turned to see Sarah break away from the mommas and leap up into Kenny’s arms.

  “You got springs in your feet, little bit?” Kenny asked.

  She hopped from Kenny to Step with ease.

  Step dropped his cool demeanor and returned Sarah’s embrace. “You’re growing up on me, girl. You need to slow that shit down.”

  “Are you here to get the men?” Sarah asked. “The ones that hurt Momma Laura?”

  Everyone besides Kenny and Step was floored to hear Sarah talk.

  Dani lurched forward before Kenny or Step could respond. “Did you see them, Sarah?”

  Sarah didn’t reply.

  “What did they look like?”

  Sarah turned away.

  “Sarah! Goddamn it! Answer me! What did they look like?”

  Sarah buried her head in Step’s shoulder.

  Momma Elizabeth tried to intervene. “Let’s go get some air, sweetie…”

  “Leave her be, Elizabeth,” Dani snapped. “Sarah, look at me…”

  “Dani…” Kenny started.

  “Stay out of this, Kenny! Sarah Campbell, look at me, you little shit! Look at me!”

  Step held Sarah tighter as he felt her trembling in his arms. He felt his blood boil, but he uncharacteristically held his anger in check. “Ima get ’em, sweetie.” He turned a dead-eyed stare in Dani’s direction. “Ima get ’em.”

  “Sarah…” Dani started, but stopped when Otis barked out her name.

  “You leave little bit alone, Deputy.”

  The rebuke was the most meaningful thing he had said to her since the shooting. It cut deep, but it felt good at the same time.

  Kenny saw the hurt on Dani’s face and decided to step in. “Let’s all go to the cafeteria and get us some ice cream. I’m buying.”

  Otis stood stoically. Where once he’d been unable to look Dani in the eyes, he now couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He wanted her to see his anger. “Take the mommas and little bit. Dani and me need to talk.”

  Sarah had to be coaxed to leave Laura’s side. She was terrified someone would take the unconscious woman away while she was filling her belly with ice cream. It took a piggyback ride from Kenny to tear her away, and even then she kept her eyes on Laura until the door shut behind them.

  Step didn’t move. “I’m staying,” he announced simply. Neither Otis nor Dani tried to convince him otherwise.

  Otis, still standing, grabbed Laura’s hand. “I’m done.”

  “Done?” Dani asked, sounding petrified. She was sure he meant he was done with her.

  “I ain’t sheriff no more.”

  Dani and Step shared a look.

  “Yes, you are,” Dani said. “You got time left on your term…”

  “Time is exactly what I ain’t got!” Otis squeezed Laura’s hand a little tighter. “You’ll serve as interim sheriff until the county council can put together a special election.”

  “No,” Dani said. “I won’t. You’re taking some personal time is all. That’s as far as it goes. When Laura gets better, you’ll come back…”

  “I’ve already called the administrator’s office…”

  “Well, I’ll call them and tell them it was a mistake…”

  “You’ll do no such thing. I’m done, Dani. Done, done, done…”

  Step whistled and clapped to stop the escalating conversation. “Both of you just shut the fuck up!”

  Otis and Dani stopped mid-fume and directed their ire-filled glares at Step.

  “Otis, quit. Don’t quit. I don’t give a shit. You just don’t do it fucking now. Don’t nobody need you to throw yourself a goddamn pity party, especially Laura.”

  Dani hid a smile.

  “And, Dani,” Step barked. “Hold your fucking shit together, Deputy. Snapping off at little bit and demanding shit from everyone ain’t doing no one no good at all.”

  Now she hid a grimace.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get down to the ‘who done it’ of this fucking situation.”

  Otis seemed to relax just the slightest. Step’s profanity-laden sanity was unexpectedly soothing.

  Dani found it less comforting.

  “The grapevine’s been throwing all sorts of suspects out there. Deputy, did you really do something as fucking stupid as pay Vinton Pike a visit in Titus Grove?”

  She swallowed the regret and nodded tersely.

  Otis looked at her with his mouth agape. “What did you do?”

  “I was following a lead,” she said, sounding more defensive than she intended.

  “A lead?” Otis released L
aura’s hand out of fear he would unwittingly crush it in a fit of anger. “What lead? What case? There ain’t nothing…” He groaned as his mind latched on to a memory. “Tell me this ain’t about the ATF ID.”

  “It ain’t,” she responded with a screech, and then she corrected herself out of a sense of honesty. “Not altogether, it ain’t.”

  Otis’s cheeks turned blood red.

  “I found out Parnell Carson’s daddy was a Pike.”

  Through a clenched jaw, Otis said, “There ain’t nothing to investigate in the Parnell Carson case. It was an accidental death. You notify the next of kin and move on. I happen to know you already notified his mother…”

  “But he’s a Pike, Otis. He had an ATF ID in his possession. That’s two facts that lead to a whole lot of wrong…”

  “He was fucking a horse! He got kicked in the head! He died! Case closed!”

  “I’m supposed to ignore evidence…”

  “I told you to drop it!”

  “I’m a cop! I follow leads! That’s my job!”

  Otis gestured in Laura’s direction. “Well, look where you led us!”

  Dani felt her heart twist into knots. “I…I was just…I didn’t…” She turned and ran out of the room.

  Otis balled his hands into fists and roared at the top of his lungs.

  Step let the sound of the tortured yell die down and then said, “You know what I think?”

  “I ain’t in the mood to know what you think.”

  “Tough shit. I think the deputy that just ran out of this room is more cop than you ever wanted to be. I hate fucking cops, and even I know she was just doing her job.” He made his way to the door and then stopped to say, “Ain’t no need for you to quit, Otis, because you quit a long time ago.” With that he exited the room.

  Chapter 30

  Dani should have seen the man sitting in the dark. She was a cop for Christ’s sake. The fact that she entered the house without turning on the lights was about as stupid as you could get. Laura had been gunned down, and the only suspects they had all had a vendetta against the sheriff’s department. Dani might as well have worn a target on her chest and yelled, “Go ahead! Take your best shot!”

  When she finally did click on the floor lamp in the living room, she howled out a scream and jumped back.

  “This place is entirely too easy to break into,” Spivey said.

  Taking a minute to catch her wits, Dani grappled her way from abject fear to a near uncontrollable rage. “What the fuck’re you doing in my house?”

  “Waiting. For you.”

  “Then wait in your car or call a person to set up a meeting! You don’t wait in a person’s house, uninvited, in the dark!”

  “You got a lot of rules about visitors.”

  “Rules? Rules?” Dani was made even angrier by his cavalier attitude.

  Spivey smiled. “Relax. I was merely testing your level of security, which, by the way, I’ve rated somewhere between shitty and suck-ass. What is wrong with you? You’re a cop. This place should be as hard to break into as Fort Knox, and that’s before your station got shot up.”

  “I suppose it’d be useless for me to ask you to leave.”

  “I’ve got information on your shooters.”

  She shifted her chin to the right and cast a curious scowl. “Information?”

  He invited her to sit.

  She thought about telling him to fuck off for telling her what to do in her own house, but she decided against it and did as he suggested.

  “This is what happened. It was a truck. Pickup. You’re looking at six suspects.”

  “Six?”

  “A driver, a spotter, and four shooters.”

  She sat back and absorbed the information.

  “This was planned, rehearsed, and executed to perfection.”

  “Where’d you get this information?”

  He pointed to his eyes. “Observation. Experience. Intuition.”

  She considered his answer and then stood. “I need a drink. You?”

  “That sounded almost cordial.”

  She moved past him and headed for the kitchen. “Do you want the fucking drink or not?”

  He grinned. “There’s the Deputy Savage I know. If you’re pouring, I’m drinking.” He watched her disappear into the kitchen and listened as she rummaged for the liquor and glasses. When she reentered the living room, her hair was down, her gun belt was missing, and she carried a bottle of scotch in one hand and two glasses in the other.

  “Store bought?” Spivey said, sounding surprised. “I figured you for a home-brew gal.”

  She poured a small amount of scotch into both glasses. “First, don’t call me gal. It’s almost as offensive as Vinton Pike’s ‘slit’ garbage.”

  “Noted,” Spivey said, scooping up his glass.

  Dani took a sip from hers before continuing. “Second, I’ve got home brew, but that’s reserved for folks that don’t break into my house.”

  “Good to know,” he said, downing his scotch in one gulp. Pouring himself a new drink, he asked, “You got any highly trained killers you’ve pissed off lately?”

  Not wanting to be outdone, she downed her whiskey and refilled her glass. “Highly trained, poorly trained, untrained, lot of folks wanna kill me, Otis, and everyone with a badge in these parts.”

  His glass empty again, Spivey refilled it. “That narrows it down.”

  Catching up, she poured herself a new glass. “You wanna tell me why you’re so interested in our business? I mean really tell me. Not the bullshit that usually comes out of your mouth.”

  “You know the difference between the truth and bullshit?”

  She snickered as the effects of downing scotch after scotch were getting to her. “My daddy is a Southern preacher. I was raised on bullshit. I can spot it a mile away.”

  He quickly pieced together her reaction to Gus the partway preacher and recognized his error in bringing him along to their first meeting. Dani was a hard read that didn’t match his preconceived notions of a good Southern girl. He was almost afraid to think it but he was starting to like her. “The truth is,” Spivey said, “I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as you finding an ATF ID followed by your station getting shot up. There’s a least likely and most likely scenario in play, and the least likely one is that they aren’t connected.”

  “That your professional opinion?”

  He downed yet another glass of scotch. “It is.”

  “And you’re still holding to your story that you’re just corporate security?” Her drink was gone before he could answer.

  “I never said I was ‘just’ corporate security.”

  She wore a sloppy grin. “Well, I guess that’s about as honest as you get.”

  His grin, slightly less sloppy, made an appearance. “Ask me anything you want, Deputy. I will tell you the truth.”

  She thought for a moment before asking, “You really from Maiden Falls?”

  He nodded. “I am. Born. Bred. Escaped.”

  She went to pour herself another drink but missed the glass. A laugh escaped her lips as she labored to correct her pour.

  “What about you? You been in Baptist Flats your whole life?”

  She carefully placed the bottle on the coffee table and answered, “All but for a stint in a Jesus boarding school.”

  “A stint?”

  “Fucked my way out of there,” she said before covering her mouth, surprising even herself by what she had said.

  Spivey chuckled. “You’re drunk, Seputy Davage.”

  She chortled at his intentional butchering of her name. “And you ain’t?”

  “I’m feeling all right.” He hesitated before saying, “My formative years were spent slightly west of Maiden Falls, if you wanna know the truth.” He felt an alcohol-infused compulsion to tell her something he rarely spoke about.

  “Yeah, why’s that, Mr. Jack Spivey?”

  “Killed a man a
nd spent time in juvie.”

  She stopped mid-drink and cocked an eyebrow over the horizon of her glass. “Say again?”

  “My old man. Killed him. He beat my mother to death and then passed out on the bed. I placed a pillow over his face. Dead. Juvie.”

  She moved the glass away from her face. He wasn’t lying.

  Spivey stood and eased his way through a head rush. “I’ll be going now. You need to secure this place. Might even be good to take that ward of yours and leave town for a while.”

  He made it to the door before he snapped his fingers and turned back to her.

  “You got a tail. Black woman. Nola.”

  “I know,” Dani said, still stunned by the revelation that Spivey had killed his father. “We’ve had a couple of run-ins.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  He nodded and exited the house.

  Chapter 31

  “I don’t trust him,” Nola said as she followed Dani from the deputy’s cruiser to the front door of the station.

  Dani was nursing a hangover and flinched at the rapid pace at which Nola spoke. Each word thumped a nerve. The sizzling yellow sun didn’t help matters, either. Even with sunglasses, she felt the need to use her hand as a shield against the blazing orb overhead. Dani unlocked the door and quickly entered the air-conditioned building, purposely neglecting to turn on the lights.

  Nola did it for her as she followed the deputy into the building. “I’m telling you something is off about that…that Spivey.”

  Dani circled back around her and switched the lights off. “You wanna tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “I did some…I’ve got a theory on the shooting…Sorry about your receptionist, by the way…”

  Dani headed toward the break room to make a lifesaving pot of coffee. “Laura wasn’t a receptionist…not just, anyway.”

  “Right…I didn’t mean…”

  “How many suspects?” Dani asked, cutting Nola off.

  Nola was caught off guard by her question. “Excuse me?”

  “You said you have a theory about the shooting. How many suspects?”

  Nola shrugged. “Hard to say. You got the shooters and the driver.”

  Dani was almost disappointed Nola wasn’t as confident in her assessment of the shooting as Spivey.