War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Coven (War-N-Wit, Inc. - Book 3)

by Roughton, Gail

  “You got any more of those?” I demanded.

  “More of what?”

  “Accents.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like whatever I need at the time and place I need it. Cajun. Hillbilly. The Bronx. Brooklyn. Texas. The Dakotas.” His accent kept changing. “Now can we finish eating? It’s not a big deal, I just said I’d keep my eyes open while we were there.”

  “Sure,” I said. No point in beating the subject to death. Or letting him know I knew damn well he’d be doing a lot more than keeping an eye open. Members of law enforcement, no matter the branch, were a brotherhood. Bikers were a brotherhood. And that cut both ways. Because what would happen to an undercover agent who’d infiltrated an outlaw gang, taken their oaths, eaten with them, ridden with them, sworn brotherhood with them—and then betrayed them—I didn’t even want to think about. Chad knew that a hell of a lot better than I did. This missing operative was a brother in all categories. A biker. A biker agent who’d infiltrated an outlaw gang. No, this Bike Week wasn’t a social event anymore. Not for Chad Garrett. And I knew it.

  Chapter Four

  Stacey beeped her car horn at precisely ten a.m. the next morning. Amazing. Neither she nor I were noted for timely appearances. Thor tore out the door in front of me and Micah assumed his perch position on the porch railings, though where he’d come from, I had no idea. I’d tried to turn him into a house cat with no luck, but wherever he stayed, he never missed a visitor.

  She bounced out of the driver’s door, already road-ready in black leather pants and black leather jacket, and ran toward me. With her glorious swirl of reddish blonde hair and bright blue eyes, she looked fabulous.

  “Sister hugs!” she shouted.

  “Sister hugs!” I shouted back. We met in the middle and did the sister thing. Chad and Spike came out of the side garage where they’d been fine-tuning the bikes. Stacy and Spike didn’t just see each. They saw each other. A faint surge of delicate pink like the shading on a blush rose filled the air between them. Umm. Something new, I’d never seen anything quite like it. I made the introductions.

  “Spike, Stacy. Otherwise known as Antsypants. Stacy, Spike. Also known as Dr. Forrester, but I don’t have a clue as to any other name.” And I didn’t. It’d never occurred to me before but I didn’t know Spike’s real name.

  “Spike works just fine,” he assured me. “Even the kids call me Dr. Spike. Hi, Stacy, nice to meet you.”

  “You, too.”

  There was that surge again. That faint path of pink in the air between them. This time a darker pink. Definitely.

  “How’d they get Antsypants out of Stacy?”

  “It’s not from Stacy. It’s from my whole name. Anastasia. Anastasia and Ariel. Our folks swear they didn’t smoke a lot of pot in college but what with our names, we’ve never believed ‘em. How’d you get Spike?”

  “Long story.”

  “You don’t have a hug for your favorite brother-in-law?” Chad asked. “And where’s your bag? You pack like we told you?”

  “You know I do!” Stacy delivered the hug. “And I packed what you told me. Don’t know about the how you told me.”

  I’d be real surprised if she had. It was something that had to be seen, not explained, manipulating clothes into the tight rolls that fit a bike’s saddlebags.

  “Well, let’s go fine-tune,” Chad said, grabbing her bag out of the backseat of her car.

  Stacy’s brows raised.

  “Chad! Give me the bag and let me go pack the saddlebag!”

  “Not meaning to be insulting here, babe, but you just watched me do it one time.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, deftly transferring the case from his hand to mine. I’d already stashed Stacy’s saddlebag in our bedroom. “But women got this thing. We just don’t like men handlin’ our underwear. Unless we want ‘em to. I can do it good enough.”

  Stacy laughed. “Oh, my God! You’ve really come out of your shell, haven’t you?” I’d always been the reserved one. Borderline prim and prissy on occasion. Stacy’d always been the spontaneous one. Until Chad.

  Stacy and I excused ourselves from masculine eyes, adjourned to my bedroom and I rolled her clothes, including undies, into some semblance of the neat, tight rolls packed in my own saddlebag. It was close enough for horseshoes anyway. Everything fit.

  Ten minutes later we were on the road, leaving Buddy in charge of Thor and the rest of the menagerie. I made a special point of checking Micah’s whereabouts. Sure enough, he held vigil on the porch railings. The question was—would he stay there? Or even at Pine Whisper. Sometimes Micah showed up in the damnest places. I glanced over at the Dark Angel. Stacy rode with her arms around Spike’s waist, foregoing the sissy bar on the back of the seat. Stacy’d never met a stranger in her life, and while she wasn’t as relaxed as she’d be a hundred miles down the road, she clearly didn’t feel self-conscious. Considering their proximity to each other on the back of that bike, I wasn’t surprised to see the path of pink surrounded them like a halo. Getting darker every minute.

  I shook my head, deliberately clearing it of the spider-webs of alarm that always shrouded me when I climbed aboard the Intimidator. I tightened my arms around Chad’s waist, threw my head back, and let the road and wind take me.

  * * *

  A faint wail sounded behind us right before the county line, growing steadily louder. I glanced over at the rear view mirror, expecting the Sheriff’s Department’s Crown Victoria to whip on around us and pass. Instead, the lights flashed the unmistakable signal to pull over. Spike and Chad maneuvered up to the entrance to a handy farm road and cut both bikes’ engines, standing straight-legged to hold them up.

  The Crown Vic’s door slammed. Chad turned his head to watch the deputy’s approach.

  “Hey, Dave!” Chad knew all the deputies, no surprise there. I’d met a few of the county deputies but I hadn’t met this one yet. “What’s shaking?”

  “Right now, Chad, you are.”

  “How so?”

  “Well,” Deputy Dave scratched his head. “It’s like this. You’re under arrest.”

  “Say what?”

  “I know, I know, and I’m sorry as hell, and if you say I said that I’ll call you a liar, but I got a warrant from Magistrate Court to arrest you and instructions not to fart around about it. Buddy said y’all had just left for Daytona and I’da been up the creek without a paddle if I hadn’t caught up to you.”

  “Arrest me for what?”

  “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up—”

  “Dave! I know the damned Miranda Rights as good as you do!”

  “—the right to remain silent anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of law you have the right to have an attorney—”

  “Dave!”

  “—if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you now do you understand these rights?” He finished in a mad rush. “Chad, I’m sorry, you know you gotta let me say it!”

  “I know this is a bunch of bullshit and so do you. Question is, you gonna tell me what type of bullshit it is or let me get sucker-punched? Any more sucker-punched than I am right now, that is? I didn’t leave your ass hanging in the wind last year when you were getting jumped by those four thugs at the Texaco when I pulled in to gas up!”

  Deputy Dave took a deep breath. “I know, I know. And yeah, I know I’da been in the hospital instead of the ER if you hadn’t pulled in when you did. I know that, okay? But you didn’t hear this from me. Right?”

  “Dave, you’re deaf and mute. Okay?”

  “Richard Quisenberry. Trespassing and harassment.”

  “Quisenberry? Why that—”

  “Quisenberry’s that serve you did Tuesday. The federal complaint.” I’d typed it up and put it in the system. Disguised in pretty language, it alleged the local stock broker was engaged in fraudulent activity. In legal shorthand, he was in violation of the RICO Act. In l
ayman’s terms, racketeering. “Anything unusual happen you didn’t tell me about?” I hadn’t gone with him on that serve. It’d come in suddenly and I’d been in the middle of baking. Not a good idea to leave pound cakes unattended in the oven.

  “Not a damn thing. I got to his office, door was open, nobody up front. I shouted out, no answer. But somebody was there, I knew that. Just not anybody willing to show. So I drove to his house, knocked on the door. Wife answered, said he wasn’t home, he’d be there about six. I parked across the street from his house, waited for him, served him. That’s it.”

  “You didn’t have any reason to do any of that ‘cause it was an illegal serve ‘cause you didn’t have an Order to serve him in the first place,” Dave said. “Chad, what were you thinkin’? And because you didn’t have an Order to serve him, you had no business being in his office after hours, ‘specially since he says you walked in while he was in the Men’s Room, stompin’ and stormin’ around opening doors and hollerin’ for him to come out if he knew what was good for him.”

  “I what?”

  “And after that, you terrorized his wife and scared her to death when you parked across the street. Like you were stakin’ the house out and stalkin’ her, don’t you know? The Judge and the Sheriff were eatin’ it up with a spoon, Chad, you know they jump on a chance to take you down a peg, way you’re always showin’ em up!”

  “That is the biggest bunch of bullshit—”

  “And now you know everything I know and I am so fired if anybody finds that out!” Dave finished. “Chad, why the hell would you try to serve him without an Order of Service? You know how they are about that in this Circuit! I shouldn’t have to tell you!”

  “Dave. It was a Federal complaint!”

  “So?”

  “So you’re a deputy! A law enforcement professional! Don’t you know the difference?”

  I jumped in before Chad could hurt Dave’s feelings. He hadn’t had to tell us all this, and the more we knew and the earlier we knew it, the better.

  “You don’t need an Order of Service to serve a Federal complaint, Dave. Anybody over eighteen can do it. I could’ve done it. You couldn’t do it, I guess, not officially, seein’ as how you’re State. But that’s the difference, Federal doesn’t need an Order. So this whole thing is based on the Magistrate Judge gettin’ pissy about there not being an Order of service?”

  “You sure about that?” Dave asked, like I’d spouted heresy.

  Lots of counties in Georgia gave private process servers permanent Orders of Appointment and Chad had them. Everywhere they were offered. But the Southern Judicial Circuit was one of the few circuits where permanent appointments weren’t available, and either the attorney or the process server himself did have to run a Judge to ground and get an Order signed allowing him to serve a paper. It was part of the good ol’ boy system that wasn’t going to change. It gave the Courts and the Sheriff’s Departments a little extra clout. In the State Court system, that is. It didn’t give them shit when it came to Federal procedure. And the Federal boys weren’t going to be happy a Magistrate Judge thought it did.

  “Yes, Dave. She’s sure. I’m sure. You ought to be sure.”

  “So,” Stacy said. “First things first. This is a town big-wig, I’m thinkin’?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And you served him and he didn’t like it. In a nutshell.”

  “Tight nutshell,” Spike said.

  “But he’s a really big big-wig or he couldn’t have gotten this warrant issued on this.”

  “Right. Big checkbook when it comes to the local elections.”

  “Bottom-line,” I said, “the basis of all this is the no Order of service thing. Because you were certainly authorized to go inside his public, unlocked business and wait for him at his house since you were trying to serve process. Though it’s stupid to try and charge trespass at the office anyway. Because it’s a business open to the public. Even after hours, if the door wasn’t locked, of course it’s reasonable to go in. I mean, hell, technically, even vampires don’t need to be invited into a business. The public’s invited.”

  “Ma’am?” Dave’s eyes widened.

  “I’m just sayin’ how ridiculous this is, Dave, I don’t mean it literally.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t look convinced. I wondered if Chad’s local reputation was more colorful than we’d supposed.

  “Now, the house—”

  “The house is even more ridiculous,” said Stacy. “Where else are you goin’ to try serve somebody first, other than their business or house?”

  “But it still all boils down to a pissin’ contest about the Order of Service thing.” I said.

  “Which I don’t get. Any lawyer, let alone any Judge, knows Federal Complaints don’t need—ah! Magistrate Court. How silly of me.”

  “Why?” Spike asked.

  “Because in lots of rural counties like this, most Magistrate Judges aren’t lawyers, just elected officials,” explained Stacy. “Here, I’m assuming?”

  “Oh, yeah” I confirmed. “That good ol’ boy system. And throw Judge in front of a grocer’s name, he automatically thinks he graduated from Harvard and sits on the Supreme Court. When their three-week crash course after election mostly just teaches ‘em enough to be dangerous. Though come to think of it, down here I think the Mag Judge was an insurance salesman.”

  “But I still got a warrant and I got to take Chad in,” said Dave.

  “Well,” I said, “there’s that, yeah.”

  “So Chad, can you please just get in the squad car—”

  “Hell, no, I’m not getting in the squad car! We’re on cycles, didn’t you notice? Neither my wife nor my sister-in-law can operate a motorcycle and if you think I’m leaving the Intimidator—or my wife—by the side of the road, you’re crazy! We’ll follow you in. Ariel, you got a plan?”

  “Damn straight I do. That complaint was out of the Middle District.”

  Stacy laughed. “Thank God for small mercies!”

  “Sorry, I don’t quite get why that’s so good,” said Spike.

  “I do. The girls are paralegal eagles, remember? They know people. And the Middle District’s their home stomping ground.”

  * * *

  Back at the station, they hauled Chad off to the proverbial “back room”. They didn’t invite me. No surprise there.

  “Y’all can wait out in the waitin’ area, honey,” the secretary offered.

  “Thanks, but we’ll be outside. Call us when we can talk to him, please?”

  “Will do.”

  I had calls to make and people to talk to and I didn’t have any intention of doing it in the waiting area.

  We trooped out and stood in the parking lot by the bikes. I looked at Stacy and raised my eyebrow.

  “Pete Donavan,” she said, without hesitation. “If he’s not there, try for Rick Ingles.”

  “Not Troy Shannahan?”

  “Not an ADA anymore. Left and went into private practice two weeks ago.”

  Spike looked awestruck. And the private pink highway between them darkened a bit more.

  “Damn, you two know your stuff, don’t you? What’s an ADA?”

  “Federal Assistant District Attorney,” Stacy explained.

  “With the added advantage that all three of ‘em left our old firm to go Federal,” I added. “So they know us.”

  We lucked out. Pete Donavan was in. And when I explained the situation, he wasn’t happy about it.

  “Damn small town hicks think they freakin’ write the law! Okay, get me the Magistrate Judge’s name—never mind, that was stupid, I’ll look it up. Give me five minutes—”

  “Not that quick, Pete, the deputy wasn’t supposed to tell us all this, I have to wait till I’m supposed to know—” My phone signaled an incoming. Chad. “Hold on for me, Chad’s calling. Must be his one phone call.”

  I clicked over.

  “My one phone call. Trespass and harassment based on illegal se
rve on Quisenberry,” he confirmed. “Go get ‘em.”

  “Will do,” I confirmed, and clicked back over to Pete. “Okay, now I officially know. I just hope the Judge is in. It’s Friday afternoon.”

  “Well, if he isn’t, the Sheriff has to be,” Pete said. “And after I read him the riot act, I’ll throw in some hints that incidents like this are the stuff civil complaints for false arrest are made from, too, if you want to throw that around yourself. Stand by for fireworks.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later a 90’s model pink Cadillac careened into the parking lot. It came to a screeching halt and parked at the wrong angle in a diagonal parking space marked “Reserved for Staff”.

  A short, pudgy man with a very red face and thinning hair threw the door open and stormed inside.

  “Whatcha’ bet that’s the Mag Judge?” Stacy laughed.

  “Pink Cadillac?” Spike looked slightly nauseous.

  “I’ve never met him but Chad did tell me his wife was a real Mary Kay success story. Let’s mosey on in, why don’t we? Maybe throw in the names of the attorneys we’re considering for the false arrest complaint.”

  Chad was walking out the door by the time we got back in, the short, pudgy red-faced man at his side.

  “Now, Chad, I’m real sorry ‘bout this misunderstandin’, don’t quite know how it happened. You’re a professional, you know mistakes happen—”

  I walked up to Chad and hooked my arm through his.

  “So! Everything straightened out? Judge Ogles, I take it. Never met you, sir. Ariel Garrett.”

  He almost tripped over his feet in his haste to take my offered hand.

  “Delighted, Miz Garrett, delighted to meet you. And sorry for the inconvenience, like I was tellin’ Chad, just don’t understand how the mix-up happened. Sure hope there’s no hard feelin’s, we’re all in the same business, just want to keep the legal system movin’, you know.”