Bench Trial in the Backwoods

by Maggie Wells

  Her former chief was Bronson’s polar opposite. Waterson appreciated her doggedness, but also allowed her to run with her gut instincts. When she’d made the connection between some of the jailhouse ramblings of deceased Atlanta drug kingpin Ivan Jones and indications that heroin was moving through the rural parts of the state using the loose network of locals, she’d started poking around to see if she could locate the source of distribution. And there he was: Samuel “Cottonmouth” Coulter. Eccentric millionaire, friend to some of South Florida’s most elusive importers, exotic snake collector and general bad guy.

  She’d led the charge down into Masters County. She’d collected the evidence against him, following every single breadcrumb Coulter had dropped since he moved from Miami to Jacksonville and then finally into Georgia. She was the one who made this happen. She didn’t need some jackass coming in at the eleventh hour telling her she couldn’t do her part to keep the prosecutorial team safe.

  “Understood,” she said, keeping her response to a minimum so she wouldn’t risk mouthing off. “But, Chief, I’m still connected in the area. I have contacts who will set me up. I can keep a low profile, mostly undercover. I want to do whatever I can to help the local authorities apprehend these troublemakers before things can get too serious.”

  “Don’t they have law enforcement there?” He raised his eyebrows in challenge. “I thought I heard your old friend Ben Kinsella had landed down there? He’s county sheriff now, isn’t he?”

  Alicia heard the derision in the man’s tone but refused to be baited. “Yes, Ben is about to be elected to a full term and seems happy in Pine Bluff,” she replied, as if responding to a polite inquiry.

  “Well, then, I’m sure someone as...capable as your friend Ben can keep a lid on things.”

  Unwilling to be dismissed so easily, she pressed on. “I looked into a few of the groups operating in the area and some have crossed paths with us on previous occasions. If the brass need justification beyond keeping the people working Coulter’s case safe, we can tell them I’m looking into deeper connections between some of the militia groups in the distribution network.”

  “We are already looking at them.” It was a lie, but she couldn’t call him on it. He was her superior, and if he said it was under control, she was supposed to accept his word at face value. Bronson tapped the top of his desk, then nodded to the door. “Don’t you worry about it. All you need to do is be prepared to testify when the time comes. Otherwise, I need you here. You’re the best I have when it comes to finding those tiny needles in the haystacks.”

  Alicia shot up out of her chair and made a beeline for the ladies’ room. It had been all she could do to keep her breakfast down through her chat with her boss.

  She didn’t dare take more than five minutes to rinse her mouth, wash her hands and shake a few mints out of the container she’d started carrying in her pocket. It was ridiculous, but being the only female in her section made her self-conscious about anything the men she worked with might consider feminine. She needed to figure out a way to get back to Masters County. Preferably in some sort of official capacity so she didn’t have to worry about burning up leave she could be banking for the weeks after the baby was born. But she wasn’t going to get anything done by hiding out in the ladies’ room.

  Winding her way through the warren of low-walled cubicles, she turned a corner to find Alan Campbell hovering nearby. She eyed the other agent warily as she approached. Campbell had transferred from another division and wasn’t as entrenched in the desire to outpace her as some of the men she’d come up with seemed to be. Still, they weren’t exactly friends. It had taken only a few weeks under Bronson’s command to make it clear she was the agent on the outside looking in at the good old boys’ club. She wasn’t entirely certain where Campbell fell on the scale of tolerable to insufferable.

  Slowing her steps, she forced a small smile because heaven forbid she come off as unfriendly or uncooperative. “Hey, Campbell,” she greeted him. “Something you needed?”

  The other agent nodded. “The chief said I might want to send you some files to listen to.”

  Alicia clenched her teeth in her effort to keep her smile in place. This was the kind of garbage detail she’d been getting lately. Of course, whenever anyone pressed Bronson about why his most decorated agent was spending her time culling through hours of grainy footage or muffled voice recordings, he simply beamed and told anyone listening she was the absolute best when it came down to fine detail work, and he was only making sure he put his ace on the job.

  For his part, Campbell seemed completely oblivious to her agitation. “There’s something there. I can feel it. There’s something I’m hearing, but not quite getting.”

  He ran a frustrated hand through already rumpled hair, and she lowered the flame under her indignation. The appeal in his eyes made it clear he actually had come to her in hopes she might be able to ping on exactly what it was he was missing. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she moved past him to her desk and dropped into her chair.

  “Oh yeah? What have you got?”

  “We’ve got a guy who’s been in with some of the local low-level operatives.” The section chief’s preferred term for gang members who worked the trade on the streets. “A couple of them were members in the southeast crew we thought were scattered to the winds a couple years ago.”

  Alicia sat up straighter, fighting to keep her mask of casual indifference firmly in place. She was excited by a connection he might have to the mostly disbanded gang, but refused to let it show. For years, the Southeast Atlanta gang had been ruled by a man named Ivan Jones. Ivan liked to think he was the drug kingpin of the southeastern United States, though there were many in the underworld who would argue the title shouldn’t apply to anyone who moved low-grade inventory like methamphetamine.

  Still, Ivan and his network had been a big deal to the DEA. So big, Ben Kinsella, former DEA agent and current Masters County sheriff, had once been deeply embedded in the man’s organization. But Ben’s mission to take Jones down barely qualified as a success. Sure, they’d locked the guy up in the end, but a number of people were killed, and Ben’s cover had been blown wide open. Poor Ben had watched his best friend die during the raid to take Jones down. He’d also ended up with a bounty on his head, making him expendable to the agency.

  “What makes you think they could be connected to the Southeast gang?” she asked Campbell.

  “They said so,” he said with a shrug.

  “Then what do you need me for?”

  “I think whatever they have going is connected to something bigger.”

  Intrigued, she gestured to the single guest chair she kept nearby. “Connected in what way?”

  “They said something about Ivan’s lawyer and some land downstate.” He shrugged again. “They were talking about how the guy had died and left everything all, uh, screwed up, but then someone stepped in.”

  “Someone stepped in where?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m not exactly sure. And I may only be drawing all these lines in my head, but I was wondering... What was the name of the town where you arrested Samuel Coulter?”

  Chapter Six

  Dusty’s Barbecue was a Masters County mainstay. Nestled in a notch cut out of timber-company woods, the shack near the highway overpass had served some of the best smoked meats in South Georgia for over thirty years. It was also the only place in the county with a liquor license allowing for on-premises consumption. After having his place busted up a couple of times in the early days, Dusty decided to limit his alcoholic offerings to long-necked bottles of beer and a couple of cheap wines no one ever ordered, but his wife seemed to like.

  Since dining options in the area were severely limited and the barbecue joint was the only public place a body could walk in and order a cold beer, most everyone visited Dusty’s at some time or another. Harry made his way ther
e on the night after Alicia Simmons dropped her bomb on his life.

  Behind the bar, Dusty’s daughter Selena pulled a bottle from the ice bath and uncapped it with a quick flick of her wrist. When he was a boy, Harry had thought she was incredibly strong. Now he knew she kept a small metal bottle opener practically embedded in her palm as she worked her shift.

  “Thanks, Sel,” he said as she slid the bottle in front of him.

  “You eating?” she asked, propping her knuckles on her hip and eyeing him speculatively. “Ribs are long gone, but we have the pork sandwich plate on special today.”

  Twirling the bottle until the label faced him, Harry considered the meager options in his fridge, then gave her a nod. “Sounds good. Beans and slaw for my sides, please and thank you.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Bottle in hand, Harry spun on his stool and took a moment to peer into the wood-on-wood gloom of the place. Signs advertising beverages or food specials provided the only color. Aside from the patrons. Dusty’s was a veritable treasure trove for a person who enjoyed people watching. And Harry did. Now, with the workday wrapping up, the restaurant and bar was as full as it would ever be past the lunchtime rush.

  Most of the men who worked the mills in the area stopped at Dusty’s for a cold one on their way home. Harry recognized a good many of them. There were a couple of strangers in leather biker gear lounging at a table in the corner. They had the wind-beaten cragginess of men who spent a great deal of time on the road. He spotted Darleen Sheridan from the Daisy Drive-In sitting with Patti Cummings. Patti’s overprocessed blond hair shone like a beacon as the two women huddled close, their expressions avid. There must be hot news in town, Harry concluded. He made a mental note to prime the gossip pump with a trip to the Daisy the next day. People tended to dismiss gossip as petty and avoid the town busybodies, but he didn’t. The lumber mills provided the residents with a livelihood, but Pine Bluff’s thriving gossip mill kept track of everything and everyone else in their lives.

  Harry knew Arnie and Andy Smithson were regulars at Dusty’s. Sure enough, when he scanned the patrons scattered around the scarred wooden tables, he spotted the brothers. It would have been hard to miss them. They were seated with a whole crowd of people wearing Timber Masters logos on their uniform shirts and jackets. They’d pushed three tables together to make one long one stretching across the rear wall of the building. The Smithsons sat with their backs to the wall and their gazes locked on him.

  He braced his elbows on the bar and let the beer bottle dangle from his fingers. The scrape of chair legs on the wooden plank floor didn’t bother him. Nor was he afraid of the large man stretching himself to his full height. As he’d explained to Alicia, he had known Arnie and his younger brother Andy his whole life. Regardless of Arnie’s somewhat checkered past and reputation as a hothead, Harry found it hard to be afraid of someone he knew so well.

  He quirked a smile as the mountain of a man approached. Arnie’s curling gray-brown beard had grown out a bit. Harry couldn’t help wondering if the foreman was stretching the limitations on Timber Masters safety policies concerning facial hair. Maybe he’d mention something to Marlee in passing. A joke about old Arnie gunning for Santa Claus’s job or something. ’Twas the season, after all.

  Harry lifted his bottle of beer a couple of inches in salute when the other man drew to a stop a few feet away. “Evening, Arnie.”

  “Heard you got your house shot up,” Smithson replied, crossing his bulky arms over his barrel chest.

  Harry gave his head a rueful shake. “You know, I got the porch repainted in September. Makes me mad when people make me do work twice.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know what theories you and your friend the sheriff have cooked up, but it wasn’t me or mine,” Arnie replied resolutely. “So if you’re here thinking you can shake us down for some kind of confession, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Shake you down,” Harry said with a laugh. Raising the bottle of beer to his lips, he kept his eyes fixed on the bigger man as he took a pull of the icy cold brew. “Seems foolish for a man like me to try to shake a man like you, and we both know I’m not foolish.” Harrison maintained eye contact. “You may not have pulled the trigger, but I’m willing to bet you know who did.”

  “I’m not allowed to gamble these days,” Arnie replied. “You know Annelle would have my head.”

  Harry smirked. Once upon a time, Arnie had been busted for trying to knock over a Prescott County gas station with a pointing finger in his jacket pocket. Apparently, he put some money on a football game, and Arnie couldn’t pay up when his team hadn’t pulled through. Unfortunately, he was wearing his work coat with his name embroidered on the front. A lenient judge gave him six months for the attempt. But for nearly a decade, the man had to endure the jokes about finger-pistol desperadoes.

  “Annelle is a smart woman. I always wondered what she saw in you,” Harry said, tossing off the insult with a friendly smile.

  “You can keep on wondering,” Arnie said, his smile not quite as friendly but still there. “Let’s say she doesn’t love me for my brains.”

  “That much has been obvious for years.” He took another sip of his beer.

  “I wanted to come over and tell you man-to-man it wasn’t us,” Arnie said, jerking his head toward a small knot of men seated at his table. “You know if we had a beef with you, we’d come right at you.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Did I hear you threaten an officer of the court?”

  Arnie was smart enough to shake his head. “Nope. I was very careful to pose a hypothetical.”

  Pleased with himself, the big man pivoted and walked back to his table of friends. Harry studied each of them for a moment. A couple of faces were familiar, though he couldn’t quite put names with them.

  If they became a bigger concern, he could put some feelers out with Marlee Masters and see if her supervisors hadn’t heard any rumblings about them.

  His gaze connected with Andy Smithson, and the two men who had known each other their entire lives, gone through twelve years of school together and even gotten drunk in this very bar together, shared a moment of unspoken communication. When Andy raised his eyebrows, Harry could do nothing but nod in acquiescence. He believed them. Which made it worse, because now he had absolutely no idea who might be taking potshots at his house.

  Sighing, Harry took a long pull on his bottle of beer. A plate clattered onto the bar behind him. He spun on the stool to find a sectioned plate piled high with piping-hot barbecue waiting for him, and his stomach growled its approval.

  He flashed another smile at Selena and swung around on his stool. “Looks good.”

  She deposited a tightly wrapped bundle of silverware and a couple of packets containing moist towelettes beside the plate, then wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “Best damn barbecue around,” she replied flippantly before returning to the kitchen.

  Harry focused his attention on the heaping plate of food in front of him. The scent of hickory smoke and tangy sauce made his mouth water. Picking up the roll of silverware, he unfurled a napkin he knew would be unequal to the task at hand and placed it on his lap, then grabbed his fork.

  Sauce-drenched pulled pork stood high and proud atop the bottom half of an oversize bun. He shoveled up a heaping helping of slaw, dumped it on top of the meat and smooshed the top half of the bun down until the good stuff oozed out the sides.

  Pleased to get his hands dirty with something other than criminal matters, he picked up the sandwich and took a healthy bite. Harry could feel the sauce smears clinging to his lips and cheeks, but didn’t bother swiping them away. There’d only be more where those came from, and he liked to wait until the job was done to clean up right.

  As he worked his way through the sandwich, he tried to let his mind drift, but it kept jolting over the speed bumps set out by the previous evening’s events.


  He’d been happy to see Alicia Simmons at his door. As happy as he’d been sad when she left Pine Bluff without saying goodbye. Not heartbroken, but maybe mildly disappointed? They were both grown-ups and knew going in what they would be to one another. Or thought they knew.

  Pregnant.

  The word kept popping into his head like one of those plastic moles you tried to beat down with a foam mallet at an arcade.

  His chewing slowed and Harry set the sandwich carefully back on the plate. He had to swallow hard to get the food down. Alicia Simmons was pregnant with his child. Oddly enough, he’d never really doubted her word the baby was his. He had a hard enough time wrapping his head around the existence of a baby at all. But Alicia was nothing if not a straight shooter. He’d believed her the minute it all came tumbling out. He simply didn’t know how to process the information.

  He was gonna be a father. Thoughts had ricocheted around in his mind all day, but he hadn’t been able to grasp one of them long enough to figure out how he felt about it. He planned on being a father one day. It might not have been happening in the way he expected, but this wasn’t a bad thing. Most things didn’t come about the way a person expected. He sure wouldn’t have counted on being the last member of his family left in Pine Bluff, for one thing.

  But here he was, back in the place he once yearned to escape. Back by choice, not circumstance, like Marlee Masters. He’d moved back with this brand-spanking-new law degree and happily taken the job as the assistant district attorney for the area.

  His parents had been shocked. His sister incredulous. He had no way of explaining to them what had caused the change of heart because he wasn’t quite sure himself. All he knew was when he saw the job posting pop up, he jumped at it without hesitation.

  Harry rocked back on the stool and sucked the barbecue sauce off each of his fingers before reaching for the napkin on his lap to dry them. He sighed and ducked his head, bracing his forearms on the edge of the bar. The fact was, the minute Alicia had said she was going back to Atlanta, he’d wanted to protest, though he knew he didn’t have a right. He wanted her here, even if it was irrational to think she’d stay. Alicia had a career there. A damn good one. She had decorations and commendations. He assumed she had a life there, as well. He wasn’t exactly the social butterfly of Masters County, but he had friends. She likely did too. And those friends certainly weren’t going to be pointing her in the direction of a small-time prosecutor who chose to live in the middle of nowhere.