by Rawlin Cash
“I intend on finding the men who did this to my family.”
“And what will you do when you find them?”
The look on Hunter’s face left little doubt as to what he intended to do, but he gave the chief an answer all the same.
“What do you do to a dog that’s gone mean?”
The chief nodded. “The state of Washington doesn’t take too kindly to people taking the law into their own hands.”
“I’m not from the state of Washington.”
“No, you’re not,” the chief said.
He went back to Dana’s desk and asked her what she had on Hunter. She passed him the file and he glanced it over. Alaska born. Alaska resident. No record. Nothing outstanding. There were some military entries but no details. He noted that the child, who’s name was Heaven, wasn’t Hunter’s biological daughter. He’d married the mother when Heaven was three months old and did all the paperwork to adopt her.
“You got the mother’s file too?”
Chianne Hunter had reported a rape nine months before the child’s birth. The case had been closed when the primary suspect was found with a hunting knife in his face at a truck stop about two hundred miles south of Fairbanks.
The police in Alaska had seemed willing to chalk that up to karma and there was nothing on Hunter’s record about it.
The chief looked over at Hunter. He was sipping coffee and staring at the brick wall he was facing. He didn’t seem like an evil man, he wasn’t prone to senseless violence, but he did give off the distinct impression that if someone raped his woman, that man might be found a little while later with a hunting knife in his head.
“We got anything else on the military stuff?” he said to Dana.
“Nothing, chief. Just what’s in the file. I made a few calls but they told me to forget about it. His files were all flagged. Redacted. I’d say he was doing some special ops or something, but I’m not writing it down when I know the feds are going to come for these.”
The chief nodded.
“If I release this man, there’s going to be trouble,” he said to Dana.
“I know,” she said.
“I can hold him on the assault.”
“But you’re not going to.”
“No,” the chief admitted. “I’m not.”
Dana started processing the paperwork and when she was done, she and the chief unlocked the cell and asked Hunter to accompany them to the morgue.
He said nothing.
At the morgue, the chief went inside with Hunter and Dana waited in the car.
It was just after eight and the night duty was still on the desk.
“The bodies from last night,” the chief said to the guy at the desk.
The guy nodded at a big leather register and Hunter and the chief both signed in.
“When were they brought in?” Hunter said to the duty officer.
“About an hour ago.”
“Crime scene cleared while it was still dark?” Hunter said.
The duty officer looked at the chief and the chief gave Hunter a nudge.
“Come on, Sherlock. They were out there all night and they’ve got flood lights.”
The chief led Hunter down the hall to a door and paused before opening it.
“All I need you to do is identify the bodies,” he said.
“I know.”
“Then we’re going to go back down to the station and have some more coffee, fill in some forms, and let the detectives do their job.”
“Detectives?” Hunter said.
“Detective,” the chief corrected. A force their size wouldn’t have more than one and Hunter knew that.
When Hunter said nothing, the chief opened the door.
Inside were two gurneys. There was a body on each, covered with a sheet. Hunter stepped forward and pulled back the sheet covering his wife’s body. He recognized her and the chief saw a jolt of pain, of agony, wash over Hunter’s face.
Hunter let out a sound the chief wouldn’t have thought could come from a man. Certainly not a man like Hunter. It was the sound of a wounded animal, a dog, or a wolf maybe, snared in a trap.
The chief looked down at the face of the woman and felt his vision tunnel.
“Jesus,” he gasped, struggling to breathe.
“That’s her,” Hunter said, his voice even. “Chianne Hunter. I recognize the necklace.”
Hunter had regained his composure. He’d somehow willed a blankness to come over his face, to steady his voice, and it hid every trace of the turmoil that must have been swirling inside him like a vortex.
The chief felt ill but for Hunter’s sake he pulled himself together. If the husband could do it, he could.
The woman was as badly mutilated as the chief had ever seen, and he’d seen a lot. If he’d known she was going to be this bad, he would never have brought the husband. Someone had gouged out both her eyes and then burned the sockets with some sort of torch. Two black holes opened up into her skull and inside them two pinecones had been placed.
Her teeth had been knocked out. It looked like with a chisel. Whoever had done it hadn’t been careful, or maybe the victim had been alive and struggling. Either way, the lips were gone, torn to shreds, revealing a snarl of bloody gums and shattered teeth stumps.
Inside the mouth, the chief saw that she had no tongue.
“Are you okay?” he said to Hunter.
Hunter looked at him, his face completely blank, then pulled the sheet right off the body before the chief could stop him.
The body was as mutilated as the face. The breasts were gone. Crow feathers had been stuck into the raw flesh there and on the genitals. An intricate network of cuts had been hacked into the skin, as if made with a sharpened spoon, and the pattern looked to the chief like some variation of a pentagram. He’d seen similar on other victims but this was more barbarous by far.
He prayed the woman had been dead when these wounds were inflicted but in his heart he knew the coroner’s report would confirm that the torture had started while she was still alive.
Hunter lay the sheet carefully back over the body and then made for the second gurney.
The chief made to stop him and Hunter tried to push past. When the chief didn’t back down, Hunter stopped pushing.
He didn’t have the will to look at his daughter’s body.
“I’ll have them take a photograph,” the chief said. “You can ID that.”
Hunter nodded. For the first time, the chief saw a crack in the armor. It was just a look, and only for a second, that seemed to ask the chief how such things were possible.
The chief had no explanation to give. He’d seen this before. The dead women. The heartbroken men. There was never any explanation he could offer.
And then he began to speak, even though he knew he shouldn’t.
“This goes deep,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Hunter said.
“I mean there are powerful men involved. They come and go as they please. They fly in on government jets. They make sure our investigations go nowhere.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know who, but if you go looking, you better be ready to go all the way.”
“All the way?”
“A man could spend his life trying to get to the bottom of a thing like this.”
“And where would a man start?” Hunter said.
The chief sighed. He looked to the door to make sure the duty officer wasn’t at the window. From his pocket he pulled a business card. It had a phone number on it and a clipart silhouette of a stripper. On the back was a handwritten address.
Hunter looked at it.
“A brothel,” the chief said. Then added, “Of sorts.”
Seven
Hunter let them bring him back to the station and he went through the paperwork with them and gave them what they wanted.
Goad was there now, and Barnes and McCluskey. Goad looked at him like he intended to follow him out of the station and make him pay,
but Hunter knew he wouldn’t do anything. The man couldn’t handle himself. He was a coward. Hunter stared at him and he looked away.
Afterward, they gave him the bag he’d brought from home and he went across the street to the diner and bought a breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, more coffee. The waitress was slim, in her forties, and she was very interested in him.
“You’re the man from Alaska,” she said when she put his food in front of him.
Hunter sprinkled salt on the eggs and said nothing.
“I’m very sorry for what’s happened.”
He looked up at her, wondering if she knew anything that might be useful.
“It’s been happening for some time,” he said, uncertain of his voice after the shock of what he’d seen.
“Terrible situation,” she said in a hushed tone. “Downright creepy’s what it is. I’ve lived here my whole life, born and raised, and this has been hanging over the town the entire time.”
“I don’t aim to leave without getting whoever’s responsible,” Hunter said.
The woman looked at him. She looked as if she was trying to see through him, read his mind, discern the contents of his soul. His face told her nothing. It was as blank as a stone wall.
“I don’t think you’re going to have much luck with that,” she said at last.
When Hunter said nothing, she continued.
“The men that do this, the ones who are really responsible, they’re not from here.”
“Where are they from?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Hunter thought about that. He thought about the chief’s words back at the morgue. The powerful men, coming and going as they pleased. Then he thought about the card for the whorehouse in his pocket.
“Someone local’s got to be involved,” he said.
The waitress pursed her lips. She probably had more she could tell him but he figured the chief’s tip was where it would lead. He ate his breakfast and left some money on the counter.
From there he walked into the town and asked the first storekeeper he met if there was a hunting supply.
At the hunting supply he bought a Remington 700 bolt action and two boxes of .308 Winchester cartridges.
“We got cheaper if you want,” the store owner told him when he picked up the ammo.
Hunter shook his head. He was intimately familiar with the ballistics of the .308 and confident with it beyond a thousand yards.
He also bought an eight-inch buck hunting knife and a nylon carrying case for the gun. He put the bullets and ammo in the bag he already had and slung it on his shoulder.
“You got a map of the county?” he said.
The store owner gave him a 1:20,000 scale topographical map of the area, free of charge, and Hunter located the brothel on it with his finger. It was on the main highway in the forest south of town. The land rose steeply across the highway from it.
“You got a scope for this gun?” he said.
The store owner nodded and he bought the scope too and put it with the rifle in the carrying case.
From the store, he walked south along the main street and continued walking when he reached the edge of town, stretching out his hand for a ride whenever he heard a vehicle behind him. He knew he made an unusual sight with his heavy Alaskan coat and boots and a rifle case. He’d gone a mile or two when a truck stopped for him.
Straight away he knew the driver, a three hundred pound Seahawks fan with a beer gut and stubble, was sweet on him. He’d picked him up in hope of fooling around a little.
Hunter didn’t mind disappointing him.
“You staying on this road a while?” he asked the driver.
“Long enough.”
“I’m just going as far as this crossroad,” Hunter said, showing the driver on his map.
The driver nodded, sensing that this wasn’t the type of passenger he’d hoped for.
The crossroad was about a mile farther along the road than the brothel and Hunter looked out at the place when they passed it. It made a sorry sight in the light rain, the gray clouds almost touching the tops of the trees above it. Hunter let out an involuntary shiver.
The driver shifted down gears as they approached the crossroad and when the truck stopped, Hunter hopped out.
“Happy hunting,” the driver said to him.
Hunter looked back at him. “Thanks.”
From the crossroad, he walked back toward the brothel, making his way in the forest a few yards to the left of the highway, keeping low when a vehicle passed. It had started to rain. Hunter’s breath made a cloud in front of him. This was a higher altitude than the town.
When he reached the brothel he made a wide circle, a five hundred yard perimeter, making sure there was nothing around it that would surprise him.
Across the highway, where the land rose, gave the best vantage.
Hunter lay down on the damp moss and began watching.
It was an ugly place. It looked like it might have been a roadside restaurant once. There was space in front for parking. An old sign still stood but there was nothing written on it. There were a few cars parked outside. A fancy BMW sedan with custom rims. An Escalade with blacked out windows. A yellow pickup with the logo of a lumber company on the door.
The building was blue, the paint falling off the siding. A lean-to on one side was piled full of firewood. Some rusty metal barrels stood beside that.
A line of smoke rose out of the chimney.
If anyone arrived or left, he got as good a look at their face as he could through the scope. He memorized every license plate.
It grew dark and as the evening wore on, the comings and goings increased.
At about seven, the Escalade left, driven by a fat, tough looking guy with a cigarette and leather jacket. If Hunter had to guess, he’d have said he was Russian.
The Escalade came back about thirty minutes later and five women got out. The driver led them into the building through the back door. They were dressed like off-duty prostitutes, the velvety purple or gray sweat pants with logos plastered across the ass, the faux fur jackets, the sneakers that had a little sparkle to stand out in a crowd. From what he could make out, they were all Indian. And then Hunter saw what he’d been looking for. A sign that something wasn’t right.
The women were chained together, like convicts entering a prison, the wrists of each girl attached to a harness around the waist of the girl ahead.
A few minutes later, the driver re-emerged from the building with three other women. Again, they were all Indian, and again they were chained together. This time they looked a little more on-duty. One was in neon stockings and six-inch stilettos. Another was barefoot, despite the mud. The vehicle drove off.
He was at the right place.
Eight
He kept watch of the building all night. By midnight it began to get quiet and there were fewer cars outside. He’d seen all but the BMW arrive, and had a good idea of everyone that was inside the building.
There was the driver of the Escalade. The five women he’d brought in with him. Three customers, middle-aged males, and whoever the owner of the BMW was. He figured whoever drove the BMW, it was a new 7-series with a six-figure price-tag, ran the show. There might have been someone else inside but he’d been watching long enough to make that unlikely.
Additionally, there was a group of four Russian looking guys, dressed like the Escalade driver, who’d arrived about two hours ago in two black sedans and still hadn’t left.
All in all, he figured five goons, the BMW owner, five hookers, and the customers. The men would be drinking and they weren’t expecting him. That worked in his favor. Against him was the fact he hadn’t brought a handgun or any kind of silencer.
He took the hunting knife from the bag. The rifle was loaded.
With the knife in one hand and the rifle in the other, he climbed down from his position and made for the highway. He was about halfway down when the door opened. Blue light spilled into the parking
lot, accompanied by European techno music.
Hunter crouched and watched. First one and then a second of the beefy Russians came out. One was holding a cigarette. Both looked like they’d been drinking. They pushed a girl in front of them, and she slipped and fell down the steps of the porch into the mud. The men laughed. They walked to her and one of the men pulled her up by the hair. She didn’t protest or resist.
They got in one of the sedans. The lights turned on and it pulled out of the lot. Hunter watched until its taillights disappeared from view.
That left three goons, plus the BMW owner.
The rifle held four rounds.
The knife didn’t come with a sheath so he put it in his belt behind his back and propped the rifle on a log behind some brush. He had a line of sight on both doors.
He was two-hundred yards from the lot.
He’d never fired the gun so he drew a bead on a white mark on the front windshield of the BMW and pressed the trigger.
A sharp crack, followed by the shattering of the windshield. The night filled with the sound of the car alarm. The bullet had gone through the center of the mark but Hunter didn’t see it.
He’d already moved his sight to the side door, where he didn’t expect to see anyone, and didn’t.
Immediately he shifted to the front door and waited.
The door opened and two big Russians strode out like they meant business.
Pop, Pop.
Blood misted from their skulls as they slumped to their knees.
“Three, two,” Hunter said, keeping count.
A third man watched from the door as his two friends fell dead. Mindlessly, like an idiot, he ran out into the parking lot, exposing his bald head to Hunter’s sight, and ate the final bullet.
Same pop. Same mist. Same slump.
“One left.”
Hunter dropped the rifle and was on his feet. He ran parallel to the road through the brush and crossed it when he was opposite the side entrance. He ducked behind the pickup and the Escalade, kept low, and made his way to the building. When he was as close to the side entrance as he could get, he did a quick scan of the lot. Apart from the three bodies, it was empty. He darted to the door and checked it. It was unlocked.
