Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn - 02 - Broken Shield
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Buckthorn didn’t move. “I’m not going to ask you again,” Donovan said.
“He has something you might want to listen to,” the red-haired woman said.
“I said…” Donovan began, but Buckthorn clicked a switch and a voice came out of the object in his hand. “The ones that killed my grandson,” and old man’s voice said. “I got names. Some hick deputy and two FBI people.”
Dushane could feel the shock run through Donovan’s body. Then he tensed, and she felt the gun at her temple move, ever so slightly. “Patience?” he said in a tight voice. “What are you playing at, love?”
Buckthorn snapped off the recorder and raised the shotgun in both hands. “Sean Donovan,” he said, “I’m arresting you for the murder of Loretta Starnes, conspiracy to commit murder, and…he gestured towards Dushane, “assault on a Federal Agent.”
Donovan’s laugh was a quick bark of disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” Buckthorn said. “Let Agent Dushane go.”
“I don’t think so,” Donovan said. “And I’ll be wanting that tape. Patience, I don’t know what you think you’re doing…”
“It’s not the only copy,” she said. “There’s another one I’ve put away for safekeeping. And I just called the local FBI office to let them know where.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you hit me, you son of a bitch.”
“I didn’t mean…” he began.
She cut him off. “Maybe not,” she said, “but I’d already been thinking. Why be a consort? Why not be the real queen?” She stood up. “I originally made the tape as a shield. In case you ever wanted to cast me off. But then I also thought, why not a sword? And then you hit me, and you treated me like…” Her voice broke. “Like one of those whores in the truck stops, and I decided the time to pull that sword had come.” She walked over to the old man’s bed, laid a hand fondly on the dead chest. “You’re done, Sean,” she said. “The king is dead. Long live the queen.”
“Look at it this way, Donovan,” Buckthorn said. “She saved your life. I don’t have to kill you now. There’s the evidence I need to put you away legally. You don’t have to die. Unless you don’t put that gun down. “
“You fucking BITCH!” Donovan roared. The pressure of the gun barrel was suddenly gone from Dushane’s temple. From the corner of her eyes, she could see the weapon pointed at the redhead. He was distracted, and Dushane seized the moment. She snapped her head back, as hard as she could, trying to break Donovan’s nose. He’d moved too quickly, however; the back of her head smashed him in the cheek. But it was enough to spoil his aim. The bullet thudded sickeningly into the corpse in the bed. Dushane stomped hard on Donovan’s instep. He howled with pain and rage and let go. She dove forward onto her face, screaming as she landed on the wounded arm. The pain was so intense it took the wind out of her. The world went red around the edges. She heard the roar of the shotgun, once, twice, and the sound of a body hitting the floor. Then she spiraled down into darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
She’d interviewed a fair number of prisoners, in a lot of sad and shabby rooms, their faces pale and pinched with desperation behind the scratched and pitted Plexiglas. She had to admit, Buckthorn looked better than most. Calmer, more at peace. She took a deep breath and tried not to grasp the black phone receiver she held in her good hand hard enough for him to see the white-knuckle tension she felt.
“I’ve got to say,” she said, “orange is not really your color.”
Buckthorn looked down at the prisoner jumpsuit and chuckled. “I know,” he said. “But you know what? It’s actually kind of comfortable.” His face turned serious. “How’s the arm?”
She shrugged, then winced as the movement sent daggers of pain through the abused muscles. “They got the bullet fragments out. It’s going to take a butt-load of physical therapy, but they say I’ll get most of the function back.”
“That’s good.” He paused. “How’s the fallout? Back at work, I mean.”
“I’ve got a hearing scheduled with OPR. But Tony tells me that the fix is in. I’ll be back on regular duty inside a month.”
“Friends in high places,” Buckthorn said.
“Yeah.” There was a brief awkward silence. “How about you?” she said.
This time it was his turn to shrug. “Stark dumped me like a bad habit,” he said, without rancor. “But I guess I can’t blame him. I may be here in Mississippi for a while. That sort of thing can really conflict with a political campaign.”
She felt her throat tighten. “How long is a while?”
“Well that’s kind of an amazing thing,” Buckthorn said. “Apparently, the locals weren’t all that fond of Monroe and his operation, either. They won’t say it, but I think they’re happy I cleaned the place out. At the same time, they don’t want a whole lot of questions being asked about how he went so long operating under their noses.”
She tried to keep from sounding too hopeful. “So they’re cutting you loose?”
He shook his head. “No. There’s the matter of four men, dead from my gun. They don’t feel like they can just ignore that.”
“Self-defense.”
He smiled, a little sadly. “Doesn’t really apply if you go looking for the fight.”
“Then…I don’t know…” she stopped, unwanted tears of frustration pooling in her eyes. “Doesn’t the fact that they killed your sister carry any weight?”
The smile vanished. “Yeah. Some.” He looked down at the floor, as if lost in thought.
“So?” she said. “Are you going to keep me guessing all day?”
He looked up, startled out of his reverie. “Sorry,” he said. “My lawyer says he can get a deal for manslaughter. Two years.”
Dismay and relief began warring in her heart. “That’s not too bad,” she said.
He rubbed his hands over his face. “It doesn’t seem like enough.”
“Oh for God’s SAKE, Tim!” she exploded. She wanted to slam the phone down.
He looked surprised. “What?”
The words caught in her throat. He went on before she could untangle them. “I betrayed my oath, Leila. I was a sworn officer of the law. I…”
“Oh will you PLEASE shut up!” she snapped. He did. They glared at one another through the Plexiglas for a few moments. This time, she broke the silence. “Tim,” she said in a subdued voice, “I fell in love with you because you were a Good Guy. I don’t just mean a good man, I mean a Good Guy with a capital G-G. You were the guy in the white hat. All you needed was a big white horse to sweep me up onto and ride off into the sunset.”
“Leila, I…”
“Shut up and let me finish,” she said. “Then something awful happened, and you weren’t the guy in the white hat any more. You went off the straight and narrow. Yeah, you failed. You betrayed your oath as a,” she made air quotes with one hand, “’sworn officer of the law.’ And yeah, I was pissed at you for that. But you know what? I can get over it. And so should you. You’re human. Big fucking deal. But you took some seriously evil people off the face of the earth. That’s a good thing, Tim. You may have gone about it in a way you think is wrong, but I swear, if you intend to nail yourself to the cross over this, I will walk out that big steel door behind me, and I won’t come back. And that would be a damn shame.”
He looked stunned. He didn’t answer for a long moment. Then he said, “Can you repeat the part about how you’re in love with me again?”
That made her laugh. “Yeah. I love you, Tim. God help me, I know it’s the worst possible thing I could do on so many levels, but yeah. I love you.”
He took a deep breath, let it out. He closed his eyes. She watched him in silence. Finally, he opened them. “I love you, too,” he said, and her heart started beating again. “But I can’t ask you to wait for me.”
“Frankly, Buckthorn, I haven’t decided if I will. Just because I love you doesn’t mean I might not still decide you’re too much of a
pain in the ass to deal with.”
This time it was his turn to laugh. “Okay. Fair enough.”
“Write me,” she said.
“Every day,” he replied.
She felt the tears welling up in her eyes and put her hand against the glass. He did the same. “And come home as soon as you can.”
“I will,” he said. “Because home is anywhere you are.”
EPILOGUE
“I’m afraid the documents are genuine,” the lawyer said. “Not only were they notarized, but we’ve had the signatures independently verified. By a top document examiner, I might add.”
“I don’t believe it,” Mary Monroe Sheffield told him. She was a bony, fierce-looking little woman with snow-white hair cut severely short. “My uncle would never have willingly signed over his house and his stock in his businesses to some…” she looked down the long conference table to make sure there was no mistake as to who she was about to mention. “Whore.”
Patience, seated at the end of the table, didn’t react to the insult. She was dressed entirely in black. Even the handkerchief she held in one hand was black silk. She dabbed at one corner of her eye with it.
“Miss Matthews…”
“If that’s even her real name,” Harlan Monroe, Lampton’s nephew and the only other potential beneficiary of the estate spoke up. Mary shot him a look and he subsided back into his seat.
The lawyer looked pained at the interruption. “Miss Matthews was Mr. Monroe’s caregiver for his declining years. He apparently spoke very fondly of her. It’s only natural that he should reward her for her years of faithful service.”
“She tricked him,” Mary said. “Or coerced him.”
“From what I hear of Mr. Monroe’s….forceful personality,” the lawyer said, “I highly doubt either was the case.”
Mary stood up. Harlan followed. “We’ll fight this,” she said. “We’ll fight this, and we’ll win.” She looked at Patience. “And when we do, you’ll be back peddling your ass on street corners. Or better yet, in prison.” She stormed out, Harlan in her wake.
The lawyer took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “It’s not just an idle threat. We’ve already received a communication from a law firm…a quite well-connected one in fact…who they’ve retained.”
Patience stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Suddreth,” she said. “Please keep me informed.”
“I will,” he said. “And please call me Malcolm.”
“Malcolm, then.”
He licked his thin lips nervously. “I was wondering,” he said, “if you might be free for dinner tonight?”
She looked down at him, still seated. She gave him the barest ghost of a smile. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Not really. The estate is my actual client.”
“And I’m executrix, correct?”
“Well, yes…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m still in mourning.” She wiped at her eyes again. “For the best friend I ever had.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Suddreth said. “My apologies. Perhaps some other time.”
“Perhaps.” He caught the barest whiff of her perfume as she left the room.
That night, Mary Monroe Sheffield received a phone call at the hotel where she was staying in Biloxi. Her home in the Atlanta suburb of Marrietta had been firebombed by a person or persons unknown. It had burned to the ground.
Harlan Monroe received a call that evening that his five-year old granddaughter had missed her ride from her preschool in Baton Rouge. Her frantic parents had called the police, but by the time they arrived the girl was home. A nice man “with drawings all over his arms” had given her a ride. He’d been funny, she said, telling her lots of jokes and promising her a ride on his motorcycle. When he’d dropped her off down the street from her house, he’d made her promise to send a message to her Grandpa Harlan about what a lucky little girl she was.
The next day, the receptionist at the law firm Harlan Monroe and Mary Monroe Sheffield had retained called. They were returning the retainer in full, and would not be able to pursue the case further. Later, the two saw on the news that when the firm’s staff showed up for work that morning, they’d found every door standing open. In the conference room, they’d found what looked like several sticks of dynamite strapped together with a timer device attached. The bomb squad had determined that the “dynamite” was actually several empty cardboard tubes and the “timer” was a cheap digital watch. The reporter also said that the fake device had been sitting on top of a client file taken from one of the attorneys’ locked file cabinets. Nothing else had been touched. Subsequent phone calls revealed that no other law firm in Biloxi was inclined to take their case. The promised lawsuit was never filed.
Business went on as usual.
OTHER BOOKS BY J.D. RHOADES
The Jack Keller series:
The Devil’s Right Hand
Good Day In Hell
Safe and Sound
The Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn novels:
Breaking Cover
Others:
Storm Surge
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Gallows Pole
As J.D. Nixx:
Monster: Nightrider’s Vengeance
The King’s Justice: Two Taras Flinn Stories
Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to my great and good friend, David Terrenoire.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
PART THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
OTHER BOOKS BY J.D. RHOADES
Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to my great and good friend, David Terrenoire.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
PART THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
OTHER BOOKS BY J.D. RHOADES