The Southern Watch Series, Books 1-3: Called, Depths and Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

  That sort of stayed there in the air like a heinous fart in the barracks during basic. Hendricks didn’t know what to say to clear it, either.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Erin finally said. She looked tired and uncomfortable. “I don’t know why we’re even bickering now that Lerner’s gone. I would have thought that guy took all the asshole with him when he left.”

  Hendricks had to concede she had a point, even though he secretly kind of liked the particular brand of obnoxious Lerner spit out everywhere he went. “So, this scene you were at … pretty messy, huh?”

  “Never seen anything quite like it,” Arch said, shaking his head. “I’m getting real used to the sight of blood at this point, though.”

  Hendricks nodded. “It’s not been pretty around here lately, that’s for sure.”

  “Least the carnival’s coming,” Alison said with a shrug. Hendricks withheld the frown out of politeness only.

  ***

  Lauren Ella Darlington was born in Midian, raised in Midian, lived in Midian, and worked in Chattanooga. She justified this to herself by saying she lived on the far southwestern edge of Midian and worked on the far northeastern edge of Chattanooga, which meant she was only driving about forty minutes per day, and that wasn’t too bad, really, was it? Especially not for her to be an attending physician at the Red Cedar Medical Center, floating from the ER to the ICU, depending on the day and the patient load. Red Cedar was not exactly a level-one trauma center, so on any given day the patient load varied from one or two to a handful, mostly old folks on the way out.

  On the plus side, she did get the occasional fun job, like suturing up some kid’s leg when he wrecked his ATV against a tree. He was lucky sutures were all he needed. Other than a new ATV, she supposed, listening to him bitch about it. Had his priorities firmly in order, too.

  The other advantage to being the locally known big-city doctor in Midian was that Lauren occasionally got a call from Sheriff Reeve. She hadn’t voted for him—or anyone from his party, ever—but he went to church with her mother and he hadn’t ever been an obnoxious asshole to her that she could recall. Plenty had in Midian, especially after a certain time in her high school career. She’d made a list and everything.

  But it was ultimately a pointless list, because if she’d gotten a call from any one of them complaining of anything more serious than pink eye, she would ultimately have just sighed and had them meet her at the diner so she could try and judge what was wrong. And then send them to some other doctor if it was serious, because dammit, if they were on the list, she didn’t want to deal with them.

  She cursed herself for being a little soft, but she knew it was all true. Because there’d been plenty of other people in the town who hadn’t landed themselves on that list, who’d helped her, who’d done right by her and cared and sent pies and cookies and God-only-knew what else, and she told herself she’d help everyone because of them, not the ones on her list. Her shit list.

  She guided the car onto Berg Street and killed the ignition. She didn’t remember to put it in park until after she’d done that, which happened frequently. Lauren said “Fuck!” really loud to herself in the car. No one could hear her, not that it would have mattered. Everyone in Midian had an opinion about her already anyway, and screaming “FUCK!” from the rooftops wouldn’t have changed it one way or another.

  She grabbed her purse, which was laden with all manner of crap from make-up to tissues, and slung it over her shoulder. Old habit, she realized as she got out of the car. It wasn’t like someone in Midian was going to come running up and break her car’s window while she was outside talking to the sheriff a couple hundred feet away. It wasn’t Chattanooga, after all, and that stuff didn’t even happen all that often there. Still, old habits.

  Old enemies.

  Old lists.

  Her heels clicked along on the pavement as Lauren walked, sighing to herself with irritation that she’d gotten roped into this. It was pointless. There was a perfectly good pathologist at the morgue where this corpse was going, and they’d be able to render a much more sensible, well-thought-out suggestion as to what had happened than she would. She tried to come up with a reason why she was doing this for Reeve, any reason at all, and the only one she could summon forth was that she was doing it because he wasn’t on the list.

  Lauren dodged the blood trail as she made her way toward the sheriff. He looked about as hangdog as she’d ever seen a man who wasn’t sleeping in the doghouse, his normally jovial face completely weighed down. It had been a shitty week, she knew, but Reeve was usually a lot more effervescent than this.

  “Dr. Darlington,” Reeve said as she approached.

  “Sheriff,” she replied with a veneer of politeness that she didn’t really feel. It was a world of ick around her. She didn’t get grossed out easily—you couldn’t get through medical school and an internship if you did—but this was pretty gross. She’d seen a few high-speed collisions and the results were seldom suitable for an open casket funeral. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, seeing as the EMTs have already pronounced the victim dead,” Reeve said, smearing the sarcasm on with a trowel, “I was hoping you might just take a look at this real quick and tell me what you think.”

  “Other than that he’s dead?” Lauren asked. “Since the EMTs told you that.” She stared at the body for a second. “I think even if he were still alive, he wouldn’t be playing baseball anytime soon.”

  Reeve turned his head to look at the body. “Ohh, because of the arms getting knocked off. Clever.” The way he said it left her in no doubt he didn’t find it clever. Or cute.

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for here, Sheriff,” Lauren said, shaking her head.

  “I’m looking for anything you can tell me,” Reeve said, and she caught the hint of desperation. “We’ve had … so many people die here recently, and I got nothing. Whoever slaughtered those families up on Crosser, they left nothing the lab can point us to. No witnesses, nothing. That catastrophe on the interstate? Nothing. That girl in Melina Cherry’s whorehouse?”

  “Let me guess,” Lauren said, a little hoarse, “nothing.”

  Reeve held up a hand and made a zero with his thumb and fingers. “It’s like whoever who did it just evaporated afterward. People are scared, and now there’s this.” The sheriff’s lip quivered. Actually quivered. “I need to deliver something.”

  “Because of elections,” Lauren said, a little jaded, “yeah, all right—”

  “No,” Reeve said, and he was firm about it, to her surprise. “Because dammit, we can’t live like this! Midian ain’t Chicago or Atlanta. This level of carnage, of chaos—we can’t handle it. This is beyond a bad run of luck, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to leave town after all this shit just came rushing down like Mount Horeb had the world’s largest hog pen up on the south slope. I … need … something. I need to bring somebody to justice. Not for my damned job, but because we can’t live like this. This ain’t us. It ain’t our way.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Lauren said, sighing. She’d felt it too, in the air. Midian was on edge lately. Bad. It was actually kind of nice being able to drive to Chattanooga just to get away from it every day. She turned to the body again, picked her way over to it, and looked straight down into the face. “Ohhhh,” she said, and it dragged out like a sad little sigh. “It’s Tim Connor.”

  “Yeah,” Reeve said, adjusting his hat as he looked at the bloodied mess that remained of the man. “Did you know him?”

  “Not really,” Lauren said, staring at the earthly remains, “but he wasn’t on the list.”

  ***

  Erin was driving, feeling the natural pull of the wheel against her hands as she cruised the sheriff’s car down Kilner Road. It felt right, even after just a few days, her being on the patrol.

  Or at least it felt a hell of a lot more right than filing shit and answering phones for eight hours a day.

  Hendricks was in the passeng
er seat, preoccupied and drifting. He had his hat off, and his sword was sticking out a little under his coat, a pillar jutting up like the world’s biggest hard-on. She hadn’t thought of it as much of a sword once she saw it, an inch or less across the blade, only a couple feet long. Little stinger of a sword, but she supposed that was all he really needed.

  “Whatcha thinking about?” She mentally slapped herself just after asking.

  Hendricks roused himself like he was stirring out of sleep. He even looked like he did when he woke. “Mm? Oh, I was thinking about that hooker you were telling me about.”

  Erin felt a little tingle. She didn’t need any prompting to figure out which one he was talking about. “You mean Lucia?”

  “I mean Starling,” Hendricks said bluntly, and Erin felt more of a cringe, though she hid it. “Something is seriously weird with that woman.”

  “You mean other than that she’s turning tricks in a brothel one minute and fighting demons with you the next?” Erin asked. The whole damned conversation made her uncomfortable. She liked Hendricks, liked him a lot, got all fluttery thinking about him yet. That redheaded harlot wasn’t her favorite subject.

  “I mean her disappearing act after the dam,” Hendricks said, like he was ignoring what she just said. Maybe he was. “I mean, she was there on the dam—”

  “And then back at the police station with Reeve, I know.” Erin had been the one that had told him, after all. She’d completely forgotten about the redhead in the aftermath of the dam, forgotten she was supposed to be driving her to the sheriff’s station. It had caused more than a little heartburn for her once she realized, too, but when she called the sheriff to talk about it, before she even said anything he’d gone off on a rant about “that goddamned lawyer,” which she took as the precursor to an ass chewing. When she’d mentioned the redhead, the sheriff had cut her off and thanked her for driving her over so promptly. Without a trace of irony.

  Sheriff Reeve was a great many things, but a sufferer of fools and embracer of failures that put his ass in a sling he was not, not either damned one. Erin had worked it out in her head at that point and confirmed it with the sheriff’s wife, who had been manning the desk at the time. The redhead, Lucia—Starling—whatever she wanted to call herself this week—had walked into the sheriff’s office less than five minutes after she’d disappeared off the top of the Tallakeet Dam.

  To Erin’s mind that meant she was either a twin, or a demon, or both. Didn’t much care which, as long as she didn’t have to discuss that flame-haired woman with her new beau anymore.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. “I was thinking about dropping by to see her at her work,” Hendricks said, the look of preoccupation on his face the only thing saving him from getting smacked hard in the side of the head. Erin didn’t hit idly, but this seemed like it might be worthy of a little overreaction in that department.

  “You want to go visit a hooker in a brothel?” she asked. She knew how to add ice to her tea, but she was a fair sight better at adding ice to her words.

  “Yeah, I—” Hendricks caught himself; she could see the dawning realization in his eyes as he turned to look at her. “You just put out a snare, and I walked right into it, didn’t I?”

  “No, it’s fine,” Erin said, shaking her head but keeping her eyes on the road as she made a left turn. “Tell me all about it afterward. Just make sure you bring a wad of cash. Maybe somewhere between the big O and pillow talk you can get out of her how she manages her disappearing act.”

  “I’m not looking for a … big O … from her,” Hendricks said, lowering his voice when he said the middle bit. “From you, yes—”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “You can’t seriously be pissed at me because I want to get to the bottom of this,” Hendricks said.

  “You mean get into the bottom of her?” Erin raised her eyebrow dangerously.

  “No,” Hendricks said, “I mean get to the bottom of this weirdness. And by the way, she saved your life that night in the motel parking lot.”

  Erin felt her jaw clench. “You’re not moving any closer to any O, let alone a big one.”

  “You can’t tell me you’re not curious,” he said. “Come with me. We can talk to her together—”

  “I don’t have the cash or the inclination for a threesome.” She tightened her grip on the wheel.

  “Look, I’ve been doing this demon hunting thing for years, and this is some weird, fascinating shit,” Hendricks said, and he was leaning toward her now, eyes all lit up like he was opening a Christmas present early. “She knows things—”

  “Like how to give head without smearing her lipstick.”

  “—things that could help us,” Hendricks went on, ignoring her. “And you don’t need to be like this—I’ve got eyes for you, baby. Not her.”

  “I don’t like her,” Erin said and realized she’d just stated a painfully obvious truth. “She just gives me a bad feeling about everything.” That wasn’t wholly true. Lucia didn’t give her a bad feeling at all. She was … normal, or as normal as Erin figured a sex worker could be. It was Starling that was the problem. Starling was the wild card she didn’t want to turn over. If Hendricks went to go see Lucia, Erin reckoned nothing would happen. Lucia didn’t even seem seductive.

  No, it was Starling that had something going on—something for Hendricks—that she didn’t care for at all.

  “Come with me,” Hendricks said softly. “It’ll guarantee everything stays on the level.”

  “I’ve met her pimp or mistress or whatever,” Erin said, letting go only reluctantly, and feeling the air almost hiss out of her as she surrendered on the point. “She’s not going to let a cop anywhere near Lucia without her listening in. You’d have to go by yourself.” She hated every word she was speaking. “And you’ll have to pay, unless you want to just kick down the door and bring the law and all hell down on you.”

  Hendricks thought about that for a minute, and she dreaded what he was going to say up until he spoke. “I don’t have to go alone, really. I just have to bring someone with me who isn’t a cop … and isn’t suspicious.”

  Erin frowned at him, staring at him in the passenger seat and wondering exactly what he meant by that, even as she ran through a dwindling list to the only possible person that could fit that description.

  ***

  Alison wasn’t waiting for Arch to speak first. She had been around him long enough to know that he was a stoic in addition to being a man who liked to get lost in his own thoughts. If she ever had a need to talk, she’d just talk, that was all there was to it. Passive aggressive only worked on a man who knew you were using it on him. Arch was just as likely to assume during the passive stage that everything was all right and write off the aggressive stage without looking too deeply at the root cause.

  Besides, Alison wasn’t mad at him, not really. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he drove the police cruiser. She liked the Explorer, thought it was pretty nice that the sheriff had given it to Arch instead of keeping it for himself or giving it to one of the other deputies. They were all driving the old Crown Vics, and Arch was tooling around Midian in the latest and greatest piece of police equipment the department had bought. Arch had his eyes forward, thoughts bouncing around in his head so loud she could just about hear them without him needing to voice them.

  She could tell the thought of the town sinking into Armageddon was weighing on him. All the stuff he’d seen so far was weighing on him, too. All the happenings had shocked the town. She’d seen the people come dragging in through the door of the supermarket now, lethargic, near dead, shuffling around. It was like all their energy had been stolen. Lately everyone knew someone who had been killed; it was unavoidable unless you were a shut-in.

  Arch let out a sigh that sounded like he had about ten thousand pounds resting on his chest forcing the air out. She could see the tension etching lines in his face, setting his jaw in place like he was re
ady to grind his teeth. She unfastened her seatbelt, and he turned in surprise at the click and the sound of it drawing back as she slipped free and leaned over.

  She unzipped his pants, and he started to protest but quickly fell silent. She moved her head up and down, up and down in sweet rhythm. He’d been sweating, but it didn’t bother her at all. It never had, not for him.

  She could feel him keeping the grip on the steering wheel as she worked steadily, methodically, using her hand to support him as she went down on him. He grunted and moaned, and his knee jostled her as he brought the car to a slow, then to a stop, moving her slightly as he threw it in park.

  After that he leaned back and let her work unfettered, not saying a thing. She clutched his balls and squeezed, and he moaned again and came as she pushed him to the back of her mouth until he was finished.

  His breath came slow and ragged. Her hand rested on his thigh, and she could feel it unclenched now, the tension that she had felt when she started gone. She slowly lifted herself up, pulling off of him and eliciting one last gasp of something that sounded like it was between pleasure and pain before she slid back into her seat and buckled her seatbelt.

  She didn’t look at him, didn’t say a word, and neither did he. He just put the car in gear and drove her home.

  ***

  “Huh,” Duncan muttered in the bed next to Lerner.

  Lerner shot him a sidelong glance, trying to decide if he really wanted to know or not. If it was important, Duncan would probably say more than, “Huh.” Probably. He wasn’t the talkative type, but he wasn’t a mute, either.

  “Huh, what?” Lerner went for the bait. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. He was staring at the TV, hoping something interesting would come on to kill the time until Duncan gave the all clear that the sheriff was gone from the site of the collision.

  “Arch just got a hummer from Alison,” Duncan said, drawing a sharp look of distaste from Lerner.

  “Don’t call them by their names like they’re our friends,” Lerner said. “Like they’re coming to a dinner party next week, can we please get a big gravy boat and fresh biscuits and serve after-dinner cocktails.” He paused. “He got a hummer, huh? I wouldn’t have bet on that. Looked like they had so much tension between them you could fit a full-size refrigerator in the bed between them at night right now. Sideways.” Lerner waited. “What about the cowboy? He’s getting fucked all over that cheap hotel room right now like he’s the bull and she’s going for an eight-second ride, right?”