Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3)

by J. A. Konrath

  “Oh,” she said. “Thit.”

  “In the messages you’ve been leaving me, you never used any letter S. Because you knew I’d recognize you. Little did you know that the very absence of such a popular letter in your death threats lead me right to you.”

  “Don’t break your own arm patting yourthelf on the back.”

  “Are you impressed?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “Not even a thmidgeon.”

  “You want to grab a bite to eat later? I’ve got a Groupon for the Big Stinky Onion.”

  There was a pause. Then she said, “Thure. What the hell.”

  “Meet you there at six. Wear something easy to take off.”

  “Thee you later.”

  She hung up.

  Not only did I solve the Mystery of the Anonymous Death Threats, but I also had the last laugh on the woman who had cost me a fortune in bribes. Little did Gina know that I really didn’t have a Groupon, and that I was going to conveniently forget my wallet, sticking her with the bill.

  That’s right, baby! Harrison Harold McGlade for the W-I-N! In your face, you nasty, expensive, lisping, cross-eyed prank caller!

  Then I went to the corner store to pick up condoms.

  JACK

  “That’s one helluva story.” Herb’s mouth was halfway around one of his homemade barbeque burgers.

  I hadn’t finished mine. Benedict was a much better cop than he was a cook.

  “And Garrett McConnroy survived,” I said. “Special Agent Dailey told me the federal prosecutor is seeking twenty-six life sentences against him. One for each victim.”

  Many had been buried under the pine trees, as Harry and I had suspected. Phin had helped a lot with the identification, having found a stack of Driver’s Licenses at Tucker’s house. Which, perhaps not coincidentally, had burned down.

  “And the women Cline kidnapped were okay?”

  “Doped up, but fine.”

  Herb leaned back in his lawn chair, which groaned in protest. “There’s something I don’t get about that. You said when you found the women, they were bound with duct tape.”

  “Right.”

  “Their mouths too.”

  “Correct.”

  “But you said you heard a female scream. That’s when the four guys ran. If their mouths were covered, and they were all drugged up, how did you hear them scream?”

  “It wasn’t them,” I said.

  “Who was it?”

  “I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to tell me something first.”

  “Sure. Need another burger?”

  I lifted a palm to stop him. “I’m good.”

  “Brat? Ribs? Chicken? Portabella mushroom?”

  “I ate enough, thanks. And thanks for the invite over.”

  “It’s about time you took me up on an invitation. Now what do I need to tell you?”

  I paused for dramatic effect, then asked, “What happened to that tie I bought you?”

  Herb laughed and shook his head. “I thought you wanted to hear a nice lie.”

  “I’m done with avoiding the truth. I want to hear it, no matter how ugly it is.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath, let it out slow. “I was at a restaurant. Had an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Which I did. And then I noticed there was no toilet paper.”

  “Oh, no. You didn’t.”

  “I had to. I had no choice.”

  “It was a sixty dollar tie, Herb.”

  “I could tell. It was very soft.”

  I laughed. “How about your socks? Your underwear?”

  “I used those first. The tie was the next in line.”

  “It was that bad? Really?”

  “Jack, the restaurant was called The Burrito Explosion. That should give you an idea of how bad it was. Now tell me about the scream.”

  “It wasn’t a woman. It wasn’t even a person. It was Herbie.”

  “Herbie?”

  “Herbie the egret. This big, white bird that lived on the lake. McGlade told me about it. It sounds exactly like a woman screaming.”

  “What sounds exactly like a woman screaming?”

  My fiancé had returned from Herb’s bathroom. I was pleased to see he still had his socks on.

  “You know what a woman screaming sounds like,” I told Latham, grinning at him.

  I was in a ridiculously fine mood. I was on vacation. I was engaged to a wonderful man. And very soon, I was going to live with him.

  Live with him in the suburbs. With my mother.

  Not yet. But soon.

  I was finally ready to stop hiding from life and live it to the fullest.

  Nothing was going to get in my way.

  Not even me.

  “Who’s up for dessert?”

  Bernice, Herb’s wife, came out on the porch with a cake big enough to feed ten people. Or the three of us, plus Herb.

  My partner gobbled down the rest of his burger, and then reached for cake.

  “Coffee anyone?” Bernice asked.

  Coffee. Herb had never found out who stole his coffee machine.

  Irritating. But I suppose that was life. Sometimes there were no answers, no matter how hard we look for them.

  A hard lesson to learn.

  But a good one to know.

  HARRY

  I took the damn coffee machine.

  I demanded to see Jack when I got arrested, but she wasn’t in her office. So I grabbed the machine and hid it in the hallway garbage. Then I took it home when I left.

  I meant it to be funny, and I was going to return it later, leaving her to question her own sanity. But then I wound up ruining it with superglue when I did my private eye fingerprint thing.

  If you see Jack, don’t tell her.

  PHIN

  I almost went to Pasha’s place. But it was late, and I didn’t want to wake her.

  Even more than that, I didn’t want to explain the last few days.

  I would tell her everything, eventually.

  Sure, you will.

  I would tell her everything, and I would get chemo.

  I wanted Pasha to be a permanent part of my life. Maybe even marriage. Maybe even kids.

  And I wanted Earl gone. Forever.

  Good luck with that, Earl said.

  I was hungry when I got back to Chicago. There were a lot of late night places to eat, and I thought about going out, but ultimately decided to eat in. I got back to the Michigan Motel, parked, and knocked on the glass for Kenny Jen Bang Ko, to see if I had messages.

  Kenny didn’t come out. Unusual for him.

  When I got to my room, I immediately knew something was wrong when I caught the odor.

  Death. There was something dead in there.

  I pulled out my 9mm, eased the door open, and flipped on the light.

  Someone was on the bed. Someone covered in congealing blood.

  Kenny.

  There was a note next to him. Handwritten, in what looked like a child’s scrawl.

  Hey little bro—

  He talked. Now I’ve got your bitch.

  Looking forward to spending some quality family time together.

  -H

  It was Hugo. My psychopathic white nationalist older brother.

  I immediately called Pasha, my hands shaking with raw panic.

  “That you, little bro?” The voice was deep. Sinister. And horribly familiar.

  My jaw locked. I tried to swallow but couldn’t summon up the spit. Memories invaded my skull, all of them unpleasant. One that immediately jumped out was the time my brother sat on my chest and stuck a box of safety pins into my head one at a time.

  “I thought you were in jail, Hugo.”

  “They paroled me.”

  “That was a mistake,” I said.

  “No shit. The first person I killed when I got out was my parole officer.”

  “What do you want?”
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  “Why the hostility Phineas? I thought you’d be happy to hear from me. How long has it been?”

  “Not long enough. Can I speak to Pasha?”

  “She’s pretty good-looking, for a dot head. If I didn’t want to taint my ethnic purity, I might show her what a real man is like.”

  I clenched the phone so hard I thought I’d break it. “Just let me know she’s alive.”

  Her voice came on. “Phin… they broke in a few hours ago. They were waiting for you. No matter what, don’t come—”

  There was a slapping sound, skin on skin, and a muffled yelp from the woman I loved with my whole body and soul.

  “Mouthy, isn’t she?” Hugo said.

  “What do you want?” It took all of my effort to keep my voice even.

  “I want what we all want. America for Americans. But I’ll settle for meeting you later tonight. Ninety minutes.”

  He named a location. I agreed.

  “Come alone, no cops, all that crap. Or I’ll cut your girlfriend from her snatch to her throat and mail you her insides. Say goodbye, bitch.”

  “Phin! Don’t come! He wants to—”

  And the line went dead.

  When my hands stopped trembling I set my phone down.

  “Don’t worry, babe,” I promised to her, even though she couldn’t hear me. “I’m coming to get you.”

  The End… for now

  Phineas Troutt will return in EVERYBODY DIES.

  They call him The Man With Seven Tears.

  He has a teardrop tattoo on his cheek for every man he’s murdered for his twisted cause. He’s the head of the most ruthless hate group in the USA, and he’s about to commit the biggest act of domestic terrorism in history.

  There’s only one person alive who knows him well enough to stop him. Someone strong enough. Determined enough. Smart enough.

  Someone willing to lose everything.

  His younger brother; a problem solver named Phineas Troutt.

  EVERYBODY DIES by J.A. Konrath

  CONTENTS

  Epigraphs

  Begin reading EVERYBODY DIES

  Author Afterword

  Sometimes life is far from fair,

  That comes as no surprise,

  But in the end all get their share,

  For everybody dies.

  “The threat of domestic terrorism has increased sharply in the past year. Unless we take decisive steps now to respond to this threat, it’s only a matter of time before the country endures another nightmare like the Oklahoma City tragedy.”

  —Morris Dees, a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, April 11, 1996

  PROLOGUE/EPILOGUE

  MAY 2008

  PHIN

  My girlfriend, Pasha, had stopped breathing.

  I wasn’t far behind.

  Another punch, which hit with the force of a freight train, spinning me around, knocking me to my knees.

  I heard my brother laugh, muffled through his gas mask.

  Then I heard, ever so faintly, thousands of people cheer.

  My hands were shaking with agonizing tremors, drool running down my chin. My eyes were so wet that everything was a blur.

  My stomach twisted, and I threw up.

  My body was failing. Shutting down.

  I was dying. Fast.

  I’d been dealing with that reality for years. But I thought I’d die from the cancer running rampant through my body. It was a death I’d grown comfortable with. One I’d endure alone.

  I never thought I’d die from poison gas. Alongside the woman I loved.

  And more than six thousand people would die soon after me.

  Six thousand deaths, that would lead to millions more.

  It was incomprehensible.

  The United States of America was going to be utterly destroyed.

  Torn apart, by my asshole older brother.

  Hugo.

  And the only hope for me, for Pasha, and for my country, was another asshole.

  An asshole named Harry McGlade.

  CHICAGO

  ONE WEEK EARLIER

  HUGO

  The Man With Seven Tears unwrapped the bloody tape from his knuckles and tossed it into the trash can in the corner of the interrogation room. His breathing was heavy, his heart a machinegun. Sweat ran down his naked upper body in rivulets, making his dozens of black prison tattoos glisten like they were needle-fresh.

  He picked up a folded towel from the nearby table and rubbed it across his fifty-seven inch chest, wiping away sweat and a few specks of blood from when the prisoner’s nose popped. Then he extended the motion into rubbing his face and shaved head, back across his neck, down his enormous trapezius muscles, and under both arms.

  It had been a good workout, but a disappointingly quiet one. His punching bag, hanging from the ceiling from the wrists, had become unconscious after the first few minutes of body work, and hadn’t made a peep while Hugo worked over his face.

  What was the fun in that? Might as well be hitting an actual bag.

  Hugo wasn’t even sure the man was still alive. He didn’t look it; barely recognizable as human, just a swollen, dripping sack of flesh and bone.

  But then he heard a small groan.

  The Man With Seven Tears walked back to the prisoner. “Now you want to make noise?”

  The man’s swollen lips trembled, drooling blood. “Why…?” he wheezed.

  That was the age old question. Why me? Why were some born sheep, and others born wolves? Why did life produce a few exceptional people, destined to make history, but so many more who only existed to be instantly forgotten?

  Hugo had several answers.

  “Because I’m strong and you’re weak. Because I’m white and you’re the wrong color. Because I wanted to. Because life isn’t fair. Because I could. Pick one.”

  “Mon… ster…”

  Hugo felt a spark of irritation. Exercise usually quelled that itch, but lately the anger spikes had been coming more frequently. Maybe it was the new juice.

  “Would you like to see a monster?” he asked. “Let me introduce you to a friend. This is Göth.”

  The Man With Seven Tears pronounced the name as goet, and then removed the straight razor from the cuff of his newly-polished combat boots. With a practiced flick the blade snapped open.

  “Göth has an unusual talent. He can make people beg for death. Do you want to see?”

  The man didn’t want to see.

  But Göth made him see.

  It only took forty seconds for the man to plead for his life to end.

  Hugo silenced the screaming with a deep cut across the throat, biting deep enough to hit the vertebrae. Göth was so sharp, so thin, that it was easy as finger-drawing a line in the sand.

  The Man With Seven Tears left the interrogation room and went to the showers to wash off the blood. When he was sure Göth was squeaky clean, he made a horizontal cut along his shin bone, a few millimeters below the forty-three other such scars running from his knee to almost his ankle.

  Schlammensch didn’t warrant a blue tear tattoo. Tears were only for specially chosen targets.

  Hugo had seven tears.

  He wanted his eighth. He wanted it like a dog in the desert wanted water.

  But there were rules.

  There had always been rules.

  After toweling off, Hugo poured a packet of Celox on his leg to stop the bleeding. Then he dressed in the filthy locker room, alone. The rally had ended the day before, and the former football stadium, which the CN had unofficially dubbed The Bunker, had gone from two hundred race warriors to only a handful. It was pathetic. The majority of their army was locked away in prisons, and those that remained were white nationalists only one weekend per month. The rest of the time they hid in their pathetic nine-to-five jobs, pretending that diversity was a good thing so HR didn’t threaten to fire them.

  So they marched around their little stadium to Wagner music, burned a few crosses, drank a lot of beer, listened t
o speeches about White Power, and then went back home actually believing they were making a difference.

  One of the recruits came in, a skinhead no more than seventeen years old, more acne on his face than Hugo had on his back. The kid immediately lowered his head in respect.

  “Truppenführer, the General sent me to find you. He’s waiting in his office.”

  Truppenführer. Troop leader. A meaningless title, supposedly bestowed by the SC. Hugo had never met the man, never even spoke to him. The made-up rank was meant to appease him while he awaited his next mission, but all it did was remind Hugo that eleven years had passed, and he still hadn’t been given what was originally promised.

  If things didn’t change, and fast, Hugo was going to kill every single one of them.

  “There’s a mess in the interrogation room,” Hugo told the boy. “Clean it up.”

  The recruit scuttled away, and Hugo dressed and went to meet Packer. His office was down the hall; an old equipment room with a secondhand pressboard desk. The drywall that hadn’t been kicked out was slathered with graffiti, and the only light was an overhead florescent bulb that buzzed like a pissed-off horsefly.

  There was no seat for visitors, because Packer preferred they stand at attention. Hugo walked up to the desk, towering over the older man, dwarfing him.

  “Good rally,” Packer said.

  If by good he meant that the cops hadn’t shown up, and no one had beaten anyone else up, then it was indeed one of their better efforts.

  “The prisoner is dead,” Hugo said.

  “That’s why we brought him here. For you to exact vengeance.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Does it matter? Do you care?”

  He didn’t care. But it was the principle of the thing. Hugo was good enough to kill for them, but not good enough to know why.

  Hugo leaned forward, putting his knuckles on the desk. It began to bow inward. “How many men have you killed, General?”

  Packer had three tears, and never discussed his past.

  “I’ve done my share for the cause. You know that. I follow orders just like you do. Now kindly get off my desk before you break the damn thing.”