The Hunters Series Box Set

by Glenn Trust

  “Here.” Budroe lifted several typed pages, stapled together from the table beside his chair. “This is what I want you to say. Read it. Learn it. Memorize it, Vernon. Then burn it.”

  Taft reached out and took the papers into his trembling hand.

  “You understand me, Vernon?”

  Vernon nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I understand.” His eyes went down to the papers in his hand. “Learn this and tell the people like it says on the papers. Burn the papers.”

  “That’s right. Like Lonna said, do this, and you are free to go and do whatever you want, wherever you want.” Budroe nodded and blew smoke into the air. “We have a deal, Vernon.”

  “Y-yes…a deal.” He looked up, a question on his face, afraid to open his mouth.

  “What?” Budroe smiled benevolently. “Something on your mind, say it.”

  “J-just wondering who I’m supposed to meet with.”

  “Don’t worry about that. For now, just learn what I want you to say. I’ll get word to you through Lonna when and where to meet the people.”

  Vernon nodded, looking down at the top sheet in his hands, seeing nothing but a bunch of blurred black marks on the paper. He hoped he would be able to focus when they got back to their room. Maybe Lonna would give him some more of that high quality coke. That would help him focus. He was sure of it.

  “You can go now.” Budroe looked at the two of them, as if wondering why they were still seated on his porch.

  Lonna nearly jumped to her feet, dragging Vernon up from the chair. “C’mon Vernon. You heard Roy. Let’s go.”

  They stumbled down the steps to the pickup. As Vernon pulled open the passenger door, Budroe called out.

  “Don’t fuck it up, Vernon. Don’t fuck it up.”

  Vernon would have fallen to the ground if he hadn’t been clinging to the truck’s door. He hauled himself in face first as Lonna cranked the engine and started backing away with Vernon’s door still open. His lips moved, repeating Budroe’s admonition as if it were a prayer. Don’t fuck it up, Vernon. Don’t fuck it up, Vernon. Oh God, please don’t let me fuck it up.

  Smiling, Budroe watched the pickup disappear down the dirt trail. He spoke over his shoulder. “I can hear the wheels turning inside your head, Marques. What’s on your mind?”

  Peña stepped around and took a chair beside Budroe’s, regarding the smiling man curiously. “I was thinking that perhaps it would have been wiser to meet him somewhere else. Not bring him here.”

  Budroe laughed loudly. “Always cautious, Marques. Always worrying and looking out for me.” He nodded and puffed the cigar. “That’s good. But there is no way in hell Vernon Taft is going to say anything.” He looked at Peña. “Didn’t you see him? He almost shit his pants when I told him, not to fuck it up.” He threw his head back now in full laughter.

  Watching, Marques Peña could not help but wonder if he was truly that confident, or just arrogant.

  67. A Woman’s Perspective

  “He may be difficult.”

  Governor Jesse Bell looked up from the papers in his hand. “So I see.” Bell looked down at the pages holding George’s responses to the questions thrown at him by Trenton Peele and the defense team. “Proud man. Honorable. Overly developed sense of right and wrong. See’s things in black and white, no gray areas, no shading.” Bell closed the pages in the file on his lap and looked at Peele. “How are you going to handle him?”

  Peele crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair across from the governor’s in the sitting area of the executive office. He looked at the seal on the wall, thinking. “It’s a challenge. Those qualities, the ones you just enumerated are the things he holds most dear. Hard to make a man give up the very things he values the most, whatever the cost.” He moved his eyes back down to the governor’s face. “I believe George Mackey would go to prison for the rest of his life rather than try to be what he isn’t or to make excuses about what happened in those woods.”

  “Bullshit.” Bell’s eyes narrowed, annoyed that Peele had avoided his question. “I want to know how you are going to handle him. Everyone has something they value, something they would never want to lose. That’s your job. Find out what he values and make sure he understands that unless he cooperates in his own defense, he will lose it, whatever it is.”

  “That may be easier said, than done.” Peele nodded at the papers on Bell’s lap. “You read the transcript of our interview. He is compelled to relate events just as they happened. Makes no excuses or attempts to explain them away. He just lays everything out, no matter what we say or how we ask the questions.”

  “You don’t seem to understand.” The governor’s voice was dangerously calm. “I don’t give a fuck how easy or difficult it is. There is more at stake here than whether a deputy from Pickham County happens to go to prison for executing a prisoner.”

  “Murderer.”.

  “What?”

  “Murderer. The man George Mackey shot was a serial killer.” Peele smiled softly, waiting for the outburst.

  “I don’t care if he was Hitler reincarnated! Mackey is not the only one on trial! This administration is on trial!” Bell took a deep breath and continued through gritted teeth. “There’s an election coming. Swain is using every opportunity to cast Mackey as one of my people. My entire campaign, my legacy as governor may depend on the outcome of the trial. You get Mackey to cooperate!”

  “How do you suggest I do that?”

  “Find something he values more than his precious honor and make sure he knows he is about to lose it. Everything. Gone.”

  “We’ve tried. There is nothing.”

  “There’s a woman.” Pamela Towers, seated across from the governor in her usual place, spoke for the first time.

  Peele nodded and looked at her. “Yes, we know. Had my team check on that. They spoke to Shaklee about the relationship. He knows both of them better than anyone else does. He warned against trying to use their relationship to put pressure on either one of them. Said it would backfire, make things worse. We backed off.”

  “Perhaps it’s not a matter of putting pressure on anyone.” Towers smiled. “Perhaps it is a matter of explaining things from the right…point of view shall we say.”

  “Ha!” Bell laughed and nodded. “Right. A woman’s point of view! I like it.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Peele regarded Towers thoughtfully. He had resigned himself to slug it out in court without Mackey’s cooperation. If there was a way to get him to be more sympathetic to the jury, he was all ears.

  “Only that someone should have a conversation with the woman, Sharon Price. Explain things.”

  “And that someone should be a woman.” Bell was energized at the idea, happy to have a solution. “You Pamela. You should be the one to speak with her.”

  “If those are your wishes, Governor.” Towers nodded respectfully. She had made her case and had convinced both men with fewer words than they would have used to order a latte.

  “Damn right those are my wishes. Go see Price. Explain things to her…” He nodded at her appreciatively. “…From a woman’s perspective.”

  “Will do.”

  68. He Was Important

  “What?” Colton Swain looked up from the files on his desk. “Whose phone is that?”

  Richard Klineman’s face paled. Seated at the far end of the conference table, away from the staff that was reviewing the jury pool with Swain, he grabbed the cell phone from his jacket pocket and silenced it, ending the call in the process. Shit.

  He looked sheepishly at Swain. “Sorry.”

  “No cell phones when we are working. You know the rules.”

  “I know. Sorry.” Klineman fumbled with the phone, bringing up the most recent call. His face paled. “I...uh…I have to return this call…it’s…uh…important.”

  “Well…uh…why don’t you…uh…go outside…uh…and…uh…return it?” Swain’s mockery of Klineman’s nervous stutter and lo
ok of utter disdain on his face caused the former sheriff of Pickham County to lose even more color from his pallid face. The younger attorneys seated around the conference table made no attempt to cover the smirking smiles on their faces. Klineman was becoming a joke to them all.

  “Right.” Klineman nodded and stood. “I’ll go outside and make the call.”

  In the hallway, he kept walking to the elevator and then outside the building. Crossing Capitol Avenue, Klineman found an empty bench on the lawn of the gold-domed Georgia capitol building and sat down, glad to be off his shaking knees. He pressed redial and waited.

  The phone rang ten times. Finally, Roy Budroe answered.

  “Did you hang up on me, Dick?”

  “N-no. I mean yes, but it was an accident. I was in a meeting with Swain.”

  “That a fact.” Budroe chuckled. “Well I guess it’s all right then. Wouldn’t want Attorney General Swain to know that his partner in crime was tied up with the likes of me, would we?”

  “Yes…I mean, no…I mean…”

  “Shut up, Dick and listen. I have your informant.”

  “You do? Who?”

  “You don’t need to know that yet. All you need to do is let Swain know that there is a confidential informant who is willing to give a statement that George Mackey was on the payroll of the Caribbean cartel that was setting up the sex slave trade in south Georgia.”

  “What about you? Won’t that implicate you?”

  “Naw…not gonna implicate me, besides, not your worry. You weren’t too concerned when you came up with the idea. What’s the matter? Cold feet, as usual?”

  “No, not that…just, well…we have to be careful. That’s all.”

  Budroe laughed loudly over the phone and Klineman pulled it away from his ear for a second. “You crack me up, Dick. Full of thunder one day, pissing yourself the next. Goddamn, I wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning look in the mirror and see your face staring back. That’s a scary thought.” He laughed again.

  “It’s just that…”

  “Shut up, Dick. You go tell Swain that you have your informant lined up. He’ll implicate Mackey. The meeting will be in a few days. Make it mysterious. They’ll love it, think you really got something.”

  The phone went dead.

  Klineman tiptoed into the conference room down the hall from the Attorney General’s office. He took his seat at the far end.

  Swain looked up from the gaggle of young staffers surrounding him. He frowned at the look of agitation on Klineman’s face. “What’s up?”

  “Uh…I have the informant.”

  The meeting shifted directions. With those four words, Klineman rose from joke to hero. Swain and the other attorneys gathered around Klineman, taking notes and asking questions, treating him with a level of deference to which he was unaccustomed.

  “Who is it?”

  “Can’t say just yet. He’s afraid and wants to remain confidential.”

  “When can we meet him?”

  “Soon. I’m working out the details now.”

  “What’s he willing to say?”

  “He will implicate Mackey in the sex slave ring.”

  The questions came rapid fire for thirty minutes and for once Richard Klineman was the most popular person in the room. The idea that his popularity was based on a promise from Roy Budroe nagged somewhere in the corners of his consciousness, but for the moment, he pushed the worry away. For now, Klineman was important.

  69. Do What You Have To Do

  It was midmorning when Mike Darlington took a seat in the Cessna 182 the state provided to the Office of Special Investigations for air support. Johnny Rincefield had been flying for the team since the days when it was just a task force organized during the ‘Term Limits’ murder investigations.

  “Where do we start?” Darlington pulled the seatbelt straps tight and looked at Rince.

  Focused on steering the airplane out to the runway, Rince answered without turning his head. “I was hoping you would tell me that.”

  At the end of the runway in Everett, Rince spoke briefly into the headset and then pushed the throttle fully forward. He held the aircraft in place for a moment with the brakes, listening to the engines and then allowed it to begin its acceleration to takeoff, gaining speed exponentially with each passing foot. Rince pulled the yoke back just past the mid-point and rotated the plane off the runway. They were airborne.

  “What are we doing?” Mike looked down at Everett shrinking below them but not falling behind.

  “Gonna circle Everett’s airfield to gain altitude before we begin the search. Don’t want to attract attention from anyone by being too low.”

  “Right. Makes sense.” Mike smiled over at Rince. “Don’t mean to offend or tell you your business. I know you’ve been doing this a while.”

  “No offense taken. I’m just glad to be flying.”

  A few minutes later, they headed towards Roydon passing high over Pete’s Place. Looking down, Mike felt a sense of guilt that Marco and Poncinelli were there now, in harm’s way, while he was gallivanting in the sky with Rince.

  “They’ll be okay.”

  Mike turned his head. “What?”

  “They’ll be okay.” Rince nodded out the window in the direction of Roydon. “Marco and Ponce, they know what they’re doing.”

  “Right, I know. Just seems wrong to leave them on their own down there.”

  “They’re not alone. We’re up here watching out for them.”

  Darlington smiled. “I guess I’m just a street deputy. I need to be there looking them in the eye.”

  “I understand.” Rince banked the plane and the horizon went vertical. “But best thing we can do is try to figure out where Mr. Budroe might be hiding. Then we can call in the wrath of the mighty OSI on his ass.”

  Mike smiled at the twinkle in Rince’s eye. It was clear that Johnny Rincefield loved his role with the team. “You’ve done a lot of this.”

  “Some. Started in Vietnam, then with the Georgia Department of Public Safety, looking for dopers mostly. Now with the OSI. Hell, there’s days I’d do it for free, long as they let me fly.”

  Mike nodded. “Know how you feel. I’ve said the same thing about being a deputy. It’s what I do, what I am, I guess. Never wanted to do anything else.” He looked at Rince. “Is it true? What you did last year, landing on the highway, right over Budroe’s head?”

  “It’s true.” Rince smiled. “Not the smartest move I ever made. Almost got the sheriff of Meacham County killed.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Still, it was the right thing to do…in the circumstances.”

  “Who knows. Maybe it was. Maybe I was just pissed off.”

  “Way I heard it, they almost killed Andy Barnes. Budroe was responsible; you did what you had to.” Mike shrugged having made peace with the idea during his years in law enforcement. “Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, you do what you have to do.”

  “Well, I did it…that’s for sure.” Rince nodded out the window at the green landscape below. “Where you reckon Budroe is hiding down there?”

  “No telling, but I think we ought to start flying grids using Pete’s as the starting point on each pass. Say twenty miles out and back each pass.” He shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but we might get lucky, see something that leads us to him.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Rince lined the Cessna up for a pass directly over Pete’s Place.

  “Just one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No landing on any of them little skinny roads down there.”

  “Guess I’ll just do what I have to do.”

  The Cessna flipped into a steep bank as Rince set up for the first pass. Mike was too busy clinging to the seat and trying not to look straight down at the ground to see the grin spread across the pilot’s face.

  70. Things Were Working Out

  “Hey baby.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

&nbs
p; “I want you baby.” Gary Poncinelli leaned over biker-girl Brenda at the bar, beer on his breath, trying hard to get a look down the top of her tank top. He put a hand on her bare back and ran it up under her hair.

  As her fist was coming up to take a swing at him, a hand reached out, grabbed Ponce by the collar, spun him around and jerked his arm behind in a come along hold. Marco Santoro pulled hard and Ponce went up on his tiptoes as Marco walked him to the door.

  “Shit man. That hurts! What the fuck you doin’ that for. Just wanted to talk to the girl.”

  “She don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Shut up.” Marco bounced Ponce off the heavy steel door, pushing him out into the gravel lot.

  Henry Schulls and Luke McCrory, standing outside in their customary spot, turned as the door banged open and saw Ponce holding his head where it had bounced off the door. Three bikers standing with them started forward but Luke held up his hand and they stopped, watching the show.

  “Go sober up.” Marco gave Ponce a push sending him stumbling across the gravel.

  “I just wanted to talk to her…didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “Go sober up. Don’t come back till you do.”

  Poncinelli stumbled to his pickup and backed carefully away from the building. He made the turn towards the interstate, crossing the centerline and narrowly avoiding an oncoming pickup. It was a good performance. He rubbed the knot on his forehead where he impacted the door.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Henry Schulls stared at Marco.

  “Just a drunk. He was hittin’ on Brenda.”

  “That right?” Big Luke looked past Marco.

  “Yeah, he was, but I don’t need no help.” Brenda leaned against the doorframe, watching the show.

  Marco turned to face her. “Looked like you didn’t want him botherin’ you.”

  “What are you? Some kind of boy scout?” Schulls took a step forward eyeing Marco up and down.

  “Nope. No boy scout. Just thought I’d lend a hand.

  “What the fuck for?”