Unbridled

by Diana Palmer

  “No, I’m trying to save an innocent man. You’re talking to people!”

  Banks’s dark eyes narrowed. “I swear to God, I’ve killed chickens that didn’t complain half as much as you do!”

  “You heartless man!” she said. “Poor, fluffy little things...!”

  “Floured. Fried. Crispy and delicious,” Banks said with a wistful smile. “Nobody cooked fried chicken like my mother.”

  “Chicken,” John scoffed. “I’ll take a juicy steak any day.”

  “Poor, sweet little cows,” she began, glaring at John.

  “Steers,” he corrected. “We don’t eat heifers or bulls or cows. We eat steers.”

  She stared at him.

  “It’s useless to try and share knowledge with her,” Banks said, waving his hand in her direction. “You can’t fix stupid.”

  “No, you can’t, that’s why the captain busted you back to sergeant,” she told Banks with a vicious smile.

  “At least I don’t shoot men in my own office,” he retorted.

  “Peasant,” she said haughtily and went back into her office.

  “Nasturtium,” he called after her.

  “And will you stop calling me that?!” she snapped.

  Banks hid a smile. Her door slammed.

  “Nasturtium?” John asked.

  “It’s a flower. If you call her one, she leaves you alone, at least, temporarily.” He shook his head. “Never a dull moment down here since they stuck me with her,” he added, his mouth turning down at one side. “I’ve thought of accusing myself of a crime so they’d lock me up and I’d be rid of her. But with my luck, they’d arrest her and with our unisex society being what it is these days, we’d be sharing a cell.” He looked up. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Banks chuckled. “Well, you’re honest.”

  John took off his hat and tossed it onto a chair, running his fingers through his thick hair. “I’ve got one dead kid and another missing wounded one, and one half-dead one, all three members of warring gangs. I keep trying to remember something similar, years ago, but I can’t quite—”

  “McCarthy,” Banks said quietly. “Melinda McCarthy.”

  John drew in a quick breath. “Yes. Of course!”

  FIVE

  Melinda McCarthy had been the daughter of a state senator. Her death, two years earlier, had made national headlines. She’d been found in a back alley of San Antonio, dead of an apparent drug overdose. The thing was, she never used really hard narcotics and she wasn’t suicidal. Her father was still trying to prove that it was murder.

  There were only a couple of clues that might lead a jury to believe that it was. She was found with Propofol in her body and the body had been moved. It was a potent anesthetic usually given by infusion, which took time and indicated a need for privacy to give it. She was found in an alley right downtown. There was no tube in her arm for infusion, either, only a syringe. But it wasn’t the right arm, at that.

  It wasn’t well-known, but she’d been estranged from her parents for a time, and she was known to the police. She made a living as a high-class call girl. The last person to see her alive was her landlady, who said that she was upbeat and happy because she’d found a way to go back to school and get off the midlevel drugs she was using. Her dad was going to help her. She also mentioned a murder that she knew about, and a drug dealer high up in law enforcement that she was going to blow the whistle on.

  At the same time this was going on, there was a gang war over territory. But it wasn’t the Serpientes. It was a lesser-known San Antonio gang, trying to infringe on Los Diablos Lobitos’ territory. There had been four gang deaths. One of the dead was a low-level pusher whose sister worked as a call girl, just like Melinda, a boy named Harry Lopez. He, like Melinda, died of an apparent drug overdose, but under suspicious circumstances. Like Melinda, the boy had Propofol in his system. The blame had been placed on the leader of the gang opposing Los Diablos Lobitos, who was conveniently dead. The other three dead were high-level members of the opposing gang, and with their leaders in the morgue, the gang disappeared.

  There were whispers at the time that the Lobitos were hand in glove with a high-level person in the DEA, and they’d had help disposing of the invading gang. It seemed that the opposing gang wouldn’t make a deal to kick back part of its profits to the DEA mole.

  Law enforcement officials thought Melinda’s death was murder, but there was no evidence that pointed to it. No fingerprints, no clues, nothing to indicate that anybody had used the needle on her except herself. The only thing that pointed to murder was that she was left-handed and the needle was in her left elbow. Also, the drug that was used, Propofol, was usually used to anesthetize surgical patients and was most often inserted by drip. Odd drug for a street user, and only a syringe was found; no tubing to insert the heavy sedative. It had been used notoriously by some famous people as a drug of choice. Its most notable side effect was a complete loss of memory directly afterward. In other words, people who used it didn’t remember using it, or anything that happened to them just before it was used. Oddly enough, the leader of the invading gang, now dead, had overdosed with the exact same drug.

  Melinda’s killer, despite the efforts of various law enforcement agencies to prove there had been one, had never been found. Nor was there any apparent motive for her death except the fact that she knew something about a high-level drug dealer. It was a motive, but with no suspects. Her death had saddened everyone connected to the case, because she was a kind and sweet woman who went out of her way to help the impoverished people in the apartment house where she lived.

  “And how ironic,” Banks added. “Because that’s one of the cold cases I’m working on right now.”

  “Did something connect?”

  “Yes. I had a tip a few days ago. A woman broke up with her live-in boyfriend after he beat her up for the tenth time. He was involved in drugs and prostitution. Well, so was his girlfriend. He ran because she called the police, and when they came, she fingered him for an accessory in a two-year-old murder. Melinda’s murder.”

  “And?”

  “She said that it was no suicide. She told police that her boyfriend had a part in the senator’s daughter’s death, but that it was somebody high up in law enforcement who’d ordered her killed and he didn’t actually commit the murder. She didn’t know why the senator’s daughter was targeted. Her boyfriend never told her. But the boyfriend knew who the killer was.”

  “Who is he? The boyfriend? Have you tracked him down? It might be possible to offer him a plea deal. You could check with the DA.”

  “That’s the thing. The name he used with her is an alias. He’s more or less vanished.”

  “Great,” John said heavily. “That’s just great.”

  “That’s why I’ve got Clancey going through paper files from three years ago, looking for any case that might have ties to mine.”

  “And she’s not even getting overtime!” Clancey yelled through the door.

  “At least she still has a job, for the time being!” Banks yelled back.

  There was an insulting noise, and then, silence.

  “I never thought it was suicide,” Banks said, unperturbed. “She wasn’t the type. She made her living as a call girl, but she was high ticket. She didn’t take on clients who weren’t loaded.”

  “Oppressive men, driving desperate women to acts of sinfulness!” Clancey interjected.

  “I wish somebody would drive you to an act of desperation,” Banks muttered. “There must be at least one sanitation worker in Texas who needs an able assistant.”

  “Neat idea! Why don’t you apply?” she called back.

  Banks rolled his eyes and ground his teeth together.

  John managed not to laugh. He leaned forward. “Do you think there’s any possibility that
the hit was gang related?” he asked.

  Banks sighed. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure now that she was actually murdered and not a suicide. Her father calls me twice a month, hoping for any progress on the case. He lost his wife years ago. It was just him and Melinda, and he drew inside himself after his wife died. They hardly spoke. Then they had a major disagreement over her new boyfriend and she moved out. The boyfriend was the one who got her hooked on drugs and into prostitution. She’d just come out of a rehab clinic. She wasn’t using anymore and she had plans to go back home. It’s a sad story.”

  “Your informant said that someone high up in law enforcement ordered the hit.” John was thinking, his black eyes narrow and thoughtful. “There was a case about two years ago, involving an assistant district attorney who was murdered in San Antonio.”

  “Yes!” Banks said, sitting up straight. “The murderer was wearing a designer paisley shirt and a very expensive wristwatch that played music. The watch and the shirt tied him to the assistant DA’s murder, and to the politician who ordered him killed. The politician was actually appointed to a vacant US Senate seat. It sent shock waves through the country when he went up for conspiracy to commit murder. State’s evidence was turned by a former cop named Fred Baldwin, who was on the politician’s payroll.”

  “I’d forgotten all about that. Sheriff Hayes Carson in Jacobsville was shot. An attempt was made on one of the Kirk boys in Wyoming, the one who’d been a Border Patrol agent. Both attempts were made by the same man, the one who’d pinched the shirt and watch from the murdered assistant DA, because he didn’t want them to remember that he’d been wearing the DA’s shirt!”

  “He made an attempt on Carlie Blair in Jacobsville as well, didn’t he?” Banks asked.

  “Yes. She had a photographic memory and she’d seen him in the shirt. He wiped out everyone he could think of who had. He even wiped Sheriff Carson’s computer in the sheriff’s office and killed the computer programmer who’d been hired to recover the data on it. But when he put the hit on Carlie, he messed up. He was high as a kite and he got it confused, so the killer he’d contracted went after her father instead. Incidentally, the murderer in the stolen paisley shirt burned to death trying to kill two women up in Wyoming, one of whom was engaged to the Kirk who was a border agent.”

  “Complicated,” Banks mused.

  “Very. It came out that the DEA had a mole. They thought it was the guy who died in Wyoming, who actually posed as a DEA agent. But they found out later that the mole’s still involved. They don’t know who he is or where he is, or how to find out. If you mention it to Cobb, the senior DEA agent in Houston, he starts foaming at the mouth,” John chuckled.

  “A DEA mole who’s still undetected. A dead girl who’d just gone through rehab to get off hard narcotics but was found self-injected with a high-ticket drug. A murdered assistant DA. What about the man who turned state’s evidence?” Banks asked.

  “Fred Baldwin. He was a cop in Chicago years ago, fired for being overly rough with a man who’d just killed his baby son. His name was cleared and he worked for Jacobsville Police Chief Cash Grier for a while.”

  Banks chuckled. “I know Grier. He was a Texas Ranger some years back.”

  John whistled. “I remember. He slugged our temporary captain and got fired.”

  “I learned some new words,” Banks recalled wistfully. “I wish he’d hit the man twice as hard. Our temporary boss gave Rangers a bad name. He didn’t last long after that. You know that Grier’s related to the state attorney general, right?”

  John nodded. “And a few people in DC as well.”

  “He and I are third cousins. His brother’s SAC at the Jacobsville satellite FBI office,” Banks remarked. “Good man, Garon.”

  “He is. I’ve worked with him from time to time.”

  “We all have.” Banks leaned back again. “A two-year-old murder that nobody would admit was a murder. A mole in the DEA office, somebody high up and never fingered. A dead assistant DA. A murderer who can be identified by a disgruntled former girlfriend, but we can’t find him because he used an alias with her.”

  “All true.” John shrugged. “So I guess we dig and dig in our spare time.”

  “What spare time?” Banks asked, nodding toward a two-foot stack of file folders on his desk.

  “Tell me about it.” John got to his feet. “Hollister over at SAPD is putting together a task force to sort out the gang warfare we’re currently embroiled in. I’ve been recruited for it. I’ve got a dead boy who was in Los Serpientes, a missing wounded boy in Los Diablos Lobitos and a hospitalized wounded boy who’s covered in wolf tattoos. He said his boss was going snake hunting. So we’re going to try to find the shooters before more blood flows.”

  “I’d offer to help, but my caseload is pretty formidable. I really want Melinda’s killer,” he added coldly.

  “So does the senator. You might ask him to pull some strings for you at the political level,” John suggested. “It never hurts to have a powerful politician in your corner.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  * * *

  John was conflicted after he left Banks. Like many law enforcement people in San Antonio, he wanted Melinda’s case solved. Some lowlife had gotten away with murder. He needed to be caught, even if it was two years too late.

  He remembered that he’d promised lunch to Sunny and he smiled. One bright spot in his day, at least, he thought as he got into his black SUV and headed toward her apartment building. A few minutes of pleasant company might clear his head.

  * * *

  Sunny was sure that he wasn’t going to show up, and part of her hoped he wouldn’t. She was already a nervous wreck. She’d tried on four outfits before settling on jeans and a pretty green sweater with a turtleneck. She’d brushed her long blond hair so that it settled around her shoulders, and she’d used the lightest trace of lipstick. She wouldn’t win a beauty contest, but she didn’t look too bad, she considered.

  Just as she was about to fix herself a sandwich, there was a tap on the front door. Heart racing, she ran to answer it. And there he was. Gorgeous. Six feet of virile, sensuous man.

  He smiled to himself, because everything she felt was right there on her face. She didn’t have the experience to hide it. He loved that about her. She was so sweetly naive. He wondered how a woman reached her age in the modern world without falling into an affair, or several affairs. It seemed to be the norm with people around him.

  “Ready to go?” he asked softly, and with a smile.

  “Oh, yes!” She grabbed her purse and pulled out her door key. “I’ll lock up,” she said.

  He followed her out and waited while she fumbled the key into the lock. “It’s cold,” she laughed, shouldering into the light jacket she wore with her jeans.

  “It is. Unusually cold, for south Texas,” he added.

  She fell into step beside him. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To a little place down near Floresville that has the best barbeque in Texas,” he said.

  She turned to him. “How did you know I liked barbeque?” she asked, surprised.

  “I didn’t. He has other meats, but it’s the barbeque that keeps us coming back. It’s an office favorite,” he added with twinkling black eyes.

  “I’m crazy about it,” she confessed. “My mother used to make barbeque ribs in the slow cooker,” she added. “She was a wonderful cook.”

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “I do my best,” she said. “I can make breads of all sorts, and I’m pretty good with vegetables. But I have problems with bouncing chicken.”

  He turned and stared down at her as they reached his black SUV.

  She laughed. “I’m always afraid I won’t get it done enough, so I usually overcook it and it bounces.”

  He opened the door for her, admiring the long, beautifu
l sweep of her pale blond hair around her shoulders. “I know an easy fix for that,” he said.

  She waited, curious, while he went around and got in under the wheel and started the big vehicle. A police radio crackled softly with static between them. The back seat was full of paraphernalia.

  He caught her glancing at the disorder and chuckled. “I’m messy,” he confessed. “I think I was left behind when they taught how to put things in order. I was raised by my grandfather, and he was so disorganized that he made me look neat. But he loved me, and he raised me to be useful rather than a layabout.”

  “I know what you mean. My mother used to say that character was worth far more than wealth.”

  He nodded. “It is.” He glanced at her. “When you cook chicken, put a fork in it. If it brings up blood, it’s not cooked enough.”

  “Is it that easy?” she asked, laughing.

  “I don’t cook much, but when our housekeeper goes on vacation, I pretty much have to. I don’t like takeout.” He didn’t add that his son loved it. He didn’t want to mention Tonio. She liked him, but her opinion might change if she knew that he had a ready-made family in tow. It was too soon, at any rate, to be that personal with her. After all, what he had in mind was simple friendship. Somebody to date occasionally. She was good company.

  “Everything’s so bleak in winter,” she said with a sigh.

  “It’s not.”

  “Excuse me?” she asked, turning her head.

  He chuckled. “It’s not winter. Not until the twentieth.”

  “Oh!” She shook her head. “I always forget. When it gets cold, I always think it’s winter beginning.”

  “I have more trouble with the time changing than the seasons changing.” He sighed. “I wish they’d leave it alone. I always forget to change the clock and I’m either too early or too late for work.”

  She loved it, that he wasn’t perfect. She looked at the purse she was rolling in her lap. The truck was nice. It seemed to have every device known to man, including power windows and a CD player. It even had a sunroof.

  “What do you drive?” he asked.