KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set

by Gordon Kessler

  The ADA reeled back. “You stupid old Greek!” He held his face with one hand and reached under his coat with the other.

  “Ah, ah, ah-ah!” came the thin voice from the shadow at the end of the bar, accompanied by the sound of hard steel hammering the counter top.

  It was See-Saw, and Oz’s “cannon,” the big Taurus Raging Bull handgun, lay in front of him. But how could he have known the man was reaching under his coat? He was obviously completely blind. Smokey had seen the scarred eyes under his sun glasses.

  Rankle held a small pistol in his hand, still halfway under his blazer. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”

  “I realize,” Oz finally answered him, “A man comes into my bar and greets me with the respect I deserve; I’ll welcome him with that same respect. Come in here like you’re going to bust some balls — excuse me, ladies — you’ll leave with your own balls in your hands.”

  Rankle put his handgun back into place.

  “Lt. Legend, arrest that man!” he said pointing at See-Saw.

  Harper answered, “You mean that old man with the sunglasses and white cane who can barely walk? He’s totally blind. What do you want me to charge him with?”

  “Well then, arrest this man,” he said and pointed at Oz. “For assault!”

  Harper asked, “Do you realize what the arrest and booking sheet’s going to look like? You know how quickly things get out and twisted around: ‘ADA slapped with flyswatter, and orders female detective to arrest both the assailant and his blind sidekick.’ This is the type of story the media loves — it’ll get distorted in a minute and grow out of proportion. It’ll be Lampooned on YouTube and Saturday Night Live, and joked about on the Tonight Show and Letterman within a week.”

  It was time to step in. “Everyone, please settle down,” Smokey said and stood from her seat. “Mr. Rankle, what is it you want with E Z?”

  “That is not your business. It’s between the Federal government and Mr. Knight. I can tell you that if he’s breaking his terms of parole, I’m sending him back to prison. So where is he?”

  Oz said, “You’re about as single-minded as a boy beagle shining Hush Puppies.”

  See-Saw slapped the bar and let go a baritone chortle that didn’t come close to matching his thin voice or slight stature. It took the ladies a couple of seconds for the pun to sink in. All three suppressed their laughter.

  Rankle didn’t get it. He seemed dumbfounded.

  See-Saw explained, “The Hush Puppies Oz is talkin’ about don’t need shined, and it ain’t your shoes a male dog’s trying to polish when he’s humpin’ your leg.”

  Jazzy Brass had waddled over to Rankle unnoticed and was squatting over his Mezlan wingtips, as if on cue. When the warm pee seemed to finally sink into his right shoe, he glanced down frowning at the golden retriever pup, his eyes wide.

  Smokey reached down and swept up Jazzy, seeing she was about to get kicked. “Don’t you dare!”

  “If E Z were here, he’d kick your ass!” Oz blurted. Then he held his mouth.

  Smokey took the dish towel from Oz and threw it onto Rankle’s shoe.

  The ADA took the rag, propped his foot on the top rung of the nearest barstool, and wiped it dry. “So you do know where Knight is. And he isn’t here? Where then?”

  Oz shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

  Rankle insisted, “Where is he?”

  Lt. Harper Lee Legend said, “Oz, Smokey, you’d better tell him. He can make it very difficult for you and the marina.”

  Rankle added, “One call to the DA, and you’ll be on his short list. That’s the one listing businesses he’s going to nit-pick until he shuts them down.”

  Oz raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah, District Attorney George Rice?” He smiled. “I ain’t seen him since our poker game Saturday — playing for points only, of course.”

  Rankle was about to blow an artery. “Where’s Knight!”

  Oz answered, “Maybe out at his boat. Maybe out for a drive. Maybe out for a walk. I don’t know.”

  “How about out of the state?” Rankle asked. “How about out in Colorado? How about out of the law, and soon to be back within the law and in prison?”

  He turned to Smokey. “Which is his boat?”

  Oz piped in, “Atlantis Pier, Slip 12.”

  Tamara said, “Slip 21.” She looked back sorrowfully at Oz. “It’s no use. He’ll figure out which boat is his sooner or later.”

  Oz glared at Rankle. “Yeah, but we don’t have to help the prick. I’ll have him running in big circles around his own asshole until midnight before I tell him anything useful.” He bowed his head. “Excuse me, ladies.”

  Rankle smirked, “You already told me he wasn’t here.”

  “The bar, dick gnat,” See-Saw chimed in, “He’s not here at the bar!”

  Oz said, “And I think you’d better leave.”

  Smokey moved between the two, figuring the three-foot-wide bar wasn’t enough of a barricade. She passed Jazzy Brass to Oz, hoping that holding the puppy would disarm him a bit.

  “I’ll take care of you, later,” Rankle said and turned toward the door.

  Oz shouted at him, “Sorry, this ain’t that type of place. You’d better not come in here again — I’m putting up fly strips!”

  Smokey followed them out the door and toward the Atlantis Pier, Tamara leading.

  Tamara and Harper were doing their best to talk Rankle into a calmer state. Smokey decided her involvement would do more harm than good.

  Rankle told them, “I got the call an hour ago, just before I had Margaret call you two. Said Knight was in Colorado, going to see his children — the ones with the restraining order against him.” He glared at Tamara, “And I’m betting he doesn’t have your written permission to leave the state, let alone to leave Orange County.”

  Tamara didn’t answer.

  “Well, does he?” Rankle asked. “And tell the truth the first time. I will ask for your copy of the permission form.”

  Tamara answered, “He’s not due for his monthly check in for two weeks.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Again, Tamara didn’t answer, which seemed to be enough for Rankle. “I didn’t think so.”

  Smokey couldn’t help herself. “Why is it you’re so bent on getting E Z, Mr. Rankle?”

  “None of your business, I told you — except that I don’t like lawbreakers, especially murderers.”

  That set Smokey afire. “He was acquitted!”

  Lt. Harper Legend dropped back and took Smokey by the arm to slow her down.

  In a low voice she told Smokey, “Rankle was one of the ADAs in Kansas who put E Z away for Jolene Knight’s murder. E Z always insisted he hadn’t killed his wife and claimed Rankle was on the take. The public was appalled by the heinous murders of Jolene Knight and her parents. After his conviction, they wanted E Z to get the death penalty — and that’s exactly the sentence he got.”

  Smokey listened, shaking her head. “But he was acquitted.”

  “Yes, but there’s more to it. While E Z was on death row three years later, Rankle was running for DA. That was when E Z broke out and killed two crooked FBI agents in order to prove his innocence. When he pointed the finger at Rankle again for being on the take, public sentiment seemed to shift in E Z’s favor. Rankle lost the election in what was expected to be a shoe-in. But E Z couldn’t prove his allegations and Rankle moved out here last month and got a job in our DA’s office. It seems he’s following E Z to get even, but we can’t prove that either. Speculation is that someone is behind Rankle and pulling his strings.”

  Tamara and Rankle stopped at Slip 12, and Smokey and Harper caught up.

  The new slip renter of number 12, Mrs. Esmeralda McCourkle, had just sailed in and was tying off her 36-foot Hunter sailboat, the Nauti-Gal. She was quite a virago for being in her mid-seventies.

  “Maybe the dumb Greek was telling one truth to draw me off,” Rankle said.

  “He told
me ‘Slip 12’, didn’t he?”

  The old woman sailor on the boat gathered up her calico cat and stood gawking at them. “Who’s the prick in the suit,” she asked, “and why is he eyeballing my boat?”

  Smokey smiled at the seventy-something-year-old, admiring her perception. She had discovered a fondness for the old gal from the start when she met Esmeralda McCourkle and rented her the slip earlier this morning.

  Old lady McCourkle released her cat, and it leapt to the pier. She told it, “Sic him, Friendly!”

  The cat trotted up aggressively, but stopped about ten feet from Rankle, turned sideways with arched back and started a spit and hiss fit.

  “Slip 21 is over here,” Lt. Legend said and gently led Rankle away.

  In a few seconds they were standing in front of E Z’s boat.

  “The Reckless Abandon?” Rankle asked, reading the boat’s stern. “That’s an understatement.” He scanned the old 27-foot Catalina, then his eyes lit up. “I’m betting Knight is here, and he’s hiding inside the boat’s cabin right now.”

  Smokey saw the bikini top and bottom laying out on the cabin roof as if drying in the sun. A towel lay in the open cabin companionway.

  Rankle stepped onto the boat and withdrew his gun, as the small vessel rocked. “Come out with your hands up! You know I won’t mind putting a bullet in you.”

  In a blur of pink flesh, a young nude woman raced out, threw a small fur-ball at Rankle and dove into the water beside the dock.

  The fur-ball turned out to be a very angry ferret. It latched onto Rankle’s nose. The ADA went crazy and fired two shots wildly, before the small polecat let go. It bounded twice across the boat and then followed the girl into the water.

  “Stop it!” Smokey yelled. “You’re going to kill someone.”

  “What the hell was that?” Rankle said, not paying attention to Smokey, his gun aimed at the cabin companionway. “Knight, come out!” He edged closer, then stepped down into the cabin. In a couple of seconds, he was back out.

  “He’s not here,” he said, blood dripping from his nose. He looked over the side of the boat at the water. “Who’s the girl?”

  “It was only Jada,” Tamara said. “You damn near killed her!”

  Smokey added, “She’s just a teenager who does odd jobs around the marina for folks. She cleans their boats, chips some paint ….”

  “And sleeps with them?” Rankle asked.

  Smokey shook her head. “She sometimes stays in boats when the owners are away.”

  Rankle smiled. “She’s a minor, isn’t she?”

  “She’s a computer geek,” Smokey said.

  “And she has an illegal, wild, exotic animal as a pet,” Rankle said, now holding a monogrammed handkerchief to his nose.

  Smokey realized what was coming. Nostradamus was a stray but very sociable ferret that E Z had befriended and the kids around the marina had grown very attached to, including Jada and her own son Rabbit and little daughter Dolly.

  “You mean that wharf rat?” Smokey asked, remembering she’d seen a dead one next to the garbage this morning. “Looked to me like she was trying to get away from it as much as she was trying to get away from you. The poor girl was scared to death. She thought you intended to shoot her.”

  “It was a ferret that attacked me, and ferrets are illegal in California.” Rankle’s voice became excited, “I’m making a long list. Knight’s going back to prison as soon as I find him. Indecent liberties with a minor, statutory rape, probably sodomy, illegal possession of an exotic animal, violating parole by both leaving the county and state without permission, as well as by violating a Federal court ordered restraining order. I’ve got him. I’ve got him by the short hairs!”

  “It wasn’t a ferret and what you got might be hydrophobia,” Smokey said. “You get peed on, spit at — and now bitten. Animals don’t seem to like you, Assistant District Attorney Edward Rankle. But don’t worry. I hear that long battery of shots they give for rabies aren’t quite as bad as they used to be.”

  Rankle’s eyes got big, again. “Lt. Legend, get animal control here right away. And find that damn rabid ferret!”

  Smokey hoped the dead rat was still next to the dumpsters. She was pretty sure she could convince animal control it was what had “attacked” Rankle — as long as Nostradamus stayed out of sight.

  Chapter 9

  B & B Besieged

  6:00 PM MST

  Doc’s B & B, near Crested Butte Colorado

  “Rillie, stay with Specks.” I handed her Big Deal’s Glock 9mm.

  Even though the clouds, trees and mountains hid the late-day sun from the clearing, the snow made the day bright enough to see clearly without extra light. It would be a different story on the narrow, shielded path surrounded by tall pines I’d soon be following. But the dimming light could be my ally.

  From the equipment bag, I quickly pulled an M-4A1 close-assault carbine and a loaded magazine that I snapped into place under the rifle. Next, I extracted a back pack and ruck sack pre-packed with an assortment weapons. I’d requested the “shopping list” while speaking with Judge Hammer’s assistant, Mama Lo, the night before.

  “But, E Z, you might need me. Specks is okay by himself, for now. He’s snoring peacefully back there.”

  “Do you have any military experience?” I asked her. “Law enforcement? Can you shoot a gun as good as you can swing a pipe wrench?”

  “No, but I can try,” she pleaded.

  “No,” I told her. “That’s automatic gunfire. It’s serious stuff. It can cut you in half before you even feel the pain. I have no time to argue. You’re staying here.”

  I took off, sprinting from the snow-covered clearing and onto a path that was mostly protected by pine trees. After a minute of sprinting down the hiking path, the gunfire stopped. Within 50 yards of Doc’s place, I could see two National Guard Blackhawk helicopters, with their pilots waiting inside, settled in the big, open parking area in front of the lodge. To one side of the front entry, three heavily armed men in white camouflage fatigues and white parka’s stood vigilantly, while another four men walked the perimeter. On their heads, they wore only stocking caps that would be much more comfortable and warmer than helmets.

  At least some of the reason for the gunfire lay in the front parking area where the choppers rested. Scattered in front of Doc’s lovely, warm and welcoming log lodge were all three of his dogs; a black lab, a yellow lab and a collie — all had been beautiful and well-behaved animals. The Boys, as Doc referred to them, had been mowed down while defending their human family and home.

  The sight made my heart sink and slam to the bottom of my soul.

  This image of such beautiful animals lying murdered, along with a dozen other atrocities, would surely remain in the back of my mind for the rest of my days, and it brought tears to my eyes. The years of civilian life — even though much of it had passed behind prison bars — had softened my very thick, calloused feelings. My palms became sweaty. My heart pounded against my ribs and my hands trembled. The fear I’d abated had scaled the high wall of my resolve and was now tearing at my mind.

  My children could be dead, as well.

  With eyes closed, I took a deep breath and turned my focus away from what was and what could be and the pain stabbing my temples. My thoughts must be directed totally at this being a rescue mission and not a balls-out massacre of some despicable assholes.

  Regaining my composure, I found a familiar deer trail that led to the back of Doc’s large log cabin. The backside of the house faced south, and its entire south wall was covered in large windows. If I stayed concealed, I had a good chance of surprising and overwhelming a squad-size force.

  The impressive great room with high-vaulted ceiling and rough-hewn beams was well lit. Five men in the white, snow-camo fatigues stood in easy view. A black man sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the big room. I took a set of binoculars from my backpack and got a better look. Focused on the sitting man, I soon recognized
the bludgeoned and bloody face of John Sites’.

  I’d known John all of my life. He was in his seventies, but still an imposing yet polite figure at six-five and 200, muscular pounds. After Vietnam, it was John who got my father his railroad job with the ATSF Railway, now BNSF. They’d been best friends ever since. Although he’d left railroad employment long ago in favor of the government Federal Railroad Inspector job, he’d stayed in contact with Doc — and through my father, with me.

  Bringing the binoculars down and shaking my head, I remembered John babysitting me when I was five. Specks and John Sites were my past — they were my father’s life, and I found my whole being anchored strongly with these good men.

  Scanning the rest of what I could see of the house and yard, I found no one else. I prayed the children and Mary had somehow managed to escape. But were they outside someplace, unprotected in the snow? Now that the cold storm front had passed, the temperature was back up into the teens, but was dropping with the sun and would bottom out at near zero tonight. I inspected my surroundings and saw nothing, not even a trace that someone had passed into the woods.

  After devising a quick plan, I pulled off my parka and dug into my backpack and ruck sack in preparation for an impromptu mission. In three minutes, I’d buckled my weapons belt over a light jacket, and I was ready to deliver Hell to these Colorado National Guardsmen wannabes.

  About to shove off on a sprint to the back door, I stopped. in the lodge, John Sites leapt up from his chair and ran for the next room. One of the men who’d stood over him raised a Mach 10, lined up in the doorway and let the bullets fly. Within a couple of seconds, he turned away and walked back to the others as if his task was done.

  If I’d begun my attack a minute sooner, John Sites might have still been alive.

  With my kids nowhere to be seen and my mind bent on revenge, I decided to take a direct route to the big lodge. I wanted my adversaries to see that they were being attacked by only one man so that they wouldn’t panic and kill their hostages — if that’s what Mary and the kids had become. I wanted these assholes to underestimate their attacking force. Then, I’d give them one hell of a surprise.