Father Figure (A Jaxon Jennings' Detective Mystery Thriller Series, Book 3)

by Richard C. Hale

  Laurelyn stepped up to Ray. “Call me tomorrow.”

  Ray looked stunned for a second and then seemed to recover. Jaxon watched Tate’s reaction to his partner and he seemed genuinely surprised himself.

  “Tomorrow,” Ray said.

  “Tomorrow. Problem with that?”

  He shook his head. “You seem—I don’t know—pissed.”

  “I am. This is work. Tomorrow is—something else.”

  And a little smile appeared on her face. It changed her completely. Tate raised an eyebrow and Ray grinned from ear to ear.

  “Yes ma’am. Tomorrow.”

  She moved away and headed for the door. Tate looked at Jaxon and shrugged. Ray proceeded to his side of the car and got in. Jaxon followed.

  “Anything you want to tell me?” Jaxon asked after he buckled his seatbelt.

  “Nope,” Ray said, the smile still on his face.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Ray started the car and cranked up the A/C. It was scorching.

  Chapter 7

  Jaxon and Ray headed toward the Northside to pay a visit to Abbot Mason. Jaxon called Vick on the way.

  “You’re cute,” she said without preamble.

  “Do you normally answer the business phone that way?” Jaxon asked.

  “Only when I know it’s you.”

  “Why am I cute?”

  “You said you had already fulfilled your ‘calling’ duties for the day. Miss me already?”

  “Yes. But that’s not why I called.”

  “Figures. Give me what you have.”

  He pulled up his notes.

  “See what you can dig up on a Jonathan Gunther and Candice O’Neil. Text me their addresses as soon as you can and I’ll call back later for anything else you find.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “Mary Beth Rothstein’s ex-husband and Ben Rothstein’s secretary.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Got it. Do you want to hear what I have on Theodore Moore so far?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Mom and dad are deceased. No brothers or sisters, but an aunt lives here in town. High school dropout who can’t keep a job. He also has a record. Mainly drug charges, possession and one count of dealing, but it didn’t stick. He hasn’t done any time, but he was arrested at the same time as Abbot Mason on the same charges. Both got off.”

  “We’re heading to Mason’s now.”

  “My gut is these are minor leaguers, but be careful.”

  “He’s probably asleep, or stoned.”

  “Still…”

  “I will.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  After Jaxon filled Ray in on his conversation with Vick, they drove for another twenty minutes in silence and then pulled off the interstate onto Edgewood Avenue.

  “My favorite part of town,” Ray said.

  “It could be worse.”

  “Explain how.”

  Jaxon said nothing.

  This part of Edgewood was a tough section of Jacksonville and as they made their way down the street, Jaxon could pick out prostitutes, dealers, and scumbags easily, even in the heat of the mid-morning. Many turned and watched as they drove by. Ray’s car was attracting the wrong kind of attention.

  “We should have driven your beat up old Ford,” Ray said.

  “Nah. Your car is more comfortable.”

  “But it might be gone when we come out of Mason’s place.”

  Jaxon waved his hand at him, dismissing the possibility, though Ray might be right. He pulled his pistol out of its holster and checked it.

  “Great. Now you’re checking your weapon. So much for my good mood.”

  “I’m just checking. Vick told me to be careful.”

  “Since when are you careful?”

  “Since now.”

  Ray shook his head and slowed the car. The address was on the left.

  A shack sat almost up against the street with an overgrown yard that was smaller than the sidewalk in front of it. The mailbox had been knocked off its wooden post and its contents lay strewn in the gutter. The house looked about to collapse, the roof sagging, block walls cracked, paint peeling. The front door had a fresh coat of green paint on it making the house look even sadder than it already was. Like somebody actually cared a bit. Jaxon was sure it wasn’t the owners.

  Ray pulled into the driveway behind a fixed up Lincoln Town Car with twenty-one inch rims and a paint job that probably cost more than the shack itself. The license plate matched the one they had from last night.

  “I think your car will be all right,” Jaxon said, grinning. “They’d take this one before yours.”

  “I think Abbot would be the one doing the taking. He probably can’t afford that thing in the driveway.”

  “It wasn’t reported stolen.”

  “True. Drug money then.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  They stepped into the heat and Jaxon could hear a dog barking inside the house. The curtains moved in a window and a black muzzle appeared, snarling, as the barking continued. It was not a Chihuahua.

  “Dammit,” Ray said, shutting the door. “I hate dogs.”

  “All dogs?”

  “No. Just big ones.”

  “You never owned a big dog?”

  “No. I don’t like them.”

  “They probably hate you.”

  “I’ve never done anything to them.”

  “It’s a racist thing. You’re Latino.”

  “I’m not.”

  Jaxon looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “My mom was Asian. My dad was—something else.”

  “Polish?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could be more of this ‘something else.’ You look Latino.”

  “Not.”

  “Still, animals can be racists.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Ray said, but smiled.

  The dog continued to bark.

  They walked up to the door and knocked. The dog moved away from the window and came to the door, barking more aggressively.

  “Good thing there’s new paint on this door,” Ray said. “I’d be worried he could break through.”

  Jaxon ignored him.

  Ray knocked louder, causing the dog to go berserk, but nobody answered. Jaxon leaned over the withered hedge next to the stoop and tried to peer inside the window there. The dog jumped at him and the glass actually cracked.

  He leaned away. “Let’s check the back.”

  “We’re not cops anymore. We can’t trespass.”

  “I saw a kitten go back there. I’m just trying to rescue it.”

  “You think they’ll buy that story?”

  “I would.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Ray followed Jaxon around the side of the carport to the back fence. It was a dilapidated chain link number, waist high with rust flaking off the surface and ancient weeds and grass weaving through it. The backyard itself was a jungle. Jaxon couldn’t even see to the next yard.

  “Do you have a machete?” Jaxon asked.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Jaxon shrugged and opened the gate. It fell off its hinges and clanged against a broken cinder block. They could hear the dog move through the house to the back. It sounded mean even through the walls.

  “Look.” Jaxon pointed.

  The grass and weeds had been trampled on in the direction of the house. Somebody had walked through the yard. And recently.

  Jaxon moved along the same path and came to a small concrete porch no more than five by five feet. A sliding glass door led in to the back of the house. The dog was sitting on the other side, growling, its teeth bared and drool dripping from its jaws.

  The glass had blood spattered on it. On the concrete slab of the porch, more dark stains trailed off into the yard and clung to the trampled grass leading further into the jungle of the backyard.

  The concrete
block of the house fractured next to Ray’s head and broken fragments flew in all directions.

  A rifle concussion followed a second later.

  Jaxon flung himself into the high grass and Ray followed, his face bleeding from a small fragment of cement lodged in his skin. Another rifle shot sounded and Jaxon tried his best to sink into the grass and disappear, but his tall frame and bulk made him feel like a duck on an open pond during hunting season.

  “Where?” Ray said, putting his fingers to his face and smearing the blood.

  “I don’t know. I think from behind the house.”

  Jaxon stuck his head up trying to see and the weeds next to his face moved as a whisper of air sped past him. Another concussion followed. He ducked back down.

  “Definitely behind the house,” he said, “and I’d guess more than a thousand yards.”

  “A sniper? What is this?”

  “Come on.”

  Jaxon crawled toward the back of the yard through the high grass and kept his head down. Ray moved next to him, his gun now out in his hand, the blood dripping down onto the collar of his shirt.

  Another rifle shot, but Jaxon couldn’t tell if the bullet was close because they were moving through the grass disturbing it. He risked stopping and looking up again, scanning the distant structures. Movement caught his eye as a man stood up on the roof in line with the left back corner of the yard. He was about five to seven hundred yards away. Too far to distinguish any features.

  Jaxon jumped up and ran through the grass toward the moving figure. It jumped from the roof and disappeared. It carried a rifle.

  “Jaxon! What the hell!”

  “I saw him! It’s safe. Come on.”

  Jaxon fought through the jungle of the yard, trying his best to run, but not succeeding in the dense growth. He heard Ray following and then he tripped.

  Falling hard, he landed on top of something lumpy with his face a few inches from the face of another man. A bullet hole in the middle of its forehead marred the otherwise smooth features of the black man.

  Jaxon pushed himself off the body and took a deep breath. He looked up for the rifleman and could see no one. Determining there was no way to catch the gunman, he knelt and felt for a pulse, not really expecting to find one. Ray came up next to him fighting the brush and froze.

  “Shit.”

  “Dead,” Jaxon said.

  “Abbot Mason?” Ray asked.

  “Probably.” Jaxon searched his body and found a wallet in the back pocket. The license belonged to Abbot Joseph Mason.

  “Yep.”

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jaxon stood and pulled his cell phone out. He dialed the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and proceeded to report the scene. He hung up and moved away.

  “Come on. We’re contaminating the crime scene. Let’s walk carefully to the car.”

  Ray nodded and they made a wide berth through an untraveled area of the yard to the front of the house. At the car, they waited.

  “That was fun,” Ray said after a minute.

  “You should know I live to entertain.”

  “You’re a real talent,” Ray said, touching his fingers to the wound on his face again.

  “You look good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No. Really. You’re ready for your date now.”

  “What date?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ray flinched as he pulled a shard of concrete from his face. He showed it to Jaxon.

  “I should get a purple heart.”

  “I’ll have it made for you tomorrow.”

  Ray grinned and then tossed it into the weeds.

  “Tease.”

  “How ‘bout a bottle of Crown? It comes in a purple bag.”

  “Perfect.”

  Two cop cars pulled up rapidly with the lights flashing and the circus began.

  “So much for getting anything else done today,” Jaxon said.

  “I’m tired anyway.”

  “You don’t look good.”

  “You just told me I did.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Thanks.”

  The world was chaos, Jaxon thought, and they were smack dab in the middle of it.

  * * *

  Tate and Laurelyn arrived about an hour later and Jaxon was surprised to see them. After talking to the local Jacksonville detectives, they approached Jaxon and Ray shaking their heads.

  “You’re everywhere today,” Tate said.

  “We get bored,” Jaxon said. “You’re rather far from home yourselves.”

  “Duval and Clay have a pretty good working relationship. Unlike some of the PIs we know.”

  Jaxon shrugged.

  “We came because this little scene could be connected to our murder from last night,” Tate said.

  “No shit,” Ray said.

  Tate frowned. He took a breath and said, “All right. What have you got?”

  Jaxon told them everything that had happened up to then, leaving nothing out and concentrating on the sniper. Laurelyn took notes. She kept glancing at Ray’s bandaged face that the paramedics were kind enough to fix up.

  “You ok?” she finally asked.

  “I pulled a muscle in my pinky,” Jaxon said, “but I’ll be fine.”

  “Him,” she said, pointing to Ray.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Just a little cut. Worried about me?”

  She looked back down at her notes.

  “No. Just curious.”

  “You two are finding lots of trouble,” Tate said. “Where are you headed next? Do we need to be concerned?”

  “Lunch,” Jaxon said. “But, I’m pretty sure it will be dinner by the time these guys are done with us.”

  “Bar-B-Que,” Ray said.

  “Definitely, Bar-B-Que,” Jaxon added. “Wanna hang?”

  “We’ll pass,” Tate said and then looked serious. “Be careful.”

  “With Bar-B-Que?” Jaxon studied him for a second. “I won’t eat the bones.”

  “Just trying to look out for you.”

  “Hard to get things done being careful.”

  “Someone doesn’t like you, Jaxon. And they seem pretty determined.”

  “So am I.”

  They stared at each other for a minute, then Tate nodded once.

  “We’ll be around for a while if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks.”

  Laurelyn studied Ray for a minute, then turned with her partner and went back to the Jacksonville detectives.

  “They’re always so positive,” Ray said.

  “Yeah. Too bad he’s right.”

  * * *

  Jaxon sat in Ray’s car with the A/C cranked on full, while the cops kept them for questioning. It was still warm in the car, but better than outside.

  Ray sat asleep in his seat, snoring, and this left Jaxon to his thoughts. Mainly his father.

  The man had been dead six months, but to Jaxon it still felt like yesterday. The package only aggravated his mourning and he did not like the fact he was sure that someone was trying to tell him something. Or confirming something that had been nagging at him since the day his father passed.

  Jaxon closed his eyes.

  He could see his father sitting in his favorite recliner the last time they spoke, just a few weeks before his death. He had been in a good mood, the news that his prostate cancer was under control, and Jaxon had listened intently while the old guy told him tales of the war he had never heard. Stories that had pained him too much to talk about, yet was now reliving for his son’s benefit. Or maybe his own.

  He grew animated explaining what his aircraft could and couldn’t do, and how he had felt in the heat of battle, his adrenalin fueling his movements, and the exhaustion after he landed. His dad loved flying. He didn’t like the killing.

  Jaxon’s stepmom came in to bring them sweet tea and though he cared for her, she had never really been a mother to him. His
real mother had died when Jaxon was ten and for a boy of that age, his mother had been too big a presence to replace. She had died giving birth to a brother for Jaxon, only to have the infant stillborn too. His father had been crushed and Jaxon, even at his young age, worried the man would never recover. They rarely talked about his mom.

  But on that day of tales, weeks before he took his last breath, William Jennings spoke about his wife, Jaxon’s mother, with wonder and fondness, a twinkle in his eye that Jaxon would never forget. He spoke of little things that normally would be forgotten, but for his father, they must have meant the most: Her hair in the morning, how it was always tousled, yet he never minded, she was beautiful to him just the same.

  She would hum in the kitchen as she fixed dinner or sewed at a small table there, fixing Jaxon’s pants or replacing a lost button. The dimple at the corner of her mouth that became visible only when she cried, this usually when he had to leave on a trip, or sometimes when she reached the end of one of her romance novels. And her laugh, how it made her whole face glow, the cares of the world a memory, as if she were put on this earth to make you forget and remember. Forget your worries and remember everything that was good. He remembered and forgot, and that was good for him.

  Jaxon watched as his father’s face changed. The happiness slipped from his eyes and a sorrow aged his face so quickly, Jaxon had to blink to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.

  “What is it, Dad?” Jaxon had asked.

  His father turned his eyes to his son and Jaxon wanted to shrink into his chair and hide. He felt like a boy again, afraid to hear about the boogeyman or how his dog had died while he was in school. His father was about to tell him something he didn’t want to know and it scared him.

  “Son, you need to know something. And I can’t tell you how you’ll feel about it. It’s been something she never wanted you to know, but I can’t hold it in any longer.”

  “Dad, I …”

  “No. It’s important.”

  His stepmother came into the room then, and he stopped. She sat next to him and Jaxon saw his face change. Jaxon wouldn’t have to hear the bad news that he knew his father was about to confess.

  And confess was the right word. Jaxon could see it in his eyes. At least before his stepmother interrupted.