Stillborn Armadillos (John Lee Quarrels Book 1)

by Nick Russell

  "Listen, Mr. McCrae, I'm sorry we put you and your wife and son through all this. We just..."

  Dennis raised his hand to stop John Lee. "No apology necessary, Deputy. I know y'all was just doin' your job. It ain't the first time me and my woman has been looked down on because people just associate the McCrae family name with Earl and the messes he's always gettin' into. We prayed last night. We prayed for the soul of that poor deputy that got killed, and we prayed for his family. And we prayed that the Lord keeps his hand on all of you so somethin' like this don't happen again. And we'll do it again tonight."

  John Lee didn't know what else to say to the humble man except, "Thank you, sir. Right now we need all the prayers we can get."

  Chapter 30

  Representatives from law enforcement agencies across the region came to Somerton for Ray Ray's funeral. Led by highway patrolman on motorcycles, the cortege stretched all the way from the high school gymnasium where the services were held because there were too many people to fit into the church, all the way out to the cemetery. Stores downtown closed for the day and it seemed like almost every citizen in the county was either at the funeral or lining the roads leading to the cemetery, their heads bowed as the hearse passed.

  Riding in the car behind the limousine carrying Ray Ray's wife and children and his parents, John Lee had a lump in his throat as he saw so many people turn out to honor the fallen deputy. Sitting beside him in the front seat of his Charger, Maddy patted tears from her eyes with a Kleenex.

  "It just doesn't seem real, does it?"

  "No, it doesn't," John Lee told her. "I keep feeling like I'm gonna wake up and this was all just a bad dream."

  "That could have been you or me, John Lee. It could have been any of us. Why Ray Ray?"

  "I don't know. Why does a fellow at one end of a boat catch fish all day and the man at the other end doesn't get a bite? Why does lightning hit one guy on a golf course and miss everybody else? Why does a drunk cross the line and hit a car head on instead of the one that was right in front or right behind it? Fate? Luck of the draw? I don't know Maddy. I really don't."

  During the services, deputies and agents of the FDLE were assigned to watch the crowd, and some in covert locations were taking photographs. It was not unknown for perpetrators to show up at the funerals of their victims, even if they didn't know them. There was such a big turnout, in a county where almost everybody knew everybody to some extent, that John Lee wondered what they might find out, if anything. Looking away, across the road to the spot where Ray Ray had been killed, John Lee wondered if the sniper had waited right where they were standing at attention. Had he been right here when he raised his rifle and fired? They had searched the cemetery, going over every inch of ground, but had not found any evidence that would lead them to the shooter.

  And then, it was all over. The minister said his final words, off in the distance rifleman fired a 21 gun salute, with tears in his eyes D.W. presented Marcella with the folded flag as his deputies held their hands in salute for their fallen comrade, and then the mournful tones of Taps echoed across the cemetery. People lingered for a while, coming to Marcella and Ray Ray's parents to pay their respects, to tell them how much they had loved Ray Ray, and every deputy promised them that they would do whatever it took to see that justice was done and that his killer was punished. Eventually everyone drifted away and the three men who been waiting a discreet distance away came and lowered Ray Ray's coffin into the ground.

  ***

  There was a gathering at the church, with lots of food donated and more good words said about Ray Ray. Eventually John Lee, Maddy, and several of the deputies left and went to John Lee's house, where they sat on the deck, grilled burgers and hotdogs, drank beer, and talked about their friend.

  Somebody laughed when they recounted how an excited Ray Ray had once stuttered a response to the dispatcher's call sending him to help a woman in labor who wasn't going to be able to wait for the ambulance. "10... 10... 10... "

  "Jesus Christ, Ray Ray, just hurry up and get there before the kid's in kindergarten," another deputy's voice had said over the radio. A voice that sounded very suspiciously like John Lee's.

  "Hey, do you remember the time Ray Ray took a call from a neighbor who thought someone had broken into a vacant house, and he caught Gloria Mathur's from the real estate company doing the nasty with some handyman on the couch?"

  "I remember that," Maddy said. "When I got there, Ray Ray was just coming out the door and his face was so red. I asked him what was going on and he said, "They... they... they was fornica... fornica... they was fucking, Maddy!"

  Someone raised his beer can and said, "To Ray Ray. We love you, brother. When we find the prick who did this to you, he's going to burn in hell!"

  The other deputies raised their bottles and cans and said, "here here" or nodded their heads in agreement. At some point both D.W. and Flag showed up and put in an appearance. Both were subdued and neither stayed long.

  Finally, people began drifting off, some to return to their families, others to try to get some rest before going on duty, and eventually only John Lee and Maddy were left.

  "I guess I ought to clean this mess up."

  "I'll help."

  "You don't have to do that."

  "I don't mind, John Lee."

  It didn't take long, since almost everybody had been throwing their paper plates and cans in the large plastic trashcan at the end of the deck. John Lee put whatever leftovers there were in the refrigerator and fed Magic while Maddy washed the few utensils that had been used.

  When they were done, they sat on the deck in the dark, listening to the crickets chirping and the occasional buzz as some flying insect incinerated itself in the violet light of the bug zapper, each lost in their own thoughts. Lightning flashed far off in the distance, too far away for them to hear any thunder.

  At some point, Maddy yawned.

  "Tired?"

  "It's been a long day. I don't know if I'm so much tired as just emotionally drained."

  "I know the feeling."

  She yawned again and said, "Excuse me."

  "Maybe you need to get to bed."

  She didn't look at him, but after a long pause she said, "I don't want to sleep alone tonight, John Lee."

  When he didn't say anything she turned to him, studying his face in the light from inside the house.

  "Well, aren't you gonna say something?"

  "I'm not sure what to say, to be honest with you."

  "Well say something, please. Anything. Because right now I'm sitting here wishing I was anyplace else in the world."

  "Why?"

  "Why do I wish I was anyplace else in the world, or why don't I want to sleep alone tonight?"

  "Maddy, you and me? Is that a good idea? I mean, we're so close, and we're such good friends. I don't want to screw that up by having sex. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're not beautiful and desirable, because you are. I just don't want to lose what we have."

  "Did I say anything about sex, John Lee? I just said I don't want to sleep alone."

  "I'm sorry, I guess I just took it the wrong way."

  "John Lee, you don't think I'm just as worried as you are that we could mess up what we have? Do you think I haven't asked myself that a hundred times? Hell, do you know I was out here the other night? That I was gonna knock on your door and I was going to spend the night with you? Until I saw Beth Ann's car here?"

  "I'm sorry, Maddy. I..."

  "Sorry for what? Banging your sister-in-law? You don't need to apologize to me for that. I don't have any claim to you. Personally I think it's kind of weird, but what the hell, you're a man and she's a woman, and it's not exactly like Emily's giving you any reason to believe she's ever coming home to stay."

  "It's complicated..."

  Maddy laughed and snorted, which made him laugh, too.

  "Really, ya think?"

  They sat in silence a little while longer, then Maddy stood up and took hi
s hand and led him inside. In his bedroom they undressed without either of them saying anything. Her back to him, she unbuttoned her shirt.

  "You do know you're facing a mirror, right?"

  John Lee couldn't help looking, and while she wasn't putting on a performance, Maddy didn't seem shy at all about being naked in front of him except for just her panties. Her breasts were considerably smaller than either Beth Ann's or Emily's, but he found himself stirring at the sight.

  Noticing, Maddy asked, "Are you going to be able to control that thing, or do I need to bring a Taser to bed?"

  He pulled a T-shirt from his dresser drawer and offered it to her. Maddy put it on and they crawled into bed. She snuggled up against him and said, "Just hold me, John Lee. There may be another time, I don't know. But right now, I can't go back to that house and lay there in my empty bed and listen to Mama snoring through the wall. I need my friend to hold me. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  And that's what he did, all night long.

  Chapter 31

  For ten long days the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Somerton County Sheriff's Department carried out an intense, fruitless investigation into the murder of Deputy Raymond Watkins. They looked at every case Ray Ray had been involved in since he was a rookie, from issuing a simple traffic ticket to arresting drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or any other infraction. They came up with nothing.

  They delved into his personal life, looking for anything there, but there was nothing to be found. No illicit affairs, no disputes with neighbors, no arguments over something as trivial as a barking dog. As much as they hated to, they even looked at his family life. He and his wife got along wonderfully, she was the girl of his dreams who had always looked past the stuttering to see the man he really was, and he always put her on a pedestal. There was no large life insurance policy to be garnered. He was a devoted father, well loved by everybody who knew him, from his family to his neighbors and coworkers.

  In the end, they were not able to find one thing that would offer even a hint of why someone would want the friendly, dependable family man dead.

  "Early on there was talk that maybe the shooter was just some kind of crank, out for thrills," Donny Ray Mayhew said, at a meeting to discuss the case and bounce ideas off each other. "Is that what this all comes down to? Somebody shooting at deputies for kicks?"

  "People have been killed for less," said Adam Levy, one of the state investigators assigned to the case.

  "Well, there hasn't been another shootin' since Ray Ray was killed. So either the shooter accomplished what he set out to do, or else maybe it was some kind of a nutcase out gettin' his jollies at our expense. John Lee, you said early on that you didn't think he was tryin' to hit anybody out there at the construction site, and Donny Ray, you said the same thing after Carson's car was shot up," D.W. said.

  "This sounds terrible, but I almost wish the bastard would try it again," John Lee said. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want anybody else hurt, but if he's crawled back under whatever rock he came out from, we might never find him."

  "Oh, I want to find him, all right," said Rick Pye, a former Marine who had served in Afghanistan.

  There were murmurs from other deputies, all of whom were frustrated at the lack of progress on the case, and all of whom wanted to avenge Ray Ray in some way. And while he wanted to see the killer brought to justice, John Lee couldn't help but think that it was probably just as well that the shooter had not resurfaced. Not just for officer safety, but because he would have hated to see one of his fellow deputies step over the line and do something out of frustration and anger that could ruin their career and their life.

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been brought in, in the hope that the FBI might shine some light on the case, but even that astute law enforcement agency, with all of its resources, drew a blank. It would seem that whoever the sniper was who had been shooting at Somerton County deputies, he had gone deep under cover and was not coming out anytime soon.

  FBI agents compared the attacks with sniper incidents and attacks on police officers nationwide, looking for some connection. And while violence between police and citizens seemed to be all over the news lately, there was nothing locally that would indicate the incidents were hate crimes or had any relationship to things happening outside of the area.

  "There's been a lot of problems with niggers and white cops all over the country lately," Flag said. "I wonder if some of our local jigaboos have been watchin' too much TV and decided to join in the fun."

  "Really, Fig? You're the second highest law enforcement officer in the county, and that's the way you talk?"

  "The day I need you correctin' me in public, John Lee, that's the day one of us needs to start considerin' a new career."

  "I think you're right. Have you ever thought about the fast food industry, Fig? I bet with enough practice you can learn to ask, 'do you want fries with that?'"

  There were snickers from several of the deputies in the room, and Flag started to get up from his chair, but D.W. interrupted.

  "That's enough of that kind of talk, Flag. This department and the local African-American community ain't had any problems like that. So let's just drop it and move on, okay?"

  Flag didn't like it, but the looks on the faces of the state and federal investigators told him that he had stepped over the line. There was a time when all that politically correct bullshit didn't matter, but he knew that if he was ever going to be sheriff, he was going to have to learn to play the game, no matter how he really felt about things.

  "So what else do we know?" Adam Levy asked.

  "We've checked with gun shops as far away as Macon, Georgia and east all the way to Mobile," an FBI agent named Angela Waterbury said. "The .308 is a very common rifle round, but it's pretty much for big game. Except for feral hogs, I don't know what people would use it on around here. But that's not to say there aren't a lot of them around. It also has the military designation of 7.62 and was the standard for small arms among NATO countries since the 1950s. Here in this country, it was used in the M-14 rifle and M-60 machine gun. The M-14 was phased out when the M-16 came along, but the Army and other services still use sniper rifles chambered for it."

  "Wait a minute," D.W. said. "You're tellin' me this is a sniper round?"

  "Among other things, in the military version, the 7.62. But again, it's also used by civilians all over the place for big game hunting. And the casings you found were stamped .308, so they were from civilian ammunition."

  "But the ammo's interchangeable, right?"

  "To a certain extent," she said. "The 7.62 actually has higher pressure than a lot of the civilian .308 rounds. So over a period of time, it would possibly damage some civilian rifles. What are you getting at, Sheriff? Do you by any chance have any survivalist types running around here?"

  "Not that I know of. How about any of you guys?"

  "Oh we've got a few lunatics who think the sky's falling and the government will be taking over any day," John Lee said. "But they've all been accounted for and we haven't been able to find out anything that would indicate any of them were involved in this."

  "So we're right back where we started," Flag said bitterly.

  "I wish I had more to tell you," Special Agent Waterbury said. "Our profilers are trying to work up something on it, but we don't have one thing to go on."

  The meeting ended with nothing accomplished except more frustration on everyone's part. John Lee was going out the back door of the Sheriff's Department when Flag accosted him.

  "Listen to me, you limp dick. If you ever mouth off to me like that again in front of anybody, I'm gonna break you in two. I'll kick your ass so bad even your Mama won't recognize you."

  "I'll tell you what," John Lee said, "Why don't we just settle this right here and right now, Fig? You keep telling me about what you're going to do, but you're beginning to sound just like a used car salesman. Lots of bullshit promises and nothing behind them. I
see you've got the bandage off your hand, so why don't we send your ass back to the ER and they can put some new ones on you? Hopefully around your mouth, because I'm getting damn tired of listening to it."

  The Chief Deputy's face had gone from red to purple and he was shaking with rage. John Lee, for his part, had an insolent smile on his face. Fearing that they were about to come to blows, Sheila Sharp tried to intervene.

  "Umm... Flag, John Lee, y'all both need to calm down. We got citizens walking around here, listenin' to you two."

  "Mind your own business, Sheila," Flag said, never taking his eyes off John Lee.

  "How 'bout I make it my business?"

  Neither man had seen D.W. approach. He pushed himself between them and said, "Flag, I'm on my way to a meetin' of the County Supervisors to bring them up to date on everything that's goin' on with this investigation. I'd hate to have to tell them that I just relieved you from duty for threatenin' a subordinate in public and using racial slurs in a staff meetin'. And I'd sure hate to have to tell my wife about why her brother's out of a job. But I'll do it. Don't think I won't. That way you'll have a lot of time to plan your campaign against me, come next election. And I'll make sure that my own campaign will let folks around here know that you were fired from this department, and why. Now what's it goin' to be?"

  Flag was seething, but he knew anything he said would only make matters worse for him. But the time was coming. Oh yeah, the time was coming. And when it did, people were going to know what happened when you crossed Flag Newton. Yeah, people were going to know all right. And these two were going to be the first to know!

  Chapter 32

  The ringing telephone woke John Lee up and he fumbled for it on the nightstand next to the bed, managing to knock it to the floor in the process. He cursed and rolled over to reach it and pushed the button to answer the call.