All right, then, we wait.
He felt better about this one. This was already going better than the first job. He called it a job, not a heist, like this was some kind of movie. It was a job. And a damn serious one.
The first one, three weeks ago, had been a first-class cluster-fuck, he could admit to himself now. The dealer, a barfly turd named Robert Pritchard, had pulled a fast one on him.
Bad enough he’d had to spend nearly twenty dollars on beer at Winnie’s while keeping an eye on Pritchard. He’d scoped him for a few days, checking out his ride, if he was carrying, if he kept money on him. He drove—when he drove—a used Lexus, didn’t carry a piece, and kept a wad on him.
So, at Winnie’s it was a simple matter of waiting until Pritchard had enough gin and tonics or whatever the fuck he kept buying and walked out of the bar and across the street toward his apartment one street over. Which he finally did after about three hours.
He watched Pritchard leave, then finished his beer, and stepped out. He pulled a baseball cap low over his head and tied a bandana around his face. Easing up to him through the dark had been easy enough. Pritchard was short, overweight, and drunk.
Looking back, he realized that had been amateur shit, something out of a bad western. Still, he got the drop on Pritchard as he cut through an alley between a downtown bank branch and a closed discount store.
He bull-rushed Pritchard up against the wall, figuring he could slam him against the damp bricks hard enough to daze him while he grabbed the cash. But he didn’t count on Pritchard being cat-quick. They’d crashed together against the wall in the dark, Pritchard drunk but still with plenty of fight. He wasn’t carrying a gun, but he yanked a blackjack out of a back pocket and swung at his head. It smacked him a glancing blow that stunned him for a second and caused him to stagger a little.
He got his shit back together and gut-punched Pritchard, then head-butted him back, slamming the back of Pritchard’s skull against the bricks. That had rattled his ass good. He jammed a hand into Pritchard’s pocket, yanked out the wad, and reached around to his hip pocket and grabbed his wallet. Then he threw an elbow across Pritchard’s nose just for good measure. He hauled ass out of there, sprinting down the sidewalk and into the tiny, dark veterans park across the street from the bank. He ducked behind a tree, made sure Pritchard wasn’t on his ass, and then shot through the trees to his car. Got away clean with two grand. He couldn’t believe a dope dealer would be foolish enough to carry that much cash on him.
He watched the window until the light clicked off, around one thirty. Checked his watch.
Give him twenty minutes, then get it on.
Rick Munny lived in the apartment. Was in the navy, but now was dealing across half the county, probably the half Pritchard wasn’t selling to. But Munny didn’t walk around with cash on him, near as he could tell, so that meant he had to keep it at home somewhere.
He checked his gear: short-handled sledge in the passenger seat, in case the door gave him any real problems. The pistol, a snub-nosed .44 Magnum, was loaded up with hollow points in a holster on his left hip so he could do a fast cross draw if he had to. He’d opted for a rubber Halloween mask—one of the pullover types, a zombie or something ugly as shit and badly painted—instead of the ball cap and bandana routine. In his T-shirt pocket was a hotel key card he’d use to work the lock.
He glanced around the street. Still dead. He grabbed the sledge and the mask and slipped out of the Mazda, easing the door shut behind him. He crossed the black street and quick-stepped up the iron stairs, stepping over the one that had creaked the day before when he was scoping the place out, and faced Munny’s door. Locked. He smiled and slipped the mask over his head, felt the July heat close in on him immediately.
Who the hell decided to make these things out of rubber?
He worked the lock with the key card, felt it give, and opened the door just enough to slip inside. Shut the door soundlessly behind him.
The living room was dark as a cave.
I can’t see a goddamn thing.
His eyes wouldn’t adjust. He slid a foot forward, trying to feel where the wall, any wall, was so he could find a reference. His foot bumped something—the couch? A chair? He froze.
An overhead light flashed on, scalding his retinas and nearly blinding him as Munny charged out of the bedroom, screamed, “What the fuck!” then pulled up short at the sight of a zombie holding a sledgehammer.
His eyeballs recovered just in time to catch, from the corner of his eye, a blur coming at him from around the bowling-pin shape of Rick Munny. His brain kicked into gear fast enough to recognize a wild woman, wearing only a T-shirt, flying at him with an aluminum baseball bat and taking a mad swing at his head.
He pivoted just enough to catch the blow on his shoulder and snapped the sledgehammer out, popping the woman square in the knee. She went down like a stone in a howling pile of hair and legs, shrieking profanities. Her caterwauling distracted Munny long enough for him to draw the .44 and point it at Munny’s disbelieving face.
“Your money. All of it,” he said.
Munny was not a tall man, but he stood up as straight he could. “Are you nuts, you son of a bitch?”
“Do I look nuts?”
Munny cocked an eyebrow. “You’re wearing a goddamn zombie mask and beating on my girlfriend with a sledgehammer. Yeah, you do.”
He thumbcocked the revolver. “Now. I ain’t got time for long conversations.”
“It’s in the bedroom,” Munny said, his hands now raised, even though he had not been so ordered.
“Back in there and get it. I’ll follow you.”
Munny obeyed and pulled two stacks of bills out of a nightstand. Handed it over. “Here. It’s ten thousand. That’s all I got.”
He snatched the cash out of Munny’s hands and crammed it into a back pocket of his jeans. His shoulder was starting to hurt. He backed away, toward the front door.
“Do not even think about coming after me,” he said.
Munny shook his head. On the floor, his girlfriend writhed, hands clasped around her knee. “Hey, fucker,” she hissed. “You broke my leg.”
He looked down at her, gun still leveled at Munny. “Serves you right.”
He stepped out of the apartment, pulled the door shut, and shot down the steps. Sprinted to his car, dove in. Checked the apartment as he cranked up, then took off down Forrest, lights still out. He flicked them on two blocks later at a red light.
Ten grand. Not a bad night’s work. But, shit, that bitch clocked me.
COLT
“Technically, ma’am, I haven’t decided to run for reelection, but I do appreciate your support,” he said into his desk phone as John walked into his office carrying two mugs of coffee. He nodded John into a chair as he took the Marine Corps mug.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he took a sip.
John smiled and drank from his own Chicago White Sox mug.
“Yes, ma’am, and thank you very much for calling,” he said. “You, too, ma’am. OK, good-bye.”
He hung up and huffed out a breath. Took another sip of coffee.
“Technically?” John said.
“Oh, you heard that?”
John chuckled. “Yeah.”
“That was Mrs. Ruth Ann Weathers, and she believes that what this country needs is stronger laws,” he said, shaking his head. “And she’d be mighty proud to support my reelection campaign.”
“But, technically…” John said.
“Hey, I never said I was running.”
“Never said you weren’t, either.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, well, I don’t want to make a hasty decision.”
John furrowed his brow. “What’s the matter, Colt? You know you could get reelected easy. People ’round here like the fact you keep things in order.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know about that. Last year or so was pretty rough, and you can bet that asshole Craig Battles won’t let p
eople forget it. Last night being the latest case in point.”
“Screw that,” John said. “You know what people think of the press in general—and Craig Battles in particular. And yeah, last year was rough, with Rhonda’s boy getting killed.”
“And the people I shot,” he said, draining his mug.
John nodded. “People who needed shooting for the most part.”
“And my father,” he said.
John set his mug on the floor and crossed his arms. “Colt, look,” he said. “Most people don’t care one way or the other about the way your father went out. That may sound harsh, but you know it’s true. Hell, you said yourself that most of these folks just thought of him as a town drunk, anyway. And Craig Battles can write all the stories he wants about a murder that happened fifty years ago, but you know as well as I do that, had your father not settled the matter, you would have arrested him and charged him. Let that shit go, man.”
“Easy for you to say,” he said.
“You think so? You think it’s easy being your deputy through all this shit? Remember, I’m the one got an ear shot off.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fuck you. It was only half an ear.”
John laughed, grabbed his mug and stood. “Yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say. Want more coffee?”
He nodded and handed over his mug. “How’s Rhonda doing?”
The question stopped John in midstride. He turned, a mug in each hand. “She’s fine. I’m going to see her tonight.”
“She still looking for another job?”
John nodded. “Yeah, and I don’t blame her. Being a court reporter after you buried your only son? Hasn’t been easy on her.”
“I know,” he said. “I worried about her for a while after Clifford died. Even after we put Bennie in jail.”
John nodded. “I know you did. And don’t worry, I’m taking good care of her.”
“Did I say anything?”
“You didn’t have to.”
John turned for the door, but Becky stepped in from her dispatch desk, a worried look on her face.
“What’s up, Becky?” Colt said.
“Looks like we got a floater. On the Luxapalila. Some guy in a boat just called it in.”
He was up and around his desk before she stopped speaking. John looked at him, asking a question with his eyes.
He shook his head. “I’ll take it,” he said, then turned to Becky. “We know where exactly?”
She nodded and glanced at the yellow sticky note in her hand. “Guy said about a quarter mile up from where the rivers meet on the south bank, right there where the Luxapalila park is now.”
“He still there? The boater, I mean,” he said.
“Far as I know,” Becky said.
“All right, I’ll head out there. Call Freddie Mac and tell him to meet me.”
“You got it, Colt,” Becky said and walked into the outer office.
“And tell them not to touch anything,” he yelled after her. She waved a hand in acknowledgment.
He looked at John, shrugged. “Probably a drowning.”
“I don’t recall any missing persons reports being filed,” John said.
He shrugged. “Could have just happened. Or somebody could have filed a report with the city police. Either way, won’t know until I get out there.”
Ten minutes later, he wheeled the Crown Vic to the grassy side of the blacktop road that ran along the banks of Luxapalila Creek, and stopped in the only open spot along the two-mile length of the road.
He walked down the gentle slope to the muddy brown creek’s edge. Except for the sluggish current of the creek, the area was as still as a tomb. Overhead, the sun blazed, and the glare off the water’s surface made him squint, even with his eyes shielded by sunglasses. He looked left and saw a fishing boat sitting low in the water, a solitary man standing amidships, about fifty yards away.
The fisherman must have spotted him at the same time, because he started waving his hands, then leaned over and hit his horn—two short toots.
He walked quickly down the bank, keeping an eye out for snakes, and saw the corpse through the tall grass at the water’s edge. The fisherman pointed at the body, and he nodded.
“Hidy, Sheriff,” the man said when he got within earshot. He was tall, with a goatee surrounded by a three-day growth of salt-and-pepper beard, and wore a NASCAR ball cap.
“Hey,” he said, swiping his brow with the back of his hand. “Are you the one who called this in?”
The man nodded. “Yes, sir. My name’s Eddie Price. I was coming downstream, headed toward the river.” He tossed his head toward the Tombigbee, about a quarter of a mile downstream. “I just happened to be looking in that direction. You know how you scan the banks as you head down the river.”
He nodded. “Sure. Ahite, then, let me take a look. Just hold what you got, you don’t mind.”
“No, sir, not at all,” Price said.
The body was facedown in the grass. Jeans, T-shirt, one tennis shoe missing. Short guy, little heavy. The arms were purplish and pruned. Dark hair matted and tangled with leaves.
He surveyed the immediate area. No mashed-down grass or footprints around the body. Up the bank, trees lined the road. He looked back at the thick mud on the bank. No drag marks.
He squinted at Price. “This how you found him?”
Price nodded, his sunglasses glinting in the sun. “Yes, sir. Couldn’t tell what it was at first, but I saw the sun reflect off of something, I guess that watch there on his wrist. I made another pass and got closer, saw it was a body and called your office.”
“OK, then,” he said. “I’m going to need you to hang tight until my coroner gets here, and then I’m going to need your statement back at my office.”
“No problem, Sheriff.”
He heard Freddie Mac before he turned to see the coroner stomping through the grass toward him, photographer in tow. Freddie Mac’s face was the color of a ripe tomato, and he wheezed like an old-timey steam engine as he hauled his overweight frame along the bank.
He put his hands on his hips and watched Freddie Mac snap a pair of latex gloves over his wrists and produce a blue bandana from the leather attaché case that seemed to always be draped from his right shoulder.
“Freddie Mac,” he said as the big man pulled up next to him.
The coroner mopped his brow with the bandana and nodded. He cast a sharp glance at Price, who seemed unsure of any protocol in such a situation and just nodded back.
“Hey, Colt,” Freddie Mac said. “What we got?”
He leaned his head toward the body. “Looks like a drowning that washed up right here.”
Freddie Mac scoffed, which pissed him off. “We’ll see,” he said.
“Yeah, see for yourself. No drag marks from the edge or down the bank. No grass disturbed.”
Freddie Mac nodded, and then knelt by the corpse with a loud exhalation and a grunt. The photographer, some new kid with a mop of red hair, began his vulture-like ritual of circling the body, snapping pictures with the same intensity and accuracy as a sniper.
“You touch anything?” Freddie Mac asked.
“Didn’t have time before you got here,” he said to Freddie Mac’s wide back.
Freddie Mac plucked a wallet from the dead man’s hip pocket and held it up over his shoulder. He took it and checked out the driver’s license.
“Robert Pritchard,” he read aloud. “Aberdeen address. Five foot eight. Hundred sixty pounds.” He took another look at the corpse. “That was about thirty pounds ago.” He tapped the license photo, thinking. I don’t know this guy, right? But why does the name strike me?
Freddie Mac grunted.
He went through the contents of the wallet. Eighty dollars cash, a Visa card with the same name. No photos. No membership cards. He looked over at the corpse. Not dressed for fishing.
“What was that, Freddie?” he said.
“Nothing much,” the coroner said. “From the lividity and the pruning
of the skin, I’d say he’s been in the water at least a couple of days. Skin ain’t started to separate much—that usually takes about a week before it starts. Hard to tell right here, of course. Here, help me turn him over.”
He squatted beside Freddie Mac and grabbed a leg. They rolled the body over.
The face was still intact, pretty much, and more or less corresponded with the image in the driver’s license photo. But what really caught his attention were the two gunshot wounds to the chest, near the heart. The holes, pulpy and leaking water, were surrounded by dark bloodstains that looked nearly black against the blue T-shirt on the body.
“Well, that makes things a little more interesting,” Freddie Mac said.
He leaned back on his haunches, and thought of the last homicide victim he’d pulled out of the water. That had been Clifford Raines, Rhonda’s boy. He shook off the memory and stood, figuring the thought of that made Pritchard seem familiar. He faced Price. “Mr. Price, you can go now. We’ll take it from here. But I’m going to call my deputy, John Carver, and he’ll be in touch with you real soon, y’hear?”
Price, who seemed shaken by the sight of a dead man’s face, nodded and hit the ignition switch on his boat. The outboard roared to life, and he steered away from the scene without another word. He turned back Freddie Mac, who stared at the body with a puzzled look.
“What’s up?” he said to the coroner.
“Looka here,” he said. “These gunshot wounds. What they look like to you?”
He bent over and stared. “Dunno. Nine millimeter, maybe?”
“Yeah,” Freddie Mac said. “Exactly. Nine millimeter means high-powered. More often than not you get an exit wound. But I didn’t see any exit wounds on his back side. Did you?”
“No,” he said.
Freddie Mac heaved himself to his feet with a grunt that seemed to echo across the creek into the pines beyond. “Just seems odd,” he said. He pulled his cell phone out of a pocket of his black polyester trousers. “But I guess we’ll figure it all out in the autopsy.” He punched a number on the phone and put it to his ear. “Yeah. Y’all bring the bag on down here, and let’s haul this guy out.” He ended the call and gave a thumbs-up to the photographer, who slung his camera and started walking up the bank toward the coroner’s van.
Outside the Law Page 3
