He pushed the throttle all the way open and hurtled the last two miles to the landing. Spray from the bow arched over and occasionally onto him, dousing him with droplets of respite from the heat.
When he saw the bait shop by the landing, high on the bank to his left, he cut the throttle and felt the boat settle onto her own weight for the slow drift to the ramp.
Only when he’d secured the boat to the trailer and pulled clear of the wet concrete did he open his tackle box and retrieve his phone. He turned it on and tossed it onto the seat of the truck.
He made it barely a mile before the phone vibrated its way across the seat. He grabbed it as he steered down the gravel road back to Highway 69. He saw John’s name on the caller ID.
“What’s up, John?” he said, squinting through the glare of the windshield.
“You do know this shit always happens when you’re out of the office?”
“What now?”
“You remember Ms. Brinks? Cheryl.”
“Uh, not particularly.”
“That drunk woman at the store out on 69 a few weeks ago. Her husband came rolling up, and you backed his ass up.”
He remembered. “Right. She drunk again?”
“It’s her husband this time. He’s gone batshit crazy. I mean, allegedly. He said he had a gun on his wife, then said something really bad might happen if he doesn’t talk to you. In person. Like right fucking now.”
He sighed and glanced at his boat in the rearview. What the fuck?
“He say what this was all about?”
“No, but Becky said he sounded drunk,” John said.
“Of course.”
“Of course.”
“OK, I know you already sent a car,” he said as he wheeled onto the blacktop, headed back toward town. “Tell ’em I’m on my way. And get on out there. I may need somebody covering me.”
John chuckled. “Car’s already there. Townsend is on scene. And I’m on the way to Caledonia.”
“Figures he lives in Caledonia. Ahite, text me the address. Oh, and bring me a vest.”
Another chuckle. “Sitting right here on the seat beside me.”
“Of course. Be there in twenty.”
“Roger.”
He made it in a little under eighteen minutes, even pulling the boat. He felt a little ridiculous pulling up alongside two marked sheriff’s cars.
The Brinks residence was one of the older ranch-style houses on the edge of town, built before the big tornado and before the huge influx of military personnel who came in a recent wave from the air force base to the north of town.
From the outside, the house looked normal: brick front, white trim, red door. Small covered porch with a white rail, carport with a deep freeze against the back wall, pickup parked inside. The standard shrubbery and flowers lining the concrete driveway to the street. Yard neat, grass mowed. Brinks, from the looks of it, didn’t make a ton of money, but he wasn’t broke, either.
He killed the engine and climbed out, aware that he smelled like fish and river water and looked like a redneck river rat, unshaven and dressed in jeans and a tank top. Hardly the image befitting a sheriff up for reelection.
If John noticed, he didn’t let on. He strode around his own car, uniform on him like paint, sweat glistening on his arms and forehead. No hat, vest on, Glock holstered. John was cool. Always cool.
Townsend, an angular man of thirty with a harsh face and cold eyes, stood at the other car, behind his open driver’s side door, eyes on the house as he spoke into his radio. Rifle with a scope laid out across the hood on a green mat. All business.
The moment flashed, and he was back in the corps, his squad in the desert, knowing their roles and staying frosty. All business. No time for fucking around.
He blinked himself back to the present and took the vest John offered. He shrugged into it, adjusted his holster and nodded. “So what’s up? And do we really need a sniper?”
John shrugged. “Hell if I know. He’ll scream out every now and then, hollering about wanting to talk to you. For all I know, we could have a hostage situation or a murder-suicide thing going on in there.”
He squinted at the front door. What gets into people? What in the hell can be this important?
“Why in the hell couldn’t he just call me direct?”
John shrugged. “Don’t know. But he was pretty pissed that day at the store when I arrested his wife. And he seems a little unhinged right now.”
“Well, I reckon I better go talk to Mr. Brinks. What’s his first name?”
“Brad,” John said. “Wait, boss, you just going to walk up there and knock on the door?”
He smiled. “That would be crazy. I’m going to yell at him first.”
John shook his head. “Goddammit, Colt, one of these days.”
“Yeah, I know. But not today.” He turned to the house. “Mr. Brinks! Brad! It’s Sheriff Harper. You mind if I come in and have a word?”
A thumping sound came from the house, and a curtain in the kitchen moved a fraction of an inch.
“Just you, Sheriff,” Brinks yelled. “Nobody else.”
“All right, Mr. Brinks. You should know that I’ll be coming in armed. You understand?”
Silence. Then, “Yeah, I understand.”
“Good,” he said. “So I’d advise you to put down whatever weapon you might be holding and step away from it. I come in there and see you holding a weapon, I’m gone put you down, you hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded. “Town, you got overwatch. I’m leaving the door open and I’ll talk from there if I can. He pulls anything, you shoot his ass.”
“Will do, Colt.” Townsend was already behind the .30–06, draped across the hood of his car and squinting through the scope.
“John.”
“I know,” John said. “You’ll feel me.”
“I know I will.” He patted the front of his vest for good luck, and John returned the gesture, an inside joke they’d shared since the Marine Corps. He drew his pistol and held it at his side as he walked to the front door.
He waited until he felt John behind him, off to his right just a little, then knocked. “Mr. Brinks, it’s me,” he said into the wood of the door. “Sheriff Harper.” He kept the pistol low, but his fingers tingled around the grip.
The door swung open, and Brad Brinks filled the void so completely that Colt couldn’t see past him into the darkened interior. Brinks was unarmed. Even so, he took a tiny step to his right to give Townsend a better shot, should he need to take it.
“Mr. Brinks,” he said and nodded.
“Sheriff.” Brinks’s eyes were bloodshot and wary, almost feral, as the man seemed to try to see everything in the world at once. The smell of booze leapt from him, and he was clearly drunk. But, Colt noticed, he was also clearly scared. He barely resembled the brash husband who had considered, however briefly, challenging him in a parking lot a few weeks earlier. Gone were the boots, jeans, and attitude. He now wore battered, faded khakis and stood in his sock feet. Blue T-shirt. He seemed much smaller.
“Is Mrs. Brinks OK?” Colt asked.
Brinks nodded. “Yeah, she’s fine.”
“Is she safe?”
Another nod. “Yeah, she is. Weren’t planning on doing something bad to her anyway. Though sometimes I sure as hell want to.”
“That’s not what we heard,” he said. He considered his options and risks. He knew it best to keep Brinks in sight of his deputies, but he couldn’t tell if Brinks was off his rocker or not. So he didn’t know if the wife was really safe. Or alive. “Can you get her to come to the door?”
“Cheryl,” Brinks called. “Get over here.”
Cheryl emerged from the gloom of the interior in jeans and a maroon Mississippi State T-shirt. It occurred to him that he had never seen Mrs. Brinks in anything close to a relaxed state, much less happy. Her hair was brushed, and even though her makeup was fixed, it was clear she’d been crying.
“Ma’am
,” he said, watching her eyes. “Are you OK? Are you in danger?”
Her gaze held his. She was stone-cold sober, sane, and not under duress. It was his professional opinion.
“I’m safe, Sheriff,” she said. She cut her eyes at her husband. “You tell him?”
He stood straighter, cocked an eyebrow at Brinks, who furrowed his brow, cleared his throat.
“Ain’t had time. Go on now.”
Cheryl didn’t move. She returned her gray-eyed gaze to his own. He nodded. She disappeared into the interior of the home.
“Tell me what, Mr. Brinks?” He turned to John with a hand signal—I got this. John, standing in the front yard with his pistol drawn, lowered his aim. Townsend didn’t twitch, not even to wipe sweat from his brow.
Brinks sighed. “Goddamn, I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning.”
Brinks nodded. “Ahite then. I know this is going to get me in a shitload of trouble, but I ain’t gonna stand around while people get killed.”
“Go on.”
“OK, OK, first off, though, I ain’t no drug dealer. And I only tried that shit once, and it scared me so bad I said never again.”
“Mr. Brinks.”
“OK, OK,” Brinks said, sweating like a glass of iced tea on a sunny porch. “I knew Kenny Jenkins, that guy you shot out to the lock and dam.”
He tried to remain patient. “I remember Kenny.”
Brinks nodded and sent a tiny shower of sweat flying off his brush-cut hair. “We hung out. I knew he was working for these guys up in Tennessee, and I figured he was doing a lot more than that ‘enforcer’ bullshit he said he was doing. Anyway, whatever, a while back, a few weeks ago maybe, some guy showed up where I work—over at the gas company—asking a ton of questions about Kenny. And you. Mostly you. Wanted to know how old you are, where you lived, if you had been investigating Kenny, if Kenny was a snitch, if you shot a lot of people, if you was married, and whatnot.”
His inner alarm rang, loudly. He wondered if John was hearing this. He nodded at Brinks for him to continue.
“Well, hell, Sheriff, he was paying for the information, you know? I got bills.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Not much more than he coulda gotten from reading newspaper, and that’s the smoking hot gospel truth.”
“OK, so what’s the real problem?”
Brinks shifted his feet and blew out a breath. More sweat. “He, ah, he’s been calling a lot lately. Since them guys started getting killed. Asking more questions about you. About your daddy. About that boy got killed last year.”
He glared at Brinks. “Clifford Raines? What in the hell did he ask about him for?”
Brinks shrugged, and his eyes dove under his brows like a scolded child’s. “Dunno, Sheriff, he just asked if you had a personal involvement in it, is how he put it.”
“A personal involvement. What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t know what to tell him, ’cause I don’t know. I mean, I just read the papers, you know. I told him, it’s a small town, you know everybody here, so, yeah, I guess that could mean a personal involvement.”
“OK, so this moneyman, he tell you why he needed this information?”
“No, sir. Said was none of my business. In no uncertain terms. He was, ah, pretty scary.”
“Is that why you called me?”
Brinks nodded. “Ever time I tried to be done with the guy, he’d get real nasty and tell me I was done when he said I was done, that sort of thing.”
He fought to keep his face calm even as the anger boiled up inside him. What the fuck does this guy want? “That all you tell him?” he asked.
Brinks nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“So, other than being scared of this guy, why did you decide to tell me now?”
“I know them killings around here were all drug-related,” Brinks said. “I ain’t dumb. I can put two and two together.”
“So? You said you ain’t a drug dealer.”
“I ain’t,” Brinks said, now on the defensive. “But, like I said, I hung out with Kenny. And Kenny had, um, friends who were dealing. I never met any of them or knew them by name, but I know one of them sounds a lot like that first guy that got killed. Pritchard? Yeah, that’s him. And don’t you think it’s weird this guy is looking for you about the time all these dealers are showing up dead?”
He had the sensation of a puzzle assembling in his head as he merely watched the pieces come together. “This guy have a name?”
“Only one he gave was Hack.”
“Hack.”
“Yessir.”
“Mr. Brinks, you’re not suicidal, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Just scared.”
“Yes, sir.”
“OK, for now, you’ve done the right thing. My deputies might be contacting you real soon for more information, but for now, I’m going to go, all right?”
Brinks wore an expression of relief, fright, and confusion all melted into a sweaty red mess. “OK, then. But what do I do about this guy?”
“Don’t piss him off.” He turned and walked past a startled John. Townsend kept his rifle aimed at the door.
“Stand down, Townsend,” he called from his car. The deputy immediately relaxed and unshouldered his rifle.
John caught up to him. “What the fuck, Colt?”
He beckoned for John to follow him to his truck, out of earshot from Townsend.
“John, look,” he said. “Hackett—you remember him—has been asking questions and pumping Brinks here for info, asking about Kenny Jenkins and me. You still think he didn’t kill Pritchard and Munny?”
“Well, that changes things a little,” John said. “But I don’t get it. You killed Jenkins over a year ago. That’s a long time. And Jenkins was a real low-level thug.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Maybe he was asking about you to see what he’d be up against if he starts killing dealers. You know, could he count on local yokel sheriffs who couldn’t do anything without tripping over their own dicks.”
“Well, apparently, he felt like that was the case.”
John looked at him. “Hey, Colt, all I meant was—”
“I know what you meant. This guy has balls. He killed Pritchard and Munny, knowing that I already shot one guy who worked for the same bunch.
“Allegedly,” John said.
“Yeah, allegedly.” He looked over John’s shoulder at Townsend, who was backing his car out onto the street. “Look, I’m going to get ahold of Delmer right now and set up a meet with Hack.”
“Roger,” John said again and turned for his car.
MOLLY
She flung the beer bottle harder than she meant to. It hit the wall a good foot over the plastic trash can with a thunk, caromed off the desk and landed, spinning, at the foot of the bed in her Hampton Inn room off the interstate exit. She didn’t bother to pick it up, such was her frustration. She continued to pore over the map spread out on the bed, as she had been for the last two hours, sitting cross-legged, notepad on the left, laptop on the right, beer in a Styrofoam cooler beside the bed. She was halfway through a six-pack.
She had driven from Memphis straight through to Lowndes County to test her theory and had found nothing. She’d made three educated guesses since her brief to Rollins as to where Pritchard’s body could have been put in the water, and had walked away from all three sites with zero hints, just a lot of mosquito bites and the heebie-jeebies from a fear of snakes. She still had the bridges to check out—those still made more sense. She decided to regroup with rest, food, and beer. The only one she had neglected so far was rest.
Her map—a 1:50,000-scale military terrain map—offered damn little in the way of information other than terrain features and roads. She’d have to go out there and walk—or at least drive—the ground.
She stretched her arms over her head, then climbed off the bed, when she realized it was nearly
midnight. She surveyed the pale yellow walls, riddled with nicks and smudges and wondered how in the hell she ended up here.
She was way out of bounds, she knew. Not breaking any laws or regulations necessarily, but sure as hell outside any authority she was supposed to answer to.
She felt a pang of doubt as the choices she had made rushed into her mind, reminding her that the line between winners and losers was paper thin—as even Rollins had alluded to during her brief. And the difference always could be reflected in the choices one made. She made hers, more than once.
She knew her decision to find this killer was reckless and had two apparent outcomes: she would be hailed as a gutsy, tough, smart investigator if she succeeded and a headstrong, reckless rogue agent if she failed. But she knew the only true outcome of this stubborn, defiant act was her own demise as a federal agent, by her own hand.
And having willfully painted herself into this corner, she saw but one recourse—to finish the job. Fuck the consequences. She would find either redemption or disgrace at the end of this journey.
And at the moment, she didn’t care which.
DELMER
He got nervous after the third ring. He was ready to hang up when a voice came on the line.
“Yo, speak.”
“Uh, yeah, who is this?”
“Depends. Who’s talking?”
“Delmer. I got this number from—”
“That’s enough, man. I know who you are. People been looking for you.”
“So I hear. What do you want?”
The guy on the other end—he sounded black—laughed. “You a real piece of work. Me, I want a piece of yo’ ass, motherfucker, for shooting me.
Outside the Law Page 13
