Sins of the Father

by Winter Austin

  “Well, then maybe you’ve seen this guy before?” Jolie held up the autopsy photo.

  Those beady eyes got smaller as he gave this picture more scrutiny. “Is he dead?” he blurted.

  “Did you see him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “When was that?” Jolie asked.

  “I said maybe; I can’t be for sure. You know, it’s dark in here, can’t see all that good.”

  It was like dealing with the damn Taliban. When they wanted to talk, you couldn’t shut them up. When you needed intel, they suddenly went deaf, dumb, and blind. Good God, they feared the insurgents more than the American and British forces that visited their front doorsteps. Intimidation was a strong motivator.

  “Answer the deputy,” he said.

  “I ain’t got to do nothin’ of the sort. Last I checked, this is still a free country, and I got rights.”

  “Shit, Bud, what the hell is all the commotion?” a voice hollered from behind them.

  Xavier turned with Jolie as an emaciated man sauntered up to the bar.

  Bracing a thin arm clad in a large, dirty plaid shirt against the bar, the man struck a pose next to Jolie. His gaze wandered down then up, and he gave an appreciative nod. “What can I help you with, sweetcakes?”

  Red clouded Xavier’s vision. This crap joint, infested with the cockroaches of the county, was starting to wear his patience needle-thin. If one more dipstick tried anything with her, he was going to break them in two.

  “First, you’re going to step back, sir.”

  Holding his hands up, the man moved back from the bar, giving Jolie only three feet of space. If that turd made any attempts on her, Xavier hoped she remembered the defense techniques he’d begun teaching her last night.

  “Now”—Jolie showed the newcomer the photo of the dead kid—“do you know him?”

  A twisted, half-toothless smile appeared on the emaciated man’s face. “How’s ’bout you ’n me go find a corner, and I’ll tell ya all ya want to know?”

  “How’s about I put my fist in your face and finish off what the meth started?” Xavier snapped.

  “Look here, punk, you can’t be throwing around threats in this place,” Bud the bartender said. “I’ve got every right to throw you out.”

  A shit-eatin’ grin tugged up the corners of Xavier’s mouth. “I’d like to see you try, tubby.”

  “Xavier.” The warning tone in Jolie’s voice didn’t help matters.

  “Xavier? What kinda pussy name is that?” The meth-head laughed.

  Jolie moved quicker than he did, and she blocked his path to the toothpick. With her arm braced against his midsection, Xavier lost the red haze and was swept back to his gym, with her wrapped up in his arms. Shit! This was not the time to be thinking about that.

  “Sir, we’re just looking for some answers,” Jolie said, “and then we’ll leave. There’s no need for provocation.”

  “Sweetcakes, there’s no need to use fancy words.” Meth-head reached out and caressed Jolie’s arm. “We can give you all the information you want.”

  “Fuck this shit.” Xavier shoved her aside and planted his fist in Meth’s cheek. He could feel the crunch of bone under his knuckles as the man crumpled.

  All hell broke loose. Bud waddled toward the other end of the bar as the rest of the scum in the strip joint came at Xavier. Through the white noise that filled his head, he could hear Jolie screaming for everyone to stop, but he ignored it, deflecting the piddly-ass attempts to knock him down. One after another they kept coming, some going down and getting back up, others falling in a heap, blocking their buddies’ path to Xavier.

  The blast of a shotgun froze everyone in place.

  “Goddamnit, Bud! You were told not to let this happen, again!” a female screeched, pumping the shotgun for emphasis.

  At the clatter of the shell casing on the floor, Xavier released his chokehold on the man in his arm and flung him away. Turning, he faced the gun-toting female, who wore a long, flowing dress that would look better on a woman half her age.

  Next to him, Jolie twitched. He glanced over; she had her hand on her gun but wasn’t able to clear leather. In fact, she seemed petrified in place. And it struck Xavier in that second—he wasn’t reacting to the shotgun blast like a man with severe PTSD should.

  “I want you cops off my property.”

  “I’m not a cop,” Xavier said.

  The woman’s watery gaze shifted to him, roved his body, then fixated on his face. “I don’t give a shit. You come in here busting up my place, I have every right to toss you out.”

  “Linda, I tried to get them out of here,” Bud blubbered.

  “Shut up, pissant. The rest of you, get off my floor and get out of here.”

  As if it broke the spell put over her, Jolie jolted to attention, her hand dropping away from her holster. “Not until I get a straight answer.”

  “Look, twig, I want you out of here, like, yesterday. Take your troublemaking Neanderthal with you.”

  “No.”

  Stunned silence met Jolie’s retort. Xavier’s body warmed at her push for authority. Finally, the woman was getting it.

  “I came here on a tip that a person of interest in a missing persons case was spotted at this strip club. No one in this place has given me a straight answer. Either I start getting some, or I call in the sheriff and report every violation I’ve seen since walking into this hellhole. First among them, illegal discharge of a weapon in a place of business.”

  “Lady, we get all kinds who come in and out of here. Like we would know who you’re talking about.”

  Jolie held up the photo. “Seems your employee Bud over there knows who this is, but he sure isn’t willing to give me a name.”

  Squinting at the photo, Linda had to move closer to see it, her shotgun slowly lowering until the barrel pointed at the floor. Xavier tensed, ready to rip it out of her hands if she did anything stupid with it. Once Linda was close enough to see, her body slackened, the shotgun slipping. Xavier moved quickly, catching the weapon before it hit the floor and triggered another blast.

  “What happened?” Linda choked out.

  “Do you know him?” Jolie asked.

  “Answer me!”

  Xavier winced at the screech. That was not a good sound. He was too familiar with that reaction; the reaction of a mother learning her child had been killed. “Deputy, we need a private place,” he said.

  • • •

  Jolie waited as Bud cleared the club, her head swimming with every possible way to break it to Linda, explain what had happened to this young man. A young man Linda seemed to know perfectly well. Once everyone was gone, leaving Linda and Xavier, Jolie still had no clue what in the hell she was going to say.

  “He’s my son,” Linda whispered.

  Oh, double fudge on a stick!

  This had now turned into a death notification. Something Jolie had never done. Something that was Sheriff Hamilton’s duty. A job that gave her the itch to reach over the bar, grab a beer, and drink herself into oblivion.

  “We might want to sit,” Xavier offered.

  Nodding, Jolie stepped aside, allowing Linda to precede them and pick a place to sit. The older woman grabbed the nearest chair and sank onto the seat. Jolie and Xavier eased down in chairs across from her. Amazing. He’d just been in a brawl, and Xavier didn’t have even a trace of a bruise on his knuckles.

  “What is your son’s name?” Jolie asked.

  “Anthony.” Linda shook her head. “Anthony Maddox.”

  The world spun off its axis. Jolie blinked, sitting back in her chair. What was she going to do? How did she get herself into this mess?

  “Deputy … ” Linda’s gaze dropped to her name tag then back up. “Murdoch? Would you tell me what’s happened to my son?”

  Going mute, Jolie studied the lines etched deep into the woman’s face, the drooping lids half hiding faded blue eyes; what was once probably silky, blond hair was now a fried, frizzy mess streak
ed with unbecoming red highlights. Linda couldn’t be more than fifty, but she looked every day over eighty. This lifestyle, her means of living, had taken a toll on her.

  “Maddox?” Xavier asked. “Would Grace Maddox be a relative?”

  Linda’s watery gaze slid to him. “She was my daughter.”

  “She was?” Jolie nearly rocketed from her chair. “How old is Anthony?”

  “Twenty-four. Deputy, you still haven’t told me what happened to my son.”

  There was no getting away from it. She had to do it. It wasn’t Xavier’s place to tell the woman she was now alone in the world.

  “I regret to … inform you Anthony has … passed.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I never want to do that again.” Jolie sank into the seat of her car. She could still hear Linda Maddox’s wails, would probably be haunted by them forever. How did any cop handle death notifications? It was one thing to hear about it and learn how to do it at the academy; it was an entirely different thing when she was actually supposed to do it.

  Xavier stood in the gap of her open door, resting his arms on the top of the door and the car roof. “There may come a day when you have no choice. It’s part of the job. No one likes it, but someone has to do it.”

  Not her. Not in a million years. The guys could handle it, thank you very much. All the more reason she was not cut out to be a sheriff.

  “For all its posturing and threatening, it hasn’t rained here.”

  She frowned at him. Yes, no rain. Not a drop had fallen here in the vicinity of The Golden Slipper. She scanned the skies; it looked like Eider was getting the devil’s share of the precious liquid.

  “It does this from time to time. Pour down rain in one spot—less than a mile away, dry as a bone.” She slid her key into the ignition. “I need to go tell the sheriff what happened here and write up the report.”

  “You going to be okay?”

  “I’ll have to be.” She squinted up at Xavier. “Like you said, it’s part of the job. Thanks for backing me up in there. Even if you did take the whole protector thing a bit too far.”

  “I make no apologies for my reaction to perverts.”

  He certainly hadn’t, and it was disconcerting seeing him react that way. Like a jealous boyfriend.

  “You do realize you’re not done here?” he asked.

  Sighing, Jolie started the engine. “Getting the whole story behind the lives of Linda’s children is going to have to wait for a day when she’s able to handle it. But at least I fulfilled the point of my initial trip out here. I learned who the woman mentioned in Grace’s file is, and who the newest homicide victim is. The sheriff should be thrilled with that.”

  “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  She caught his hand before he could get out of reach. “Where are you going?”

  “Jolie, I still have a job to do. And Farran’s right close to ripping her hair out of her head.”

  “Oh, okay.” She released her hold on him. “Maybe I’ll stop in for dinner. Catch you up.”

  He smiled. It made her tingly, reminding her of their shared kiss and the fiery passion it created.

  “Maybe.” With that he touched his forehead like a salute, then headed for his truck, giving her a great view of his backside.

  “Damn,” she hissed and looked away. She was a goner.

  Jolie waited for Xavier to leave the lot first then followed him along the county road. They breached the wall of rain three miles from the strip club. Listening to the fat drops beat against the roof and windshield helped clear out the lingering memory of Linda’s grief-stricken sobs. It was odd to see such a toughened woman break down like that.

  The revelation that Grace’s mother was still in McIntire County and that Grace had had a brother shed a whole new light on her disappearance. And it meant Jolie had no choice but to heed the creepy caller’s demands that she look more closely at the former sheriff.

  But how, after last night’s confrontation? Jolie’s show of force made it a guarantee that Dad would not be a willing source of information. If anything, it was grounds for another verbal barrage.

  In her entire life, Jolie had never seen her father hit his wife, and he’d never hit his daughter. There had been no evidence that he’d physically attacked Mom—in fact, Mom was the only one who was ever able to calm him down. But Jolie did remember the bruises on Ian’s arms and the broken skin on his knuckles. She had broken up a fight between them once—the one and only fight she’d been witness to—in which Ian had been the instigator. Neither male would admit what the fight had actually been about, but Jolie sensed it went deeper than a normal Murdoch father-son pissing contest.

  Her heart sank, the pain restricting her breathing. Both of the men in her life were domineering and proud, each trying to outmaneuver the other. And at times, Jolie and Mom got caught in the middle.

  Ian had been right. Not once had she stood up for her brother, because she wanted to appeal to Dad’s better sense, and it never worked. He made damn sure Ian knew Jolie was his pride and joy, that she was the next Murdoch to help run this county. Ian retaliated the best way he knew how: dragging the good name of Murdoch through the mud.

  Dad’s pride was bleeding. Mentioning a failed case would only make things worse. He might believe it was a cut-and-dried situation of a runaway who didn’t want to be found. It was clear that he hadn’t tried all that hard. And the late-night caller wanted to make damn sure he paid for it.

  Once Jolie reached the city limits, she and Xavier went in opposite directions. She finished her drive to the sheriff’s department just as the rain stopped. This was one report she didn’t relish writing up.

  Inside, the place was abuzz with activity—DCI personnel, the county attorney, and Jolie thought she caught a glimpse of a state patrolman’s uniform among those ambling about. There were so many bodies packed inside the station, she had to zigzag and weave her way through the maze to her desk. Dropping her gear on the chair, she inched over to Jennings, who, again, had his bum leg propped on a chair.

  “What’s all the hoopla about?”

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked in lieu of answering her.

  “Apparently doing a death notification. I discovered the next of kin on our recent homicide quite by accident.”

  This perked up Jennings. He scooted himself into a straighter posture. “You’ve got a name on our John Doe?”

  “Yeah.” Jolie peeked around the corner of the dispatch station. Hamilton’s door was wide open, and shadows were passing along the floor. “I bet boss man is busy.”

  “Not too busy to hear what you’ve got. Get in there. I think the DCI supervisor is in there with him.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, she skirted around Jennings and tread carefully to the office. As she closed in, voices drifted out. She tuned in, letting all the noise in the bullpen fade into the background.

  “The victim was killed somewhere else and left at the carnival attraction,” an easy-going female said, “which still begs the question of how that heavy thing, plus a leaking body, was carried across the fairgrounds and deposited in that booth with not a soul around to hear or see anything.”

  “Was there a blood trail?”

  Jolie stopped shy of entering the doorway.

  “Not that we could find. With all the activity that went on that morning, it could have been trampled and destroyed.”

  “My people and the Eider police will see if they can find anyone who might have something to hide.”

  And that could be anyone in Eider, even Xavier. He could fight, and he was fit and able, even with his prosthetic, to carry the dead weight of a victim. But could he manage to lug a body on a dart wheel into the fairgrounds?

  It still begged the question of why he would use knives, and Clint Kruger was killed when his neck was broken. Besides, a cold-blooded killer didn’t match up with the protective man Jolie was getting to know.

  “What else do you have for me?” Hamilto
n asked.

  “You have the autopsy report from your coroner?”

  “Just a prelim. He’s saying a healthy male, early to mid-twenties, signs of drug use but not enough to prove he was an addict. Cause of death seems to be the knife left in his heart, and by the doc’s guess, it seems like the victim was alive when all the torture was inflicted.”

  Jolie slapped her hand over her mouth, stifling the gag. Echoes of Linda’s horrific wails thirty minutes ago reentered Jolie’s mind. Sweet mother, who was going to explain to the poor woman her son had felt every excruciating knife blade to his body? God, don’t let it be me.

  “Sheriff, I hate to say this, but your county is starting to look like a war zone. This is what, the third or fourth time I’ve been here in the last eight months or so?”

  “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right.”

  Gulping down the bile trying to sneak into her throat, Jolie rapped on the wood frame, stepping into the doorway. “Sir, may I come in?”

  Besides the female DCI supervisor, who sat directly across from the sheriff, there was one extra person in Hamilton’s office. On the sagging sofa lounged former FBI agent Boyce Hunt. Jolie wasn’t sure why Cassy’s husband—who’d left his career as an agent to be with his wife—was even here. It was no secret that he and Hamilton barely tolerated each other, so seeing Boyce in the same room as the sheriff was a little disturbing, to say the least.

  “What do you have for me, Murdoch?” Hamilton asked.

  Shaken out of her stupor, she tugged on her earlobe. “I’ve got a name for our victim and his next of kin.”

  “That was fast,” the DCI supervisor said. “We haven’t received the dental records yet.”

  Jolie felt Boyce’s scrutiny. The man was good at getting a read on people, and the sensation of being watched was enough to make her squirm. “My discovery was on accident.” She maintained eye contact with Hamilton. “His name was Anthony Maddox.”

  The sheriff’s flinch was the only indication he picked up on the connection.

  “Interesting.” The DCI woman jotted the name down on the tiny pad sitting in her lap. “And next of kin?”