by Dan Ames
“Christ, what now, you damn loser,” Troy said. “Gross. What the hell?”
Dawkins sneaked a peek up at him, saw him stand up, the rifle still leaning against the side of the chair.
Step one, Dawkins thought. Separate him from his weapon.
“What a mess you are, you dumb sonofabitch,” Troy continued. “I oughta kick your face in. Prize fighter my white ass.”
Dawkins forced himself to heave again and this time he sent a spew of bloody mucus onto Troy’s boots.
“Shit!” Troy yelled. He came closer and did what Dawkins was hoping he would do. He kicked him in the stomach.
The problem for Troy was, Billy arms were cuffed in front of him, so the blow came directly into his hands.
Dawkins responded by grabbing ahold of Troy’s leg and corkscrewing his body, placing a huge amount of torque on the leg and Dawkins heard Troy’s knee pop.
Troy lost his balance, fell and landed on his back.
“Help!” Troy yelled, high-pitched and in a panic.
Dawkins was immediately on top of him.
He put his hands together to form one fist and then he twisted to the right and brought them down together, like swinging a baseball bat. His double-fisted blow caught Troy on the chin and drove his head back onto the wood floor.
Dawkins repeated the punch three more times until Troy’s jaw was hanging crookedly by a single hinge and his eyes were rolled back completely in his head.
Troy was out of the game, and maybe even dead.
Dawkins pivoted off of Troy and dug through the man’s pants for the handcuff key. He found it in the right pocket, and carefully unlocked the cuffs. He stood, a little unsteady, and retrieved the rifle.
He wasn’t a big gun guy, but he had shot before.
There were keys on the kitchen counter and Billy grabbed them. He stopped for a water bottle and drank deeply. He was half-tempted to go into the bathroom and check his face but decided against it.
He had to move.
Dawkins went back to Troy and dug through his other pocket looking for a cell phone. It wasn’t there. He went back to the chair, noticed a jean jacket on the floor. An inside pocket revealed Troy’s phone.
Dawkins put the phone in his pocket and crossed the room to the front of the cabin. There were no windows looking out so he wasn’t sure what he would be walking into. But he’d rather get outside, get into a vehicle and get the hell out of here, than stay in the cabin and call the cops.
He opened the door.
Darnell’s gun was pointed directly at his face.
“Great timing there, Dynamite.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I saw a man emerge from the tiny structure to the right of the makeshift tent and boxing ring.
Behind him was Darnell, with a huge silver revolver that looked like a small cannon.
The man walking in front, I recognized.
Despite the face that looked like it had been beaten bloody, Billy “Dynamite” Dawkins had arrived.
It was hard to believe it was actually him.
One of the most legendary fighters of all time, out here, in the sticks.
He was a little smaller than I imagined, a little older, but he was still impressive. Lean, with a narrow waist and broad shoulders. Even though it looked like he’d had the crap knocked out of him, he had a presence. A look that was probably very effective at intimidating wannabes.
“What the fuck is all this?” Don White said, looking at the makeshift boxing ring. “Jesus Christ, you were supposed to kill him. What the hell is this?”
“No harm in making a little money while we got ready to get rid of this little bitch,” Darnell said. “He just beat the shit out of Troy inside. Might have killed him. Damn, you gotta keep your eye on him.”
“Redneck, white trash, dumb shit,” Don White said.
“What’d you say?” Darnell snapped back.
“You heard me.” Don White turned to me. “Now we’ve got this asshole to worry about, too. We’re going to have to get rid of them both.”
White turned to me.
“It was that bitch, right? Nordegren?”
He turned to Dawkins.
“You were banging her, huh? Nice work, Billy. You were always good with the ladies.”
“Fuck you, Don,” Dawkins said. “That’s what this is about?”
“Sort of,” Don White said. “I owed some money to that bitch’s hubby. If I did this thing for him, my debt was wiped clean. A great arrangement until this fucking hillbilly didn’t just get rid of you like he was supposed to.”
White gestured toward me.
“Okay, it’s over. Take this one,” he said, and pointed at me. And then he pointed at Dawkins. “And that one and get rid of them both.”
Overhead, a bird flew by and it was big. A raven, or maybe an eagle. Was it a sign? Some clouds had moved in and now the clearing was bathed in shadow.
I knew I didn’t want to die here. My eyes found Dawkins and we looked at each other. It was time to make some kind of move, his expression told me. He had a gun pointed at the back of his head.
“I don’t like your tone,” Darnell said. “Matter of fact, it kinda pisses me off.”
Don White looked like he was going to explode.
“My tone? Fuck my tone, you inbred piece of shit.”
Another bird flew up from behind me and I judged the distance between myself and Don White. It would take me at least three steps to get to him.
Before I could make my move I sensed movement from Darnell.
He had swung the revolver from behind Dawkins’s head so that it was now pointing at Don White.
“No!” I said, and dove toward White’s legs.
I was too late.
The big revolver erupted and Don White fell backward, landing next to me on the ground.
Not all of him made the trip, though, because half of his head was gone.
For a moment, the silence hung in the air.
I rolled over and got to my feet, looked down at what was left of Don White, and then up at Billy Dawkins.
“You don’t call me white trash,” Darnell said, looking at the deceased body of Don White. “When you do that, you insult not just me but all of my kin. And that, I just can’t accept.”
It was time to make a move. Any kind of move.
I put my hands out in front of me and took a step toward Darnell.
“Let’s just–”
A gunshot rang out, and I jumped back, putting my hands to my chest. Had Darnell shot me?
He couldn’t have because–
Darnell toppled over, his big gun landing in the dirt three feet from Dynamite Dawkins.
It was then I realized the sound had come from behind me. From where the birds had kept taking flight.
Now I knew why.
I turned, just in time to see John Harrison and three men, all in camouflage, walking up to the clearing.
“Thought I might find you here,” Harrison said to me as he walked past.
The other men walked past me like I wasn’t even there.
One of them went into the cabin and returned with some keys.
“Troy’s dead,” he said.
The other man opened the door to one of the big aluminum sheds.
Inside, I saw a vintage Ford Bronco.
Harrison gestured for me to join him next to Dawkins and his other men. I tried not to look down at what was left of Darnell.
It wasn’t pretty.
“A friend of Mr. Dawkins asked me to keep an ear out,” Harrison said. “I knew Darnell was up to something, but I will admit even this surprised me. However, Darnell is an associate of mine and we have some private business that needs to remain private.”
“We have to call the cops,” I said. “There are three dead men here.”
Harrison looked at me. All of the easygoing charm vanished.
“My advice to you is to go back to Grosse Pointe the first chance you get. Because the first
chance is your last chance. This was simply a criminal enterprise gone wrong.”
One of Harrison’s men was carefully placing a gun in Don White’s dead hand, making sure White’s fingerprints were all over the weapon.
Harrison pointed at White. “He and Darnell had a shootout, after Darnell killed Troy.”
He held out his hand and one of his men handed him a set of keys.
Harrison tossed them to Dynamite.
“Take your Bronco, which is a very fine ride, I might add,” he said. “Take it, and him with you,” he said, pointing at me. “Go back to Good Isle and forget all about this, okay? We’ll make sure there’s no sign of you in the cabin. We’ll take care of these two.” He pointed toward Don White’s big, luxury SUV. “And that.”
Dawkins didn’t say a word, just turned and started walking toward the Bronco.
Harrison turned to me.
“Better hurry, Mr. Rockne,” he said. “Your ride is leaving.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I think we should go straight to the ER,” I said to Dynamite Dawkins.
Dawkins looked at me out of the corner of his bruised and scary-looking eye. His face was swollen, his lips were split, and there was blood all over the front of his clothing.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “What would we tell them? I fell down the stairs?”
It didn’t seem like a good idea to argue with the man. Especially since I knew that even in his current physical state, he could kick my ass all the way into Wisconsin.
He opened a compartment between us and looked inside.
“Huh,” he said.
It was his phone.
He checked to see if it had power but it didn’t.
Dawkins reached into his pocket, and found another phone. As he drove, he wiped it clean with the tail of his shirt, and then held it carefully with the fabric, rolled down his window and tossed it.
“Troy’s,” he said, by way of explanation.
There was a power cord with an adapter for the cigarette lighter, so he plugged in his own phone and it beeped, showing it was starting to charge.
We drove down the bumpy country road until we came to an intersection where the cross street was paved.
Without a word, we turned to the west, knowing eventually we’d hit Lake Michigan.
“Who are you?” he asked, finally.
“John Rockne,” I said. “Lindsey Nordegren hired me to find you. I’m a private investigator.”
“She was worried about me?” he asked. A small smile tugged at the corner of his swollen and bloody mouth.
“Yes,” I said. “She told me to find you. No matter what it took.”
“She’s a woman not easily discouraged,” he said.
Moments later, we pulled up to another cross street.
“Ah, I know where we are,” he said.
He took that turn, and suddenly, his phone came to life.
“Do you mind if I make a quick phone call?” I said. “When they grabbed me, they got my phone, too.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “I never drive and text.”
I was about to punch in Ellen’s phone number but then I stopped.
“Um, where are we going?” I asked.
“I’m going home.”
“Okay.”
This time I didn’t hesitate and I punched in Ellen’s phone number.
“Hey, it’s me. Can you meet me at Dynamite, I mean, Mr. Dawkins’s house?”
She wanted to know when.
“How long before we get there?” I asked my driver.
“Twenty minutes, give or take,” he said.
“Twenty minutes, give or take,” I told Ellen.
She said she’d heard him.
I disconnected from the call and put the phone back in its holder.
“You have a beautiful house, by the way,” I said.
I got the stink eye from the bruised eye.
“Lindsey gave us the key,” I said quickly. “She was very worried about you.”
Dynamite didn’t seem to want to talk, so I occupied myself by looking out the window at Michigan’s rolling hills, and admiring the quality of the restoration my driver had done on his vehicle. Everything looked original. The leather upholstery. The dashboard. It was like being transported to my childhood thirty years ago.
The urge to talk came to me, but I sensed my companion wasn’t in the mood for chit chat.
I also thought about the fact that I had just witnessed two men being killed, and I hadn’t called the police.
Failing to report something like that was highly illegal and would certainly cost me my license and my livelihood. I didn’t know what Harrison’s plan was. I didn’t even know what township that cabin technically belonged to. We were way outside of Good Isle’s city limits, so I knew if the cops did get involved, they wouldn’t be from Good Isle, which made me feel a sense of relief. I still didn’t know what was going on with Ellen, but a triple murder wouldn’t be a good way to start a new job.
Still, it made me more than a little uneasy not to go to the authorities. John Harrison, despite the charismatic charm, wasn’t messing around. And I had a feeling if I went telling tales out of school, I might get a visit from him.
Plus, Don White was a bad guy, as was Darnell.
Additionally, all evidence would no doubt be destroyed soon, if not already. If I went to the cops, and I somehow managed to lead them to the clearing, what would they find?
Either a carefully staged crime scene, or a whole lot of nothing.
No, my plan was to keep my mouth shut, and head back to Grosse Pointe as fast as possible.
Chapter Thirty
Ellen was parked in front of Dynamite’s house with my rental car intact.
We pulled into the driveway and Ellen walked over, handed me my cell phone.
“Rental car company’s GPS worked,” she said.
Dawkins came around the other side of the Bronco and stopped when he saw Ellen. Ellen looked at him with an odd expression.
“You look terrible,” she said.
Dawkins smiled, and for the first time I realized what a handsome man he was. Maybe that’s why Ellen had looked at him so strangely.
“I clean up well,” he said. “Which is what I’m going to do right now. And sleep.”
He went into the house and I followed Ellen to my rental car.
I let her drive and I started to fill her in on what happened.
“Wait!” she said. “Were any laws broken?”
“Uh, yeah, there was–”
“Stop! They offered me the job and I took it,” she said. “I can’t hear about anything illegal or I’ll have to investigate.”
“But you haven’t started yet.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh.”
It sort of hit me out of the blue.
“Holy shit! You got the job! Congratulations,” I said.
“Thanks.” My sister seemed incredibly happy and actually smiled at me, a feat that I hadn’t seen accomplished in so long I assumed it was a physical impossibility.
“Christ, I can’t believe you’re going to leave Grosse Pointe,” I said. “You won’t be around. You’re going to miss me so much.”
Ellen gave me a smirk.
“I kind of surprised myself,” she said. “The longer I was here, the more it felt right to me. I think it’s a good opportunity, and I was getting tired of Grosse Pointe. It will be nice to have some new challenges.”
It started to sink in. I felt sad, but wasn’t about to admit that. I hated it when people got mushy.
Instead, I focused on the reaction Ellen and Dawkins had shared.
“I have a feeling the first community involvement project will be stopping by Dynamite’s place,” I said. “I saw the way you looked at him and the way he looked at you.”
“Shut up, John.”
“I hope the forests up here aren’t dry because the sparks were clearly flying.”
S
he ignored me and pulled into the parking lot of the hotel.
We were going to grab our respective suitcases, pack up, and then she would follow me back to the car rental place.
Once I’d returned it, she’d give me a ride back to Grosse Pointe.
Home for me.
A new adventure for Ellen.
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Also by Dan Ames
DEAD WOOD (John Rockne Mystery #1)
HARD ROCK (John Rockne Mystery #2)
COLD JADE (John Rockne Mystery #3)
LONG SHOT (John Rockne Mystery #4)
EASY PREY (John Rockne Mystery #5)
BODY BLOW (John Rockne Mystery #6)
THE KILLING LEAGUE (Wallace Mack Thriller #1)
THE MURDER STORE (Wallace Mack Thriller #2)
FINDERS KILLERS (Wallace Mack Thriller #3)
DEATH BY SARCASM (Mary Cooper Mystery #1)
MURDER WITH SARCASTIC INTENT (Mary Cooper Mystery #2)
GROSS SARCASTIC HOMICIDE (Mary Cooper Mystery #3)
KILLER GROOVE (Rockne & Cooper Mystery #1)
BEER MONEY (Burr Ashland Mystery #1)
THE CIRCUIT RIDER (Circuit Rider #1)
KILLER’S DRAW (Circuit Rider #2)
TO FIND A MOUNTAIN (A WWII Thriller)
STANDALONE THRILLERS:
THE RECRUITER
KILLING THE RAT
HEAD SHOT
THE BUTCHER
BOX SETS:
AMES TO KILL
GROSSE POINTE PULP
GROSSE POINTE PULP 2
TOTAL SARCASM
WALLACE MACK THRILLER COLLECTION
SHORT STORIES:
THE GARBAGE COLLECTOR
BULLET RIVER
SCHOOL GIRL
HANGING CURVE
SCALE OF JUSTICE
The JACK REACHER Cases
