Dark Duet

by Eric Beetner

  He sat down at his desk, woke up his computer, and set to work. There was a lot to do.

  “I don’t know what, but something,” Sutherland said in a low voice.

  “I see it plain as day, but the details are all fuzzy,” Cliff said.

  “I know. I wish I knew what all was going on. And if they were connected.”

  “You really think he’s involved with this?”

  Sutherland shrugged. “He’s got no reason to kill Evel, unless something happened with whatever arrangement they got going on.”

  “It’s fucked up. I hate giving them the free pass,” Cliff said.

  “Well, that deal is dissolved. With Evel dead as disco, we don’t owe them shit no more.”

  “You think he had something to do with Martha?”

  “I can’t imagine it, but my imagination is expanding when it comes to the sheriff. And I still don’t know how those two bodies and the state trooper on the highway the other night fit into this, if at all.”

  “I never seen him this worked up,” Cliff said. “I think he’s scared.”

  “But of what?”

  CHAPTER 20

  Nash parked Martha’s old sedan at the curb. When he got it out of the garage, he wasn’t sure it would ever start, but it got them out to the prison and back fine, and now it had brought them to the address Buck provided.

  Jacy stared out the window at the simple ranch style house. “What do we say?”

  “Hopefully he explained it.”

  “I guess I need to ask what he explained, exactly.”

  “Find out about money. Guys like this might be looking for payment.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  Nash pulled out the key and stepped onto the curb. Jacy followed.

  Nash knocked, then stepped aside so Jacy would be the first face whoever answered the door would see. The favor was much more for Buck’s daughter than for his stepson.

  The door opened and the largest black man they’d ever seen stood filling the space.

  “You’re Jacy, huh?” he said in a deep rumble.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The huge man stepped back, waved them in. “No need for the sir business. I’m just an ex-con. Didn’t do nothing in my life to be called no sir.”

  Jacy went inside. Nash followed and held out his hand. “Nash.”

  “Mohammed. You can call me Mo.” The man’s hand swallowed Nash’s.

  “Thanks for your help, Mo.”

  “Buck calls, I know it’s serious.”

  They were ushered into a living room where two more giant men were waiting. The two white men wore sleeveless shirts and it looked to Nash like they were that way out of necessity since their biceps didn’t look like they could fit inside any shirt he’d ever seen. Tattoos in a monochrome ballpoint pen blue ran up each of their arms and bled onto their necks. All three men had either shaved or nearly shaved heads. All three were the kind of men you would cross the street to avoid.

  “So,” Mo said. “This is Jasper.” One of the white men with a heavy ring on his finger nodded to them. “And this is Crackerjack.” The other man nodded and Nash noticed a scar running from over his right eyebrow to under his right eye, a slash that should have taken his eye out, but somehow it missed.

  “Tell them why you’re called Crackerjack,” Mo said.

  “’Cause my name’s Jack and Mo here thinks I’m a cracker.” He spoke in a thick redneck accent so it was easy to see how Mo came to the deduction. The three men smiled about it.

  Jacy smiled a tiny bit. “So, my dad told you about our…situation?”

  “He told us enough, yeah,” Mo said. “Y’all want a beer or something?”

  “No, thanks,” Nash said.

  “No,” Jacy said.

  “Okay,” Mo said. “Just trying to be hospitable.”

  Jacy stared at the three mountains in front of her and wondered how they could behave hospitably. They seemed only capable of bulldozer aggression.

  Jasper spoke up, “He said we get to beat on some cop’s ass.”

  “He said to check with you if there was any more than a beating you wanted,” Crackerjack said.

  Jacy looked to Nash. “Not yet,” he said. “We just need you to get us to him.”

  “Well, shit,” Jasper said. “Any chance I get to beat on a cop, I’m damn well taking it.”

  They laughed about that. “What about money?” Jacy said.

  The laughter died abruptly. Mo spoke in a chest rattling deep voice. “If Buck calls, we do what the man says. No questions. No payment.”

  Nash nodded. “That’s—”

  “Mighty white of you?” Crackerjack said. The three men laughed again.

  “I was going to say that’s very nice of you,” Nash said.

  “You Buck’s kid too?” Mo asked.

  “Stepson.”

  Mo nodded. “I was his cellmate. Don’t get to thinkin’ things, we never ass fucked or nothing. I haven’t heard from him in four years since I got out. Figure if he’s calling, the job needs doing.”

  “Well, we appreciate it.”

  “Then we should get going,” Mo said.

  Nash looked to Jacy, who nodded.

  CHAPTER 21

  Before Brian left the house after killing Martha, he took the really important stuff: his passport, the checkbook, keys to the storage locker.

  He’d filled his department-issued go bag, the black nylon one with Sheriff’s Dept. stitched on the side, with three guns, twelve boxes of ammo, two thousand in cash he always kept in the office safe, and his spare badge. He knew he could flash that almost anywhere and move freely. It would be a long while before anybody would question his badge enough to check up on the sheriff of Bishop and find out the whole, sordid story.

  By then it may have blown over, or he would be well on his way to a new identity, maybe even a new country. Finding and killing those two damn kids seemed like a hell of a lot less hassle if he could manage it before time ran out and his name and face were splashed all over the news. He could even count on some special commendation for bringing down his own wife’s killers. And two kids killing their mom and another lady, not to mention two drug dealers and a state trooper, damn this was going to get a week solid on CNN. Even as Brian moved money around in his bank accounts online, he thought of how he’d much rather be interviewed by Wolf Blitzer than be hiding out in some Vegas suburb Motel 6 waiting for the heat to cool off.

  He heard a bang of some kind come from the station room. Fuck it, let those two Barney Fife assholes deal with it. He was almost done.

  Nash insisted on leading the way. Mo stepped aside and let him push through the door. He’d psyched himself up so much that when he went forward, his anxious momentum slammed the door open and into the wall with a crack, announcing their arrival.

  Not that they would have been overlooked.

  Nash, skinny small white kid in Converse high tops and a nervous expression, was flanked by six hundred pounds of solid beef, each with a black gun in their hand. Jacy almost got lost in the crowd. If not for her own gun, borrowed from Mo and the boys, she would have seemed like a one-woman cheer squad only there for moral support and chanting.

  Mo, Crackerjack, and Jasper fanned out behind Nash. They filled the entire span of the entry hall to the station.

  Sutherland looked up. The muscles in his arm jerked once to make a move for his gun, but then he stayed still. Cliff looked up from the radio console and froze in his seat.

  “We got no beef with you,” Nash said. “We’re here for Brian.”

  “Deputy Sutherland,” Jacy said, raising the gun in his direction. “You know me. You know I’m not this kind of girl. We just need to deal with a little something.”

  Sutherland stayed still—anyone who lived around here knew you don’t spook the rattlers when their tails are shaking.

  “Jacy, he says you killed Martha.”
>
  “What?” Nash said. Then he mumbled under his breath, “That motherfucker.”

  Jacy sounded even younger than her years. “Now, you know that’s bullshit, Sutherland. Cliff, you know he’s lying.”

  The two deputies shared a look.

  Mo spoke in his low growl. “We come for the sheriff. You all can get. But if you don’t…” He let the thought hang in the air. Whatever they could imagine would be worse than anything he could say.

  “We knew something has been going on,” Sutherland said.

  “Yeah,” Cliff said. “We didn’t know it was nothing as bad as this.”

  “You don’t have to be involved,” Nash said. “But you should know that he killed our mom, and he killed another woman. Sarah. We saw it.”

  The deputies shared another look. “So what’s going to happen?” Sutherland asked.

  “You’re gonna get out of here,” Mo said. “Go do whatever it is you do. Chase teenagers out of the park for drinking. I don’t give a shit. But you weren’t here.”

  “That’s dereliction of duty,” Sutherland said.

  “Andy,” Jacy said, looking into his eyes. “You know damn well, this is your duty.”

  “Everything you may have heard about him,” Nash said. “It’s all true. He’s a first-class son of a bitch, and now he’s gone too damn far.”

  Sutherland picked his hat off the counter. “I think he passed too far about three too fars ago.” He placed the hat on his head, motioned to Cliff. “Come on. Let’s go on patrol. Route all calls to the cruiser.”

  Cliff stood and put on his hat.

  Sutherland passed by the intruders. He called to Cliff over his shoulder. “And cancel that APB.”

  Then they were alone in the precinct.

  Brian zipped up the go bag and powered down his computer. He turned to the hutch behind his desk, looked at the pictures there. A photo of him and Martha on vacation at the lake. A photo of him and the deputies on the day of his inauguration as sheriff. Fuck it. Leave them both. Worthless pieces of crap.

  Behind him, the door opened.

  “Sit the fuck down.”

  The deep earthquake voice would be enough to stop anyone in what they’re doing. Brian froze. He turned slowly, seeing first the man who spoke, Mo. Then the two mountains beside him, and finally his stepson and stepdaughter. All of them had guns and he’d just zipped his safely away.

  “I said—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Brian said. “Sit down. I get it.” Brian sat. “So what is this now? Vigilante time?”

  “All we wanted to do was get out of town,” Nash said.

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Because this place has claws, and they cut you and grab your flesh and they won’t let you leave.”

  “You left once. Why didn’t you stay gone, boy?”

  “Why didn’t you stay in your own fucking room with your wife?”

  Brian had no comeback. The three enormous men in the room stood by silently. Jacy had tears dripping down her face.

  “You got no more proof, girly. You got shit. Your word against mine? Good fuckin’ luck.”

  Five of them. Shit. Five. If he could get to the bag and get it unzipped, he might have half a chance if they were all slow on the draw.

  “We went home,” Jacy said. “We saw her.”

  Yep. Not good, thought Brian.

  “You want to get out of town?” Brian said. “Then you’re gonna need money.” He moved over to the bag. “I got two grand in cash here. It’s yours. Consider it a graduation present.” He got the zipper tag pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Enough talking,” Mo said. “You got last words to say, get ’em out now.”

  “Now, hold on there—”

  Mo aimed his gun at Brian’s face. “Not you, asshole. Them.”

  Brian froze, his fingers still pinching the zipper. He drew it back an inch, waited, then slid another half inch. Small, short strokes to keep the noise and the movement down.

  Nash said, “I hope you know why this is happening. That this is all your own doing.”

  Jacy said, “I want you to know I hate your fucking guts.”

  “Okay, whatever you think I did—”

  Mo lifted the gun again, raised his voice to an angry bear volume. “You don’t get to talk anymore. Last words are just that. Last.”

  Brian slid the zipper open another inch while everyone was dealing with the ringing in their ears from Mo’s voice. He could almost get his hand inside. His aim would be shit, but he could get a first shot or two off from inside the bag, maybe nail one of these tree-trunk-sized motherfuckers. There’d be confusion, he could pull two guns and waste the rest of them. Hero time.

  “I want to do it,” Jacy said.

  Nash pulled his eyes from Brian. “No, Jace.”

  “Nash, it’s mine to do.”

  Crackerjack spoke up. “No need for you kids to get your hands dirty. That’s why we’re here.”

  “No,” Jacy said. “I should have done it a long time ago. This is my second chance.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Nash said to her.

  Brian got his hand inside the bag. He touched his fingertips to a box of bullets, a nightstick he’d taken, then the butt of a gun.

  “Nash,” Jacy said. “You came to rescue me. It got all fucked up and it’s kinda my fault.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Let me finish,” she said. “You’ve been dragging me around, protecting me. Saving my ass. Being better to me than I deserve after I dragged you into this shit. It’s time for me to do my own ass saving.”

  Brian found the safety with his thumb, flicked it off.

  Jacy turned to Brian. “And I want you to know what it’s like to feel fear when you see the face that’s going to hurt you. I want you to know what it’s like to know it’s coming, and there is not a goddamn thing you can do about it. I want you to know—”

  The first shot blasted through the nylon of the bag.

  Jacy pulled four times, one after the other like she was itching at a stubborn mosquito bite.

  Brian bucked and bent at the middle, then missed the chair on his way down to the floor. His single shot tore a hunk of plaster from the wall but missed everyone in the room. He’d found a six-inch gap between bodies and hit it perfectly.

  A wisp of smoke curled up from the barrel of her gun. It weaved three gentle curves and then dissipated, gone forever like the echo of the shots she fired.

  Nash looked at the bag still on Brian’s desk. Out of the ragged hole, a hint of green showed through. He examined it closer.

  “He really did have money in there.” He turned to Mo and the boys. “Guess that’s all yours.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Brian lay on his back and for the first time he noticed a crack in the ceiling. With each breath it became harder to fill his lungs and he wondered when that damn crack showed up. The side of his chest grew warm and a wetness he knew to be his own blood dampened his armpits. Maybe someone should get up into the crawl space overhead and check out if they have some sort of water damage.

  He heard far away voices and his chest tightened like someone was cinching up a belt over his ribcage. Probably just the building settling, it’s totally normal for a crack like that to show up after a while, right?

  Finally, his lungs could hold no more. Too full of his own blood pumping freely from the hole in his aorta. Hopefully Sutherland will get someone to take a look at that crack. I’ve got to get out of here soon. Right after I take a damn breath.

  Night had fallen again and to look at it, the world seemed like the past three days hadn’t happened at all.

  Nash stood on the sidewalk in front of the home he’d escaped. Jacy stood on the porch.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Jacy said. “I really am.”

  “You can stay with me as long as you like.”

>   “I know, and thanks. But it doesn’t seem right anymore.”

  Nash had already argued his case. It was her decision now. “You let me know if I can help with all Mom’s stuff?”

  “I will. And I’ll see you in a few days for the funeral.”

  “Yeah,” he said. Staying at the house until then wasn’t an option for Nash. Not only did he need to check in at work, the idea of staying under that roof again was a bad enough thought before his mother had been murdered there. He still didn’t know how Jacy was going to do it, with all that went on for her in that house.

  Nash fished his keys out of his pocket, dangled them in an attempt to be tempting. “Last chance.”

  Jacy shook her head. “No. I got nothing to run from anymore.”

  Nash nodded, then turned to get behind the wheel of Martha’s old car. He thought, when she first told him, that leaving town without Jacy would make it feel like the whole trip and everything after had been a waste of time. A nearly deadly waste of time. But he found he didn’t feel that way at all. He’d come to help Jacy and ended up doing just that. Not in the way he expected, but he liked the fact he hadn’t simply escaped under cover of night again.

  He gave Jacy a final wave as he dropped the car in gear. She waved back, tears in her eyes. He pulled away from the curb and checked the plastic grocery bag on the seat next to him. Three Cokes and a bag of chips. A box of Pop Tarts for an emergency.

  This time, no stopping.

  Back to TOC

  BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

  CHAPTER 1

  Garret had no idea breaking and entering would be so easy. Trip had been right, once they got on the roof, the rest was cake. The ceiling panel opened right up, then they dropped down—Garret and his two best friends, Trip and Kyle.