The Mourning Missed Read online

  “Thanks for the assist on moving him, I couldn’t have done it without you,” she smirked at Clint as she walked quickly around front to her car.

  “Getting him in the front seat will be the real challenge,” Clint predicted.

  Pulling around back very close to the supine form, she rushed around the car to open the passenger door. Clint was right; it took almost five minutes to get his limp form into the front seat of the tiny subcompact. She had just closed the door when a voice from behind startled her. Clint had been trying to help by augmenting the left side of her body so neither of them had noticed the other man’s approach.

  “I said, what are you doing?” he asked again. They both recognized the voice as the same man who had wanted to break her neck in the trunk of the police car.

  “I had to help him in the car,” she said, turning sidelong to him in hopes he didn’t recognizing her in the dim light from the bug-covered sodium vapor light at the corner of the building. She reached behind her as if to find her keys. “Poor dear’s just a little drunk.”

  “Nobody leaves here tonight, so I’ll just help him back out,” Matthews said gruffly, reaching for the door handle.

  The tazer made the same crackling noise as before but this man wasn’t drunk. The jolt dropped him to his knees but he caught himself on his hands as he fell. Shaking himself like a wet dog, he reached for her just as she kicked him in the face. The tip of her steel-toed boot caught him squarely on the bridge of his nose; shattering it.

  Blood sprayed out of his destroyed nostrils and his eyes filled with tears. He was choking on his own blood and coughed, gagging, trying to clear his airway. Lilly kicked him again, this time in the plexus just below the armpit. Clint was certain he heard the satisfying crack of ribs. When Matthews collapsed onto the ground, Lilly knelt beside him and hissed in his ear.

  “I won’t break your neck while you’re unconscious, pussy. The neck time we meet, I’ll do it with you standing up.” To his credit, the man was trying to rise onto his hands and knees. Stepping back, she let Clint kick him behind his right ear and he dropped as if pole axed.

  Reaching into his hip pocket, she extracted his wallet. Sliding the driver’s license out of the clear plastic sleeve, she held it up in front of the headlights. “Carl Matthews, Texas license and address,” she read, holding it long enough for Clint to memorize it. Sliding the license back in, she shoved the wallet back where it had come from.

  “That was an excellent kick,” Lilly observed as she pulled onto the interstate headed back for the city center.

  “You should have let me kick him in the balls, first. Or better yet, break his neck. I have no qualms about doing so while he’s down,” he raged vehemently.

  “Easy, tiger, save some of that rage for later. I’m feeling it too, you know,” she assured him. “When you’re amped up and I am as well, I feel like crawling out of my skin. Let’s just get this guy to Sarge’s place first and let Phillip know we have him. They’ll have to figure out where they’re going to keep him.”

  “TELL ME AGAIN WHERE this bar is?” Samuels asked. They had decided to keep their victim bound and gagged in the bathtub in Sarge’s apartment at the Academy overnight. Samuels had a cabin an hour upstate toward Texarkana. They planned to take him there for interrogation.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Clint said. “As soon as Matthews woke up he realized who Lilly is and that she has one of his crew. In retrospect, making him painfully aware of who you are might have been rewarding but not judicious. Now one of two things will happen; they’ll either come after us or they’ll go into hiding. I’m betting on door number one.”

  “You realize we’re all guilty of kidnapping,” Samuels said as they finished taping his legs together. The hapless man was so drunk he probably wouldn’t remember anything until at least noon the next day.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Lilly quoted.

  “We better all get some sleep,” Samuels grated. “It’s late and I have five public servants to continue questioning tomorrow. We made good inroads on two and one other has already started talking. The dominoes are lined up and ready to fall.”

  “I hope you’re keeping them in isolation,” Sarge said. “I’d hate for all of them to commit suicide in their cells tonight.”

  “They’re actually guests of the county tonight, in county lockup. There’s been no arraignment and no booking. They’re all in isolation and two of our District Attorney Senior Investigators are taking turns guarding the door to isolation. It’s not commonplace but we’ve done it before with high-value prisoners so it shouldn’t arouse too much suspicion. It’s only for tonight; I’ll be making different arrangements tomorrow when the Feds take them into custody on international drug trafficking charges.”

  “I thought we weren’t getting the Feds involved until we had more details and names?” Lilly asked.

  “Oh, we’ve got more of both; lots more.”

  Twenty-Five

  “YOU TWO KNOW YOU CAN’T hold me,” the mercenary, Billy Kuddinski, said from where he was strapped into the back seat of the unmarked patrol car. He was still trussed hand and foot, as well as buckled in with both shoulder straps and the center lap belt. He had only been semi-coherent when they had left the Academy at oh-dark-thirty, but was now coming fully into his raging hangover.

  “Ahh, you’re not being held or charged with anything, Billy,” Lilly bluffed.

  “Then you can’t do this, you’re cops,” he replied, less sure of himself.

  “Well, that’s not exactly true,” Sarge added. “We can do this. In fact, we are doing this. We’re just not doing it as cops. No warrant, no Miranda; just the three of us.”

  “No, that’s bullshit, man. This is a cop car. You guys are cops. If you’re a cop, everybody gets the Miranda.” Billy sounded slightly plaintive.

  “Where have you been getting your intel, Billy?” Lilly shook her head sadly. “Somebody’s been telling you half-truths. Do you think the cops don’t have Black Bag Teams?”

  After several minutes digesting the situation with his hangover-impaired brain, Billy finally changed his tune. “Can I at least get some water?” He asked quietly. “I’m really thirsty.”

  “Yeah, I’d be thirsty too, after all the beer and shots you put away last night,” Lilly confirmed.

  “You were there?” He asked, surprised and just a little confused.

  “Yep, took you right out the back door and tazed you before I rolled you into the car,” Lilly informed him brightly. “Even got a chance to break Mathews’ nose in the process. He thought he could stop me; I proved him wrong.”

  “Who the fuck are you, bitch?” Billy growled with a combination of fear and frustration in his voice.

  “And here I was about to give you some water,” Lilly sighed. “I guess you aren’t thirsty enough yet to be polite.”

  A growling scream of rage and fear rippled out of the bound man’s throat, followed immediately by a moan of pain from the effect it had on his pounding skull. After that, he was quiet for several miles.

  “When we get there, I’ll need you to take the car battery out and bring it inside,” Lilly said to Sarge. She was playing her role as badass to the hilt. “I’ll get the pump primed so we have plenty of water to keep him wet and cold. And if boarding becomes necessary, I’ll want it available for that as well.”

  “I’m not crazy about torturing him right away,” Sarge replied in his part. “Maybe he’ll get smart and tell us what we need to know. Then we’ll just need to set him up in WITSEC and send him on his way.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Lilly laughed harshly. “These goons don’t have the brains to cooperate. And even if he does decide to talk, I need some practice. Gotta keep my hand in, you know? They don’t call me the ice bitch for nothing.”

  Sarge laughed at this last bit of improvisation but played along. “No, they call you that because you are the coldest, most heartless torturer I’ve ever had the displeasure o
f seeing in action. That thing you do to guys’ balls? When you get to that part, I have to leave the room.”

  Lilly grinned broadly at Sarge, even though Billy couldn’t see her from where he lie. Her scalp barely topped the seatback and the angle from the rear seat base was too steep. “They said they don’t want any trace of drugs in his system, so Pentothal isn’t an option. That means I’ll have to get the information the old-fashioned way; painfully.”

  “I have to piss,” Billy sad softly from the back.

  “The exit is one mile ahead on the left,” Lilly told Sarge, pretending to ignore him. “From there, we’re ten minutes from the cabin. Once we’re inside, he’ll piss plenty.”

  “Hey, I don’t want him pissing in the car,” Sarge said seriously.

  “Billy, if you piss in the car, WITSEC may be off the table. Do you hear me?” Lilly said roughly. “I’ll yank your sorry ass out on the ground as soon as we get stopped and you can piss your pants for all I care. But you better not piss in his car or I won’t be the only one convincing you to talk.”

  “IT SHOULD BE JUST AROUND the next bend,” Sarge said as he watched the odometer roll over ten miles from where they had left the paved surface.

  Rounding the curve, an idyllic cabin nestling in a grove of Loblolly pines painted a picturesque image of relaxation and serenity. Lilly grinned at the irony.

  “This place is really quiet; for now,” she smirked. “We’re far enough from the highway no one will hear his screams. The nearest neighbor, when they’re here, is four miles away. Plus, this growth of pines will hold all but the loudest of noises in. Maybe the chain saw will be heard, but whose going to question a chain saw in the woods?”

  “Just get him out before he wets himself in the car,” Sarge said as they stopped.

  Leaping from the front seat, Lilly whipped the back door open and grabbed Billy by the collar of his leather jacket. When she did, a growing darkness began to spread across his crotch. “Ah, Billy, you couldn’t wait another five seconds?” Lilly fussed, reaching in and releasing the two seatbelts she could reach.

  Yanking him out forcefully across the seat, she let him fall flat on his back in the hard-packed dirt. His feet were still tangled in the remaining shoulder belt and his knees were bent across the edge of the seat as he hung nearly upside-down, halfway out of the car.

  “He didn’t piss in the seat, but only because I got him out when I did,” she said to Sarge. Considering Billy’s position, she ad libbed some more. “Hey, this looks like as good a position as any to start in. Give me the ballpeen hammer out of the kit.”

  “No,” Sarge snapped. “I definitely don’t want any blood in the car. That’s even harder to bleach out than piss.”

  “Oh, come on, I’m only going to break a couple of ribs. There won’t be any blood at all,” Lilly grumbled.

  “Let’s just get him inside and get him hung up,” Sarge countered.

  “Spoil sport; don’t forget the battery and the jumper cables.”

  “MAN, YOU CAN’T DO THIS,” Billy cried as they hoisted him up over the central beam at one end of the small cabin. Lilly was busy spreading a plastic painter’s tarp on the floor under him as Sarge yanked his feet clear of the floor. A 50 foot coil of climbing rope had been conveniently stored in the rear closet. The large washtub hanging on a peg against the rear exterior wall completed their theater props..

  When she worked the tub under his feet and began removing his boots, Billy started writhing around like a fish pulled from the lake. “Stop,” he cried. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Matthews can go fuck himself, man.”

  Pulling the center drawer of the corner desk open, she found a neatly arranged supply of office materials. “This is so much like Phil,” she thought to Clint.

  “I’m glad he didn’t call your bluff,” his reply rang in her mind.

  “What makes you think I was bluffing?” she asked in return. Taking the tablet and a pen, she closed the drawer and sat at the desk. “Start talking,” she said aloud to Billy.

  “What do you want to know?” He replied hopefully.

  “Everything,” she answered. “I’ll stop you if I want clarification; otherwise, spill your guts.”

  Two grueling hours later, Billy had indeed spilled everything he knew, suspected, or even guessed. He was careful to tell them when he was speculating versus what he knew for fact. For someone who was just a team member, he knew a surprising amount regarding the plans and processes of the drug organizations in Montrose City. Lilly was clarifying her final points and changing some answers as she read them back. She wanted to make sure she’d gotten it straight, and to see if she could catch him in a lie.

  “The PC is the head of one of three crime syndicates in the city that you’re aware of and First Sergeant Mitchell of Central Division is another. The third is run by the county judge?” Lilly asked dubiously.

  “Yeah, Judge Pemberton. I even worked a detail for him once,” Billy smiled fleetingly before remembering where he was. “Some of the high school kids in his crew got a little feisty with one of the other students who didn’t pay their tab on time; busted him up pretty good. Judge had me return the favor. He said if a client was in the hospital, he couldn’t very well make any money to pay his bills.”

  “Do you know how many high school kids work for the judge? Or how he’s connected with them?” Lilly grilled.

  “Oh, that’s simple,” Billy assured her. “Any time a kid gets busted for drugs, either for possession or dealing, the judge gives them one option. Work for his crew or do hard time. Most of them choose the crew.”

  “How does he know who they are to begin with? Surely he doesn’t handle every case involving high school kids?” Lilly wondered.

  “Actually, he does,” Billy confided. “I banged his clerk a couple times while I was working for him. She was lonely and fat, but hey, I like fat. Once I got her boozed up and coming, she talked non-stop about how brilliant she was. She ran all the other court clerks. It was simple for her to tell all the clerks to send anyone between 17 and 23 with drug-related offenses to Judge P’s court.”

  “Yeah, that is pretty brilliant,” Sarge commented, speaking for the first time since Billy had begun his soliloquy. “How many police officers are involved in the organizations?”

  “Oh, dude, if I had to guess, I’d say half the force. Although that may be an exaggeration, it’s probably not too far off. Every division has at least three enforcement crews. When the guns roll in, a fat bunch of them turn out at the range for us to teach them how to use them effectively.”

  “That would be the TEC-9s, right?” Sarge asked casually.

  “Yeah, they come in with the drugs. Usually about fifty-fifty; drugs and guns. Mostly the gangs have been getting the guns. Some of them had started making noises about breaking off on their own, out from under the three bosses. Well I’m here to tell you, the bosses didn’t like that at all,” he rattled on. “They sent one of our crews to show that gang how a TEC-9 really works. The next day, they were right back in line.”

  “Those loyal to the bosses get TEC-9s, those questionable get nada,” he surmised.”That way if they think about getting out of line again, the bosses just let the loyal gang-bangers do their enforcing. It means they don’t risk us high-dollar mercs on babysitting jobs.”

  “What happened when those three officers got shot by TEC-9s?” Lilly queried. “Did someone in the gang get their wires crossed?”

  “Oh, no, those three were righteous cops. Too righteous for their own good, if you understand me. They got in the wrong place at the wrong time and refused to take a cut in the action. One of the brute crew sergeants was a real psycho named McMichaels. He took one of the 9s from a banger and shot all three of them in the guts; point blank.” Shaking his head while his arms were straight up and bearing his weight took an effort, but he managed it.

  “He told them as they were bleeding out to remember where their loyalties lie. I heard he caught one in th
e ticker. That was one bat shit dude,” Billy accused.

  A look passed between Sarge and Lilly. “Did you happen to hear who put him down?” Lilly asked. “I heard it was a merc hit.”

  “Yeah, I know exactly who it was,” Billy confided. He was all best friends with them by now. Their show had convinced him they were going to give him a new life, so he was going to be Mr. Congeniality. “Our best shooter is Matthews. That dude can shoot the balls off a fly at a thousand yards.”

  The world went sideways for Lilly as the name of his murderer hit Clint hard. The room reddened, then began fading to grey. Sarge was at her side immediately, trying to pass it off as exhaustion in case Billy had seen it and begun to wonder.

  “You’ve been at this for over two hours,” he scolded gently. “Why don’t you take a walk outside, stretch your legs, and get us a few bottles of water? I’ll take over from here.”

  Nodding, Lilly rose slowly and stood still, testing her stability while trying to appear casual. Rolling her shoulders, she turned toward the door. “Make sure to confirm the points I’ve marked, okay?”

  Once outside, she hurried to the car and opened the front passenger door. Nearly collapsing onto the seat, she sought Clint out. “Are you all right?”

  Softly, as if from a great distance, a tiny voice replied. “Yeah, give me a few minutes.”

  They sat in companionable silence while each processed the what ifs of the situation. The man who had murdered Clint was the same one Clint had wanted to kill at the bar. Well, technically, he had actually only shot him. The Police Commissioner had ordered the coup de grace. But the memories of that ordeal had come flooding into her mind and had nearly incapacitated her.