The Mourning Missed Page 17

  “I guess we really will be having another meeting with Mr. Matthews. I really will be breaking his neck,” Lilly said finally.

  “Only if I get to help,” Clint replied.

  Twenty-Six

  “WE HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN down to isolation since you brought your prisoners in,” the county jailer said when Samuels arrived bright and early the next morning. “We offered your investigators dinner, or to spell them while they went out, but they stayed right down there. I gotta tell you, those are some hard-core guys.”

  “I only hire hard-core guys,” Samuels grinned. Walking down the corridor together, they chatted back and forth about the weather and the jailer’s high school-aged son who was being scouted for college basketball.

  “He’s got a good chance of getting a full ride to LSU or Tulane,” the jailer said proudly as he unlocked the door into the isolation block.

  The door opened onto a grisly scenario. Both investigators’ bodies lay half-way down the hall in pools of coagulating blood. Their shirt-fronts were tattered from numerous bullet holes. Sprays of blood arced along the walls. A splatter of dried blood and clumps of grayish-yellow matter covered the wall next to the inside of the door. Apparently, one of the attackers had been taken out with a head shot. The attack appeared to have come from automatic weapons fire.

  Dozens of 9mm shell casings littered the floor and both men’s sidearms were missing. Almost as importantly, every cell door in the 12 room block stood open. There were bloody footprints leading from the bodies toward the door but they faded past the opening. Now that I’m looking for them I could make out the faint images, he thought abstractly as his mind attempted to process the details of the scene.

  “Lock this building down,” he ordered the jailer. “Nobody in or out except the ME and CSU.” Turning without waiting for acknowledgement, Samuels trotted back toward the main entrance, pulling his cell phone from his pocket.

  “Boss, this is Samuels,” he said when the DA picked up his desk phone. “I put five key witnesses in county lockup last night and only two people knew it. No, sir, I didn’t feel the need to advise you so as to keep you out of the middle. Be that as it may, both Martin and Espinoza are dead. Apparently sometime late last night from the condition of the pools of blood.”

  He paused for a moment, listening. “They were secured last night and the jailer swears no one went in or out. Yeah, I know that’s not possible. I’ve ordered the building locked down. I need the ME and CSU here pronto. I’m going to see Judge Pemberton. No, sir, it was my arrangement, I’ll beard that lion. No, sir, I would rather do it myself. Yes, sir, I’ll keep you posted.”

  WHEN HE GOT TO HIS office and opened the door, it was apparent someone had been there overnight and had been looking for something. Every furnishing was overturned. Every fabric cover had been slashed open. Stuffing and batting lay strewn about the room, looking like a carnival cotton candy machine had exploded.

  Every desk drawer had been turned out onto the floor with the contents strewn about. All sixteen of the filling cabinet drawers had likewise been pillaged. Not a single book was still on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Many of the hardbound law books had been ripped apart. The DA walked in as Samuels stood surveying the destruction.

  “Holy Mother of God,” he breathed.

  “And then some,” Samuels concurred.

  “This looks more like vandalism than a search,” the DA observed.

  “Or, they couldn’t find what they were looking for and got frustrated,” Phillip ventured.

  The DA only nodded. “I’ll call CSU and have them pull every print in the place, although there will be a shit-load of them.”

  “I’ll call Central and have an officer come over to file the report and I’ll call the insurance company,” Samuels informed his boss.

  “Why the insurance company?” The DA turned to him, puzzled.

  “Really? He said, shaking his head. “Every one of those law journals costs over $500. From the looks of some, they might even have been pissed on. Bastards didn’t need to ruin my law library; they just did it out of sheer malice.”

  “What time did you leave last night?” The DA asked as he started to walk away.

  “Just after four. I personally transported the five prisoners to county and met our guys there at 4:30. The last I saw of them was around five.”

  “I’ll see who was in the building last and check the cameras for anything suspicious,” the DA offered. “You’re sure you don’t need me with you to see the judge?”

  Samuels just shook his head, staring at the mayhem. “No, but I may need you to post my bail. What’s the maximum penalty for assaulting a judge?”

  “I NEED TO SEE THE JUDGE right away,” Samuels said as he walked toward the inner chamber.

  “He’s not available right now,” the clerk said, moving to intercept him. But Samuels was already at the door and it wasn’t locked. When he walked in, the judge was leaning back in his desk chair, a look of ecstasy on his lined face. His eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright, hurriedly sliding under the desk. A muffled squeal came from beneath his desk and Samuels knew instantly what was going on. The judge was beet red and blustering.

  “How dare you enter my private chambers without permission,” he bellowed. “Get out this instant.”

  “No, sir, I think it’s whoever is under your desk needs to get out. Because you and I are about to have a serious conversation regarding collusion, abuse of power, and manslaughter; maybe even second-degree murder,” Samuels raged. “Plus, someone is going to answer for destroying my office.”

  Walking to the front of the desk, he kicked the kneehole panel, hard. This elicited another squeal from within. “Get out of there before I have you arrested for lewd and lascivious acts in a public building.”

  The judge had been fumbling with the front of his robe and had managed to push it down over his legs when two small, female hands appeared on the arms of the chair. As the chair rolled backward a young girl, perhaps sixteen, crawled out from the kneehole. Her face was scarlet and she refused to look up. Stumbling past Samuels and the enraged clerk, she fled from the room.

  “Darla, get my bailiff in here, right now,” he screamed. “I want this man thrown in jail for contempt of court.”

  Darla was more than happy to leave the room but Samuels rounded on the man.

  “Contempt of court, huh? Good luck making that one stick. We aren’t in a courtroom and you obviously aren’t on the bench,” he smirked.

  “You have sullied my chambers with your intrusion and innuendo. For that, you’ll spend at least thirty days in my jail,” the judge growled. The bailiff walked into the room and the judge shifted his gaze from Samuels to the court officer. “Take this man into custody and put him in a cell. No phone calls and no visitors until I say otherwise.”

  “Yes, your honor,” the officer said. He knew Samuels and respected him, so turned to him politely. “Will you come willingly, Mr. Samuels?”

  “Don’t treat him with any courtly dignity. He has violated the inner sanctum of my chambers,” the judge bellowed. “Put him in cuffs and take him to a cell.”

  “Your honor, with all due respect sir, Mr. Samuels is an officer of the court and a high-ranking official of this county. What charges am I to post for his hearing?” he asked.

  The judge squinted at the officer as if he’d begun speaking a foreign language. “Bob, do you like working here?” he asked caustically.

  “Yes, your honor, you know I do,” Bob replied.

  “And do you wish to continue working here?” the judge asked in the same voice.

  Bob merely nodded, sensing where this was going.

  “Then get him the fuck out of my chambers and do as you’re told,” he screamed. “No charges, no phone calls, no visitors. Is that clear?”

  Pulling his cuffs from his belt holster, he smiled apologetically as he reached for one of Phillip’s arms. Phillip turned and offered his hands behind himself with no further
resistance. Looking the judge coldly in the eye, he smiled icily.

  “As God and Bob are my witnesses, your days as a judge are over. You and I both know you’ve stepped over the line. I’ll be out before day’s end and so will you.”

  “Get him out of my chambers,” the judge screamed even louder, his voice cracking with the strain.

  “IT WOULD SEEM OUR FRIEND Billy here has made good on his word,” Sarge said as he untied the rope and slowly eased the tension off the hanging man. Standing in the empty washtub, bare-footed, Billy shrugged and worked his shoulders. Sarge untied the rope from his taped hands. When he bent and cut the tape on his feet, Billy turned to him.

  “Man, that was beginning to hurt.” Stepping from the washtub, he picked up his boots and socks, moving as if to sit down and put them on. As he stood, he swung one boot into Sarge’s face and whirled toward Lilly. Two steps separated them and he crossed them quickly.

  As his hands reached for her throat, she ducked beneath his arms and punched him hard in the groin. Falling back onto her butt, she kicked him in the balls, adding to the injury already sustained. The punch drew a high-pitched squeal from Billy but the kick brought out a deep bass grunt from the heavy-set mercenary. Clasping his hands over his damaged testicles, he crumbled into himself and onto the floor. He retched and vomited what little was in his stomach.

  “So much for Mr. Nice Guy,” Sarge said, rubbing his cheek where the boot had struck. “Now I guess we’ll have to take him back to the city and book him for assault.”

  “I can’t go back to the city,” Billy gasped, still doubled over in pain. “They’ll kill me.”

  “So, what made you turn stupid and decide to attack us?” Lilly asked calmly. When she got no answer, she wormed the toe of her boot into his clasped hands and jabbed hard. “What; suddenly got nothing to say?”

  “I figured if I collected the bounty, they’d let me back in,” he moaned. “Once I snapped your neck, the old man would have been easy enough to take out.” Lilly exploded in uproarious laughter. “What’s so fuckin’ funny?” Billy growled around his pain.

  “One, I’m not that easy to kill and, two, that old man is the senior hand-to-hand combat instructor for the Police Academy. You wouldn’t have stood a chance. Now, what’s this about a bounty?” Lilly asked lightly.

  Turning one glaring eye up at her, he coughed and spat yellow phlegm onto her boot.

  “Now, that wasn’t nice,” Lilly scolded, and dropped her knee onto his neck. Billy convulsed once and lay still.

  “Did you kill him?” Sarge asked as she knelt to palpate his pulse.

  “Naw, just shocked his brain. You taught me that one, remember?” She asked innocently, smiling at her mentor.

  “I taught you that using your fist, elbow, or foot; but I suppose your knee works just as well,” he smiled back.

  “I’d still like to know about the bounty,” she complained.

  “Let’s take him to the Texas state line and leave him at the welcome center,” Sarge suggested. “At least then he’ll be closer to home.”

  “Yeah, and maybe before we get there, I can convince him to tell me about the price on my head.”

  Twenty-Seven

  “TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS,” Lilly said, feigning insult. “I would have thought I’d be worth a lot more than that.”

  Billy had agreed to sell them the information for however much cash they had on them and three bottles of water, once he’d learned their plans for abandoning him. “You weren’t ever going to give me witness protection, were you?” he asked as reality dawned.

  Mimicking his tone, Sarge answered. “Dude, we don’t even have WITSEC at the county level. That’s a state process.”

  Now, as they drove down the two-lane road approaching the Academy, they came upon a single-vehicle accident. A panel van had driven off the road and apparently hit a tree, but there was no one visible at the scene. Turning on his beacons, Sarge angled his car across the middle of the road.

  “Call it in,” he ordered Lilly as he ran to the van to render what assistance he could. Lilly picked up the microphone and began to identify herself and the unit number. As she did, two men dressed in red gang colors stepped out of the van from either side. Both carried the now familiar TEC-9 and they immediately opened fire.

  Sarge was caught in the open with nowhere to go. He whirled toward her and roared one word. “Run!” The look of terror on his face was not for himself but for the young woman he had come to think of as the daughter he would never have. The bastards shot him in the back and he pitched forward from the impact of multiple bullets.

  Lilly’s scream of denial pierced the staccato buzz-saw of the automatic weapons as the two thugs targeted the police car, spraying death as they advanced. Bullets shattered both driver-side windows. They pocked and pinged against the metal panels of the doors and fender as they tore through the upholstery within.

  “We need to hide in the woods,” Clint exclaimed in her head, but Lilly had checked out. She sat staring at the lifeless form of the man she’d come to think of as a surrogate father, immobilized by the sudden, violent loss. Clint flung the door open and, using the car as a shield, commandeered her body. He forced her to dash into the underbrush alongside the rural roadway.

  From concealment, he watched as the two assassins searched the woods from the edge of the road, hesitant to venture in after her. Pulling her pistol from its holster, he prepared to fire on the first one who made himself a target. Glancing around to assess his options for cover, Clint spied a two foot boulder resting on top of a ledge near a small ravine. Head swiveling back and forth like he was at a tennis tournament, he watched to ensure they didn’t see her while he worked his way toward the boulder.

  Mindful of the footing lest he snap a branch or dislodge lose scrabble and give away her position, he work her body cautiously. Once she was downhill from large stone, he examined the base. One smaller stone seemed to be the only thing keeping the boulder in place.

  Tugging at the blockage, he smiled when he felt it loosen. Stepping to the side, he yanked the stone loose. The boulder began a slow roll downhill through the underbrush, picking up speed as it went. It sounded very much like someone crashing through the woods in flight.

  Shouts from the street told him the attackers had heard it as well. Clint hurried her to a large tree for concealment. As soon as the two city boy murderers stumbled past her, totally unfamiliar with navigating in dense brush, he had a decision to make.

  Vengeance was foremost in his heart but logic told him that he could most likely only kill one of them before the other returned fire. He was seriously outgunned against the remaining one. Available cover was too sparse for a firefight. They couldn’t see her but he couldn’t see them well, either. Deciding for discretion as the better part of valor, he quietly made his way back to the road.

  The police car was still running but idling raggedly and the beacons were still flashing. Sarge still lay face down in a large pool of blood in the center of the road. Realizing he had only one chance, Clint put the car in gear and floored the accelerator. The engine coughed and hesitated for a moment, chilling his spine, before it revved up and the vehicle began to move. He drove around Sarge’s lifeless body, intent on making it to the Academy and safety.

  THE ENGINE WAS SPUTTERING and the car lurched dangerously as Lilly turned off the two-lane road onto the driveway to the Academy. She had resurfaced in her mind as Clint reached for the microphone to call for backup. “We can’t let anyone know I’m still alive except those we trust at the Academy,” she explained as she hung the microphone back on its cradle.

  Rather than have the vehicle die at the gate and block it, she burped the siren and rolled slowly toward the gate. The officer on duty placed his hand on his sidearm at the same moment he took in the condition of the car. Then he saw who was driving and frantically waived her through. She pulled immediately into the first visitor’s parking space as the engine shuddered and gasped out its dea
th rattle.

  “Are you hurt?” The guard asked as soon as she opened the door.

  “No, but Sarge is dead,” Lilly sobbed. “I need to see the Commandant right now.”

  As soon as she said dead, the officer was on his radio. Within two minutes, a car spun to a screeching stop in the lot next to Sarge’s now equally dead car. Lilly hustled to the front passenger door. The back tires were spinning and the car rolled forward even as she slammed the door shut.

  ONCE INSIDE THE COMMANDANT’S office, Lilly fell apart. She was already an emotional wreck. Watching a man she now realized she had come to love be gunned down before her eyes had only exacerbated her condition. Nearly catatonic, she sat in an overstuffed chair in the inner office. Withdrawn into herself, the Colonel thought she looked even more childlike in the large chair. Her feet didn’t touch the floor and she was hunched over, hugging herself as she sobbed uncontrollably.

  “Lilly, I know you’ve been through a lot this last month. I can’t begin to imagine what you’re feeling,” he admitted. “Can you at least tell me a little of what has just happened? I’ll need to tell the responding detectives something.”

  “Do you have any whiskey?” she asked softly.

  Turning toward a sideboard, he raised the cover of a recessed well, which levered a shining chrome tray into view. Pulling the stopper out of a sparkling crystal decanter which sat on the tray, he pour two fingers of deep amber liquid into a matching crystal whiskey glass. When he handed it to her, she threw the contents back in one swallow, gasping as the fiery liquid burned its way into her gullet.

  Steeling herself, she began a monotone report. “We were on our way here, on the access road. We came upon what appeared to be a single-vehicle accident. Sarge turned on his beacons and blocked the road with the car. He got out and ran to the panel van. It was primer gray and had no distinguishing features other than being old.”