Bad Bones (Claire Morgan) (29 page)

“Be my guest.”

So he sipped more coffee, and she called Bud, told him the guy’s rather flimsy story, and had him do a background search, and for him to also contact McGowen’s superiors at ATF for verification. Until then, she kept her weapon in her hand. “So why won’t they identify the Parkers as the ones who attacked them?”

“They don’t ever involve the authorities. When this kinda stuff happens, they retaliate. It’s like a stupid dance. Back and forth, back and forth. People die so it’s no joke.”

“So their little ho-down two-step includes murder?”

“Not since I’ve been there. But he has other guys for that kind of thing. He calls them Helpmeets. I do know that the whole clan shunned his granddaughter. Your victim, Blythe, actually. They all act as if she never existed. It’s crazy. I can’t imagine how she ever got out of there in one piece. The women are veritable captives.”

“No kidding,” Claire said. She punched on quickly when Bud called back. “Yeah, Bud? So is this guy for real, or not?”

“Yes, he is. They got all bent out of shape when they thought we had blown his cover.”

“Okay. Tell the guys over at ATF that he’s still secure. Thanks, Bud. See you in the morning.”

McGowen was smiling. “Believe me, now?”

“I guess I have to. You did fool us out there, I’ll give you that much.”

“I do have Fitch blood, but I’m not exactly proud of it. How about going out with me when I get outta that hellhole?”

“I’m engaged.”

“I don’t see a ring. Trust me, I looked.”

Claire had not been come on to this many times since, well, never, actually. Most men were usually scared of all her weapons and her I-don’t-like-you-even-a-little expression. Most of the ones who did hit on her, however, had only been trying to schmooze her into going easy on them. Fat chance, that. Either that, or the guys she ran into were turned on by severe windburn and frowns and chapped lips and incarceration threats. “Look, McGowen. I am working a double homicide investigation. Can you help me, or not?”

“I can keep my eyes and ears open and poke around some. Blythe’s mother is out there. A couple of her sisters, too. And a bunch of her brothers.”

“Is the big guy ruthless enough to order his own granddaughter beaten to death?”

“I’d say so. He’s in total control out there. Nobody crosses him, and I mean nobody.”

“Did he really send you down here to get me?”

“Yeah, but I’ll tell him I couldn’t find you. He trusts me now.”

“He wants to get me out there and beat me to death, I take it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. He didn’t really say why he wanted you brought in, and I didn’t ask. Not healthy to question that guy. He might just want to talk to you in private. Without all his followers listening. He keeps lots of secrets from them. From me, too. I have to watch my step.”

“Sounds dangerous. Maybe I ought to go out and hear what he has to say.”

“Think again. That would not be a good idea. You might end up dead before I could stop it.”

“I am armed, you know. Highly trained, too.”

“So are they. To the teeth, and with some heavy duty armament. I’m just waiting for them to make a deal with the Mexican cartel. It’s been slow in coming. That’s who we think they’re dealing with.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“They are not who they seem.”

Her phone rang again. Black, this time. “Where the devil are you?” he said first off. “It’s nine o’clock at night. You’re an hour late. I’ve been waiting on dinner.”

“I’m at my place. I’ve got a suspicious undercover ATF Fitch here with me, trying to convince me that he’s for real. I’ll be there in a little while. Don’t wait up.”

“Well, make it quick. I’m hungry, and I am waiting up.”

They hung up.

“That your guy? Nick Black?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about me.”

“I looked you up in our database before I came down here.” He grinned.

“Well, one thing I can say for you, McGowen. You make a very good dumb-as-a-stump hick.”

“Thank you. It comes natural.”

They smiled a little. Claire’s was reluctant. “You better get back up there before Big Daddy gets suspicious.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Is he gonna believe your story?”

“Yeah, unless he had me followed. He has everybody followed who leaves that compound, but I’m usually the follower.”

“You are playing some dangerous games, McGowen.”

“Tell me about it. So, just a warning. You stay away from there and let me do my job. I’ll see if I can’t get something that will help your case. But you stay away or you’ll screw up my investigation. We got a deal?”

“Sure. Then again I’m not making any promises. If I need to come out there, I’m coming. Got that? But do tell me one thing. Have you ever seen them put little kids in a fighting cage?”

“Nope. The kids pretty much stay behind the women’s skirts. They’re all afraid of Harold. He’s hard on them if they get in his way. You know, the old children-should-not-be-seen-or-heard-or-anything-else philosophy.”

“Just do me a favor. Bring that psycho bully down. Put him on his knees. You know, the old cut-off-the-head-and-Fitchville-will-die scenario.”

“Precisely,” McGowen agreed.

“Okay, keep me posted. Check in when you can and let me know what’s going on.” She gave him her cell phone number.

McGowen said, “Oh, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Somebody’s pickin’ off people up there.”

“Pickin’ them off, as in murdering them?”

“That’s right.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that before now?”

He ignored that. “They think it’s Bones Fitch. They signed him into a mental hospital a time back and now he has supposedly escaped. They think he’s out for revenge.”

“Do you think it’s him?”

“I don’t know. But this guy likes to ambush people when they’re alone out in the fields or orchards, and then he abducts them and beats them to death. Or just makes them disappear forever.”

“Sounds familiar. How many?”

“Five. So far. Since they say he got out.”

“Do they think he also got to Blythe and Paulie?”

He nodded. “They’re searching for him. They think he’s holed up somewhere in the hills and woods at the back of their property or their neighbor’s property. You know, they suspect he’s got some kind of a killing lair somewhere. He’s sort of a survivalist type, apparently, and can make his tracks disappear.”

“A killing lair, you say?”

“That’s right. So be careful if you plan any surveillance anywhere up around there. They say he moves stealthily and just pops up out of nowhere and puts you down before you can blink. He used to be a top-notch cage fighter, probably still is.”

Claire sighed. “Well, now, didn’t everybody up there? But, hey, thanks for the warning. We’ll be careful.”

“Good. I gotta go now. He’ll be waiting up for me to bring you in.”

“You be careful. I’ve never seen so many nutcases in my life.”

McGowen grinned. “Not to worry. I’m good at my job. You’ve seen me in action.”

“You better be good at it.”

After he took his leave, Claire called Black back and asked him if he would come over for the night, that the hot tub was just bubbling up with the need to entertain them. He said no problem, keep the motor running, he was on his way. She got undressed, kept her weapons handy, and slid down into the warm water, more than eager to see him, too. It was winter, and said hot tub was their best friend. She had had her fill of Fitches and Parkers and undercover agents and Russian mobsters and pretty much everyone and everything else in her life right now. Black was the only one who could take her mind off the dark and dreary so she wished he would hurry it up and get there already. Time to relax and have some fun, and it couldn’t come soon enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The night they were supposed to escape from the psychiatric hospital finally came. Thomas Landers took the key the doctor had given him and told Punk that he would come back for him as soon as he found the doctor and made sure that the coast was clear. But he didn’t come back for him. Neither one of them returned to help Punk get out. The bastards double-crossed him. He waited and waited, hoping that he was wrong, but he wasn’t. The doctor had never intended to take him along. Thomas had lied through his teeth, and then they were gone.

For hours, Punk lay in his bed, filled up with white-hot anger, rage that was almost uncontrollable. He stayed alone in his room all night and thought about how he would hunt down the two of them and wring the life out of them with his bare hands. In the following days, he tried to hide his fury but couldn’t, and it erupted sometimes in the common room and then the doctors ordered him into restraints again. Then one day, he overheard the nurses talking about how Thomas and his doctor friend were both dead, one shot and one drowned in some river. He felt no pity, only pleasure that they got what they deserved for leaving him behind.

That’s when his anger began to fade, and he started making new plans. He would escape by himself. If Thomas could do it, then he could, too. He would just wait and wait and be patient until the perfect moment came along and then he would do whatever it took to be free. Months passed before the opportunity presented itself. It happened about a month after the Christmas holidays, when a blizzard was burying the hospital grounds in snow and wind-whipped sleet. The staff was shorthanded because most of the nurses and orderlies couldn’t make it to work because of the icy roads. There was only one orderly left overnight to man Punk’s floor, so Punk jumped at his chance. He pretended to be ill and collapsed in the hallway right outside the room where the orderly was sitting at his desk. When the guy rushed out, Punk came at him so quick and hard with his right fist that the man went down, breathing shallowly and bleeding from the mouth. The corridor was quiet, all the other patients asleep, and Punk dragged the man out of sight, stripped him down, donned the white scrubs and snow boots, and bundled up in the hooded coat that hung on a hook behind the door. Then he took the guy’s gloves and money and ID badge and keys, unlocked the door that led to the main hospital corridor and stealthily made his way down through a dark and empty fire escape to a ground floor exit.

Outside, the wind was billowing stinging sleet right at his face. He pulled his hood tighter and ducked his head against the swirling ice and headed straight for the parking lot, pressing the button on the key fob over and over until he finally saw interior lights come on in a late model white Jeep. He made his way through the deep snow, swept off the windshield as best he could, and then climbed inside, and drove slowly and carefully until he left the hospital road and turned onto the outside city street.

Nobody was around anywhere, everything dark and deserted at such a late hour and in such terrible weather conditions. He had no trouble with the ice, just a slight sideways slide of his wheels once in a while, but the Jeep handled well once he put it in four-wheel drive. He could not believe he was actually free, that nobody was chasing him down yet. The weather had brought everything in the city of Fulton to a standstill, except for him. It was very late by the time he found the interstate and drove on it west, headed back home, turning finally off onto the partially cleared state roads, which were lined with lots of jackknifed semis and cars stuck in ditches. The windshield wipers beat a hard cadence against the driving snow, but he drove the Jeep steadily along. Nobody stopped him, not even at car crashes, where Missouri Highway patrolmen just motioned him past them with their flashlights. It took him nearly all night but he finally reached the narrow gravel road that led up through the woods to the back of his pa’s farm.

When at last the old family farmhouse came into sight, he parked outside, very eager to see Bones again. Once inside the house, he stopped in his tracks and stared down at the corpse lying on the living room floor. It looked like the body had been dead for a long time. Shocked, Punk put his hand over his nose and mouth to block the putrid smell. The telephone was on the floor, too, the cord jerked from the wall. Frowning, he studied the dead man. It wasn’t Bones, thank God. It looked like it was his oldest brother, maybe. The arms and legs were fixed in death at impossible angles, probably most of the bones broken. That’s when he knew that Bones had killed their own brother, just like he had killed their own pa.

“Well, hello there, Punk.”

Bones’s voice came out of nowhere, and Punk spun around and saw his twin brother standing halfway up the stairs. He was grinning down at him.

“You did this,” Punk accused him, his voice hoarse with disbelief.

“Yeah, I sure did. So what?”

“So he’s our own blood. Why’d you do it? What’d he do to you?”

“He was upset that I killed Pa and took over out here. He was gettin’ ready to call the cops. I had to do it. I was protectin’ you, too, bro. We both would’ve ended up in jail.”

“Why didn’t you drag him outta here? When did you kill him, anyways? Looks like he’s been laying right there for a long time.”

“That’s right. I did him about the time you went sniffin’ after that damn pasty-assed girl next door. Smell don’t bother me none, and it keeps our other brothers scared shitless. They all moved out of here right after I did him. They got them a big house trailer just down the road, but don’t you worry none, they aren’t gonna say nothin’ about me killin’ him or I’ll kill them, too. They aren’t gonna say nothin’ about nothin’ unless I tell ’em to. I got ’em lyin’ about us to those damn doctors that keep comin’ around, asking nosy questions about you and me.”

Punk was still thinking about his girl. “She’s not a damn pasty-assed girl. You take that back.”