Strong to the Bone--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  Caitlin pulled the computer-generated sketch back across the table. “Actually, Jones, I was picturing you.”

  “I think I’m doing you a favor by telling you to back off the case. Leave things be.”

  Caitlin tapped the sketch with her finger. “As soon as I show this to Kelly Ann Beasley to see if it jogs her memory.” She started to pull her finger away, then changed her mind. “Who is this guy and why are you protecting him?”

  Jones traded his cleaned plate for the fresh piece of chocolate cream. “Who said I was protecting him?”

  Caitlin looked down at the face that had once been handsome and was now worn with time. His sandy brown hair was darker, stringier, and thinning, and his eyes had been dulled by the years. “Is he Homeland? Does he work for you?”

  Again, Jones didn’t bother looking at the aged sketch. “How many ways do you want me to say this?”

  “As many as it takes to make me forget about my duty.”

  “Duty to who, Ranger?” Jones scoffed, expression coming up just short of a scowl. “Sounds like your duty’s to yourself, by tracking down the piece of shit who hurt you and got away with it. Like I said, I’m doing you a favor here.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You got bigger fish to fry than ghosts from the past.”

  “Get back to that anomaly you found in both victims from the apartment complex,” Caitlin said, eager to change the subject. “The drug the tox screen revealed.”

  “We haven’t identified it yet. And don’t try to sidetrack me. I want your word you’re going to let this sexual assault thing go.”

  “Mine or Kelly Ann Beasley’s?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Caitlin rose and slid out of the booth, snatching up the sketch on the way. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  37

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  One good thing about his son Luke being away at boarding school and Dylan being pretty much on his own was that Cort Wesley got to spend more time in the gym. He’d had to steal time to work out much over the past seven or so years, so that came as a welcome relief. Truth be told, he wouldn’t trade the experience of being a father for anything in the world, but it was nice to have some time for himself again.

  He’d chosen to join the District gym on Broadway because it was new and featured a pair of climbing walls in addition to the regular complement of fitness equipment and free weights. Today he started out with cardio because he needed to sweat out his experience with Armand Fisker from the morning, as if the residue had seeped in through his pores and needed to be excised from his system. He remembered how his father would spend hours in the steam room at the Y to flush the alcohol from his system following a bender, when Cort Wesley was a boy. Take Cort Wesley with him and leave him in the corner with a comic book until he felt like returning, his son an afterthought as always.

  The irascible Boone Masters, who’d died pretty much friendless and alone in a hospital bed—at least, that’s what Cort Wesley had thought for the better part of his life. Then he learned the true source of his father’s passing, that he’d gone out a hero, but never wanted his son to know that particular truth about him. As if it might tarnish the reputation for wantonness Boone Masters had worked so hard and long to cultivate.

  Benching on the District’s Smith machine to spare his shoulders, though, stoked fresh thoughts in Cort Wesley’s mind. Boone Masters hadn’t wanted him to know the truth, because he didn’t want his death to be hard on his son. Better he go out being hated than being missed or mourned. He preferred the reputation of a hard ass and a drunk to the man who was actually much purer at the core, but kept his morality tucked into some secret pocket somewhere.

  Thinking of his own sons made Cort Wesley push the weights harder, as if exercise were some magic elixir that could hold him in place while his boys and the world spun faster around him. He welcomed those thoughts as distractions from the moral stink of Armand Fisker that rode him like skunk oil. What he needed was a shower, not a workout, but all the soap in the world couldn’t cleanse him of the ugliness he’d encountered in the former ghost town of Elk Grove.

  Cort Wesley had just formed that thought when his phone rang. He snatched it from the pocket of his workout shorts.

  “I’m outside Miguel Asuna’s body shop, outlaw,” Guillermo Paz said. “You need to get over here.”

  38

  PFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS

  “She doesn’t want to see you again, Ranger,” Kelly Ann Beasley’s mother said to Caitlin through the crack in the front door.

  Caitlin had taken off her Stetson and was holding it low by her hip. “I just need to show her a sketch of the man I think may have hurt her.”

  “As I understand it, this isn’t your case.”

  “I’m assisting the Austin detective heading things up.”

  “It was Detective Diaz who advised me not to let you see my daughter again.”

  Caitlin couldn’t make any sense of that and didn’t bother trying. “I just want to help, ma’am. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t I leave the sketch with you and you show it to Kelly Ann whenever she’s up to it? If she recognizes the man, you can have her call me or Detective Diaz. Does that sound okay?”

  The woman nodded stiffly and Caitlin handed over one of the sketches she’d brought along. She flirted with the notion of telling Kelly Ann’s mother the whole truth behind her involvement, but stopped short of doing so since it was clear the woman wasn’t budging.

  First Jones trying to warn me off, and now this. What’s going on?

  The woman’s eyes met Caitlin’s, something inside her trying to get out.

  “Do you have something you’d like to tell me, ma’am?”

  Kelly Ann’s mother shook her head. “I’m sorry you wasted a trip.”

  “Please tell your daughter I was here and I hope she’s feeling better.”

  “I’ll do that, Ranger.”

  * * *

  She flashed another copy of Young Roger’s aged sketch of the man she knew only as Frank to the hostess, servers, and bartenders at Stubb’s Barbecue. Several said he looked familiar, but couldn’t say from where. Others gave the sketch a second look, even a third, before telling her they could be of no help identifying him, either.

  That left Caitlin back at square one, the person who might be the most help to her unwilling to talk, and the ones willing to talk being unable to help. She spoke to Stubb’s manager last, who barely even regarded the sketch before telling her he’d never seen the man before.

  “Maybe you should take a longer look.”

  “I don’t have to,” the man said. “I told you I’d never seen the man before.”

  “Neither has anyone else who works here. But they all gave the sketch a closer look. Is there something I should be reading into that?”

  “Yeah,” the manager told her. “The dinner rush is starting and we’ve got a new owner who won’t like it if I don’t tend to my job.”

  The manager walked off before Caitlin could press him further, trying to pinpoint the look in his eyes after he’d glanced at the sketch, when a call came in from Captain Tepper.

  “You in Austin, Ranger?” came his greeting.

  “You must be psychic, D.W.”

  “Either psychic or caught in another storm whipped up by Hurricane Caitlin, take your pick. Jones was here.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Just like I was sorry to hear what he had to say. I’d tell you you’re off the Beasley case, but you were never on it and you wouldn’t listen to me, anyway.”

  “Right on both counts, Captain.”

  “Look, I can handle the Category Ten–force winds you bring about. But right now those same winds are aimed at some folks who can’t. Jones gave it all to me, but not until he called Washington to get my security clearance upped.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Because it’s not. So drive yourself on back here and I�
��ll lay it all out for you. And don’t even think about making another run at Kelly Ann Beasley before you hit the road. She is strictly off-limits and that’s for her own good.”

  Caitlin realized she’d walked back outside while she’d been talking, her boots crunching some stray shards of broken glass left over from the other night. “You want to tell me what’s going on here exactly?”

  “Sure, Ranger. You may be able to walk on water, but quicksand’s a whole other thing. So get down here, before it swallows you up altogether.”

  39

  EAST SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  It was pretty much over by the time Cort Wesley arrived, Miguel Asuna’s illegals handcuffed and taken away in a county jail short bus, Asuna left answering questions for a trio of men with ICE stenciled over their windbreakers. He spotted Dylan leaning against the 1996 Chevy truck he’d restored to pristine condition, looking forlorn and alternately brushing and blowing the stray hair the breeze kept dropping over his face. It was the work he’d done on the truck that had given Cort Wesley the brilliant idea to get him a job here, a simple enough thing that had turned out to be not so simple at all.

  Guillermo Paz emerged enough from an alley across the street to grab Cort Wesley’s attention, and he started toward him instead of moving straight to Dylan.

  “There was nothing I could do, outlaw,” the big man said apologetically.

  “This was my doing, Colonel. I paid a visit this morning to the father of the kid whose truck you dinged up. I’m guessing this is payback.” Cort Wesley could see from across the street that Asuna’s conversation with the ICE officials wasn’t going well and flirted briefly with the notion of calling Jones, before remembering he wasn’t one to stick his neck out, especially when another government agency was involved. “So, there you go, father and son, each of us with the uncanny ability to make any situation worse.”

  “This isn’t about either one of you,” Paz told him.

  “What’s it about then?”

  “According to Albert Einstein, ‘The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.’ See my point?”

  “Not particularly, Colonel, no.”

  “Both you and Dylan tried to do something about it.”

  “And that seems to have made the world more dangerous for both of us,” Cort Wesley said, casting his gaze across the street again, “along with Miguel Asuna and his illegals.”

  His eyes swung back toward Dylan, still leaning against his truck, suspended between thoughts and actions, no doubt blaming himself for this, just as his father was.

  Well, Cort Wesley thought, at least we’ve got that much in common.

  “I’m going to go talk to my son,” he told Paz. “Thanks for calling, Colonel.”

  “Outlaw?”

  Suspended between sun and shade, Cort Wesley stopped and turned back around.

  “One of my priest’s favorite quotes, from Proverbs twenty-four, twenty: ‘For the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.’”

  “Stay tuned,” Cort Wesley told him. “I may need your help in putting out Armand Fisker’s light once and for all.”

  40

  EAST SAN ANTONIO

  “This wasn’t your fault, son,” Cort Wesley said before Dylan had even acknowledged his presence. “It was mine.”

  The boy brushed the black hair from his face and looked at him, confusion framing his features. “What am I missing here?”

  “Caitlin ran that truck’s plates for me. Turned out the asshole hassling those illegals is the grandson of a genuine piece of shit my father went up against in prison. A man named Cliven Fisker who founded the Aryan Brotherhood while behind bars.”

  “Those guys I messed with are Nazis?”

  “I don’t think they call themselves that, but close enough. Cliven Fisker’s son’s name is Armand. I paid him a visit this morning, looking for his son who goes by the name of Ryan, according to his truck registration.”

  Dylan shook his head, his expression mixed between dismay and disgust. “So first you send the big guy to babysit me and then you go see this Armand Fisker to, what, tell him to take away his kid’s milk and cookies?”

  “I didn’t realize who he was until I got there.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel a lot better.”

  They turned their gazes to the county jail bus pulling away, bracketed both in front and behind by unmarked, government-issue sedans that must’ve belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the guys in the windbreakers.

  “I’ll make this right, Dylan. I’ve got favors I can call in.”

  Dylan held his gaze on the convoy as it drove down the street. “I should have backed off. It wasn’t even my fight.”

  “‘The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.’”

  “Who said that?”

  “The big guy,” Cort Wesley said. “And Albert Einstein before him. Nothing wrong with trying to do something about it.”

  “Apparently, there was, Dad.” Dylan looked away, then turned his eyes back just as fast. “Why’d you ask Colonel Paz to watch me? Why didn’t you do it yourself or just talk to me?”

  “Would you have listened?”

  “No.”

  “There you go then. I didn’t want to deal with the fallout, if you caught me watching your back.”

  Dylan canted his head toward the alley where Paz was standing. “So you sent him?”

  “It worked.” Cort Wesley shrugged.

  “Did it?”

  “You’re alive.”

  Dylan blew the hair from his face with a burst of breath. “What are we gonna do about this, Dad?”

  “We?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Let me handle it.”

  “I’m not very good at that.”

  “First time for everything.”

  Dylan gave him a long look. “Tell me more about the Fiskers, father and son.”

  “They’ve resettled a ghost town down in McMullen County.”

  “The two of them?”

  “Along with a couple hundred of their closest friends, from what I could see. Fisker has turned the nation’s biker gangs into upstanding businessmen; they’ve cornered the market on the distribution of black market narcotics, Oxycodone and Vicodin, most notably, along with their old staple of crystal meth.”

  “So what’s his son doing rousting illegals?”

  “Being an asshole, same as his father, though on a much smaller scale.”

  “You think they have talks like this?” Dylan wondered, only half-whimsically.

  “Well, I can imagine the one they had when Armand Fisker saw the damage done to his boy’s truck.”

  41

  ELK GROVE, TEXAS

  Armand Fisker figured he’d check in on the progress on the repairs Ryan was making to his truck before heading out to Waco to pay a visit to Davey Skoll.

  Since he’d left Ryan in the garage, he’d had supplies and the proper tools brought over and sent one of his guys with body shop experience to get him going. He pulled in to the driveway to find the garage door closed. Fisker parked, turned off the engine, and hit the automatic garage door opener before climbing out of his truck.

  It slid upward to reveal a wash of smoke, releasing the pungent scent of weed. Ryan and a couple of his loser running buddies bounced up off the garage floor, two of them fanning the smoke away, while his son stamped out a joint. Beyond them, the truck looked exactly the same as it had that morning, supplies and auto body repair shop tools piled alongside it.

  “Get lost,” Fisker said to Ryan’s two friends, who scampered away so fast, one of them tipped over a gas can. “Were you confused about what I told you?” he asked his son.

  The boy stood stiffly before him, his narrow shoulders inherited from his mother. “I was just taking a break, Dad.”


  Fisker nodded, feeling his heart hammering against his chest. “Those illegals you were trying to chase back home have been arrested. Since you don’t have to bother with them anymore, you’ll have plenty of time to work on your truck.”

  “You had them arrested?”

  “I had some calls made,” Fisker said, righting the plastic gas can before it leaked over the floor. “Those two losers I just sent home, they were with you when the truck was damaged?”

  “Uh-huh.” His son nodded.

  “I don’t want you hanging around with them anymore.”

  “They’re my friends.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Fisker watched his son’s spine stiffen. “I’m twenty years old. You can’t tell me who I can and can’t hang out with.”

  Fisker carried the gas can toward the shelving where it belonged, loosening the cap as he walked. “You’re right, son, you are twenty.”

  Drawing even with Ryan, he drew the gas can backward and flung its contents all over him. The boy recoiled, banging into the rear bumper of the big truck that looked to be the only part that had escaped damage from the onslaught of bricks.

  “But I can tell you anything I want to tell you. You got that?”

  His son spit gasoline out of his mouth, started hocking up more immediately.

  Fisker took a silver cigarette lighter from his pocket and flicked it to life, the flame shooting out. “I don’t smoke, but I carry this because it’s all I’ve got left of my father. He didn’t leave me anything and I got this out of his drawer, since you’re not allowed lighters like this in Huntsville where he got shanked to death in the shower. I also ended up with the organization he built and expanded it worldwide. I used to hate him, because he never believed I could do something like that, and every time I grow our business bigger I think of him.” He edged closer to Ryan, moving the lighter out so the flame was between them. “You want to tell me why I shouldn’t burn you alive right now and save us both the trouble?”

  “Dad…”

  “That your answer?”