Strong to the Bone--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  Starting here.

  In Texas.

  58

  AUSTIN, TEXAS

  “You didn’t have to come all this way to thank me for sending Paz last night, Ranger,” Jones said to Caitlin, looking up from behind his desk.

  He hadn’t risen when she walked in unannounced, just kept rotating his gaze between a trio of wall-mounted televisions tuned to each of the major news stations. Caitlin noticed the office was bathed in murky lighting, in spite of the blazing morning sunshine, because Jones chose to keep his blinds drawn as a deterrent against snipers.

  He gestured toward the televisions. “You made the news again.”

  “Tell me how excited I look about that.”

  “Blowback?”

  “Let’s just say I’m here today in a less than official capacity.”

  “You need a job, Ranger?”

  “More like my head examined, if I ever even consider that, at least on a permanent basis.”

  “Interesting qualifier.”

  Caitlin looked around at the surprisingly elegant furnishings and walls filled with Texas-centric prints, paintings, and photographs. “You got an office like this in every state capital, Jones?” she said, changing the subject.

  “Just here, where I seem to spend the bulk of my time.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “You mean, besides the one I did for you last night?”

  “What do you know about Armand Fisker?”

  Jones’s office was located in the same gleaming office tower as Texas Monthly magazine a few floors up at 816 Congress Avenue, directly across from the state capitol building. It was a simple suite of three offices and an adjoining conference room, with a reception area Caitlin doubted was ever staffed, just as she felt pretty sure the other two offices remained unoccupied, despite being furnished. Jones’s considerably less than aboveboard dealings kept him from working out of the J.J. Pickle Federal Building, which would’ve been more appropriate for his job description, if he’d had a real one.

  “You didn’t come all this way to ask me that.”

  “Pretend that I did.”

  Jones leaned forward. “I did my share of reading about him both before and after last night.”

  “Why before?”

  “You think your cowboy boyfriend was the only one the colonel gave the license plate of the truck he bashed up?”

  “This in anticipation of the insurance claim against Homeland, Jones?”

  “Paz might be your guardian angel, but he answers to me.”

  Caitlin tried not to laugh, but a chuckle emerged anyway. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

  “He didn’t show up last night because of that psychic connection he’s got with you, he came because I sent him.”

  “After you read up on Armand Fisker. What can you tell me about what Homeland has on him in the system?”

  “He’s not really on our radar.”

  “His goddamn father established the Aryan Brotherhood from behind bars, and word is Fisker has built that into a nationwide drug distribution network, from coast to coast. And he’s not on your radar?”

  “Exactly.” Jones nodded. “Drugs are the concern of other government agencies.”

  “You don’t see drugs as a Homeland Security issue?” Caitlin felt her temperature start to rise. “But let’s look at this another way. You know the only thing harder than uniting Israelis and Palestinians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, or Democrats and Republicans? Biker gangs, Jones. And, from what I’ve learned, Fisker has the Cossacks, Bandidos, Hells Angels, and a dozen or so smaller offshoots eating out of his hand. I’d call that an enemy force operating on American soil. Homegrown terrorists even.”

  “What else would you like to know about Fisker?” Jones asked her, instead of responding.

  “Anything about him that stands out, makes you raise an eyebrow. Something like him appropriating an entire abandoned town for his own use and declaring himself the law.”

  “That town’s taxes and fees are all paid up, all their paperwork has been filed with the county seat on time and aboveboard, and he’s got the politicians doing his bidding because he’s opened a perpetual campaign fund to serve the election needs of anyone he wants to buy.”

  Caitlin couldn’t help but shake her head. “And none of that riles you?”

  “You rile me, Ranger, but that doesn’t make you a threat to Homeland Security.”

  “About that job opportunity at Homeland…”

  Jones rose and moved around to the front of the desk where he sat back down leisurely on its edge. “Uh-huh.”

  “Given my administrative status with the Rangers, I need a new portfolio to hang my hat on for a time.”

  Jones pointed at her shirt. “You’re still wearing your badge, Ranger.”

  “It comes with the wardrobe.”

  “And if somebody you need to question happens to notice it…”

  “I’ll let them draw their own conclusions. But I wouldn’t mind introducing myself as a liaison for Homeland Security.”

  “Is that the career change you’re looking for?”

  “Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “I think you’d be working under me. How’s that sit with you?”

  Caitlin smiled. “I don’t want to ever find myself under you, Jones, but I need a calling card while my membership in Club Ranger is suspended.”

  Jones grinned back at her, even broader. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that when you disregarded a direct instruction I gave you.”

  “You mean about a sexual assault victim whose family is hiding out in Homeland’s version of witness protection? Did it even occur to you to just tell me that, instead of playing your usual game of pin the tail on the asshole?”

  “There are policy lines even I won’t cross, Ranger. It comes down to weighing the family’s overall safety versus the investigation of a crime.”

  “Kelly Ann Beasley was raped, Jones.”

  “And she can’t identify her attacker.”

  “Neither could I,” Caitlin said, too abruptly to consider her own words.

  “This isn’t about her, it’s about you,” Jones said, trying to sound as sensitive as he could. “You’d risk endangering Kelly Ann’s safety to catch the man who assaulted you.”

  “Assaulted both of us,” Caitlin corrected.

  Jones gave her a longer look. “Kelly Ann didn’t remember anything about her real attacker, when you talked to her?”

  “She thinks it was a woman.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “I can’t make any sense out of it, either.”

  Jones’s teeth began sawing at his upper lip. “I wish I could give you some leeway with this, Ranger, but I can’t risk putting that family in any more danger.”

  “I understand, Jones, just like I would’ve understood if you’d laid it out like that for me to begin with.”

  “Best I can do is make you a duly appointed and official contractor for the Department of Homeland Security. How’s that?”

  “Good for starters.”

  “Starters?”

  Caitlin moved a step closer to him, more of the light from the recessed ceiling fixtures finding her. “You ever hear the stories about prisoners of war from Nazi Germany being housed in Texas?”

  “Over a hundred thousand at one point, I think.” Jones nodded.

  “Did you know J. Edgar Hoover came down here on the trail of one who escaped the camp in Hearne after killing three fellow POWs?”

  Jones’s brow crinkled. “Hoover himself?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now, that’s news to me. Quite a surprise.”

  “He butted heads with my grandfather, Earl Strong.”

  “That’s not a surprise at all.”

  Caitlin let the moment settle between them, before resuming. “My granddad teamed up with a captain in the British SAS named Druce. Something about hunting down Nazis the Reich was determined to protect,
so it could live to fight another day. Gunther Haut, that escaped prisoner I just told you about, was apparently one of them.”

  Jones clacked his still-spanking-new-looking boots against the desk. “If you know all this, what do you need me for?”

  “Because all Captain Tepper knows of the story ends with my granddad and this Druce joining forces to get to the bottom of what was really going on. I was hoping you could run a check to see what Homeland’s files have to say about the matter.”

  “Don’t you want me to deputize you first?” Jones asked her.

  59

  AUSTIN, TEXAS

  It hurt to ask Jones for help, but it wasn’t like Caitlin had a lot of choices, either. Outside, the heat offered welcome respite from the sixty-eight chilling degrees at which Jones kept his office thermostat set. The warm air vanquished the clamminess and dank feeling that had glued her shirt to her skin, but not the sense of heaviness and unease that came every time she relived that night from eighteen years ago.

  It wasn’t another game, as Jones suggested. It was the pure honest truth that she wanted as few people as humanly possible to know what had happened. Because sharing the story made her feel weak and vulnerable all over again, nothing like the Texas Ranger who was strong to the bone, at least in Hollywood’s mind. She realized now more than ever that the one remedy for the chalky feeling that had returned to her mouth, along with the bad taste, was to catch the man who’d done this to her.

  Otherwise, how many other Willie Arbles would she shoot? How many others had she shot already?

  But catching the perpetrator promised to be no easy task by any stretch of the imagination, especially with no help coming from Kelly Ann Beasley. But Caitlin couldn’t let go of this second chance to get the man who’d nearly destroyed her life.

  As if on cue, her phone buzzed with a text message from Young Roger:

  Some different looks for your suspect

  She scrolled through fresh versions of the sketch he’d done for her, each providing a different “look” to the suspect’s face, based mostly on hairstyle, length, and relative amount of loss. There were eight in all of the man she knew only as Frank, each providing a different sense of his potential appearance today.

  Her phone buzzed with another incoming text from Young Roger, just as she finished her perusal of the shots.

  And call Doc Whatley

  Given her current status, Caitlin guessed Whatley would want no record of any call made, or email sent, to her. Having her call into his office offered Whatley insulation from the picture of insubordinate behavior contacting her might have suggested. The doctor covering his ass, just like everybody else did.

  A skill I’ve never picked up, Caitlin thought to herself, as she touched the name WHATLEY in her contacts.

  “I won’t tell you who I am,” she greeted, after he answered.

  “Good,” Whatley said back to her, “and I won’t ask.”

  “I understand you’ve got something to share,” Caitlin said, not bothering to add “with me” to insulate Whatley further from any issues that might arise from their still being in contact.

  “Not over the phone and not at the office, either.”

  “What’s this pertain to, Doc?”

  “Those two bodies we hauled out of that apartment complex where a contagion of some kind was initially suspected. I found something in my analysis I think will be of interest to the Texas Rangers.”

  “How about Homeland Security?” Caitlin asked him, recalling Jones’s mention of an unidentified drug showing up in the tox screens performed on the two victims. “Because I’m currently moonlighting. Unofficially.”

  “Well, Ranger, Officer, or whatever I’m supposed to call you, it just so happens what I’ve got to share might be of even more interest to them.”

  60

  AUSTIN, TEXAS

  Caitlin stopped off at a Staples store to make prints of Young Roger’s sketches, figuring that was a lot more professional than jogging through the shots downloaded onto her phone. She had them printed on photo-grade paper to seem even more official, then headed over to Stubb’s Barbecue.

  Captain Tepper would be pissed at her for following up on a case without formal credentials, Jones would be pissed at her for continuing to search for Kelly Ann Beasley’s rapist, and Doc Whatley was already pissed at her for not coming straight back to San Antonio. Maybe these new sketches would yield nothing more at Stubb’s Barbecue than the original version had. What chance did she really have that a bartender, manager, bouncer, or member of the waitstaff would recall a single face among thousands? What chance was there that anything would stick out amid all that crowding, and overshadowed by the virtual riot that had broken out during the night’s final hours?

  But this wasn’t about Jones or Tepper or even about being a Texas Ranger. This was about what had happened to her eighteen years ago. It was as if every criminal, terrorist, and madman she confronted from behind the cinco peso badge was the personification of the man who’d sexually assaulted her. Until she found him, the battles and the wars would just keep coming, because deep inside Caitlin wanted them to continue stoking the fires that had been simmering ever since that night.

  She parked her SUV down the street from Stubb’s Barbecue and stepped out, sketches in hand and Ranger badge still pinned in place. Let the workers in Stubb’s draw their own conclusions; she’d deal with the fallout later.

  Caitlin hadn’t told Cort Wesley about her intentions and didn’t want him tagging along, when Dylan needed him far more than she did right now. Not only might the boy be in very real danger from the long reach of Armand Fisker, he also would have to deal with the upshot of killing somebody with the insulation of shock soon to wear off, if it hadn’t already.

  No such insulation cushioned her from the reality that she’d killed a kid of Dylan’s age the night before. And Caitlin wondered how much of her well-earned reputation for violence was owed to the night of her own rape. Were all the men she had killed no more than projections of the entity who’d hurt her in a way that would never heal entirely? Was her comfort with a gun no more than a defense mechanism rooted in her obsession to keep the world safe from men she was convinced were evil because she’d been unable to keep herself safe when it mattered the most?

  Going to that party had been a mistake, not leaving when she lost track of her friends had been a mistake, taking that Solo cup from a stranger had been a mistake. And she’d been paying for those mistakes ever since, following her forebears into the Texas Rangers to hide behind a badge in order to quell the demons unleashed eighteen years before.

  Caitlin wondered where those Hollywood producers had come up with “Strong to the Bone” as the title for her life story. She felt anything but that now. Her bones felt as brittle as the rest of her, ready to snap in a stiff wind or go soft and rubbery in a Texas downpour. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be with Cort Wesley and Dylan, where she could help sort out the feelings that had besieged them, instead of facing her own.

  She kind of hoped that Cort Wesley, or even Paz, would be waiting outside the entrance to Stubb’s ahead, having figured on her making just this move and riding in to stand by her side. Caitlin liked that notion and the support that came with it. Maybe she was strong to the bone, but right now she needed propping up.

  Neither of them were anywhere around, though, and she entered the restaurant alone and headed straight for the hostess whose name tag identified her as “Kim.”

  “You may remember me from the other day, ma’am,” Caitlin greeted, after Kim had finished her phone call.

  Kim’s eyes went straight to her badge again. “Of course, Ranger. Sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful. I hate hearing that something like that happened here. Well, anywhere really,” she added.

  Caitlin laid the manila folder containing the revised sketches she’d printed at Staples on the counter between them and opened it. “Me, too, Kim. Which is why I had some more work done on the
sketch of the suspect to give us a few other options. I was hoping you could give them a look.”

  “Sure.” The young woman nodded and started flipping through them.

  Kim wasn’t much more than Dylan’s age, or the kid she’d killed last night. She wanted to tell her to be careful, to be alert when she walked to her car after her shift was over, to not trust a stranger’s disarming smile or the contents of a glass he might hand her.

  “Oh,” Kim said suddenly, looking up and then back down at the face that looked shiny on the photo-grade paper. “This could be … It looks like…”

  “Take your time, Kim.”

  She looked around to make sure none of the waitstaff was nearby. This time of the day, between lunch and dinner, was relatively quiet with shift changes and busboys prepping the tables for the coming dinner rush.

  “I can’t say for sure, but it looks like one of our bartenders.” She angled the sketch so they both could regard it. “He’s got a shaved head, just like this. Like I said, I’m not sure, but…”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Doyle,” Kim said. “Frank Doyle.”

  Frank, Caitlin thought, feeling something icy drag down her spine.

  “When is Frank scheduled to work next, Kim?” she managed, teeth chattering a bit.

  “He’s here now, stocking one of the bars outside.”

  61

  AUSTIN, TEXAS

  Caitlin went back outside through the entrance and walked to the end of the building, where an opening between it and the next one provided access to the large, flattened dirt patch where live music played on any of three stages. She spotted a sprawling bar straight ahead, already stocked and unmanned. But a tall, strapping figure wearing a denim shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows was raking at the dirt before the bar to cover a few stray puddles left over from a sudden downpour the previous night.

  The figure’s back was to her, giving Caitlin time to superimpose him against the man who’d handed her the Solo cup half-filled with punch eighteen years ago. She didn’t recall that Frank being this tall or broad. But a man could change a lot over so many years, and she recalled him wearing sneakers, not boots like the pair he had on now, which could have accounted for a couple extra inches anyway.