Bonaparte's Belle: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 24)

by Dale Mayer

“Well, it’s definitely a murder that happened while you were committing a crime,” she said. “And you know that the law really doesn’t care about what part you played in the murder, so you’ll be going down for that too.”

  “Hell, no,” he snapped. “This ain’t got anything to do with me.”

  “You’re a little late to be protesting,” she said. “So, where are the rest of them?” He just glared at her. “I asked,” she said, stepping forward, “where are the rest of them?”

  Shoving his chin out at her, he said, “None of your fucking business.”

  “All right, have it your way,” she said, eyeing him carefully. “So, will you come in and talk to me, or will you resist arrest?”

  “I’m not talking to you,” he sneered, “and you ain’t making me either.”

  “Well, I could,” she said, studying him, “but I don’t have to.”

  “And why is that?” he asked, glaring at her.

  “Because that guy, behind you, he won’t have a problem doing it for me.”

  Floyd spun around, and there was Bonaparte, towering over him. Floyd gulped, went to grab something in his back pocket. Bonaparte clocked him one in the face, his jaw like butter, and he crumbled to the ground.

  “Jesus, I hope you didn’t kill him,” she said.

  “Not unless something’s wrong with that jaw of his.” Bending down to check him, Bonaparte then stood, shaking his head. “No, he’s got a strong pulse.”

  “Good,” she said, “but I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, studying the junkyard. “A lot of vehicles are here.”

  “Not only that,” she replied, “he’s also got a crusher in the back.”

  “We better start there,” Bonaparte said, and he loped in the direction she pointed. Leaving Floyd tied up on the ground, they headed into the back. Sounds of machinery started up. She pointed off to the side, and the two of them raced as fast as they could in that direction. When she got there, a black vehicle with heavily tinted windows—the same one they’d seen earlier, delivering the crooked guy in a suit from Denver—was up on the deck, being lifted by the crane for the crusher. She immediately ordered the guy operating the crane to stop, but he just kept on going. “Looks like Floyd’s brother, Roscoe.”

  “We have to get up there,” Bonaparte said.

  “Do you really think somebody’s in the vehicle?”

  “We can’t take the chance,” Bonaparte yelled, and he was already climbing the crane. It looked like Roscoe caught sight of him and tried to shift the angle of the crane, but that wouldn’t stop Bonaparte, who was climbing fast. By the time he was at the top, the car had been sent over to the crusher. But with Bonaparte’s gun pointed at Roscoe, he stopped. Immediately Bonaparte took control of the crane and slowly lowered the vehicle to the ground. She raced over to the vehicle, opened up the trunk, and found the two men Levi had sent down with Stone. Robert was alive and awake, staring at her in shock.

  “Well, damn,” she said, “that was a little too close.” She helped him out of the trunk; then she reached in and checked his partner. “He’s alive,” she said, with relief.

  “Yeah, I don’t know about the two guys in the front seat though,” Robert said.

  She walked around and checked inside the vehicle. Sure enough, the corrupt Denver guy, who had tried to take over her operation, lay here, a bullet in his head. Beside him was the dead deputy on loan, Harry. “Damn,” she said. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  “Well, at least the Denver guy talked a lot while they had us,” Robert said. “We just have to find the two behind it all.”

  “You mean, Ronnie and Johnny?” she said. “Those two have become such a pain in my ass.”

  “Yours and mine both,” Robert said.

  “That’s all right,” said another man, joining them.

  Hearing a rifle locking into position, she turned to see Ronnie and Johnny standing there, each holding a weapon. “Wow,” she said, “you guys have turned into quite a pain.”

  “No, that’s you,” Ronnie said. “All you had to do was let these guys get crushed, and it would have been a piece of cake.”

  “Nope,” she said, “you would have just kept on coming.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “That’s who we are.”

  “This is all about money,” she said. Noticing Robert, now at her side, trying to stand up straight, she reached over and gave him a hand.

  “This is a hell of a situation.” Robert stared at the two brothers. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “After all this, why do you still expect to get away with it? Ronnie, you do know that we got all your electronics from your house, right?”

  Ronnie shrugged and Johnny cackled. “Why wouldn’t we get away with this?” Johnny said, the bandage on his shoulder visible. “We’ll take out you three, plus that mammoth you brought into this deal. I still owe that asshole for the bullet in my shoulder.”

  “It was hardly a bullet,” she said calmly. “It was barely a flesh wound, as I recall.”

  As she spoke, she wondered what the hell Bonaparte was doing. But she just had to trust that he was up there and knew firsthand what was going on. She didn’t see how the evil brothers behind this could not know Bonaparte was in the crane, but she saw no sign of their recognition. So far, everything had been going in a completely crazed way anyhow. “This is all about money, and now you’re here, ready to kill how many more people?”

  “It doesn’t matter how many,” Ronnie said. “After the first one it’s easy. We’ve killed probably six so far, so what’s another four or five?”

  She shook her head. “And, with the local authorities and now the FBI on to your plan, you really expect to get out of this?”

  “Will you?” he asked derisively. “You do realize who’s holding a gun on you, right?”

  She nodded. “Absolutely I do,” she said, “but is that supposed to make a difference to me? I still have a job to do.”

  He frowned at her. “I don’t get it,” he said. “How the hell are you not worried?”

  “Because you’re still just punks,” she said wearily. “You’re nothing but petty-ass punks.”

  “Nothing petty ass about us, bitch,” Johnny said, lifting the rifle in her direction.

  The man she was helping to stay upright, who’s name she had already forgotten, looked at Johnny. “You don’t have to shoot her, man.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I do,” he said. “I absolutely do. And don’t worry. You’ll get a bullet too. Because you’re the one who tracked down our buddy here and messed up this deal. He was the one pushing things through for us.”

  “It’s not that simple though,” Robert said. “You don’t get things pushed through on just one person’s vote. Did he tell you that he could?”

  “Hell yes, he said he could get it done,” Ronnie said.

  “Well, I’m sure he was trying his best for you,” Robert said, “but voting still had to happen. Engineering designs still had to be drawn up, environmental planning processes done, and all kinds of shit still had to happen.”

  “And he would have made it happen,” Johnny said. “We know him. We know what he’s like and what he’s done before.”

  “Maybe so, and now we’ll have to sort through his wretched life to see how much other shit he has pulled.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s dead already, so I don’t think it matters.”

  “Yet you killed him, and now you can’t get your deal to go through,” Angela said.

  “There’ll be somebody else,” Ronnie said confidently. “Every time we go to a new state, somebody’s there who’s willing to take a payout instead of being an honest, upstanding citizen,” he said, with that mocking tone of his. “You should try it sometime.”

  “Well, I would say, you should try being an honest citizen for once, but apparently you’re just full of shit,” she said. She had gotten her hand free and clear, but no way could she shoot both of them
at the same time. She looked over at the man she’d been helping and said, “Sit down again, Robert,” she said, then propped him up against the rim of the trunk. As she turned around, she pushed him in and fired at Ronnie, then rolled under the vehicle. Robert collapsed into the trunk, neatly folding back inside again, as, from the ground, Angela propped up and went to take another shot, only to see the crane swinging around, knocking Johnny to the ground. She bounded to her feet and ran over and checked on the first one, but her shot was true. She’d taken Ronnie out with a headshot.

  As she walked over to the other body, her handgun still out and at the ready, she realized that Johnny was dead too. She looked up at Bonaparte and gave him a thumbs-up. She walked over to Robert and helped him back out again. “You okay?”

  He took a long deep breath. “I am now,” he said, “and again I owe you thanks.”

  “Well,” she said, “just make sure you make good use of your life at this point.”

  He laughed. “I’ve already spent a lifetime putting criminals away. I’m not sure what else I can do.”

  “I’m sure you can find more bad guys to topple,” she said, “but let’s make sure this mess comes to a nice neat crisp end.”

  “A lot of it’ll have to stay under wraps,” he warned.

  She winced. “That’s too bad,” she said. “I get that, in some related cases, it’s necessary, but I really want to make sure all the perpetrators in this mess get caught.”

  “What about your deputies?”

  “Well, I’ve got a security guard I’ll deputize, and I have Bonaparte here,” she said, “although he won’t stay long-term.”

  “That’s too bad,” Robert said, looking up, as Bonaparte climbed down the crane.

  “Yeah, except Levi wouldn’t be very happy with me, if I were to steal one of his guys,” she said, with a quick grin.

  “Is he one of Levi’s men?”

  “He is,” she said. “Levi was good enough to send him to help me.”

  “Levi’s a great guy, and he has a top-notch team.”

  “Exactly. So, when I got into trouble, they were the first ones I called on.”

  “Good choice,” he said. “That makes sense to me.”

  She smiled and nodded, as Bonaparte hopped down and finally joined them. “What about your buddy Roscoe up there?” she asked.

  “I’ve got him hog-tied. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Good,” she said. “We better go check on Floyd. That gives us two alive, plus the older one in the hospital. I think he’s the evil brothers’ uncle Hector.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a few bits and pieces to pick up around town yet,” Robert said. “But, other than that, Sheriff, you’ve done a pretty damn good job of cleaning up your town.”

  She smiled. “I have, haven’t I? Too bad the locals won’t believe me.”

  “Oh, I think they will,” Robert said. “You’ll get the credit for this. I’ll make sure.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said. “After all, it is an election year.”

  He burst out laughing. “I can’t see that anybody will have a problem with this.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said. “A lot of folks here didn’t want to see a woman elected in the first place.”

  “Well, maybe this will change their minds,” he said. “Nobody else could have handled it better.”

  As she looked over at Bonaparte, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  Robert smiled and said, “That was a pretty impressive move she made, wasn’t it?”

  Bonaparte smiled and said. “That’s one way to put it.”

  *

  As it was, Bonaparte was still adjusting to his own slamming heart after seeing her caught up behind those two rifles. It had been all he could do to get to the controls and to get that damn crane over them, without them really focusing on it. But once she dumped Robert back into the trunk and made her move taking out one brother, Bonaparte had had his chance.

  After they’d further secured Floyd, who was just beginning to stir, and after Robert stated he was awaiting another crew to tie up things at the garage, Bonaparte and Angela started walking.

  “Now what?” Bonaparte asked.

  “We’ll be a couple more hours here,” she said, rotating her neck and head. “Plus there’s about a million reports to write up.”

  “I think the sheriff needs a day off,” he said.

  “Well, it won’t happen any time soon,” she said.

  “Can you work from home tomorrow?”

  She thought about it. “Maybe,” she said. “I’m sure my office will still be a crime scene for the forensic team to process, regarding this whole mess with my prisoners.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “We can still cook the ribs when we’re done.”

  “Yeah, what about Stone?”

  “We can invite him, if you want. We’ll cook the steaks too, if we need more food.”

  “That’d be nice,” she said.

  Pulling out his phone, Bonaparte punched in a number and said, “Stone, we’re pretty well in the clear. How are you doing?”

  Stone laughed and said, “It’s been quiet here.”

  “Well, that’s good,” he said. “We’ve seen enough action for quite a while. I’m trying to drag her back home again, but it’s gonna be a few hours before we’re free and clear. Are you up for ribs tomorrow, or are you leaving right away?”

  “I’m heading into town with the evidence,” he said.

  “Right, I forgot about that. You sticking around town for long, or will you be done?”

  “I’ll need to come back tomorrow,” Stone said.

  “Good, come for a barbecue then.”

  “Those ribs?”

  Yeah,” he said, “the ribs.”

  “I’ll be there,” he said enthusiastically.

  Pocketing his phone, Bonaparte said, “Ribs it is, with Stone tomorrow.”

  “Perfect,” Angela said.

  “I promised, and I mean to deliver too,” he said. With a grin, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Let’s head back to the station, leave these guys to their work.”

  “I don’t know if we should leave Robert alone to handle this,” she said. “We still don’t know who all is involved in this scheme.”

  Bonaparte nodded, then pulled her away from the scene behind him, and said, “Absolutely. I spoke with Levi, and he’s got tracking on all known associates of Ronnie and Johnny. Oh, and our Hummer guy, he has ties to another mob family, as well as to the evil brothers and their own Gapone mob family. Maybe the Gapones got their seed money from for these real estate ventures from the other family. Anyway, Levi gave me the all clear. So Robert will take care of cleaning up this mess here at the garage.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “If we can leave then, that would be lovely.”

  When they arrived at the station, she realized it was still full as well. She looked at everybody working away. “You know what? Stone told me to relax, that it would be a while. So I may as well just go home.”

  “You do that,” the coroner said. “I think you’ve been involved in enough chaos today.”

  “Yeah, about that,” she said. “You probably don’t know yet that you’ve got another crime scene.”

  He looked at her. “How many bodies?”

  She winced and said, “Four, that I know of.”

  He just stared at her, his jaw dropping.

  “I only took out one,” she said, her hands up, palms showing.

  And Bonaparte chimed in, “And one for me. But seems the bad guys took out the other two.”

  Shaking his head, the coroner finally closed his mouth, then said, “Well, I was hoping to get some sleep tonight, but I guess that will have to wait.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Go,” he said, “both of you. Get the hell out of my world,” the doc said. “You make too much work for me. I’m trying to retire. Remember?”

  “And here I thought you ca
me as a special deal anyway,” Angela teased.

  “I did,” he snapped in mock anger. “But that doesn’t mean I wanted to push my retirement back twenty years. Do you have any idea how much paperwork this involves?”

  She smiled and said, “Yeah, I have a fair amount backlogged myself. May I just say that your participation is really appreciated.”

  “Get lost, you two,” he said, with a muffled chuckle.

  “Will do.”

  And, with that, Bonaparte realized it was finally time for them to leave. “It’s also dark,” he said, “and it’s been a shit show all day. Let’s go home and recharge.”

  “I can get behind that,” she said.

  Chapter 13

  Outside, Angela hopped into the vehicle and stared at the steering wheel in front of her.

  He opened the door, looked at her, and said, “Move over.”

  She protested immediately. “I can drive.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you can or not,” he said, “I’m driving.”

  She glared at him but didn’t have enough energy to fight him on this. The farther away from the action they got, the more she had shock setting in.

  Pulling out of the parking lot at the sheriff’s office and pointing the truck toward her place, Bonaparte said, “Let’s go home.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “that’s a great idea. At least it’s home for me.”

  “You’ve got a hell of a place out there,” he said.

  “Well, if you’d stick around,” she murmured, “you could spend some time there.”

  “And that’s very tempting,” he said.

  “Ha,” she said. “Everybody is after me for my property.”

  “Hell no,” he said, “I’m after you for your body.”

  Totally caught off guard, she burst out laughing.

  He grinned at her. “See? You’re feeling much better already.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, “you can’t say things like that to me.”

  “Why not?”

  She just shook her head, the mirth still bubbling up. “I think I’m too exhausted,” she said. “Suddenly everything is making me laugh, even when it’s not funny.”

  “Hey, that was very funny,” he said in an injured tone.