by R. A. McGee
Forceful Intent
A Porter Novel
R.A. McGee
Copyright © 2018 by R.A. McGee and Darewood Press.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To CRM
“Stick with me, Kid, and I’ll take you places.”
And you always have…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Epilogue
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About the Author
One
Phil Porter had never quite figured out how to ask a grieving family for his money. He knew there was some sort of decorum to observe, a platitude he should give first, but he was bad at those types of things so he always went for the direct approach. Besides, he had a flight to catch, and he wouldn’t be put off any longer.
He circled the block looking for a place to park his subcompact rental. The car didn’t agree with his frame, and Porter was glad he’d be returning it soon. Cars choked both sides of the street. He found an empty handicapped spot, pulled in, and left the car running.
The hill to the Blanchard home was steep and Porter was embarrassed to realize the climb left him a bit out of breath. He tried to pretend he wasn’t, instead focusing on the row of houses he was walking past. They were like something out of a movie or television show—tall, three stories, but narrow. They were nice, in a West Coast sort of way, but Porter balked at the prices he knew they’d fetch.
He soon saw a large group of people gathered outside number eight-two-eight. Discreetly taking deep breaths through his nose, he waited in the crowd until his way to the center was clear. He listened to everyone giving what sounded like mostly hollow condolences. How many different ways were there to convey one’s sympathy?
Sure he could do better, Porter stepped up to the small woman in the middle of the group, gave his best concerned look, and tried his hand at offering a condolence. “Mrs. Blanchard?”
He towered over the woman, who might have been attractive during happier times. Porter hadn’t been around for any of those. Her mousy hair hung limply around her face and her skin was sallow and drained of color. Still, she had a warmth that Porter couldn’t help but admire.
“Hi, Porter.”
“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about how everything turned out. If I could have changed things, I would have.” His condolence sounded worst of all.
Mrs. Blanchard hooked him by the elbow and pulled him to the side, away from the prying ears and eyes of the rest of the mourners. “I know you did your best. Things have been… crazy the last few days. I never got a chance to thank you.”
“You don’t need to—”
“Yes. Yes, I do. If you hadn’t… well, you know. You were there. I’m saying that no matter what happened, you deserve to hear that. Thank you.”
She slipped her hand into Porter’s and clasped it tightly. He gave her a restrained squeeze back. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes, then buried her head in his chest.
Porter gently patted her on the back as she sobbed. After several moments, she pulled away, face wet, and dabbed at her eyes with her shirt sleeve. “I don’t think Jimmy and I are going to make it.”
Porter searched for words, not sure how to answer the broken woman.
“None of our friends would want to hear something like that. They think that somehow we’ll bury Evanna and just move on, everything good as new. He’s changed since she’s been gone. He’s different and I worry he’ll never be the same. I don’t expect you to say anything, I just needed to tell someone. I’m sure you’ll be leaving soon, so it might as well be you.” She dabbed her eyes again.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Porter said. He wasn’t sure if it sounded more genuine this time.
“Me too, Porter. Me too. Go talk to him.” She pushed him on the arm, directing him toward the house.
He was several feet away when she spoke again. “Porter?”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Be gentle. Please.”
Porter nodded and walked across the sidewalk and up the wooden staircase with its perfect balusters. He stepped through the open door and into the foyer of the well-appointed home. Despite the weather and the crowd of people bustling around, the place felt cold. Three times he’d been there and three times he’d felt like it was someplace no one really lived, at least not since Evanna had gone missing.
Stepping past the kitchen, he saw a folding table full of casserole dishes and desserts. Friends and family pitching in, trying to make sure people had enough food, as if food would make everything better.
Porter wondered if anyone would be mad if he made a plate on the way out.
He walked through the first floor of the home, looking over everyone's head, searching for Jimmy Blanchard. He was nowhere to be seen, but Porter followed the smell of cigars and scotch, and the raised voices of a group of men, to a small doorway and a staircase that led to the basement.
Careful not to hit his head, he ambled down the stairs, pushing through the haze of smoke until he was in the center of a partially-finished game room. The walls were cinderblock, but there was carpeting on the floor and a pool table halfway across the room. On the far end was a crudely constructed bar top.
Jimmy Blanchard was behind the bar, staring down at the plywood that held his rocks glass.
Porter passed several groups of men, glancing at the numerous plaques and awards hanging from screws drilled into the cinderblock. Firefighter of the year. A promotion to captain. Photos of different firehouses over the years.
“Mr. Blanchard?” Porter said to the top of the man’s head.
His blond buzzcut was just starting to thin on top. Porter saw the pink skin on the man’s head and neck was flushed red.
“Mr. Blanchard?”
The older man didn’t mo
ve or register Porter’s presence at all.
The men in the basement were loud, a raucous gathering to brighten their friend's spirits. Porter could overhear half a dozen conversations, most recounting some former glory: a savage fire extinguished, a game-winning touchdown scored, a bar brawl settled.
Porter raised his voice and reached across the bar to put his hand on Blanchard's shoulder. The man swatted Porter’s hand away and stood tall. He was shorter than Porter, but most were.
“Don’t touch me,” he said in a voice only slightly slurred.
“Fair enough. I was wondering if you had a minute.”
“Talk,” Blanchard said, tilting back the rest of the brown liquor in his glass.
“Best we talk in private,” Porter said.
“Why?” Blanchard raised his voice, loud enough that the other conversations in the basement stalled as they took note. “You don’t want everyone to know what a piece of shit you are?”
Porter stared through the man. “I did my job. We had a deal.”
“Your job was to find her. I even offered double if she was alive.”
“She wasn’t. I’ll take our original amount,” Porter said, coolly.
“What if I say no? Huh? We never had a contract or anything like that. What if I tell you no? These boys down here’ll drag you upstairs and throw you out on your ass.”
“You’re too smart to do that,” Porter said.
“Hey Jimmy, everything okay?” a voice said from the other side of the room.
Porter adjusted his position so that he was standing with his back toward the cinderblock wall, Blanchard on his left, the rest of the room in front of him.
“Is everything okay, Jimmy?” Porter said.
Blanchard rubbed his head, his nose bright red against the dark circles underneath his eyes.
The voice spoke again. “Hey, dickhead, why don’t you take off?” Porter saw that it came from a burly man with a thick mustache, a shaved head, and a pool cue. “Whatever you came for, it ain't happening today.”
“No?” Porter said.
“That’s right.”
“Hmmm,” Porter said. “I think I’ll hang around. Unless you have a problem with that?”
The burly man smiled and walked toward Porter. In a pitiful attempt, likely slowed by alcohol, he swung the pool cue at Porter’s head.
Porter tilted his head and let the cue clang against the cinderblock wall behind him. He stepped in, hit the man with two elbows to the bridge of the nose, and pushed him, sending him sprawling to the carpet.
Another man was on Porter in an instant. The man swung a big right hand toward him, but Porter had the reach advantage. He stuck a stiff jab into the man’s face, then grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed him face-first into the makeshift bar Jimmy Blanchard was standing behind.
Porter held him up by the collar and stared down the rest of the room, then slammed the helpless man’s face into the wooden bar again. He let go of the man’s collar and let him slump unconscious to the floor.
Porter stepped back to the cinderblock wall and looked at the room. “Well? Which one of you assholes is next?”
A murmur rolled through the room, men smacking each other on the arm, bolstering their courage. There was no way he could take them all, could he? All they had to do was coordinate an attack.
Three men grouped together, slowly advancing around the pool table toward Porter. He reached down and picked up the pool cue that had fallen to the floor.
“All right, but remember—you guys had a chance to leave,” Porter said, his voice dropping an octave. “Come on then, man up.”
“Enough,” a voice said, thin but loud enough to be heard over the dull roar in the basement. “I said enough.”
Mrs. Blanchard came pushing her way through the crowd. “Mike. Rob. Go back to your drinks and leave this man alone.”
The men turned, grumbling threats at Porter, but their faces betrayed that they were glad to be called off.
Mrs. Blanchard looked down at the man bleeding from the nose and the unconscious man in a pile at the base of the bar. “Jimmy? Jimmy, stop this.”
Blanchard’s eyes broke from Porter and he looked across the plywood bar top at his wife.
“Just pay him, Jimmy. Fair’s fair.”
Blanchard nodded and stepped around the bar, helping the bleeding man with the shaved head up, handing him a towel for his nose. “I’ll go get my checkbook. I assume you’ll take a check?”
“Not a chance,” Porter said, returning the stares of the rest of the men in the room. “Cash only.”
Two
“‘Cash only?’ Are you serious?”
Porter was sitting in the muggy Tampa backyard, recounting the events of the previous week. Ross wanted a thorough recounting and wouldn’t stop pressing until he got it. They sat at a circular wooden table, polishing off a six-pack.
“I wasn’t going to take the chance he’d put a stop payment on the check. Blanchard was pissed enough to do it, just to teach me a lesson. Then I’d have to go all the way back out there and put my foot in his old ass.”
“His daughter’s dead. You understand why he was pissed, right?”
“I understand it, but I don’t give a shit. You know what I had to do to find that girl? I told you, I stabbed a guy with a fork. A fork. Let that sink in for a minute.”
“I’m only saying sometimes you’re allowed to have some compassion,” Ross said.
“I have compassion, but I also have bills. If it wasn’t for the reward, I’d rather be out here swatting mosquitos with you.”
“How did the Blanchards even get their hands on twenty-five grand in cash? Who has that kind of money sitting around?” Ross said.
“All that money comes from donations. Church, friends, and family. Sometimes it’s the Crime Stoppers; sometimes the police or FBI will offer the reward. I went with Blanchard to the bank—separate cars, of course—where all the reward money was in an account held by a trust. He made a withdrawal, then paid me. Easy stuff.”
“So they’re not rich?” Ross said.
“I don’t think so. They had a couple of Hondas parked out front.”
“Don’t you think they could have used the money? Help them rebuild their lives or something like that?”
Porter took a long pull of his sweating Yuengling. He looked at the wooden fence as he swallowed. The Florida heat had split and cracked it in several places. The grass of the yard was short, but burned and dead in spots.
“That money isn’t going to bring their daughter back.”
“You don’t say.”
“Hell, it wasn’t their money anymore. You can’t advertise a reward for finding a missing person and then not pay it. What was I supposed to do? Tell ’em to keep it? Get real.”
Ross shook his head. His red hair was curly, but cut low to mask the fact that he was fighting a losing battle with his hairline. “You might not be Bill Gates, but you aren’t hurting. How many jobs have you taken in the last year and a half?”
Porter took another pull from his bottle and didn’t answer.
“Seven. That’s the seventh job you’ve had in the last eighteen months. And I know some of them paid you more than what the Blanchards did.”
“So?”
“Your house is nice enough. You don’t have kids—”
“I could have a kid somewhere, you never know.”
Ross continued. “Your car’s been paid off for years and you just keep piling up money. We both know you’re set for a while.”
Ross knew all the uncomfortable details about his finances. He was an accountant and was one of the few people that Porter trusted, which made him uniquely qualified to handle Porter’s money. Ross did a good job and Porter had no complaints, but he didn’t think he was doing all that well in the money department.
“You know how it is. Ever since I quit the Feds, life got expensive. Healthcare’s a bitch when you pay it yourself. I have to save for retirement, pay Tri
sh alimony. The little things add up,” Porter said.
“Trish has never taken a dime from you.” The accountant struck again.
“I’ve tried to give it to her, but she says she doesn’t need it. I think there may have been a Beyoncé song playing when we were talking.”
“It’s because she’s honest,” Ross said.
“Are you saying I’m not?”
“Of course not, but she’s still a better person than you are. That’s why she doesn’t take anything from you. So alimony is out.” Ross picked at his beer’s label.
“Fine, but I still need to look out for number one.”
“I think number one is set for a while,” Ross said.
“What’s your point?”
“I’m saying you might want to think about doing something just because.”
“Just because what?” Porter said.
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Ross said.
“Is there a point coming? If so, would you mind getting to it?”
“Just listen to me for a minute.” Ross paused, and Porter could tell he was choosing his words carefully.
“How can I when you can’t even figure out what you’re trying to say?”