Athena Sisterhood

by Dharma Kelleher

  So far she had a few pieces of the puzzle. But it wasn’t enough to present to Rios. She still couldn’t confirm who Bonefish was. And despite what her gut was telling her, she couldn’t prove Deb was dealing drugs. Not yet anyway.

  Chapter 35

  Shea spent the rest of the day showing Kyle how to use the pipe bender to fabricate the exhaust pipes. So far Kyle’s attempts resulted in bends marred with ripples, flat spots, and collapses. The lesson would have gone a lot smoother if Shea hadn’t been so distracted thinking about her run-ins with Labrys and the bartender at the Tenth Inning.

  “Dude,” said Kyle. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

  Before Shea could answer, her phone rang. The caller ID told her it was Savage. “Hold on a minute. I need to grab this.”

  She walked away to a quieter corner of the garage. “Hey, Savage. How’s Indigo?”

  “Better. I talked her into going to the ER. Slight concussion and some bruised ribs. Nothing broken, thank God.”

  “Glad to hear it. You hear about the fire?”

  “Bootlegger Bob’s? Yeah. Part of the reason I’m calling. Labrys asked me to put out the word that we’re having an emergency meeting tomorrow night. Don’t know who started that fire, but no doubt the Thunder’s going to be blaming us.”

  “I have a feeling I know who started it,” mumbled Shea. As soon as the words slipped from her mouth, she regretted it. It was just speculation. And if she was wrong, she would be causing division in the club when they needed to be standing together.

  “Really? Who?”

  “Never mind. Rather not say till I know for sure.”

  “Regardless, we need you at Gertie’s tomorrow night at eight.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Until then, keep your head down.”

  Shea hung up as Lakota walked past, waving. “See you tomorrow, Shea.”

  “Yeah.” Shea glanced at the time. It was five.

  Kyle was still working on a bend when Shea returned.

  “Dude, I think I got it.” Kyle pulled the piece of metal from the pipe bender and handed it to Shea. The bend was clean with the center exactly as marked.

  “Good job. We’ll see if we can finish it up tomorrow. Now get on outta here. It’s quitting time.”

  When the rest of the crew was gone and the shop locked up, Shea walked out to the parking lot. The sun had dipped below the horizon and the light was dim and hazy. As she unlocked her helmet, something fell out of it.

  “What the hell?” She picked it up and discovered it was a piece of paper. She walked under the glow of one of the outdoor security lights. The words Mind your own damn business or you’ll get hurt were written in what looked like a woman’s handwriting.

  Shea looked around the empty lot. Labrys. It’s gotta be. Fucking bitch thinks she can push me around, she’s got another think coming.

  Shea took a photo of the note with her phone, attached it to a text she sent, then dialed a number.

  “Detective Rios speaking.”

  “Hey, it’s Shea Stevens. I found your hex dealer. It’s Deborah Raymond, aka Labrys. She’s the president of the Athena Sisterhood.”

  “You’re sure? I can’t afford another false lead like last time.”

  Shea explained about her experience at the Tenth Inning, including her confrontation with Labrys and the note she’d found in her helmet.

  “I’ll look into it,” said Rios.

  “I think she also started the fire at Bootlegger Bob’s.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Just something she said. After the Thundermen ran a couple of our members off the road, Deb told me she was gonna deal with the Thunder, but never explained how. Next thing I know, Bootlegger Bob’s gets firebombed. Also she drives a dark green Audi Quattro roadster.”

  “Convertible?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, thanks for the lead. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, police protection for my family. I can handle myself, but I can’t always be there to protect Annie and my girlfriend. Now I’m worried about retaliation from both the Thunder and Deb.”

  “I’m sorry, Shea, we don’t have the resources.”

  “You put me in this situation. It’s your responsibility to protect my family.”

  “I wish I could, Shea. We’re understaffed as it is. We’re not the U.S. Marshals Service.”

  “Goddamn it, Rios. You got no problem putting civilians in danger, but ya won’t do shit to protect them once they are. Shoulda known better than to trust you.”

  “Hey, I’ll look into Ms. Raymond. If we can get something to hold her on, we will, okay?”

  “And the Thunder? On second thought, forget it. I’ll take care of my own damn situation.”

  “Shea, don’t try—”

  Shea hung up, hopped on Sweet Betsy, and raced north into the darkness. She should have turned south and headed home, but she wasn’t just going to let this threat go unanswered.

  When she arrived at Deb’s place, the house was dark. Shea marched up the porch steps, pounded on the door, and waited for a minute or so, but there were no sounds from within.

  “Where the hell are you, bitch?” Shea yelled at the door.

  Her phone rang. The caller ID told her it was Jessica. “Hello?”

  “Shea, I need help.” Her voice sounded frantic. “I—” The call dropped.

  Shea’s pulse raced as she redialed Jessica’s number. It went straight to voicemail.

  A chill ran up her spine. Jessica!

  Shea pulled on her helmet without bothering with the chin strap. Her motorcycle tore down the street like a rocket while visions of Deb attacking Jessica—or God forbid, Annie—played through Shea’s mind.

  When she hit the highway, her speedometer pushed well into the triple digits. The bike blurred past any cars she encountered. She didn’t even care about cops or wildlife. All that mattered was making sure Jess and Annie were okay.

  She blazed through Olde Towne Sycamore Springs and down the twisties on the south side of Sycamore Mountain. Cascades of sparks erupted from the pavement as she scraped her footpegs in the corners.

  When she finally pulled into her garage, there was no sign of Jessica’s car. Like Deb’s house, all the inside lights were out. Shea tripped over Ninja, the cat, in the dark living room. Her chest tightened. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “Where the fuck are you?”

  Again, she called Jessica’s smartphone, but it went straight to voicemail. “Goddammit!” Her mind raced. She considered calling Rios or even Savage, but there wasn’t much they could do.

  Her mind was too stressed to come up with a rational solution. She needed to calm down and think. Instinctively, she reached for the bottle of Bushmills on the top shelf of the pantry. There was only a quarter bottle left, a lot less than she remembered. Jessica hated the stuff. Was Annie sneaking drinks now?

  “Shit, girl, now you’re getting paranoid.” She filled a tall glass with whiskey and took a long drink. Her body relaxed the instant it hit her throat.

  “Okay, now think.” She plopped onto the love seat and tried to think of ways to track down where Jessica might be. She had emptied the glass and was pouring the last of the bottle in when the front door opened.

  “Hey! Sorry we’re late. Got a flat tire after I stopped at the market.” Jessica walked inside carrying several plastic grocery bags with Annie trailing behind, all bundled up in her winter coat. “Fortunately, this really tall woman stopped and helped me change it. I swear she looked like an WNBA player.”

  Shea pounced on Jessica like a tiger, wrapping her in an embrace. “Thank God you’re home.”

  Relief washed away her most immediate fears, but Deb remained a threat.

  Jessica pulled away. “Shea, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  Shea held Jessica’s gaze for a moment, struggling for the words to say.

  “Aunt Jess, I’m hungry.”

  Without bre
aking eye contact with Shea, Jessica said, “Dinner’ll be ready shortly. Go play in your room for a bit. Shea and I have to talk.”

  As Annie ambled off, shedding her coat, Jess led Shea to the couch. “What’s going on, babe?”

  “I need you to take Annie and stay in a motel room.”

  “A motel room? Why?”

  Shea handed Jessica the note. “It’s just too dangerous.”

  “What the hell, Shea? Who wrote this?”

  A pained expression plastered itself across her face. “Deb, I think. It looks like her handwriting.”

  “Why would she threaten you?”

  “She’s the one dealing hex and she knows I’m on to her. She burned down that biker bar and killed several people. Now she’s after me. I need you two out of harm’s way till I can resolve the situation.”

  “How long will that take? Annie’s just now back in school after her suspension. This kind of disruption isn’t good for her.”

  “Just until Rios has enough evidence to arrest Deb. Shouldn’t be more than a day or so.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can protect myself. I can’t always be there to protect you and Annie. You need to get someplace safe right now. Stay at a friend’s or at a motel, anywhere but here.”

  “We’re about to have dinner.”

  “Dinner can wait. Your safety can’t. I can call Terrance if you want.”

  “I got his number. I can call him.” Jessica cupped Shea’s cheek with her delicate hand. “I’m worried about you, you crazy biker chick.”

  “I’ll be all right.” Shea laid her hand on Jessica’s. “Just lay low at Terrance’s. Things will be back to normal soon enough.”

  “Feels like this is the new normal.”

  “Let’s hope not.” Shea stood up. “Give Terrance a call. I’ll help Annie pack a bag.”

  Chapter 36

  Detectives Rios and Johnson slipped into a lecture auditorium in Mofford Hall and took seats at the back of the room. The lights were dark while a popular sword-and-sorcery television show was being projected onto a screen. In the scene, a male character forced himself on a female character, while she struggled to resist his advances.

  “Geez, this is supposed to be educational?” whispered Johnson with a look of disgust on her face.

  Rios nodded. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  At the conclusion of the scene, the video stopped and the lights went up. Professor Deborah Raymond stood at a lectern at the front of the room.

  “Once again, a popular show depicts rape as just another everyday occurrence with no repercussions. The hero of the show is free to treat women as objects to be used, abused, and thrown away. It is this normalization—”

  “But Professor Raymond,” interrupted a male student, “if she didn’t want to have sex, she should have spoken up and said no.”

  Professor Raymond appeared to consider his response. “Interesting observation, Mr. Dobson. Anyone else?”

  A female student raised her hand. “She did say no. Twice.”

  “Ah, the plot thickens.” Raymond’s eyes widened in mock surprise as she turned to the young woman. “Ms. Cox, did you actually hear Lady Madeleine verbally object to having sex?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Show of hands—who heard Lady Madeleine say no?” Two-thirds of the students, all women, raised their hands. “And how many did not hear her say no?” The remaining third of the class, mostly guys, raised theirs.

  “There seems to be some disagreement on this. Shall I replay the scene?”

  “No!” came the overwhelming response from the student audience.

  A wry smile crept across Raymond’s face. “I agree, once was enough. However, I have watched this scene more times than I like. Not only does Lady Madeleine say no, she does so not once, not twice, but four times. And yet for some reason the men in this room didn’t hear her say it even once.”

  The room grew uncomfortably quiet.

  “But Professor, get real. It’s just a TV show,” said Dobson.

  “Do you think rape only occurs on TV?”

  “No, but seeing it on TV isn’t going to make guys want to rape someone. I watched the scene when it first aired a few months ago and I haven’t raped anyone.”

  “How do you know you haven’t if you can’t hear when a woman objects to having sex, Mr. Dobson?”

  The two locked eyes for a moment. Rios felt the room crackle with tension.

  “My goal is not to shame Mr. Dobson or anyone in this room, but to encourage you to question your assumptions about what rape is, how it happens, and what role it should play, if any, in the entertainment we consume.” She glanced at her watch. “Okay, that’s all for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The room erupted with the sounds of notebooks snapping shut, book bags being shuffled, and students talking as they left the auditorium. Raymond gathered her belongings from the lectern.

  “Professor Raymond! Might I have a word?” asked Rios as she and Johnson meandered through the last of the stragglers.

  “May I help you?” asked Raymond.

  Rios held up her badge. “Detectives Rios and Johnson, Cortes County Sheriff’s Office. Interesting presentation.”

  “Thank you. I wasn’t aware the sheriff’s office was so interested in my course on the depiction of women in media.”

  “We’re not. We actually have some questions for you.”

  “About?”

  “Perhaps we should do this in your office.”

  Raymond regarded Rios and her partner. “Very well. Come with me.”

  —

  Professor Raymond led Rios and Johnson up a set of stairs and along a corridor past a bulletin board littered with pamphlets advertising opportunities to study abroad, postcards offering tutoring services, and flyers asking for study partners. The linoleum floor inclined sharply for a few feet as they entered an older section of the building. Doors to professors’ offices were festooned with a listing of office hours, postings of recent test scores, and printed versions of Bloom County and Far Side cartoons.

  Raymond unlocked her office door and escorted them inside, where framed certifications and overstuffed bookshelves lined the walls surrounding a small, cluttered desk, a minifridge, and a few chairs. “Have a seat,” said Raymond.

  “Thanks.” Rios studied the cramped surroundings. No photos of family or pets anywhere.

  “So what does the sheriff’s office want to know?” Raymond sat behind her desk, fingers steepled.

  “Ms. Raymond, in add—”

  “It’s Professor Raymond.”

  Rios forced an apologetic smile. “Of course. Professor Raymond, in addition to your work here at the university, you are the president of the Athena Sisterhood Motorcycle Club. Is that correct?”

  Raymond eyed them with suspicion. “Yes, that is correct. Why?”

  “I understand you gals have been having some trouble with the Confederate Thunder?”

  “We women have been repeatedly harassed and assaulted by those racist, sexist criminals, who feel it’s their privilege to decide who calls themselves a motorcycle club. Can I assume you’ve made some arrests?”

  “We are looking into it. However—”

  “In other words, no, you haven’t.”

  “Not as of yet. We’re here on a separate matter.” Rios laid out photos of the four overdose victims. “Do you recognize any of these women?”

  Raymond briefly glanced at each one then shook her head. “No, I don’t. Should I?”

  Rios raised an eyebrow. “None of them look familiar? Check again.”

  The professor sighed and looked closer at the photos. She pointed to one of them. “That’s Pipes. She was a member of the Sisterhood. Unfortunately, she was a drug addict. Guess her disease finally caught up to her.”

  “All four of these women died from ingesting hex laced with strychnine. Are you familiar with the drug hex?”

  “It’s heroin cut with ecsta
sy, right?”

  Rios smiled. “Trust a professor to know the right answer, especially one as in tune with popular culture as yourself.”

  “What’s any of this have to do with me?”

  “We have a witness that claims she saw a member of the Sisterhood dealing hex in the ladies’ room at the Trip Hop Lounge.”

  Raymond’s face turned to stone. “You’ve been misinformed. We have a strict prohibition against illegal substances in our bylaws. If Pipes hadn’t overdosed, she probably would have been kicked out for using.”

  “I understand that motorcycle clubs are very territorial,” said Johnson. “Why is that?”

  Rios wasn’t sure where Johnson was going with this new line of questioning, but decided to let the young detective run with it.

  “Any number of reasons. Ego and control, mostly.”

  “That would include control of income streams, right?” asked Johnson.

  “In some cases, yes.”

  “So hypothetically, an existing club that’s dealing, say, methamphetamine wouldn’t appreciate a new club in their territory that’s dealing hex, for instance.”

  Rios smiled as she saw Johnson’s angle and watched Raymond squirm.

  “Hypothetically speaking, yes.”

  “Is that why the Confederate Thunder doesn’t want you gals—excuse me, you women, around?”

  “I told you, the Athena Sisterhood does not deal drugs.” Raymond’s hand gripped the side of the desk, her knuckles turning white. “The question you should be asking is why the county sheriff gives the Thundermen a pass, while you harass the very people who are fighting for your equality.”

  “Well, I’m not—” Johnson tried to interject.

  “Don’t interrupt! We filed a complaint when they harassed us at Gertie’s. Anyone arrested then? No. Any arrests after they attacked us at an Iron Goddess event? Of course not. How about when they killed a dozen Mexicans with a bomb a few months ago?”

  “Professor Raymond!” said Rios firmly. The professor’s eyes burned holes into her. “While I certainly appreciate your concerns, the DA felt there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Jaguars case. That said, I am interested in further discussing the conflicts you and your organization have had with the Thunder.”