by John Bowers
“I hope you will think about what I said, Marshal. If you don’t, you may regret it.”
“Like Ron Gates regretted it?” Nick replied.
Tatum’s lips parted in shock. He stared at Nick another five seconds, then followed Peloni out the door.
Chapter 24
In the heat of an investigation, you may have many suspects. Suspects are not always what they seem; don’t become fixed on a single person—doing so may blind you to the identity of the real perpetrator.
Page 331, U.F. Marshal Handbook
The minute the door closed behind the two strangers, Kristina Norgaard burst into laughter.
“Smuggling gooseberry? What was that all about?”
Nick looked at her in surprise, then grinned. “I just wanted to keep them off balance.”
The girl placed her arms on the bar and buried her face, laughing hysterically. Suzanne was also smiling, and laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
“That was masterful,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll be back.”
But Nick’s grin faded.
“They’ll be back,” he said. “This isn’t over.”
Roy Blake stood in the middle of the dining room, still spinning his hat in his hands. He watched until the two men drove away, then turned and stared at Nick.
“What makes you think they were KK?” he asked, worry in his eyes. “Their credentials said Texiana Police.”
“I don’t question those credentials. The KK is a political police force, and from what I’ve read, most of its members are either in law enforcement or have a law enforcement background. It gives legitimacy to their actions, but at its core the KK is a terrorist organization.”
Nick retrieved his coffee cup and took a sip.
“Did you see those lapel pins?” he added. “That’s their trademark emblem.”
“The hell you say!” Blake looked disturbed. “Lucius Clay wears a pin like that. I thought it was just a symbol of his party!”
“Which party does he belong to?”
“The Sirian Democrat.”
“What do you think are his chances of getting elected?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. He has some serious opposition, but a lot of people like the idea of confederation. I think he might win.”
Nick chewed his lip thoughtfully.
“If the KK is backing him,” he said, “you can bet on it.”
The thought depressed him. He turned back to the bar and retrieved his breakfast, which had started to cool.
“Join me for breakfast, Sheriff? It’s on me.”
Kristina heated up Nick’s breakfast again while he and Roy Blake took a table near the bar. Blake ordered breakfast on Nick’s tab and sipped coffee while he waited.
“The KK killed Ron Gates,” Nick said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Blake reacted visibly.
“What makes you think I knew that?” he demanded.
Nick shrugged, biting off a piece of bacon.
“You told me you worked closely with Ron Gates. He was working on the missing girls case, but you didn’t know anything about it. Based on what just happened, Gates probably drew KK attention too, but you never mentioned that to me.”
Blake looked flustered. “If they came to see him, I never knew about it.”
“But you did know about the missing girls. Dr. Taylor reported four of them to you, but when I asked, you denied any knowledge of it.” Nick laid his fork down and stared into the sheriff’s eyes. “So, what the hell am I supposed to believe?”
Blake slowly turned red. Nick hadn’t raised his voice, so others in the dining room wouldn’t have overheard, but it was humiliating to be called a liar. He glared at Nick a moment, then leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table edge.
“Listen here, Walker—nobody fucks with the KK, you understand? Nobody!”
“So you did know.”
“Let’s say I suspected. Yeah, I knew about the girls. I knew Gates was workin’ the case. And I knew he was reachin’ for a scorpion snake without gloves. I kept as far away from that as I could, because I knew what would happen to him, and it did. I didn’t tell you because you seemed like a nice kid, and I didn’t see any point of you gettin’ buried beside Gates.”
Nick’s smile spread slowly, his eyes cynical.
“And if I didn’t find out about the girls, the KK would stay away from Kline Corners.”
Blake nodded. “That too. Listen, nobody is gonna stop the slave trade on this planet. It’s a fact of life, and it’s only going to get worse. In a few years the Federation will pull out, and whatever you or I try to do before that will mean nothing. I don’t personally see the point in getting myself killed over it unless it might do some good.” He stabbed a finger at Nick’s chest. “You can do whatever you want.”
Nick nodded and stabbed a cottage potato with his fork. He had suspected Blake would be useless if Nick really needed him. Now it was official.
Nick, Nathan, and Dennis Green took a hovercar out to the highway intersection to retrieve the taxi and Nick’s rental. The round trip took close to four hours, and Nick spent a few minutes looking over the scene, but there was really nothing there of evidentiary value. The pickup was gone, which was no surprise. Joel Graves, if he had been the one with Slim Owens, had escaped capture and would have been hiding not far away until Nick and Nathan left with the hovervan. Where he’d gone was a good question, but Nick suspected he was safely in Texiana by now. How else would the KK have known that Nick had killed three of their people?
Driving back to Kline Corners alone, Nick thought the situation through. The KK hadn’t wasted any time coming down to threaten him, which meant they’d learned of the incident within hours after it happened. Only Joel Graves knew the details, so he had to be their source. Taking it one step further…if Joel Graves was in contact with the KK, then his father had to be involved with them too.
Well…he didn’t have to be involved—Joel was eighteen, a legal adult—but Nick found it unlikely that Joel was connected to the KK and Gerald Graves wasn’t.
When he reached Kline Corners, Nick stopped in at Dr. Taylor’s to check on the rescued women and get his arm treated, then went straight to his office. It was after noon by then; the wind was quiet, but the heat was stifling. Nick turned on the air conditioning and settled down at his computer. He wrote a report about the previous day’s events and subspaced it to London, then did a SiriusNet search on Harry Reed. What he found was innocuous enough, a generic biography that included the man’s political philosophy, party affiliation, election history, etc. Nothing sinister at all. His flat photo showed an ugly, shriveled little man so unremarkable that he could have disappeared into a crowd of three.
Nick downloaded the photo and transferred it to his pocket computer.
Next he searched for the KK, but found amazingly little. From the data available on the net, the KK sounded no more dangerous than corporate security guards, yet he had it on good authority that they were the most powerful organization on the planet. He did learn that the name came from the Greek word kuklos, meaning “circle”, and was descended from an ancient terrorist brotherhood called the KKK. Nick had heard the name back on Terra.
The KK wasn’t unique to Texiana. Quite the opposite—they had first been formed in Missibama, the seat of Sirian political power. The fact that they were also active in Texiana demonstrated their global sweep, and the very scarcity of information on the net was also revealing; the net was a wealth of data on any subject one could imagine, yet the KK was virtually ignored? It took real power to so thoroughly suppress that information.
Nick shut off the computer and walked across the street. He saw half a dozen people on the sidewalks, keeping to the shade as much as possible. Nick breathed through his mouth to get as much oxygen as possible—the heat was well over 115 Fahrenheit. He reached Roy Blake’s office and stepped inside.
Blake had a fan going, but the office was stuffy. Bl
ue smoke from Blake’s cigarette didn’t help. Blake looked up from his chair, his expression sullen. His feet rested on the corner of his desk.
“Where’s Gerald Graves?” Nick asked pointedly.
Blake looked annoyed. “Willis Kline picked him up for work this morning.”
“Sirian Summer is here. How much longer does Kline need him?”
Blake shrugged. “Ask Willis.”
“What time does he usually bring him back?”
“Around five or six. Whenever they get done work.”
Nick compressed his lips and drummed his fingers on the counter. After a moment he nodded and turned for the door.
“Call me the minute he gets back. I’ll be at the Vega.”
Blake’s boot hit the floor with a thud, and he lumbered to his feet.
“Just goddamn minute, Marshal!” he bellowed.
Nick turned back to face him.
“I ain’t your goddamn niggo!” Blake thundered. “If you don’t like me, then fine, but I don’t work for you! So don’t be givin’ me orders!”
Nick stared at him a moment, torn between contempt and disgust. Blake was right—Nick didn’t like him—but maybe he was expecting too much from the man.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” he said quietly. “I’ll be over at the Vega. I would appreciate it if you would let me know when Graves comes in. Would you mind? Terribly?”
Blake scowled at the mocking tone, but Nick hadn’t left him anything to grab on to. Breathing heavily, he just nodded.
“I’ll call you.”
Nick stepped out onto the sidewalk. His watch told him it was fifteen hundred, two or three hours before Graves was due to return to the jail. He crossed the street to the hotel and took the stairs two at a time, ignoring a perfunctory greeting from Sam.
His room felt like a sauna, but he didn’t bother with the air. Instead he unzipped his space bag, took out the second holster he’d bought from Jenkins, and attached it to the left side of his gunbelt. He transferred the laser pistol from the right-hand holster to the left, then opened the box containing the Ru-Hawk .44 calibre. Hefting it lovingly, he checked the loads and firmly shut the cylinder, then pushed the heavy pistol snugly into the holster on the right. He opened a small bag and pulled out half a dozen speed loaders, each with six rounds, and slipped them into his pockets. For good measure, he opened a box containing fifty more rounds and dumped them, a handful at a time, into his other pockets.
Nick checked himself in the mirror. Western pants, western shirt, hat, boots, star, and two guns. Now he really did look like Yancy West…but he no longer felt silly about it. Instead, he had a sneaking sensation that he might not be carrying enough firepower.
He turned and left the hotel room, locking the door behind him.
Nick was sweating when he entered the Vega. It was dark inside and he took a deep breath of the cool air. The tables were empty and that exotic music was playing again. Only one man was seated at the bar, and as Nick walked toward him he recognized Willard Kline.
The big man saw him in the mirror behind the bar and turned his head.
“There you are!” he boomed in his customary subdued voice. “I was looking for you.”
Nick dropped onto a stool and rested his elbow on the bar.
“You have my full attention, Mr. Kline.”
Kristina came out of the kitchen, smiled at Nick, and reached into the nitro-cooler for a cold glass and a pitcher of ice water. She poured Nick a glass, then refilled Kline’s beer mug from the tap. Kline ignored her.
“I put out the word, like you asked. I told my employees that I expect them to give you full cooperation whenever you ask for it. I also told them that serf women are to be treated the same as white women, and any man who I catch doing otherwise will have to answer to me, before I turn him over to you.”
Nick tried to maintain his poker face, but could hardly contain his astonishment. He stared at Kline for ten full seconds before replying.
“You told them that? No shit?”
Kline nodded soberly.
“I did.” He tipped his beer mug, took a swallow, then turned his stool to face Nick squarely.
“You know, Walker, I got a feeling you don’t like me much, in spite of your courteous professional attitude. Maybe you think I’m just playing you along, sort of tolerating you while I do whatever the hell I want, legal or not. I get the feeling that you think I approve of this slave business, or stealing little girls from my villages and selling them to strangers.”
He pointed at Nick’s face.
“But let me tell you something, Marshal—I don’t. I’ve been on Sirius most of my adult life, and I fully understand the culture up north, but I don’t like it one damn bit. That’s one reason I established my ranch outside the state borders, because I don’t like how those people up there think.
“I grew up in Texas. Women were respected there. Men—real men—protected women from insult. And so do I.”
Kline glanced behind the bar, where Suzanne Norgaard had entered the dining room and stood listening.
“When Suzanne was just a girl, her parents owned this place.”
“I already told him,” Suzanne said quietly. Kline nodded.
“So you’ve heard the story,” he said to Nick. “Well let me tell you the part that Suzanne probably left out. We found those six cowboys that murdered her parents and left Suzanne for dead. She identified them as the killers and they didn’t deny it.”
Kline stopped for a moment, his eyes glazing with memory. Nick sat silent, waiting. Kline focused on him again.
“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, “because if you wanted to be an asshole you could probably arrest me. But there was no U.F. Marshal here then, and Texiana law had no jurisdiction down here. We strung those cowboys up, Marshal, right out there on Main Street. The whole town turned out to watch, and nobody protested even a little bit. And I took Suzanne into my home until she was old enough to take over the Vega by herself. That, Marshal Walker, is how I feel about women.”
Kline reached for his beer and took another swallow.
“I’ve been told,” Nick said, “that some of your employees rape serf women from time to time.”
“I’ve heard that too, and I won’t claim it isn’t true. But I don’t condone it, and if I catch anyone doing it, I’ll—”
“Hang them too? Over a serf woman?”
Kline’s face hardened and a flush crept up from his neck.
“No. I would turn them over to you.”
“How many did you turn over to Ron Gates?”
Kline’s face turned even darker with anger.
“Maybe you didn’t hear anything I said?”
“I heard every word. And I believe you when you say you’re willing to protect a woman. But the only example you gave me involved a white woman.”
Kline slammed his beer mug down on the bar, slopping suds across the surface.
“Goddammit!”
“Mr. Kline, where is Joel Graves?”
Kline sat breathing heavily, angry and frustrated.
“I can’t find the little bastard.”
“Did you ask his father?”
“Yes, and Gerald doesn’t know.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes!”
“Do you know that Gerald Graves murdered Dr. Paul Taylor?”
Kline recoiled in surprise.
“That was self defense! Gerald said Dr. Taylor attacked him.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You tell me. You recruited Paul and Alice Taylor to set up a practice here. Was Paul Taylor a violent man?”
“No,” Suzanne interjected. “He wasn’t.”
Kline sat glaring at Nick, but his brow was creased.
“All I know is what Gerald told me. Paul Taylor was dead, and I couldn’t ask him. Roy Blake said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Gerald with anything, and I had no choice but to t
ake his word for what happened.”
“But there was a serf girl involved, wasn’t there?”
“Alice claims there was. She got there before anyone else and she said her husband was still alive. He told her there was a girl, but Gerald said there wasn’t. And we never found a girl.”
“How hard did you look?”
Kline spread his hands, as if Nick were being unreasonable.
“I’m not a lawman, Marshal. It’s not my job to investigate killings, and I don’t have the training. Roy said lack of evidence, so I left it at that.”
Nick took a deep breath and poured more ice water. He drank, and turned to Kline again.
“Do you have any reason to suspect that Gerald Graves is connected to the KK?” he asked.
Kline looked shocked. He sat up straight, his jaw dropped an inch.
“The KK! Gerald Graves? I don’t believe that for a minute!”
“Are you connected to the KK?”
“Hell no! And I resent the implication! The KK are a gang of ruthless bastards, and I hate every fucking one of them!”
Nick dipped his head.
“No insult intended. I had to ask.”
Kline blinked rapidly, but his breathing slowed a little.
“All right, no offense taken. But what makes you think Gerald has anything to do with them?”
“The men I killed yesterday were KK, and Gerald has been selling girls to them—”
“Allegedly.”
“Allegedly my ass. I have witnesses, and I caught his son doing the same thing.”
Kline held up both hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay, I leave that to you. All I’m sayin’ is that I find it all really hard to believe.”
Kline shoved his beer mug toward Suzanne and she refilled it.
“Nick, did you have lunch?” she asked. “I can get you something.”
Nick shook his head. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but didn’t feel hungry. Kline had turned away from him and was nursing his beer, as if the conversation had taken all his energy. Nick watched him a moment, then stood up and placed his hat on his head.
“Mr. Kline, thank you for setting me straight. I was a little suspicious of you, but after what you just told me, I’m not anymore. I believe you.”