Off-duty UPS drivers? Brad wondered, walking toward the truck.
“Can you help . . . ?”
Brad stopped talking when he saw the passenger hop out of the van holding an AK-47 assault rifle.
“Run!” Brad yelled, wheeling toward Jackson.
“If you do, you die,” JimBone Wheeler said, pointing the assault rifle at Tom McMurtrie’s grandson. “And so does your momma, your grandmomma, and both of your baby sisters. You want that, boy?”
Jackson shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Now get in the truck.”
“Jackson, don’t—”
Brad’s words were interrupted by the patter of the AK-47 as JimBone turned and fired at least five rounds into Brad Onkey’s chest and shoulders. The deputy dropped to his knees. “Run,” he gasped at Jackson, who had frozen dead still. As Brad fell over on his side, he saw the driver of the truck approach the boy and shoot him with what looked like a Taser. The boy dropped to the ground.
“No,” Brad whispered, seeing the driver sling the kid’s limp body over his shoulder.
Then Brad felt the barrel of the rifle against his ear, and he closed his eyes.
62
“Jackson!” Nancy shrieked as she saw her son being thrown into the cab of a truck parked on the curb. She ran toward the vehicle, but it was already pulling away.
She started to shout his name again, but then the patter of an assault rifle filled the air. She ducked to the grass and rolled as the windows of her minivan shattered behind her. Finding it hard to breathe, she moved her eyes frantically around the yard. Her mother and two daughters were huddled together by a tree a safe distance from the burning house. They were OK. But just a few feet away from Nancy, Deputy Brad Onkey lay on his side, gazing at her with still eyes. Blood gushed from the back of the officer’s head.
A scream caught in Nancy’s throat, but she forced it back as she returned her eyes to the road.
The truck was gone. Jackson . . . was gone.
“No,” she whimpered, bringing her hands to the side of her face. In the distance, she thought she heard the wail of police sirens. Too late.
Then, as fear and shock and anguish overcame her, Nancy McMurtrie’s throat loosened.
And she screamed.
63
During football telecasts, Rick Drake had often heard the town of Auburn, Alabama, referred to as “the loveliest village on the plains.” At 9:45 p.m., as he drove his Saturn down College Street, it wasn’t hard to see why. Even in the darkness, with the orange-brick buildings lit only by the street and traffic lights, the place was beautiful. As he passed iconic Samford Hall on the left, with its historic clock, he heard his stomach growl. He’d had nothing to eat since scarfing down a burger at lunch, and he realized he was famished. No time for food, he thought as he blinked his eyes and tried to focus.
Seconds later, he saw the intersection with Magnolia Avenue and the green-and-white sign indicating “Toomer’s Drugs.”
Rick found a parking space in front of the store and pulled to a stop. He glanced at the time on his dashboard. 9:47 p.m. Early, he thought, taking a deep breath and rubbing his eyes. He climbed out of the vehicle and stretched his legs. For a second, his calf tightened and he thought he was about to have a cramp, but just as quickly the tension in his leg eased. Rick ambled toward the front door to the drugstore, seeing the CLOSED sign hanging over the door. Then he turned in a complete circle, taking in the scene.
He’d only seen Toomer’s Corner on television after Auburn wins, when the streets were overflowing and the fans rolled the area with toilet paper. Up until last spring, there had been two iconic oak trees that usually bore the brunt of the party, but that all changed when a disgruntled Alabama fan named Harvey Updyke poisoned the trees in November 2010 and then bragged about doing so on the Paul Finebaum radio show.
The school had tried in vain for a couple of years to keep the trees alive, but they were finally removed in April 2013 and as of yet hadn’t been replaced.
“It was prettier when the trees were still here,” a scratchy voice rang out from behind Rick, and he turned to see a man leaning his head out the window of a Ford F-150 pickup truck. He wore a brown cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, and a cigarette dangled out of the corner of his mouth. “But we still rolled the hell out of this place after the Kick Six.”
Rick cringed at the mention of the play that had ended the Iron Bowl three weeks earlier. Alabama had tried a 57-yard field goal as time expired with the game tied. The kick missed, and Chris Davis, from Auburn, had caught the ball in the back of the end zone and run it back 109 yards for the winning touchdown. “That was a hell of a play,” Rick said, forcing a smile. Then he approached the vehicle and stopped a foot from the man. “Mr. Snow.”
“I told you to call me Law.”
“Law,” Rick corrected himself.
“Are you hungry?”
Rick smiled. “Kinda.”
Law nodded. “Hop in then. I’m going to introduce you to a sandwich that ought to be illegal.”
Two minutes later, they sat across from each other at a table at Momma Goldberg’s Deli, on the corner of Magnolia and Donahue. Rick had let the former sheriff order for both of them, and Law ordered two Mama’s Loves on wheat with regular chips and two draft Blue Moons.
Once the food had been brought to the table, Law waited while Rick took a bite.
“Good, huh?” he asked, coughing and then clamping down on his own.
Rick had to admit that the sandwich, which consisted of ham, smoked turkey, and roast beef along with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and some other sauce that Rick couldn’t identify, was fantastic. “Great,” he said.
“The sauce is what makes it,” Law said, then took a long swig of beer from the frosty mug.
Rick did the same and gazed at the man, who had removed his hat when they’d entered the restaurant. Law Snow had matted-down silver locks that were thinning at the temples. His eyes were gray, and they reminded Rick of the Professor’s. “Thank you for dinner,” Rick said. “I was starving.”
“No problem,” Law said. Then, wiping his mouth, he added, his voice low, “I was really sorry to hear about Rel.”
Rick gazed at the golden liquid in his glass. “He saved my life.”
For a minute, the two men ate in silence. Finally, after wolfing down the entire sandwich in about five bites, Rick eyed the other man. He had thought of all the ways he might open this conversation during the five-hour trek, and he knew there was no good or perfect way. Just keep it simple. “Law, why’d you ask me to come here tonight?”
The retired sheriff wiped his mouth with a napkin and crossed his right leg over his left knee. He gazed around the empty restaurant—the dinner hour had long since passed—and, by the impatient glances the waitress had given them when she’d set the food down, he figured they were about to close.
“Now that your stomach is full, are you up for a walk? I don’t know about you, but I think better when I’m moving. The story I’m about to tell you is a long one, and I don’t believe the folks here are going to like it if we stay much longer.”
“Sure thing,” Rick said, finishing the rest of his beer and standing up. “Lead the way.”
A couple minutes later, they were walking down a lit path across the campus of Auburn University. Law had his cowboy hat back on and had put a chaw of Red Man in the side of his mouth. He spat a stream of tobacco and spoke while looking straight ahead. “I’m about to tell you something that might get us both killed. But, seeing as you may get killed anyway and I’ve just been diagnosed with lymphoma, I figure we should take our chances.” He paused and spat more tobacco juice onto the grass adjacent to the walk. In the distance, Rick heard the clock on Samford Hall chime. It was 10:00 p.m.
“I was the sheriff of Walker County for thirty years. Because of me and my efforts, a lot of bad people went to jail. Ninety-nine percent of my work was honest and on the up and up.” He sighed. “With on
e notable exception.”
“Bully Calhoun,” Rick chimed in.
Law snorted. “We all have our weaknesses, I guess.” He sighed. “Mine was money. I knew I’d never make enough to keep my wife satisfied as a sheriff, so I started taking little hits from Bully every time he needed the law . . .” He paused. “No pun intended, to look the other way.” He coughed and brought his hands to his jacket, running them up and down his sleeves as if he were cold. Rick, who was still wearing the suit he’d worn to court that morning, hadn’t noticed the temperature, but he did now. He crossed his arms, thinking it couldn’t be much above forty.
“So I looked the other way,” Law said. “And I made a little money.” He sighed. “But it wasn’t until I bought the cabin that I started making big bank.” The former sheriff came to an abrupt stop and arched his head. Squinting, Rick saw the shadow of Jordan-Hare Stadium. “You know what the happiest day of my life was, son?”
Rick gritted his teeth at the change of subject right when Lawson Snow’s story was beginning to get good, but he indulged the old man. “What day was that?”
“December 2, 1989,” he said, his voice wistful. “It was the first time Alabama ever came to Auburn to play the Iron Bowl. Before that, all the games were played at Legion Field, in Birmingham, which was supposed to be a neutral site but was really just a de facto home field for Alabama. It wasn’t fair, and Coach Dye finally got the game moved here.” He paused and continued to peer up at the concrete facade of Jordan-Hare. “I have never heard a stadium, nor will I ever hear a crowd again, roar like we did on that day. I swear, Alabama could have suited up the New York Giants that day and we’d a still have beat ’em. That’s why Coach Dye will always be the greatest Auburn coach. He brought big brother to our house, and we lit that ass up.” He spat tobacco on the ground and sighed. “Second-best day of my life was when I retired as sheriff. I moved down here a week later, and I haven’t ever been back.”
“You said you started making the big money when you bought the cabin.”
Law nodded. “I’ve always loved fishing. Hell, even now I like to hightail it over to Lake Martin any chance I can get. Don’t matter whether it’s catfish, crappie, bass, trout.” He guffawed. “Hell, I even like fishing in the afternoon off the dock for bream.” He spat again. “I bought the cabin for myself, but when Bully began to get hot and heavy into meth, he started ‘renting’ it from me.” Law made the quote symbol with the index and middle fingers of both hands. “My cabin was close to his primary distributor. It was a neutral location and, because of who I was, no one ever suspected anything. On big transactions, I’d come myself and park my police car out front.” Law nodded, smiling up at the stadium. “Yeah, ole Law made himself some bank—yes, sir, I did.” He sighed. “Course, by that time it didn’t matter. My wife had divorced me and taken my two daughters to live in Cullman. I didn’t need that kind of money anymore, but you might say I got . . . addicted to it.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Oh, at least ten years. Maybe longer. I can’t remember.” He chuckled. “Funny, I can remember a football game in 1989 like it was yesterday, but the ten years I helped Bully Calhoun run meth blend together like one long dream.”
“Did you ever do meth yourself?”
Law scoffed. “Me? Hell, naw. I’ve got two vices, son. One is Tennessee whiskey.”
“And the other?”
Law turned and looked Rick in the eyes. “The other is why my wife left me.” He paused. “And how I met Santonio Jennings.”
Rick waited, sensing that everything was building to right now. Finally, when the retired lawman spoke again, his voice shook with emotion. “I never was much good with women, you see. I . . . Well, let’s just say that my hardware operated more like software, you catch my drift?”
Rick thought he did, but he didn’t dare speak. Instead, he sucked in a breath and tried to be patient.
“One night, about a year before my divorce, I got drunk at a police officer’s banquet in Tuscaloosa.” He laughed. “I mean, knee-walking drunk. Went out afterwards on the Strip and did shots at several places. Gallettes, the Booth before it closed down. The Hound’s Tooth. After the guys I was with were gone, I stumbled downtown and ended up at this bar that I didn’t recognize.” He paused. “I went inside and ordered a glass of Jack Daniel’s Black over ice. This fella sat down beside me and struck up a conversation. I don’t remember much about it, other than my software started acting like hardware again.” Law sighed. “I spent that night in Tuscaloosa and, after that, I began going to that same bar once a month. I could tell my wife knew something was up, but I couldn’t stop.” He spat on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “One night, as I was leaving a motel in Northport, I saw a huge black man leaning against my truck.”
“Rel,” Rick said.
“Right,” Law said. “My wife had sicked him on me. He told me that he knew what I was doing, and that he figured it would be hard to hold the sheriff’s spot if the county found out I was a homosexual and cheating on my wife with a man. I asked him what he wanted and he said two things. That I tell my wife, Kathy, that I was having an affair; he didn’t care whether I told her it was with a man just so long as she knew I was cheating. And that I give him fifteen thousand dollars for his silence.”
Rick felt sick to his stomach. He had grown to admire Rel Jennings in the year that he’d known him. Blackmailing the sheriff didn’t seem to be consistent with the man he thought he had known. “Did you do it?”
“Hell yeah,” Law said. “I did both in a New York minute.” He spat on the ground. “Kathy filed for divorce a month later, which turned out to be a blessing for us both. She remarried a pediatrician in Cullman, and four years after we split I moved here. I live in one of the Gameday condos across the street from Momma Goldberg’s, and I practice my other vice discreetly.” He paused. “And Rel never said a word. He blackmailed my ass, but he kept his promise. He could have gone straight back to Kathy and blown the whole thing up. But he didn’t. Even though I had to pay him, I always thought he’d done me right.”
Rick kicked at the sidewalk and walked a few paces away. Law had done a lot of talking, and Rick still didn’t have the first clue why the former sheriff had called him. What he had been told was shocking, but not very helpful. He was growing impatient. “Law, why was Rel dogging you these past few months? What was it that he wanted from you, and why did you call me down here? Surely it wasn’t to tell me that you’re gay and that you had an affair that Rel had outed.”
Law Snow’s face shined red in the glow from the half-moon above, and Rick knew he’d angered the man. Good, he thought. It’s time to quit messing around.
“Rel knew I had an arrangement with Bully, and he figured I had to know something about Bully’s Filipino enforcer.”
Rick felt his stomach flutter. Finally, we’re getting somewhere. “What did he think you knew?”
Law took a step closer to Rick. “He figured I’d seen the two of them together.”
Rick tried to keep his breathing steady. “Had you?”
Law nodded. “Of course. Many times in fact.” He spat on the grass. “At that cabin I was telling you about, I saw Manny Reyes torture two meth dealers who had double-crossed Bully. She’s a hell of a sniper, but the wiry bitch can fight with her hands too. She had both of those bastards crying and begging for a bullet in the head.”
Rick’s eyes widened. “Are you sure it was Manny Reyes?”
“Five foot three inches tall. A shade over a hundred pounds. Light-brown skin, black hair, and piercing eyes. Speaks fluent Filipino, English, and Spanish.”
Rick pulled the lone photograph they had of Manny, taken from the security camera of the Pink Pony Pub, in Gulf Shores, when she’d tried to kill Bocephus Haynes last year. In the photograph, Manny wore a yellow sundress and white baseball cap. “Who is this?” Rick asked, extending the picture.
Law snatched it from his hand and nodded. “Why,
that’s our girl. Mahalia Blessica Reyes. Hails from Manila in the Philippines. Called Manny by Bully Calhoun in an ode to the great Filipino boxer Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao.”
“How do you know all of this about her?”
Law took another step closer and squinted at Rick. “Lest you forget, boy, I was the sheriff of Walker County for thirty years. I made it my business to know the most dangerous person in town.”
“Did you ever see Bully pay Manny Reyes money?”
“Yes,” Law said without hesitation.
Rick took in a deep breath. Law had seen money exchange hands, and he’d seen Manny torture two meth dealers at Bully’s direction. If he’ll testify to that on the witness stand in Florence, we’ll win, Rick thought, feeling wild exhilaration building within him.
“Law, will you testify to what you just told me on the stand?”
“No, I won’t, son.”
Rick felt like he’d just been sucker punched in the stomach. “But . . .” Rick couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“If I testify that I, as the sheriff of Walker County, Alabama, willingly stood by and watched Manny Reyes torture two drug dealers, who I was knowingly allowing to sell methamphetamine right under my nose to Bully Calhoun, they’ll burn me at the stake.” He spat. “You think I’ve lost my mind?”
“So this is all a tease?” Rick asked, his exasperation palpable. “You teased Rel for six months and now, right in the middle of the damn trial, you lured me down here to Auburn only to snatch the treat away?”
“Rel didn’t care whether I testified in your trial.”
“Bullshit,” Rick said. “He was my investigator and he was pursuing an angle here in Auburn. He was chasing information from you that he knew you had to have, and you just gave it to me. Did you ever tell Rel what you just told me about witnessing Bully Calhoun paying Manny Reyes to torture someone?”
Law shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“So he never got it from you, but since he’s dead you felt guilty enough to invite me down here to the Plains so you could tell me. But then in the next breath you say that you don’t have the balls to testify. Is that it, Law?” Rick spat the name at him and got within an inch of his face. “Go fuck yourself, Law. My partner is dying in Huntsville. My best friend may die in Tuscaloosa. Rel Jennings was shot and killed ten days ago. My friend Bocephus Haynes’s wife was gunned down by a sniper ten days ago too.” Rick paused to catch at his breath. “All of these deaths or shootings have come at the hands of Manny Reyes or JimBone Wheeler, and you have information that may bring Manny to justice and you’re just going to sit on it.”
The Final Reckoning (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers Book 4) Page 23