by Harvey, JM
The shorter one was dark haired and built like a car battery, square and low to the ground, with a head like a chunk of concrete and fists as big as sledgehammers. Your standard issue Sheriff’s Department bone-breaker. The other one was tall, heavily muscled and blond with a nose bent slightly out of skew and a neck like a tree trunk. Victoria didn’t recognize the shorter one, but she knew the blond all too well.
She had almost married him twenty years ago.
4
After bathing the twins, Valentine dressed them in shorts and T-shirts that were deliberately unmatched. Max got yellow with a skateboard logo and Kyle got a Troy Aikman Jersey. Val never dressed the twins alike, though Victoria sometimes fell into that little snippet of parental psychosis. Val’s attitude was: why buy two of anything? He saw twins as the ultimate way to economize. And money was tight. Val had a sixty-percent disability pension, but that was just a little more than three thousand dollars a month before taxes. Not enough to live on, but way more than the wound he had received deserved. But the department had been happy to get rid of him at any price. And he couldn’t blame them. One way or another, his career in the Homicide Division had been over. Thanks to the Sutton brothers.
Val took shaving cream and a razor out of the medicine cabinet, lathered up and started scraping away the stubble, but his mind stayed stuck on the Suttons; Lamar and Lemuel.
Victoria’s comment at breakfast, comparing Randall Rusk to the Sutton brothers, had stirred the memories up again. No, that was a lie. The truth was that Lamar and Lemuel were always with him, lurking in the shadows. They had been dead for four years and he still thought about them almost every day - not of the shootout, he avoided that memory at all cost - but of the aftermath. That wasn’t surprising, considering that Lamar and Lemuel’s deaths had ended his career on the police force and almost landed him in the morgue right beside them. And if the talking heads on the TV news had had their way, Valentine would have ended up in a prison cell.
The violent deaths of Lamar and Lemuel and the crippling of their sixteen year old sister, Abby, had made a big splash in the national news thanks to a shaky smart-phone video of Val kicking in the Suttons’ front door followed moments later by a barrage of gunfire. When Valentine had staggered out of the house fifteen minutes later, bleeding and only half alive, five people lay wounded or dead in the rooms behind him. But Val hadn’t been responsible for all that destruction. He hadn’t been the one who shot and crippled Abby Sutton. No matter what the news agencies said about ‘crossfire’ and ‘stray’ bullets, he knew it for a fact. He had watched the teenage girl go down, shot in the back by someone outside the death house. Someone Val had never seen.
But no one had believed Val. Not even Victoria, though she pretended that she did. Sometimes he had a hard time believing it himself.
If only the doctors had been able to remove the bullet from Abby’s spine to run a ballistic comparison to Valentine’s service weapon, but the surgery had been deemed too risky. Abby would have to live with a hunk of lead embedded in her back and Val would have to live with the label of a kill-crazy cop.
‘Vicious Valentine’ was the tag some jackass reporter had given him. And the name had stuck. The reporter had accused Val of cold-bloodedly executing the Sutton boys, a story that the citizens of Dallas were all too willing to believe. And so were Val’s bosses downtown.
An Internal Affair’s lieutenant with eyes like a stuffed fish had given Val a choice: retire or they’d charge him with a pair of homicides. And the charges would have stuck. Val would have gone to prison for a very long time. But he felt no remorse. Some things had to be done. A barrier had to be constructed between the innocent and the darkness and sometimes that meant that the rules didn’t apply; that there were no rules. But he hadn’t tried to explain that to the lieutenant. He had just tossed his badge and gun on the man’s desk and walked out without a word. Twenty-one years of his life gone, but at that moment he hadn’t given a damn. He was being ripped apart by the media, his career was DOA and he was burned out. Too much death, too much time in the black, and it wasn’t just the Suttons. Altogether, Val had worked seventy-three homicides. And killed seven men in the line of duty.
Seven…
The number stuck in his head as he finished shaving. Not that he had any regrets. All seven had gotten exactly what they’d been looking for. And, if they’d been better shots, Val would have been the one lying inside a chalk outline. But that’s where the real issue lay and he knew it: he didn’t care. Not about them. Not even a little bit. What did that say about him? Other than the fact that he was a damned good shot?
Vicious Valentine…
Val looked at himself in the steamed-up mirror over the bathroom sink. He tried on a grin but it just made him look more sinister. There was something in his eyes and the set of his jaw. Something cold. So many years on the job had burned the laughter right out of his face. The shotgun pellet scars didn’t help either, three faint white lines that formed a pattern of horizontal hash marks on his right cheekbone. Not disfiguring, but not pretty. They looked like war paint. Add them to the trio of gunshot wounds that crossed his midriff, the knife scar that ran from his right wrist to his elbow and the band of scar tissue that topped his left shoulder and you had the story of a career highlighted by violence. And he didn’t regret a minute of it.
Hell, he missed it.
With a sigh Val turned away from his reflection and stepped under the shower while the twins played on the mat outside the tub. The boys never strayed far from their father, which made his job a lot easier, but they seemed to get a thrill out of charging for the nearest stairway or light socket when Victoria was in charge. Probably because she freaked out, made diving blocks and swooping catches accompanied by screams and followed by hugs and kisses. Valentine grinned as he soaped up. It actually was kind of funny.
Victoria was the only good thing that had come out of the Sutton brothers’ deaths, he reflected. Most women would have run in the other direction if their boyfriend was accused of murder, but she had stuck with him. She had even married him a year later while the story of Abby’s slow recovery was still news. Of course she had been pregnant at the time…
Val climbed out of the shower and toweled off before putting on raggedy jeans, a pair of grungy old boat shoes and a white short-sleeved shirt made of raw silk. The shirt was a Christmas gift from Victoria. A little fancy for Val, but it was cool in the heat. He stopped and checked himself out in the bathroom mirror. He looked like a hobo with a really nice shirt.
Time for another cup of coffee.
Val put the twins down by the kitchen table, poured the last cup of coffee, which had cooked down to black sludge, and dropped into a chair. The day stretched out blandly before him. Shopping, story-time, nap time, dinner. Same old same. Only the twins made it worthwhile. He liked the fact that they spent all day with a parent, but there were days that he wished Victoria was that parent. Days like Monday through Friday. But her career energized her. Made her what she was. Besides, he was career-less. A house husband. Mr. Mom.
He sipped the coffee. It was hot enough to fry his taste buds and it tasted like tar. He took another swallow. Yep, tar. He took one more sip to confirm once and for all that he made the worst coffee on the planet then sat there staring out the kitchen window at the street, mentally composing a shopping list.
Pull-up diapers were at the top of the list. It was time to get the boys potty trained. He was way past tired of changing dirty diapers. Eggs, milk, bread. He was considering the toilet paper supply when a black Range Rover eased to the curb across the street from the house. The Range Rover’s 4X4 struts and shocks had been chopped, lowering the vehicle a good eighteen inches. Its all-terrain tires had been replaced with twenty-four-inch chromed-out rims and low profile tires. Val sipped his coffee and wondered why anyone would buy a fifty thousand dollar four-wheel drive just to turn it into a car? But, he had to admit, it did look pretty cool…
The Range
Rover drove on and Val turned back to the twins. He would have liked to have another cup of coffee, maybe read the paper and dawdle, but the air-conditioner in the Mustang was about shot and the temperature was supposed to top one hundred that day. It would be too hot to take the twins outside in another couple of hours.
“Saddle ‘em up, cowboys! We got to rustle up some grub,” he said as he stood and did a bowlegged shuffle across the tile, his hands hovering over a pair of imaginary pistols. “But be prepared! There’re rustlers riding the range!” He knew he looked ridiculous, but that was one of the perks of spending your days with a pair of toddlers; maturity was optional.
Max eyed his father like he was an escapee from a mental ward, but Kyle got a kick out of it. He laughed and started throwing cloth blocks at his dad.
That reminded Val. “Baseball gloves!” he said as he scooped up Max. He carted the boy over to the double-seated stroller and strapped him in. Kyle didn’t wait to be carried. He toddled over and tried to climb into the stroller on his own, ending up in the seat face first, chubby legs pedaling air.
“That ain’t no way to treat a horse, pardner,” Val admonished as he flipped him over.
Val checked the diaper bag for supplies. Plenty of ecologically sound cloth diapers that were a true pain in his ass, a few of the boys’ favorite toys, two sets of clean clothes in case one of them barfed, a six -pack of apple juice, and a handful of oatmeal bars. Ready to roll.
“Wagons ho!” He trundled the boys down the hallway, zigzagging left and right to their squeals of laughter. “Detergent!” he said as he opened the front door. “You two,” he pointed a finger at each in turn, “remember detergent. Can you say detergent? De-Ter-Gent.”
“Horses!” Max yelled. “Horses!”
“Horse shit!” Kyle bellowed, spraying spit. “Horse-shit, douchebag!”
5
“Hello, Victoria,” Laroy Hockley said as he stopped in front of her, giving her a smile, his blue eyes pinned on hers. Blue eyes that had once charmed the teenage Victoria right out of her boot-cut jeans. But the smile wasn’t reflected in his eyes; they retained a cool wariness that she understood completely. The last time they had been alone together, Victoria had broken Laroy’s nose for him. And he had deserved worse.
“Laroy,” she said as she offered her hand, “You’re a long way from Houston.” Fifteen years ago, Laroy had left the Dallas Sheriff’s to take a job in the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, the County that bounded Houston and its suburbs. She had breathed a sigh of relief that day, though Houston hadn’t been nearly far enough away for her taste. She would have preferred Jupiter or Pluto.
“I came back to the Dallas Sheriff’s last month. Sheriff Swisher made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he said. Laroy’s eyes shifted to Jack and his smile disappeared. His jaw stiffened and his eyes went hard.
“Hello, Jack. Been a long time,” Laroy said like it hurt his teeth to be polite.
“Hello Laroy,” Jack replied blandly, then looked pointedly at the dark haired cop.
“This is my assistant, Sergeant Henry Erath,” Laroy said, hooking a thumb at the shorter man. “We’re with the Special Tactics Unit,” he added, and Victoria’s sense of unease deepened. The Special Tactics Unit was the Sheriff’s felony warrant squad, better known on the streets as the Scary Thugs Unit, a tag they had earned with riot batons and bullets. Blood in the gutters was their specialty. She had almost indicted four of them just a few months ago for the killing of a Confederate Syndicate member named Willy Henderson, the Confederate Syndicate’s road boss. In the end the indictment had been quashed due to lack of evidence, but it had been a close thing.
“What can I help you with?” Jack asked, one eyebrow raised.
Behind Laroy, four deputies had piled out of the cruisers. In their starched uniforms and highly-shined boots they looked like storm troopers. And their expressions matched their uniforms. They approached the crime scene, but stopped ten feet behind Laroy, their thumbs hooked in their gun belts, eyeing the DPD homicide cops with unveiled hostility.
“It’s us that are going to help you,” Laroy said. “We’re going to take Abby Sutton off your hands.”
“My ass—” Bastrop began, but Jack cut him off with a wave of a bony hand.
“We’re well inside the city limits, Laroy,” Jack pointed out. “And the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have a homicide team, anyway.”
“They do now,” Erath butted in. His voice was nasal and choked with gravel. A Yankee, probably Chicago. “You’re looking at it.”
Bastrop shook his head. “The STU don’t investigate murders, they commit them.”
The deputies lined up behind Laroy grumbled at that, but Laroy just laughed, though, like his smile, the laughter never reached his eyes.
“This is a dump site, Jack, not the murder scene. We have solid information that the homicide occurred outside the city limits.” Laroy replied.
Jack shook his head. “There’s too much blood here for that to be true,” he said. “Corpses don’t bleed.”
Laroy shrugged, “Maybe she died here, but she was shot somewhere else.”
“Where?” Jack asked.
Laroy shook his head. “I can’t do that, Jack. You know the rules. This is a continuing investigation. That information is on a need to know basis.”
“All you need to know is how to read a map,” Bastrop said. “Why don’t you get your girlfriends over there,” he shot a nasty look at the four deputies, “and go back to the sticks? There’s probably some livestock out there that need a body cavity search.”
“Son of a bitch,” one of the unformed deputies, a tall man with a vampire’s complexion and deep acne scars, said as he took a step forward.
Laroy waved him back and started to say something in reply, but Victoria jumped in before things went too far.
“This isn’t the place for this conversation, Laroy,” she interjected. “Preserving the integrity of the crime scene is the top priority. Jurisdictional debates belong downtown. We need to clear all nonessential personnel. I don’t want to have to explain this in court.” A defense counsel could take a confrontation like this, a dispute over evidence and factual information, and twist it right into a conspiracy theory that might set a murderer free. Victoria wasn’t willing to take that risk, no matter whose toes she stepped on.
Laroy cocked his head in her direction. “Preserving the integrity of the crime scene,” he echoed. “Tell me, how do you intend to explain your presence out here in court, counselor?”
“Explain what?” Victoria asked, instantly on her guard. “Jack called me before I left the house this morning. I stopped by on my way to the office. Jack thought we had another serial murder, maybe Randall Rusk’s partner. But, considering the victim, her murder is more likely related to her affiliation with the Confederate Syndicate—”
“You don’t know that,” Erath cut her off. “First it’s serial killers and then it’s bikers. The girl ain’t even in the freezer yet and you got it all figured out.” He shook his square head. “And the most likely suspect, your husband, ain’t even on your list.”
Victoria’s jaw dropped. Though she knew, as Jack had pointed out, that Valentine would be considered a suspect, Erath’s accusation still caught her flatfooted. A startled, “What?” was all she managed to say; so much for courtroom composure.
“You heard me,” Erath replied like a bully on the playground.
Victoria blinked, shook her head and asked, “Are you seriously suggesting that Valentine killed Abby Sutton?”
“I ain’t suggesting it, I’m flat-out saying it. He already shot her once. He would have gone to prison for it if you hadn’t pulled the plug on the case.”
Victoria’s jaw snapped closed so fast she almost took off the tip of her tongue, but she quickly regained her composure. She had had a lot of practice in courtrooms facing murderers and rapists.
“Are you accusing me of misconduct?” she asked icily.
&nbs
p; “You were the prosecutor assigned to the case,” Erath replied.
“No one was assigned to the case because there was no case,” Victoria said, stung by the sliver of truth in Erath’s allegation. Four years ago she had been asked for her opinion of the case against Valentine and, based on the evidence, had rendered one. Abby’s word against a decorated police detective was a no-win case. But all of that had been months before she and Valentine had even started dating. And she damn sure wasn’t going to explain that to Erath. She turned back to Laroy and spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully, her tone brittle.
“This is ridiculous. Valentine is a stay-at-home father,” she said, “We have twin two year olds. He doesn’t have the energy or the time to kill people.”
Erath gave a chuckle that sounded like rocks thrown down a drainpipe. “Been my experience that people find time for the things they love. And your husband sure loves killing people. Seven at last count.”
That was a step too far. Victoria spun to face Erath head on, towering over the shorter man. “You arrogant son of a b—”
“No one is accusing anyone of anything,” Laroy jumped in before Victoria could finish. He shot Erath a ‘shut-the-hell-up’ look that bounced right off the deputy’s blunt features then looked back at Victoria. “I seriously doubt that Valentine had anything to do with this,” he said then turned to Jack, “but having Mrs. Justice here is still a mistake, Jack. And assigning you to the case is an even bigger one. The last time you and Valentine Justice investigated the Sutton family it cost the City of Dallas three million dollars in civil court. You should step away from this. Leave it to us for an impartial investigation. I’ve already discussed this with Sheriff Swisher and he agrees. He’ll be contacting Deputy Chief Ballast over at DPD later this morning.”