The Righteous Path: A Parker County Novel (The Parker County Novels Book 1)

by James D F Hannah

  “No reason to think it’s not the same people. No reason they’d blow up the florist shop, either.”

  “We’re short on reasons they beat up two different pairs of old people.”

  Matt nodded. He pointed to the burning building.

  “You know what this is?” he said.

  “What?”

  “A message. That they’re done dicking around. They mean business.”

  “What they did before wasn’t what I’d call ‘dicking around.’ They put old people in the hospital.”

  “I’m not saying that their gauge is properly set; I’m just saying this is an escalation tactic.” He glanced over at her. The light from the flames showed light purple on her face. The firefighters were getting the blaze under control. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m pissed. They pulled a gun on me.”

  “Did you identify as a police officer?”

  “I didn’t. Didn’t show ID or a weapon. Wouldn’t have done any good.”

  “Think they’d have shot you?”

  “They had me right there. They could have shot me.”

  “A good thing they didn’t.”

  “I suppose that’s where I should be thankful for the small things.”

  “One should always be grateful for not getting shot. That’s a damn fine day right there.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Well, after watching the flower shop burn up, going home and taking allergy medicine seems like a good idea.”

  “It’s always surprising when Benadryl gets used for its intended purposes around here.”

  “How cynical of you, Crash.”

  “I’m a person who’s spent a crazy amount of time busting meth labs, Matt. Cynical and realistic are synonyms sometimes.”

  At the end of the street, near one of the trooper roadblocks, a car pulled up and Matt and Crash watched as a man in shorts and a polo shirt got out. Matt would have guessed him somewhere well into midlife, with skinny arms and legs and a round gut and a gray mustache pushed onto a thin, drawn face. He talked to the state troopers, peering over their shoulders and staring at the fire, shaking his head. The flames reflected in the wetness on his face.

  Matt tapped Crash on the shoulder and they walked over. Matt introduced himself and Crash.

  The man shook Matt’s hand. “I’m David Winthrop. That was my flower shop.” He sniffed and blew his nose into a handkerchief. “That’s my fucking life there, Sheriff.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Mr. Winthrop,” Matt said. “Any idea who would do this to you?”

  Confusion crossed Winthrop’s face. “What do you mean? You mean it’s not an accident. Someone said it was a gas leak.”

  Crash said, “I confronted a pair of individuals running away from your shop just before the explosion. We suspect they’re the ones responsible for causing the fire.”

  “I’m at a loss about that. I’m a fucking florist, for Christ’s sake. I make wedding bouquets. We donate all the flowers to the high school for homecoming every year. There’s nothing I do that would cause someone to do something like this.”

  “Is there an off chance you know Gary Campbell or Peter Carlton?”

  “Sure. I see them at Chamber of Commerce meetings, and they tried to get me to join this group a couple years ago, when I bought the shop.”

  “Was it the Benevolent Order of the Everlasting Knights?”

  “That sounds right. It seemed like bullshit, a bunch of old guys wanting to keep the thing alive.”

  “When did you buy the shop?” Crash said.

  “Nine or ten years ago. Bought it from Frank Dodson before he retired and moved down to Florida. Gary and Peter, they said Frank had belonged to the Order and felt like it’d be nice to carry the tradition.”

  “You didn’t join?” Crash said.

  Winthrop’s smile pushed the mustache out across his face. “I’m not the fraternal organization type. It didn’t seem like my thing.”

  Matt nodded. “You kept the shop’s old name, though.”

  “Shop’s been here for decades. Made no sense to come in, change all of that. People came and bought flowers, so who cared what I called the place.” Winthrop glanced up and down the street. “Was anyone hurt?”

  Crash said, “No. Is there any chance you’ve gotten any unusual communications in the past few days? Weird phone calls? Strange letters?”

  Winthrop held up a finger. “Hold that thought for a moment.” He rushed back to his car and opened the rear driver’s side door, bending over and looking around the back seat. Matt and Crash traded looks with one another, and Crash shrugged.

  Winthrop popped back out of the car, holding a manila envelope. He walked back and handed it to Matt. “I got that yesterday. Was slid through the mail slot on the shop door.”

  The envelope was blank. No address, no stamp, no marking of any kind. Matt flipped it around and drew out a folded sheet of paper.

  “At first, I thought it was some kind of joke,” Winthrop said. “People do weird stuff all the time. Could have been a promotion for a business opening in town. Who knows? But I checked around and no one else had gotten anything like this.”

  It looked like a ransom note from a movie, the words constructed from cutouts from magazines and newspapers. It read, “We want what’s ours. We want the Guthrie money.”

  19

  Matt was already up when Rachel stirred. By the time he came home, showered, and got to bed, he was still too wired to sleep, and instead he tossed and turned most of the night. He was sure he had kept Rachel awake along with him. She was a light sleeper but too polite to ever admit his insomnia affected her.

  He felt groggy, and his body ached as he made himself coffee and went to sit on the back deck. This time of day, on a Saturday, the neighborhood was quiet, with the early-morning crickets chirping and the grass wet with dew. It was warm already, and Matt suspected summer would be brutal. The dew would turn into humidity, and the air would get heavy and wet, and the oppressive nature would weigh him down with every breath he took.

  This wasn’t some new thing, either—something that had just come from global warming. Matt remembered most of his summers this way, where the air always felt like it was teetering on the brink of a storm, where standing outside and doing nothing could still reduce clothes to wet rags in a matter of minutes. It made him want to do nothing more than sit inside with the air conditioning running full blast.

  A lawn mower started down the street. Matt gave his own lawn an appraising gaze. It could probably do with a mow. Not that he could do it. He couldn’t imagine pushing the mower through, front yard and back. Thinking about it made him tired. Maybe he could hire one of the neighborhood kids to do it.

  That thought seemed worse somehow. Because then it became the acknowledgment that he wasn’t who he used to be. It wasn’t the simple act of getting older. It was that he was dying. Dying faster than the people around him. Several summers back, when it had been just him, when he had been drinking too much and staring at the blank walls and hating himself, when he had gone out and wrestled his ancient lawn mower into submission, priming the engine and yanking the cord, and it finally stirred to life in an oily blue haze. He pushed it around, shearing the grass down to a level just above the soil. He hated mowing the grass. Hated it with a passion. Did it only because the last thing he needed was the neighbors talking shit about him, going on that the sheriff didn’t take care of his lawn.

  And here he was, back with Rachel, and he couldn’t do it. That most basic of husbandry chores. Another brick slid into the invisible wall between him and the rest of the world. The living, breathing world. The divide, greater, taller, wider, with every passing day. But what hurt worse than anything—the cut that slit the door —was knowing there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it. All he had left was this. Just working to move forward. Keep being a good cop. Try to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Hope that it wasn’t too much for Rachel when he was gone. />
  He heard the door open and her footsteps coming up behind him. She tried to be stealthy, but she lacked that gift. He smiled at the thought of her sneaking up on him, on her tiptoes, ever so sure she was getting one on him.

  Rachel set a cup of coffee down on the table next to Matt, then rested her head on top of his head and wrapped her arms around his chest. He took hold of her hands and held them there.

  “Did I scare you?” Rachel said.

  “Terrified me. I’m stunned the heart attack didn’t do me in.”

  She kissed his head and came around, taking the chair next to him. “How bad was this thing last night?”

  “I hope you don’t have any floral arrangements ordered for the near future. Outside of what you’re planning for the funeral.”

  She shook her head. It was the slightest hint of movement, really, and the unobservant eye might not have noticed it, but Matt, through the years, he had learned her behaviors, trained to pick them up.

  “Not today, honey,” she said. “I don’t need this today.”

  He took her hand. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Matt talked to her about the fire. She listened the way she always did, with small nods and the occasional “uh-huh” or a question to clarify something. The times when no one was hurt, she was more attentive, more acknowledging. When there was something with serious injuries, with fatalities, those were harder for her, and the listening became more passive. Matt knew it wasn’t that Rachel didn’t care; it was that she couldn’t handle it. Even after all these years, Rachel struggled to process the human capacity to harm one another.

  The doorbell rang. They each glanced at the front door, then one another.

  “Did you invite someone over for brunch?” Matt said.

  “Not anyone we like.”

  Matt pushed himself out of the chair and answered the door. It was Crash. She wore a Dead Kennedys T-shirt and blue jeans and held a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and had a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. Matt realized he had never seen Crash carry a purse.

  Crash said, “I spent the morning looking into Frank Dodson. Plus, the surveillance video from Campbell’s place got dropped off at the office this morning. I thought you might want to see it.”

  Matt looked at Crash through the screen door. “Good morning, Crash.”

  She smiled. “Morning, Sheriff.”

  “It’s Saturday morning, Crash.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Crash blinked. She looked at him with an utter lack of guile. There were times Matt felt like he was dealing with a little kid, one who couldn’t tell a lie, who couldn’t pick up on social cues. She would have been the one who showed up at a neighbor’s house at eight in the morning, first day after moving in, asking if they had kids who wanted to come outside to play.

  Matt let her in and led her to the back deck. Rachel lifted her eyebrows as they came through the door, then turned on a functional smile and sipped her cup of coffee.

  “How are you this morning, Crash?” Rachel said.

  Crash pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “Wide awake and excited about life.”

  “Wonderful.” Rachel’s gaze turned to Matt. “It’s Saturday, Matt.”

  Matt nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  Rachel gave a small exhale. “Should I make brunch then?”

  “I think we’re good, honey. I might make myself a couple of eggs in a bit. I’m not sure if Crash is hungry.”

  Crash began to empty the contents of her messenger bag onto the table. “I ate before I came over,” she said as she opened a laptop.

  “Must have been awfully early,” Rachel said.

  “It was.” Next came some paperwork and a DVD jewel case.

  Rachel exhaled again. “I’ll go find things to do while you crime busters bust crime and whatnot.”

  She rose to her feet, coffee cup in hand, and headed for the door. Matt reached out and took her by the waist and pulled her toward him, his eyes meeting hers. Her smile remained faint and elusive. She kissed him lightly, their lips brushing against one another.

  “You kids have fun now.” She pulled herself loose and went inside.

  Matt took the chair next to Crash. She furrowed her brow. “I don’t feel like Rachel likes me much.”

  “It’s Saturday, Crash.”

  Crash looked at Matt like a puppy, not sure what she had done wrong.

  Matt shook his head. “Let’s get started.”

  20

  Matt glanced at the DVD in its plain plastic jewel case. The DVD had the Tri-Comm emblem stickered onto it, but otherwise, the envelope was empty. “No note or anything. Not even something from the attorney.”

  “I didn’t make the best of impressions when I delivered the court order.”

  “Turned on all the charm?”

  “Man was an asshole. Wanted to give me shit.”

  “That’s something to expect out there, Crash.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to tolerate it. I don’t wear a badge because it brings out the color in my eyes.”

  “But it does.”

  Crash set the disk inside the computer’s DVD drive and twisted the laptop around so they both could watch the screen.

  The video was black and white and grainy, split into four quadrants: the front yard of the Campbell house, the back yard, the garage entrance, and a side view of the house.

  “How much footage is there?” Crash said.

  “The court order asked for from the time the Campbells said they left for that night, leading up to when Tim arrives on the scene. To be sure we got when the suspects broke in.”

  Crash leaned in close to the monitor, squinting. “That’s five hours.”

  “You’ve got somewhere else to be?”

  “We can fast forward past this stuff and get to where someone is actually breaking in.”

  “You must be a terrible movie date.”

  “Hush, or I won’t buy you any popcorn.”

  Crash fast-forwarded through the video until two figures appeared in the quadrant covering the back yard. Both wore Halloween masks over their faces. One mask was of a long-faced man with a mustache, and the other was of a white-faced woman, pink cheeks and red lips painted into a bow.

  “The one is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask,” Crash said. “V for Vendetta bullshit. That other one, the baby doll–looking one, that’s like the one the chick wears in The Purge.”

  “What the fuck is The Purge?”

  “It’s a horror movie. Haven’t you seen it?”

  “I’ve not. I’ll bet I’m not missing out on much, either.”

  “It’s political bullshit, but it’s okay.”

  “These look like the folks from last night?”

  “Body-wise, yes. They weren’t wearing those same masks, but build and everything matches.”

  Both wore black, both wore gloves. Guy Fawkes carried a crowbar, and Baby Doll a baseball bat. The bat used to kill the Carltons’ dog. Coming ready, Matt thought. Not just about violence or causing chaos. With these assholes, there was an intent.

  Matt moved the footage ahead, almost frame by frame, as Guy Fawkes whacked at the doorknob with the crowbar over and over until it fell off. Guy Fawkes pushed the door open with one finger, then looked at Baby Doll. They gave one another a nod and walked inside.

  “So now they go and deactivate the alarm,” Matt said.

  “We still don’t know how they knew the code, though.”

  “When we catch them, we can ask them.”

  “That’s a huge vote of confidence toward our collective sleuthing abilities, but if we figure out how he got the code, it might lean us toward catching him.”

  “That’s one way of handling it, sure.”

  “How about the daughter?”

  Matt drank some coffee. “Iris? No way. I suppose Mrs. Campbell might have told her, but that’s depending on Mr. Campbell having even told the code to her.”

  “He doesn’t seem the kin
d to trust a woman with something important like a security code. Or car keys. Or a credit card. Or anything else. Ever.”

  “An old man with old-school thinking, Crash.”

  “What about a Tri-Comm employee?”

  “That would be the most logical. I can talk to Doug Jones, get a list of employees and see what dots connect. Unless you’d like to take another swing at the plate.”

  “I’m not on Mr. Jones’s Christmas card list. That ball can rest in your court.”

  The time code on the video was stamped for 7:10 p.m. The Campbells had gotten home after ten. That meant Guy Fawkes and Baby Doll had almost three hours in the Campbell house.

  “This must be when the two of them were inside redecorating the place with shit and piss,” Crash said.

  “The two of them,” Matt said. “Where’s the other two?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering myself.”

  “Campbell was very definite on there having been four people. So he was in shock and lost track of numbers during everything—”

  “Or he flat-out fucking lied to us.”

  “I’m leaning more toward the former than the latter.”

  “For a man who got beaten and whose wife got put in a coma, he’s been unhelpful as hell.”

  On the video, Guy Fawkes and Baby Doll reappeared, coming out the back door. Matt paused the video and stared at the image on the screen.

  Guy Fawkes was tall and wiry. Baby Doll was shorter, boyishly constructed—similar to Crash—but no denying the person was female.

  Matt tapped his middle finger against the laptop. “Campbell’s hiding shit. And I don’t like being lied to.”

  “You may have chosen the wrong career path, then.”

  Matt told Crash about his conversation with Carl and the discussion about Carl’s theory around the Guthrie job.

  “Four bank robberies, and they netted more than a million bucks, and no one ever got caught?”

  “Nope. It was the cleanest of getaways ever. Except for the woman they killed.”