The rest of them scrambled around, trying to hide evidence, or possibly reaching for weapons. Whatever the case, Carl stood in the threshold and watched his people take them down hard and fast. There was maybe a little roughness to the frisking, but nothing got too out of hand. Carl would have stopped them if they got to the point where they were risking the warrant.
Corey Phillips didn’t know who was in charge of much, but he knew the address of one of the bastards who took his daughter.
There were no girls in the apartment, just four losers who were half-baked on pot and drinking cheap beer straight from the bottles.
When all four of the little darlings had been cuffed and their faces were pressed to the side of the hot brick exterior of the apartment, Carl pulled out his little card and recited their Miranda rights to them very carefully. Two white men. One Hispanic. One black man. Looked like trafficking in kids was an equal-opportunity trade.
He resisted the urge to line them up and shoot every last one of them in the balls. “Looks like it’s going to be a busy day for you, Allan. You up to it?”
Allan looked at the men and a slow, unkind smile spread across his craggy face. The deputy nodded slowly.
“Burly?”
“Yeah, Carl?” Burly looked down at him. Physically. Burly was a very respectful man, just really, very big. Not Frank Blackbourne big, but big. Carl liked to look at Burly as a damned good example for why he needed to stay in good shape. Burly looked like he could maybe eat a bear for breakfast.
“You wait for Nora. Then you follow her through every last room in this place. Anyone comes around, we’re going to answer the door just as politely as we can. If anyone decides to try running, I want you to very politely knock them on their asses and cuff them.”
Burly nodded grimly. He didn’t have a sadistic bone in his body, God love him. “Got it.”
“And Burly?”
“Yeah, Carl?”
“Try not to completely knock the doors off their hinges, okay? We have to pay for the damage we cause.”
Burly looked around sheepishly. “Yeah. You got it. I can fix it. Honest.”
“That would make my day a lot better right now, my friend.”
“On it.”
Two minutes later Burly was squatting and repairing the damaged hinges while another deputy held the door in place for him and strained and sweated in the heat.
Four arrests. Four more chances to lead on to the next connection. Sooner or later the line would lead to Blankenship or someone else just like him.
The storm clouds were still piling higher and higher in the hot, dank air above. Sooner or later that cloud was going to break and the rains were going to come down like the wrath of God.
Kind of the way Blankenship was going to try to come down.
Carl patted Allan on the shoulder and moved to speak to Chief Stack. “Bob, I’d say that was a clean one.”
Bob Stack nodded. He was not happy. Then again, Bob wasn’t exactly known for his beaming smile. “Good and clean.”
“Gonna help Allan with the interrogations again?”
“If that’s okay with you, Carl.”
“I never complain about help, Bob.”
The man looked at him and his brown eyes stared into Carl’s for a few seconds. “Well, you doing this? It means a lot to me.”
“Bob, it’s my town too. I want it safe, same as you do.”
“Well, I keep thinking about—”
“So we’ll make sure it isn’t them. Never is. Not as long as we’re here. Yeah?”
“Yeah. Okay, Carl.”
There was a lot to do. Carl looked around the dingy living room and the littered kitchen and shook his head.
One little step. Blankenship was going to be pissed. That thought made Carl’s day just a little better. He’d savor that later.
After the storm finally broke.
* * *
Griffin had far too much time to think on the long ride home from the church. He had failed the Traylors and it bothered him. It wasn’t some stupid private investigators code, or at least he didn’t think so. It was just that he had promised to find their little girl and he had failed. Failed keeping Paul and Claire Traylor alive too. He felt almost certain the entire family had been inside the old church. Maybe he and Carl had done them a favor. Who could say?
His cell phone chirped. Not his regular phone. The other one. The one he had been carrying since the business with Blankenship had started. Griffin slid the phone from his pocket and spoke.
Without preamble, the expected voice said. “Couple of Blankenship’s men followed your girlfriend to her store today.”
Griffin felt a knot of ice in his gut. “They still there?”
“Nah, sat and watched the place for a while, then left.”
“Okay, I’ll head over there anyway. They might come back.”
“What do you want me to do if they come back before you get here?”
“As long as they just watch the store, nothing.”
“If they try to go in?”
“Kill them.”
“How about I just kill them anyway? I got their license number. No problem to find them.”
“No. I’m trying not to do things that way anymore. My friend Carl wants to bring Blankenship in by the book.”
“Been tried before. The guy’s got a Teflon hide.”
“Have to let Carl try.”
“You going to do anything about Pete sending the goons to watch your woman?”
“I am.”
“You want me involved?”
“I do. But for now, just keep watch until I get to Baba Yaga’s.”
“I’m on it, boss.”
“Never doubted it.”
* * *
When Carl got home the hole in his front yard had been filled and the headstone was gone. Sometimes it was good to have connections. Lyle Harper over in the county roads commission pulled a string or two and the next thing Carl knew the hole was gone and there was even some fresh sod over the spot. It might live, it might die, but at least it was better than a damned hole in his yard. The last thing he needed was some damned fool tripping through his yard and breaking a leg or worse.
“Crap. I sound like Andy. ‘You kids stay offa my lawn’.” He chuckled briefly and then got down to the serious business of resting a little. He was tired. Very, very tired.
Still, alarms were set, certain weapons were set out. He’d pissed off far too many people not to be a little cautious.
And some of the people he’d pissed off were dead and not at all pleasant to deal with.
His mind was racing and it felt like something was missing. Something was wrong. More wrong than dead people moving and having to set a church on fire. Just the thought of what his grandmother would have said about setting a House of the Lord ablaze was enough to make him fidgety, but this?
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
He checked his phone. No new messages.
The alarms were set. The back-up generator was where it belonged. Was he paranoid to have a generator? Not as far as he was concerned. Too many nasty-ass storms in the past and the simple fact that as the county sheriff he’d managed to piss off a lot of people made him exactly as paranoid as his father had been, and that meant that back-up gennies were a fine idea. Just as right as rain.
After several minutes of mentally cataloguing what might be wrong, Carl gave up and decided to go about his business as usual. In a perfect world that would have meant going to bed. In the real world that meant checking his emails, logging in on the server from the Sheriff ’s Department and filing a few reports, and checking in with the office to make sure the world hadn’t ended while he wasn’t looking.
It hadn’t.
Somewhere out in the night the Reverend Lazarus
Cotton was probably up and moving. Carl lay down on his couch – having already decided it was still too early for bed, thank you – and as soon as he closed his eyes he saw the man’s dark eyes, his smile full of too many sharp teeth, and felt his eyes pop back open.
Nope. It wasn’t Lazarus. It was something else. Not what had happened, but what was missing.
He couldn’t place it easily. Hell, he couldn’t place it at all. The knock at his door was unexpected, but not completely. He rose, checked his pistol and then checked the door. “Yeah?”
He’d half expected to hear the good Reverend again. In the long run, he might have preferred it.
Bob Stack spoke through the door. “Carl?”
“Bob?” He frowned. “What’s up?” He opened the door and again his mind flashed on a dozen unpleasant possibilities. Was the Police Chief being held hostage? Had he somehow managed to get himself bitten? Carl hadn’t warned him, hadn’t warned anyone. What could he say? By the way, fellas, be on the lookout for bloodsuckers tonight? Not likely.
Bob was a big enough man, leaner than Carl, but a tall drink. He looked small standing on the porch and blinking away the sudden glare from the porch light and Carl opening the door.
The man shook his head. His face was long and sad and Carl felt his stomach freeze because whatever it was, he knew in his heart that the Reverend Dead Man was suddenly not the worst thing in the world.
“Carl, I got a call. There was an anonymous tip.” He was looking damned worried about a phone tip. Bob looking worried made Carl worried. Bob was a professional. He was very, very good at shutting out the nonsense and staying focused on the job at hand.
“Bob? Did something happen to Cheryl? Is everything okay at home?” Crap, if something had happened to Cheryl or the boys…
Bob shook his head and set his lips for a moment.
“Carl, I know that you and Tammy...” He looked down. He looked at Carl’s feet and then at the wall and then at the porch railing, at damned near anything he could because he did not want to say the words. Carl understood. He’d made the same gesture enough times. “Damn. I know you and Tammy are divorced. I know. But I needed to tell you. I wanted to let you know. She’s dead, Carl.”
Oh yes. Oh, my, yes that was much worse than the dead reverend. Carl felt himself stagger back as surely as if he’d been punched in the chest with a sledgehammer.
“What?” His voice was too small. He couldn’t get a damned breath. He couldn’t make himself speak up and he wasn’t at all sure that Bob could hear him speaking.
There it was; misery and pity and grief all rolling together on Bob’s face. He’d been at the wedding. He’d been one of the voices of reason when Tammy left. Good old Bob had been there, hadn’t he? Just as steady and solid as a man could be. Tammy and Cheryl had been friends for a long time, and there had been a lot of dinners for the two young couples back in the day.
“Jesus, Carl. I’m so sorry.” His mouth moved a few times but no words came out. Maybe it was Carl’s hearing? Was that it? Was the sound of his pulse too much to let him hear the man speaking or was there something else?
“I can’t hear you, Bob.” Well, no, it wasn’t his hearing. He could hear himself a little better now and that was good. He was afraid he’d lost the ability to speak along with his hearing for a second there.
“She hanged herself!” The words were loud and clear that time and Bob looked a little surprised by how loudly he was talking.
“What did you say?” Hanged herself? How the hell could she do something that damned stupid? Her daddy needed her. He didn’t have anyone else. Her mom was gone almost four years now and Carl hadn’t spoken to the man in even longer than that. He hadn’t attended the funeral because, really he didn’t know if he was supposed to attend funerals for ex-mothers-in-law and no one ever told him if it was good form or if it was considered rude and how was he supposed to handle it? How the hell was he supposed to handle any of it?
Shit. Was he going to have to take care of her funeral arrangements? He didn’t know if her old will was the latest one or not. He’d never gotten around to changing his when they divorced. It never seemed all that important and—
Shock setting in. He shook his head and bit the inside of his lower lip. Yep, that did it, the pain flashed through his head and cleared away that damned ringing noise. “What the hell do you mean she hanged herself? Are you sure?”
“Goddamn it, Carl, I saw her body myself. She hanged herself.” Oh, Bob was a wreck. Cheryl and Tammy were still pretty tight. They’d been friends all the way back in elementary school. Small towns made that possible. Not like the big cities. Not like where Tammy had decided to go off to.
Carl tried to move and his legs refused to budge a damned step. Fighting vampires? Piece of cake. Got to stop a mountain of flesh from calling down the apocalypse? You got it. Need to handle the ex cacking herself? Fuck no! You just stay right where you are and freak out.
“That’s not goddamned funny, Bob!”
“Carl. I’m so sorry. I always thought. We wanted you two to get back together so much.”
There was Bob going and being an ass again. Even Carl knew they’d never get back together. Tammy moved to get away from him. Moved and found a new guy and a new life as far from Wellman as she could manage. Not a chance in hell.
What was that noise?
Bob’s hands were on his shoulders and the fool was blinking his eyes and looking like he was going to cry.
And Carl shook his head. Not goddamned funny, Bob. He meant to talk, he wanted to talk, but he couldn’t get any words to work. And that noise, that whining noise was there, coming from his throat instead.
Not that it mattered. Not much did.
He’d told Tammy to go away. Told her they would never be together again and how he couldn’t help her any more.
His mouth finally worked, but the words were mumbled. If he hadn’t been the one speaking he might not have heard them himself. “Got the last word on that one, didn’t you honey? Got me good on that one.”
Bob didn’t hear. He was too busy apologizing again, like somehow it was him and not Carl that had let Tammy down and let her go and hang herself instead of listening when she said she needed help.
No. Fuck that. He shook his head. Not his fault. He had too much else to deal with. There were dead things out there that wanted to take a bite out of him. Wanted to chew into his neck, maybe, or possibly just cut him apart. Helluva day, burned a church, busted a few pedophiles, cut a dead man’s head off and now Tammy went and hanged herself.
Yep. That did it. Carl fell on his ass on the hardwood floor leading to his front door. He dropped the pistol and stared out the door, barely even aware of Bob calling his name.
Off in the distance the sky bellowed out a black, guttural roar of thunder. The way that thunder bounced and echoed off the distance hills made it sound just like laughter.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The weather wasn’t any kinder the next morning. A little after ten Carl sat on the tailgate of his truck and Griffin sat with him, the both of them nursing exactly one cold beer apiece. Neither had ever been drinking machines; drink too much you lose control. You lose control and damned near anything could go wrong and catch you when you weren’t prepared. Life had long since taught them both it was best to be ready.
That was part of the problem, of course. Life had come along and blindsided him when he was looking elsewhere.
The river chattered away contentedly to itself and the sunlight danced from along the ripples and waves and shot beams of itself at both of their faces.
Neither paid the sunlight much mind.
“Thing is, I don’t know if me going to see her would have changed anything.” Carl paused and took a sip of his Sweetwater Ale. “I mean, she called again and this time instead of coming running I told her to leave me alone and the next thing
you know…”
Wade nodded and looked out at the water, squinting against the glare. “You can do that if you want. You can sit there and play what if, but what’s it going to do for you?”
Carl didn’t answer. He was thinking. So Griffin answered himself. “You could have gone over and held her hand. And then one thing would lead to another and you’re in bed together and you’re getting together again and everyone’s happy for about three months.”
Carl nodded, closed his eyes, wished Wade would stop, but Wade, being a true friend, did not.
“And then your job leaves you out late, or she sees something that she wants that’s out of the budget, or because she’s a damn fine looking woman someone catches her eye and says the right things and the next thing you know, it’s you calling her and asking for help and she’s not there. Again.”
Carl nodded and took another sip.
Wade paused and took a swig of his own. “She was never strong, Carl.”
“I thought she was stronger than that, Wade. I mean damn, suicide…”
Wade nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought it either, but her dad’s sick, she’s back here without a guy in tow, so that went wrong. Maybe it was just a weak moment. You said it yourself, man, most times suicides are spur of the moment. Given a chance most of them would only try that once.”
“Statistics from a book. Doesn’t mean shit right now.” Carl said the words but they both knew the words were a lie. He was hurt and he was disappointed and he was angry and he was blaming himself, even knowing Wade was right, there was a process that had to be finished.
“Yeah. I know. Just like you know you didn’t do this. She did. Just like she’s the one that dumped you and came back and dumped you again. How many times were you supposed to let her sleep around before it became an issue?”
Carl stood and walked his empty beer bottle over to the trash receptacle set up at the edge of the small scenic detour and picnic area. Technically it was against the law for him or anyone else to drink an alcoholic beverage in the area. He didn’t much feel like writing himself a ticket. Still, he wrapped the bottle in a paper bag to make sure no one else got any ideas before he dropped it.
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