by Jude Hardin
“Take a walk, fat boy,” I said.
I didn’t have to say it twice. Chelton abandoned his friend like a bad plate of fish. He sauntered away with the marijuana cigarette smoldering between his chubby fingers.
Lester was the one I wanted to talk to. He seemed to have a few more IQ points than Chelton, and I didn’t want to deal with them both again if things got physical.
“Throw the knife in there,” I said, gesturing toward the dumpster.
“This here knife cost a hundred bucks, mister.”
“In that case, close it and set it on the ground.”
He closed it and set it on the ground. I told him to lace his fingers behind his head and take four steps backward and get on his knees. He did. I walked to the knife and picked it up and put it in my pocket.
“Oh, I see how it is,” he said. “You’re a thief.”
“This doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of my jacket,” I said. “The way I see it, you owe me about three hundred more dollars.”
“You’re quite the badass with that gun in your hand. What are you going to do now, execute me?”
I holstered the revolver.
“Stand up,” I said.
There was a board from a broken pallet beside the dumpster with some rusty nails sticking out of one end. Lester grabbed it on his way up and came at me with it raised over his head like a club. I blocked the blow with my left forearm and buried my right fist deep into his solar plexus. He doubled over and dropped the board and fell to the pavement, curling into a fetal position next to some stray rubbish.
“What do you know about the Harvest Angels?” I said.
He didn’t say anything. He was having a little trouble breathing.
“I know you know something,” I said. “Because you mentioned them the night you came knocking on my door with your morbidly obese friend.”
At first I thought they had overheard Pete and me talking about the Harvest Angels at our table at Moe’s ribs. At first I thought that was all there was to it. But dishwashers don’t generally come to your room and assault you and vandalize your property just for having a few harsh words with a waitress. I had a hunch there was more to it than that, and my hunch turned out to be right.
“I’ve heard of them,” Lester said.
“What have you heard?”
He grunted. “I think you busted something inside me, mister. I need a doctor.”
“What have you heard?” I said, louder and more emphatic than the first time.
“I got drunk one night with a guy who said he was a member.”
“What’s his name?”
“Bear. Everybody calls him Bear. He’s a big guy.”
“What’s his last name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Ain’t seen him around in a while.”
“Where was he when you did see him?”
“There’s a little shack over off Carp Lane where guys hang out and drink and watch football and stuff. Everyone just calls it The Bar.”
“I thought this was a dry county,” I said.
“I didn’t say it was legal.”
“What else have you heard?”
“Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
I leaned over and grabbed his lip ring between my thumb and forefinger and gave it a quick jerk. He screamed. Blood gushed from his chunk of mouth that wasn’t there anymore.
“That’s for kicking me in the balls,” I said.
He was punching some numbers into his cell phone as I walked away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Thursday morning I drove up to Nashville and got lost looking for Pete Strong’s office. I finally found it. It was a little gray box of a house with a strip of gravel in front for parking. Not quite what I had expected.
There was an old fashioned intercom by the front door with a little black button you pushed to announce your presence. The speaker looked like it had come from the drive-thru at a burger joint. I pushed the button and a female voice said, “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Pete Strong.”
“Your name?”
“Nicholas Colt.”
I stood there and stared stupidly at the speaker while she didn’t say anything for a while.
“I’m sorry…do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Would you like to make an appointment?”
“No.”
“Sir, Mr. Strong—”
“Just tell him Nicholas Colt is here. Try to tell him before I freeze to death.”
A few seconds before my toes needed to be amputated, the deadbolt clicked and the door opened and a slender woman with short brown hair and a beige knit dress ushered me into the reception area. She was a natural beauty with clear blue eyes and a smile that could melt candle wax. She didn’t wear any makeup because she didn’t need any. She was toned and fit and completely feminine, and only had one fault I could see: the skin around her thumbnails was raw from picking at the cuticles. Otherwise she was perfect. If I hadn’t been a devoted husband and father I might have asked her to fly to Paris with me.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Mr. Strong will be with you shortly.”
There was a green leather sofa and a coffee table with some magazines on it. I sat there and learned how to make turkey chili in a Crock Pot. A FedEx guy brought a package in. Pete’s assistant signed for it. The FedEx guy left. Every time the door opened all the heat in the room got sucked away. I wondered how people managed to live and work under such harsh conditions. They would have to pay me double.
A guy with a long black trench coat and a black cowboy hat came out of Pete’s office. He looked sad.
Pete opened his office door a couple of minutes later and said, “Come on back, Nicholas.”
Pete’s desk looked like a budding young landfill. There were a couple of Chinese take-out boxes and several empty Coke cans among the stacks of papers and receipts and general office clutter. Pete lit a cigar. He offered me one and I said no thanks.
“Who was that?” I said.
Pete laughed. “You didn’t recognize him?”
“Should I have?”
“He’s a country singer. Pretty famous.”
“I don’t know that many country singers. Why would anyone famous be coming to see you?”
“Because I am Pete Strong. Private eye to the stars.”
“You’re a private investigator? I must have made a wrong turn. I thought this was the V.D. clinic.”
Pete laughed some more. “So what’s up, man? How’s your case going?”
I told him about my initial confrontation with Lester and Chelton. I told him about visiting the Lambs’ former residence and then talking to Harvey Mullins, the brother of the man Derek Wahl had shot in the line of duty. I told him about Derek belonging to a church called New Love Ministries. I told him about Allison Parker, the great niece who was handling the Lambs’ estate, and about Virgil Lamb being deep in gambling debt. I told him about Derek Wahl invading my home in Florida and almost killing my wife and daughter.
“Are they okay?” Pete said.
“They’re okay. I put them on a plane to the Philippines. I wanted to get them as far from Florida as possible.”
“You’d have to leave the planet to get any farther. How is your client taking her brother’s death?”
“She said I would pay for it one way or another. I think she’s planning to sue me.”
I told him about my second confrontation with Lester and Chelton, about a guy named Bear in a joint called The Bar, and about leaving Lester bleeding in the parking lot at Moe’s Ribs.
Pete was scribbling everything down on the back of a hotel receipt.
“A lot going on,” he said. “You need me to do an extension on your temporary license?”
“I need help,” I said. “I need somebody to work with me on this.”
Pete l
aced his hands together and rested his chin on his thumbs. He stared at the wall behind me for thirty seconds or so.
“I have two guys who work for me full time,” he said. “But they’re extremely busy right now.”
“You could do it yourself.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on. It’ll be an adventure.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It has to get boring being cooped up in this crummy little office all day.”
“You think my office is crummy?”
“Kind of.”
He stared at the wall some more.
“I’ll have to clear it with the boss,” he said.
“I thought you were the boss.”
“You know the lady you met out front?”
“Your receptionist?”
“She’s not my receptionist. She’s my wife.”
“Oh,” I said. “Can I buy y’all some lunch?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Pete’s wife Denise turned out to be a great conversationalist, as charming and smart as she was physically attractive. She was the kind of person you could talk to all day. The three of us had hamburgers at a place called Ollie’s and some apple pie and coffee.
“I need to borrow your husband for a while,” I said.
“Borrow him? Ah, just go ahead and keep him.”
She poked Pete with her elbow.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“What’s up?”
I told her everything I had told Pete. The deeper I got into it, the graver her expression became.
“I promise I’ll take good care of him,” I said.
She turned to Pete “It sounds too dangerous,” she said. “Nothing that involves violent criminals and guns and all that, remember? It’s what we agreed on when you quit the force and went private. We’re doing fine with insurance cases and infidelity and the occasional runaway. We don’t need this.”
“It’s not about the money,” Pete said.
“Because I don’t have much,” I said.
“Then what is it about?” Denise said, picking at her left thumb with her right index finger.
“It’s about the possibility of exposing a nationwide criminal organization,” Pete said. “And it’s about helping a friend. I’ve decided to do it. Your blessing would be nice.”
Pete took a bite of pie.
Denise sipped her coffee.
“You can have him for a week,” she said to me. “You hear that, Mr. Strong? One week, and I want you back in the office.”
“That’s no problem,” Pete said. “We have seven days, Mr. Colt. Let’s get busy.”
Pete and Denise kissed long and hard in the parking lot. They finally said goodbye, and Denise headed back to the office. I drove Pete to his house. He packed a couple of suitcases and threw them into the back of my Jimmy and we headed toward Mont Falcon.
“First thing we need to do is get you out of that motel,” Pete said.
“Why?”
“Because Lester and Chelton are going to be out for revenge, that’s why. Especially Lester. You can’t go around ripping people’s lips off and expect them to be your buddy next time you see them.”
“Those punks don’t worry me. Did I tell you I took Lester’s knife?” I reached into my pocket, pulled it out and handed it to Pete. “Genuine stag grips,” I said.
“Nice.” He slid it into the front pocket of his jeans.
“What are you doing?” I said. “That’s mine.”
“Not anymore.”
“Come on. I stole it fair and square.”
“And now I’m stealing it from you.”
“Don’t make me kick your ass,” I said.
Pete laughed. I knew he would give the knife back later, and if he didn’t that would be all right too.
“So where we going to stay?” I said.
“Friend of mine has a hunting cabin not too far from Black Creek. I called him while I was in the house packing, and he said we could use it for as long as we need it.”
“For free?” I said.
“Yep.”
“That’ll work.”
When we got to the motel, I crammed all my gear from the room into the back of the Jimmy and checked out with Beulah at the desk. I asked her about a place called The Bar on Carp Lane. She said she’d never heard of it.
The hunting cabin was only ten minutes away. The dirt road leading to the place ran out and the brush got heavy and we had to park the Jimmy and hike the last hundred yards. The cabin was isolated on a limestone bluff and surrounded by mature hardwoods. It was the perfect base camp for a team of ace detectives. Perfect, except there was no indoor plumbing or electricity or cell phone reception.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“Don’t be such a whiner,” Pete said. “There’s a stack of firewood out back. Why don’t you go grab some while I check the kitchen for supplies.”
“Why can’t I check the kitchen for supplies while you go grab some firewood?” I said.
“It’s my friend’s cabin.”
“So that makes you the boss?”
“Of course.”
“Asshole.”
There was a pair of work gloves and a canvas log carrier on the floor near the hearth. I grabbed them and started out the door.
“Watch out for rats,” Pete said.
The clouds had brightened and leveled out and it had started to snow. I walked around to the back of the cabin. The woodpile was almost as tall as I was. Someone had done a lot of chopping. I started loading some logs into the carrier. My joints were stiff and my back ached and my ears were ringing from the quiet.
I carried the logs inside. I stacked three of them onto the fireplace grate and found some kindling. Pete came in from the kitchen.
“Can I borrow your lighter?” I said.
He handed it to me. It was a nice cigar lighter. It looked like a miniature blow torch.
“We’re going to need a lot more wood than that to get us through the night,” Pete said.
“I’ll get more. There’s enough wood out there to last until spring. What’s in the kitchen?”
“There’s a propane stove and utensils and everything. Some canned goods.”
“We need to go back to the car and get the coolers,” I said.
“It’s a long walk. Maybe we could just leave them until tomorrow.”
“One of them is full of beer.”
“We need to go back to the car and get the coolers,” Pete said.
Pete put his coat on and we walked outside. The snow was starting to stick. We got approximately fifty feet from the cabin when a series of gunshots erupted. We instinctively pulled our weapons and dropped to the ground on our bellies. I had my .38 and Pete had a 9mm Beretta. The ground was cold and covered with crunchy brown snow-sugared leaves.
“I thought you said hunting season was over,” I said.
“It is.”
“Poachers?”
“Or maybe someone shooting at targets.”
A bullet whizzed by and thudded into the soil a few feet behind us.
It wasn’t someone shooting at targets.
It was someone shooting at us.
A hundred feet or so to the left I saw a guy in camouflage fatigues come down from a tree. He had a rifle. He ran deeper into the woods and out of sight.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Pete said.
“Yeah. If someone was trying to kill us, we’d be dead by now.”
“You think he was just messing around?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it was a poacher posted to guard the territory. Maybe he’s off to gather some more guys with more rifles.”
I didn’t think it was someone trying to scare us off the investigation already, because nobody knew we were out there. Nobody except Pete’s wife Denise and the guy who owned the cabin.
“We better hurry up and get the beer,” Pete said.
“Yeah.”
We
kept our guns out and walked to the car without further incident. We carried the coolers back to the cabin, sat in the rocking chairs by the fireplace and popped the tops on a couple of Heinekens. Pete lit a cigar. I didn’t like the smell of it, but I didn’t say anything. It made me want a cigarette.
“So what’s the plan?” Pete said.
“Plan?”
“Yeah, you know, what’s on the agenda for this case?”
“I say we drink it.”
“Not the beer, goofball.”
I laughed. “All right, let’s start from the beginning. We need to figure out why someone killed Mrs. Lamb and her daughter-in-law and carved tilted crosses into their foreheads, why Virgil Lamb and Joe Lamb and Derek Wahl disappeared the same day, and why Derek Wahl broke into my house and tried to kill my wife and daughter. We know it wasn’t a racial thing, like the plane crash, because so far all the victims have been white. Except for Juliet, of course. She’s from the Philippines, but I don’t think that was a factor.”
“We could start with the obvious,” Pete said.
“Which is?”
“That Derek Wahl was responsible for all of it.”
“Doesn’t add up,” I said. “He was on duty that day. He was called to the Lambs’ residence for a domestic disturbance. He couldn’t have planned that. At first I thought he’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, that he’d interrupted a loan shark’s thugs taking care of business or something. But that theory got shot down when he showed up at my house in Florida.”
“There’s still two people not accounted for,” Pete said.
“Virgil Lamb and his grandson Joe,” I said. “But Virgil was an old man, in his eighties. It’s hard for me to believe he was responsible for all that carnage. I just can’t imagine he was physically able.”
“That leaves Joe.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe Derek Wahl and Virgil Lamb and Joe Lamb were all in cahoots.”
“You think Virgil was in on killing his wife and daughter-in-law, and Joe his mother and grandmother?”
Pete frowned. “Probably not.”
“There was someone else at the scene,” I said. “The police found DNA from someone other than the Lambs or Derek Wahl. That’s who we need to find.”