And if the law abiding came sniffing around, things would rapidly fall apart. There was no business license, or license for selling beer. There wasn’t any health certificate, or fire inspection. His grill and bar had no certifications or inspections of any kind. They didn’t pay business taxes, paid no employment taxes for their waitresses, cook, and dishwashers. With employment of some real dedicated staff to help out, things had grown too far from a local biker clubhouse to stay under the radar much longer. At least he’d purged incriminating papers, but he would still be in for a thrashing if the authorities poured over him.
But he couldn’t lay low and still keep control over his men. Two were missing and they would want to go out and search. Loyalty had to be paid for in this way. Shep really felt the most likely explanation was they’d ran off with the money. But that meant Rattler, their crew leader, would have to admit their disloyalty, and that wasn’t going to happen. So they’d sortie out again, and hopefully nothing would happen, or none of the knuckleheads would do something stupid that would drag him down.
He heard a phone ringing in his office and turned toward his desk with relief. They were a little late, but that was okay. He heard the phone again, but his desk was dark. Shep stumbled over to the side of the room again and groped for the light switch. He felt the cold metallic tubing housing the wires first, and followed it down to the switch. Again the phone range, but the burner on his desk lay still with no lights or vibration. His eyes then widened suddenly and Shep leapt for the upper right drawer. Inside, the phone with the green tape buzzed again. He ripped off the tape and flipped it open, hoping it hadn’t gone to voice mail.
“Yes, I’m here,” he said into it in a harsh desperate whisper.
The other voice started with an annoyed edge which calmed as the words came, “I must have the satchel you told me about that was in Sheriff Fouche’s car.”
“I don’t have it. But I gave Rebel the red truck like you asked to help him get away.”
“And the truck hasn’t moved in hours. He didn’t leave town. I know that from the GPS I put on it and from putting my own eyes on it. He never came out of the woods from his little stop.
That means this case eventually gets solved and Fouche looks like a hero. You don’t want that, as he’s got it bad for your people. He’s coming for you eventually if you give me nothing to undermine him. Something that will make him look corrupt.”
Shep thought hard a second.
“If I don’t have the package, I don’t have the package. But there might be another way to make him look bad besides being corrupt. What about some general mayhem? Like he’s lost control of any sense of law and order? People afraid to go outside type of thing? If we can’t make him corrupt, can we make him incompetent?”
There was a long pause on the other end, and Shep felt he might had gone too far. But then the voice came back, “If it goes far enough to make state or national news, everything will be scrutinized in the resulting backlash. There will be no place to hide. And that red truck was one I’d been keeping for you.”
“Okay, I understand. I know where I picked up Rebel. I’ll send my boys to troll around there for a bit,” fibbed Shep. “If after a few hours, I haven’t come up with him or the money, we’ll do some small stuff.”
Shep saw no reason to tell him everything.
“Keep it to bashing some mailboxes and starting a couple of dumpster fires. Maybe some bricks through some business owner’s front windows. No one gets hurt and no serious property damage. Just enough to get everyone talking. I’d recommend making a list of what you will do, and assigning specific individual instructions to each man on what he is to do so you stay in control instead of your thugs freelancing. It will be far better to under do it, and do it again in a few days, than to overdo it. Understand?”
Shep swallowed, “I understand.”
“Go purple,” the voice said and hung up.
Shep first used the desk knife to pop the green marked phone apart and break its sim card in two like he’d been instructed. He’d send one of his guys with it, a paper sack, and a large rock to throw it off the bridge into the river. A plastic bag might float and wash up somewhere. It was beginning to be routine. Then Shep opened the side drawer again, pushed aside the orange, white and pink to grab a burner marked in purple electrical tape that had slipped under his county map. He plugged it in to begin charging.
There was a lot to do because he didn’t want to be going to jail for murder and desertion from decades ago. He’d been a different person then, young and fit with an unchecked temper. He’d been fresh out of air force basic training and starting vehicle mechanic school at Sheppard Air Force Base, only to end up in a lethal bar fight. That young man didn’t exist anymore, and Shep sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to now pay for his sins. But it’s what the man on the phone held over his head since the day the cardboard box full of twenty-dollar disposable phones had showed up UPS with one ringing inside shortly after.
He considered taking off, but he was too old to want to be bumming on the open road again. All his money was wrapped up in the barn. It had been his attempt to settle down. Kind of a drug runner retirement plan. Something to transition to so he wasn’t always looking over his shoulder or playing tribal politics to stay ahead of his band of savages. Getting the property had taken all his saving from working in garages and running drugs, and he’d hopefully awaited the area’s development to make a killing flipping it. He was still waiting. He’d stopped saving money, investing funds into the building instead hoping to go legitimate. And there wasn’t a sucker to quickly pass it off on before fleeing out west. If you can’t run, you hide he thought.
“Jingles!” he called.
The door opened and Shep looked at the bandage on the man’s arm spanning from wrist to elbow. It was thick enough he couldn’t pull the sleeve of his jacket over it, so he’d cut them away into a vest so he wouldn’t have to forgo showing the patch. His eyes were determined and he walked holding himself upright. Telling them to hide colors was not going to be popular.
“Tell Rattler to get the other chiefs up here,” he ordered.
Jingles nodded and closed the door again.
Rattler understood Jingles was conveying his instructions and would act accordingly. Shard and Frog would see Jingles as merely Jingles and give him a hard time. That was a conversation for another time. But no one fucked with Rattler more than once. It took a few minutes, but the three of them made it to his office with beer on their breath and no inhibitions about a belch or a fart. Shep stared them down until they settled and were ready to pay attention. He didn’t want to have to hash through things any more times than necessary.
“We got boys missing, and we got to go look for them. That’s the code,” began Shep.
The three of them nodded. Shard tried to discretely pick something in his nose while still making eye contact.
“But we also got a lot of heat. So we need to do some things different.”
Frog shook his head, “We can make barbeque of Bucky the Pig,” he bragged with a snigger.
Shard smiled and Rattler gave a slow nod to show he agreed with the sentiment.
“No. Not this time. Another time. We’ve pushed them too hard and we don’t want the state police or the DEA wiping us out. We need to back off a little. Just a little. This fight is about the long haul, so for now we got to lay low. The Lowland Outlaws are going to win the war, even if we avoid a battle now and then.
But there are things we need to do like check on our boys. So when we go out, go out in pairs. No big groups, to get the county all stirred up. And,” he said with a deeper breath than he had intended, “have the guys turn their jackets inside out.”
Rattler leaned forward, the muscles around his jaw suddenly slack in confusion, while the others made stone hard fists.
“We ain’t scared,” said Shard.
You also have nothing to lose, thought Shep. But he played it the other way, “You lo
ok like a scared pussy to me. Not man enough to stand on your own? Not so tough without being surrounded by your big brothers?”
Shard and Frog bristled, while Rattler picked at his teeth with a dirty fingernail, and freed a piece of gristle. Deciding it was too big to flick away, he licked it from his finger and swallowed. Then Rattler spoke.
“Shep wants us to hide the colors,” said Rattler in a matter of fact tone, “then we hide the colors.”
Both Rattler’s arms came up and with a flick of his hands harshly tapped them both on the back of the head.
“Think of it as a special operation,” said Shep.
Shep knew that the macho image would play well with their pride and help them to get over going incognito.
“There’s three things we need to do tonight, and we need every rider we have with the colors hidden. And not just hidden, but only two guys riding together at a time. Don’t let everyone leave and come back at the same time either or they’ll bunch up out there and seem like a gang again. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.
First, we got to go check up on Rattler’s boys. I’ve a bad feeling about them cause no one’s called. But we’ll check where they picked up Rebel, and run some local roads around there in case they’re on foot.
Second, just because we don’t want the pigs burning our barn down, doesn’t mean we need to let the people in this county feel like they own it. I want to do some mayhem tonight, very targeted. We’ll work that out on the map next.
And finally, we need to tie up loose ends. The waitresses and cooks don’t know shit. But the bitches, got loose lips.”
“You talking about their upstairs lips or their downstairs lips?” asked Rattler with a leer while he pushed Frog.
Frog slapped at the back of Shard’s head like Rattler had earlier, but Shard turned away and it was soft thump.
“They know too much, and aren’t going to stand silent with your brothers. When the boys are out on their missions, and all the outsiders have gone home, snuff them out. You can toss them off the bridge with the used burner before the sun comes up. No one will be out then.”
The three nodded obediently with a new appreciation of how serious Shep was and how much was at stake. He spread out the county map on the desk, and they started working the details.
CHAPTER—28
Chandler Fouche drove home with the boys to a house crowded with vehicles and a semicircle of four milling parents along with his wife, Evelyn, and little Latoyia. Their presence was expected, as little fishermen needed to make their way home. What wasn’t expected was Jim and Lauryn Redigan in his driveway. The Commonwealth’s Attorney gestured with his hands, capturing their awl so completely that no one seemed to notice Chandler’s Buick as he turned in from Caisson Road.
“Who’s that, Grandpa?”
“Someone I know from the office,” replied Chandler with no enthusiasm.
Another asked, “One of your deputies?”
“No. When I arrest someone, this guy tells the judge how bad they’ve been. It’s who they call the prosecutor.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know…” trailed off Chandler.
As he came up the drive, he could see clustered around the side of the house the older sedans, kept running for years in the salt-free southern climate. Similar to his wife’s worn Buick, they were the cars he’d expect to see with his people of child raising ages. Mr. Redigan’s giant truck stood out, its shiny late model lines a relative extravagance compared with the others. But what wasn’t there, a pride and joy afforded his position, was his Dodge Durango sheriff’s vehicle. Only his wife caught his expression of disbelief through the windshield, her head cocking to the side with slightly pouting lips of sympathy. Everyone went quiet as he opened his door.
“What happened?” he said looking around.
They looked at each other, knowing and wanting to share, but also sensing that it wasn’t their place to break the news. The tension didn’t last long, as excited boys exited behind him to share their adventures.
“Dad, I caught a big one!”
“Mine wasn’t as big, but it was a bass.”
Jim Redigan fell in behind Chandler’s wife as they both made their way forward through the hugs and excited hands stretched a bit too far apart to denote the length of any fishes that didn’t come from the deep sea and a commercial charter.
“Some bad people came to visit us the night you left, Chandler. Had to use the shotgun. They wanted to steal your truck something bad,” Evelyn declared with narrow eyes and a slight sideways jerking of her mouth.
He looked at her with wide eyes, lips moving and wanting to say something, but the mind failing to find the proper words with honed and carefully selected connotations to accurately express what he wanted to convey.
“Yeah, we all fine,” Evelyn declared, eyes burning at him. “Even Latoyia was a trooper and held her stuff together.”
James Redigan stepped in, “Three men broke into your vehicle last night in the small hours. Your lady laid it down on them pretty good and they drove off in such a rush they crashed a few miles up the road. Lauryn found the wreck and called it in this morning. Two men of the Lowland Outlaws were dead at that scene. Always wear your seatbelt. Main suspect is Rebel Tarwick, who owned the crashed truck and is thought to be the third perpetrator. Buck is out looking for him now.”
The boys were still jabbering to their parents, but the parents weren’t listening. Instead they focused on the two county leaders, a glimpse into the real life version of what they only ever got to see on television.
“Did you bring in the State Police to help while I was gone?” asked Chandler turning to look at Redigan a little sideways.
“Just the crime scene technicians per our county support agreement with their forensics lab. They expedited and cleaned things up here as a courtesy to you. Your truck’s impounded in their evidence yard. I thought about getting the State Police going, but with two dead and Buck saying he knew the other and was confident to pick him up shortly,” he shrugged, “I guess I thought I’d let our long serving elected Sheriff make the call if he needed help when he returned.”
You mean make me the one to cry for help, he thought, and look bad in front of the County Supervisor.
“Nice of you to stop by and tell me yourself,” dismissed Chandler.
“Okay, Chandler. You and Evelyn please let Lauryn and me know if there is anything we can do for you,” James Redigan said with a pat on his shoulder as he walked to his truck.
A moment later the prosecutor and his wife were gone, and the family broods rapidly followed to include little Latoyia. The sheriff and his wife ate dinner, pork chops, and she had wine. To sooth her nerves in the aftermath, he gathered. She didn’t usually drink, and her animated gesturing hands causally threw her glass about, somehow without spilling a drop. Her mouth spewed out words like a runaway typewriter, every now and then a twisted phrase implying that he was somehow at fault for no other reason than he was the man and hadn’t been there. And then the moment came he had been waiting for; she hit the wall. A sleepless night followed by alcohol, and suddenly she was out in mid-sentence on the couch just shy of nine o’clock.
Chandler Fouche took a quick shower, and changed into his uniform. He opened the revolver, checking for any grit or corrosion on the cartridge cases, and made sure the cylinder spun freely. He gripped the butt tightly, using a one-handed sideways jerking motion to flip the cylinder back home. Lowland Outlaws daring to come to his house, in the middle of the night when he wasn’t there. He’d show those cockroaches. Enough was enough. He forgot all about careful investigative plans dreamed up while fishing.
Downstairs he paused to throw a red and brown yarn afghan on Evelyn that she’d crocheted back when they’d first been married. She snored soundly, the empty bottle of burgundy a testament to one hell of a headache come morning. Then he strode outside to the Buick. A few minutes later he was heading south on I-85 toward t
he Outlaw Saloon.
Once on the interstate with its long straight lines, he turned on his cell phone. The juice was low, but it was still working. He dialed Buck’s number. There were several rings, and then it went to voice mail. He disconnected instead of using up power leaving a message. The fact that he had called was all the message he needed to leave to be expected to be called back. But it didn’t keep from trying again a few minutes later when that call back didn’t come. Again there were several rings, and then to voice mail. He hung up in disgust.
He tried the alarm room next.
“St. Albans Emergency Center, this is Mr. Kissel. How may I assist you?” came Brett’s familiar voice.
“It’s Chandler, Brett. Do they ever give you a day off?”
Brett chuckled, “The overtime is good and it’s better than sitting at home with the old lady. Sorry you had to come home to a mess, Sheriff.”
“That’s alright. Evelyn knows how to handle herself just fine. You have a twenty on Buck?”
There was a pause, and even his old ears could hear the flipping of pages in a logbook.
“Last annotation I have for Deputy Garner is leaving the accident scene to go after that Tarwick guy. He may have just forgot to call out at the end of his shift. It’s been a big day. Do you want me to try his place?”
“No, that’s okay. I’m near it anyway. I can drive by. Thanks,” said Chandler before hanging up.
He took the St. Albans’ exit, making a left at the bottom of the ramp to go away from town toward Buck’s house. Chandler had never been invited over before, but he patrolled as well as his deputy and that meant he drove by sometimes. And it would be foolish not to do a drive by being so close. But it didn’t tell him much. Buck’s house was dark, with no car in the driveway. Chandler pulled in to turnaround, and headed back toward the interstate. Was it worth checking Dixie’s he thought? Or the holding cells? If his deputy got Rebel, that’s where he would be. And he was contemplating kicking Shep’s door in. It would be better to have more than a six-shooter. Despite the boiling blood of his temper, it seemed the right call.
K-9 Outlaw: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 1 Page 24