The Trophy Hunter

by J. M. Zambrano

  “Why would you be looking for her on Colfax if Darren claims Joe has her?”

  “We think she got away from him. She left a message on Darren’s cell that got cut off in the middle. He called in a favor from an old police buddy who had it traced to a pay phone on Colfax.”

  Diana pressed the release on her key ring and the BMW’s lock clicked. “I sure hope he’s paying you well.”

  Jess drew her fake fur coat more tightly around her as she opened the Camaro’s door. “Like ex-cons can really demand high wages. He lost his cop’s pension and everything, Diana. But at least he’s trying.”

  “He’s unemployed?”

  “He’s working on the problem. Trying to build up a clientele in a trade his father-in-law taught him. Darren considers it more of an art form. Back when they were family, Joe taught Darren taxidermy.”

  Chapter 14

  A glint of silver caught Diana’s eye in the side view mirror as she turned off Evans onto Colorado Boulevard on her way home from the health club.

  Though artificial Christmas trees decked out in red and gold garlands brightened the streets, Diana felt a sense of gloom. Christmas was only five days away. She just wished it was over.

  Usually a workout left her spirits as well as her body tingling and uplifted. Too soon, she told herself. The healing process is going to take some time. Dr. Hovac had offered an anti-depressant prescription that she’d declined. Hmm, maybe just to get through Christmas.

  When she caught a red light at Iliff, she heard the screech of brakes behind her, and saw it in her rear view. A silver pickup truck like the one she’d seen in Flannigan’s driveway. The Ram ornament almost rammed into her back seat, he was so close. She could make out a bulky man’s form in the driver’s seat, but he was wearing a baseball cap pulled low and the collar of his jacket obscured the bottom half of his face.

  Panicking, she told herself that there must be dozens, if not hundreds, of silver Dodge Rams in the Denver area. But how many of them had hood ornaments? As she checked her door and window locks, she felt her heart lurch and flutter. Joe Flannigan would have no reason to follow her. Or would he? Could he possibly blame her for the loss of his grandchildren? She wished Greenwood Village wasn’t so close to Cherry Hills.

  The light changed to green, and she drove forward, then made a quick, unscheduled left turn on a yellow light, heading east. She drove for several blocks, hands gripping the steering wheel like vises. Just as she thought she’d lost him—or he was never following her in the first place—she saw movement through the rear view. Was that a glint of silver again? She found herself in a residential area of older homes decorated for the season. And very little traffic. Diana turned left again, heading back in the direction of the health club.

  Back on Evans after coming full circle, Diana shakily lowered the driver’s side window and inch and gulped cold night air. The flow of traffic had picked up. She saw no sign of the silver Dodge Ram. But, at the next stop light she removed her cell phone and pepper spray from her handbag, depositing them by her side in the console cup holder, just in case.

  The light changed, Diana gulped more cold air, then raised the window as she pulled away from the intersection.

  Chapter 15

  Jess parked her car in the back lot of a porn shop whose owner she knew. She checked the mag on her little Glock 27, rolled down her right boot and shoved the pistol into her ankle holster. Being left-handed was a drag sometimes. The leopard boot rolled up too snugly over the gun. She needed the next size, except the thrift store didn’t have any others. What the hell, she’d probably never wear them again. Maybe next Halloween.

  As she slithered out of the car, she also checked the left boot to make sure her CLIPIT knife was in place.

  Dare had said the phone booth was at Colfax and Irving. One block west of Hooker. He’d said it with a straight face, too. Jess had to giggle at the thought of hooking on Hooker Street.

  She strolled the three blocks at a leisurely pace, noting the phone booth under Christmas lights. A couple arguing in the driveway of a motel across the street caught her attention briefly. A sister dressed in sweats, with hair the color and consistency of rusty steel wool was not taking any shit off a paunchy white guy who looked old enough to be her dad. The Vacancy sign flashed off and on, its V burned out.

  What was it with these old dudes and young chicks? Jess suddenly felt her age and then some. On the street, thirty-five was not only over the hill, it was below ground level. Bargain basement. Damn, the thrift store boots were pinching the hell out of her toes. And the ankle holster had shifted in the too-tight quarters. Now the Glock was digging into her shin bone. Charlie’s Angels this was not. Finishing law school couldn’t have been this bad.

  “You a cop?” The girl’s words, bitten off on the cold air, whirled Jess and sent her hand instinctively reaching toward her boot.

  Then she saw the wisp of a Latina who could’ve been somebody’s baby sister. She wore dark blue sweat pants, gray fleece jacket, and running shoes that had maybe once been white. Hardly the uniform of the world’s oldest profession.

  “Why would you ask that?” Jess smiled, her composure regained in an eye-blink. It rankled her that she hadn’t heard the girl’s approach. Get with it, Jess. Your age is showing.

  The girl made a sweeping gesture in Jess’s direction. “We don’ dress like that no more.” She giggled, and then smiled, showing even white teeth in a pretty pixie face. “You threads is what they say … dated.”

  Jess faked confusion, remembering Diana’s quip. “Oh, Christmas trees.” She looked around at the street decorations. “Wrong holiday.”

  The girl looked at her like she was nuts. “Yeah, like what do you really want? Get yourself laid?”

  Jess shrugged. Then she sidled up to the girl, reaching into her pocket as she moved. Nearer the Latina, she caught a faint whiff of pot. “Guess you got me,” Jess said as she removed Patty Strickland’s photo. “Thought I’d have better luck if I dressed the part.” She handed Patty’s picture to the girl. “Looking for my baby sister.”

  Under the feeble glow of the street light the girl’s brown fingers reached for the photo; then as her eyes connected with it, one dark brow shot up quizzically. “Ain’t no way you this blondie’s sister.”

  Jess shrugged. “Would you believe she was adopted? Does it really matter?”

  The Latina cocked her head on one side and looked Jess up and down. “You gotta get with the program. You wanna come back to my pad, I lend you some duds?”

  Like they’d fit. Jess backed away, suddenly uncomfortable under the girl’s sly glance. “No, thanks.”

  As if reading her mind, the girl continued, “No, I ain’t after your puss. An’, yeah, I seen this chick. She been doin’ this corner till Ramon run her off.”

  “Ramon Williams?” asked Jess. The familiar face of the greasy haired mulatto pimp jumped to mind. “This his block? Since when?”

  “You really knew him, you’d know.” The girl’s voice was turning nasty. Her pretty mouth curled in a snarl. “You so phony. But I seen the chick. This ol’ guy pick her up. Then I don’ see her no more.”

  “Old guy? What’d he look like?”

  “White.”

  “Tall … short … built how?”

  The girl shrugged. “Built like a ol’ guy.”

  “How old?” Jess delicately removed Patty’s picture from the girl’s fingers just as it seemed ready to drop from her grasp.

  “Oh … maybe ‘bout as ol’ as you.”

  Jess smiled sweetly, teeth gritted. “And what kind of car was he driving?”

  “Wasn’ no car. Was a truck.”

  The girl whirled toward a light-colored pickup that Jess had observed on its second pass around the block. “Like that one,” said the Latina. As the truck slowed to a stop, the girl headed toward it. “Let’s go check it out. Might be him. You can show him the pick-cha.”

  Jess started after her. “Wait up. Don’t—
”

  But the passenger side door opened, and the girl hopped in without any preliminaries, motioning for Jess to follow.

  Shit. This is so not Kosher.

  Jess put the skids on her leopard boots and eyed the dark interior of the truck, past the Latina. A large male form whose eyes were black holes in a face blurred by darkness occupied the driver’s seat. She couldn’t make out his features obscured under a baseball cap. She couldn’t even tell if he had hair. He just looked big and beefy as he now motioned to her.

  I don’t think so. Dare was a hunk, but a hunk with a kink? Was this his set-up or some perv’s who’d never even heard of Patty Strickland?

  As Jess deliberated, inching her hand down her thigh toward the Glock at her ankle, a dark green Crown Vic slid up to the curb behind the truck. In an eye blink the open passenger door banged shut as Baseball Cap peeled away from the curb, the Latina beside him. Jess reached inside her jacket, whipped out her cell and snapped the rear of the truck, its mud-splattered license plate caught in her cell camera’s auto-flash—she hoped.

  “Hey, babe, lookin’ for company?”

  Jess took a good look at the Crown Vic’s driver. “Vince?”

  “Jessie?”

  “How long you been on vice?”

  “’bout six months. You really this hard up for business?” Vince Paccione gave her a toothy grin.

  “You know, you’re the second person to ask me that. Better call it a night. My feet are killing me. Mind giving me a ride back to my car?”

  “What was that about with the Ram?” asked Vince.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Inside Vince’s car, Jess checked out what her camera had caught.

  “You just have all kinds of goodies,” he said as she took a mini-flashlight out of her right boot. “No wonder your feet hurt. What else you got in there?”

  “Not much besides my Glock and a Clipit knife.”

  “You need bigger boots.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still driving that fire truck,” said Vince as he pulled up beside her Camaro. “You might as well be driving a black-and-white with the siren on.”

  She ignored the comment. “Mind doing me one more favor?” She poked the cell phone toward him. “Check out this license?”

  Vince squinted at the picture. “Can you hold the light up? Maybe zoom it?”

  She tried. “It looks like HUNTER Z.”

  “Looks like dirt on the plate.” Vince got on his radio and called it in. Within seconds he turned to her. “Nada.”

  “Try HUNTER 2.”

  He returned to Dispatch. She watched his expression brighten. “Bingo.”

  “Well?”

  “Larry Strickland. Custer County. Ring a bell?”

  Dead guy … driving?

  Chapter 16

  The Hunter pats the girl’s brown hand that now rests on his thigh.

  “I’m sorry. I think maybe I overdid it,” she says without any trace of the accent she just used on Jess. “And that other dude driving up didn’t help matters.”

  He squeezes the girl’s fingers affectionately. That other dude was a cop, you airhead.

  “Maybe if we just circle back, he’ll be gone.”

  “We’ll try another time.” She wasn’t going to get in the truck, you numbskull. That surprises him about the black. He had her figured for one who leapt before she looked.

  The girl’s hand moves between his legs. “Are we going to your place?”

  He gently removes her hand and places it in her lap. “Not tonight.”

  “You’re mad. I’ll do better next time.”

  “Next time,” he says. You really think there’ll be a next time? Still, it amazes him how strong her need is to please him. No matter how irrational his requests. And it’s not just her. It’s so easy that sometimes it’s boring. Like shooting ducks on a pond—something he’d never stoop to.

  “When?” she asks. “’cause I have classes three nights next week.”

  “When I’m ready,” he says. He can feel her pouting beside him as he drives.

  “You really don’t have to worry about your classes,” he adds with a wink. That gets a smile out of her, puny like she is. Not a collectible like the black who’s just slipped off the hook. There is a firm-bodied specimen. Breasts like a virgin. Never had any kids to drag them down.

  “Uh … where are we going?” the girl asks. He’s passed the corner by the college where he usually picks her up and drops her off.

  When the bait can’t wait—incinerate.

  “What are you laughing at?” she asks.

  Chapter 17

  After a few more detours without seeing a silver Dodge Ram, Diana headed home. What should have taken twenty minutes took an hour. And felt like two.

  Home was going to look so good. From a distance, she could see Christmas lights dancing off the icy surface of the lake.

  The low stone wall and matching pillars twined with pine boughs and Christmas lights that marked the entrance to Cherry Hills Farm welcomed her. As she turned into her subdivision, she convinced herself that the entire incident had been the product of her still-weakened state of body and mind. What possible reason would Joe Flannigan have for following her? There were dozens of other attorneys to choose from.

  Now, Jess was another story. Flannigan had actually employed her services. If he was going to be pissed at somebody—

  Shit!

  A silver truck sat in front of her house. The unmistakable bulk of Joe Flannigan lounged against the vehicle. How did he know where she lived? She even had an unlisted home number. When he looked in her direction, Diana saw him take a drag on a cigarette, then discard it on her lawn with an impatient gesture.

  As he headed in her direction, she gripped her cell phone. She’d pressed in nine-one-one when sanity reminded her that he man had done nothing, made no threats. Yet.

  She put down the phone and picked up her pepper spray as Flannigan approached her car.

  “I just wanna talk,” shouted Flannigan through the inch-wide opening in Diana’s car window.

  Diana pointed the pepper spray at him in what she hoped was a menacing gesture. In her other hand, she hefted her cell. “Get away from my car, or I’m calling the cops.”

  “I know why you turned down my case,” he continued, leaning toward her, ignoring her request. “It was your friend Jess’s doin’s. I know that now. I need to set you straight.”

  No, it was your own actions. Diana swallowed the words. Instead she said in a voice so calm she surprised herself, “What you need to do is get away from my car, get in your truck and leave.”

  He lurched back, as if her car had become hot to the touch. “I never meant to scare you. But it makes sense now. Winston told me. If you’ll just listen—”

  “Leave at once, Mr. Flannigan.”

  He threw his arms up, large gloveless hands pawing the air; then he backed away from her car.

  “That’s right, Mr. Flannigan. Now, get in your truck and leave.”

  “He took the kids. You knew that, right?”

  “They’re his kids.”

  “And he’s fuckin’ your friend, Jessie. You okay with that?”

  “Leave now, Mr. Flannigan.”

  He shook his large head and slowly retreated. Just before he got into his truck, he turned back, his words making white puffs on the cold night air. Diana strained to hear and made out the words, “…it’ll be you next.”

  * * *

  Once inside the house, Diana found she couldn’t stop trembling. She turned off the timer-controlled lights in the foyer and peeked out a window to make sure Flannigan hadn’t doubled back. No sign of his truck. She waited in the dark. Headlights from the direction of the subdivision entrance set her heart racing. But the vehicle turned into a neighbor’s driveway.

  She checked the deadbolt again before going toward the kitchen. An unexpected touch on her leg nearly loosed a
scream from her throat. Tigger!

  “Mau.” Tigger rubbed against her leg again. “Mau.” Then the yellow tabby led the way to the kitchen where he waited in front of the fridge.

  Diana doled out a saucer of CatMilk, then examined the contents of the refrigerator. Nothing appealed to her. She turned to check on her phone on the island and saw two message lights blinking in synch with her still-racing heart.

  She pushed play without first checking the caller ID and felt the blood rise to her face as she heard her mother’s voice.

  “Diana, don’t hang up now.” It didn’t sound like a demand as much as a plea. Diana listened, ashamed of her emotions.

  “I know how hurt and upset you are,” whined her mother.

  I’m sure you do, Mother. The anger seeped back like a poison.

  “Daddy and I have talked, and we’ve decided you shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. We’re coming for Christmas—”

  Oh, no! Her mother’s voice droned on, something about having the tickets already. Got a bereavement break because of the baby. How could she?

  “… Daddy and I think you and Greg can work things out—”

  Diana pressed delete and quickly hung up the phone. As she sat taking deep breaths, she felt perspiration trickling onto her dried sweat.

  After calming herself with a mug of tea, she checked out the other call. Greg. Against her better judgment, she pushed play.

  “Your mother called me tonight.” Greg’s voice was strident. “What’s this about a reconciliation? You know that’s not possible. Please do something to keep that woman from calling me. Am I going to need to change my cell number?”

  “Arrgh!” She screamed a long, mad-woman scream. Tigger jumped at the sound and raced toward his cat door.