My cellphone rang again. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Hancock said, “where are you?”
“Coming to the parking lot now.”
“Good. I’m waiting outside my car.”
“I see you.” He stood by his brown squad car in matching full uniform and waved. “Bye.”
I pulled into a spot between a Maserati and a BMW as Hancock ran toward me with something in his hand. He reached me just as I shut the door. “Hey. You look lovely,” he said with a smile.
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you. This really means a lot.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’ve had a weird, crap day.”
“Well, hopefully this will improve it,” he said, giving me the file in his hand.
“Anything useful?”
“Not that I saw. Lots of drug convictions, a few prostitution arrests, some fraud. One guy had a manslaughter charge. Bar fight.”
“Thanks.” I popped my trunk and stuck the file in there for safekeeping.
“Just make sure you bring that back when you’re done. I’m out on a big, damn limb here,” Hancock said.
“It’s about to get a little bigger.” I shut the trunk and removed the sandwich baggie with Helen’s fork from my purse. “The prints on this belong to the number-three, possibly second-ranking official in the cult. A woman named Helen. It sounded like she went federal, so I’d check there first. She also had a son named Chad put in foster care who died. I’ll need to know about him as well if possible.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“All I ask,” I said with a yawn. “Sorry.”
“Let’s drop this in my car and get in there. No longer than an hour, tops. I promise.”
“Good thing I know you’re a man of your word, Sheriff. Shall we?”
After a stop at his car to leave the fork, we strolled up the freesia-lined path, past the two fountains and perfectly manicured lawn and through the Greco-Roman columns, into the club. It hadn’t changed in twenty years. Same musty museum odor all old buildings seem to have. Same dark green carpet. Same oil paintings of my male ancestors from Josiah Grey all the way to the current scion, Elliot, and his brother Gregory. Most Greys had the same green eyes and thin mouth I inherited. Merrill’s son would probably hang on that wall someday too. Of course, no women or bastards ever did or would. Fairness and feminism would have to burn the country club down before the old guard would ever allow them in.
“So you just need me to stand still and look pretty?” I asked as we walked past my ancestors.
“If you can throw in a few things like ‘I got into law enforcement because of Sheriff Hancock’ and ‘Everything I learned I learned from him,’ I’d appreciate it.”
“Is your opponent going to be here?” I asked.
“Yeah. Captain Frank Wilson. He’s David Wilson’s son. David Wilson owns one-third of the commercial real estate in Niagaraville, and the scuttlebutt is his brother is a VP at Viking Prison Dynamics. Their first privately run prison is going to open in the next month or so in Niagaraville.”
“On brother dear’s land, no doubt.”
“And they’ve bought Captain Wilson in from Pittsburgh, running on a crackdown-on-crime, no-second-chances platform.”
“And you’re thinking he’s a plant for Viking? He’s going to send people to prison for jaywalking and having one joint on them?”
“Viking gets paid per prisoner, and as you know, it’s easy to rack up the charges on a person. Misdemeanors can become felonies pretty damn fast.”
“Oh, America, sometimes you make me want to become Canadian,” I said mock wistfully. Serial killers had nothing on corporate CEOs. We stopped right outside the ballroom door, and I locked my arm in Hancock’s. “Okay then. Let’s get the bastards.”
They were using the smaller ballroom, which was roughly the size of my old auditorium at Grafton College, with waiters moving around with champagne flutes for the fifty-plus people inside. As far as the eye could see were white middle-aged and old men in suits with their emaciated, surgically enhanced wives in cocktail dresses. There were a few people of color and younger women, second wives most likely, but not many. The stench of cigar and Chanel perfume almost turned my stomach. The sight of my father and his wife, Judith, talking to Merrill and I assumed her husband actually did turn my stomach. I’d figured he’d be at the party, I’d even mentally prepared for it, but my stomach still seized.
At least I had no urge to punch him as I’d feared. Maybe I was just too tired. My sperm donor had aged well, the bastard. I hadn’t really seen him since the blackmailing incident twenty years before. His hair had gone completely gray but with his tan, he wore it well. He kept in shape, staying trim and taut through the decades. There were some lines around his green eyes and thin mouth, but like the gray hair, it didn’t diminish his attractiveness. Even his large Roman nose—normally unappealing—worked well for him. I was right, though. Without question, Jeremy Shepherd was built from the same ilk as Elliot Grey. They had the same air of smugness, shallow charm, and invincibility. My father may never have killed anyone, but he was not a good person. What he did to Billy proved that.
Judith Grey, his better half, held up well too. Like Mom, she was petite, only reaching her husband’s shoulder, and as thin as Olive Oyl. Everything about her was thin: her nose, her lips, her chin. She always reminded me of a wide-eyed blond bird. She married my father two years before I was born. She was the daughter of a banker in Philadelphia and his socialite wife. She had the pedigree, the connections, and I’d bet Elliot always had a massive line of credit at his father-in-law’s bank. I wondered if being the unofficial queen of a dying county was enough for her to put up with her husband’s constant philandering. I was shocked he hadn’t replaced her with a newer model. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe she knew where all the bodies were buried. If so, good for her.
My darling half-sister’s husband took a moment for me to place. He wore his light brown hair in the same fashion as our father, parted to the left. In fact, beyond Elliot Grey’s sharp nose and squarer jaw, they could be father and son. Creepy. He’d been part of Paul’s circle. Simon Summers. Paul’s best friend, the one whose girlfriend found the Planned Parenthood receipt. Wonderful.
Yeah. Cultists would be preferable. Any night of the damn week.
Still, I let Hancock lead me inside the ballroom. “See your opponent?” I asked.
“The one approaching your father.” He paused. “Are you okay? We can avoid—”
“I’m fine. We don’t have to avoid anyone. Come on, clock’s ticking. In one hour I turn into a pumpkin. Let’s get this over with.”
We sauntered over to two elderly men I didn’t know, all smiles. “Sam, Barry, hello,” Hancock said.
“Tim. Hello!” the bald man, Sam, said before eyeing me. “No Amanda tonight?”
“She had a headache. My old protégé Dr. Ballard agreed to keep me company tonight instead.”
Both men’s mouths opened. “Ballard? As in Iris Ballard?”
“The one and only,” I said.
“My goodness! You’re even prettier in person,” Barry, the bearded one, said. “What are you doing back here?”
“Visiting my family and old friends like my mentor here,” I said with reverence.
“Your mentor?” Sam asked.
“Oh, yes. The Sheriff never said? He’s so modest. Sheriff Hancock here was instrumental in getting me into the FBI. He taught me so much when I used to work for him a million years ago. I definitely never would have gotten as far as I did or accomplished as much if Sheriff Hancock hadn’t taken me under his wing when I was a teenager.”
“Really?” Barry asked.
“Absolutely. Grey Mills is so lucky to have him. I tried to convince him for years to come to the FBI, but he just wouldn’t abandon Grey County. Our loss, your gain.”
I was laying it on a thick, but they were eating it up with a fucking spoon. As did the next captains of local industry we mingled with. I ans
wered all their invasive questions—including what it felt like to kill a man—with a smile on my face. They even asked for photos and autographs. It had been six weeks, and I still wasn’t used to the whole minor-celebrity thing. I never would be. Under the radar so people left me alone to do what I wanted without judgment was more my style.
Soon we had a whole group surrounding us, and the questions came fast and furious.
“When was the moment you knew Shepherd was the Woodsman?”
“Are you going back to the FBI?”
“Is Shelly Monroe as short as people think?”
“Could you write a letter of recommendation to our son’s college?”
It proved difficult to steer the conversation back to Hancock, but the many impressed smiles and nods in his direction were still a good sign. Obama was just a handsome senator before Oprah endorsed him. About twenty minutes into the Spanish Inquisition, Merrill’s husband and Hancock’s opponent, Captain Wilson, slipped into the circle. The captain was in his early forties, bald, and like my mentor dressed in his dark blue police uniform. Hancock’s smile tightened.
“We had to see it to believe it,” Wilson said. “Dr. Ballard, it is an honor. A true honor.” He held out his hand and I had no choice but to shake it. “I’m Frank Wilson, Captain Frank Wilson, Pittsburgh PD.”
“Oh, I know who you are,” I said with my smile intact.
Wilson’s mouth twitched a little before he looked at Hancock. “Timothy.”
“Frank.”
“I had no idea you had such an illustrious friend,” Wilson said.
“I wouldn’t say friend. The more accurate term is protégée,” I said with pride. “He taught me everything I know about law enforcement. I just went in and pestered him and pestered him for years with my questions, and he never turned me away. The patience of Job, this one,” I said, patting his forearm before scanning the crowd. “Which, let me tell you, is one of the key virtues in law enforcement. It takes time to build a case, and—”
“Is that why it’s taken so long to follow through on all the campaign promises you’ve made over the past eight years?” Simon asked Hancock. “As I understand it, you’ve been building cases against all the meth manufacturers and pill mules you swore you’d eradicate all that time. How many of these organizations have you dismantled?”
Oh, someone had investments in Viking Prison Dynamics. Hancock was momentarily stunned, trying to find an answer, but my wingman wings deployed instantly. “God, would that it were that easy, Simon,” I said pleasantly. “In the past ten years we’ve had a massive recession the people of Grey County will tell you they are still recovering from. With big conglomerates like Grey Consolidated no doubt sending jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor, people will do anything, anything, to put food in their children’s mouths, even resort to crime. And who can blame them?”
“So you support the drug trade?” Wilson asked.
“No, I just recognize the gray, pun intended, involved in the situation. Not to mention the DEA has had the full funding of the federal government for over forty years and they haven’t even put a dent in the drug trade,” I pointed out. “Because as even Captain Wilson can attest, you cut off one head, a new one will almost instantly grow to fill in the void. There is only so much one organization can do, especially now with ten years of tax cuts. Twenty years ago there were ten full-time and fifteen part-time deputies, and now there’s what? Two full-time and a handful of part-timers? I’m shocked the town hasn’t become some Mad Max wasteland.”
“Yes, but—” Wilson began.
“And don’t get me started on corporations taking advantage of these dire times. I just heard they’ve built a privately owned prison in Niagaraville. That is a disaster waiting to happen. Whenever you reduce human lives to a commodity, like this…Viking, is it?” I asked, smirking at Simon and Wilson, “the corporation will never be satisfied. You’re all businesspeople. You know a company has to show growth every year. Sure, they’ll have their plants in law enforcement round up all the lower-income citizens first, making a baggie of weed into a felony, but what happens the next year when they’ve cleaned up all the trash and still need to grow their bottom line? You, or God forbid your children, get pulled over for kids being kids and suddenly they’re the ones with a felony conviction locked away in prison. Their whole lives ruined because Viking’s CEO and investors needed to buy another Maserati.”
“That’s a bleak, unrealistic—” Wilson started.
“Wait,” I said, holding up a finger as I pretended to contemplate something. “I-I’m sorry, Captain Wilson, but isn’t your uncle a top executive at Viking?” I glanced at my captivated audience. “I don’t know about you, but that’s a little strange to me. It’s almost like voting for him is voting for a corporation, much like the ones that made it so difficult for all of you to grow your small businesses and plunged us into a recession. And it would also make me question if he would be looking out for his own best interests or all of yours. I don’t know, the whole situation just seems…downright evil. And as all of you know, I am quite good at recognizing evil when I see it. Just ask Jeremy Shepherd. Something to think about when you’re signing contribution checks.”
I wished to God I had a mic, because I would have dropped it right there and then as I smiled smugly at the glaring Simon and Wilson. Sam cleared his throat. “Well, uh, you certainly have given us something to think about.”
“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, nature calls.”
With a reverent nod to the group, and a squeeze to Hancock’s arm, I all but strutted away. I did actually have to use the bathroom. After I peed, I fixed myself up in the mirror, smug smile never wavering. After what happened at The Temple and with Mom and Gia, I definitely needed a win. That I’d helped an old friend was just a happy side effect. I was sure Wilson and Simon were spinning my statements for their own purposes, but I spoke the truth and had right on my side. It felt damn, damn good to score one for the good guys.
But where would us good guys be without our bad guys?
One such bad guy waited right outside the bathroom for me when I stepped out. The first words my father said to me in twenty years were, “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
I was so taken aback by his mere presence I couldn’t think for a second. “I was…peeing.”
Elliot grimaced. “You. Always with the sarcasm.”
I hadn’t been sarcastic, but this exchange bought my mind a moment to escape my stupor. “You know, having a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. Guess that means I’m just smarter than you are.” His grimace grew. God, is that what I look like when I grimace? I asked myself. I’ll have to curb that impulse. After this conversation. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“By the looks of it, to cause me trouble.”
I let out a laugh at that insanity. “Oh wow, Elliot. No wonder you’re not too intelligent. Your ego takes up too much space in your brain. I’m not here for you. I don’t give two shits about you. I’m here for my friend Sheriff Hancock. But if by me helping my friend wrecks your evening, then I am going to enjoy the added cherry on top of my sundae. Oh, and sending your son-in-law to fight your battles for you? Classy. Too afraid to take me on yourself?”
“Forgive me if I was a bit hesitant to provoke your ire. You have killed two men and blackmailed me without provocation. Not to mention how you treated my daughter today.”
“Yeah, your daughter started it, as she always does. Most insecure people do usually feel the need to pick fights. And of course, most studies show insecurity stems from neglectful, shitty parenting, most commonly from not having a strong fatherly role model growing up. As for the blackmail thing, it was twenty years ago. Get the fuck over it. And let’s not forget how your fancy lawyers got you out of paying a dime in child support all my life. What I did was justice. You owed me that money. Just like you owed my brother, Dad. You use the fact that I defended myself against two serial killers against me? Your
own flesh and blood came to you for the first time in his life, begging on his hands and knees for you to help save his baby, and you literally slammed the door in his face. He just needed a few grand. That’s a golf weekend to you. You’re inhuman,” I spewed. “She had a miscarriage, Elliot. Your son had a breakdown and now might be in physical danger.”
Elliot’s face fell just a smidgen. “What?”
“Yeah. You literally broke your only son’s spirit. And do you care? Forget he’s your son—can you conjure up one morsel of compassion for your fellow man?”
“Of course I can,” he said. “But your brother came to my home during a party, all but ranting and raving and causing a scene. I had to have him escorted out.”
“He came to your precious party because you wouldn’t take his calls or see him at your office, Elliot. He was fighting for his child. And when you knew the whole story, when you found out about the baby, you still could have sent the money. But you just didn’t care. That’s why I’m here. Because you couldn’t be a compassionate, unselfish asshole for one damn minute toward your own child. I’m here to clean up your fucking mess, you bastard. And if you don’t get your little puppet into office because I spoke the truth, then really that’s on you. Your actions have consequences, Elliot. Especially the shitty ones. But I’m walking, talking, berating proof of that, no?” I smirked. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Father dear, I have the strongest urge to go back in there and speak to each and every person and reporter in that room about how wonderful Sheriff Hancock is, because he was more of a father to me than you probably ever were even to Merrill. Your straw man’s getting blown away by the Big Bad Wolf. Karma can be a bitch, no? And I’m more than happy to do her work.”
I winked at my seething father before sidestepping him and walking away without a glance back. I couldn’t contain my smile even if I’d wanted to. My father had cornered me, attempted to bully me into leaving, and in the end he barely got to throw a punch. The man had balls to even try, but mine were bigger. He should have learned that when I was sixteen and walked out of his house with hundreds of thousands of dollars. And here I’d always thought I’d gotten my intelligence from him. Must have been a fortunate mutation. And like the X-Men comics Billy liked to read, I intended to use my power for good.
Darkness at the Edge of Town Page 17