Outside the Law

by Phillip Thompson

  He looked at Russell. “Get the fuck out of here. And if I run across you again, I’m going to throw your ass in jail for possession of meth.”

  Quinn rubbed his wrists and without a word, turned and fled, disappearing across the street and into a vacant darkened lot.

  He looked at John. “Put that shit in the safe in my office. In case we need it for young Russell there.”

  MOLLY

  She put her hands on her hips and exhaled. The living room floor of her apartment was littered with reports, crime scene photos, autopsy photos, case files, her own notes, and maps of Mississippi and Alabama torn from a road atlas then taped together.

  The living room looked as if someone had dumped the contents of a file cabinet in the middle the floor. But, as she stood in pajama bottoms and a Virginia Tech T-shirt, she knew where every piece was and its relationship to every other piece. “Organized chaos,” she called it. She could have done it all on her laptop, but she was a tactile person, and preferred the feel of the paper in her hands when she had a hunch.

  She glanced at her watch: 0241. She was nearly done. She had spent the last seven hours organizing the piles, writing, and amending her notes.

  She squatted, and her hands flew like a concert pianist’s over the various files and folders, stacking piles in alternate fashion—portrait, landscape, portrait, landscape, and so on. She hoisted the resulting stack, nearly a foot tall, and set it with the rough care of a brick mason on the coffee table.

  She needed sleep. She had reserved the conference room for herself at 0800, so that she could avail herself of the whiteboard that took up nearly the entire wall on one side.

  She sat on the couch, staring at the stack of files that represented two weeks of her work—on her own time—and refreshing her thought process. She was aware that she was taking a long shot and working off hunches—maybe too many hunches—on a case that wasn’t really a case, and one to which she had not been assigned even if it were.

  The snake shot wouldn’t leave her alone. Ever since she’d overheard the conversation in the break room, it nagged her. And when the second body was discovered—the one with his eyes shot out—she knew it wasn’t a coincidence. She’d listened around the office, read reports, even chatted up a DEA guy she knew, but nobody seemed to connect the dots. She kept it to herself and started digging.

  She had shaken down her admittedly short list of contacts, both in ATF and her network of informants and gossips. The only thing she learned was that, in east Mississippi, somebody rumored to be an enforcer for a boss in Memphis was punishing dealers who had been robbed by a person or persons unknown. But that was based on nothing but the hearsay of snitches and dopeheads.

  She started with the reports on the first victim, Robert Pritchard. She studied terrain and road maps of the area where the body was found. The report did not state definitively if the murder occurred on the bank or if the body was transported there and dumped. Hunch Number One: Pritchard was shot upstream and floated down.

  She researched the conditions and hydrography of the Luxapalila Creek and its currents to get an idea of how far the body would have traveled, using a best- and worst-case scenario. That gave her two circles—one about thirty miles, the other about fifty—upstream from the place of discovery. That was a lot of territory. To find something she wasn’t even able to identify yet.

  She’d spent an afternoon going through the coroner’s report and asking questions of a retired medical examiner she consulted on occasion, a serious woman named Beatrice Patterson. Patterson shot holes in her hypothesis, which was good. She had learned a long time ago that professionals critique to help as well help to critique.

  “Unless the body had something attached to it from upstream or was marked in some way—say, gashed from what would be a bridge piling, something like that—it’s really hard to say exactly how or where the body got into the water,” Patterson said. “You read the report and saw the photos. Except for the GSW, it would almost look like a drowning.”

  Patterson recommended she not put too much stock into charting river currents, either. Unlike herself, Patterson was a local and had grown up along a river. She knew a river’s moods and peculiarities the way long-married couples know their spouses.

  “Unless you knew the exact weather conditions at the time of death, which is itself an approximation,” Patterson told her, “and the exact flow data of the river on that particular day, you’re really just making wild-ass guesses.”

  But after she’d gotten back to her apartment, she remembered Patterson had mentioned a bridge. As an example, sure, but it gave her an idea. On the map, she circled every bridge upstream from the scene for sixty miles. The location of Pritchard’s body was marked on the map with a square and the number one in it. She reread the list of his personal effects collected by the morgue team and, sure enough, his car keys were listed. There was no notation of make and model, which probably meant no one had bothered to run down the car. That went into her notes for later, but, playing a hunch, she started at the bridges closest to the scene. Several spanned the creek in or near Columbus, and she quickly discounted those. That left three others farther upstream, one of which actually traversed a smaller creek that fed into the river.

  Google Earth showed all three were in rural areas. The bridge over the small creek most of all. It was possible that Pritchard had been dumped from one of those bridges and maybe even killed there. Those bridges were on her list and in her PowerPoint presentation—while she loved the old-fashioned way, tomorrow morning’s brief—this morning, she corrected herself—would be modern.

  The second victim, Rick Munny, had been found on a dirt road deep in a wooded area in a rural part of the county. Munny was also killed with snake shot. But, unlike Pritchard, his keys were not among his personal effects. His truck was parked in front of his residence when time of death occurred. No sign of a struggle. A very deliberate murder. Munny’s location was a square on the map with the number two written inside.

  She closed her eyes and lay back on the couch and willed sleep to come, but it wouldn’t. One thought kept pouncing through her mind: I really need this. For seven fucking years, I’ve needed this.

  She hoped to change that at 0800. As her eyelids at last drooped, she was aware of the desperation in her hope.

  DELMER

  “And you’re sure about that?” he asked Ray for the fourth time.

  They sat on the hood of his car in a small parking lot overlooking the lock and dam. He and Ray had gone to school together, but the only time they ever saw each other these days was at Winnie’s. He’d watched Ray sidle up to a guy he knew to be a dealer, dude named Turn, the other night as if he was trying to score.

  He’d followed Ray and Turn out to the parking lot of the bar and watched the deal go down from the shadows of the building.

  So for the last couple of days he’d been real friendly with Ray, playing the part of another dopehead looking to score some oxy.

  Once Ray agreed to arrange a deal with Turn, he began his routine of getting the info on Turn, especially the part about a gun. Turn had a rep as a badass.

  “Man, why do you keep asking that?” Ray said. “I done told you he don’t carry a gun.”

  “Just making sure.”

  Ray shook his head and slid off the hood. Tossed his empty beer bottle into the tall grass on the slope that led down to the dam. “He’s scary enough to not need one.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “So Turn is big business, huh?”

  Ray pulled another longneck from the six-pack sitting on the pavement in front of the car, twisted it open. “Yeah, he deals a lot around here and always has cash on him.”

  He sat up, but tried not to look too interested.

  “Yeah? How much is a lot?”

  Ray looked at him, and he saw a lot of anxiety in the man’s eyes. Ray had the look of a man scared to tell a secret but dying not to.

  “Word is,” Ray said, “he’s got
a rolling bank in his car. Keeps about fifty grand in it.”

  He drained his own beer. “Bullshit. Fifty grand? No way.”

  Ray shrugged. “That’s the word going around. I seen him with a big wad of cash every time I run into him. I know that.”

  “Damn, dude with that much cash ought to be careful.”

  Ray’s head bobbed as he stared at the glassy surface of the Tombigbee below them. “So, we on, then?” he said. “Tomorrow night?”

  He slid off the car, picked up the remaining longnecks. “Definitely,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Cool. “I’ll let Turn know.”

  COLT

  John walked in and stood in front of his desk, waited for him to finish reading the Munny report. He closed the folder, looked up.

  “What you got?”

  John grabbed the chair by the desk, pulled it to him, and sat. “Not much on Delmer Blackburn. But what’s bugging you?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “We noticed it at the scene. Two sets of tracks, two different vehicles. I just read the report on Munny, including the girlfriend’s statement. Munny’s truck was found parked at his apartment after we found him dead. She said he’d left sometime the night before in his vehicle, and she never heard him come home. Had no idea where he’d planned to go that night, and she was with some other guy until midnight. But, yet, his truck was there the next morning—the morning after we found him dead. And no keys in Munny’s personal effects.”

  “Girlfriend got a set?” John asked.

  He shook his head. “She said she didn’t. And if she doesn’t and none were found on Munny, that means somebody probably drove his vehicle away from the scene and somebody else drove the other vehicle.

  John nodded. “And we haven’t heard anything about two people being involved. You think this Blackburn has a crew?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. But it looks like somebody does. What you got on Blackburn?”

  “Like I said, nothing much. No priors. Speeding ticket two years ago.”

  “That’s it?”

  John nodded. “I know. Doesn’t give us much to go on.”

  “No shit,” he said. “Can’t arrest a man for being invisible.”

  “We can ask him to come in for questioning, though.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “Got an address?”

  “Sure.”

  “Go bring his ass in, then, and let’s see what he has to say.”

  DELMER

  He had never shot anyone until about thirty seconds ago.

  He thumbcocked the Magnum and pointed it at the corpse lying facedown in the gravel behind the Monte Carlo. The glow of the taillights illuminated the growing pool of blood, casting it black as oil in the dim light.

  Turn was dead, had to be. The hollow-point bullet from the .44 had hit him square in the chest at near point-blank range.

  He had never even fired a gun at a man before, and now two lay dead at his feet. Behind him, near the driver’s side door, Ray lay sprawled on the warm blacktop, surely dead, eyes glaring at the night sky above, a bullet hole in his right cheek and a pattern of blood, brain, and bone sprayed across the southbound lane of Highway 12.

  Turn’s feet twitched, and he thought about putting another one in him, but then Turn went still, so he eased the hammer down.

  This shit did not go down the way I wanted it to.

  He stared at the black wall of trees across the highway, then at the blood trail that led from Ray’s side, across the asphalt, into the gravel and the ditch on the other side.

  The third guy ran off into those woods. But he was hit pretty good, judging from the blotches of blood.

  His heart felt like it was trying to strangle him, and his hands shook. He gripped the pistol and stared, his mind flinging words that weren’t even coherent thoughts around in his head. He needed to calm down, make this shit make sense, but all he could do was stare at the woods. Which was stupid if the guy he shot had a gun. Which he most assuredly did.

  Who the fuck was that guy?

  It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Hell, he considered Ray to be something close to a friend. Not drinking buddies or anything, but someone he’d known most of his life. He surely wouldn’t have bet he’d be blowing a hole in him tonight.

  What the fuck just happened?

  He finally gathered his wits and ran to the driver’s side of Ray’s car, reached into the backseat and grabbed the gym bag back there. He opened it on the trunk, rummaged through the contents. Pill bottles clattered in the bottom. A speedloader. Baggie of weed, which he pocketed. No money.

  “Fuck!” he yelled into the bag. “There has to be fucking money.”

  He spun around and looked at Ray. The money had to still be on him. He swallowed bile. No way he wanted to touch the man he’d just killed. He huffed out a breath, shook his head, and squatted over Ray. Patted him down, still nothing.

  “Shit, of course this ain’t going to be easy. Thanks a lot, Ray.”

  He rolled the body over and saw the envelope sticking from the pocket of the jeans. He grabbed it and sprinted to his car. He really didn’t give a shit how much was in the envelope, and he could tell by feel that it wasn’t much—not nearly what he’d expected. But he damn sure wasn’t going to leave that scene empty-handed. Not after that.

  He put the car in gear and flew down the highway headed north, away from town. Away from everything. He had to think. Something had felt wrong from the minute Ray got out of his car.

  He’d set the deal with Ray three days ago. Ray didn’t do any dealing, but he knew the guy who did. Turn—Kevin Turner—had been running oxy for a while, and Ray was a regular customer. They’d bumped into each other over a beer at Winnie’s, and one thing led to another. He let on that he might be looking to score, and Ray was obliging.

  He’d even pressed Ray for a little intel—did Turn carry a gun or money, that kind of thing. Ray said he’d never seen him with a gun, and the only money he knew about was the cash he handed over for his dope.

  Well, he sure as shit had a gun tonight. And so did Ray, that little shit.

  They’d met at a rest stop that been closed down years ago, right off the highway. He’d pulled up behind them and gotten out, the .44 in the back of his pants. Ray climbed out of the driver’s side, looking nervous as hell. He picked up on that right away—Ray looked like he wanted to be anywhere in the world but on the side of Highway 12 at that moment. Then Turn climbed out of the passenger side with an auto in his hand. At the same time, a black kid he’d never seen damn near jumped out of the backseat on Ray’s side, also holding a pistol.

  He’d decided to play it cool and took on a look of confusion.

  “Hey, Ray, what’s up with all the guns?”

  Ray just shook his head, and for the first time he noticed the gun in Ray’s right hand. He was holding it down at his side, almost like he was embarrassed to be carrying it. Or didn’t want to.

  It was Turn who spoke. “Precautions. Or comeuppance, take your pick,” he said.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Turn was big man, over six feet, with a full beard and hair that fell to his shoulders like a woman’s. He took a step toward Delmer and looked a lot taller. “You the little fucker been ripping dealers off.”

  His bowels cramped, and his throat seized up. He glared back at Turn and tried to keep an eye on the black kid, who had moved around the car and to Turn’s left about three feet. “What?” he yelled, hoping he sounded sufficiently shocked.

  Turn snickered. “Folks saw you at Winnie’s the night Pritchard got robbed. And you set up this deal at Winnie’s with Ray over there.”

  Ray flinched at the sound of his name and looked guilty as shit as he took on a hurt look, then cast his eyes to the ground.

  His reflexes kicked into gear. He snatched the Magnum out and started cranking off shots. One hit Turn square in the chest just as he raised and fired his own pistol. He f
ired twice more at the black kid in the dark, heard him howl and go down. He pivoted toward Ray, who was raising his pistol. He was so stunned at Ray’s movements, he nearly forgot the consequences of Ray’s actions, but he fired first. A bullet hit Ray in the face, and he flew backward and landed on the highway asphalt in a wet thud.

  He spun back toward the black kid with two bullets left. Nothing. The kid was gone. At first he thought he’d missed him, then he saw the blood trail. Several splotches the size of a saucer leading through the gravel shoulder into the ditch off to the right-hand side of the road. Beyond, black woods made any surveillance impossible.

  “Now what?” he said to the windshield. He punched the steering wheel. “Now fucking what?”

  DEE

  Dee sat with his back against a pine tree and clutched his calf with both hands. Sweat rolled off his face like rainwater.

  He was afraid to move his hands, or even look at his leg, for fear of blood gushing out of his body. He didn’t know how much blood he had lost, but goddamn it hurt so probably a lot serves me right for getting involved in this cracker redneck crazy-ass shit in the first place how much blood is even in my body that shit went down way too fast and way too stupid goddamn Turn is an idiot—was an idiot—I shoulda knowed better when I laid eyes on him but Hack said he was cool. Cool my ass this is just some more Mr. Freeze bullshit and that motherfucker is definitely going pay me hell give me a raise if I ever walk again I wonder if my leg still works I can’t even feel it shit it hurts that stupid white boy with his bigass Magnum I’da shot his ass dead what was his name Delmer Blackburn that’s right I’da shot his ass dead if that stupid bitch Turn had any idea what he was doing amateur ass motherfucker getting out the car like he’s Dirty Harry or some shit all cool after I told his dumb ass to come out the car with the gun and leveled at that punkass bitch but no he had to do it his way and that motherfucker is dead and it serves him right fuck my leg hurts I gotta get to that car and get the hell outta here before the cops show up and they will show up you know that so get on up and ease yo’ ass over to that car and vanish.