Walk a Crooked Line

by Susan McBride

  She raised her gaze, checking above her and seeing the hayloft and the ladder leading up to it. She started toward it when she heard a noise, a whimper coming from somewhere close.

  Was it human? she wondered, as she instinctively reached for her holster, but she slid her hand away when she recognized what the sound was and where it was coming from.

  Two cages sat in the nearest stall, covered by stained blankets like the one Hank had found in the bed of Jason Raine’s pickup. Nearby, she saw a slew of wooden bats lined up like soldiers, looking bruised and bloodied from previous battles.

  She inhaled the stink of excrement, of fear, and she swallowed hard.

  She pulled back a corner of a blanket on the nearest cage to see a large dog cowering. A German shepherd, she realized. “Tucker?” she said instinctively, and the pup inched toward her slowly, clearly afraid.

  She reached in her pocket for a peanut butter cookie, and she offered it to him through the bars. He opened his mouth, and she thought, at first, that he would take off her fingers, but he merely grabbed the food and gulped it down, like he hadn’t eaten in a while.

  Had anyone come to care for them recently, or had they been left alone?

  From the looks of their empty water bowls, Jo guessed it was the latter.

  The other dog began to whine, and Jo peered past the bars to see a boxer, likely the one Karen Rossfeld had mentioned disappearing from its backyard. She offered up the second cookie in the package, dropping it into the cage when she heard a shout from outside.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said, feeling a horrible pang in the pit of her stomach. “I’ve got to go.”

  She stared at the frightened dogs and second-guessed herself, thinking that she should just put an end to it all now, not let any part of this roundup go on. They could call in the Celina cops and charge the boys with stealing dogs, but she knew it wouldn’t work like that. Their lawyers would spin it. “They found the poor dogs,” she could hear them protesting. “They were going to take them to the vet to check for chips. Hell, they weren’t harming them. They were saving them!”

  So she pushed down her self-doubts and whispered to the skittish animals, “I won’t let them hurt you. I won’t.”

  Not any more than they were hurt already, being ripped from their homes, thrown into crates, and taken somewhere foreign, left without food to sit in their own feces.

  They whimpered softly as she took off, then one began to bark. Jo ran to the ladder leading up to the hayloft and climbed quickly, as though escaping a fire below, which in a way, she was.

  With a groan, the barn door slid open, pushed wide enough to drive a car through, and Jo scrambled up the last rungs, flinging herself onto the dirty wooden floor of the loft. Her heart slammed against her rib cage as she picked up voices from below.

  She half crawled toward the large window, open to the air beneath the hay hood. A big iron hook hung above, tied to a rope that wound around a pulley, then ran back along the hay track. There were no hay bales, nothing to suggest any of it was still being used.

  Jo came up to the edge of the window, daring to peer out as the immense teepee of logs ignited with a whoosh, fire rushing up from the brush around its base and in its center, engulfing the pyre in flames that leaped into the night.

  She saw two of the boys then, dressed to match the darkness, bandanas on their faces, ball caps on their heads. They whooped and hollered, arms raised to the sky, as if praising some unknown god of destruction.

  Then the other boys appeared, bringing with them the cages, which Jo realized were on wheels. They rolled them forward, toward the fire, and the dogs’ whimpers changed to howls and snarls.

  Did they sense what was to come? Did they know that they’d be fighting for their lives?

  Jo reached for the walkie on her belt, tempted to signal Hank now, to tell him she was going to end this, that he should call for backup pronto. Instead, she raised her fingers to her chest, where the body cam rested in the vee of her collar, between her breasts.

  Quickly, she turned it on.

  She angled her body against the side of the window, tipping the camera so it could capture the scene unfolding below, lit up so brilliantly. The fire was like a dragon’s breath, blowing flames of illumination toward the starless sky.

  Jo could see everything.

  She didn’t worry that they’d look up. They were too engrossed in their own theater, handing out the baseball bats, tossing pieces of meat around their arena, banging the cages and screaming obscenities until they were fired up enough to let the dogs out.

  The animals began to run, darting haphazardly, unsure of their surroundings and what was going on. Finally, they scented the food and ran toward it, unaware or uncaring that the young men awaited them, circling, chasing, toying with them, and then taking a swing.

  “Holy shit,” Hank’s voice hissed from the speaker of her walkie.

  She let go of the body cam and snatched it up. “Call for backup now,” she told him, feeling her own disgust rise above all else, snapping her like a rubber band stretched to its limits.

  She reached up for the hay bale hook, felt it give, and pulled it down.

  Then she screamed at the top of her lungs, jumping from the hayloft window, the rope in her hands, burning her skin as she rode it down.

  She hit the ground hard, throwing herself off her feet as she landed. She’d bit her tongue and tasted blood but didn’t pause. As she got up, she reached for her holster, tempted to grab her sidearm. Instead, she removed the Taser and turned it on as the dogs ran toward her, trying to get away from the bats.

  It was then that Jo saw the boys swivel on their boot heels, wondering where the high-pitched scream had come from.

  Jo picked out Jason Raine, the ringleader, all six-odd feet and two hundred–plus pounds of him, and she let out an anguished cry, running straight at him with all her might. She threw her shoulder into his chest and felt like she’d hit a brick wall, bouncing off, falling down to the dirt as he pulled down his bandana and laughed at her.

  “Remember, Detective, you hit me first. It’s only self-defense,” he said and raised the bat.

  Jo rolled on her back, Taser still in hand. She fired it, hitting him square in the belly.

  He cried out and went down, kicking and flailing.

  She backed away, breathing hard, keeping hold of the Taser, which only would stun the second time around, but she wouldn’t even need that.

  She heard Hank’s voice, yelling that he was the police and directing the boys to get facedown on the dirt. A siren wailed in the distance, the sound small and then louder and bigger, fast approaching, and Jo picked herself up, her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath and find her balance. The dogs came around her, sniffing at her pockets and whining, but they looked okay.

  She put her Taser away to sling her arms around the pups, hanging on as they whimpered, hoping to hell the body cam clipped to her shirt had captured every shot.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  They split the boys up, putting the first two in separate interview rooms. The other two were kept apart and babysat by uniforms so they wouldn’t get up and wander, finding each other to intimidate or coordinate stories about what had gone on.

  Jo left Trey Eldon by himself for a while. Let him stew, she mused, as he probably had the most to lose of them all.

  She went inside the room that held Jason Raine.

  He gave her a sneer as she entered, and he leaned back in the plastic chair, looking extremely pleased with himself. “Go ahead and charge us, Detective. What have you got?” he said, a hollow smile on his lips. “Animal cruelty? Punishable by a fine, I’ll bet, or better still, any charges will be dropped once we get our lawyers involved. You’ll see.”

  “You forgot about the rape charge,” she told him, pulling up a chair on the other side of the table. “We’ve got your DNA.”

  He raised eyebrows at her. “How?”

  “From that chaw you spat at me
yesterday.”

  For an instant, his face clouded. Then, as quickly, he was giving her another grin, even sloppier than before. “You’ve got nothing,” he told her, leaning forearms on the table, his shoulders hunched forward so they were closer than Jo would have liked. She could smell the stink of his perspiration and his fetid breath. She could see the brown stain of tobacco on his teeth. “I didn’t rape anyone. I didn’t go near that chick after Trey took her upstairs.”

  “Then who did?”

  “You know what? You can talk to my lawyer,” he told her. “He should be here any minute.”

  Then he pressed his mouth shut, making a big gesture of zipping it.

  Jo stared at him stonily. She thought about a hundred ways she could wipe that smirk off his face if she didn’t care about losing her job. But she was interrupted by the door coming open.

  “Larsen?” Hank leaned in. “Can you come out a minute?”

  She turned her head. “Now?”

  “Yeah, now.”

  Jo swiveled back around, figuring he was right. She looked long and hard at Jason and realized she wasn’t making any progress, not with this particular son of a bitch. Maybe her partner wanted to give it a crack. He was better than she was at dealing with chauvinists.

  She got up and walked out, not acknowledging Jason’s cries of, “Hey! You’re not leaving me in here, are you?”

  Once she’d cleared the room and shut the door, she rubbed damp palms on her jeans. “You’re right. I’m not getting anywhere. You should probably take over.”

  “You’ve got a phone call from Emma Slater,” Hank said, such a grimness to his tone that she was sure it was bad news.

  “Is she working late, too?”

  “I guess so. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  “You take it,” she insisted. She would deal with bad news later. She still had work to do. She had to get something out of these despicable boys before they all lawyered up.

  “I talked to her already,” Hank said and grabbed her wrist. “I really think you’ll want to hear what she has to say.”

  Jo took the call at her desk, bracing herself as she picked up. “Hey, Emma,” she said. “I’m almost afraid to ask what’s up. It’s way past quitting time.”

  “I’ve got your results back from the private lab.”

  “Oh.” Jo got quiet fast.

  “We got a match on the DNA. It was in the database.”

  “How?” Jo had run background checks on the members of the Posse. Except for minor traffic offenses, they were clean. What had she missed?

  “Your unsub was arrested three years back for solicitation. He’s in the system.”

  “Jason Raine?” Jo said, confused.

  “No,” Emma corrected. “The name’s Eldon.”

  “Robert Eldon the Third?” Jo said. Had Trey gotten caught hiring a hooker at fifteen? She wasn’t really surprised, not considering how messed up he said he’d been when his mom died, and how his dad started having affairs.

  “No, not that Eldon . . .”

  “John Ross,” Jo said. The younger brother who’d masturbated outside Kelly’s window before he’d been shipped off to Virginia?

  “No, not that one, either. It’s Robert Eldon Junior,” Emma told her. “Age forty-three.”

  The father?

  Jo sat there, phone in hand, stupefied.

  The JR that Trey had mentioned in the encrypted e-mail to Kelly wasn’t his brother, John Ross, or Jason Raine.

  It was Robert Eldon Junior.

  But he hadn’t been at the party that night, or had he? Mr. Eldon had told them that he’d gassed up the private jet and taken his younger son back to school that very day. So either the lab was wrong, or Papa Eldon was lying through his teeth.

  Jo put her bet on the latter.

  “Are you a hundred percent?” she asked Emma bluntly.

  “It’s a clean match,” Emma said. “All thirteen markers. They don’t get any better than this.”

  “Thank you.” Jo breathed, a feat in itself, considering she’d just had the wind knocked out of her.

  She nodded, feeling stronger somehow, her anger and frustration at not getting anywhere with Jason slowly ebbing. She finally had some honest-to-God leverage. No, more than that. She had concrete evidence. Kelly hadn’t been lying when she’d told Cassie she had proof.

  “We’re gonna get him, sweetheart,” Jo whispered to no one but the walls, and then she did something she should have done earlier instead of taking Robert Eldon’s word as gospel. She went online to track down his flight plans, filed with the FAA, and even called the private airstrip to confirm what she found.

  His plane had not lifted off before Trey’s party. He had not flown out of the metroplex until the next morning at dawn. For all she knew, he could have been the one to dump Kelly in her yard on his way to the airstrip.

  No one made you drink. No one made you pass out. He was drunk, too. You should NOT have worn a dress that tight. What was he supposed to think? It’s your word against ours. Do NOT mess with us. Let it drop, or your life will be OVER.

  They would fight the charges, Jo knew. Robert Eldon would hire the best defense attorney in Dallas to get his ass off the hook. He would point the finger at Kelly, say it was all her fault, that she’d been consenting—albeit underage—and that she’d asked for it. To him, Kelly was nothing but leftover party trash, a crushed Solo cup with beer in the bottom.

  Daddy Eldon would grease some palms, and if the case went to court, he’d do his damnedest to make sure a judge was assigned who was known for his leniency toward upstanding white guys who had friends in high places. And he might very well get off, too, considering it was his word and his boys’ word against that of a dead girl, one of “those girls” from the wrong side of the tracks.

  Jo swallowed hard, the taste in her mouth more than bitter.

  “You okay there, hoss?” Hank said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You look like you’re coming down with something.”

  “I am,” she said.

  “You pick up mad cow when Jason Raine knocked you on your ass in the paddock?”

  “More like I’m suffering from an acute case of disillusionment.”

  Hank grunted. “Hey, it’s not over yet.”

  “No,” she said. “But I think I know how it ends.”

  “Stop it, okay?” He turned her chair around so she faced him. He even squatted on those banged-up knees, so she knew how much he wanted to get through to her. “If we don’t try, if we throw up our hands, what’s left? You want the bad guys to win?”

  She lowered her head to her hands.

  “C’mon, Jo. Where’s that hard-ass cop I know, the one who’s like a dog with a bone, who never gives up, no matter what’s against her?” he said, sounding pissed. “She’s not a quitter. She’s the kind of woman I want my girls to be when they grow up. Resilient, compassionate. Tough on the outside and soft in the middle.”

  Surprised, Jo looked up and met his gaze. Her own eyes teared with appreciation. “Me as a role model?” she said. “I don’t know if that’s wise . . .”

  “I disagree, partner. If not you, who? The hot mess of self-absorbed idiots on reality television and half-dressed pop princesses?”

  “Well, if that’s my competition . . .” She laughed dryly, brushing at the damp on her cheeks.

  “We’re the good guys,” he told her. “We help each other. We don’t give in.”

  “I know.” She bit her lip, nodding. “You’re right.”

  “I’m always right.” He put his hands on his knees, still crouched low on his thighs. “Now, if you’d help an oldster stand up straight, we can get back to work. Let’s go talk to the captain and see how he wants to do this. We’ve got to go by the book if we’re going to arrest a man like Eldon, not to mention his asswipe kid and his kid’s asswipe friends. Gotta dot all those i’s and cross those t’s, you know.”

  Jo smiled at his use of the captain’s own words. She was tempte
d to reach out and touch his sweet face with all its middle-aged creases.

  Instead, she stood and held out her hands, taking his and giving a heartfelt pull. And when he was upright again, after a lot of grunting and groaning, he gave her hands a squeeze before he let them go.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Trey glanced up as she entered.

  He straightened his back, putting his hands on the table, palms up. Where Jason Raine had looked anything but vulnerable, Trey appeared visibly shaken.

  Jo settled into the opposite chair, putting a file down before her and setting her hands atop it, clasping them. She gave herself a minute before she spoke. “Last time we met, it was on your terms, wasn’t it? You lied to me, and you lied about me. Big Brother’s watching now, Trey, so I wouldn’t pull that crap again if I were you.”

  He stared at her, saying nothing.

  She settled back. “It’s my turn to tell the stories. I have a really good one, too, and I want you to listen.”

  “Detective, I told you, I didn’t—”

  “Shut up, son,” she said. “Kelly Amster goes to your party. She hangs outside with your boys, who keep giving her drinks. Hard liquor, beer, whatever’s handy. Except Kelly can’t hold her booze, not like your posse. She gets sick, and they leave her out there by the pool. You hear about it, and you don’t want her puking on your dad’s expensive patio furniture. So you bring her in. How’m I doing so far?”

  Trey pulled his arms off the table, dropping his hands into his lap.

  “You take her up to a guest room and lay her down on a bed. Maybe you clean her off a little so she doesn’t soil the pretty linens.”

  He cocked his chin, his eyes narrowed, not sure where she was going with this, which was just what she wanted.

  “But then you left, and someone else went in. Someone who didn’t care that Kelly was unconscious.” She shook her head. “What I think is that Kelly awakened sometime while he was raping her. Worse for you, she remembered.” Jo paused, sighing. “She trusted you, Trey. She trusted your family.”