Bad Bones (Claire Morgan)

by Linda Ladd

  “Same old, huh?”

  Claire laughed softly to herself. Black was just so on target with that one. “Yeah, pretty much, smart guy. And I’m gonna have to turn off the phone soon because I’m up high on a granite cliff and it might echo and alert aforementioned killer that I am hot on his trail and getting hotter by the minute.”

  “Like I said, same old stuff. So, when will you be home for dinner, sweetheart?”

  “I won’t be home for dinner. We’ve got nightscopes and rifles and video cams, and apparently nighttime is when the action usually goes down. In the dead of night, the operative word being dead.”

  “I take it that you’re not in mortal danger, though, right? Bud’s still out there with you, I assume. I shouldn’t already be on my way up there with an M16 and a posse, should I?”

  “Not to worry. Bud’s here, and so is my new FBI friend. I am as safe as safe can be, and we have no warrant to go anywhere on the Fitch or Parker properties, which handcuffs us big-time because that’s where the guy is preying on his victims with occasional murderous side trips elsewhere.”

  “Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. At least, the safe as safe can be part.”

  “I’ll be home later. Where will you be?”

  “Cedar Bend. Let’s spend the night here.”

  “You got it. Jules is there with you?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry about him. Are you warm enough? Don’t want you to come down with pneumonia right before the wedding.”

  Claire smiled. Not subtle, that. He had an innate ability to work wedding references into every conversation. “I have on at least ten layers and my electric socks, both on my feet and inside my shirt. I will be hale and hearty for our upcoming wedding day.”

  “Want some company?”

  “Nope. No need to come save me tonight. I am safe and secure and having a ball. In other words, I’m cold and miserable and want to come home and be with you in the worst way imaginable.”

  “Well, I like most of that. Don’t be too late, dear. You know how I worry about you and all those killers you hang around with.”

  They hung up a few minutes later, and she switched off her phone. She looked back and could not see Laurie’s stake-out spot, but she didn’t expect to. Laurie was good at her job. She knew exactly what she was doing. As dusk disappeared and all became black and impenetrable, she found that her night vision scope was absolutely top of the line. She gripped the rifle with her gloved hands and continued to scan the outlying back acres of all four properties for any signs of movement, but didn’t see anything at all, not even a rabbit or squirrel. Even they had the sense to go home to their nests. She kept herself aware, however, because there were other varmints in the area, too, bobcats, for instance, known for attacking lone joggers now and then. Not to mention, fox, deer, raccoon, and maybe even a bear or two, if she was her usual really unlucky self and it was nixing hibernation and wandering afar from its den. Maybe even a wild dog or two. Or Patrick Parker’s eight hundred hounds out for a group walk.

  After about two hours of nothing but blowing tree limbs and whistling wind, she climbed back on the snowmobile, switched on the headlamps, and headed back down the hill again following Laurie’s back fence row, but this time the one that separated the Dale property from the Parker land. Yep, Laurie Dale had two sides of psychos to contend with, all right. So did Claire. She certainly hoped side three was Joe McKay’s domain because Laurie and her husband needed a normal neighbor who carried and used guns. She wondered if Bones Fitch was spending a lot of time on the Dale and Parker and McKay back acres, which were awfully damned isolated and desolate, instead of his own homestead and that was why he had been so successful at evading capture. The night was really getting cold now, and the snow slanted down through the beams of the headlamps, big and beautiful and wet. She had dressed appropriately so she was still warm enough, except that her nose and cheeks felt slightly frozen.

  When she got to the far end of the Dale property, she took cover once more and focused her nightscope over on the Parkers’ dark and quiet farmland. It was pitch black now that she had stopped. If this guy really was a Parker brother, he would know their land like the back of his hand, too. It wouldn’t hurt to watch how the bearded brothers were passing the time. They were as nuts as the Fitches. And any one of them could be Bones Fitch. Maybe she’d get lucky, for once, and spot the guy.

  So she lay down on her stomach and adjusted the barrel of the rifle on the tripod again. Below her, there was a lot of Parker property, but most of it was covered in evergreen trees and the snow was coming down so hard now that the visibility had dwindled almost to nil. She stayed where she was a while, thinking it made sense that somebody in the two clans would use this isolated no-man’s land to do their retaliations and murder hunts. The Parkers hadn’t shown a lot of brilliance, anyway, not ever, in fact, especially when knocking down the Fitchville gate and driving recklessly into the compound with guns blazing. It had occurred to her before that it was surprising that the Fitches hadn’t retaliated right then and there. They had all been armed to the hilt, wearing gun belts Cowboy style. Even McGowen looked like Wyatt Earp in an orange coat. Maybe they knew that Bones would take care of it for them. And hey, maybe that’s who the Parkers were looking for.

  “Don’t you move.”

  Claire went rigid at the low whisper coming from behind her and did not move. Maybe that was because she felt a gun barrel pressed against the back of her head.

  “Put your hands straight out to your sides on the snow. Don’t move. You have any other weapons on you?”

  “No,” she lied, glad she could.

  “Put your arms behind your back. Don’t try anything, either.”

  Claire did not want to do that, uh-uh. “You don’t have to tie me up. I’m not going anywhere. You got me cold.”

  Her assailant only laughed. He flipped her over like she weighed nothing and started frisking her underneath her parka so she took that opportunity to ball up her fist and slug it as hard as she could into his Adam’s apple. That did the trick, and right off the bat, too. He fell over sideways, clutching his throat, coughing and choking, and she scrambled up, drew out her Glock and nosed it tightly against his chest. “Now, don’t you move, buddy.”

  He didn’t but he was in a world of hurt. Apparently, her fist had been dead on and more than effective. She put the flashlight on his face and jerked off his ski mask. “Well, hello there, Percy Parker. Trespassing on Laurie Dale’s land and attacking her guests? That it? Nothing else to do tonight?”

  It took him awhile to get out any words, but he finally said, “I didn’t know it was you. I promise.”

  “Yeah, right. Turn over so that I can cuff you. You aren’t very good at capturing people, are you?”

  “I thought you was one of them coming to get us. They are crazy and they hate us and they try to kill us every chance they get. You don’t believe us, but it’s true.”

  “Yeah, I know. And you hate them. And on and on and on, ad infinitum. What were you gonna do to me after you tied me up, huh? Kill me? Take me home to the boys as a souvenir?”

  “No, I was just gonna scare you some. You was spyin’ on us. You think we killed our own brother? That it? You think we killed his wife? That’s just not us. That’s them. That’s what they do. You guys just never catch ’em at it. They’re too clever.”

  Clever was a word Claire would never use to describe Fitches. Probably Percy was the only one who ever had. Now the snow was intensifying, it was hard to see, even after she switched on her headlamps again. The wind was picking up, practically howling around the rocky outcroppings and sounding a lot like wicked banshees. Her own breath was coming out hard. “Maybe you come up here from time to time and pick off some Fitches yourself. I hear they’re disappearing right and left off their place.”

  “No way. I just came out here to protect my brothers, that’s all. I swear. Just to see who was creeping around and tryin’ to kill us. I’m
on guard duty tonight.”

  Claire peered down into his face, where he lay handcuffed and on his back in driving snow. He had regained his innocent who me? expression again. The one that she was pretty damn sure was contrived. This guy was not so innocent, she felt it. He knew how to sneak up behind her and take her by surprise. Unfortunately for him, that was as far as his assault skills went. “Where were you going to take me?”

  “Nowhere. I just didn’t want you to hit me or shoot me, but you did anyways.”

  Claire frowned. “Just sit there and shut up.”

  Taking out her phone, she dialed up Bud. The line buzzed with static and cut out now, but he answered quickly and said, “You ready to hang it up for tonight? I am. The snow’s really comin’ down now. Bet you’re freezin’.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got a prisoner that you need to take back and book into jail.”

  “No, no, please don’t,” whined Percy. “I need to stay up here and guard the house so my brothers can get some sleep. We’re all in danger. You just don’t know how much or who’s after us.”

  “Yeah, I do. Now quit whining. Patrick can come bail you out tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want him to. I wanna go home now before he finds out I’m in trouble.”

  “Well, you’re outta luck, kid.”

  “Who’s that? You okay?” Bud asked.

  “Percy Parker. You know, he’s the Parker who can shoot the best. Can you take him in for me? I want to stay out here a while longer. Maybe I’ll catch me some more guys. I have a feeling they’re lurking behind every tree now.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Assaulting a police officer with a weapon good enough?”

  “You okay?” he asked again.

  “Yeah, he’s not very good at it.”

  Percy Parker now appeared to be sulking, even while the sleet hit him in the eyes. “If you take me in, my brothers are gonna be worried about what happened to me. You just don’t understand the truth about stuff.”

  “Just take it like a man, Percy, okay?”

  “You just don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t. But you are makin’ a big mistake. I’m not the one.”

  “All I know is that you’re the one who held a gun on me tonight. That’s enough for me.”

  After that, Percy just sat silently in the snow and looked bummed out about going to jail.

  Within fifteen minutes, Laurie Dale had found them and was escorting Parker back to her farmhouse to be placed into Bud’s custody for a ride into town. Claire took over down the trail at Laurie’s vantage point, one that had the bird’s eye view of the village of Fitchville, but couldn’t see it all that well with the snow and sleet falling so heavily. She moved laterally up the fence row, ready to call it a day. About fifteen yards up, she saw that the fence had been knocked down. It hadn’t been down the last time she saw it, so she hunkered down and looked around and then moved cautiously to where it was lying on the ground. Then she looked at the thick pine trees all around her. Unfortunately, at that point, she was also looking at about five men who materialized like phantoms out of the snow-driven curtain, all holding very large shotguns and rifles that were pointed directly at her.

  “Hello, detective. Nice to see you again.” Big Harold Fitch in the flesh with lots of little armed Fitches all around him.

  Claire focused her rifle square on his chest. It seemed like the thing to do. “Yeah, nice. So move along now. I’m working. You are trespassing on Dale property.”

  “Put down the gun. We will kill you. Don’t think we won’t.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you won’t, but I do think you won’t get away with it. My partner knows where I am, and so do a lot of other people around here. Including the FBI. And you guys aren’t exactly ghosts, you actually leave your tracks in the snow. Tracks that they can follow home and arrest you, one and all. By the way, which one of you is Bones Fitch? You can tell me, really.”

  “It’s gonna snow all night,” answered a new voice. One Claire immediately recognized as belonging to one undercover ATF officer by the name of Kevin McGowen. “You should’ve minded your own business. Now we’ve got to take you out.”

  At that point, Claire was hoping to high heaven that he was playing his role of fellow Fitch murderer and cohort and that he was just joshing her, and didn’t really mean all those deadly threats, although he sure did sound like he meant them. These undercover guys, what was a girl to do? “You will never get away with this. Killing a police officer. That’s not so smart, not that anybody ever accused you of being smart. In fact, it’s gonna blow up in your face any minute now.”

  “Well, you won’t be around to worry about it,” said Harold Fitch. “Kill her, Badidiah.”

  Damn. They weren’t ones to mess around and shoot the bull with their victim like was done on most TV crime shows. Hell, two minutes hadn’t even passed and they were ready to pull the trigger. She had to make a move, right now, or die.

  McGowen aka Badidiah said, “She’s right. Let me take her out to the killin’ field and do her there. We’re too close to the Dale farmhouse. They’ll hear the shot and come running. Our tracks won’t be covered up yet, not for a couple of hours.”

  Claire sincerely hoped he was buying her time. Very sincerely. Meanwhile, she was deciding who to shoot first. Big Harold won that lottery.

  “Just get rid of her,” Big Harold said suddenly, and then McGowen jerked his shotgun at her head and so quickly that she couldn’t even get her rifle around to shoot him. The end of the butt cracked up against the side of her skull just behind her ear, and she went down hard in the snow, dizzy and disoriented, but still slightly conscious. The last thing she remembered was McGowen jerking her up by the front of her jacket and then heaving her bodily over his shoulder.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  When Claire forced her eyes open again, she was lying on her back in front of a roaring fireplace. She could feel heat from the crackling and popping logs warming one side of her face and body. She no longer wore her heavy parka and insulated fleece jacket. The fleece had been folded and placed under her head for a pillow. She put her fingertips to the throbbing lump behind her ear and realized her sock hat and gloves had also been removed. Then she saw McGowen. He was sitting in a rickety old rocking chair beside her, creaking back and forth and smiling down at her. He said, “Well, you really stepped in it this time, detective. I’ll give you that much.”

  Realizing her danger, she jerked up to sitting position, and then groaned when a white arrow of pain shot through her head and hit her agony receptors head on.

  McGowen was still calm and conversational. “I found this cabin way back in the woods behind Fitchville. Nobody knows it’s here. The ATF contact radio’s out here. I guess you’ve got a headache?”

  “Oh, yeah, I sure do. Thank you so much for clubbing me like that.”

  “Had to, but I picked my spot and didn’t hit you hard.”

  “Felt plenty hard to me.”

  “Better call your partner and tell him that you’re okay.”

  “Oh, you think so?”

  “Yeah, he’ll be worried and come looking for you.”

  “Maybe I want him to come looking for me. Maybe you want me to do that so you can take your time killing me without a SWAT team busting down the door.”

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, Claire. If I was, you’d be dead and buried by now. Problem is, now I’ve got to keep you out here and out of my way until I can arrange for your partner or somebody you trust to come in and take you out. Unless you think you can make it out on your own without your weapons. Otherwise, Big Harold’s gonna see right through me and then you’re gonna end up dead, and so am I.”

  Claire wasn’t so sure she could or wanted to believe a single word he said. She slid her hand under her left arm in search of the Glock 19. It was still snug in its holster. Th
e .38 was in its little bed, too. She could feel the heft of it on her ankle. He had not disarmed her. He had not taken her cell phone off her belt, either. She turned it on. McGowen didn’t try to grab it, just sat and rocked and watched her check herself and her weapons out. He wasn’t wearing a gun belt, not that she could see, which was good.

  “I’ve got a little confession to make,” he told her.

  “What now? You’re just kidding, ha-ha, and I have two minutes to live?”

  He laughed, very softly, his black eyes glittering in the dim firelight. “You don’t take prisoners, do you?”

  “Wish I could say the same for you.”

  “You’re not my prisoner. But I’ll tell you one thing, you are way too reckless. You gotta get that in hand or you’re gonna end up six feet under.”

  “Thanks for the tip. Well, go ahead. Hit me with the big confession. I can take it, I hope.”

  “Okay. I’m not really with the ATF.”

  Oh, God, that was not exactly something Claire wanted to hear. “No? So you’ve been lying to me. You are a bad guy, after all. With orders to kill me?”

  “Well, I’ve never really thought of it in black and white. Everything’s gray in my world.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. Hitting a police officer in the head and dragging her out here in the woods seems pretty black to me.”

  “For your own protection. Harold found out about the real ATF agent right off the bat. The real Badidiah Fitch. Then he was very dead and very quickly. That’s how much they like undercover cops. Now I’m impersonating him to keep the ATF off their backs until they can clean out this place.”

  Bigger question was: Why wasn’t she dead yet? She glanced around, wondering if McGowen had any kind of ulterior motive for keeping her alive. Then she thought: What the hell? She pulled out her Glock and pointed it at McGowen’s face.

  The fake agent/fake best buddy didn’t move a muscle to stop her. “No need for that, detective. I haven’t been ordered to kill you, at least not by the guy I really answer to. So you can rest assured that you’re safe with me. I want you to get out of here in one piece, and the sooner, the better.”