Mean High Tide (Thorn Series Book 3)

by James W. Hall

  He slipped down the hallway to her bedroom door. Stood there and listened to her snore, a duplicate of Sylvie's. Harden thinking how easy it would be simply to push open her door, force himself onto her, enjoy one momentary ecstasy. But no, he would not do that. For he wanted more than some fleeting gratification. Much more than that.

  Touching the cool wood of her door, he let his fingertips linger for a moment, leaving behind his oils, his scent, then he let go of his breath and moved silently to the guest room, where the man slept. Doris left all the doors slightly ajar, probably so she could hear the old man if he woke in another fright. But Harden wasn't worried. He'd stolen into rooms where highly trained guards sat on full alert, and he had sifted across open spaces while a dozen eyes searched for any sign of him. Part training, part instinct, he knew how to take the gravity from his step, move without footprints, breathe soundlessly until he was as dark and un-reflective as the shadows.

  Nudging the door open, Harden eased into the man's bedroom. Came close to his bed. A slash of brightness lay across his quilt, shining from the security spotlight across the canal.

  From the small back pocket of his shorts, Harden took out the paper envelope. No bigger than a single packet of sugar. He opened the flap, moistened his finger, and dabbed it inside. Felt the grains adhere to his fingertip.

  The man's eyes came open. He looked up at Harden. In the dimness Harden could not be sure, but the man seemed resigned to this. Finished struggling, knowing by now that it was no use.

  This was his third dose. And it was almost as if the man were welcoming Harden back, perhaps even wanted him to make it a lethal amount this time, wanted no more toying around, no more delay, have done with it.

  But no, Harden had measured it precisely, knew exactly what one dab would accomplish. He didn't want this man dead. He wanted him to suffer. To feel some portion of the pain Harden had experienced because of him.

  He leaned over the old man, and with his left hand he gripped Albright's lower jaw and pulled open his mouth. He inserted his right first finger into the man's mouth, wiped the grains across the old man's tongue.

  As he was pulling away, Albright lunged upward and bit down hard across Harden's knuckles. Gnashing while a sound rose up in the old man's throat, a pathetic growl.

  But Harden fended off the pain, kept silent, disciplined. Calmly found a pinch on the old man's carotid artery, shutting off his blood for a second, two, three, till the man relaxed his bite, lay his head back against the pillow, and closed his eyes.

  He was still for a moment or two more, seemed to be falling asleep, eyelids fluttering. Harden watched, inching backward toward the doorway. He paused at the threshold, pressing his bleeding hand hard against his hip, stanching the flow, as he stared at the old man in his striped pajamas. Watching him for a minute, a minute more, until finally the first convulsion began.

  ***

  "Where you been?" Frank Witty said. "You said midnight."

  "I'm here, Frank. What's the problem?"

  Frank rubbed his eyes and turned his back on Sylvie and padded into his bedroom. A little concrete block house on Sunset Drive. A nothing house. Smelling like a bachelor pad. Sweat socks and booze.

  He sat down on the edge of his unmade bed. Smelled like sex in this room. Sex and sweat socks. Sylvie started unbuttoning her white shirt. Doing it slow, getting Frank's attention as it came undone.

  "You said midnight."

  "Are you whining, Frank? Is that what that was, a whine?"

  "I was all pumped up. That was hours ago."

  "It was my father's fault," Sylvie said. "He was standing guard over me and wouldn't let me leave."

  "Your fucking father, man."

  Sylvie got to the bottom button, hesitated, then undid it, drawing the shirt open very slowly. Frank's pajama bottoms starting to rise.

  "Is that a tent pole I see, Frank?"

  "Why you still live with your father, anyway?"

  "I have no choice."

  Sylvie unzipped her jeans, slid her right hand down into her crotch, wiggled it around down there. Guys liked that, a girl touching herself. God knew why.

  "Your fucking father."

  "He's awful, Frank. You have no idea."

  This one was so easy. A definite yes. Thorn, on the other hand, she didn't know for sure about him. Worth another try, but probably not going to help her. You had to keep thinking down the road though, be with one, line up the next. No rest for the weary.

  She stepped out of her blue jeans and put a finger between her lips and licked it wet.

  "I'm getting ready, Frank. I'm lubricating myself. How about you, Frank? Are you ready for the long flight out of here, ready to push the envelope, Frank?"

  He stood up, slipped his pajamas off. His thing was erect. Pointing at the ceiling. Frank was a done deal. So easy.

  "Lights," Frank said, and smiled. "Camera." He made a camera out of his hands and cranked it at Sylvie as she walked naked toward him.

  "Action," said Sylvie. "Action, Frank."

  ***

  It was after three A.M. when Sugarman drove his Mustang down Thorn's gravel drive, honked three quick times, his usual signal, parked next to the VW, walked up the stairs, knocked on the doorframe and came in. Without a word to Thorn, he walked around the house, examining the gashes in the floor, the ceiling. When he was done, he stopped, looked over at Thorn for a moment, shaking his head like he was disappointed he'd missed the action, not sure when the next time would be.

  "You left the TV on like that. I woke up, there was Darcy. Her face right in front of me. Christ, I thought I was going to have a seizure."

  "You run the tape back?" Thorn said. "See what happened?"

  "Most of it, I guess. Enough to send me on pretty much the same path you've been on tonight."

  "You went to Murtha's place?"

  "His condo, yeah. Just came from there. He wasn't home, but I saw Rochelle Hamilton." Sugarman picked the fan blade out of one of the rocking chairs and sat down, held the blade for a moment, not knowing what to do with it. Finally just dropped it on the floor. "Jesus, Thorn, what the hell did you do to Rochelle to piss her off so bad?"

  Thorn glanced up at the ceiling, then back at Sugarman.

  "You don't seem particularly curious about all this." Thorn waved at the wreckage.

  "I knew we'd come to it."

  "It was Murtha. I spotted his car parked a half mile down the road. Abner at the Little General described him too. I even found one of his Chee?tos on the stairs."

  "Not exactly covering his tracks, is he?"

  Thorn squatted down, broke some splinters off the floorboards and dropped the pieces through a bullet hole.

  He said, "Maybe Murtha never got his doctorate in the fine art of criminal behavior. Doesn't know you're supposed to wipe down your prints, leave a spotless crime scene."

  "Maybe."

  Then he told Sugar about Sylvie, the tomato sauce, all of it. He showed him the drawing she'd left, repeated the words she'd used.

  When he was done Thorn sat down across from him. Sugarman was rocking thoughtfully, his eyes on the rafters.

  "You should've held on to her, Thorn. You shouldn't have run off like that. That's what I meant about being rash. You weren't thinking, man. You weren't being level-headed."

  "Hey, look at this place, man. A couple dozen slugs through my floor. Damn right I wasn't thinking straight."

  "Don't get weird on me, Thorn. Don't go spinning off."

  "I'm fine now. Just fine."

  "So'd you call the law?" Sugarman waved his hand at the riddled house.

  "No."

  "Then we should do that next."

  "Suit yourself," Thorn said. "Talk to them all you want. I'm not up to dealing with police bullshit at the moment."

  "Wait a minute, hoss. I know what you're thinking."

  "Yeah? What would that be?"

  "Take the .357, go have a high-caliber conversation with Roy Murtha."

 
Sugar met his eyes, and Thorn said, "So tell me, buddy. The hell would you do in my place? Somebody shot up your house, trying real hard to kill you, the same guy slapped your loved one around a couple of weeks before she was murdered. You'd give all that to the police, let them decide how to proceed?"

  "Yes, I would. I have that much respect for the law."

  "Oh, I respect the law just fine," Thorn said. "It's the fucking people who execute the law I got serious doubts about."

  "Stay here, Thorn. Talk to the police. I guarantee you, the two of us, we'll be at the store at nine o'clock. We'll have a talk with him first thing."

  "Yeah, civilized chat," said Thorn. "Take your Miranda card along, make sure everyone's lawyer is present."

  "Thorn," Sugarman said, getting some bite in his voice now, a little of that sternness that lived deep down in the hollows of his viscera and rarely made it up to the light. "Believe me, Roy Murtha's going to have to supply a good explanation of why he slapped her, and an absolute airtight alibi about where he was tonight to keep me from taking him out to Blindman's Pass and cutting him up into pieces so goddamn little even the crabs wouldn't have to chew."

  Thorn looked at him a moment longer. His buddy leaning forward, elbows on knees, eyes fully charged.

  "Okay, okay. We'll talk to your old comrades. But I'm goddamned if I'm going to rely on those shitheels to take this where it needs to go."

  Sugarman held Thorn's eyes for a moment, the creases gathering in his forehead. He and Thorn'd had this argument before, back when Sugarman was on the force. Now that he was private, it seemed that Sugar had lost only a fraction of his old rigidity. There was just something in his nature, all those indelible habits learned by the light-skinned black kid who was an outsider in both worlds. The kid who'd used his rawboned strength and his quiet ferocity to become a high school football star, a skinny fullback who won the grudging admiration of his redneck teammates. And later, the young man who fought for years to penetrate the rigidly orthodox, all-white world of the sheriff's department. Through it all, his habits of strictness and adherence to the rules won Sugarman respect and earned him rank, helped him up the ladder. And though he was a free operator now, he wasn't free of all that. Still wanting to solve things within the narrow lanes of the cop world. A rule book stored at cell level.

  "Tomorrow, I'll loan you my jigsaw," Sugar said, getting out of the rocker, squatting down, touching his finger to one of the gouges. "You can cut plugs for these holes, use Liquid Nails, glue them in, be good as new. Maybe even better. Give the place a nice polka-dot effect."

  "I don't think this is funny, Sugar."

  "No, it isn't funny."

  Thorn stood up, went over to the fly-tying desk, looked down at the crude drawing Sylvie Winchester had left.

  "Ring of fire, dragons, carrying off maidens," Sugar said. "This lady sounds like she's read one too many fairy stories."

  It taxed him considerably, but Thorn smiled.

  ***

  The Monroe County deputies had a good prowl around the house and property, took their sweet goddamn time poking through Thorn's things, showing considerable enthusiasm, even taking measurements of the holes in his floor. One deputy invited Thorn onto the outside porch and asked him a few dozen questions. Then asked them a second time. Thorn didn't give them Murtha's name.

  "So, you go out drinking with the boys tonight, Thorn? Tip a few too many. That what happened?"

  The deputy leaned close, into range of Thorn's breath.

  "Aw, shit, Earl, you caught me. That's just what I did. Snorted a quart of rum, came home and filled my house full of lead, then called in the mounties as a prank."

  "It happens," the deputy said. "I've come across stranger goddamn things than that."

  Thorn turned around, went back inside, sat in a rocking chair, and didn't speak again.

  After they'd gone, Sugarman hung around, drinking one of Darcy's diet Cokes.

  "You satisfied now?"

  Sugarman said yes, he was.

  "So go home, sleep. I'll be by early, pick you up."

  He took a minute or two more to finish the Coke, keeping his eyes fixed on Thorn. Then he got up, dropped the can in the recycling bin, patted Thorn on the shoulder and left.

  Thorn lay down on Darcy's side of the bed, still dressed. With the empty .357 cradled against his chest, he listened to the chitter of insects, and the distant burr of fishing boats far out in the back country. He lay still, eyes open, hearing the quiet dissolve of seconds. Listening to each minute becoming the next, the hours making their dark arduous passage. Crickets becoming frogs, frogs becoming silence. And finally, with his head against the pillow, his eyes still open, Thorn listened as the stillness melted away into the gray hum of dawn.

  CHAPTER 14

  At seven he pushed himself out of bed, set the Smith on the dresser, stumbled into the bathroom, and in ten minutes he was showered, shaved, and dressed. Gray jeans, blue work shirt, his grease-spattered Keds.

  He picked up the pistol and carried it into the living room. He lifted it, felt its weight, took a grip on it, then aimed it at the front door. He kept that pose for a moment, then turned and panned across the room till he was pointing out the front window. He cocked the hammer, sighting on a gumbo-limbo near the shore.

  Held his focus for thirty seconds, then a minute, held it until a quiver came into his muscles and grew to a shake. Out of shape. Lost his edge. Grown a flabby husk of domesticity and pulled it around himself like some comfy sleeping bag. But now it was time to wake up, crawl out, start some brutal weight training again. Lift the pistol, aim, hold it steady. Fight back the quiver. Lift, aim, lift, aim. Till it all came back. Till he was hard again. Hard and cold and merciless.

  When finally his muscles began to fail, he set the pistol on his fly-tying desk. At the front door he stood for a moment and in the full daylight examined the damage. There were a dozen fist-size punctures in the ceiling, spears of sunlight coming through. Probably tore the hell out of the wood shingle roof and ripped up the tar paper all around it. The floor was worse, ragged splinters punched up, and twisted shards of wood everywhere, the ground fifteen feet below the house was visible at each step. Next decent rain, the room was going to be one large colander.

  He went downstairs, climbed into the VW, and drove to Sugarman's house. When he arrived Sugar was standing in the front yard in his pajamas, pressing a piece of plywood into one of the wooden frames of his double hung windows.

  "I had a visitor last night too," he said, glancing at Thorn. "Guy apparently forgot his key, had to climb in through here."

  "When?"

  "While I was off looking for you."

  "Jeanne all right?"

  "She was sleeping. Snoozed right through it."

  Sugarman hammered on the edge of the plywood with the side of his fist until it was wedged tight in the window frame.

  He turned around and Thorn saw the anger had taken hold in his eyes.

  "The fuckhead rifled through my video collection. Threw around all those great Disney classics. Shit, he even broke my Fantasia cassette."

  "He find what he was looking for?"

  "No," Sugarman said. He waved hello to one of his neighbors, a fishing guide trailering his skiff to work. "I took all the work tapes with me in the car. Seemed a little paranoid at the time."

  Thorn followed him inside. Sugarman told him to help himself to breakfast if he wanted, and he walked back into the bedroom to get dressed.

  Thorn found a loaf of rye bread and made himself a couple of pieces of toast. Buttered them and poured a cup of coffee. Some kind of Irish mint creme with a hint of chocolate almond. Jeanne's doing. Closer to candy than coffee.

  Thorn sipped the stuff and sat at Sugar's dinette and watched two squirrels chasing each other up and down the side of the oak tree in Sugar's backyard. One finally caught the other and mounted it from the rear. Their tails switching, immobilized for a few moments. As he watched them, caught in their moment of ani
mal bliss, the chocolate coffee turned to acid in his belly.

  ***

  Thorn explained what he wanted to do, and they took Sugar's Mustang to Largo Park, one mile north on the ocean side. A row of expensive new houses were down by the sound, but the rest of the subdivision consisted of small two-bedroom jobs, working-class houses with old pickups out front, rusty Keys cruisers; Cadillacs and Chevys, lumbering dinosaurs from the sixties, with barge bodies and menacing grills.

  He pulled in the driveway of a small white house. Red shingle roof, two shabby palms, a rusty tricycle on its side in the yard. Thorn got out, went to the door, hammered hard enough so there was a remote chance he might be heard over the TV cartoons.

  Sugarman stood on the porch beside him, holding the two cassettes.

  A black woman in her thirties came to the door. She was wearing a motel maid's uniform and her hair was straightened into a Doris Day flip.

  "Well, if it isn't Mr. Thorn and Mr. Sugarman," she said. "What you boys want so early in the morning?"

  "Hey, Tonasha."

  Thorn said, "We'd like to use Eddie for something."

  A young black kid appeared behind Tonasha and wedged in beside her hip. Seven, eight; large eyes.

  "What you want with my Eddie?"

  "We want him to look at a movie for us."

  Beside her, Eddie bobbed his head up and down, eager for the job. Tonasha moved aside to let them in.

  "Now, what kind of movie would that be?"

  "A silent one," Thorn said.

  ***

  Eddie sat on the couch, watching the video of Murtha and Darcy. He lip-read and signed to Tonasha, who sat on the arm of a velveteen La-Z-Boy and interpreted aloud for her guests.

  "He need to look at that part again," she said. "That man's talking too damn fast for Eddie."

  Thorn aimed the remote zapper at the VCR and backed it up.

  The boy had already translated the first minutes of Darcy's visit. Right away Darcy had asked Murtha who the girl was. The girl who'd handed him the pistol. Murtha didn't answer, just stared at her. And she told him she wanted to know what their conversation meant. Murtha was speechless. Darcy asked him where the girl was now. And Murtha dropped his head, stared at the floor. Darcy told him that she wasn't going to let this slide. She was going to locate that girl, talk to her, find out what was going on. Murtha raised his head. Looked at her.