The Holler Thief: A Private Eye Mystery

by Jim Heskett

  But Harry had contacted the police prior to leaving. At Serena’s suggestion, he’d told the police he had seen someone snooping around the back of Carter’s house. That was technically true, but Harry neglected to mention that the individuals snooping had been him and his bodyguard. They’d left Carter’s back door open and the bloody picture (and the big bag of weed) easy to find on the kitchen table.

  Harry didn’t like lying to the police. But he dreaded the idea that Carter could get off because of a technicality due to tampered evidence. In his desperation, Harry had done a thing he wouldn’t normally do. At least, he told himself he wouldn’t normally do these things, but that wasn’t supported by his recent actions. He’d used government search databases technically illegal to him. He had knowingly learned information from a piece of evidence stolen from police storage. These weren’t the actions of someone who usually did the right thing.

  Is that how his private investigator career would go? Would he repeatedly sacrifice his ideals to get the job done, or would he stick to his guns, even if it meant failure?

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to answer that question right here while driving the car. He only had to focus on keeping Carter within a safe distance and not driving off the road.

  Past the town, they navigated through hilly countryside, with the road broken only by the occasional turnoff for a long country driveway. In the passenger seat, Serena peered through a spyglass. Instead of a brass and copper thing like a pirate would use to spot land, this one was smaller and made of plastic and metal. She leaned a little forward as Carter made a turn onto the connecting highway.

  “I can see him now,” she said as his car was momentarily perpendicular to theirs. “He’s getting a phone call. Doesn’t look happy about it.”

  “Maybe a neighbor told him about the back door being left open. Or maybe the cops are already there.”

  Harry checked his watch. It had been ten minutes, so it was possible the police had responded already. Most likely, the entirety of the Berryville PD had been out patrolling, so it would only take a couple minutes to change course and drop by Carter’s.

  “He’s swearing about something,” Serena said. “He’s speeding up.”

  Harry saw it, too. He couldn’t help but press the gas pedal to compensate, even though he logically knew he shouldn’t. Sweat dripped down his back as he resisted the urge to panic.

  Serena winced. “He’s looking back this way.”

  “I don’t know what to do. We’re in a straight line behind him, unless I crash us into the ditch, I don’t have anywhere to hide. Ahh, crap.”

  “Nothing we can do to stop it. But I’m pretty sure he’s seen us.”

  Harry grunted as he gripped the steering wheel. Break off the pursuit? If he did that, then there was no telling where Carter would go. Maybe back home, or maybe he would keep his foot on the pedal until he was past state lines.

  No. This was not the time to play it safe. Harry knew, and Carter probably knew, so this was his chance to move forward. To close the loops and find justice for Lukas.

  Harry sped up.

  “What are you doing?” Serena asked.

  “He knows. He has to know. So if we let him go, we may never see him again. But this is actually good. We poke him and see what he does. This was going to happen sooner or later, so let’s do it now.”

  Serena sat back in her seat and nodded, lips pursed. Harry didn’t know whether she agreed or disagreed with his call, but she was willing to let him make it without argument.

  He turned onto the connecting highway, now in a straight shot behind Carter in this valley. Up ahead, the road disappeared into a vast thicket of trees near the holler areas of Northwest Arkansas.

  Harry pressed, and his junky sedan had more kick than Carter’s truck, so he gained on Carter in seconds. Fast enough and close enough that when Carter looked in the rearview, their gazes met for a brief moment. His eyes were red and haggard, low-lidded but still somehow wide awake with anger.

  And Harry saw the man pull a revolver from the seat next to him.

  “He’s got a gun!” Serena said as she hit the button to roll down the window. As Carter was leaning his left hand out of his open car window to shoot blindly behind him, Serena readied her pistol. She stayed low and then darted out of her window and squeezed off half a dozen shots. The unsilenced bangs made Harry jump each time.

  He saw two bullets plink off the side of the truck, near the wheel wells. She was going for the tires. Even a crack shot like Serena would have trouble pinpointing tires moving at seventy miles per hour.

  Carter’s shots were unaimed and unpredictable, and so far, he hadn’t come close. Depending on how many rounds he had with him, though, it was only a matter of time. Right about now, Harry wished bulletproof glass came standard on this car model. At least they weren’t in a populated neighborhood or city block where those errant bullets could do unintended damage.

  Coming up soon: a four-way stop. No traffic in either direction. Harry maintained about two car-lengths distance. If Carter swerved left or right at the intersection, maybe that would give Harry enough time to catch up. But then what? Harry still didn’t know.

  Right before approaching the intersection, Carter did something unexpected. There were narrow dirt shoulders on either side of the road. The back end of Carter’s truck suddenly dipped to the right, with the front to follow. He’d shaken the wheel, but not to make a quick turn.

  For a split second, Harry thought Carter had lost control of the vehicle. But it didn’t take Harry long to see the goal. Dragging the tires through the dusty dirt caused a voluminous brown cloud to appear over the intersection. Carter then zoomed through the intersection, but Harry lost him for a couple beats.

  Harry hit the brakes. A second later, Carter emerged through the dirt on the other side, continuing straight. But now, he had regained his lead.

  Harry held his foot on the brake pedal.

  “What are you doing?” Serena asked. “He’s putting distance between us.”

  Harry looked straight as Carter escaped. Then he looked along the west road from the intersection. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel as the cogs and gears in his brain clicked and chugged.

  “I have a plan. Trust me.”

  45

  Thomas Bixby’s arm still hurt. A low pulsing throb that never quite went away, it stayed a level low enough he would sometimes forget it was there. Then he would flex his arm or bump the tender part against something, and start the whole stupid pain cycle all over again.

  But everyone else was tired of hearing about it, so he’d kept it to himself all day. And he especially wouldn’t mention it now, with everything going on. He got the feeling that admitting to being less than “able-bodied” would result in something bad. Maybe even a permanent vacation.

  Thomas didn’t know if Mr. Mannafort was that extreme.

  He had not ordered the deaths of Harry and Serena yesterday. Thomas was a little unhappy about the latter, since she’d shot him outside the burrito place. He wasn’t too keen on her at the moment. During their face-to-face encounter, he’d underestimated her, and he wouldn’t let that happen again.

  The boss had ordered everyone to stay close to his mansion today, so that’s what Thomas was doing. He’d slept on a couch last night, and had mostly been sitting around all day, waiting for something to happen. The previous twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of activity, but none of it had directly involved Thomas so far. So he stayed ready.

  And now, something was happening.

  A flurry of people scurrying about sent the house into chaos. Employees and other house mainstays were running around, yelling orders, changing them, backtracking. Confusion everywhere. A lot of orders given and then counteracted by those higher up the chain, then un-counteracted by someone else even higher up the chain.

  Thomas didn’t understand all of it, but he clearly heard Mr. Mannafort say, “Do you know how much money I’m about to lose? D
o you have any idea how much I’ve already done to secure this investment?”

  He stormed into the sitting room where Thomas waited, his fists balled and his shoulders rising and falling in sharp movements. “You,” he said, scowling at Thomas.

  He sat up, alert from a sudden flooding of adrenaline. “Yessir.”

  “Can you drive a car?”

  “Yessir.”

  Mannafort breathed for a couple seconds, surveying Thomas from head to foot. Thomas didn’t like it. It felt like being at the doctor, when they tell you you’re going to feel “slight pressure,” and then what comes next is anything but slight.

  But this could be a good thing, too, Thomas told himself. It could be a job perfectly suited to Thomas’ skills, one to make him stand out and earn notice and then a promotion. He’d only been here a short time, but he’d seen others have similarly unexpected meteoric rises.

  “Okay,” the boss said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You grab one of your friends hanging around here and gear up. Body armor, shotguns, pistols… whatever you have.”

  The boss took a step closer, sending Thomas’ heart rate skyrocketing.

  “Find Boukadakis and Rojas and put bullets in them. I’m going to trust you to handle this quickly and cleanly, leaving no witnesses or anything else that can tie back to us. No exceptions.”

  Thomas stood and raised a hand to salute. “Yessir. No exceptions.”

  46

  Harry kept his foot on the gas as he twisted and turned up a hill and then down the other side, into the valley known as No-Name Holler. It wasn’t exactly stunt driving, as Harry was never able to punch it above forty-five miles per hour. On these roads, driving at sixty was like asking to propel a road pebble straight into your windshield. Or worse.

  Plus the sharp turns through the trees made him have to slow every few seconds as he made dog-leg bends down the hillside.

  Still, he felt good about his plan. It’s not as if he was angling for a high-speed chase. The medium-speed episode where Carter and Serena had shot at each other had been plenty of excitement for Harry Boukadakis for one day. If he didn’t see another pistol until sundown, he’d be a happy man.

  “This shortcut is starting to feel not short,” Serena said in the passenger seat. She wasn’t the type to break a sweat or chew her fingernails, but Harry could feel waves of tension coming from her.

  “I know. Trust me.”

  Serena pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, staring straight ahead. Harry appreciated her silence, since he was doing continuous mental acrobatics. In his brain, he calculated Carter’s potential routes, adjusting for time due to unforeseen factors that could slow or speed his target.

  Harry had the replacement drone for the one he’d broken in the back seat of the car, still boxed. Connecting it to his master control app would only take ten seconds, but if the drone hadn’t come charged, then he would be out of luck. He could maybe get a minute or two of flying time from a battery in need of charging, but the drone might automatically switch itself to low-power mode. He wasn’t familiar enough with the drone’s operations, and he didn't have ten minutes to spare so he could dig around in the software settings to figure out its power management protocols.

  “We’ll just have to see.”

  Serena eyed him. “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” he said as he realized he’d muttered the last bit out loud. “We’re here.”

  Serena’s eyes opened wide as Harry pulled off the road at a low point, and the cabin where Lukas Maslow had died became visible. The scatterbone archway stood overhead, as sharp and menacing as the first time he’d seen it.

  He drove the car to a nook where trees blocked it from view of the cabin. Not a perfect hiding spot, but in order to stay close enough for drone range, he wouldn’t have time to pick somewhere else.

  “We beat him here,” Serena said.

  Harry nodded and drew the drone from the back seat. “That was the plan.”

  She turned around and around, squinting at the different hillsides. While she didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. Harry could see the tension on her face.

  “I’m hurrying as fast as I can.”

  She said nothing about it and instead slid out of the car and put her hands on her hips. She closed her eyes and rotated in a slow circle, frustration on her face. Harry could tell she didn’t feel safe here. And he had to agree with her, since his previous experiences had proved his “holler senses” weren’t honed enough to spot concealed threats. Obviously.

  “You knew the back way?” Serena asked. “How?”

  “I told you I used to come around here for summers. We would chase each other around these hills all the time, or play a sort of capture-the-flag game with cars. Running into that busted bridge the other day made me have to rethink the layout, but I know these roads well enough.”

  He unboxed the drone and linked it via BlueTooth to his drone control app, then he breathed a sigh of relief when the connection showed the drone had 40% battery remaining. That would be good for a five minutes or so, at least.

  Harry opened his car door, tapped the button to start the drone, and he tossed the drone into the air, sending it off to the most important mission of its life.

  47

  As Harry sent the drone into the sky and locked his gaze on his phone to control it, Serena detected eyes on her. Maybe not eyes, but the feeling of something being not-right in the universe. Like the subtle change in the air right before an unexpected rainfall.

  Out of habit, she rested a hand on her hip where her concealed carry holster sat. Feeling the bump there gave her confidence. She turned in the grass. The cabin was a few hundred feet down into the valley, with hills on either side. She couldn’t notice anything strange, but that didn’t mean she trusted her eyesight.

  Serena opened the car door and reached into her purse. She drew five zip ties, then reconsidered and took five more. Finally, the assassin added a small length of duct tape, a box cutter, and a pocket mirror to her haul. Better to over-prepare and have stuffed pockets than not have the right tool in the right moment.

  She shoved all these items in her rear left pocket since her right already contained her baton. Then she traded her blue top for a black long-sleeved t-shirt she kept in her purse. If Harry realized Serena had been without a top for two seconds while she changed, he hadn’t looked. Her bra today was a lacy purple color, but she had no desire to show it to Harry. And he was usually a gentleman about these things. He didn’t look, as far as she could tell.

  She pulled a black skullcap low and then shifted over so Harry would see her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his eyes flicking between her and the drone control app on his phone.

  “I need to check on something.”

  “Right now?”

  She nodded. “Can you operate that drone from inside the car?”

  “Yeah, that should work.”

  She pointed at the driver's seat. “I need you to listen and follow my instructions very carefully. Get in the car, lock the doors, keep the keys handy. If anyone comes, drive away. Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure.”

  She unleashed her most authoritative gaze on him. “I mean it.”

  “Okay, okay, I will,” he said as he slipped back into the car. Before he shut the door, he said, “Please don’t kill anyone.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Once Serena heard the doors lock and verified he had inserted the key into the ignition, she headed west, toward the most recent sound. It’s not as if she’d heard something as obvious as a twig breaking or whispers. But something didn’t feel right. Like an elderly man warning that a sore knee signaled a cold front coming in, she could sense a change in the air.

  Last time she had separated from Harry at the cabin, he’d taken a baseball bat to the stomach. And it had been one hundred percent her fault. She didn’t feel great about leaving him alone now, but going on the offensive se
emed like a smarter plan.

  At the bottom of a valley, they were at a tactical disadvantage. Fixing that had to be priority number one.

  She ascended the hill, staying low and scampering from tree to tree. Every twenty feet, she stopped and surveyed all directions, especially among the gangly branches overhead. Common sense dictated that it would be challenging to sneak up on someone in the open like this, but she knew better. There were always hidey holes, tricks, ways of making yourself harder to detect.

  She saw the shadow before she saw him. The man was on an even plane with her, about fifty feet to the west. He was hunkered down, still, staring at the cabin. He kept one arm clutched to his chest, and the other held a coat tight. For a few seconds she thought he looked familiar, but she couldn’t be sure. He did look quite a bit like the one she’d shot through the arm near the burrito place in town.

  From this angle, it wasn’t clear if the target could see Harry in his car or not. There was no direct line of sight, but the target could have seen them drive up. She couldn’t tell for sure from here.

  Serena shifted twenty feet uphill so she was above him, and far less likely he would catch her out of his peripheral vision. She skirted along the angled hillside, putting herself closer and closer to this unknown man. With every step, she checked his eyes, trying to judge the extent of his peripheral vision.

  She reached to draw her P320 pistol, but then Harry’s words echoed in her head. Don’t kill anyone.

  Instead, she drew the object from her right rear pocket, a telescoping baton. It fit in her palm like an oversized roll of quarters, dense and heavy. She flicked her wrist to extend the telescoping body, and now she held a twelve-inch weight with enough heft and power to send the biggest bruisers to the floor with a solidly aimed thud.

  He was thirty feet below her, focused on the cabin. Almost exclusively.