Before The Killing Starts (Dixie Killer Blues Book 1)

PUBLISHED BY:

James Harper

Copyright © 2015

www.james-harper.net

All rights
reserved.

No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher,
nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of
fiction. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

The patrón finished his
cigarette and flicked the butt away. He watched dispassionately, bored now, as
one of the hired hands buried his heavy boot deep into the boy's midsection,
lifting him an inch or two off the ground. He couldn't think when he'd last
been so disappointed. And he'd had such high hopes when they'd set out that
morning. How long had it lasted? Twenty seconds? Thirty, at most. Not long
enough to smoke a cigarette, that was for sure; barely half a cigarette. He
thought these peasants were supposed to be tough. The one grunting and gasping
and flapping around on the ground in front of him, like a hitherto undiscovered
species of fish with vocal chords, blood and snot dripping from his nose into
the dust, looked tough enough in a wiry, under-fed sort of way; slim muscular
arms with ropey veins that would have looked blue if it wasn't for his dirty,
sun-darkened skin.

Perhaps his
embellishment of the original idea had been a mistake, after all. He tried to
bring a little something extra—a certain
je ne sais quoi
—to everything
he did, but maybe he'd gone too far this time. He knew that the man who was at
this very moment taking his turn at trying to eviscerate the boy—and he had to
stop thinking of him like that; he was a grown man after all—with the pointed
tip of his boot had thought so. He'd seen it in his face, an almost
imperceptible widening of the eyes, an
is he serious?
look, although the
man would never dare to say so. They'd all nodded so enthusiastically when the
patrón had suggested it, broad smiles displaying bad teeth, eagerly breaking
their beer bottles in their rush to do his bidding. Sycophants, all of them.

And would it really have
made that much difference? He doubted it. Sometimes movies pissed him off so
much. If he was in charge—and, who knows, one day he might be if his luck held—he
would pass a law that required them to be as accurate and factual as possible
at all times. You watched them in good faith and ought to be able to rely on
the veracity of what you saw. It was a contract of sorts; you paid your money;
you didn't expect to be misled. As far as the practicalities of imposing such a
law on films produced in Hollywood were concerned . . . he'd cross that bridge
when he came to it.

He watched the old man
swinging gently in the breeze, blood and tar dripping from his bare feet and
pooling in the dirt below him. Urine too. He was really quite fat for a
peasant. But then he would be, wouldn't he, stuffed to the gills with stolen
pig like he was. The patrón wouldn't have been surprised to see the shape of a
pig's trotter poking through the grubby shirt that covered his distended belly.
The man's furious thrashing had quickly subsided into a spasmic twitching and
had then stopped altogether, the obscene (and irritating) gurgling sound in his
throat stopping too, thank God. Which one of the idiots had forgotten to put a
rag in his mouth? The patrón had been tempted to shoot him but that would have
defeated the object of the exercise as well as disappointing his men. They
liked their fun.

He lifted his face to
the sky, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hoping some of his irritation
would ease away. It was quiet now, almost peaceful, apart from a rhythmic
thumping as four pairs of booted feet did their worst. He opened his eyes again
and watched the men, fascinated, as they crowded around the semi-conscious boy,
legs swinging relentlessly in and out, in and out. It was as if they were
choreographed. A couple of them, the older ones, were grunting with the
exertion, sweat flicking from their hair, but the boy wasn't making a sound now
and the patrón could see a dark stain spreading out from his crotch.
Like
father, like son
.

He took a step closer.
The men stopped as one and stepped away, glad of the temporary respite. One of
them pushed his hat back on his head and scratched his scalp, another spat
noisily into the dust and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Disgusting
.
The patrón tried to imagine the thoughts of men like these. They'd already
consumed a number of cold beers. No doubt, more of the same was right up there
as a good idea after a successful morning's work. He snorted. Successful for
them maybe, but, as he'd already said, he was extremely dissatisfied with his
own morning. He turned the boy's head with his boot, careful to avoid the worst
of the blood. The flesh was spongy, like a steak that had been tenderized for
too long; it made his skin crawl.
Jesus Christ
, the boy's own mother
wouldn't recognize him now.

He glanced briefly at
his wristwatch and did a double take; how had it got so late? He had to get
going. His wife would kill him if he was late for lunch again. He'd have
preferred to stay a while longer but he'd been married long enough for him to
know what was good for him. He turned and headed back towards the new '68 Chevy
C-20 pickup sitting at the top of the rise, next to the old heap that the hired
help were driving. Its previously gleaming paintwork was already covered by a
thick coating of dust. He ran his finger through it and shook his head. It was
a constant battle. He hated this country some times.

But then a brighter
thought bubbled up and made him smile:
I wonder what's showing at the movie
theater next week
, he thought as he climbed in. Hopefully something else
with Charles Bronson.

Chapter 2

Evan had just taken a
mouthful of beer when he felt the soft touch of a woman's hand on his arm.

'Evan?' a voice he
vaguely recognized from the past said.

He turned to look at the
woman standing next to him at the bar and just about managed to stop himself
from spitting the beer all over her. It went up his nose instead and set him
off on a coughing fit. She waited patiently, a hint of a smile on her cushiony
lips, as the other drinkers at the bar looked on. It had been a quiet night so
far.

'Jesus Christ,' he said,
giving her an awkward, mismatched hug, 'Ellie?'

She smiled properly and
sat down next to him as the other drinkers shifted along and made room for her.
He sat and stared at her a few beats. She didn't look as good as she used to,
that was for sure, but still good enough for some of the drinkers to look her
up and down as if she were hanging naked in a butcher’s window. He remembered
she always liked to think she looked like Michelle Pfeiffer—which she did in a
way—except her nose was longer, but you knew what she meant, although it wasn't
as if people stopped her in the street and clicked their fingers and said:
Hey,
you look like . . .
Haggard was probably the best way to describe how she
looked now, but, then again, he didn't suppose he looked as happy and carefree
as he had the last time he saw her.

Ellie Martin had been
best friends with his wife, Sarah, ever since high school—until Sarah
disappeared five years ago, of course. Ellie had been the first person he'd
talked to when Sarah disappeared but she'd been as mystified as he was. He
hadn't heard from her since. Just another one of the many people who'd faded
away, like Evan wasn't a person in his own right, just half of Sarah and Evan.
The lesser half, apparently.

'What are you doing
here?' he asked. 'How did you know I'd be here?'

'I called in at your
office—the guy downstairs said I'd probably find you here.' She made a point of
looking at her watch with a slight raise of her eyebrow. Evan thought that was
a bit rich—for one it was gone five thirty, but apart from that, in the good
old days nobody had been able to keep up with Ellie's drinking and she'd led
Sarah astray more than once. On the few occasions he'd argued with Sarah, it
had been after she'd crawled home drunk from a night out with Ellie. As a
result, his relationship with Ellie had always been a bit delicate—as in,
liable to shatter into tiny pieces at the slightest knock.

'Anyway, aren't you
going to buy me a drink?' she said, leaning forward so her forearms rested on
the bar, her cleavage leveraged against her arms, her breasts pushed upward.
Evan didn't think the display was for his benefit and neither did the other
drinkers along the bar, but that didn't stop them all staring.

Evan ordered her
something with an umbrella in it, got another beer for himself and asked her
again what she was doing looking for him. She took a sip of her drink and
looked down at her glass. Evan could see a slight tremor in her hands. She
swallowed nervously.

An awful thought
suddenly pushed itself into Evan's mind. He felt as if somebody was working an
ice cold knife into his stomach and twisting it just for fun.

She was here with
news of Sarah—bad news.

She looked across at
him. He could see something in her eyes, but it didn't look like concern for
him or his welfare, more like an overarching commitment to self-interest. Then
again, she'd always been a selfish bitch; Sarah had said as much many times. In
fact, now he thought about it, he realized he hadn't minded her fading out of
his life. Hadn't even noticed, in fact.

'I'm in trouble. I need
your help.'

Evan relaxed and let out
a long breath, pinching the skin between his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

Thank God for that.
Nothing to do with Sarah.

He put on his best,
concerned expression and invited her to tell him all about it.

'I can't really go into
the background details—'

He nodded, thinking
good
start
to himself. Full and open disclosure from the get-go. He seemed to
remember she'd been devious as well as selfish.

'—but there's someone I
want you to find for me.' She looked at him expectantly, as if she needed
confirmation from him that he'd got his head round the task ahead, before she
gave him any specifics—like a name.

'Uh huh,' he said and
nodded intelligently. He took another pull on his beer. She'd hardly touched
her drink.

She didn't say anything.
Was she just expecting him to say
okay
?

'Why do you need me to
find him—it is a
him
isn't it—for you? I get the feeling this isn't a
missing person case.'

'You're right,' she
said, nodding, 'it's a guy and I suppose it's not so much
find
him as
get a message to him.'

'But you can't tell me
what it's about?'
Or don't want to.

Ellie looked at him as
if she was seriously considering telling him all about it, but she wasn't of
course.

'Can't you just do it
for me without asking a ton of questions?' She tried another smile, but it
didn't really work.

Evan thought it was like
being in a time machine—he'd been taken back five or six years in time, back to
the same old manipulative Ellie. She probably couldn't remember the last time
the world didn't work out for her. At least she hadn't said
for old times'
sake.

She put her hand on his
arm again and he laughed silently to himself;
here it comes, the emotional
blackmail.

'I know we didn't always
see eye to eye,' she said, surprising him with her unexpected honesty, 'but I
really do need your help. I'm in serious trouble.'

He laced his fingers
together, pushed the hands out until the knuckles cracked. He hoped the gesture
implied a degree of tiresomeness; made it clear how little that meant to him.

'And you don't think it
would help if you told me about it?'

She looked down and
shook her head sadly, her hair falling forward, obscuring her face. He leaned
forward and towards her but she didn't look at him.

'Why me?' he said. 'How
did you know I'm working as a private investigator?'

'I didn't—'

'Then why?'

'—but I didn't have
anyone else to turn to.'

Evan knew that was a lie
to begin with. She'd just decided emotional blackmail was the best approach to
use on him. Obviously he looked like a soft touch.

'That's worked out well
then,' he said, 'seeing as I
am
a private investigator. And putting
those investigative skills to work right now—'

She looked up at him
now, almost as if he was about to deliver the answer to her problems already.

'—makes me think there's
something you're not telling me. In addition to the stuff you've told me you're
not telling me.'

He looked at her for
confirmation and got a
don't be ridiculous
look back.

'Like it's dangerous.'

She held his gaze and
shook her head. 'Not really,' she said.

Evan's brain did the
translation without him having to think about it:
Yes, very
.

They sat staring at each
other without talking for a moment. Evan finished his beer and ordered another.
She still hadn't made a dent in her drink. He decided he wasn't going to just
say
yes
without her giving him something more—some explanation as to why
she needed to get the message to the guy or at least some proof that it wasn't
dangerous. For all he knew the guy might be a drug dealer or a homicidal
maniac.

'There is another reason
I came to you,' she said eventually.

Evan allowed himself a
small smile as he watched her inching her way cautiously towards the truth. Not
that he expected she would actually get anywhere near something as alien as the
truth, but a little closer would be nice.

'Uh huh.'

She put her fingers
between her eyebrows as if stanching a headache. 'You're right, I could have
gone to any PI and asked them to do it. But there's something I can do for you
in return. Something that would only be of interest to you.'

She sat back in her seat
and finally took a big gulp of her drink.

Thank Christ for that
, Evan thought. But if she thought
he was going to bite, she was wrong. He was sure she was only saying it to get
his interest, get him to agree to do what she wanted. She probably didn't even
plan on paying him for his time, let alone do something for him in return. If
he looked
manipulative
up in the dictionary he'd see her face smiling
back at him.

Then she sat up and
leaned in towards him and the smug, almost sneering look in her eyes that said
you
have absolutely no idea what is going on
turned into a cold hand that
gripped his innards and twisted and told him he was wrong. That he could not
have been more wrong.

'I can help you find
Sarah,' she said.