Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7) (40 page)

Cooter, and another man walked toward me. I recognized the other man, Earl, as one of the two men I’d encountered when I was looking for Jeremiah Franklin’s property. His right wrist was still in a cast, which meant he’d be a little slow to lift the pistol he slid under his belt. Earl leaned in my face and said, “Hey asshole, remember me. Before the night’s over I’m takin’ a baseball bat to your arm. Eye for a fuckin’ eye.”

They stepped behind me, each man grabbing my arms by the wrists. Solomon Johnson swung hard. I turned quickly, trying to avoid a direct hit. His gloved right hand connected with my right cheek. Then he used his left to slug me in the mouth. I felt the taste of blood, spots floating in front of me for a second. I feigned weakness, a wounded soldier. I didn’t have the element of complete surprise, but I might be able to fake just enough physical signs for the men to lower their guard.

He grinned, massaged the knuckles on his right hand. Then he hit me square in the gut. I’d tightened my stomach muscles to deflect as much of the impact as possible. I doubled over, blood dripping from my mouth onto the hard-packed dirt floor. He drew back and delivered a hard hit to my forehead, the blow causing two seconds of total black before my eyes.

He slapped me playfully on the right side of my face, bent down and said, “I’m lovin’ this. It’s better than the best video game.”

I looked up at him and smiled.

He said, “What’s so fuckin’ funny motherfucker?”

“You are.”

His gang laughed. He paced in front of me and said, “Here’s a punch line.” He drove his fist into my ribs. “I don’t see you laughin’.”

I stared at him a moment. “This is your last appearance before your handpicked followers.”

“Why’s that ass wipe?”

“Because I’m going to kill you.”

He laughed, his laughter sounding like a jackal howling. And then he hit me in the jaw, the blow causing a few seconds of vertigo. I let my legs go slack.

He looked at Cooter and Earl, smiling. “Ya’ll can cut him loose. He can barely stand up.”

He turned and looked back at the others. “Who wants to skin him?”

All the hands shot up. Excitement of a kill in the eyes of wolves. I continued bending over, pretending to cough, spitting blood, looking back at Earl who was laughing and grabbing his crotch.

“Who wants to cut his balls off and feed ‘em to the pigs?”

The same number of hands shot up, two men passing weed and sipping from a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Timing and luck. I had to cut the head off the snake.

I reached back fast. Less than a second, jerking the pistol from Earl’s pants. I shot Solomon in the center of the Nazi swastika. Ace lifted the shotgun. I shot him in the throat. I grabbed Earl by his beard, pulling him in front of me and shoving the barrel into his ear canal. “Lay down your guns! Now or he’s the third that’ll die here tonight.”

Solomon glared at me, falling onto his knees, blood pumping from the middle of the swastika. “Turn my boy loose!”

“He’ll be your dead boy in three seconds. Lay down the guns!”

Solomon gestured to his men. “Set ‘em down boys. Ain’t no way he’s getting’ off this land alive.” Then Solomon toppled over, his dead eyes locked on my position, right arm extended, his middle finger pointed.

In the distance came the sweetest sound I’d heard in a long time. A helicopter incoming. I could tell by the rotor sounds that it was two choppers. Within seconds they were over us, powerful spotlights crisscrossing the compound. I could hear sirens, the advancing pulse of blue and red lights. It looked like the cavalry was finally coming. I backed out of the barn, dragging Earl with me. I pushed the barrel in farther. “Walk backwards!”

I held Earl hostage in front of the barn so the police pilots could see us. The squad cars were pouring onto the property. Lights in the doublewides turning on, dogs barking. I looked over my shoulder. Some of the cars were from the Jackson County Sheriff’s department. Some from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Others from what I assumed was the U.S. Marshal’s office.

Both choppers flew stationary, hovering at forty-five degree angles in the air away from the barn. One of the spotlights was trained on me, the other light illuminating inside the barn. Dozens of men in uniforms, badges and guns descended around the barn. Someone on a PA system said, “Everyone out! Come out with your hands on top of your head. You are completely surrounded.”

The men inside the barn hesitated. Some looked at the old man for guidance. Others looked at Solomon Johnson’s dead body.

The voice on the PA came again. “You’ve got ten seconds to surrender. You are outgunned ten to one. The man holding the hostage…drop your gun.”

I looked at Hack Johnson and the rest of the gang. If the old man signaled for an assault, all hell would break loose. I’d take twenty bullets before the count of two. I kept the barrel in Earl’s ear—the ear now bleeding.

The next voice on the PA came from a woman. “Sean, it’s Lana…put down your weapon. We know what happened on the trail and how that trail led you here. Please put down the gun.”

Hack Johnson stared at me. His grandson, Cooter, was about to come out of his skin. They both looked beyond me at the firepower all pointed at them. Hack cut his eyes back to me. “I might be old, but we ain’t done…you and me.” To his men he said, “Fold ‘em boys. Ain’t no use in gettin’ all shot up in a barn when we can beat this shit in a courthouse. It’s all about family law, brothers.”

Slowly, I withdrew the pistol. I held it out by my side for a second before dropping it to the ground. I kept my grip on Earl, now using both hands. His body in front of me was my only form of life insurance.

Each man laid his gun on the ground. The voice on the PA was one of the officers. He said, “Place your hands on top of your heads, fingers interlocked, and walk out single file, one-by-one and keep your hands on your head.”

I released Earl. He interlocked his fingers together, hands on his head, joining the others in line, walking out into a blaze of white lights. I watched Hack Johnson slowly stand, his face tight, defiant. He took his place last in line, laced his arthritic fingers together on his head and shuffled outside. I stepped over to him. “You asked me what I wanted.” I reached into my shirt pocket and lifted out the picture of Andy. I held it near the old man’s face. “This is why I’m here. Justice for a little boy that’s long overdue. Justice for a boy named Andy Cope. A boy you shot in the back.”

Hack Johnson looked at me through his smudged glasses, his eyes wide and filled with hate and denial. Remorse wasn’t in his DNA. I slipped the photo back in my pocket, careful not
to get blood on it. I watched as law enforcement processed each man, arresting and reading rights before they were loaded into sheriff’s vans. I looked at the plainclothes investigators. There were a half dozen. Detective Lee wasn’t in the mix.

From my left, two people ran up to me. Paramedics. One man and one woman. The woman said, “Sir, you need medical attention.”

“What I need is ice.”

The man said, “Sir, please step over to the ambulance. You don’t have to go to the hospital if you don’t want to, but we need to take a look at your injuries in better light. Give you something to stop the bleeding.”

I nodded and followed them, investigators following me. The paramedics cleaned me up as one detective from the sheriff’s office questioned me. Another investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement took notes and asked a dozen questions. A few minutes later, Lana Halley and a man I didn’t recognize approached. He was dressed in a uniform, an older man with silver hair, wide shoulders and accepting eyes. Rare considering the occupation. Lana said, “Sean, thank God you’re okay.”

“How’d you and the troops get here so fast?”

“Your friend, Dave Collins, you have someone with excellent communication skills.”

“Dave’s a talker.” I tried to smile.

“He’s also great at recon and strategy. He could tell us exactly where you were, and he could tap into the microphone on your phone. He’d alerted the FDLE, U.S. Marshal’s office and
the FBI before I could. He was like a movie producer bringing all the components together, literally under the gun. Sean, I’d like for you to meet Sheriff Mark Monroe.”

The sheriff nodded. “Pleased to meet you. I want to thank you for going out of your way to help. Looks like you’ve been through one helluva fight. I’m deeply sorry one of them was my deputy.”

I shook my head. “That’s not your fault. Parker fooled me, too. The guy who shot Jeremiah Franklin is in the barn. He’s dead. Name’s Ace Anders. He’s the one to the right. The other is Solomon Johnson. Anders rode with Deputy Parker to the trailhead. Stayed behind for some reason. I guess Parker thought I was easy prey. He shot at me twice, close range with his rifle. I had no choice but to stop Parker. How and why he’s associated with a radical hate group, I don’t know. But he was.”

The sheriff grunted, looked away for a second and then looked at me. “Ivan was a complicated man. A stern granddaddy raised him in some of the strict and bygone ways of the Old South. I’m afraid Ivan took a few of them to an extreme. He was dedicated to uncover justice, mostly his interpretation of it, as I’m beginning to discover. My men found a big damn meth lab in one of these buildings. We suspected it. Now we know it.”

“I’ve suspected Hack Johnson was a pedophile and a child killer. Now I know it. I’m betting his prints will match the one the FBI found on the shotgun shell. Sheriff, your team just might solve one of the coldest cases in Florida. And in doing so, maybe it’ll curb this kind of child abuse in places where kids are supposed to be helped, not raped and killed.”

“Let’s hope. Much obliged, Mr. O’Brien. We’ll get all of your statements in detail.”

“Something else, Sheriff. That black Ford pickup to the right has a shotgun in the rack. I can see its silhouette through the windshield. It’s an old gun. I know because a couple of the Johnson boys pulled it on me. I’d be willing to bet it was the gun Hack Johnson used at the reform school when he was hunting kids.”

Sheriff Monroe looked toward the pickup truck. He turned to one of his deputies. “Don, take that shotgun and tag it as potential evidence.” The sheriff tipped his hat and left, issuing orders to deputies, the stammer of police radios sounding like music to my ears.

Lana turned to me. “We’ll get Hack Johnson’s prints and expedite his DNA. I’d get his blood, but I think ice water runs in his veins. If he’s Jeff Carson’s father, and if we can get one of the guys arrested to turn state’s witness detailing Carson’s complicity in any of these crimes, Carson can share a cell with them for all I care. We’ll have a read on the old man’s prints by midday tomorrow. After they’re done with you here, where will you be?”

“Swallowing aspirin, using ice, knocking back a scotch and counting the hours until midday tomorrow.”

SEVENTY-EIGHT

I
was on my second cup of black coffee at the Blue Plate Diner, reading the latest news piece Cory Wilson had written for the Jackson Patriot, when the call came. He’d been writing a series of articles, each probing the Johnson family and their connection with state attorney Jeff Carson. He also detailed Caroline Harper’s hunt for her brother’s grave. I answered and Lana said, “I bet you could use some good news.”

“I like conversations that begin like this.”

“You’ll like the fact, did I say
fact
? The fact that Hack Johnson’s right thumbprint matches the print lifted by the FBI from the shotgun shell. He can lie, he can cheat, terrorize kids and deny it all…but he can’t refute his own print. You got him, Sean.”

“It wasn’t just me. It was the evidence and the help of others like you…and in the end it was Hack Johnson who got himself.”

“I’m in the sheriff’s office. They had more questions to ask you, but this revelation seems to have stymied that. I’m going to a grand jury immediately. We’ll get a court order to begin looking for bodies on the reform school property. That will stop the sale of the property, at least temporarily.”

“Permanently if we find mass graves. And we begin with the grave of Andy Cope.”

“Hack Johnson won’t talk.”

“He’s not the only person alive who knows were Andy is buried.”

“Who else?”

“Zeke Wiley. He’s at the Cypress Grove Senior Center. If you or the sheriff can take him to the school property, have him lead you to the grave. And we might find more graves.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Oh, one more thing. Cooter Johnson is turning state’s witness. He say’s he’ll testify that his father and grandfather had a long, personal, and on-going relationship with Jeff Carson. Carson was paid to look the other way in cases involving the family’s manufacture of meth. He turned a blind eye to the sale and distribution of pot and cocaine in cases that could have implicated the family. Cooter refers to Carson as ‘Uncle Jeff.’ I’m almost shaking telling you this. Not in a million years. Gotta go.”

I called Caroline Harper and told her what had happened. She listened quietly. I said. “We’re getting a court order to look for Andy’s grave.”

“Oh thank God above! I never thought I’d live to see this day.”

“It may take a while, but if Andy’s buried there, he can be found.”

“Sean, I don’t know what to say except thank you.”

“Hold any thanks until we find your brother. In the meantime, someone else who’s been lost for a long time is about to be set free. The state attorney’s office is releasing Jesse. This is the time, maybe more than anytime since he was in the school, that he could use a friend.”

“I’ll make arrangements to pick him up and we’ll go to dinner. Thank you.” She disconnected.

I sipped lukewarm coffee and called Dave. “Well, hello Sean. Anything new to report from Jackson County.”

“Just the fact that I’m alive, thanks to you.”

“All in a day’s work. Actually, all in a couple of hours work. But it’s never a job when you’re having fun.”

“Can’t say getting my jaw fractured and a couple of ribs cracked was a lot of fun.” I told Dave what happened and added, “We have a match on the thumbprint found on the shell—it’s Hack Johnson’s print. Lana’s getting a court order to find Andy’s grave, and the graves of others believed buried on the property.”