Days of Reckoning (6 page)

“Did they ever catch the kid who abused him?”

This time Miranda’s smile was genuine. “Funny thing, actually. The little shit who molested Justin died that same week. Stumbled down a cliffside while he was on a hike. I even got to see his body. Spent days plotting how to get back at him, and then poof! Made me a believer in Divine Intervention.”

“I guess so.”

He meant to take his hand away, but instead found himself caressing the back of her neck. The softness of her hair and the smooth skin against his palm sent a shockwave up his arm and deep into his chest. The confines of the car shrank around him, and he felt his pulse hammering in his ears. He tried to swallow, but his tongue was too thick and his throat too constricted.

Miranda turned away and placed both her hands on the steering wheel. “I have to go,” she said without looking at him.

Sam felt the wash of heat turn to ice and drew away from her.
Bad move
, he told himself. He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door. “Miranda, I’m-”

“Forget it,” she said quickly. She tried to soften the blow with a smile. “Have a good night.”

He shut her door and watched her pull away.
Bad, bad move.

Chapter 6

The next morning Miranda arrived at the station to follow up on the previous night’s incident. As soon as she arrived, Chief Wainwright called her into his office. She stiffened as he closed the door behind them, but forced the warning bells sounding in her head to silence. No way he was going to try anything right here in the police station. Besides, she was armed too.

“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to one of the chairs opposite his desk.

She had a brief image of a James Bond villain smiling benignly as he reached for the silenced pistol whose barrel stretched from one end of the table to the other.
Get a grip
, she thought. Wainwright’s desk was solidly paneled, and even if he did try to shoot through it, it would take a rocket launcher to penetrate the sturdy wood. Miranda smiled and brushed back a strand of her dark hair, and sat as comfortably as she could make herself.

“First of all, I want to say ‘good job’ on helping Sam out last night. He says you were quick and efficient, if a little, ah, over-eager.”

She nodded her acceptance of the praise.

“Now, while I appreciate your services, I still think it is vitally important that you reconsider taking some time off. I’m worried that what’s happened might be clouding your judgment. I’ve heard rumors that you’re pursuing your own informal investigation into what happened to your brother. I can’t let you proceed like that, Miranda.”

She made no reply.

“The Sheriff’s people and I myself are looking at every possibility, but every way we look at it, the results are the same. Much as I hate to say this, all indications are that your brother killed himself. Why, I don’t know. He may well have been up to his neck in something big. We’re still trying to find what that is. I’ll be happy to keep you informed of any new information we acquire. But you’re going to have to let other people handle this one. I’m sure you understand why.”

She gave a slight, affirmative jerk of her head, struggling valiantly to keep her anger in check. Someone, most likely Damon, had warned Wainwright she was onto them. She didn’t know who else was involved, or what any of this was about, but she was sure she was getting close.

“I don’t want to see you here for at least the next week or two,” Wainwright said. “You need a vacation. Go somewhere nice, get away from all this. You had to bury your brother. Now it’s time to heal.” He leaned back and shuffled some papers, indicating that he was finished.

“Well,” Wainwright said, “he probably deserved it. In any case, she seems to have it in her head that her brother didn’t kill himself. I’ve already told her that there isn’t any evidence to indicate otherwise. But I’m afraid she’s going to keep pursuing this notion of hers. I’ve had people tell me that she’s been asking around, bothering citizens at their jobs. I mean, even if there is merit to the idea that someone murdered that boy, I can’t have her running around loose like that.”

Sam dipped his head in agreement. “What do you want me to do, Chief?”

“Keep an eye on her. Check in with her. I told her to take a vacation, but we both know that won’t happen. Just make sure she doesn’t hurt herself or anyone else. She needs time to grieve and get past this. Setting off on some vendetta quest is the wrong way to do it.”

Miranda alternated between following Damon Shearer and Henry Beaumont. Between work and their homes, neither seemed to act suspiciously. She ran a background check on Damon, but came up cold. He seemed to have appeared on earth out of nowhere. Miranda confirmed that he was registered at Sparta College, and still had a room in one of the dormitories, which was odd since he also had his own rental home in town. When she checked up on the property at the county auditor’s office, the name Jesse McClintock was listed as the owner. His name didn’t sound familiar, but she took it down and made a note to run a check on him as well.

Beaumont naturally came up with a clean record. If he hadn’t, his license to be a firearms dealer would have been revoked. There had been several investigations into his business, but charges had never been filed against him. Miranda knew this was normal; the ATF was sensitive to the slightest inconsistency where weapons were concerned. Beaumont’s access to weapons and his choice of employee still bothered Miranda. She decided that the only way to find any real answers would be to question him in person.

#

Henry Beaumont drummed his fingers on the counter. The weapons had been expensive, and because they were illegal he was nervous. He couldn’t wait to offload them on the militia tonight, collect his cash and wash his hands of the whole mess. The only consolation was that all his efforts were probably going towards a good cause. That, and if anything happened, he had the Chief of Police to protect him.

He looked at the clock on the wall. Close enough to count. “Damon, I’m gonna lock up. You make sure the back is secure?”

Damon Shearer leaned out of the storeroom in the back. “Sure thing. Closing early tonight?”

“Just a bit. I got a meeting I can’t be late for, and I want to grab a bite to eat first. Don’t worry, though. I’ll still count it as a full day for you.”

“No sweat. I’ll be back in a minute to count down the register.” The young man ducked back into the storeroom.

Beaumont went to the front of the shop. He locked the customer entrance, threw the deadbolt and drew a metal screen across the windows. It was ugly but effective security. The motion sensor alarm added a bit of high-tech defense to the place. That was Beaumont’s sole nod to “high tech,” and he had the alarm only because his insurance company required it. He wasn’t much given to complex devices, or complicated jobs like buying and selling illegal military items. It could be an exciting world, but he preferred to read about it rather than participate.

Damon sighed. “You’re supposed to deliver them to me. Wainwright’s the one whole told you to hire me. He wanted me here so I could take possession, and also watch you, make sure you don’t double cross us. And Henry, I don’t like what I’ve seen. Now tell me where the guns are so we can get them without being met by the Feds.”

“What? What do you mean the Feds? Those guns are clean!”

“They might be, but you ain’t. I know you went to the Feds about this deal. You could bring down the whole militia here. Now why would you want to do that?”

“I swear to you, I have no idea what you’re talking about! If someone went to the Fed’s, it wasn’t me!”

Damon shook his head. “You’ve been ducking around like a scared rabbit all week. I know you’re hiding something, but I don’t aim to get wrapped up in it. Now tell me where the guns are. I’ll go get them, and the Feds can think you were the victim of a robbery. You’ll get your money later, and we can forget this whole thing ever happened.”

“They’re in the shed, behind my trailer.” Beaumont gasped in pain. “I have the keys right here. Just let me get them.” He reached into his right pocket.

Damon was almost fooled. He fired two rounds into Beaumont’s chest, and another into his forehead. The man fell back to the floor with a thump.

“Good try,” Damon murmured as he bent over the body. He reached into the right pocket and found a small revolver. “But you always keep the keys in your left pocket.” He found them and stood up. “Thanks Henry. I’ll make sure your payment gets put to good use.”

Damon worked quickly to cover his tracks. He donned a pair of work gloves, grabbed a baseball bat from the team sports section, and smashed the glass display cases in the store. He took an assortment of handguns and ammunition, and also swiped a pair of sound suppressors and all the high-capacity magazines he could find. All the goods went into a large laundry bag. He emptied the cash drawer then smashed the register. Damon checked his watch and scanned the rest of the store, trying to decide if there was anything else he should grab. He ignored the rifles; they were all hunting weapons or surplus military rifles. The guns Beaumont had picked up for the militia would be far better than anything here. In the back room he found a pair of MAC-11 machine pistols stored in a locker. He grabbed those as well, figuring that somewhere along the line the eleven hundred round-per-minute rate of fire would come in handy.

Damon went out the back door and loaded the weapons into his dark van. As an afterthought, he tossed the bat in with them. Then he set about working on the door to the building with a sledgehammer, hoping that the racket wouldn’t attract any attention as he smashed the knob and hinges. Mission accomplished, at least in his mind, Damon climbed into the van and drove off to Beaumont’s house. He was pleased to see that no cars pulled in behind him.

#

Miranda watched Damon’s van pull out from behind the store. She waited for Beaumont to follow before she pulled out after her quarry, but the older man’s sedan never appeared. Instinct made her pause, and she watched the van disappear for a single despairing minute before she decided that Beaumont’s absence might be worth investigating. She parked her car around the corner from the store and approached it on foot.

Despite the blurred view through the barred windows, Miranda could tell something was wrong. The front door was barred and locked as it should have been, so she went around to the back of the building. There she saw the battered door hanging from its hinges.

Miranda drew her Glock, even though she knew the perpetrator had already fled the scene. She checked her surroundings; no one was in sight. Silently, she eased her way around the shattered door and into the back of the gun shop.

Out on the main floor, Beaumont lay in a pool of spreading crimson. Miranda winced at the sight. Killing Donnie Andrews and seeing her brother’s body still hadn’t taken away the nausea that came with confronting a dead body. She remembered to breathe through her mouth and approached Beaumont.

The hole through his head and the brain matter spattered on the floor behind him erased any doubt as to whether there was a hope of reviving him. Miranda was careful to steer clear of the drops and pools of blood, lest she leave any tracks or take any of it with her. She took stock of the store and noted the smashed cases and missing weapons. What the hell had Damon done? She looked closer at the body and saw one of the pockets was turned inside out. Miranda moved closer. The other was the same way.
His keys,
she thought.
The bastard must have been after his keys.