Someone Bad and Something Blue (24 page)

“And what do I do, while y'all save the world?”

“You get the pleasure to keep Ms. Claudine company and move into another room. Oh and call your boyfriend. He called the sheriff's office looking for you earlier.”

“I need to call Bella and check on her.”

“Do that.” He nodded. “And look . . . you've had a big day. What you discovered about Sean, Ms. Brown, and Biloxi is short of amazing. We will use this information toward our advantage.”

My phone buzzed. I looked at it, thinking it was Justus or Mom. But it wasn't.

I gasped. “Maxim, it's Sanchez.”

“Well, answer it.”

“Wow, I hadn't gotten reception since we got here,” I said as I answered it.

“Angel, it's Sanchez. I found the Knocker's still.”

“What? We've been looking everywhere for you.” I patted Maxim's shoulder.

“I know, but there was something you said before that stuck with me. I had to check out a hunch and it paid off. I had to ditch your uncle's truck and walk at least a mile into the woods, but . . .”

“Sanchez, where are you? Can you hear me?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you leave word with one of the guys, so that we knew where you were?”

“I did,” she said. The phone reception was choppy. “I told—”

Then the phone went dead. I tried to call her back, but got no response.

Maxim touched my elbow. “Where is she?”

“In some woods, she said she told someone where she was heading.”

He frowned. “I don't feel good about this.”

“Honey, I haven't felt good about all this commotion since you drove into town,” Ms. Claudine said.

Ms. Claudine startled us. She had returned from downstairs. Maxim frowned at her.

“Maxim, do you want me to go look for Sanchez?” I asked.

Maxim's brow furrowed deep into his nose bridge this time. “No, no, no, no. She'll return soon enough.”

I nodded at him, all the while knowing that I wasn't leaving her out in the woods alone.

 

T
he cottage now swarmed with every law enforcement officer near the Georgia Coast. If Biloxi wanted to hop a plane and leave the country, or kill Rosary and Lucia, he could, easily. We were all occupied with other matters.

“Well, I could let you hold my car again, but I don't have you on my insurance,” Ms. Claudine said to me.

“The feds will pay for it, if something were to happen to it.”

“Really now, then make sure you don't ruin my pearl interior.”

“Ms. Claudine, you don't have a pearl interior.”

She winked and handed me her keys. “I do, if you total my car.”

I kissed her cheek. “I owe you big.”

“Give me some of your uncle's chacha and we're even.”

I left Ms. Claudine in her front yard, while Maxim and the team weren't paying attention. I didn't have a clue where I was heading. All I had was Uncle Pete's map, some bottled water, my taser, my Kahr 45 pistol, some nunchucks, a pair of handcuffs, a billy club, a rifle, a pack of chewing tobacco (don't ask), a flask of Uncle Pete's muscadine chacha, and my cell phone. Then I called Justus.

“I knew you would call me, if Marshal West told you to,” Justus said with less sarcasm in his voice than I thought. He chuckled. “I'm so glad to hear your voice.”

“I'm sorry it took me so long to call,” I said.

“You haven't been gone that long and I'm not a fool. You're on a manhunt. You need to stay focused.”

“Wow, I can't believe you're this understanding.”

“Why shouldn't I be? You're coming back home to Bella and me right?” he asked.

“Of course, I am.” I smiled.

“Then hurry up and save the world, brave Angel, because I want to kiss you badly.”

“I promise to get back as soon as I can, if you promise me to stay away from your fawning church ladies fan club and that rat Detective Dixon.”

Detective Francine Dixon was Salvador's partner and had become a pain in my backside during Ava's short stint at Dekalb County Jail. She had a thing for Justus and made it a point to rub her crush on my man in my face.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I'm sure she's been sniffing around your office, since she heard I was away.”

He chuckled. “After all this time you're still jealous of that woman.”

“I'm not jealous of her, more like vigilant. She's a wolf in designer suits. Don't have her around my baby.”

“Whatever you wish.” I could hear him laughing under his breath, but I didn't care. I meant what I said.

“I wish I were home,” I admitted and then noticed the detour signs for the Okefenokee Swamp.

I continued driving past the detours.

“I know you can't tell me what's going on at the manhunt, but I do want to know how you are doing.”

“I'm good. I'm about to drive into a fire.”

“I thought I knew all the current slang, but I don't know what ‘drive into the fire' means?”

“It means exactly that I'm driving toward the Honey Prairie Fire in the swamp. Will call you later.” I hung up, and yes, Justus was screaming everything but Hallelujah on the other end.

 

 

 

When Ava and I were young girls we learned about fire safety from Smokey the Bear and a bunch of afterschool television shows. One thing I remembered was that most fires were caused by careless people, who didn't mean any harm. They just weren't paying attention.

However, one summer when Ava and I were ten and spent our vacation with Aunt Mary and Uncle Pete, we learned another truth. Sometimes folks set fires to set fires. On my second day of P.I. class I learned that most arsonists set fires to hurt someone, to tear something down, and to cover up another crime. In Uncle Pete's case he tried to cover hurting Aunt Mary by starting a fire. I bet the quarter tank of gas in Ms. Claudine's car that whoever was behind these fires were using it as a camouflage to hide the brew that needed to meet deadline before the Knocker came to collect.

As I cut on Ms. Claudine's fog lights and made my way farther down the darkest, dankest, smoggiest road I had ever seen, the puzzles to the pieces surrounding Sean's death became clearer to me. Rosary's family killed Sean to tear her back down. She was trying to clean up their very proud but black market way of life and she had the nerve to try to do it with a fed, well, a congresswoman's aide.

Because there wasn't a cell phone tower in this area, I couldn't use my GPS on my phone to locate Sanchez. So I had to rely on my gut, Sanchez's last phone call, and years of stalking boyfriends in the dark. Uncle Pete's gray truck peeked between the fog and smoke and then tucked back into the clouds just a few yards ahead. I slowed the car down and put on Bella's swim goggles. They were in the bottom of my purse and a godsend.

Although we weren't near the evacuated area closest to the fire, the smoke was thick enough to burn my eyes and tickle my chest into rhythmic, dry coughs.

I had a little trouble locking Claudine's car door because it was dark, she didn't have a remote key, and the buttons inside no longer worked. When I finally got it locked I noticed someone standing at a dirt road clearing in the woods to the east.

“Sanchez?” I coughed.

I'm sure she couldn't hear me from this distance, but I could see her. I felt for my Kahr and began walking toward her. I wondered if JD and Ty were nearby.

“Ma'am, I don't want to shoot you and you don't want to be dead.” A low and rich Southern man's voice knocked me out of my skin for a second.

I gasped and stopped. It was him. The Knocker. I had never been face to face with a hired killer, especially one whose work I had witnessed. Most of the men I picked up were tough, not sociopaths.

Like in a trance I crossed the road and began to walk toward him. It was eerily quiet. All the LEs were everywhere but here, because he had designed it to be that way. Yet, I wasn't entirely afraid of him. I knew he killed his only son. If my bullet didn't kill him, telling him that fact definitely would.

“I just came to get my friend, Bill,” I said.

“Let me save you the trouble and money. I'll throw what's left of her in the fire when it arrives.”

A shiver ran through my body. “Did you kill her?”

“No, she killed herself. Someone should have told her that you don't peek inside the worm. Those things can explode when the cap is off. Maybe she didn't pay attention to your uncle's notes.”

I kept my knees from shaking. “Yep, that would do it.”

He grinned. Even through the fog I could make him out, clearly. Biloxi “The Knocker” James held the accent of a country music legend. I'm sure he serenaded Giselle all her good years with it, too. And then there was the matter of his face. Biloxi James had a face that screamed beautiful enigma. Even in the moonlight his baby blue eyes were reminiscent of a cherub in an Italian Renaissance painting. How could he possess a stare that looked so innocent and yet have witnessed so much brutality at his hands? He was tall and statuesque. I had to crook my neck and slant my head to the side to get a good look at him, because the moon refused to leave the shimmering around his shadow. And there was his skin . . . it was so smooth. His cheeks held the color of a fleshy peach. It complemented his lips, which were plump enough to cause a kick in my left thigh. I noted all of that, as he walked toward me, as we stood off at both ends of a leafless oak grove arch. Bits of ash flew around us.

“Biloxi, did anyone tell you that you were too pretty to be a stone-cold killer?” I asked.

He smiled and flashed a handsome set of teeth for a man his age. “Even from this far away I can tell you're a heartbreaker.”

“Hmm . . .” I shrugged. “Too bad we're meeting on the wrong terms.”

“I know on good authority that me and you meeting, darling, ain't never gon' be on bad terms.” He stood as still as the old trees that flanked our showdown.

It was so quiet that the winds didn't whisper a mumbling word. I almost regretted meeting this devil on my own.

“And where did you hear that from, the snitch in the U.S. Marshal's office?” I asked.

“You'll learn soon enough.”

“Enough of the riddles.” I shook my head. “You and Giselle are two peas in a pod.”

He frowned. “What about Giselle?”

“I saw her today and she is still protective of you. Why? I have no clue.”

“Did she tell you she was dying?” His voice cracked.

His eyes bounced when I mentioned her name, but he didn't look away or bat an eye. But it didn't matter. I found his weakness.

“She told me something worse,” I said.

“What could be worse?”

“Why don't you ask her after you kill me?”

He chuckled. “Do you think I would be talking to you this long, if I were planning to kill you?”

“I don't know. I don't know why you didn't kill me at Garden Ridge.”

“Because I had done what I'd come to do. I don't kill for the thrill.”

I rolled my eyes at his sick rhyme. “So why did you kill innocent Terri.”

“She got in my way. Foolish girl thought she could shield that Brown boy. But he wasn't going anywhere. I apologize that she was a casualty in that.”

I clinched my fists to fight it off. “How much do they pay you to torture and kill like that?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “You don't charge family to do a favor.”

I became nauseated from holding in what I knew. “Why did Sean have to be killed?”

“That boy had been gunning for me since he was born. I didn't know why until the county began to talk about putting a bill on the last election ballot to approve Sunday liquor sales in this county.” He spat on the ground.

“Nothing suspicious there. The entire state has been dealing with Sunday alcohol sales.”

“It didn't stop. That Brown boy was making deals in Atlanta to push backdoor deals through, but we made sure it never made the ballot. Then the federals began peeking around here, searching for stills, IRS audits, and talk of zoning for another package store.”

“You can't put that on Sean.”

“Oh, I got proof.”

“The leak.” I nodded.

“No, the girl. The mutt, Rosie. Her mom's folks are good people, but the girl got her daddy's blood in her. She couldn't keep her mouth off the hooch and married men. After she got into some trouble that embarrassed her folks, they ran her off the mountain and into The City. It was no coincidence Sean took to her the way he did. He had Brown's knack for seizing opportunities.”

I scrunched my nose. “What kind of opportunity?”

“The recipes. He got that poor girl convinced that he would clean her up and make a lady out of her, if she showed him how to make shine.” He scoffed. “She made a fool of him, just like she's done everybody else.”

I waved my hands in the air. “I'm confused. What does it matter if Chatham County had liquor sales on Sunday?”

“Then what need would we be?” I whiffed smoke from the forest fire floating on a breeze coming from behind Bill's back.

“We've had stills here for generations and no one has bothered us before, because it was understood that this was what we do. On the weekends, after a long week's work, we made white lightning and shared it with our family and friends.”

“You do more than share. You sell it. Shoot. Y'all make over a million dollars a year slinging hooch.”

“Angel, this stuff ain't cheap to make.”

“Please tell me you didn't kill Sean Graham because he was competition.”

“No, of course not. Rosie's family is competition. This joker wanted to make shine legal. LEGAL. Destroy our whole industry. I couldn't let that happen. I hope Giselle understands.” He lowered his head.

“Where's Rosary and Lucia?”

“I don't know and I don't care. With that Brown boy gone she can't do anything but run back home or live with her child's father. If she knows who that is.”

“Sean was Lucia's father.”

“Well, that's a shame.”

“And you will regret killing Sean.”

“Angel, don't test me.” His voice grew louder. “I killed Sean Graham because he had no home training and respect for what we do. He had hypnotized Rosie into thinking she was something she would never be and made a mockery of what moonshining is. You can't make this legitimate, regulated, and measured by federals. That's not our way of life. That's not what we do. His family should have set him straight a long time ago.”

“Maybe he's stubborn like his father.” I clutched my mouth with my hand. I shouldn't have said that.

“Maybe, who's to say?”

“I can't believe you're this stupid.”

Car lights began to appear through the fog.

He turned around and observed the car then turned back to me and smiled. “Darlin', I'm afraid our time is up.”

“So you summoned someone to kill me. Is that what this is, because it won't work. I'm taking you and whoever that is into custody.”

“Darlin', I assumed the marshal had a crush on you and that's why he had you tag along. So let me tell you the truth. You're good, but you're not that good. So please stop reading my trigger finger. I might change my mind about killing you, although you're quite pretty to tease.” He grinned.