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  At the Sheriff’s department it was madness. Both dispatchers had been called in to help with the phones and paper work. Martin was running around trying to answer their questions while taking radio calls from officers and deputies.

  “Gimme a list of locations,” she suggested to him, and he looked relieved.

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll visit them all, see where I should stay. DEA is en route.”

  “So’s ATF. Somehow they’d already heard, must have picked up radio chatter. FBI might be coming, too.”

  “Shit.” Not that she minded. First of all, she knew the Rebels would be sure to cover their asses. Not one witness would claim to have heard a motorcycle, and their weapons were always well hidden. She had no idea where they kept them, didn’t want to know. Plus she’d meant what she told Hogan; there were more players here than the MC. These could have been Mazari hide-outs, and it appeared as though they’d aligned themselves with the Dirty Rats MC which had nothing but enemies. Plus cartels, just for extra shits and giggles.

  So yeah, she’d pick her battles. The FBI was more than welcome to grab a stick and have a go at the piñata.

  “With all due respect, we’ll want their help.”

  She blinked at Martin, realizing he was still standing right in front of her. “No, I know. It’s just that Markham starts to feel crowded with all these alphabet guys.”

  “Mazaris have been on the FBI watch list for a while,” Martin was explaining, heading to his desk to get his keys which he handed right to her. “Given the areas they seem to come from, there’s national security concerns if they make alliances with weapons suppliers.”

  For half a second she contemplated warning the Rebels about the FBI. Then she remembered the alliance the club apparently had with a mob family and decided against it. There had been no warning about mobsters to her. She eventually found out; so would the Red Rebels.

  The first place Martin directed her to was in a nice quiet cul de sac. These weren’t giant new houses, they’d been around since the 1960s and big, shady trees featured prominently in every front yard. Each house had a driveway and your windows were looking directly into your neighbor’s laundry room. It was a nice place, and she would have loved to afford a house on this street. Well, one of them was about to take a dive in price.

  The yard was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Floodlights had been set up along the driveway and she saw a couple of her officers walking that locking stone length, eyes on the ground. According to initial reports there were three dead here.

  She parked the cruiser on the street, ignoring the irritation that it was Deputy Sheriff Troy that approached. She was doing the chicken shit move and scheduling him when she wasn’t on duty but he hadn’t seem to mind that. Tonight, though, he was all business as he gave a head nod. It reminded her why she’d wanted them to get along so badly; he was a really good cop.

  “Three deceased inside. They had a stash of handguns with filed-down serials. Not much else of interest inside, but the basement’s a little weird.”

  She nodded. “Show me.”

  He led her to the back door, over which the light was illuminating a wooden deck with no patio furniture, no barbecue, no clues that anyone actually lived there. The screen door squealed on its hinges, the inside door was already open. It was a straight shot down the stairs from there, where again the lights were already on.

  It was a standard unfinished basement. Washer and dryer in one corner next to a free-standing plastic sink. Plastic had been tacked over insulation, the floor was painted grey. Two drains where the floor dipped in case of a flood or water leak. But in the floor were metal rings, fed through bolts tapped into the concrete. About six in all, three feet apart, three along one wall and three along the other.

  Given what they’d seen in Hazeldale she could only imagine the purpose of those rings. She was imagining ropes around people’s necks, strangling them when they struggled against the bonds. She fought back those memories and sighed. “Jesus. That is fucking weird.”

  “You need a power drill and masonry bit to install something like that,” Troy said. “There are absolutely no tools here, not even a fucking screwdriver.”

  Sharon was nodding. “Here’s hoping they had to rent it.”

  “Two places in Markham rent tools. We’ll check them out when they open.”

  “Good thinking. Now show me who died.”

  Upstairs the first body they came across was sprawled on her stomach, stretched across the divide between the vinyl floor of the kitchen and tile in the living room. One hand out in front of her was clutching a carving knife. Blood bloomed on the back of her white T-shirt. The parts that were still white shone brilliant against her dark skin. Her hair was up in a ponytail but Sharon could tell it was long. She had on flannel pants.

  “Given the way she fell, I’d say she was in attack mode when she was hit,” Troy said, detached.

  “Absolutely.”

  This was why they’d come through the back door. The entryway was weirdly interrupted by a wall creating a coat closet. Against the double doors of it a man had slumped down, leaving a trail of blood showing he’d slid all the way to the floor slowly. There were even rounds wedged in the dry wall, and she wondered if they’d passed right through.

  “They weren’t fucking around. This was a high-caliber, single minded attack.”

  Troy nodded his agreement. “Oh yeah. This was a planned assault, not a negotiation gone wrong. We got one more dead in a bedroom.”

  This was where she saw the handguns. She quick-counted about half a dozen domestic and import models. This guy had probably gone looking for a weapon, caught it in the back once he got into the room. There was a small camping cot, a lamp on the floor, and a Rubbermaid tote of handguns in the room. Plus the dead body, face first on the floor next to the stash. That was it.

  Crime scene processing would take forever, and this was one of the more cut-and-dried ones.

  “ATF, DEA and FBI are likely going to be taking over most of this,” she told Troy as they walked back to her cruiser. “I’m going to let them.” She pulled the cruiser door open, already feeling exhausted. “I’m making the rounds, but just maintain the scene until the coroner can get here. He’s gonna be fucking busy.”

  Troy nodded. “I know we don’t get along, Sheriff. But I’m glad that’s the call. We’re out of our depth here again. I know you’ve always kept the best interests of the town in mind.”

  She smiled, but she was willing to bet it was thin. “Thank you, Deputy. I wish we could handle it ourselves, though.”

  “If people want that kind of police service they’re going to need to triple their taxes,” he told her, and actually smiled. “Heard about the debate. Heard you did really well.”

  She shook her head, arms on the open car door. “I don’t know. Sometimes you just feel like saying ‘Fuck it, let him have it then.’ But I try to imagine him in my shoes right now, tonight, looking at that.” She jerked her head towards the house. “I’m terrified he’ll win.”

  “Me, too. That’s why I said what I said last month. I know it was out of line but we’re arguing from the same side.” After a pause he held his hand out.

  She shook it. “No matter what, I want you in this office. If it’s under Turnbull so be it. But you’re a really good cop, and I’ll feel better knowing you’re working here.”

  He smiled at that. “Thanks. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.”

  “Good. Now I have five more crime scenes to look at and twenty-four more dead bodies to gawk over. You good here?”

  -oOo-

  Sharon was walking through the final scene—a mobile home with four very dead, dark-skinned young men inside—when the feds began rolling into Markham. Sunrise had come and gone but she still wasn’t feeling tired yet. At the last couple scenes she’d started helping out photographing evidence. Martin at the office was playing communications coordinator; letting her know
where the coroner was, what stage he was at in the process of each scene. Any other questions that came up.

  That was how she heard the FBI was sending in an entire team to help ID bodies and help with storage until the causes of death could be determined officially. They had a portable freezer unit of some kind. Currently the morgue could only hold nine bodies at one time. She couldn’t even remember the last time they’d had to borrow space from the funeral home for bodies. They had the same nine-drawer set up the sheriff’s department did.

  Now the FBI interest was making her nervous. Not for the town, her department, or the club. Her sensors were pinging off like mad because their arrival could only mean that the Mazaris were truly involved in serious, big-boy shit that she hadn’t anticipated. Whoever they were in bed with was a major player, and that told her the Dirty Rats were a minor part of the picture here.

  The day had not dawned sunny and bright. By mid-morning the sky was grey and she could smell the rain coming. That shifted the evidence-gathering to the exterior of all scenes, before dropped evidence or footprints could be disturbed. Not that they’d found any of either; the ground was hard-packed from a straight week of heat and not a single assassin had dropped a business card. The first fed she saw in person found her scoping out a flowerbed that lined a driveway next to the trailer’s door, but not a single indent was in sight.

  “Sheriff,” a faceless suit approached with a hand out. “We’re glad to take over with CSI. Would your deputies mind starting interviews of the neighbors?”

  It was a disappointment to her to feel relief they were there.

  She shook the offered hand, and the generically-pleasant man kept talking but she was barely taking note of what was happening. She was tired, just as quick as the handshake, and she realized then she’d been up for over twenty-four hours.

  Markham County Sheriff’s Department officers switched gears quickly, ringing bells and knocking on doors as folks were getting ready for work or to send the kids off to school. It wasn’t difficult to get through it all. Not a single neighbor anywhere saw anything helpful. One person thought they saw a black van driving away from one of the houses. It was the noise that got the ones who heard anything out of bed, but by the time they’d gotten up the nerve to look out a window there was nothing but receding tail lights.

  It had been a series of fast hits carried out in perfect coordination. Sure, a Mexican cartel could have driven to Markham in the middle of the night and done this. But she knew very damn well who was behind all this. The real question was if the new folks in town were going to go after them.

  During the noon hour she was returning to the office, surprised to see it overrun with dark sedans and SUVs.

  Inside there were many people she didn’t know in dark suits, women and men. They all looked up at her, gave her a nod of greeting then went about their business.

  Her office was empty. She went inside, shut the door and sat. Just for a moment, closing her eyes. Surprisingly she had no fear over how she’d look if all the truth came out over this. After all, she’d taken out a link in the Mazari chain in Markham County herself. Just for one moment she considered Markham with the Red Rebels, and she honestly wasn’t sure if it would be better off or worse.

  The knock on the door brought her around, and she called out “Come in,” as the door swung inward as Agent Hogan stepped in. He shut them inside with a gentle smile. “You have been out all night, haven’t you?”

  She had to smile. “I look that ravishing, don’t I?”

  “Deputy Troy said you’d been supervising the scenes without a break.” He leaned on the filing cabinet across from her, hand out as a peace gesture. “For the record, you look damn good.”

  She laughed and rolled her eyes, leaning forward with elbows on her desk. “Well, I met one of the FBI’s finest and they put us on interview duty and that’s done now. I was planning on maybe sleeping for three days straight now.”

  “Can I take you for breakfast first?”

  There it was; that little warm surge in her stomach. He was smiling at her, looking good and clean and much more appropriate given her professional circumstances. There was nothing wrong with this man, nothing at all. He wasn’t a pretty clean-cut man, unlike some of the others out front. He got his hands dirty from time to time, she could tell. He just wore a suit, it didn’t wear him.

  So why didn’t he flip that hot switch like Fritter Horton did? Christ, life would be easier if the Agent Hogans of the world did.

  “Sure,” she agreed, pushing back from the desk. “I would kill kittens for bacon and eggs right now.”

  “You recommend the spot, provide conversation, I’ll buy.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Holy fuck,” Fritter groaned, rolling from his back to side. Something soft got in the way, giving a grunt of annoyance. “Hey. Sweetheart. Ghost your ass out.”

  With an exaggerated pout the blonde flopped to her back, and he had to admit her tits bouncing were a pleasant plea to stay put. “I have a hangover.”

  “Me, too. So get out.”

  “I’ll blow you.”

  He was so polluted he hadn’t even woken up with morning wood. “Not happening. It’s not you, it’s me. So get out of here before I get angry.”

  She finally pulled herself out of the sheets. She was fully naked, but he didn’t watch her as she moved around collecting her clothes from the floor. Instead he was lighting a joint from the ashtray next to his bed, hoping it would take care of the spinning, splitting headache.

  Once Richey had passed a few of them—Rusty, Tims, and Fritter—had gone out to dig the hole while the guys cleaned the blood from the board room table and the van. When Richey was in his grave Fritter had called Jayce and they’d all met at the gravesite to say their goodbye. They all tossed down a shot of Jack, Tiny tossed him a joint, and Knuckles gave the last send off with half a bottle of lighter fluid. Jayce tossed in a lit match and they’d waited. As the flames died down to a glowing, hot smoldering kind of blaze they left the prospects to make sure he got covered up.

  Back at the clubhouse the alcohol had been flowing fast and the women had been prepared to be well used that night. After a few rounds Tank, Buck and Mickey had stumbled up to their rooms where their women were waiting, still in sequester from orders issued once Richey was gone. The rest of them partook freely of the pot, pussy, and whiskey.

  Grief and adrenalin gave you a weird appetite.

  He checked his watch and wasn’t entirely surprised to see it was almost three in the afternoon. It had been nearly five in the morning when he brought sugar tits and ... shit, the other one was a regular. Winnie? Wynona?

  “Morning handsome.”

  His heart leapt in his throat and he damn near shrieked, sitting up straight and nearly falling off the edge of his damn bed. Wendy, that was her name. Seeing her, he remembered. “Fuck, you scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry honey,” she said, voice sounding like she’d swallowed a cubic yard of gravel. With a disgusting cough she sat up, scratching her head and reaching for the joint he had pinched between his lips. “Thanks.”

  There was something about Wendy that was oddly endearing. She once told him she’d been “almost seventeen” when she started hanging around the clubhouse. Jayce’s old man had her as a favourite slam for a while, right around that time. She’d also told him she graduated with Sharon Downey, and that blew his mind. Wendy looked almost old enough to be his mother. All she’d made of life was being a sweet butt.

  Fritter flopped onto his back, letting out a long sigh and smiling when Wendy handed the joint back. “Thanks, doll.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m too old to be called doll.”

  Fritter grinned and took another hit. “You at least know the appropriate volume to speak at after a night like that.”

  “Yeah, haven’t had one that wild in a while. You all had a bit of an edge to take off.” She found a top in the blankets, pulled it on and twisted her
hair over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. It got intense last night.”

  “Used to always be that way, back when Mad Dog was running things.”

  Fritter stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

  “Don’t stay in bed too late. You’ll miss breakfast.”

  With a smile he watched her wiggle her skinny, almost non-existent ass into a pair of jeans. “You take such good care of me.”

  With a wink she shot back, “Were you wanting a blow job that badly? Just waiting for the Twinkie to leave? Feel like you need to butter me up?”

  Actually, he was feeling better. “You mind?”

  She shook her head, returning to the bed and yanking the blankets off before climbing up on the bed and straddling his legs at the knees. He was half-hard, but the second she took him in hand he was fully ready.

  “Thanks, doll.”

  “No problem, Fritter.”

  She had the best mouth in the clubhouse in his opinion. Her gag reflex didn’t exist. It was short work to bring him to completion, and he finished the joint in that time. While she got off the bed and went back to collecting her clothes he dressed as well, then followed her down for breakfast.

  -oOo-

  “Can you reach that damn paper towel?”

  “Sure.” Fritter snagged the brand he knew his Ma liked and tossed them in her shopping cart.

  With a sigh she picked them out again. “Underneath, Mark. Yer just fillin’ the cart.”

  “I got them down. My instructions didn’t cover what to do after that.”

  “Smart ass.” She had a small cough attack and they waited for it to pass before moving on.

  Once a week he was obligated to grocery shop with his mother. She insisted that he had to so she’d know what he wanted since he was incapable of writing it on her shopping list. And she had to be the one paying since he’d taken over the now completed mortgage payments. Her rules, not his.