Days of Reckoning (8 page)

“Yeah, sure thing.” Sam rose from his desk. He slipped his shoulder holster over his shirt, and then covered it with a sport jacket. “I’ll be back in about a half-hour. Might grab a cup of coffee on my way over.”

Sam sipped at a steaming cup of coffee. Between handling the Hamms and listening to Tracy bash him, he was not in a pleasant mood. It felt good to be out of the office, though he did feel something like an errand boy. Checking up on Beaumont should have been a matter for a regular patrol officer, if that. Although he had to admit that it had been slow lately. He set the coffee back down in the cupholder of his car as he pulled into the lot of Beaumont’s store. Two pick-up trucks were parked there, and four men stood leaning against them. Sam noted the shotgun resting on a rack in the back of one of the pick-ups. He made sure his jacket would not get in the way if he had to go for his pistol and stepped out of his car. One man with a bushy beard approached him.

“Police!” Sam called out. “Stay where you are, partner!”

The man stopped moving. “Bout time you got here! We been waitin’ for almost a half-hour!”

“Hey, buddy, just because a man’s store is closed doesn’t mean you have to come knocking with a gang and a twelve gauge in the truck. I don’t think I’d open up if I saw you coming my way with that.”

“We ain’t standin’ here because the stores closed. We’re here because someone knocked it over and killed Henry.”

“What?”

“We found the back door hacked open,” the man with the beard continued. “Jimmy went in and found Henry lyin’ dead with a bunch of holes in him. He’s out back guarding the door. Jimmy, that is.”

Shit
. “Okay, hold on a sec. I’m going to radio this in and then I’ll go check it out myself. Make sure that cannon stays in its rack. A lot of police are about to show up, and they won’t be happy to see guns in anyone’s hand.”

The man went back to his truck. Sam relayed the message to police headquarters. He told the four men to stay put and went around to the back of the building. Naturally, they ignored the order and followed him.

Sam found a lanky man standing by a shattered rear door, smoking a cigarette. He noted with displeasure that a large pistol was tucked in the waistband of the man’s pants. “You may want to lose that before the rest of my back-up gets here,” he said by way of greeting.

Sam warily watched him leave. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to go in and have a look around. You are all witnesses to what looks like a robbery-homicide, so I wouldn’t go anywhere if I were you. Some more officers are on their way, and they’ll be asking you a lot of questions. Are there any other armed men around that I need to know about?” They all shook their heads. Jimmy returned, minus his Beretta. “Good,” Sam said. “Now sit tight out by your trucks. My back-up should be here in just a minute or two.” In fact, they could already hear sirens wailing in the distance. “Jimmy, since you’ve already been inside, why don’t you lead the way? And don’t touch anything. The scene’s been desecrated enough already.”

Jimmy reddened, but guided Sam through the open back door of the shop. It looked like someone had used a sledgehammer to break it down. A light was on in the back storeroom. “Was this on when you got here?”

“No, sir. I turned it on so you’d be able to see your way.”

Sam swore to himself again. “Thanks Jimmy.”

They made their way past several boxes and came to the door leading into the store. Sam could already detect the smell of bodily gasses and fluids. Not good. “Okay, before we go any further, tell me exactly what you touched when you went in there.”

“Well, I checked Henry for a pulse, but I guess that was silly since he had a big hole drilled through his head. And I looked for his gun. It was still in his holster. His pocket piece and keys was gone, though.”

“No sir. I poked around and saw some pistol cases smashed in. Cash register too. Looks like maybe someone took some boxes of ammo as well. That’s about it.”

“Okay. Wait outside with your buddies while I look around here.”

Jimmy started to move into the store, intending to go out the front, but Sam caught his arm and stopped him. “Not that way. Go around back, the way we came in!”

“Sorry,” Jimmy said, sheepish again. He headed out the back door with his head and shoulders slumping. Sam moved into the store.

Just as Jimmy had promised, Henry Beaumont lay dead in the middle of the floor. Sam drew in a sharp breath. He counted bloodstains on the man’s shirt and trousers, in addition to the obvious hole through his forehead. Footprints in the pools of tacky blood indicated that someone – probably Jimmy – had been around the body long after Henry had been shot. Sam walked around in a wide circle. He guessed that Henry had caught an intruder, but the intruder had the drop on him. Given what Jimmy had said about his pocket pistol being gone, Sam guessed that Henry had not been shot immediately. The intruder may not have intended to kill him at all, only firing when Henry tried to draw his gun. Sam wondered why Henry would have gone for a pocket pistol instead of the large revolver holstered on his hip.

He stood with his back to the front door. There was no spray of blood across the carpet. That meant that Henry had been shot through the head after he was already down. Whoever executed him had decided to make sure he didn’t cause any more trouble. Sam rubbed his chin. Dancing lights from flashing sirens splashed across the wall as an ambulance and another police cruiser pulled into the lot. Sam continued his inspection of the store.

As he was looking over the shattered gun cases he heard footsteps in the storeroom. He looked up and raised his eyebrows when he saw Chief Wainwright standing in the doorway.

“Jesus,” Wainwright said, holding a handkerchief over his nose. “What the hell happened here?”

“Looks like Henry was taken by surprise and held at gunpoint. Somewhere along the line he reached for a hidden piece and got killed in the process. I doubt he ever got a shot off. Of course, that’s all assuming that what Jimmy out there told me is correct.”

“What do you mean?”

Sam explained what he had learned. “This crime scene sucks, Chief. At least one other person has been in here before me. I’m sure they meant well, wanting to check on their friend, but they fucked the whole place up.” Sam was glad he finally had someone to whom he could vent his frustration. “Body’s been moved, evidence tampered with… We ought to arrest the lot of them for obstruction of justice.”

“Take it easy, Sam,” Wainwright said gently. “They’re just a bunch of ‘good ol’ boys,’ looking after one of their own.”

“Well, we’ll be lucky to get any admissible evidence from here. There’s no way to tell what the killer touched and what was their doing, especially if the killer was one of them.”

“I doubt very much the killer was one of them.”

Sam nodded. “Me too. Sorry about that, Chief.”

“No problem. You were already beat when you got here, so I don’t blame you. Look, a forensics team is on their way in. Why don’t you and I go get statements from those jokers, then head back to the office to write up a report on what you found? I doubt there’s much good we can do here now.”

#

While Sam interviewed the men who’d found Beaumont’s body, Chief Wainwright stepped away to make several phone calls. The first was to Damon’s cell phone. “What the hell’ve you done now, son?” Wainwright grumbled. When Damon didn’t answer, Wainwright hit the “end” key and tapped the phone against his jaw. Something must have happened to cause this scene, but he couldn’t imagine what. Damon was a bit of a hothead, but he was no fool. He knew what the consequences would be if he exposed Wainwright and the rest of the militia to any threat of capture.

The Chief wondered if Damon had retrieved the weapons from Beaumont yet. With the store owner dead, it wouldn’t be long before the Sheriff’s department went out to his house to look for clues to his murder. Wainwright dialed in Sheriff Horn’s personal number. The Chief needed to make sure that his own men got to Beaumont’s house first.

Chapter 8

Miranda took stock of the arsenal she’d recovered from Damon. The weaponry she’d acquired would be enough to start a small war. Amazingly enough, she’d been able to pack most of it into her car. Sometimes it paid to drive a four-door. Her personal favorites were the Glock and PPK pistols fitted with threaded barrels to take silencers, but the real prize of the bunch was a Squad Automatic Weapon: the M249 light machine-gun favored by the military as a light support weapon. She had no idea where Beaumont had acquired it, but she knew the potential devastation it could wreak was enormous. She was online looking for information on how to field-strip it when the cell phone she’d recovered from Damon rang.

Miranda looked at the Caller ID display and recognized the incoming number as Chief Wainwright’s. “Wonder what he wants?” she muttered. Her question was answered by the ringing of her own phone. This call came from Hector Gutierrez, one of the uniformed officers that frequently worked with Sam.

“What’s up Heck?”

“Sorry to bother you while you’re on leave,” the officer said. “I thought you’d want to know that Henry Beaumont was found dead this morning.”

“Jesus. What happened?”

“Not sure. Looks like he was shot during a break-in last night, but something don’t seem quite right. No alarms went off, nothing was triggered. Scene’s a mess. Sam was the first one here. He’s pretty hot right now. I thought maybe you could run over for some moral support.”

“Forget it. Just don’t let her near the body. I don’t want her having a breakdown or anything.” Sam kept an eye on the road while he performed his other tasks. His stomach felt like lead when he saw a familiar sedan pull up in front of the store ten minutes later. “That was fast. Stay close to her, Heck.”

Just behind Miranda’s car came a small hatchback. “Who the hell is that?” Gutierrez asked.

Sam studied the middle-aged woman who exited the hatchback. Her graying hair flew about her tear-streaked face in a tangled mass. “Wife. Who the fuck called her?” He looked at Gutierrez.

Miranda already knew what the scene would look like before she arrived, but she had to give the impression of being there for the first time. She wondered how well she’d pull of the charade but didn’t have a chance to worry further when she saw the car that pulled in behind her. One look at the woman’s face was all she needed.

The woman stopped abruptly. Her face registered confusion. “I don’t want to see him. Not if he’s dead. I just want to know what happened.”

“Gracie. Gracie Beaumont. Henry and I have been split up for about four years now. But it doesn’t mean he was a bad man. Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“Gracie. My name’s Miranda. And I don’t know why anyone would want to kill Henry.” She looked around her shoulder. Sam and Hector stood still, watching her lead the widow obliquely away from the gun store. More importantly, they were out of earshot. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “But I think whoever killed your husband killed my brother too.”

Gracie stopped in midstride. The confusion and grief on her face melted away and were replaced by a mix of shock and sympathy. “Who would do such a thing?”

Miranda shook her head. “I can’t tell you right now. But I promise you, I’m working on finding them. And when I do, you’ll know it.”

The coroner’s wagon pulled up to the store. Gracie shuddered. “Oh God. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I can’t either. And I won’t lie to you. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. But finding the animals who did this will help. And to do that, I’ll need to ask you some questions. Alone. Away from the other officers.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t trust any of them.” Miranda stared directly at Sam and hoped that in his case at least, those last words wouldn’t prove to be true.