Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (15 page)

“Ready to die, bitch?” he yelled, then dropped his head and charged.

24

“Sit
up, asshole.” Erath said.

It took Val a moment to comply. His jaw was throbbing and his vision was out of alignment. He rolled over on his butt and spat blood in the grass. Pieces of cut grass clung to his face and his sweaty clothes, but there was nothing he could do about that with his hands cuffed behind his back. And he had more immediate concerns; the deputies were still waving their shotguns around filling the backyard with too much testosterone.

“My kids are on the porch,” Val said, the words coming out in a fuzzy monotone, “and I’m handcuffed. Think you can have them point those shotguns at the ground, deputy?”

“Kids?” Erath looked past Val to the back porch. He spotted the playpen and the boys staring goggle-eyed at the activity. “Whose kids are those?”

“Orphans,” Val replied. “Somebody dropped them off on the front porch,” He shrugged. “Last time it was a box of kittens.”

“Somebody should have known about the kids. We need a matron out here,” Erath said, lowering his weapon and looking sideways at one of his companions. Erath was pissed. Poor operational planning.

“We got Gruene,” one of the cops said. “She’s a woman. I think. And here she comes,” he added, dropping his voice, his eyes on the gate to the front yard.

Max started to cry.

“You’re scaring the kids,” Valentine said, starting to get really angry. “Put the guns away.”

“Shut up,” Erath said again as Gruene stopped at his elbow. The rest of the STU team had trailed her into the backyard. They clustered up and started chattering at each other.

Kyle joined in on the wailing.

“Damn it, Erath—” Val began.

“Martin,” Erath shouted, looking at one of the young cops, the one who had suggested that Gruene could watch the twins.

“Yes sir?” Martin practically sprang to attention.

“Go sit with the kids,” Erath ordered. “Keep them calm. And call a matron.”

Martin didn’t like the idea of babysitting. He started to protest, but one look from Erath shut him down. Martin handed his shotgun to one of his buddies and walked toward the porch.

“Their names are Max and Kyle,” Val called after him. He didn’t like the idea of a sheriff’s deputy watching the twins, but he didn’t have much choice. The boys quieted down when Martin started talking to them. They were suckers for attention, but they were showing extremely poor taste.

“If you need a matron, I guess that means I’m really under arrest,” Val said. But what the hell for? That didn’t take much to figure out. Zeke must have snitched him out. Or maybe Ansel Haskell? Maybe both. Val could imagine the charges: assault with a deadly, kidnapping, auto theft, damage to property, mayhem. The list went on and on.

“Let’s take this one step at a time, Mr. Justice,” Gruene spoke for the first time. “You have the right to remain silent—”

“Call my wife and have her come get the kids,” Val interrupted. He didn’t want the boys to be carted downtown by a matron. It would scare the crap out of them.

“Shut up,” Gruene snapped and continued with the Miranda, playing it tough. Probably showing off for Erath and the Sheriff’s crew. Val tried not to hold it against her. Female cops had it tough on the job. Still, that wasn’t an excuse to be an asshole. And he wasn’t forgetting the jab to the balls she had given him yesterday when she took Zeke’s gun from his pocket.

“Mind telling me what I’m under arrest for?” he asked Erath when Gruene was finished talking. The deputy seemed to be the lead duck.

Erath nodded. “Sure. The murder of Abby Sutton.” Erath’s stony gaze sunk fishhooks into Val’s face. “That makes eight,” he added and Valentine knew exactly what he meant. His fists clenched, wrists bulging inside the too-tight cuffs. “Quite a body-count there, Mr. Justice. You must be very proud of yourself.”

“I didn’t kill Abby,” Val said. “I’m no murderer.”

Erath gave that a razor-wire smile. “Right. You know what they call you down at the Jack Evans Building?” Erath asked, referring to DPD Headquarters, and also the Homicide Division’s office.

“Vicious Valentine,” Val replied and immediately regretted it.

Erath shook his head. “No, that’s what they call you to your face. Like it’s some kind of joke. Behind your back they call you the Executioner and nobody laughs.”

Val gritted his teeth and remained silent.

“What do you think the Sutton family calls you?” Erath pressed. “You took out half that family in a single afternoon. The brothers, well, no one’s really missing them, but Abby? What was she, sixteen, when you put her in a wheelchair?”

“I didn’t shoot Abby,” Val said, knowing it would do no good. No one had believed him then and no one believed him now.

Erath gave a gravelly laugh. “I’ve heard that story before. The grassy knoll theory. I know your reputation, Mr. Justice. I’ve heard all the stories. You were never a cop. You were a killer with a badge. But you ain’t got a badge now. Nothing to hide behind.” Erath stared at Val for a moment before he turned to Gruene.

“Let’s clear the backyard, Sally. Get the guns out front and away from the kids. I can handle it back here.”

Gruene fired Erath a worried look. “Henry,” she said hesitantly, “I—”

“Just do it, detective,” Erath snapped. “Mr. Justice and I are going to have a little chat.”

Val was getting a very bad feeling about where this was heading.

Gruene didn’t hesitate a moment longer. “Let’s move it out front!” she barked as she turned away. “Martin, stay with the kids, everyone else back to the vehicles.” She gave Val one last look. It wasn’t exactly sympathy but it was close.

This was not going to be good.

Erath waited, his eyes ticking off the members of his team as they grumbled and muttered their way through the rear gate. No cop likes to be shuttled away from the action even when the action is essentially over. Finally Erath and Val were alone except for Martin and the twins.

Erath dropped to a squat, the shotgun between his knees, his hands wrapped around the barrel.

“We Busted into Garland’s place yesterday and guess what? No Garland, just a bunch of shit-birds selling bibles. And now Garland knows we have a warrant,” Erath said conversationally, but his gaze wasn’t conversational. His eyes were cold and bright, his thin lips pulled into a tight frown. “I’m thinking you called him after we let you go. Set him to running. Screwed us good, asshole.”

“Only my closest friends get to call me asshole,” Val said then added, “Asshole.”

Erath snapped the shotgun’s barrel forward, driving it into Val’s face. It ‘thocked’ off Val’s right eyebrow, setting off another explosion behind his eyes and putting him face down in the grass again.

Erath helped him up to his knees, steadying him with one hand, the other still locked around the shotgun, Erath brushed off the loose grass dotting Val’s shirtfront.

“Clumsy, clumsy,” Erath said.

Blood dripped from Val’s eyebrows onto his shirt. He shook his head. That didn’t help. The world went blurry and he almost went down again. He narrowed his eyes on Erath’s face.

“You know,” Val said, “your interrogation technique went out in the middle ages. Law enforcement is about rehabilitation now. A kinder, gentler—”

‘Thock!’ Val caught another one in the same location, opening the cut in his eyebrow wider, but he had been ready for it that time. He had pulled his head back as the shotgun snapped forward. It didn’t help much, but he didn’t fall face first into the grass again, he just swayed like a punch drunk fighter.

“I can keep this up all day,” Erath pointed out matter-of-factly.

“What do you want, Erath?” Val’s tongue felt thick and wooly. He spat more blood in the grass. The trickle of blood from his eyebrow sped up, ruining the vision in that eye.

Erath smiled. “That’s more like it.” He took his hands off the shotgun and draped them across his knees. He looked pretty comfortable squatting like a monkey, the shotgun resting against his crotch. There was a metaphor there, but Val didn’t bother pointing it out. He waited for Erath to get to the point.

“Like I said, no Garland. So?”

“He was there when I left,” Valentine said. “He and Jasper Smith.”

“Jasper was there,” Erath said with a nod, “You got that much right. Creepy-ass faggot was nailing crosses on the walls when we kicked in the door. I spoke to him. He said he hadn’t seen Garland in weeks.”

“Did you apply your ‘shotgun to the skull’ questioning method?” Val asked. “I know it’s making me a little forgetful.”

Erath gave Val another tight-lipped smile. “Jasper and I did have a conversation, much like this one,” he conceded. “He had a lot to say about you and Garland. Said you were working a deal.”

“The man
is
a gossip,” Val said.

‘Thock!’ Val went face down again. Again Erath helped him up and brushed him off. He had to keep a hand on Val’s shoulder to steady him this time.

“All day,” he reminded Val.

“A man who enjoys his work,” Valentine said, but it came out in a mumble. He could feel the blood rolling down his face. Blood that was going to require an explanation when they took him downtown for booking. He bet the murder charge against him would be revised to include resisting arrest.

“I’d give you another dose of my interrogation technique,” Erath said affably, “but I don’t think you’d be doing much talking afterward. Now, listen closely and choose your responses carefully. Got it?”

“Like a quiz show,” Val said and tried to nod, but that made his vision go gray and soupy. He held his head very still after that. “And you’re Alex Trebek.”

“Just like that,” Erath agreed. “Question and response.”

“Shoot,” Val said and then laughed. “Not literally, of course.” He was feeling loopy. He wondered vaguely if he was concussed? No, Erath hadn’t hit him that hard. The deputy knew what he was doing.

Now,
there
was a scary thought.

“Where’s Garland and where’s the fifteen million dollars?” Erath asked.

Val had no time to respond before the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the cavalry.

“Well, now, looks like y’all just about got the piñata ready,” Jack Birch drawled. “What time’s the party start?”

Erath looked up sharply then stood, his teeth grinding, knuckles white on the shotgun’s barrel. He obviously didn’t welcome Birch’s intrusion.

Val watched Jack cross the lawn, two uniformed Dallas police officers in tow. One of the officers was Hispanic, tall and fit, the other was a huge, paunchy white guy with a bad sunburn on his neck and forearms. Valentine recognized them both, though he couldn’t recall the Hispanic cop’s name. The white guy was Gary Griggs, a sergeant out of South Central Patrol. An old friend who had saved Val’s life that day at the Sutton hideout.

Griggs had been the first cop on the scene that afternoon. Without a word, he had scooped a bleeding and incoherent Val up off the porch steps like a newborn calf, tossed him into the back of his patrol car then raced across Dallas at over a hundred miles an hour while Val’s blood pooled in the car’s floorboards. If not for Gary’s quick action, Val would have died that day as surely as Lamar and Lemuel Sutton had.

Trailing well behind the three men came detective Gruene, her expression apprehensive, agitated. She looked at Val’s bloody face and winced.

Val couldn’t meet Jack’s eyes. Christ, this was embarrassing. He hadn’t talked to Birch much since the twins were born, or any of his other cop buddies for that matter. He wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d get. Whether they’d welcome him or shun him. But he felt particularly guilty about avoiding Jack. The two had been partners for a lot of years. Good partners. But things had changed when Val left the force. Jack had never said anything, but Val knew that Jack was disappointed with his departure. To Jack’s way of thinking there were only two ways to leave the force: at the mandatory retirement age or in a coffin with full honors and a flag for the widow.

“Hello, Valentine,” Birch said, “You’re looking a little frayed around the margins.” Val saw the anger in Jack’s face, though he doubted anyone else noticed it. Jack’s rocky visage barely changed, but his eyes were forty degrees colder than normal. Jack shifted that frosty glare to Gruene.

“Detective Gruene,” he said. “Would you mind telling me what brought you out here this morning? You’re a long way from gang territory.”

Gruene flushed. “I’m working with the Sheriff’s department at the moment. Liaison with the Special Tactics Unit,” she said nervously, looking sidelong at Erath. “We’re executing a warrant.”

“Well, ain’t that a coincidence.” Birch said. “We got us a warrant, too.”

“First come, first served,” Erath said. “Don’t get in the middle of this Jack.”

So the men knew each other, Val thought. Val had never heard of Deputy Erath before yesterday, but he was hoping to see the man again. Without the handcuffs and the shotgun.

Birch shrugged. “Now, Henry, that depends. What exactly are you two arresting him for?”

Gruene looked embarrassed. Erath didn’t say anything. Birch waited them out.

“Abby Sutton’s murder,” Erath finally said.