Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (18 page)

29

Victoria
watched in stunned silence as the door swung closed behind Sheriff Swisher.

Swisher’s parting shot about Valentine hit her hard. Was that meant as a threat to her, a warning that she should drop her accusations of murder against the Sheriff’s REACT Team? Or was it just part of a smoke screen that the Sheriff was creating to cover the fact that the STU was killing every member of the Confederate Syndicate that they could lay their hands on? Were all these murders just an attempt to erase the witnesses to the death of Willy Henderson, the Confederate Syndicate’s road boss? Whatever the reason, it scared the hell out of her, but she wasn’t going to walk away from this.

Victoria felt sure it was no coincidence that the video cameras had gone out of service. Without that video feed and the tape recordings, no one would ever know about the handcuff key or the coldblooded murder of Randall Rusk. But, what was she going to do about it? Offer up her half-baked conspiracy theories to the newspapers? Never. File a complaint with the US Attorney? It would be her word against Sheriff Swisher’s, an icon in the law enforcement community. And even if she did file a complaint and prevail, what then? Reprimands and terminations inside the jail complex for sure. Embarrassment and lawsuits. And, in the end, Victoria would be a pariah. And Big Sandy and Albert would still be dead. But none of that mattered; she wasn’t going to let this go. Too many crimes had been committed that day, by both inmates and deputies.

Her phone buzzed from deep in her purse. She fished it out and checked the caller ID. Charlie Baker, her assistant. She let the call go to voicemail then checked her missed calls. Three from Jack Birch and two voicemails. Victoria pulled up the first voicemail and listened.

Jack was his usual cryptic self - the man didn’t trust cell phones, but she got the gist of it: a warrant for Valentine’s arrest had been issued by Judge Pinto for the murder of Abby Sutton. No further explanation. Just the facts ma’am.

Damn that man!

Victoria hit the CALL BACK icon so hard that the raw flesh where her fingernail had been broken off started to bleed. She jammed the phone to her ear and listened to it ring three times before the call was shuttled to voicemail.

“Damn it!” she yelled at the phone, mindless of the startled look the jailer inside his bulletproof glass cube gave her. She threw the phone into her purse, sped out of the building to the garage and pounded up the stairs to her Jeep, heart racing with anxiety. But she wasn’t thinking about Val; she was thinking about the twins. She knew police procedure as well as any cop. If Val were arrested, Max and Kyle would be carted off to Juvenile Hall by a matron and that could not be allowed to happen.

Victoria
broke every speed limit in Dallas racing home. She burned a half inch of rubber off her rear tires as she took the corner onto the Jefferson Street viaduct, blasting past a Porsche Boxster like it was standing still, then roared across the old bridge, pushing the Jeep up to eighty miles an hour.

Along with the anxiety and fear for the twins’ safety, self-loathing chewed at the fringes of her thoughts, jaundicing her vision of herself as a mother. She hated herself for not being there. Cursed herself for having a career that she loved. She should have been there to protect the children. She knew these thoughts were irrational, but that hardly mattered; they felt true enough.

It almost made her scream to slow down to thirty-five miles an hour, still ten miles over the posted speed limit, as she entered her neighborhood, but it was a community of joggers, bikers and babies in strollers; she couldn’t take the chance of driving faster.

When she finally turned down her own street she saw a DPD patrol car parked at the curb in front of her house.

The fingernails of her un-bandaged hand bit into the steering wheel and her stomach clenched. Her first thought was that Val was probably handcuffed in the back seat. And then she saw Val chatting away with Jack Birch and a pair of uniformed officers. She didn’t recognize the taller of the two uniformed cops, but the other was Gary Griggs, one of Val’s boozin’ ‘n’ shootin’ buddies. They seemed to be having a good time, yukking it up.

Victoria’s panic instantly boiled over into anger. Val wasn’t even in handcuffs!

But
she
might be after she got done with him.

She whipped past the patrol car and screeched to a stop, almost taking off the cruiser’s front bumper. She leapt out of the Jeep before it had even stopped moving and was yelling before her heels hit the pavement.

“Where are the boys, Valentine?”

Val turned, still smiling, but the smile vanished when he saw Victoria barreling across the sidewalk like a runaway bus, shoulders up around her ears, chin tucked. He had the urge to grab Rodriquez and use him as a human shield.

“They’re fine!” he said, backing up a step, holding his hands up, palms out. “They’re inside. Taking a nap.”

“Damn it, Valentine!” she yelled, still charging straight at him. “You ditched them so you could play grab-ass with your buddies?”

“I didn’t ditch them,’ he said, taking another step backward. “They’re in their playpen taking their nap. The baby monitor’s right here.”

“They’re fine—” Griggs began but snapped his mouth shut when Victoria’s eyes raked over him.

Victoria stopped just short of her husband and gave him a murderous look, her eyes pausing for the briefest of moments on the bandage over his right eye, before she turned on her heel and stalked across the front yard, brushing past Griggs who almost fell over himself getting out of her way.

“They’re fine,” Val said to her back. “What happened to your hand?”

Victoria thrust up her good hand without turning around, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Val knew better than to say another word. She was past the point of reason. Talking to her now was like having an argument with a guided missile. She pounded up the steps and banged through the door.

“I’ve got to have a few words with your wife, Valentine,” Jack said. “About Abby Sutton. It’s her case. For the moment anyway. How much of your part do you want to tell her yourself?” Both men knew that leaving anything out was not an option; Victoria had been a prosecuting attorney for too long, she’d find out everything eventually. It was better not to add more lies to the list of charges to be leveled against Val. She had to have the whole story.

But not from Val. He wasn’t too proud to run for cover when Victoria was this angry. Didn’t a wise sage once say ‘retreat and live to fight another day?’

That guy was probably a coward too.

“Tell her everything,” he told Jack. “And then say a prayer for me.”

Jack nodded. He crossed the lawn and went up the front steps.

“Christ, she scared me,” Rodriquez said as Jack disappeared inside. “I almost used the Taser on her.”

“I wish you had,” Val replied, still looking at his closed front door. “Then she would have kicked your ass instead of mine.”

30

By
the time Victoria and Jack Birch reemerged from the house, Val was saying goodbye to Griggs and Rodriquez. Jack didn’t rejoin them, he didn’t even wave goodbye. He shared a few parting words with Victoria on the porch then crossed to his car where detective Gruene sat as still as a statue, waiting for the end of her career.

Griggs huffed and wheezed as he wedged himself in behind his patrol car’s steering wheel. His girth and height made the Crown Vic look like a kid’s pedal car. He stopped with one leg still out the door, sweat beading on his jowls. His sunburn looked two shades darker.

“You and Victoria should come by some night for dinner. I still burn a pretty mean steak and I have a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue that I’m dying to open,” he said.

Val appreciated the offer. Gary, a good Catholic, had five children, three of them in college, a situation that had Gary working two part time jobs in addition to his DPD duties. Even with the extra money, steak and Johnny Walker Blue would probably strain his budget to the breaking point.

Val nodded, “Sure thing. If I’m not dead or in jail.”

Gary frowned, turned in the seat, opened the glove box and pulled out a pistol. He turned and handed it up to Val by the trigger guard. Val took it and looked it over. A Glock-17 that looked well maintained.

“Just in case,” Gary said, but Val shook his head and handed it back.

“I still have my dad’s .45 if it comes to that.”

Gary shrugged and put the gun back in the glove box. “Well, if you need another gunslinger, call me,” he said, his tone deadly earnest. Griggs had killed three men in the line of duty, but, more importantly, he had managed
not to kill
another few thousand suspects over the years. There was no one Val would have preferred on his side in a fight.

Val nodded a reply and Griggs pulled the door closed.

Joe Rodriguez was still standing in the open passenger side door, looking across the light-bar at Val.

“The Sutton brothers deserved what they got,” he said. “Their sister too. The only mistake you made was not killing her four years ago. If she had thrown down on me with a shotgun…” Joe shook his head grimly. He didn’t wait for a response; he ducked into the car and banged the door closed behind him.

Val’s expression turned stony as he watched the patrol car pull away. Christ, even his friends believed he had crippled Abby Sutton. That was depressing. Val had thought this was all over, and here he was again. Lamar and Lemuel Sutton. Abby, Garland, Jasper Smith, and a mythical fifteen million dollars in stolen cash and gold coins. Echoes from a cold grave. But fresh graves were being dug. Abby and Phil Bastrop and Gus Perdido and God only knew how many others.

He turned back to the house and was startled to find Victoria standing directly behind him, arms crossed over her chest.

“Jack told me the whole story. He tried to gloss it over, but I know you. It’s probably ten times worse.
If
that’s possible.” She looked at the bandage plastered above his eye. “He said the Sheriff’s department arrested you.”

“Well, not exactly…” Val began, but Victoria wasn’t interested in subtleties.

“Cut the crap, Valentine,” she snapped. “Did they read you your rights?”

“Yes.”

“And they handcuffed you. And beat the crap out of you.”

“Yes.”

“Then you were under arrest, Einstein.”

Val shrugged. She had a point.

“And that’s another ruined shirt,” she said, glancing at his shirtfront then quickly away. There was a hitch in her voice and a glimmer of tears in her eyes.

Val looked down at the shirt. Dirt, blood and grass stains. Ruined was an understatement.

“I screwed up. I’m sorry,” he said instinctively. He had been married for two and a half years. He pled for mercy at the first sign of tears.

“For running around like Robocop or for the shirt?”

Having abandoned pride, Valentine found little trouble moving on to groveling.

“Both,” he said. “What I did was stupid. I took it too far. Just like you did yesterday in Oak Cliff.” Not tactful, but he hoped that reminding her of her own life-risking transgressions would get her off of his back.

He should have known better.

Victoria’s eyes flashed, the shimmer of tears instantly boiled away by anger. “What I did was stupid,” she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous pitch. “What you did was a betrayal of trust. If you can’t see the difference then maybe I should call the Sheriff and let them cart you off to jail.”

Val’s face went hot. Going after Zeke, Jasper and Garland half-cocked had been a bad idea. A mistake in judgment. He could admit that. But it wasn’t as if he had to ask her permission to leave the house. She was his wife, not his supervisor. But he didn’t argue the point. He wanted this over. He nodded woodenly.

“You’re right.” It took a lot for him to utter those words. “I apologize.” But Victoria wasn’t buying it.

She shook her head. “That’s bullshit,” she said. “You’re just trying to shut me up.” She had to blink fast to keep the tears from rolling. “What are you going to do now?” she asked, dreading his reply. She knew her husband wasn’t the type to lay back and let it ride.

“It’s over,” Valentine said. “Jack and the cops can handle it from here.” But he knew that was a lie as he said it. The cops cleaned up after murders, they rarely prevented them. They couldn’t keep tabs on Garland and Jasper Smith.

Victoria could read her husband’s expression. He had the look in his eye again. The bleak hostility. The coldness. The same look he had worn when he hunted murderers for a living.

“You’re not going to start playing cop, Valentine,” she said firmly. “You’ve done some stupid things in the past, but that’s just plain retarded.”

Valentine looked away. He couldn’t explain it to Victoria. For half of his life he had followed the code of the cop, never give a crook an even break. Have your tactical baton out before they threw the punch. Have your gun in your hand before they reached for the knife. And if they had a gun? Shoot to kill.

“You’re already a suspect in one murder.”

“That charge won’t stick. I didn’t kill anyone,” he said, realizing he sounded like a crook as he said it.

“But you could have been killed yourself,” she pointed out, the hitch reappearing in her voice. “And then what would I do? And the boys? What about them? Did you even consider us?”

That was below the belt. The last two years of his life had been about nothing
but
the twins. And it was Max, Kyle and his wife he had been trying to protect. But Val didn’t blow up. Things were bad enough. He wasn’t going to have a knockdown drag-out with his wife in the middle of the front lawn.

“Can we talk about this inside?” he asked, glancing up and down the quiet street, but Victoria didn’t give a damn about making a scene.

“This isn’t just stupid, Valentine, this is crazy. And now you’re on the wrong side of a homicide investigation. What the hell were you thinking?” she asked, searching her husband’s pale eyes for some reassurance that her life wasn’t going off the rails completely, but there was no reassurance there. What she saw chilled her.

Valentine made no reply.

Victoria waited, willing him to buckle, but she knew it wasn’t going to happen. He hadn’t changed. Hadn’t grown up. He was willing to risk everything just for the sake of risking it. She tore her gaze off her husband, turned and walked across the lawn, tears rolling down her face, her shoulders already starting to heave.

Val trailed her, head down.

Sometimes marriage truly sucked.