Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (36 page)

65

Val
crossed the lawn with long, unsteady strides, keeping his balance as much by forward momentum as equilibrium. He must have blacked out for a moment along the way, because the next thing he knew the porch steps were dead ahead. But he didn’t manage them well. His toes wanted to catch every runner. He fell on the second tread, banging his shins hard against the lip of the porch. The pain was so bright and fresh that it briefly swept away the fog that had settled over his brain. But only briefly. He dragged himself up the steps and used one of the roof supports to haul himself erect. He had to tuck the .22 into his hip pocket to accomplish the task. It was as he pulled the pistol out again that he considered the low-powered handgun.

How many shots had he and Parker fired from it? Five? Six? Six at least. Val clamped the pistol between his knees, released the cylinder lock and spun it open. Eight shiny brass primer caps stared back at him. Six of them were dimpled, only two were unfired. Two low velocity .22 shorts. The kind of round that a farmer would use to kill barn rats. But Val didn’t have the strength to return to the clearing for Hockley or Parker’s heavier caliber weapon. Or the time. He flipped the cylinder closed, shrugged himself off the post and crossed to the front door.

Zeke was still lying in the living room. And he was still dead. The last of the Suttons.

Val laughed, high and giddy. He was really losing it. Blood loss was finally taking him down, making him lightheaded and stupid. He choked back the laughter and continued down the hallway, stopping just short of the open basement door. A filthy canvas sack half blocked the doorway, the smell of urine and feces wafted up from it. Val eased quietly around it and into the doorway, the .22 up, the front sight locked to the center of his eye, tracking as a single unit.

The room below was lit poorly by a pair of flashlights lying on the floor, spilling  crisscrossing yellow swaths across the dirt, just enough light for Val to make out Gruene lying there with an axe buried in her chest.

Time overlapped and warped for Valentine. He was sucked back four years, back to the corpses of two dead women and a bloody axe. And then Val saw Jasper and Victoria in the far corner of the basement.

Val lined up the sights and cocked the hammer on the .22. Both Victoria and Jasper looked up at him, their eyes yellow in the wan light.

Victoria spoke; “Valentine. I’m ready to go home now.”

There was something wrong with her voice. It sounded reedy, but surprisingly calm considering the knife Jasper Smith was holding at her throat.

Smith grinned up the steps at Val. “Damned party crasher,” he said. “Whyn’t you pitch that there gun down the steps,” he added, “before I start making stew meat out of the little lady here.” Jasper stroked the knife’s edge along Victoria’s throat, gliding it up and down like a barber’s razor. He dug it in at her jawline and a trickle of blood appeared. It traced a thin red line down to the hollow of her throat.

Val de-cocked the pistol and threw it down the steps to thump to the dirt floor.

Jasper shook his head, still grinning with his broken teeth. “Like I said, I can’t say as I’m impressed with you, Vicious.” With that he released his chokehold on Victoria, grabbed her by the roots of her hair and flung her headfirst into the wall. Her skull ricocheted off the stone with a rotten-fruit thump and she fell hard on the dirt floor, twitched twice, and lay still.

Val bellowed a wordless roar as he charged down the steps, moving too fast for his leaden feet to keep up. He skidded down the last three stairs and went down in the dirt. For a moment he blacked out, but then he was rising, shoving himself up by force of will alone. He lurched around to face Jasper, the floor seeming to buck under his feet like a ship in a gale, the room spinning. He took a step forward, but that single step was as far as he got.

Jasper Smith lazily drew the chrome plated automatic from the waistband of his jeans and shot Val in the right kneecap.

The copper jacketed round punched through the cartilage and plowed through the joint, splintering bone and shredding ligaments. Val would have screamed but the pain was too much, it collapsed his lungs. His leg folded under him and he went facedown again, beside his wife, his right leg bent out at a crooked angle like a twisted pipe cleaner.

“That should hold you for a minute,” Jasper said good-naturedly. He tucked the pistol away, stepped over Val and crossed to Gruene’s corpse. He grabbed the axe handle jutting up from the woman’s chest and jerked it free with a wet sucking noise. He took a two-handed grip on the axe, turned back to Valentine, and raised the axe over his head.

A gunshot from the top of the steps struck Jasper in the chest, rocking him backward on his heels. A second shot knocked the axe from his grasp, sending it flying into the far corner with the flashlight. Three more rounds came in rapid succession as Gary Griggs thumped slowly down the stairs, a .45 Colt automatic in his fist, the gun belching flame with every step, each round knocking Jasper further backward like a steel target on the gun range.

Amazingly, Jasper didn’t go down despite the bullets that were splintering his ribs like Popsicle sticks. He danced backward, doing a jerky ‘cotton-eyed Joe’ on the silver-dollar heels of his boots, until his shoulders hit the wall. Gary fired one more time, shifting his aim upward. From point blank range, the .45 wad-cutter tore off half of Jasper Smith’s head like a baseball bat connecting with an overripe pumpkin. Jasper slid slowly down the wall to a seated position, his undamaged eye open but unseeing.

Gary stopped at the bottom of the steps, lowered the pistol and sat down heavily on the second step. He stared expressionlessly at Jasper’s corpse for a long moment before speaking in a casual monotone that seemed incongruous considering the fact that Valentine was bleeding to death.

“And that’s that,” Gary said as he glanced down at Valentine, his eyes dark spots in his fat, florid face. The faint wail of a siren filtered down from above. And then another siren joined in. Both were still a long way off. Gary dropped his eyes and hung his head, the pistol loose in his hand, dangling between his knees. “I had hoped Jasper would have finished you, Valentine,” he said. “I didn’t want it to come to this.”

Victoria rolled over and groaned. Her eyes blinked open and found Valentine’s. One pf her pupils was dilated and blood was leaking from her forehead and her face. He tried to smile at her, but his face muscles just twitched and went slack again. He looked back at Gary in confusion. What the hell was Gary saying? Val didn’t have to wonder for long.

Gary raised the .45 and pointed it at Val’s head.

“I thought this was all over four years ago,” Gary said, his tone apologetic. “When I called you that afternoon and told you where the Suttons were, I knew you’d kill them both. And, if not, I was waiting outside to finish the job. But I didn’t finish it.” Gary shook his head and his tone turned bitter. “Abby…” he trailed off.

“You shot Abby?” Val barely managed to say, the words more breath than vocal sound.

Gary nodded down the pistol’s barrel. The sirens were getting closer, and there were more of them, but the cavalry was going to be too late.

“Why?” Val asked. Victoria reached for his hand, took it and squeezed, but he didn’t look her way; his eyes stayed pinned on Gary.

“She knew who I was,” Gary said simply, then continued. “But I didn’t get the job done. Not until last week, anyway. The bitch was blackmailing me. For
four
years. And then she got the idea that you knew where the gold was.” Gary paused and raised an eyebrow in question.

“I didn’t,” Val said wearily, “I just worked it out today. The septic tank was the one place no one had ever looked.” Victoria’s grip on his hand became a vise. He heard her suck in air and breathe out a soft sob.

Gary nodded. “That’s what I figured. You were always a smart cop. One of the best.”

Val ignored the compliment. It meant nothing to him coming from Gary.

“Why, Gary?” he asked again, but he wasn’t asking about Abby anymore, he was talking about all of it. About everything. And Gary knew that.

Gary shrugged. “Money,” he said almost sadly. “I busted a doper out in Sunnyvale with a hundred grand in a pillowcase. I killed him, buried the body and kept the cash. But Nolan Swisher found out. Had the shooting on a security camera video. Laundromat right across the street had a camera in the parking lot. After that I did what I was told. It wasn’t much. Passed cash from the Suttons to Herby Lubbock. Ran a little interference on a few of Lamar and Lemuel’s smaller scores. Set up a couple of jobs for them. No one died that anyone would miss. And the money was good. The money was
really
good, Val.”

“Sheriff Swisher?” Val asked, confused, that was the second time Swisher had been mentioned that evening. Val squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. “Money,” he breathed. All this talking was wearing him down. Jesus, Gary Griggs, a man as close to him as blood.

“I’ve got three kids in college and two more to go. A hundred dead dope dealers would be a small price,” Gary went on, trying to justify his actions, but he didn’t sound defensive, just tired. Beaten down. “I had to believe that or…” He shrugged, his eyes pleading for understanding. Eyes that were still looking down a pistol barrel at Valentine.

It was that silent plea that really pissed Val off.

“Bullshit, Gary,” he said, his voice rising to a hoarse whisper. “The Martinson’s…” he began then ran out of air. He closed his eyes again. He was almost too weak to even give a damn anymore. Almost.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Gary said, but his tone betrayed that even he didn’t believe it. “The Martinson’s were why I called you that night. Laroy and Lemuel were animals. They had to die for that.”

“You too…” Val managed to squeeze out. “You too, Gary.”

Griggs shook his head. “Not me, Valentine.” The sirens were louder now, not more than a mile away. Gary took in the trigger’s slack. “You and Victoria were dead when I got here.”

“Why don’t you put that pistol down, Gary,” Jack Birch said from the top of the steps, his voice as cold as dry ice.

Gary flinched, his layers of fat quivering, but he didn’t lower the pistol.

“Hello, Jack,” he sighed without turning around.

“I won’t ask you again, Gary,” Jack replied. “Drop that pistol or I’ll drop you.”

Gary nodded. “I guess that’s about the size of it.” He was still aiming the pistol at Valentine. “I’d say I’m sorry, but who would give a damn?” Gary said then laughed his horsey chuckle before swiftly turning the pistol around and pressing the barrel into the sagging flesh under his jaw. “God forgive me,” he said and pulled the trigger.

Gary toppled off the step, his bulk dragging him into a barrel roll that ended with him facedown, blocking the stairs.

As Jack Birch came quickly down the steps, one of the sirens wailed to a stop out front. Jack stepped over Gary’s body without a glance, crossed the dirt and knelt between Valentine and Victoria. He gave Val a thin smile.

“Seems like every time we meet these days I find you bleeding, Valentine,” he said. He shifted his eyes to Val’s ruined knee and winced. Jack stripped his belt from the loops and quickly fashioned a tourniquet around Val’s thigh, directly above what was left of his knee.

“I’m pretty sure this is the last time, Jack,” Val said and closed his eyes. The dark water lapped at his brain stem, flooded his head and filled his lungs. Finally, it dragged him down.

66

Val
awoke to the smell of antiseptic spray. It took him only a moment to realize where he was - this wasn’t the first time he had awakened in a hospital.

The room had two beds, but the second bed was unmade and empty. Jack Birch was propped against the footboard, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Seated on the bed beside Valentine was Victoria, her head wrapped with bandages like a civil war veteran. Her lower lip was split and her left cheek was bandaged as well, but she had never looked more beautiful to Valentine. He grinned at her and started to sit up, but the pain knocked him right back down again, out of breath and panting.

“You’re one big bandage under that blanket,” Victoria said, placing a gentle hand on his chest.

“How bad?” Val croaked through a dry throat. Victoria grabbed a water jug from the rolling table beside the bed and held a straw to his lips. He sucked half of it down before pausing for breath. “How bad?” he repeated.

Victoria shrugged. “The doctor says you might have some brain damage but you don’t use it that much, so…” She tried to laugh but it got stuck in her throat. “Your knee is a mess. They say it’ll take three surgeries to repair.”

“I was asking about you,” Val said, his eyes flicking to the bandage on her head then the one on her cheek and finally to the one on her neck where Jasper Smith had cut her. Anger crawled up Val’s spine, pulsing red in his head, but the moment passed quickly. Jasper Smith was dead. Gunned down by Griggs.

“Nothing critical,” she said, though the look in her eyes belied her words. “The doctor says I’ll be good as new.” She didn’t mention the gunpowder that had stippled her check as deeply as tattoo ink when Gruene had fired directly into her face, or the nightmares of a fetid monster with one glittering eye that plagued her dreams.

“How long have I been out? What happened after Gary shot himself?”

Victoria shuddered, instantly transported back to the basement. She swallowed hard and replied. “You were out for five days. They had to induce a coma. You lost so much blood that your organs had started to fail.” She bit her lip and turned away. When she looked back, tears were clinging to her bottom eyelashes. She swiped at them as she stood.

“The boys are in the waiting room with Daddy. The doctor said I could bring them in for a few minutes when you woke up. I’ll let Jack bring you up to date.” Victoria hurriedly ducked and pressed her lips to Val’s before she exited the room.

Jack pushed off the footboard and took the cigarette from his mouth. Briefly he explained about the Citizens for Law and Order PAC, the Sutton brothers, Herby Lubbock, and Nolan Swisher. He finished with: “We found Sheriff Swisher three days ago, dead behind the wheel of his pickup in his garage. Gary paid him a visit before heading out to Hudson. Put two .45’s in his head.”

Val nodded, indifferent to Swisher’s demise.

“What about Gary?” Val asked, thinking about the man’s wife and five kids. About how Gary’s corruption would affect their lives.

“Gary, Laroy Hockley and Detective Sally Gruene were killed by Jasper Smith while trying to rescue you and Victoria,” Birch said dryly. “They’re heroes,” he paused and a sardonic smile touched the corners of his mouth. “They’re thinking of putting up a statue down at the courthouse.”

Valentine considered that pile of bullshit. One more cover up, but he didn’t care. He was just glad it was over.

Jack continued, “We still have one more issue. How did your fingerprints end up on the gun that killed Abby? There are folks down at the Jack Evans building who are wondering.”

Val considered that for a moment, but it didn’t take him long to make the connection. He had investigated so many murders that his mind found the devious turns easy to make.

“Was it a Glock-17?”

Birch nodded and Val squeezed his eyes closed.

“Gary offered me a Glock the day that Erath tried to arrest me. I turned it down, but I did handle it.” Jesus, for some reason that betrayal, the planning that it had taken, stung Val more than all the other crimes Gary had committed. Gary had been setting him up right from the start, from the day Abby was crippled. But another thought intruded.

“What about Slick Hernandez?” he asked as he opened his eyes.

“He’s two doors down the hall,” Jack said. “He saved your ass, the way he tells it.” There was a question in Jack’s voice. Val nodded. Slick
had
saved his ass. And now the debt was on the other side of the table, a debt that Valentine hoped he would never have to repay.

“On a more official note,” Jack continued, “I have some good news. The brass downtown has offered you your shield back. Homicide. Same grade, same pay.”

“Same crappy pay,” Val said then looked up as Victoria shoved open the door and wheeled the twins into the room. The boys’ faces lit up when they saw their father and he felt his own heart rise, a smile cracking his face. They were all that mattered. Their arms and legs went wild as they tried to climb free of the stroller, restrained only by the safety straps clipped around their bellies.

Val looked back at Jack, still grinning. “Thanks, but I already have a job,” he said. “For the next sixteen or seventeen years anyway.”

From the Author:

If you enjoyed Justice for None, please follow the link below and take a moment to review it at Amazon.com. And thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

JM Harvey

http://www.amazon.com/Justice-None-Texas-Book-ebook/dp/B00QJ3KR8C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1420744653&sr=1-1

If you liked Justice for None, you might enjoy JM’s previous book, Dead on the Vine – Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1. Turn the page for a free sample!