Lie in Wait (7 page)

 

Chapter 14

“
M
OTHER OF
G
OD,”
Test said as she pulled her Peugeot off the washboard dirt road onto Jed King's long, private gravel drive. She gaped at the Fisher plow blade situated at the entrance. The blade spray-­painted in dripping blood-­red letters:
GOVERNOR DREW TRADED
FARMS FOR FAGS!

Test dialed down the volume of her
Reckoning
CD and drove up the steep dirt drive.

Her Peugeot's muffler had come loose on those damned school speed bumps, and the car blatted and backfired as she downshifted.

Though he had to have heard the racket, Jed King did not look up from where he stood outside his sugar shack chopping firewood as Test pulled up nearby.

Test watched him from her car for a moment. She wanted to ask about the sign left in the Merryfields' lawn. King's sign. Everyone knew. She found it hard to imagine anyone stupid enough to kill Jessica would leave behind what basically amounted to a calling card. But arrogance and pride ran lockstep with hatred and stupidity.

King hefted the axe over his head, the blade gleaming in the sun, then brought it down on a chunk of wood set on a stump. Split the chunk of wood cleanly in two. He set another block of firewood on the stump. He spat in his palms, rubbed them together, clapped them, rubbed them on his Carhartt pants.

Test got out of her car and walked toward King.

The T-­shirt King wore was too cold for the day and too tight for his big chest, a chest King probably still thought of as broad, masculine, bullish, but was simply thick with fat. The Indian Motorcycle logo on the T-­shirt stretched across the flab.

He continued to ignore Test as she shut her car door, loudly.

He chopped the piece of firewood, split it clean in two, picked up another piece.

“Mr. King,” Test said.

King chopped.

“Mr. King.”

Test stepped closer to him.

A car pulled in at the bottom of the long dirt drive. A cruiser. Detective North.
Here we go
, Test thought. She knew she was poking a hornets' nest by going to the school independent of the state police earlier. Now, North was tracking her down, likely.

King looked up, past Test, through her, toward the cruiser. He watched North pull the cruiser up and get out, the sun glinting on North's sunglasses. “Afternoon, how are you?” North said.

“Dickie North,” King said and placed another log on the stump.

Dickie
.
Wonderful,
Test thought.
Are the two men old drinking buds
?

North nodded curtly at Test. “What are you doing here?” he said.

North's condescension rankled her, but she did not show it. He was surprised to see her, so he clearly wasn't here to give her grief about conducting the student interviews. He wasn't here for her at all.

“Following up on a few things,” Test said.

“Such as?” North said.

King rolled his T-­shirt sleeves up to bunch them at his shoulders, revealing a Don't Tread On Me tattoo, a nice pairing with the
18:22
tattoo on his forearm.

He raised the axe. “I ain't moving my plow. It's on my property. Legal.” The axe hovered above his head. “And I ain't covering up what it says.” King brought down the axe; the log split in two. “You're wasting your time, Dickie.” Test realized now that King's use of
Dickie
was not one of friendly familiarity but a sarcastic jab of disrespect.

King still had not acknowledged Test's existence.

“It's not about your plow,” North said. “It's about the murdered girl.”

King set a new log down on the stump. “Don't know the girl.”

“Jessica Cumber,” Test said, and stepped toward King. “That was her name.”

“Still don't know her.” King raised the axe. It was a monstrous axe and the morning sunlight glanced off its polished blade again so brilliantly that, for a second, Test was blinded.

“Sir,” Test said. “Put the axe down and address us like an adult.”

King turned to “Dickie,” who took a step closer to stand behind and to the side of Test.

King lifted the axe and buried it into the firewood. He spat. “I said I don't know the girl.” His eyes were hard, dark, antagonistic. They dared you to push him so he'd have a reason to strike. Test almost wished he'd go back to ignoring her. Almost.

“Where were you last night?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

“It is my business,” Test said, her voice flat and calm, even as her heart raced. “It is exactly my business.”

“Murder's a state police matter,” King said. “Not pissant locals. Ain't that right, Dickie?” He shot a taunting smirk at North, then dug a thumb into his lower lip and flung out a wad of chewing tobacco to the ground at Test's feet. “I said, ‘ain't that right?'“

“Officially,” North said.

“I'll share what I learn,” Test said.

“She shall ‘share',” King bellowed to North. “Ain't that generous of her. Except,” he jutted a chin at Test now. “There ain't nothing
to
share. You plan to arrest me? You got a warrant?”

“I can get one,” Test said and saw North shake his head in a way barely perceptible. She was bluffing; she had no idea if a judge would grant a bench warrant or not. Likely not. The sign in the Merryfields' yard might be enough to rise to probable cause, with King's open history of hatred toward gays. Then again, likely not.

“So go get you one then,” King said.

“We just want to ask,” Test began, “I want to ask—­”

“Ask all you want. I didn't know the girl and don't know nothing about what happened to her.”

“Then you won't mind telling me where you were last night.” Test glanced at a sign in the yard: T
AKE
B
ACK
V
ERMONT
.

“You deaf or just dumb? Is she fucking retarded, Dickie? You hiring retards now, you're so hard up? I
do
mind. Because where I was—­” King took a step closer. He was almost in arms' reach. “Is my own business.”

“We found one of your signs on the lawn of the house where she was killed,” Test said. Her heart was jackhammering now.

“So sue me,” King said. “Someone stuck one of my signs in a yard. A lot of ­people take them from me to get out the word. A lot of ­people believe in what I believe. More than your type think. You got evidence I planted it in the yard, fine me for trespassing. Even if I did put the sign there, it wouldn't have anything to do with that girl.”

That girl.
His callous tone enraged Test. What kind of man was so dismissive of a murdered fifteen-­year-­old girl? A misogynist as well as a bigot. “So what
does
putting the unwelcome signs in yards have to do with then?” Test said.

“Helping the average Joe get his voice heard.”

“Getting political are we?” North said. He moved a small step closer to King, nearly side by side with Test.

“Put it however you want,” King said.

“How would you put it?” Test said. She wanted to instigate him. Wanted to rile him and get him emotional, if possible. Though not anger him. He was angry enough by nature.

“Doing what you have to do.” King took a step closer now. His eyes had a sheen to them, a bright, savage meanness. He was a step away from being in Test's personal space, close enough to reach out his long arms and grab her throat or punch her.

Too close.

Test was trained to order a civilian who got this close to take a step back. But she knew King would not step back. He'd take her order as an invitation to step closer. He'd be all too pleased to show her who was boss here. Her order would escalate the situation. She did not want that. Neither did she want to step back to a safer distance. That would be worse. That would be a surrender of her authority and power.

She stood her ground.

That North was close to her side helped. King may have called him Dickie, but North was still a seasoned cop, an armed cop.

“And what is it you feel you
have
to do? Have to prove?” Test said.

King crowded so close to Test that Test was forced to look up at him. He stood a good ten inches taller than her five feet five inches and likely had 150 pounds on her. Before driving here, Test had switched her sidearm from the chest holster she normally wore to her belt holster. Now she realized too late that she should have unsnapped the strap over her M&P40 before she'd gotten out of her car. There was no way to do it subtly now. And though she wasn't afraid, unstrapping her sidearm holster would show fear, not strength.

“Whatever it takes,” King said, staring down at her. His breath stank sour of chewing tobacco.

“And what would that mean?” Test said.

“I'm proud to have the balls to say we don't think fags should get married. They cry about equal rights and—­”

“What does ‘whatever it takes' mean?”

“Means what it means.”

“Stop at nothing?” Test said.

“Dickie,” King said. “Let's skip this small-­town cat-­and-­mouse bullshit. It ain't becoming. This little Chihuahua here wants to yap while I got wood to chop. Likes the sound of her own voice. I guess she thinks it sounds sexy.” He locked eyes with her and took a step, closed the gap. The reek of his tobacco breath ate up the oxygen between them, his bottom lip stained a cancerous brown with tobacco juice. She heard, thought she heard, North work the snap on his holster. “Well,” King said. “It
don't
sound sexy. It sounds like a fucking—­”

“Sir, watch what you say,” Test said. She squared her shoulders and, instinctively, before she realized what she was doing, unsnapped the strap over her sidearm and set her palm on the butt of it. “I will arrest you.”

King laughed. A bark. His eyes on Test's, setting hooks into her.

Test's blood pounded in her ears.

“You want to know if I killed her,” King said. “If I want to get a message across to Merryfield, I can say it to the queer-­lover's face. And to the two queens he represents. And I
have
said it. Of all the issues that lawyer could be fighting for, he picks this to get attention for his self. Guy's always been a self-­promoter. What the fuck's he think is going to happen he dips his dick in that pot?” King inched closer to Test.

“Step back.” Test squeezed the butt of her M&P40.

A smiled oozed across King's face. He shook his head subtly. His spittle misted Test's face.

“Step back,” Test said. “I will not ask again.”

King rolled his eyes and took two long, mocking strides backward, his arms out wide. “Happy? Feel better? Feel safe now?”

Test eyed the axe buried in the stump, within arm's reach of King. Had he moved back to get closer to the axe? “What happened to that girl; she's collateral damage?” Test said.

“Don't put words in my mouth. I know her mother. Good woman. But she can blame Merryfield for what's happened.”

“It's Jon Merryfield's fault? The person who actually killed Jessica Cumber isn't responsible?” Test said.

“A man can only be pushed so far.”

“And has someone pushed you too far?

“This country's about standing up for what's right.”

King wasn't actually answering her questions. He was reciting a list of tired clichés regarding manhood and so-­called patriotism.

“You happen to know anyone who would take it that far?” North said.
Another country heard from
, Test thought.

“If I did, I wouldn't tell you Dickie,” King said.

“You'd protect someone like that?” Test said. She'd not thought it possible, but the more King spoke the more she detested him.

“It's not my business to tell the cops anything,” King said.

“If you're withholding information, you will be arrested as an accessory after the fact,” Test said.

“Is that so?” King said.

“We'll see justice is done.”

“Well then, we're after the same thing, sweet cakes.”

Abruptly, with no warning, King swung away from her with a swift animal movement and grabbed the axe from the stump and wielded it above his head.

Test had her M&P40 out in an instant. Safety off, finger on her trigger, ready to shoot.

“Wait!” North shouted.

King smiled his nasty smile as he came down with the axe and drove its honed blade into the stump.

He glared at Sonja, her legs spread in a shooting stance, sidearm trained on him.

Her blood sang in her veins, her fingertips pulsed with electric ticks and surges.

“You done?” King said, looking straight at the muzzle as tranquil as someone watching an ocean sunset.

He'd made a fool out of her. Tricked her into drawing her sidearm. If she'd put a hair more pressure on her trigger, she'd have shot him. Dead. And what would North have testified as the witness? That King had gone for an axe? Or that Test had overreacted?

Test, as calmly as she could, returned her sidearm to its holster as she came out of her shooting stance. “Unless you plan on telling me where you were last night,” she said.

“Get a warrant.” He leered at her crotch, stained with coffee. “Think she's pissed herself, Dickie.” His leer showed his gums were black where they met his stained teeth.

Test breathed through her nose to calm herself, the corner of her left eye twitching.

“Get off my property,” King said. “Or I'll have
you
arrested.”

North put a hand on Test's shoulder, a gesture Test found more patronizing and inappropriate than anything King had said or done. She shirked free and marched back to her car.