Overkill (2 page)

She found herself thinking of the .22 mini Magnum revolver she’d packed in her trunk. “I don’t have any pets.”

“Probably a good thing. Old man Hardeman’ll be a good landlord.”

She wanted to know how he knew who her landlord was when she hadn’t even told him where she’d be living. But Marty figured in a town the size of Caprock Canyon, you didn’t need a genius power of deduction to figure things out. It freaked her out a little to think of living in a place where everyone knew everyone else’s business. More than anything, Marty craved anonymity. She had the sinking feeling it was one of many things she wouldn’t find here.

She watched as he pulled a manila folder from his desk drawer. Her eyes went to the tab, found her name printed in bold blue on the label. She wondered what was in the file, if he’d done his homework, and she tried not to fidget.

“So what made you accept a job here in the Texas Panhandle?”

The word
bumfuck
floated inappropriately through her mind. Marty smiled, but she wasn’t the least bit amused by any of what was happening. “You’re kidding, right?”

His eyes narrowed, sharpened. “It’s a simple question.”

She reminded herself he’d already hired her. She hadn’t signed anything, but as far as she knew it was a done deal. Still . . . they hadn’t talked about
The Incident.
Surely he knew about what happened in Chicago. Didn’t he?

“I was ready for a change.” Trying to play it nonchalant, she lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “I sent out quite a few resumes. You made the best offer.” The only offer, she silently amended, but decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to point that out.

“Going to be a big change for you.”

“I’m getting that.” Realizing that sounded flippant, she nodded. “Like I said, I’m ready for something different.”

Reaching into the breast pocket of his denim shirt, he removed a pair of reading glasses, then opened the folder. “In case you’re wondering, we have television here in Deaf Smith County.” He looked at her over the tops of his glasses. “We also have cable TV, satellite TV and newspapers. Most of us can read, too.”

All Marty could do was stare.

“I saw the video,” he said softly. “I talked to your superiors. I know what happened.”

“So why did you hire me?”

“Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

She couldn’t curb the laugh that broke from her throat. “For starters, I beat the hell out of a suspect.”

“Jury evidently didn’t see it that way.”

“I can only assume they took into consideration the extenuating circumstances.”

“Must have been a fair-minded jury.” Frowning, he leaned back in his chair. “For future reference, just because this is a small town doesn’t mean we’re dumb hick cops.”

“I didn’t think that.”

“Yes, you did.” He said it without rancor.

Because he was right, Marty looked down at her hands, willed them not to shake. But she could feel her temper winding up. Nothing new there; she was like a walking time bomb these days. She hadn’t driven all the way from Chicago to Texas to get raked over the coals for some penny-ante job where she would more than likely spend as much time herding wayward cows as she did directing traffic.

Settlemeyer turned his attention back to the file. “You have good credentials, Hogan. SWAT experience. Your marksmanship scores are off the chart.” He glanced at her over the top of the paper he held. “I talked to the chief of detectives of the Fourth District.”

“I’m sure he had some interesting things to say.”

“As a matter of fact, he did.”

Here it comes,
she thought,
the deal killer.
Her heart plummeted into her stomach. James DeLuca hated her; there was no way this man would hire her after speaking to DeLuca. He’d wanted to crucify her, her partner and another first responder who’d been on the scene that day. He’d called for a Division of Public Integrity investigation. The next day he’d demanded her resignation. Lucky for Marty the jury had been in a charitable mood when she’d had her day in court or she’d have been sitting in a jail cell right now. DeLuca and the rest of the suits hadn’t been quite so forgiving.

She stared at Settlemeyer, knowing he was about to drop the hammer. The son of a bitch had changed his mind. He was going to fire her before she even had the chance to prove herself. If things went south here, she’d have nothing. No job. She’d broken the lease on her apartment in Palatine, forfeited the deposits. Now, she had no place to live. No way to pay her bills. Or her lawyer. Her only friends were cops, most of whom wouldn’t be caught dead associating with her. Marty was poison to the world right now.

Fuck Clay Settlemeyer. Fuck DeLuca. Fuck them all.

Heart racing, Marty shoved away from the desk abruptly, her chair screeching across the tile floor as she stood. She stared at Settlemeyer, knowing now was the time to say something. To defend herself. Her actions. At the very least she should tell him to get screwed for letting her drive fifteen hours only to have this last chance yanked out from under her.

But Marty’s throat was so tight she couldn’t speak. There were so many emotions jamming her brain that she couldn’t begin to identify them or put them into words. Not that anything would make a damn bit of difference now.

“Thanks for your time.” Turning, she started for the door.

“Hogan.”

Marty didn’t stop until she put her hand on the knob. Even then she didn’t turn to face him. She didn’t want him to see what she knew resided in her eyes. Didn’t want him to see just how much this opportunity meant to her.

“Just so you know, DeLuca gave you a favorable recommendation.”

She heard the words, but the only thing that registered was the hard pound of her heart, the heat leaching into her face, the tingle in her fingertips as she gripped the knob.

Holding herself together by the sheer force of desperation, Marty turned. “What?”

Settlemeyer’s chair creaked when he leaned back. Lacing his hands behind his head, he studied her as if she were some lab experiment that wasn’t quite coming together the way he’d envisioned. “I don’t know if this matters to you, but I’m one of those people who believes in second chances.”

Something akin to panic fluttered in her gut. Marty was adept at keeping a handle on her emotions. She’d been doing it for too many years to count, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Certainly not throughout the fiasco of the last six months. Growing up with two older brothers and working in a male-dominated profession, she’d learned early in life that tears never accomplished a damn thing. Most law enforcement types saw them for what they were: a sign of weakness. Marty was a lot of things, not all of them good, but she wasn’t weak.

But certain things had a way of wearing you down. It was ironic, but most often it was common kindness that undid Marty. She wasn’t sure what that said about her as a person.

She stared at Settlemeyer, not sure what to say. But she knew what she felt. Another swirl of panic went through her when telltale heat surged behind her eyes.

“I don’t need your charity.” The words came out surprisingly strong. She wanted to add some smart-assed reply, just to show him none of this mattered. She wasn’t some emotional basket case. She could start over. Maybe in security. But for the life of her Marty couldn’t find the words.

“This has nothing to do with charity,” he said. “I need a cop. You’ve got the credentials. A good recommendation. As far as I’m concerned, those two things override what you did six months ago. As long as you can keep a handle on your temper, the job is yours.”

“I’m a good cop.”

“That appears to be the general consensus.”

“There’s more to what happened six months ago than the media reported.”

“Sometimes the whole story doesn’t sell good airtime.” He took off his glasses. “So is that a yes or a no?”

“I need the job.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Reaching into a drawer, he removed a .40-caliber Glock, a leather holster, an antiquated cell phone, and a shiny new badge and laid them on the desk. “Get your uniforms from Jo Nell. I think there’s a form or two you’ll need to fill out. Taxes and health insurance and such. You start tomorrow, second shift.”

Marty stared down at the badge and gun, hating it that the images wavered through unshed tears. Her hand trembled when she reached for them. When she looked at Settlemeyer, his eyes were already on hers.

“I’ve already got a cell phone,” she managed.

“Now you have two. That’s the one I’ll be reaching you on 24/7.” He closed the drawer. “Any questions?”

Marty shook her head.

“Shift starts at 4 P.M. and ends at midnight. Half hour for dinner. You’ll be riding with someone for a few days until you get your feet. For starters you get Monday and Tuesday off as well as one Sunday per month. Friday is payday. You getting all this?”

“I got it.”

“In that case, welcome to Caprock Canyon, Officer Hogan.” He stuck out his hand.

Forcing her gaze to his, Marty took his hand and pumped it twice. She got a fleeting impression of calluses and restrained strength before he released her.

“See you tomorrow,” she said.

“Watch that traffic.” He softened the words with a half smile. “And don’t be late.”

“I won’t.” Turning, Marty started toward the door and hoped she could keep her word.

ONE

Through the dust-coated glass of his office window, Clay
watched his new recruit cross the sidewalk to her car and assured himself hiring her hadn’t been a mistake. She had impressive credentials, after all, better than any of the three men who made up his small police force. She had eight years on the street in South Chicago, a tough district that would send a lot of cops scurrying to the nearest door.

He wasn’t buying it.

No matter how you cut it, Marty Hogan had screwed up royally six months ago. She’d lost control and used the kind of judgment that gave all cops a bad name. Clay had watched the video a dozen times. Like tens of thousands of others, he’d been disgusted and sickened by the images of a cop beating a bound suspect. And yet after learning that the suspect had murdered a nine-year-old kid in cold blood, Clay had silently, perhaps wrongly, applauded her.

He’d been shocked as hell when he’d received a resume from her three weeks ago. It had taken him all of ten minutes to call her and conduct a phone interview. She’d handled herself well and answered all of his questions in just the right way. Despite her past mistakes, he decided Marty Hogan deserved a second chance.

But now, after meeting her, Clay doubted his initial assessment. He could spot baggage a mile away. No matter how hard she tried to conceal it behind that thin veil of tough, the woman was carting around enough emotional luggage to fill a 747. Clay ought to know; he was the proverbial expert on the subject.

Not wanting to examine his own past too closely, he watched her pull away and tried not to acknowledge the possibility that he’d messed up. Over the years he’d seen more than his share of cops in psychological distress. During his stint in the Middle East as an MP, several of his counterparts had been held in the vise grip of post-traumatic stress disorder. In the years he’d worked as a patrol officer in Dallas, he’d seen young cops just one moment of bad judgment away from eating a bullet.

Marty Hogan was a cop on the edge of a very precipitous drop. She wouldn’t admit it; he’d seen the denial in her eyes. But he’d recognized it because he’d seen it before in his own eyes. She was as shaky on her feet as a person could be—and still be standing.

“So why the hell did you hire her?” he muttered.

Clay knew the answer to that question, too. Right or wrong, or some ambiguous place in-between, he’d been compelled to give her another chance. Someone had done the same for him a long time ago. If Clay hadn’t taken it, he might have been one of those unfortunate young cops who couldn’t take the stress and stuck a gun in his mouth.

He wondered if Marty Hogan had slipped that far.

Unfortunately, her frame of mind wasn’t the only thing bothering him about the newest addition to his force. He wasn’t sure why, but he hadn’t expected her to be attractive. He knew that was a sexist attitude that had nothing to do with whether or not she was a good cop. Clay had always considered himself an enlightened and open-minded man. Damn it, he wasn’t sexist; he had nothing against female cops. Some of the best cops he’d ever known were women.

But whether he wanted to admit it or not, the way she looked would impact the department. It would change the dynamics of his team. It would change the way he viewed his own job. Clay would just have to be careful to keep things in perspective. Keep them on an even keel. Simple. The way he liked them.

As he pushed away from the window and watched her Mustang disappear down the street, Clay had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be easy. Life rarely was. In fact, nine times out of ten it was complicated as hell.

Marty Hogan had complicated written all over that shapely body of hers. Clay had never been good at complicated. Just ask his ex-wife. As he rounded his desk and sank into the leather chair, he had the terrible premonition he was about to get a crash course.

 
The house sat on an overgrown lot across the street from
a furniture store that had long since closed and a fire hydrant that had been run over by something big and never repaired. Next door, a rusty horse trailer with a flat tire stood alone in a vacant lot where hip-high weeds jutted from cracked asphalt. Beyond, the vast yellow plain stretched as far as the eye could see. Evidently, the Realtor hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Marty the house was located on the edge of town.

She parked the Mustang curbside and tried not to be disappointed. She wasn’t that picky about where she lived. As long as the place was relatively clean, had running water and air-conditioning, she could eke by. Well, as long as there were no mice or bugs.

But as she climbed the crumbling concrete steps to the wooden porch, Marty wondered if even those basic criteria would be met. An old-fashioned wooden screen door screeched like a cat in heat when she opened it. Checking the lopsided mailbox mounted beside the door, Marty found the key, shoved it into the lock and opened the door.

The odors of dust and old wood with an underlying hint of mildew greeted her when she stepped into the living room. Olive green shag carpet stretched the length of the room like trampled grass. The sofa and chair spoke of a bad trip back to the 1970s, replete with orange stripes and armrests as big as a man’s waist. The off-white paint helped bring it all together, but as Marty made her way to the kitchen, her hopes of finding something neat and pretty were dashed.

Yellow and white tile countertops glared at her like a judgmental mother-in-law. An almond-colored refrigerator groaned and rattled as if gasping for its last breath. Peeling yellow linoleum floors creaked beneath her feet as she moved down the narrow hall toward the bathroom, where she got yet another unpleasant surprise. Pink tile covered the walls of the tiny space. Not a subtle, eye-pleasing pastel, but a slap-in-the-face freaking
Pink
with a capital P. Some tasteless soul’s idea of art deco. Probably never been to Miami. On second thought, he’d probably never been out of this godforsaken town.

Marty stood in the doorway and took in the scene like a bystander watching a train wreck. If she hadn’t been so damn depressed she might have laughed. But it was either that or cry. And she didn’t want to cry. Once she started she might not be able to stop.

Letting out a passable snort, she explored the rest of the house, which took all of five minutes. In a nutshell, the place was a two-bedroom, one-bath nightmare. Perhaps this was God’s way of punishing her. Since a sympathetic jury hadn’t seen fit to incarcerate her for her transgression, this would be her prison. Her purgatory.

For now, it would have to do. After all, a former cop with a bad rep and shaky state of mind couldn’t be too picky.

Back at the car, Marty unloaded her suitcase and laptop case and lugged both to the house. She unpacked her clothes and put them in the single chest of drawers. Next came the mini Magnum five-shooter and ankle holster, which she placed in the top drawer of the night table. She should probably go to the grocery and buy some staples, but she didn’t feel like it.

She was on her way to the back door to check out the rest of the lot when her cell phone vibrated against her hip. The loneliness and depression pressing into her vanished when she saw her former partner’s name pop up on the display.

Grinning, she sat on the stoop and hit the Talk button. “About time you called.”

“How ya doin’, kid?” Steve Rosetti’s voice rolled through the line like tires over gravel.

“Frickin’ peachy, Rosetti.”

“Missin’ the traffic and crime, huh?”

“Or maybe I’m just missing you.”

“Ah . . . be still my heart.” They both knew Rosetti was a happily married man. “How was the trip?”

“Long.” She paused. “Too much time to think, but you know how that goes.”

“Don’t want to get that brain working too much. How’s Texas?”

“I saw my first tumbleweed today.”

“Holy shit.” He chuckled. “Did you shoot it?”

Marty really laughed for the first time since arriving in Caprock Canyon. “I feel like I’ve landed on Pluto.”

Rosetti paused. In the background Marty heard a car horn, and she knew he was out patrolling. A pang rolled through her belly hard enough to make her close her eyes. God, she missed riding with him.

“So how you really doin’?”

“I think the change is going to be good.”

“Jesus, you’re a bad frickin’ liar, Hogan. You gotta work on that.”

“This place sucks. The job sucks.”

“Sounds like frickin’ home to me.”

She laughed again. “I knew you’d cheer me up.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Fuckin’ Cheery Shit.”

In the background, another horn blared. Rosetti cursed. “Hey, kid, I gotta go. Some hurry-up dipshit just ran a light.”

Marty closed her eyes again. “Go get ’em, Rosetti.”

“You, too.”

The line clicked and filled with silence. That same silence seemed to fill Marty, echoing a loneliness so deep her bones ached with it. Snapping her phone closed, she blinked back tears, wishing she was anywhere but here.

 
Radimir Ivanov stood in the secure visitor area of Build
ing Nine of the Rochester Federal Medical Center in Minnesota and waited for the clinical director. Around him, corrections officers and medical personnel eyed him with the disdain of the enlightened. As if he were just another lowlife off the street here to visit some piece-of-scum convict.

If only they knew . . .

Let them believe what they will, he thought. Sooner or later, they would learn the truth. He would show them all. Filthy American
svinyas. Pigs.

Someone called out his name. He turned to see an overweight young doctor approach wearing green scrubs and a harried expression. A name tag pinned at his shoulder read
Dr. Blessi.
Beside him, a buff corrections officer stared at Radimir with unconcealed hostility.

“Right this way,” the doctor said.

Radimir followed them down a wide hall tiled in nondescript gray, with doors spaced every twenty feet or so. Some of the rooms were darkened, but a few were lit enough so that he could see the immobile forms lying in the beds. One patient was cuffed to the rail and eyed him with the hatred of a tethered dog. Another writhed and moaned as if someone had doused his body with acid.

They walked past a brightly lit nurses station where two additional corrections officers drank coffee from foam cups.

“Right here.” The doctor stopped outside Room 381-B, checked the chart and scribbled something on the page.

Bracing, Radimir peered into the room. He could see his brother Rurik beneath the layers of white sheets and blankets. His hand dangled listlessly over the side of the bed. A polished steel handcuff encased his wrist. From his left arm, an IV line dripped like intermittent tears.

“Is he going to be all right?” Radimir asked the doctor.

“We repaired the ruptured bowel this morning. He has a severe concussion, a few broken ribs, but no other major injuries.”

Sooksin,
Radimir thought and imagined himself cutting the doctor’s throat.

Rurik had suffered injuries no man should ever have to endure. The Aryan Nation inmates had beaten him with the makeshift weapons cons were so adept at making. Once his brother was down, they took turns kicking him, as if he were nothing more than some mangy dog. Once he’d been semi-conscious, they’d proceeded to rape him with whatever object they could get their hands on and with such violence that they’d perforated his rectum.

How dare the doctor intimate that he had no other major injuries. His brother had sustained the worst kind of wound. The kind a man couldn’t see with his eyes, but felt deep in his heart. The kind of harm a man took with him to the grave. No one walked away from an ordeal like that unscathed.

Radimir’s only consolation was the knowledge that the perpetrators would pay. Every single one of them, no matter how long it took. After all, he had connections. Powerful connections. Not only inside the prison itself, but the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

“He’s sedated. You can stay for ten minutes.” At that the doctor nodded to the corrections officer, then left the room.

Radimir entered the room and stared at his brother’s form. Rurik’s face was almost unrecognizable. Black stitches ran like tiny railroad tracks over his right eyebrow all the way to his temple. The left side of his head had been shaved and more stitches stood out stark and black against the white flesh of his scalp.

Just when Radimir thought he’d seen the worst of it, his brother opened his one good eye. Within its pale blue depths, Radimir saw the extent of his pain. The magnitude of his humiliation. The kind of shame that cut to the bone and went all the way to a man’s soul.

“Pizdets.”
Rurik whispered the Russian term for a bad situation without a solution.

“There is a solution, my brother.”

The pale blue eye rolled back, landed on him, focused.
“Pizdy vlomit.”

“I know. They beat you. How many?”

“Six or seven.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Some.”

“I need names. Get them.”

The immobile man nodded, then looked away, the pale blue eye filling with tears. “I am their
shestiorka
.”

It was the worst thing a man could be in prison. Unable to hold his brother’s gaze, Radimir looked toward the window. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How, my brother?”

“Bribe whom?”

“Let me worry about that. You rest now. Get strong.” Radimir bent, put his mouth close to his brother’s ear. “I’ll get them,” he whispered. “All of them. Including the
gaishnik
bitch who put you here.”

His brother sighed.
“Chuchka derganaya.”
Crazy bitch.

“This is her fault. What she did to you for all of the world to see caused this.”