Hard Country (Rogue Warrior Thrillers Book 5), page 3
“Yeah, you. You afraid of me?”
He felt his stomach turn. “I… uh… yeah. You’re pretty big.”
The giant glowered at him, but only for a second. Then his face softened to disappointment. “I ain’t going to hurt anyone,” he said. “I just lost my head, is all.”
Marcus scanned the room again. The other prisoners didn’t look any nicer than the big man, just smaller. And there were a lot more of them. He got up and crossed the room, gesturing to the bunk. “Mind if I sit?”
The bigger man’s expression barely changed. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s boring, yo. I’ve been in here for, like, sixteen, seventeen hours already. And you said I don’t have to be afraid, so…”
His new cell mate extended a baseball mitt-sized paw. “Lawrence Cresswell. I have a slight problem with methamphetamine at present, and I owe my dealer quite a lot of cash. Sorry. Most people ain’t nice to me, and I should be better. So… yeah. Sorry.”
“Ah. Cool. Marcus Pell.” They shook.
The balding biker looked crestfallen. “My wife has a slight problem with infidelity. Unfortunately for this week’s boyfriend, I came home early from work and was pretty tweaked.”
Marcus figured he understood. “You beat him up?”
“I chased him down the street and smacked him around a little too much, yeah. He’s in hospital.”
“And… how do you feel about that?”
“Less sympathy for him than I probably should. I mean, he’s a dick for sleeping with a married woman, if he knew. But… mostly I’m just sad… Mostly. Wish she’d stop breaking my damn heart.” A morose, distant expression overtook him. He rubbed his giant palms together nervously. Then he sniffed hard, shook it off. “Wish I’d never left Susan, my ex, for her. Worst mistake I ever made. You?”
That was your worst mistake? Not the meth problem? “They think I killed a guy.”
Lawrence sat up straight. “Okay, then.” He began to shuffle slightly further away, then caught himself. “Sorry… didn’t mean it like that. You… didn’t do it, right?”
“Nah. Literally walked around a corner, saw a car, looked inside it, Five-O rolls up.”
Lawrence shook his head and leaned back against the bars. “It’s a cruel-ass world, Marcus Pell, a cruel-ass world. I tell you what, though. You were nice to me, and sometimes that’s what I need. So don’t get too worried. I got your back.”
The drive to Bakersfield had been bleak, a four-hour trek through badlands and scrub, across flat desert and through winding mountain passes. It was rare to see another car, and there were no people. The car’s dash readout said it was 118 F.
He’d dumped the Challenger in Shoshone, a tiny town in the Nopah Mountains that served a handful of wilderness tourists and campers daily.
A pickup truck with “truck nuts”—literally a pair of steel bull’s testicles hanging from its tow bar—had taken the yellow sports car’s place.
It had carried him for two more hours, through the merciless desert terrain of Death Valley, past a string of towns long abandoned—Tecopa, Baker, Dunn. Each had been a mining center at some point. Now, they were nothing but the odd dilapidated building or trail marker. The collective memory of the Old West was long dead, descendants swept away by new opportunities like so much sagebrush.
Barstow was the only notable city along the stretch, cut out of the foothills of the Calico Mountains, where the air a century earlier had been filled with the clink of pickaxes and the promise of silver. It had been saved from obscurity by railroads, as the only stopping point between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
But it had been decades since Barstow thrived. Route 66 was gone. The rust-mottled petroleum storage tankers on the edge of town betrayed its current role serving the businesses of the nearby Midway-Sunset fields, America’s most productive wells.
He’d found a beater online, a 1996 Buick Skylark that the owner had parted with for five hundred in cash. He’d left some cash under the driver’s seat of the pickup, along with a note of apology.
He stopped at a gas station, bought a razor and a pair of scissors, then visited its bathroom.
He shaved off the heavy beard, then carefully trimmed his hair slightly. Eventually, images from the track cameras could make their way back to Team Seven. The National Security Agency’s facial recognition software was superb and had access to law enforcement broadly. The sheriffs would be angry, looking for payback, and would have an All-Points Bulletin out on him in short order.
It wouldn’t help them much across the California border, out of their jurisdiction, where hundreds of miles of desert between the nearest city and Pahrump made chasing gas station robbery suspects awfully low on anyone’s priority list.
And any attempt to bust him for the “assault” would lead to questions, viewing the track video, accusations of police brutality. Parnell had seemed the type to avoid all that.
Bakersfield’s suburbs started in the town of Edison, a highway strip of scrub lots and hardpan dirt, broken-down industrial yards, weigh scales and truck stops. The highway split at a spaghetti junction just past it, the north leg leading him into the city proper, the road diverging into four lanes to accommodate heavier traffic.
The service stations and desert gave way to homes and businesses. Bakersfield stuck with the same theme as the rest of the inland desert towns: low rise buildings, few over three stories, many whitewashed to reflect the heat, close together to encourage shady recesses. It went on for miles, the valley home to more than a half-million residents.
A brown haze hung in the air, which Bob figured was dust from the surrounding hills. He steered the Buick towards downtown.
First order of business is to get a room at the motel, then go see Marcus.
Dawn had said the boy would be expecting Bob as his legal representative, the only way he could gain access to Marcus, with pre-trial detainees barred from having visitors.
It irked him, losing his ‘Robert MacMillan’ ID to the deputies in Pahrump. It had carried him across two states and been solid for nearly three months. And it had cost him a fortune from the forger in Tucson. Now, he had to start from scratch, he knew, with the only paper he’d managed to secure in Las Vegas, a brutally expensive driver’s license in the name ‘Bob Richmond.’
Marcus was supposed to have told his captors that his lawyer ‘Bob Richmond’ would be stopping in before the end of the day. It had taken Dawn twenty minutes to find a lawyer in California named R. Richmond, a real estate specialist based out of Huntington Beach, which was at least a little bit of luck. It would have to suffice, but Bob knew any backchecks would compromise the ID quickly.
He stopped the car at a red light and checked his watch. It was just after five thirty in the evening.
Still technically before the end of the day, I guess.
Now I just need to figure out how to get him out.
At the intersection’s corner, a leathery, weather-beaten man in dirty denim overalls, a string vest and a wilting cowboy hat eyed him with surly deference. The man scratched his scraggly cheek whiskers as he kept his eyes on the Buick, then stooped slightly to spit out a stream of brown tobacco juice.
He was still staring as Bob’s car pulled away.
5
The sergeant behind the booking desk stared at Bob with annoyance then looked past him, over his shoulder, to the clock above the main doors. “Your client has been in holding for a day already,” he said. “What took you so long, counsellor?”
“I had to drive in from Los Angeles,” Bob lied. He glanced sideways at the waiting room, where a half-dozen detainees, mostly cuffed, were waiting on benches to be booked.
“Your driver’s license says Nevada.” The sergeant tossed it back to him across the counter and Bob put it back into his wallet. The officer had a small name tag with “DYCHE” in tiny white lettering.
“Because I used to live there. Apparently, his mother was owed a favor by my partner, so here I am. Do I sound happy about that fact, Sergeant?”
The cop’s face suggested he didn’t want to be there on a Saturday night either, making mild irritation appropriate.
“You do not, counsellor, you do not. I’m sure our fair city has nothing on whatever you had planned this evening, but if I was your client, I’d be annoyed.” He turned around a ledger and pushed it across the raised desk. “Sign in and we’ll get you a room.”
“A room?” Bob said. He cursed himself inwardly. That was probably something obvious to a lawyer. Don’t ask unnecessary questions, idiot. Keep making mistakes like that and the jig is up, Bobby.
“For your interview.” The sergeant frowned. “He’s still in holding, obviously. You don’t do many of these, I take it.”
“I’m licensed to practice criminal law, Sergeant, I… just don’t get much opportunity.” Lace it with self-doubt. Let him know you’re embarrassed to be here, because you’re an asshole lawyer. “I handle real estate contract law, typically, homes in Malibu. This is a little… below my pay grade. You understand.”
Sgt. Dyche sucked on his tongue, a derisive expression on his face. “Uh huh. I don’t reckon your client would want to know that, either. He seemed pretty nervous about being here.”
“I’m sure he’s a sweetheart,” Bob said with dry cynicism.
From behind him, a woman’s voice chimed in. “If that’s the attitude you take, I wouldn’t want you on my team.”
Bob turned. She was tall, with copper hair, broad-shouldered, in a skirt suit, legal briefcase in right hand. She wore a stony expression.
“Mr. Richmond, this is Assistant District Attorney Margaret Swain,” the sergeant said.
“Your client deserves the fullness of your attention, counsellor,” Swain stated icily. “If I’m of the opinion he isn’t being properly represented, I’m bound by my duty as an officer of the court to ensure that is addressed before any proceedings are tainted.”
“Duly noted. And as his counsel, I’m duty bound to point out to you that his arrest is a travesty.”
“A travesty!?” She practically smirked at the notion, Bob thought. “Mr. Richmond…”
“Please… it’s Bob.”
“Mr. Richmond, your client was caught four feet from the body with the smoking gun that—”
“No, he wasn’t,” Bob interrupted. “I know that kid’s family, and I’d bet anything that he was set up.”
She looked weary. “Mr. Richmond, just because you’ve read the odd story about Bakersfield police being corrupt doesn’t mean you get to denigrate the entire department.”
“No, but it’s interesting you bring that history up,” Bob said. “After all… I didn’t. But I do know Marcus’s family, and you’d be more likely to jail a felon if you arrested Santa Claus.”
“If it looks and quacks like a duck…”
“Marcus isn’t a killer, Ms. Swain. Bet if I start digging into who arrested him, I’ll find something.”
She nodded, lips pursed. “Well, okay then… Good luck to you, counsellor. Try to show some sensitivity to the Singh family; this is a small town, sometimes, for such a big city, and some of us have known them a long time. They don’t deserve the third degree.”
“Noted.”
“I’ll see you at arraignment and bail on Monday.”
She turned and left. Behind the counter, Sgt. Dyche looked impressed. “Margaret Swain, bringer of pain,” he intoned. “She has a 98% conviction rate.”
Bob nodded. “Good. It just proves that nobody’s perfect.”
“You sounded a little more enthusiastic with her than your initial introduction,” the older cop said.
“Yeah… well, like I said… this is a favor,” Bob suggested, getting back into sleazy character. “I could be in Malibu sucking on a Mai Thai right now.”
“Uh huh.”
The sergeant hit a button on his desk. A few moments later, the steel door behind him and to his left swung open, another officer stepping into the atrium. “Officer Carbajal here will take you down to Room C, so you can talk in private. Don’t worry about the camera. It does not have sound on.”
They followed the hall to the end. The interview room was sterile, whitewashed, with just a desk, two chairs and an observation window. There were doors on two walls.
Bob stood and waited for fifteen minutes before they finally led Marcus in. The boy’s eyes widened when he saw his friend. Bob quickly raised a finger to his lips and nodded towards the guard.
The guard led Marcus to the table and sat him down. He cuffed one of the boy’s wrists and looped the other cuff around a steel ring set into the tabletop, then locked it.
“Just ring the buzzer on the table when you need me,” he said before leaving.
Bob sat down opposite him. “You okay?”
Marcus nodded. “It’s good to see you.” He frowned. “They questioned me for hours before you got here. That’s illegal, isn’t it?”
“No, but they know anything you gave them could probably get tossed. They do it to soften a suspect up, see if he’ll spill something big before he gets help, something they can follow up that’s evidentiary, so the statement itself doesn’t matter.”
“It’s scary in here.” Marcus glanced around the interview room. “Last night was… man, I never tried so hard to keep my eyes open.”
“Jails tend to be like that, even holding cells. And… it’s good to see you, too, although we sure could’ve met somewhere nicer. Are you going to give me the quick version, or is there a long, complicated version Dawn hasn’t told me? She just said you’d been arrested for shooting a guy.”
“Yeah… There’s not much more to it than that. I was on my work placement at Jenkins. I decided to walk my regular route back to the motel.”
“About that… Why the Feeney Motor Lodge? Aren’t you here for three months?”
“It was cheap. It’s tough finding room rentals here for a short time. The apartments all wanted a six-month lease.”
“And last night?”
“I cut through an alley and a car was parked with the door open and the alarm going off. So I looked inside and found a dead guy. I was about to call the cops and they pulled up and arrested me.”
“That can’t be it, surely?” Bob asked.
Marcus’s eyes rolled up as he stared at the ceiling. “They also say they found the murder weapon on me, and they have security footage from the alley proving no one else entered it after Mr. Singh and me.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what the deputy said when they were booking me. He said…” Marcus affected his best drawl, “… ‘How’re you going to explain away having the gun what done it, smart boy? How’re you going to prove someone else did it when there weren’t no one else there?’ Something like that.”
“You… weren’t carrying, I take it?”
Marcus shot him a dry look. “Really?”
“Point taken.” But it complicated everything. “Marcus… if they’re claiming they have direct evidence taken off you, this is a frame-up.”
Marcus’s head sank. “So… what does that mean, exactly?”
“It means someone involved, maybe one the deputies who arrested you, has some sort of stake in this man’s death. Whether out of convenience or plan, they’ve picked you to take the rap for it. Young man, in town temporarily, from the big city from their perspective. You’ve got no clout here, which makes you a good patsy.”
“That’s… Man… That’s bad.”
“Yeah. But… we can work with it.”
“Huh?”
“If they need you as a patsy, they’ll want to keep you alive, at least for now. When you’re arraigned on Monday, the district attorney’s office will likely ask for no bail, at the officers’ request, because they don’t want you disappearing or working to disprove the narrative.”
“And you’re going to… what? Figure out who actually did this?”
“If that’s what it takes. As long as they need you, you won’t have much to worry about, as long as you keep your head down. Guys awaiting trial, for the most part, don’t want to dig the hole they’re in any deeper. So you’re safer here than it feels. And the cops will need a conviction, or someone might keep digging away.”
“But…” Marcus leaned in, his voice a murmur. “You’re not a lawyer! What about the actual case?”
“Dawn’s arranging a proper attorney in case I can’t resolve this quickly. We’ll figure that out, don’t worry.”
“You think I might be stuck in here.”
“I’m not saying that. She’s just being cautious. Now we need you to be, too.”
“There’s a big dude in holding I made friends with,” Marcus said. “He’s sort of mixed up but he’s looking out for me, I think.”
“Uh huh. Don’t trust him. Don’t trust anyone in here. Keep your head down and your back to the wall. Mind your business until I can find something that might spring you. Can you do that?”
Marcus shrugged. “I ain’t got much choice.”
Bob rose and pressed the buzzer. “Okay then.” He put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder and leaned in. “Remember what I told you in DC: I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?”
Marcus nodded and tried to smile, but Bob knew the kid had to be terrified.
The door opened and the officer stepped inside. “All done?”
“For now,” Bob said. “The arresting officers—I’d like to speak with them.”
“Uh huh. Well, as you no doubt know, those arrangements have to be made through Sgt. Dyche.”
“The charming fellow taking bookings?”
“One and the same.”
“Then let’s go have a word.”
6
Sgt. Dyche looked up for a split second as Bob returned to the atrium, then went back to the newspaper on the counter.
“How’d it go, counsellor?”
“Fine. I take it you’ll want to question him with me present.”
Dyche shrugged. “I do not believe so, no, sir. Arresting officers have an open-and-shut case from their perspective, and video camera footage from the alley showing no one else left it before your client entered.”
