Three Sides of the Tracks Read online

  Glass and concrete exploded into the dining room. Martin and Danny dove out of the booth, crouched, and scurried to the back.

  The front of a black car stuck through the demolished storefront. A beam fell down onto the hood, but it seemed the worst was over, except for the cursing.

  “Where’s that son of a bitch?”

  A man waving a pistol pushed his way through the broken window frame.

  Sam Hardy, the owner, ran from his office with a shotgun. “Put that pistol down, mister, before I blow you back the way you come.”

  The man shaded his eyes and looked around. “There you are. You son of a bitch. What’d you do with my daughter?” he screamed at Danny as he staggered toward him.

  He looked at Martin. “They told me he left with you. You’d better get the hell outta my way.”

  BOOM.

  Before the shock of the shotgun blast wore off, Sam Hardy ran to Jessie and swung the stock end of the shotgun hard into Jessie’s gut.

  Jessie doubled over, and Sam grabbed the pistol.

  Jessie lay on the floor retching. He’d been drinking Jack Daniels all afternoon when the sheriff called with the news of Caroline’s abduction. Then the detectives showed up and he’d kept drinking, and he was still drinking when they called to say who had robbed the church, naming Danny as an accomplice.

  Danny ran over. “Mr. Whitaker, are you saying that Caroline is one of the girls kidnapped?”

  Jessie raised his head. “Don’t act innocent, you little shit,” he said, drool sliding down his chin. “You’re a walking dead man. You hear me?”

  Danny sank to the floor.

  Martin sat down next to him. “You good friends with this girl?”

  “More than friends. She’s . . . she’s.” Danny felt a knot of fear in his stomach. He felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Dad, you don’t know these guys. They’re mean. Really mean. Not mischievous, not hoodlums, but mean mean. I’ve got to find her.” Danny didn’t even realize he’d called Martin “Dad.”

  Jessie looked up with watery bloodshot eyes. They wandered from Martin to Danny and back again. He pushed himself up and wiped a sleeve across his face. “You’re a dead mother—”

  Police sirens filled the air then the cafe filled with cops.

  Sam pointed at Jessie.

  The sergeant in charge took one look and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. “Oh, shit.”

  He walked over to Sam and in a quiet tone told him about the church robbery and kidnapping. “You have any objections to me taking him home tonight and then we’ll get all this straightened out tomorrow?”

  “You have any objections to me blowing his head off the next time he comes in here waving a pistol?” Sam replied.

  “I don’t think that’ll happen again.”

  “Get his butt out of here then, but I’d better hear from somebody tomorrow about all this damage or you can bet Jessie Whitaker’s ass will have a long list of charges hanging on it and your butt will be standing in front of the mayor.”

  “Sure. Sure, Sam. You’ll have a check by lunch.”

  “It’d better be a fat one. No telling how long I’ll be closed fixin’ this mess.”

  The sergeant patted Sam on the shoulder. “Thanks. I won’t forget the favor.”

  While the sergeant talked to Sam, Martin put a hand on Danny’s shoulder and guided him through the rubble and group of cops standing around. “I think I’d better take you home. Whew, what a night.”

  15

  False Lead

  The Barracuda’s rear end slid sideways off the dirt road onto the blacktop and roared north, hugging the highway as Slink took every dip and curve as fast as he dared. Only 15 minutes had passed since they left the church.

  “You takin’ the interstate up ahead?” Smurf asked.

  “Nope. Not for a while. They’ll be lookin’ for that.”

  Slink adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at Caroline. “How much?”

  Caroline felt the eyes on her and looked up. “Twelve thousand so far.”

  “Bullshit. That church’s bigger than that. You better not be lying to me.”

  Caroline’s eyes dropped. “I said ‘so far.’ Why would I lie?”

  “You’d better not be . . . for whatever reason. Don’t think I’m not gonna count it myself.”

  “I doubt you can . . .” Caroline stopped herself and bit her lip. She couldn’t resist raising her eyes to the mirror.

  Slink nodded and moved the mirror back in place.

  Twenty minutes later, they were due east of Atlanta. Not quite in the metropolitan part but the buffer zone between metro and rural. Traffic increased, and Slink felt safer.

  He pulled the car beside the gas pumps of a 7/11 convenience store on the south side of an intersection and got out. The door on Caroline’s side opened. “Get out, Sweet Cheeks. You and me are going inside while Whitey makes himself useful and pumps the gas.”

  Caroline’s heart beat quicker. Should she run?

  Slink grabbed her by the arm and jerked her out of the back seat. “Where’s your purse?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Bullshit. Women don’t leave the house without your girly crap.”

  He patted one pocket of Caroline’s slacks and felt a cell phone then patted the other pocket and reached in and took out a long slim leather wallet and handed it to her. “What you call that?”

  Caroline shrugged. “Not a ‘purse.’ ”

  Slink tightened his grip and twisted the flesh of her arm. “Don’t get smart.”

  Caroline winced and flushed with pain.

  “Give Smurf that cell phone and take out your credit card.”

  “Let go of my arm so I can.”

  “You try runnin’ I’ll break your leg.”

  Caroline’s heart sank. She tossed the cell to Smurf.

  “We’re going inside and buy gas. You just remember your friend and don’t think of anything else. Me and you are lovers. Understand?”

  Caroline looked at him and saw cruel eyes. She nodded.

  “Come on then.”

  They walked twenty steps to the doors and went inside.

  An Indian man and woman stood behind the counter. “Hello hello, help you, sir?”

  “Two packs Marlboro’s and 25 bucks of gas on pump three. What you want, sweetie?” Slink said, looking at Caroline and then the wallet.

  “I think I’ll get a coke.”

  “No, don’t get a coke. We’ll just have to stop again for you to . . . you know.”

  “Oh, let the pretty lady have something to drink. Take time to enjoy yourself. Life is too short. That’s right, yes?” the Indian man said.

  Slink leaned over the counter. “Stick your foreign ass philosophy up your butt, buddy, and mind your own business. She’ll get a coke if I say she’ll get a coke. You got that? You people’re always running your mouth like you got better sense than everybody else. Gets on my damn nerves. Now run that damn card.”

  The Indian opened his mouth, but the woman—surely his wife—laid a hand on his arm and he ran the credit card Caroline handed him.

  Caroline fought to steady her hand as she signed the receipt.

  “Anything else, sir?” the woman said.

  Slink’s cold eyes glinted in amusement at the fear in the woman’s eyes.

  “Get you a coke, baby,” he said.

  “But you—”

  “Get a coke. Get me one too,” Slink said almost kindly.

  Caroline’s legs trembled as she walked to the cooler. She could see Slink watching her in the reflection of the glass. The Coca-Colas were in the third cooler, just out of Slink’s sight. She walked down the aisle.

  “Find ‘em, baby doll?”

  “Yes.”

  Caroline looked for some way of giving a message.

  “Hurry it up.”

  She took two cokes from the rack and walked back to the counter and held out the card again.

  Slink sn
atched it from her hand. “On the house, right?” he said with a half smile at the Indian woman.

  “What you think—” the man said, but his wife grabbed his arm.

  “Yes, sir. On the house, as you say. Please enjoy . . . and . . . and,” she stuttered.

  Slink smiled. “Hurry back?”

  The woman nodded furiously.

  Slink pointed at the man. “You’re a lucky guy.”

  He grabbed Caroline’s arm and guided her out the door, snake eyes staring the man down as he did.

  Caroline sneaked quick looks at Slink as if that would help make sense of what just happened.

  “Let me know when you figure it out,” Slink said without turning his head.

  “What the hell,” Slink yelped and jerked open the passenger door.

  Whitey was leaning over the front seat and had a hand on Brandy’s leg, moving his hand farther and farther with every motion. Smurf’s huge hand covered her mouth.

  Slink grabbed a handful of Whitey’s hair and jerked him halfway out of the seat then slammed his head against the dash.

  “Fuckin’ pervert. Can’t even wait till she’s awake.”

  Whitey threw up his hands to protect himself. “She’s awake, Slink. She’s awake,” he wailed.

  “Hell yeah. After you started molestin’er. Reckon that’d wake anybody up. Did you pump that gas like I told you?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Twenty-five bucks worth.”

  He slammed the seat forward, pinching Whitey against the dash. “Git your butt in there, Sweet Cheeks. We gotta get back on the road.”

  Smurf took his hand off Brandy’s mouth and lowered his eyes when Slink grabbed Whitey. She grabbed Caroline and hugged her close, crying softly.

  Caroline held her for a few seconds then said, “Drink some of this Coke, Brandy. You’ll feel better.”

  Brandy freed one hand but clung to Caroline with the other. She took a sip of the Coke then buried her face against Caroline’s shoulder.

  “Come on now. You need more than that. You need some energy.”

  “I can’t take this,” Brandy whimpered.

  Caroline stroked her head. “We’ll get out of it. I promise you. Just keep yourself together. Okay?”

  Brandy’s only response was to tighten her grip.

  Slink made sure the tires squealed when he left the 7/11 and crossed the intersection heading north. He drove 10 miles then saw a sign indicating Interstate 85 was straight ahead. A half mile later, he turned right and headed east. A mile later, he turned to his right on another rural state road heading back south. The speed limit on the state road was 50, but, as the distance from metro Atlanta grew and since it was Sunday night, the traffic diminished until, now, the Barracuda’s headlights were the only ones on the road. Slink pushed it to 70, slowing only for tight curves.

  An hour later, he passed a dirt road and hit the brakes, backed up, and turned onto it. Within minutes he saw an old dilapidated barn with the memory of a trail running off the road. Rotted fence posts held a few sagging strands of wire that ran down the road a few hundred yards then cut across an overgrown pasture.

  The Barracuda bounced onto what once was a graded drive, now grown over with broomstraw. “Look in the glove box and hand me the flashlight,” Slink told Whitey.

  Slink walked into the barn where an old wagon sat on rusty wheels. A few boards showed where stalls had once been. He slid open the back door and was surprised to see a wagon trail or the remnants of one leading off into a field. He walked down it for a hundred yards then shined the flashlight down the trail. The only thing the light showed was more broomstraw and small scrub pines, which grew into larger pine trees farther down. He turned around and went back to the car.

  Slink drove around the barn and down the trail until he was in the middle of the pine forest, which ended in a clearing with a small pond. He whipped the car around, drove back into the forest and turned off the trail, dodging the big trees until the car was well into the grove. He shut off the engine and leaned back in the seat with a tired sigh.

  “Think this is safe?” Whitey said

  “I doubt anybody could see where we turned off even if we did bend a few weeds. Pine straw don’t show tire treads.”

  “How long we holding up here?” Smurf asked.

  “Till I get a feeling it’s safe.”

  Smurf moaned. “We don’t have no food, Slink.”

  Slink adjusted the rearview mirror until Smurf came in view. “How good you think prison food tastes?”

  Smurf fidgeted. “I get the point.”

  Slink maneuvered the mirror a touch. His eyes met Caroline’s. “You want to get up here with me, Sweet Cheeks?”

  Caroline glanced in the mirror with a disgusted expression then turned her face.

  Slink chuckled and readjusted the mirror, glancing at his reflection as he did.

  16

  Command Post

  “How much of that stuff you guys going to drink?” Bart Phillips asked Sheriff Monk Adams and Police Chief Albert Gossett as they sat around a desk at the police station.

  Gossett glanced at the wall clock. “It’s four a.m., so I guess another pot or two,” he said tiredly.

  The door swung open and two stern-faced men walked through the doorway, with an air of “We’re here now, so stay out of the way.”

  “Special Agent Dunson, FBI,” the first man said and held out his hand, “and this is Special Agent Murray, GBI.”

  The coffee drinkers stood up and shook hands with the two newcomers.

  “You got here quick enough,” the sheriff said.

  “We stopped by the hospital first,” Murray said.

  “How is Agent Hollister?”

  “Still in ICU, Sheriff. The bullet went through his shoulder, upper chest. Forty-five slugs are pretty nasty, but we think he’ll make it.”

  “He’s part of our community too, and we’re all concerned about him,” the sheriff said with emphasis, not liking how the GBI man put his last remark, which seemed to imply that, because Hollister was a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent, he was somehow exclusive.

  Stone faced, Agent Dunson set his briefcase on the table and took out a map: Georgia on one side and southeastern United States on the other. “I’d like a more detailed map if you could arrange that, Chief. Several, in fact. Road maps of all the southeastern states. We’ll begin with what I have though,” he said and pointed to a circle on the map. “This represents the possible distance they could have driven since the abduction, given a speed of 70 miles per hour. A diameter of a thousand miles, 500 in each direction.

  “Doubtful they’ve gone over three hundred at most,” Murray added, “and we’ve had state troopers checking interstates and major roads since eight last night. Helicopters and airplanes will be up at first light.”

  “Red car ought’a be easy to spot,” Chief Gossett remarked. “Not too many old Barracudas out there either.”

  Condescending eyes looked up from the map. “Lot of red cars, and cars don’t look quite so different from the air.”

  Gossett didn’t blink. “That so? Well, we don’t get many helicopter rides around here.”

  Dunson and Gossett glared at each other then GBI agent Murray broke the ice. “I understand you have one of the men in custody.”

  Gossett’s face colored. “We did, but his lawyer came and got him. The lawyer plus the D.A.”

  “The D.A? What was the D.A. doing here in the middle of the night?” Murray asked.

  “I’m the D.A.,” Bart Phillips said, “and I let his lawyer take him home because he’d had the hell beat out of him, and I was trying to avoid a lawsuit. That and his lawyer and I are good friends and I trust him. Danny won’t go anywhere as long as Martin has anything to do with it. I was afraid to leave him at the jail in the shape he was in. He’s pretty convincing that he wasn’t involved in the robbery but that he was with the gang earlier and then they took him home. I didn’t get all the details because the press was here. Param
edics. It was a three-ring circus.”

  Murray shook his head as if to clear his mind then looked at Chief Gossett. “Chief, was he or wasn’t he involved? Danny, I mean,” he added with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Witnesses say he was. Mother claims he wasn’t. Says he was home when the church was robbed.”

  Dunson looked exasperated. “So why don’t you tell us your theory then?”

  “Witnesses saw him with the others earlier and claim he was outside behind the wheel when the rest of ‘em were robbing the church.”

  “Well, what’s he like, Chief? Any serious trouble before? Robbery? Breaking and entering? Hurt anybody? You know, something to make you think robbing a church wouldn’t be too big a stretch?”

  “Now those are right interesting questions there, Mr. Dunson,” the chief said and rubbed his jaw as he looked at the ceiling and thought about Danny’s past.

  “And what about the bunch in the church? Does the kid normally hang around with them?” Dunson kept the pressure on the chief.

  The GBI agent, Murray, kept his eyes on Chief Gossett too.

  “No and no,” Bart Phillips spoke loudly.

  All eyes swung to him.

  “I’d know if he’d been in any serious trouble. Even if he was never caught, this is a small town and word gets around. I’d know about it if he was a troublemaker or worse. And I’ve known his mother a long time. His father too—before he was killed in a car wreck several years ago that is. You can bet Danny Taylor didn’t hang around that bunch on a regular basis. I don’t know for sure whether he was really with them that afternoon or not, but, if he was, there’s a reason for it. The police should have asked him first instead of damn near tearing the house down and beating the young man half to death.”

  “Now hold on there, Phillips,” the chief said.

  “No, you hold it. You’d better rein those SWAT boys in. They put on those uniforms and think the law is suspended until they do their business. Well, it’s not, and you’re responsible. Danny or his mother sues the city, you’ll be looking for a job.”