Therefore, everything went along pretty well, nice and smooth, actually, until one day when one of his older brothers saw him walking with the girl over on her family’s land. When he got home that day from his usual make-out session with her, his pa was waiting, holding his old bloodstained whip that he used to punish his boys. Punk was surprised. Pa usually acted a little afraid of him and Bones, but this time Bones wasn’t around and Pa had been drinking too much whiskey again.
“Where you been at, boy?”
“Huntin’.”
“You’re lyin’, Punk. Your brother saw you goin’ off with that girl from across the fence. What’re you thinkin’? Them people are our worst enemies in this world. And you know it.”
“She ain’t nobody’s enemy. She’s a real nice girl.”
“Oh, is she now? Don’t you know that if her pa sees you over there with her, he’ll put a bullet in your head? We don’t cotton to them people, and you better get it through your fool head. She ain’t worth it.”
Now that he was so much bigger than his pa, and stronger, and faster, he didn’t really have to listen to his ugly rants anymore. “You can’t tell me what to do no more. Got that, Pa? You ain’t my boss no more. I’m gonna do what I wanna do, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. You ain’t Bones’s boss no more, either.”
“I’m your boss, as long as you live here in my house, you little shit.”
Both furious, they glared at each other. Then Punk made a decision, right out of the blue. “Okay, then, I’ll go. I’ll go off with her and make me a life away from here. I don’t need you. All you’ve ever done is hurt me and all the rest of the boys, too. We all should leave and fight for a livin’ and let you rot here, all alone. Then you wouldn’t have such a golden goose, now would ya?”
“Go ahead. But you’ll be back. You’ll come crawlin’ back to your own kind and beg us to take you in. But we ain’t gonna. You step foot off this land, and you’ll never see any of us again. You’ll never see me again. And you’ll never see any of your brothers again, neither.”
“That’s just fine by me,” Punk said, and he meant it, too.
“Well, you’ll go with the clothes on your back. Get the hell outta here.”
Punk walked away, but he didn’t get far. Enraged by his defiance, Pa came running after him and hit him in the back with his shoulder. Punk stumbled forward hard and fell, slamming the top of his head straight into the dog pen. He went woozy for a second, and then Pa was flipping him over onto his back and slashing the whip down all over his face. Punk put up his arms to block the blows, trying to grab it and get back up to his feet.
Doubling his fists, Punk hit out as hard as he could, but his vision was blurry and his punches went nowhere. He fell to his knees when the whip cut into his left eyebrow and tried to stand up again, blood running down into his nose and mouth. But then, out of nowhere as always, Bones was there, pushing Pa off him and knocking him down on his back.
Cursing a blue streak, Pa came back up and swung a hard uppercut at Bones, but his twin easily dodged it. Punk staggered to his feet and hit Pa from behind, hard, right in the kidneys. That’s when Bones grabbed up the pitchfork leaning against the hay bales. He lunged forward and rammed it as hard as he could into Pa’s back, so hard that the prongs came out through his stomach. Blood slowly began to stain the front of Pa’s denim overalls, and he just stood there, disbelievingly, staring into Punk’s face until Bones jerked the pitchfork out. Pa fell to his knees and then forward on his face and lay still. Gasping, sweating with exertion, Punk and Bones stood there over him for a long moment. Then they stared at each other.
Suddenly Bones let out a delighted chortle. “Well, we finally did it, bro. We’re free of that bastard now. No more whuppin’s, no more chores, no more daddy dearest on our backs night and day. We shoulda done this when we was eight years old.”
“You killed him,” Punk muttered, still shocked to the core.
Bones picked up his pa’s feet and started dragging him down toward the Rottweiler and pit bull pens. It left a long skinny red trail in the straw. He dropped him in front of the cage, where all the killer dogs were now snarling and gnashing their teeth at the smell of blood and at the sight of the man who had abused them.
“And you know what, Punk? That felt so damn good, it makes me want to do it again. I always wondered what killing Pa would feel like, and you know what? It felt real, real good. Better than anything I’ve ever done in my whole livelong life. Helluva lot better than killin’ that jogger. You oughta try it. You want to kick him or stab him or something before I throw him to the dogs? They gotta get their revenge, too. Poor bastards.”
Punk kept staring down at his pa. “He’s not dead yet, Bones. Look, his eyes are movin’!”
“No problem. He will be soon enough.”
Punk watched his twin pick up the heavy concrete block holding the dog pen’s door shut. He raised it high over his head and brought it down on Pa’s chest as hard as he could. He smiled the whole time, enjoying yet another cold-blooded act of murder.
“Stop it, Bones! He’s our pa!”
But Bones was breaking his pa’s fingers now, thrusting down the end of the pitchfork handle on them one at a time, making them pop just like he’d done with the guy on the road. Then while Punk watched, horrified, he picked up Pa’s limp body and heaved it over the gate and into the jaws of the snapping, growling, biting, excited dogs. They attacked their tormentor’s body like the monsters he’d made them into, snarling and tearing Pa’s flesh clean away. They fought each other and barked and slowly tore him apart, until Punk turned away, staggered away a few steps and vomited in the hay.
“You are such a damn sissy, Punk. You hated him as much as I did. You wanted him dead since we was little kids. You told me so. Don’t tell me you ain’t glad I done killed him off. He was harder on you than on me. That’s why I’m doin’ this. I’m doin’ it for you.”
Punk backed slowly away from his twin brother. God, Bones had turned so damn evil. “I’m leavin’ here. Don’t you dare come after me, either, you hear what I’m a sayin’, Bones? I’m done with you forevermore. You done gone bat crazy. You murdered your own pa, and you murdered that jogger, who never done nothin’ to you. You just stay away from me. You hear me. I don’t never wanna see your face again.”
Then he burst through the barn doors and fled outside, but he could hear the faint growling and snapping of the dogs tearing at his pa’s dead body, and the ring of Bones’s laughter echoing behind him. He ran into the house, past his older brothers where they were watching a Rams football game and eating Funyuns and drinking beer. Upstairs, he hastily stuffed all his belongings in a duffel bag, and then he trudged across the field and toward the girl he loved more than anything else in the whole wide world. He never wanted to see anybody in his family ever again, especially Bones. Bones was terrible, sick inside his head. Somebody needed to put him in the nuthouse and never let him come out again.
The next day when his girl came out to the orchard to meet him, she found that Punk was already there, zipped up inside a flannel sleeping bag under the tree where they liked to kiss and touch each other. She woke him and then zipped herself inside with him, and they kissed and pressed up against each other and said how much they loved each other.
“Pa kicked me out,” he finally told her, afraid to tell her more about what Bones had done.
“Oh, no. Why?”
“’Cause I’ve been meetin’ up with you out here.”
“Where you gonna go?”
“I thought I’d come over and live with you and your folks.”
She looked terrified by that idea. But then she promised him that she’d ask her mama. After they made out for a while, she left and didn’t come back until the next morning. Punk lay there the whole time, waiting, afraid that he’d never see her again. But when she came back to him, she was smiling and happy, and she told him that the patriarch of their family said that he could come live with them. Thrilled, he jumped up, and they walked hand in hand down through the apple orchard and into the little village where she lived with her own kind of people.
There was a group of men waiting for him, way down at the bottom end of the orchard path. They were all tall and burly and long-bearded and hard-looking, and just for a moment he felt frightened, as if he had made the wrong decision in coming down to meet them. He clutched his rifle tighter, readying it, not sure what was about to happen. Then the biggest man of the bunch, the one with the longest white beard and old wire-rimmed spectacles, stepped forward and stretched out his hand.
“Hello, boy. You are indeed very welcome to come back here and live amongst us.”
After that, all of them took turns shaking his hand, and patting his back, as if real happy to see him. The old man in charge took him into a big white clapboard house on the main street of the little village, but everybody else stayed outside, even his girl. They went into a room that was big and warm with lots of uncomfortable furniture, but even so, that was sure a whole hell of a lot better than the old beat-up furniture at his pa’s house.
“Please, sit down. We have need to talk.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, sir.”
The man sighed, pulled at his long beard. “Well, I am your grandfather. Your mama’s daddy.”
Punk’s jaw actually dropped. He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, sir.”
“Yes, it’s true. Your mama ran away and married your pa many years ago. Just like you want to run away with my youngest brother’s child.”
He stiffened, realizing right off what that meant. “That would make me and my girl, well, like cousins, or somethin’.”
“I’m afraid so. And I’m so sorry. Marriage between first cousins is not allowed here in our family. You are family, too. You belong here with us. You are welcome to stay, and we will love you and try to make up for all the years you have been gone since your pa came and claimed you and took you away from us. But you can never marry Samuel’s girl. It cannot be. It would be an abomination against God.”
Punk could not believe his ears. He would not believe it. He might have to go along with what this old man said for a little while, but only so that he could be close to his true love. And he would marry her someday. Nobody could stop them. They would run away. He could make good money fighting. His older brothers already were making good money out on the circuit. Money his pa had always thrown away on booze and cigarettes and betting on their fights. But he’d play along with the old man who said he was his grandpa until it was time to take her away for good so they could get married.
“I understand, sir. I wanna be part of your family. I wanna live here with you. I’ll work hard and try to earn my keep, I swear. I’ll do whatever you say. I don’t never wanna go back home. It’s a terrible place over there.”
The old man smiled and seemed very pleased. “Yes, I suspect you’ve had a hard time, have you not? But here in our village, you are my gift sent from our Heavenly Father. You don’t know how much I miss your mama. She was my only child. She fled your pa and brought you here to live with us until you were near five years old, and then she died and your pa took you away to raise up with their other sons. She wanted to bring all of her sons here, but you were the only one she could take away. It was a terrible thing.”
“I miss her, too. She was always good to me, but he wasn’t. He’s the meanest man I ever saw.” Truth was, though, he barely remembered his mama’s face anymore. And now his pa’s body was a bloody torn-up mess branded into his mind forevermore. He tried not to think about it.
“Come, grandson, and I will show you to your room. We will talk more later, and I will introduce you to everyone in our village. We’ll have a homecoming celebration for you. God was very good to us this day.”
Yeah, right
, Punk thought,
but only until he could grab his girl and get the hell out of this little dumb hick town filled with all these holy rollers.
But he followed his grandfather up the steps to the only private room that he’d ever had in his entire life, wondering what Bones was going to do with his pa’s mutilated body. Maybe he was going to let the dogs eat him up like a canine garbage disposal. Truth was, he didn’t give a shit what any of his brothers did anymore. He was never gonna see any of them ever again. Never.
Chapter Thirteen
Fortunately, good weather held the spitting snow at abeyance, and it was almost balmy at twenty-two degrees. Claire and Black made it back to the lake, safe and sound and relatively rested. Unfortunately, a new snowstorm had lingered over Kansas City, thereby snowing Bud and Brianna in for an extra day. Claire was pretty sure that Bud wasn’t sobbing buckets over that delay, but he wouldn’t admit it over the telephone. At least Bud and Bri had plenty of time alone to talk things out.
So Claire spent the next morning at the office, all by herself and writing up status reports. She also did all the research she could on various aspects of the case, including a background check on the not very Sharpe brothers. Some assault charges and public intoxication and disturbing the peace was all she had found thus far, but she intended to keep looking. Sheriff Ramsay was in Fort Lauderdale having a good old, sunny time at a beachfront law enforcement seminar so she didn’t have to fill him in on the investigation unless he called and demanded it. He hadn’t done that yet, so she turned off her computer and headed for the hills. She took her new Glock 19 9mm with her, intending to check it out and sight it in before she carried it in place of her old one. In this particular homicide case, she did not want to have her sights off even by one-sixteenth of an inch. Yes, the Petrovs made her a tad nervous, as did the poor battered and frozen body of Paulie Parker.
She didn’t know the hill farms around the lake very well, at least not after she passed by the weird school called The Dome of the Cave Academy for the Gifted, where she had investigated a really super creepy case once upon a time. But she did know that Joe McKay lived a bit farther along the same road, and Black had told her Joe was back with Lizzie and living in his old farmhouse. So she turned in his long graveled driveway and headed through the woods in search of her friendly neighborhood psychic.
McKay’s new Ford F150 white truck with an extended cab was parked out front, and with Lizzie’s car seat strapped in the backseat. Gray smoke was curling lazily up from his brick chimney. He was at home, and if it was warm inside that house, that’s where Claire wanted to be. The temperature had dropped again, now hovering around sixteen degrees, and she was readily craving some warm sun and wide sandy beaches. She got out and didn’t make it to the front door before it swung wide open. Joe McKay stood there in the threshold, a big grin on his face. He had a gun in his hand, too, no doubt still a little wary of uninvited guests after what had happened to him the summer before when a bad guy had barged into his home, shot dead his sweet little nanny, and kidnapped his little girl. Claire swept that unwelcome memory out of her mind—that one, and about a hundred others that were even worse.
“Oh, man, I must be asleep and dreamin’. I have fantasized for weeks about you comin’ out here to see me. Just walkin’ up to my door, slick as a whistle, strippin’ down to the buff, and tellin’ me how much you love me and that Nick Black is now gone baby gone.”
“Shut up, Joe. Sometimes you are just so lame.”
“Come in, come in, stay for the rest of your life. I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”
“I’m leaving, if you don’t stop with the stupid.”
Joe stood back and let her pass through the door and into his cozy little home. The fire was going strong, flames jumping and darting, logs crackling, and the living room was warm and welcoming. His place was old-fashioned and homey with his mother’s chintz-covered pillows and rocking chairs and framed family portraits; Claire always felt very comfortable there.
“Where’s Lizzie?”
“She’s spending a week over in Kentucky with my aunt and uncle. I figured she could use a change of scenery with two people who adore her. So we’re all alone here, Claire, and we can get wild and kinky any time now. Just say the word, and I’m yours.”
Claire ignored him. Outrageous was Joe McKay’s middle name. She was used to his come-ons and ridiculous remarks. “How’s she doing? Black told me that she’s too scared to go into your house over on Walnut Street.”
“Yeah, she can’t seem to get over it this time. She’s okay everywhere else we go, but that house really spooks the hell outta her.”
“She was kidnapped by a psycho from there. I’d be scared, too.”
“Yeah. Me, too. Hey, take a load off. How about some coffee? I’ve got some fresh bagels, but that’s about it with the breakfast food. Except for Lizzie’s Lucky Charms and Coco Puffs.”
“Got cream cheese?”
“Yep. And it’s not that low-calorie lite crap.”
“Then I’ll take one. Toasted.”
Claire sat down at the large kitchen trestle table and watched him fix them breakfast. He looked good, still quite the hottie, with his rather long sun-bleached hair and five o’clock shadow and sexy charm. They had an interesting history together, but not a romantic one. He put down a plate of bagels and cream cheese, a tub of butter, and some home-canned peach preserves in front of her, and then handed her a mug of strong hot black coffee. Then he sat down across from her and stared unblinkingly at her left hand.
“I can’t help but notice that great big, gigantic, huge rock weighin’ down your ring finger. I guess it’s a diamond. Didn’t know they even made them that big. You forget to tell me something, darlin’?”
“Black asked me to marry him. I said yes.”
Their eyes locked for a moment, and then he looked away. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Or thrilled, either. Haven’t seen the happy announcement in the papers, though.”
“We’re not announcing it. We get enough publicity without that, too.”
“You sure you want to get married, Claire? I never figured you as the marrying kind.”
“Well, I am. I guess.”
Joe latched on to that quickly enough. “You guess? What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, you know me. I like my independence. I’m with Black anyway, and everybody knows it. I don’t see why we need all the publicity a wedding’s gonna saddle us with. It doesn’t make it any better or worse. It just makes it legal.”
McKay considered her for a rather long moment, and then he chuckled and shook his head. “If I were you, my unrequited future lover, I wouldn’t use any of what you just said in the heartfelt wedding vows you recite to Nick at the altar. He might wonder if you have a few misgivings about the whole thing.”
“He knows I don’t have any misgivings, zero, nada, nil,” she said firmly. But truth was, Black did think that, and she knew it. She guessed it was true, too, if she was being completely honest. But she wanted to be with him enough to marry him, if that’s the way it had to be. And apparently, it was. It wasn’t exactly a bad thing, after all, and it wasn’t that she was dead set against a wedding. She was just a little nervous to take the plunge, that’s all.
“So do you have your dress yet?”
Claire’s frown was quick and massive. “I cannot believe that all you big, tough, grown men, and you a Marine, Joe, are so hung up on what I’m gonna wear to the wedding. What difference does it make, anyway? It’s just a dress to put on when I walk down the aisle, and that’s all it is. A bunch of fluff and lace and seed pearls.”
“I wouldn’t include that cynical little insight in your vows, either.” McKay took a big bite of his bagel and eyed her askance while he chewed it. “Are you really gonna wear fluff and lace and seed pearls? You? Claire Morgan? That’s a little hard to wrap my mind around. And I’m gettin’ the distinct feeling that you are not exactly gung-ho about your upcoming nuptials.”
“I am, too. I’m very gung-ho. I want to marry Black in the worst way. I just have my mind on other more important things right now.”
“Okay. When’s the worst day of my life gonna be? I don’t want to miss it. Miss it in that I want to be a million miles down the road when you say I do. Besides that, I don’t intend to give up on having you for myself until you actually tie the knot with Nick.”
Claire sighed. He was just kidding, she knew that, but the subject was truly getting old. What did she have to do to discourage him? Tattoo Black’s name on her forehead? “Okay, now you’re coming off creepy, Joe, sleazy, even. And no, we haven’t set the date yet.”
“And again, I hear the heels of your Nike high-tops dragging a trail through the dirt.”
“He said I could set the date, and I’m giving it a lot of thought.”
“Well, that was his first mistake.” He grinned, and looked like his cocky self when he did it. “What’re you gonna do? Wait a decade or two, and then pick a day the poor guy can look forward to?”
“What’s it to you, Joe? It’s none of your business.”
“Well, truth be told? I just think Nick deserves better than that outta you, although I envy him every single day of my life for landing you as his woman.”
Claire laughed. “You make me sound like a big fat bass. And uncaring.”
“Don’t torture the poor besotted guy. I’m just sayin’. Hell, if it were me you said yes to, I’d hogtie you and carry you to the altar with my brute animal strength. Elopement, that’s the only way to go. Get it done, get you bedded and pregnant and tied to me forever. Then reap the rewards.”
“Yeah, and you’re a Neanderthal chauvinist, too. But don’t worry your little head about Black. He knows exactly how I feel about him, and he knows that we’re gonna get married. He isn’t insecure about me, believe it. In fact, I asked him to marry me. And, oh, yeah, he doesn’t carry a big club to knock me over the head with, like you knuckle-dragging cavemen do.”
“Well, good. I guess.”
They laughed together a little and started eating their bagels, but Joe McKay was no fool. Between bites, he said, “Okay, what’d you need me for? Something for one of your cases, I take it? Otherwise there’s not a bluebird’s chance in hell that you’d come up here to my house in the dead of winter and sit down and slather up some breakfast bagels with me.”
“Yeah, but don’t say it that way. It makes me sound like a jerk.”
“I’m happy to see you anywhere, anytime, that goes without sayin’. Even if you’re just usin’ me again.” But he grinned and winked.
“Alrighty then. We found a victim frozen to the bottom of a cliff a few days ago. He turned out to be one of those cage fighters that are so popular now. My investigation led me up this way. I’ve heard a lot of these young fighters hail from around here. That true?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Paulie Parker. Wife’s name is Blythe.”
Joe put down his mug and leaned back. “I know him. I’ve seen her around, too, I think. Does she have real white skin and look like Casper the Ghost’s skinny sister?”
“Yeah, pretty much, although that’s not exactly the kindest way to put it.”
“Parker’s from a farm family who live out here. There’s a whole clan of ’em up the road. And they are not to be trifled with. In fact, their property line backs up to mine. So does the Fitch property, and somebody else’s by the name of Dale. All situated back behind my woods. There’s a stream that runs back there, too, between all four properties. Forms a little lake, of sorts.”
“Okay, I take it that you’ve trifled with the Parkers?”
“They have a kinda general store thing not too far up this road. Sells groceries and guns and ammunition and booze. They raise dogs and provide vet services and raise holy hell, now and again.”
“Want to go up there with me, Joe? Nose around some? See what kinda dirt we can scrounge up on them?”
“Yeah. Like I want a hole in my head.”
“Thanks for the enthusiasm.”
“They’re pretty much rednecks, I guess you’d say, and a little on the rough side of that spectrum. And I don’t mean the Willie and Jace Robertson kind of rednecks, either.”
“Who’re Willie and Jace Robertson?”
“Hellooo?
Duck Dynasty
? Don’t you have a TV? The Robertson family’s got a reality show set down in Louisiana. Makes duck calls. Real good people. But listen up, Claire, the Parkers are the real thing and they can be dangerous. Especially if the Fitches are around.”
“The Fitches?”
“That’s the other family that lives up around there. They breed those fighters you’re talkin’ about, too. Those two families have got a real Hatfield and McCoy type of thing going on, one that you do not want to get involved in. I’m not kiddin’ anymore, either. You need to stay clear of all that.”
“Is there a Fitch out there who goes by the name Malachi? Mal, for short.”
Joe shrugged. “Hell if I know. I don’t know them all by name. There’s lots of them. On both sides.”
“Any of them have it in them to bludgeon somebody to death with a blunt instrument?”
“Yeah, each and every one, I’d say.”
“You sound a little scared of them.”
“I respect their proclivity to violence and the relish with which they indulge in it, true.”
Sometimes, Joe actually shed his tough guy, bumpkin act and revealed his intellect and education. Not very often, true. In fact, it had taken her a long time to find out that he was college educated at UCLA and attained a high rank in the Marine Corps. He had a softie side to him, too, all right, especially when it came to his little daughter, Lizzie.
“I’ve gotta go up there today and check things out. See if Blythe has notified Paulie Parker’s kinfolk about his demise. See if they know who might’ve done this to him. She thinks it was somebody in the Petrov organization.”
“You don’t mean those badass wiseguys out of East St. Louis?”
“Yeah, afraid so.”
Joe sighed. “You just cannot keep your pretty little butt out of trouble, can you? It’s a gift I guess.”
“I just do my job. Law enforcement is dangerous work. We carry guns, and everything.”
“Well, I can tell you one thing, and you can mark my words in red ink. The Parker clan is gonna think it was a Fitch who killed Paulie, and then they’ll seek out one of them and kill him. Then the Fitches will retaliate and beat to death another Parker as payback.”