Robert Walker - Unnatural Instinct

Lucas wasn't in the business of making life easy for IAD, and so he presented them with multiple alibis for his whereabouts on the successive nights that four men were found killed-execution style-in their homes. One had supposedly been an FBI informant wannabe, who planned to rat out the other three.

Four deaths in two weeks proved an enormous statistic in a city of moderate size and permanent residents. The first death was that of a man who had begun opening talks with local FBI agents. Some of the same men in Sioux Falls, knowing of Lucas Stonecoat's reputation as a tough, uncompromising Texas Cherokee firebrand, believed along with HPD's Internal Affairs that Lucas might well be somehow connected to the series of deaths there. They suspected it was some sort of Native American vengeance-is-mine thing. So, naturally, Lucas fit the ready bill.

“ This is all I need,” Lucas complained to Meredyth, where they sat in Tebo's Bar and Grill, having a drink. “I can't believe that IAD is seriously looking at me for what's going on in Sioux Falls.”

“ They're looking closely at every step you take,” she told him. “But then, haven't they always? Ever since you became a Houston cop.”

“ Since I didn't play ball with Dallas over their stripping me of my benefits, you mean. If I can sue Dallas for what they owe me, they figure I can sue Houston. That I'm one mother fucking litigious red man, right?”

She laughed at this, and he grudgingly joined her, but after a sip of his Budweiser, he grew serious again. “Why is it that everybody is so freaking interested in investigating my activities? What's the goddamn fascination? Sometimes, just sometimes I wish I were this… this outlaw that everyone paints me.”

“ Really, now?”

“ Then maybe I could have half the fun everyone thinks I'm having.”

“ Fun as in killing those men in South Dakota?”

He stared hard into her eyes. “You're not among the fools who have me running around on some blood feud, are you?”

“ You know they're talking to the FBI about you?”

“ Are you serious?”

“ Absolutely.”

“ And just how have you come by this information, Mere?” He watched her closely for her reply and how she would say it, and what she would do with her eyes, her hands-clenched or opened-and how she would look when she said it-eyes averted or straight on. She grabbed hold of his hands with a grip that hurt, and she stared deeply into his eyes-both good signs.

“ They came to me… with a lot of questions.”

“ Who? Who exactly came to you?”

“ Houston field operatives from the local FBI.”

“ Sons of bitches at IAD are collaborating with them?”

“ Most likely, yes.”

“ But you're not sure?”

“ Lucas, they think I might know something that could hurt you.”

He laughed. “You've always known something that could hurt me.”

“ But you told me the blackouts had ceased.”

“ They have ceased. You can hurt me far worse than telling my enemies my weaknesses. You can hurt me by becoming my enemy. How long ago did this meeting take place, Mere?”

“ I didn't know what to think. They laid out their case against you, and it sounded-sounds-fairly strong.”

“ You're kidding. This has to be like the worst joke you ever tried to pull on me, right?”

“ I tell you, they really believe you had something to do with those killings, and that if you did not pull the trigger, then you had a hand in… in arranging things.”

“ And you believe them?”

“ I… I don't know what to believe. I've seen you en-raged. Don't forget, I've seen you on more than one occasion kill a man, and you do it, Lucas, with… with a kind of raw… delight. It… that… that side of you… scares me. You scare me.”

“ Best fucking excuse I've ever had leveled at me by a woman to walk away from me, sweetheart. So… why are you still sitting here? Go… go…”

She hesitated. He snatched his hand from hers.

“ For all I know, you're wearing a wire on me right now.”

“ That's not fair, Lucas.”

“ Fair, you want to talk about what's fair now?” The conversation had risen to such a crescendo that everyone in the place now eavesdropped, including the owner-bartender Tebo, his cigarette ashes going unattended.

“ The local FBI didn't frighten me, Lucas. I flatly turned them down when they begged me to get something on you.”

“ Then I should be thanking you? Taking you upstairs to my bed again?”

“ Damn you, Lucas! I got a call from our mutual friend, Dr. Desinor in Quantico, and she got it from Dr. Jessica Coran that FBI headquarters is looking at you. This goes far beyond Houston.”

“ Desinor? Dr. Coran?”

“ They called Coran to corroborate some portions of your alibi.”

“ I gotta make a call.” Stonecoat immediately went to the phone and called Quantico, Virginia's FBI headquarters for Jessica. He was surprised when he got her. He had fully expected to be leaving a message; instead, she came on the line.

“ So good to hear from you, Lieutenant,” she said.

“ I called to congratulate you on the fine job your team did in locating and saving Judge DeCampe. I had meant to do so earlier, but it's been busy as hell around here.”

“ Why, thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate the sentiments and the invaluable help you and Dr. Sanger provided.”

He then cleared his throat and said, “Contrary to anything-anything whatever-that you hear about my being a rogue cop on a vendetta, killing randomly and at will, you can't accept such nonsense on face value, Dr. Coran.”

“ What are you talking about?”

“ The series of deaths in Sioux Falls. Your field operatives there have me down for the killings, some sort of vengeance thing on behalf of Lightfoot. I didn't know the man, and he's not of my tribe, and even if he were, I would not be taking the law into my own hands-not for someone I didn't personally know. Also, my own Internal Affairs Division is coming after me. But that's nothing new.”

“ You know who is behind the killings?”

He hesitated, saying, “I just want you to know, Dr. Coran, that it isn't me and that I have no knowledge of these executions.” He hung up.

When Lucas stepped to the bar, calling for another round for Meredyth and himself, Tebo grunted and cast his eyes at Lucas's table. Meredyth's exit through the door had left it slightly ajar, something Tebo kept claiming he was going to fix. Lucas cursed the situation, on the one hand knowing who was behind the four killings but feeling the killings justifiable homicide in retaliation for what young Claude Lightfoot had suffered. It felt like a fitting end to yet another Cold Room file.

Zachary Roundpoint, a local Native American mob boss and a sometimes acquaintance of Lucas's, wished to make up for all the white injustices over the decades. It would have to be a life's work, so much had been perpetrated against the red man. While Lucas didn't condone Round- point's actions, he did understand them.

Lucas took a six-pack of Bud with him to his room upstairs. He did so via the back stairs. Once ensconced in his room, he lit up a peyote-stuffed, hand-rolled cigarette. He wanted two things: a good black-and-white western so he could watch “his people” through the pathetic eyes of Hollywood, and to get totally wasted in order to put everything and everyone out of his mind. Even so, he wished that Meredyth would knock at his door this moment. But she did not.

“ Be damned if I'd chase her out a door,” he told the empty room.

On his fourth beer since leaving the bar, Lucas again thought of his antithesis, Zachary Roundpoint. Lucas had good reason to feel angry at Zachary, a man never to be trusted, a man he could never call a friend, but a man to whom he owed much. Zachary had come through for him when he had needed a friend the most, when Lucas's dying grandfather had need of Roundpoint's power and influence.