Jeff Abbott - A Kiss Gone Bad

‘Thank you, Kevin. Thanks so much.’ Condolence seemed even more awkward now than it had with Faith, but he tried. ‘Please know how sorry I am for you losing your friend.’

‘Thanks. Thanks. I got to go.’

Kevin hung up. Whit hurried to his car, made sure no mobsters hunked behind his tires, and fired up the engine. The car didn’t explode. The day was off to a positive start.

Why would anyone give a no-talent porn hack a half million in cash to make a movie? Another hack, Whit thought. Junior Deloache.

His phone buzzed again.

‘Where the hell are you?’ Claudia demanded. ‘I need a search warrant and I need it fast.’

‘You aren’t going to get away with this,’ Mary Magdalene screamed. Claudia ignored her and watched two county deputies search the back closet of Jabez’s master suite.

‘It would be helpful if you would just tell us where Jabez is,’ David said. His eyes shone brightly in excitement.

Mary Magdalene flinched. ‘He was called away on the Lord’s business.’

One of David’s fellow deputies came in the room, shook his head. ‘No sign of Jones on the grounds. Car’s gone.’

‘So where is he, Mary?’ Claudia asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re his right-hand woman and you don’t know.’ Claudia crossed her arms, suspecting that Jabez leaving Mary behind to feel the heat was an increasingly tender subject. ‘So I guess he just figured you could take whatever rap was coming. That’s really Christian of him. What a guy.’

Mary Magdalene trembled, but not from fear.

A deputy, a lanky young Vietnamese man, carried an old, worn maple box from the closet. Inside was a thick Bible. Inside the Bible, in neatly hollowed-out trenches of Scripture, lay three vials of white powder. David daubed a bit on his tongue, tasted, and nodded at Claudia. ‘The pause that refreshes. Co-caine, boys and girls.’

Claudia turned to Mary Magdalene. ‘Help us, Mary, or we can’t help you when the judge starts throwing books your way. Where is Jabez?’

Mary Magdalene fell to one knee, her mouth twisting in silent prayer.

‘Start searching the other barracks,’ David ordered, ‘and let’s call the DEA in Corpus. And we need to get an APB out on Jones.’

‘She knows where he is,’ Claudia insisted, pointing at the prayerful Mary. ‘She knows and she’s-’

Mary Magdalene exploded from the floor and pile-drove into Claudia, sending them both sprawling out into the small hallway. Thick fingers with sharp nails, like pikes, dug into Claudia’s windpipe, and a fist slammed against her left eye. Claudia rammed upward with her knee, finding the softness between Mary’s legs, and she grabbed Mary’s thumb and bent back hard. A scream, and then the hands were yanked away, the other officers pinning Mary on her stomach, cuffing her in an instant.

Claudia climbed to her feet, David helping her. Her shoulder ached and the skin around her eye was numbed. Mary screamed imprecations, not the sweet language of theology but the salty poetry from her days on the street.

‘I’m fine,’ Claudia said before David could start fawning over her hurts. She knelt by Mary. ‘You just complicated your life about a hundred times. I’m starting to think you’re not particularly bright. Here’s a chance to get smart, Mary. Where is Jabez?’

‘ “His enemies shall lick the dust,” ’ she hollered, her face purpling in rage. ‘You’ll die just like the trash does!’

‘Y’all the ones licking dust. Or snorting it,’ David said.

‘Die like the trash does?’ Claudia asked. ‘Or die like the trash did?’

Delford Spires shook his head. ‘I hope everything’s nice and clean about how y’all got that warrant and did that search.’ He pointed at Claudia’s eye. ‘That’s gonna go shiner.’

‘It’s not like I was having my photo done soon for employee of the month.’

Stiff silence.

‘So that leaves us, Delford, with an awful interesting situation,’ Claudia said. ‘Pete Hubble placed this girl in Jabez’s camp. I can’t imagine he would go to all that trouble, then blithely kill himself.’

Delford sipped a cold coffee. ‘I can’t explain away a suicide note, Claudia. Especially one that has just Pete’s and Sam’s prints on it.’ His tone was final, dismissive, and he fixed her with a glower designed to make her crumple. She fired a salvo back, tired and achy and sick of being railroaded.

‘I assume you’ve spoken with Judge Mosley about the coroner’s findings and the problems with the bagging of the hands.’

‘Yes, I have,’ Delford said.

Eddie Gardner reddened. ‘Claudia, you saw the body with me,’ Gardner said. ‘I didn’t screw up the bagging.’

‘I didn’t say you did,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m just telling you what the ME and Judge Mosley said.’

Delford tweezed a mustache end into sharp perfection. ‘Eddie, review the chain of custody for the body. Make sure we can account for the bag damage. Probably the goddamned mortuary crew tore ’em.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Gardner said. ‘One other thing on Hubble. Since we have a time of death, we can locate the boats that came in and out of Golden Gulf during the period, since Real Shame was at the end of the T-head. Claudia and I already have accounted for five of the six boats that departed and all the boats that arrived. No one saw anything helpful.’

‘And this last boat?‘

‘A cruiser called Miss Folly. Owner lives up near New Orleans and treks all over the Gulf coast. He didn’t file a float plan.’ A float plan was the maritime equivalent of a flight plan, required of commercial vessels, optional for personal craft.

‘Let’s get that boat found,’ Delford said to Eddie. ‘I don’t want the press suggesting we’re not being thorough. Claudia, let’s talk.’

After Gardner had shut the door behind him, Delford folded his hands on his desk. ‘I noticed you checked out the Corey Hubble file. Find anything interesting?’

‘No, not really.’

‘You’re still pissed about being pulled as the lead.’

‘No, it’s your decision.’

‘Claud, come on. I know you too well. You’re madder than a wet bee. But listen, I want Gardner handling this.’

‘Like he did the bags?’

‘I did bruise your ego. Well, now.’ A crinkle – a near smile – crossed his face. ‘Point taken. Hubble’s just about over, soon as Whit gets off his ass and issues a damned ruling. Focus on the Ballew case.’

‘It’s really the sheriff’s case, not ours,’ Claudia said. ‘Unless you’re scheming with mine and David’s parents to stick us back together.’

Delford laughed, the low tremble that she knew, and she felt a sudden warmth again toward him, this contrary, whim-ridden old fart who could either advance you fast in the department or mire you down forever. ‘Your mama scares me, Claudia, and I would be reluctant to cross her. I just want you to provide the sheriff’s office with support. Consider yourself loaned to them.’

And therefore out of your hair, Claudia thought.

‘So you go put some ice on that eye. Or a nice steak,’ Delford said.

Claudia went back to her office. A whirl of paperwork covered her desk: two new burglary reports to follow up on, a shoplifting case. Gardner came in a few minutes later, swigging a Dr Pepper. He shut the office door and leaned against it.

‘Aren’t you clever?’ he said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘You screw up, so you start trying to make me look bad.’

‘You’re mistaken.’

‘You’re gunning for me, Claudia. Maybe you damaged those evidence bags without me seeing.’

‘Oh, get over yourself.’

He shot an unexpected missile across her bow. ‘You think because you’re Mexican and a woman you should get all the good cases.’