Buried Biker (22 page)

Montgomery came up behind me. He ran his hands under my jacket, between my legs and over my pockets. He unclipped my wallet from my belt and removed my key from my jeans pocket. Then he cuffed my hands behind me.

“Turn around and face me.”

I did so, but I didn’t look him in the eyes.
What now?

Belkins stepped up and moved his face right up to mine. His breath had the sour odor of last night’s whiskey. Or maybe it was this morning’s. “What do you know about one Harvey McGillian?” he asked.

The name meant nothing at all to me. “Not a thing,” I said.

“I find that hard to believe.” He sprayed spittle on my cheek.

Since I didn’t know what he was talking about, I didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” Belkins said, backing up a bit and taking one of his squat cigars from his pocket. “Don’t play dumb with me.”

“Don’t know who that is,” I said.

He unwrapped the cigar. “You can’t tell me you don’t know the members of the Predators who hang around your girlfriend’s house.”

No point is saying that if Kelly ever had been my girlfriend, she certainly wasn’t now. “I try to keep my distance from them,” I said. “Most of them are convicted felons. It would violate my parole.”

Belkins snorted. “And I suppose going up to their clubhouse doesn’t constitute a violation?”

“You’re right. I could be violated for that.”

“So why’d you do it?”

Of course they knew about that. I’d been with Aaron. “I thought Kelly was up there looking for me.”

Montgomery took over. “I thought I told you to stay away from that woman. And I bet your PO told you the same thing. Didn’t he?”

I gave a slight nod.

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Both you and Mr. Ramirez told me to stay away from Kelly,” I dutifully replied.

“And?”

“
If
she didn’t want to see me.”

“What made you think she wanted to see you?”

He had me there. “Somebody told me that.”

“Told you what?”

“That my girlfriend was up at the clubhouse because she thought I was going up there.”

“And what would make her think you’d be up at the clubhouse?”

“I dunno.”

“Because you were up there a lot?”

“No. That was the first time.” I’d better be careful of what I said. I still didn’t know what they were getting at, but I knew I’d better not let them catch me in a lie. Or blurt out something they could twist to use against me.

“Were you looking for drugs? I understand they can get up a pretty good shake-and-bake temporary meth lab up there.”

I remembered the ammonia scent. “Wouldn’t surprise me. But I don’t use.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve heard to the contrary.”

Was that Aaron’s doing? I was tempted to say, “So go test my piss,” but he’d be likely to go through Mr. Ramirez, and I’d end up having to pay for it.

Montgomery was continuing to stare at me. “And I don’t deal,” I added, in case that was what Aaron had told them.

Montgomery changed tactics. “Is Kelly out of the hospital?”

“I dunno.”

“Yet you say you went up to the clubhouse looking for her.”

“Yeah. That was pretty stupid. I should have checked to see if she was still in the hospital before I went up there. Or in rehab.”

Belkins chewed on the end of his unlit cigar. “You don’t know where she is? You don’t even make a very good stalker.”

I winced.

“And what about that poor girl who was up there?” He took the soggy cigar out of his mouth.

It was hard for me to think of Carissa as a “poor girl.” I flexed my shoulders, trying to keep the blood circulation going through my hands. “I didn’t know it was her who was up there.”

He put his blotchy red face inches from me. His rank breath filled my nose. “I suppose it was her you went up there to see? Did you think
she
was your girlfriend? Just because she asked you to help her when she was trying to write a story on the Predators? She’s got too much class to look twice at
you
.”

She sure didn’t act like she had any class at all. But I wasn’t about to suggest that to Belkins. He waved the cigar in my face. It didn’t smell much better than his breath. “What kind of an egotist are you anyhow, thinking you’re God’s gift to women? Kelly, that woman they call Black Rose, and now Carissa? I bet you’re HIV positive, and you’re spreading disease. Maybe hepatitis C, too. That’s rampant in prison.”

It wasn’t a stretch to realize that prison inmates were high risk. But I’d never engaged in risky behavior, neither before I was locked up nor in prison, and I’d been tested for HIV upon my release. I’d never used intravenous drugs, and I wasn’t about to start now. Kelly was the only woman I’d ever slept with, so unless she was infected and hadn’t told me, I could be pretty sure I was still disease-free.

Montgomery looked on in amusement as Belkins continued to rant at me. “What did you do to that girl?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Did you see what she looked like?”

“She looked like that when I got up there. I took her away from there.
She
told you that.”

“With only one shoe and no coat.”

“Didn’t seem like a good idea to stay to look for them. We got out while the getting was good. Before any more of the bikers showed up.”

“And did you drive?”

“No. I don’t have a license. That guy Aaron. You know him.”

“And you expect me to believe that you didn’t lay a hand on her?”

“Did she
say
I laid a hand on her?”

“No. She says you got her out of there. And she has a misplaced sense of guilt about the whole situation. So she’s probably not telling me the whole truth. I think she’s trying to shield you. Gratitude you don’t deserve.” He spit on the ground next to my boot.

I didn’t think Carissa’s feelings of guilt were particularly misplaced. She had gotten herself into that mess and dragged me into it, after I’d tried to warn her off. And now I was in some kind of trouble because of it.

Belkins drew his bulk up to his full five foot nine inches and tried to glower at me. I tried to look as non-threatening and non-confrontational as I could.

He raised his hand toward me face. I braced myself and closed my eyes.

But the blow didn’t come.

I opened my eyes and looked. Montgomery had Belkins by the arm and was leading him back toward the car. “Stop it,” he said. “Now. We’re not going to jeopardize this case because you lost control.”

I kept a wary eye on them and tried to back up a few steps, ending up against the wall.

Belkins stayed next to the car, fuming. Montgomery told him, “Stand still,” and came back to face me.

He stood inches from me and leaned down toward me. “You were told to stay away from the Predators.”

I nodded.

“But you didn’t. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At least you’re being honest with me on this. Carissa, the newspaper lady, she’s got pictures of you with the bikers.”

“Not over at Kelly’s house, though,” I pointed out. As if that’d make any difference.

“No. At the park. What were you doing?”

“Talking.”

“About what?”

I sighed. No matter how I said this, it was going to be incriminating. “You know who Old Buckles is?”

“Kelly’s dad?”

“Yeah. He wanted to talk to me about to the attack on Kelly.”

“Why?”

“He was trying to figure out exactly what happened to her.” So was I.

“Was he threatening to take revenge?”

That was exactly what he was doing, but I wasn’t going to say that. “He just wanted to know. He was pretty upset. Wouldn’t you be, if it was your daughter got raped?”

He ignored that. I didn’t know if he had a daughter or not. “And he thought you had something to do with it? Directly or indirectly?”

“He didn’t know for sure. He was just asking around.”

“Seems like he must have a pretty good idea. You sleep with one of the biker chicks? Black Rose?”

“No.”

“Then why would she say you did?”

I shook my head but had no answer to give him. I hadn’t figured that one out at all.

Montgomery put a slim dark finger under my chin and lifted my head so he could look me in the eyes. “Tell me about what was going on up at the clubhouse when you went up there.”

“Not too much. Only a couple of guys there. Looked like they were working on cars.”

“Carissa was up there, too?”

“Yeah. She was there.”

“Why do you think she wanted to leave with you?”

“I don’t think she really had any idea what she was getting herself into when she went up there. One of the bikers asked her if she wanted to party, and she said yes. So he gave her a ride up to the clubhouse.” I left out the part about anybody paying anything, either way.

“What do you think they meant by partying?”

“I
know
they meant sex.”

“With her?”

“Yes.”

“
All
of them?”

“Anyone who was up there.”

Montgomery’s dark eyes continued to bore into mine. “So why do you think they let her leave with you?”

“Well, there were only three of them. She’d scratched the holy hell out of one of them. They said she wasn’t being much fun.” And they were so high they couldn’t think straight, but I wasn’t going to bring that up.

Montgomery backed up a step. “She did get some really good pictures.”

I hadn’t seen her camera. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“On her cell phone. Probably enough for us to get a search warrant. Both for stolen vehicles and running a shake-and-bake operation.”

He removed his hand from my chin but continued to peer at me. “You been buying drugs from them?”

Back to that again. “No.”

“Supplying them?”

Damn Aaron and his stories. “No.”

I knew they were asking similar questions, circling back to the same issues, trying to get me to contradict myself.

Belkins lurched up, looking incredulous. “Let me get this straight. You aren’t involved with the Predators and their drug trade.”

“No.”

Montgomery stepped between us. “Let’s get back to the basic reason we stopped you. Do you deny knowing Harvey McGillian?”

“No idea who you’re talking about.”

Montgomery raised a well-shaped eyebrow. “How about a biker called Razorback?”

My gut tightened. “He’s the one who…” I let my voice trail off.

“Who what?”

I took a deep breath. “Raped Kelly.”

Belkins made that snorting noise again. “Very good, Damon. Now you got it.”

“I don’t know him,” I said. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”

Montgomery looked at me intently. “But you know
of
him.”

“I guess.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He rides with the Predators. He has a little excavation business—trenches for sewer line connections and stuff. Site preparation for new construction, maybe.”

“Know anything else about him?”

“Black Rose is his old lady.”

Montgomery glanced at Belkins. “And you do know Black Rose a little better than you seem to know Razorback?” he asked me.

“Not really,” I said.

Belkins shifted the cigar to the other hand. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t think I ever saw him.”

“Come on, now. Don’t outright
lie
to us.”

“Honest.” Probably that was the wrong word to use. “I’ve never met him. If I ever saw him, I didn’t know it was him.”

“You really expect me to believe that?” Belkins looked disgusted.

Montgomery rubbed one of his gloved hands against the other. “We’ve been looking pretty hard for him. You know nobody seems to have seen Razorback since the night after he roughed Kelly up?”

“No. Old Buckles may have been looking for him. But I was locked up that night. Remember?”

Belkins glared. “You had a few hours.” He changed tactics. “You must be pretty pissed about what he did to your girlfriend.”

“Well, yeah.” I couldn’t deny that. No point going into the part about her not really being my girlfriend.

“So you decided to take care of it yourself, did you?”

“No.”

“What would you say if I told you we’d found him?” Montgomery asked me.