Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (10 page)

“I didn’t kill Abby,” he said, dropping the smart-ass smile. “I’ve done some smoking-evil type stuff, but nothing that bad. I wouldn’t have hurt her.”

“You’re a real humanitarian, Axel,” Birch drawled as he pulled the teenager off the Armadillo and propelled him toward a cluster of uniformed officers who were eavesdropping on the conversation, their weapons still in their hands. “I’ll be sure to have that carved on your headstone.”

14

Val
parked the tow truck in its bay in the shop behind Bo’s house. Bo was nowhere in sight, but the Mustang’s hood was up and the air conditioner compressor was lying on the concrete floor. It looked like Bo had gotten bored and gone to work on the old Ford, but he hadn’t finished the job. That meant Val was out of a car for a while. Maybe it really was time to cave in and buy that minivan?

Screw that, he’d rather use a pogo stick. \

Val crossed the lawn to Bo’s back door and let himself in without knocking, trekked through the huge kitchen and entered the family room to find Sharon, Max, Kyle, and BoDean glued to the TV.

Sharon looked pale and shaken, but the twins were ecstatic, bouncing around like rubber balls and laughing like baboons. Wordlessly, Sharon looked at Val then pointed at the TV.

A police standoff. Lots of cop cars and officers with drawn weapons. The video feed was shaky, the focus slightly off, probably a smartphone. It took Val a moment to realize it was the Dallas PD being filmed. Why the hell was Sharon letting the kids watch this stuff?

“What’s up?” he asked, his eyes on the television. Suddenly cops were hitting the pavement and diving behind cars. The muted sound of automatic gunfire rippled and patrol cars shivered as their windshields exploded and their hoods were blistered by bullets. And then a woman was running through the maze of vehicles, bullets tearing at the pavement around her. At any second Val expected to see her go down. Very unprofessional. No way was she a cop.

“She’s okay!” Sharon said, talking too fast and too loud. “She’s okay Val! They’ve played this seven times already. She’s okay.”

BoDean nodded, his expression grim, but he said nothing.

Val was even more confused. “Who—”

“Run, mommy!” Max shouted, jumping as high as he could and clapping his hands over his head.

“Run mommy!” Kyle echoed, imitating his brother right down to the clapping. “Run! Run! Run!”

“What—” Val began again, but ended with an explosive, “Shit!” He took a step closer to the television as the camera jerkily tracked the woman’s race across no man’s land. That hair. Those legs. And the insanity to run through a blizzard of bullets.

Victoria!

“Are you sure she’s okay?’ he asked as he watched his wife dive behind the SWAT Teams’ armored BearCat. “You’re positive? Absolutely positive?”

“Yes. She’s there at the end of the tape when they bring those men out of the house. She’s fine,” Sharon said.

The footage ran on. Val watched Victoria kick a pipe bomb under an SUV. He flinched when the SUV erupted into a column of flaming fuel that rained down fire on the street.

“You’re sure—”

“She’s fine, Val,” BoDean said.

Val looked back at the TV. Cops were hunkered down behind their cars while the SUV burned in the background. Victoria was nowhere in sight.

“That’s good,” Val said through his teeth. “That means I’ll get to kill her myself.”

“Kill mommy!” Max yelped. “Kill mommy!”

15

Axel
Rankin was taken directly to the Lew Sterret Justice Center instead of to an interview room at the Jack Evans Building on Lamar Street, the DPD Headquarters, where most homicide interrogations took place. With a cop killer, security was top priority. She parked in the back and went through the cavernous garage, winding through DPD cars parked in rows. The few cops back there eyed her as she passed, taking in her ruined clothes and battered face in silence, their expressions set in angry lines. They had already gotten the news about Bastrop.

She had hoped to hustle Rankin into one of the jail’s interview rooms while the biker was still eager to run his mouth. Unfortunately, Rankin’s attorney beat her to the jail complex. He was waiting for her, seated on a bench just outside the doublewide doors that led back to the booking room.

R. Herbert Lubbock, Attorney At Law, was wearing a shapeless gray suit that did nothing to hide his beer gut. His hair was too long for his sixty-plus years, his beard was mangy and his rundown cowboy boots were un-shined. But, while the look that Herbert was cultivating was decidedly low rent, he was the most successful and, therefore, the most expensive defense attorney in the county. Maybe in the state. Juries just ate up his aw-shucks demeanor, wrathful bible quotes and bombastic cornpone, but Victoria knew that his courtroom persona was a shill for a soul that was as warm and cuddly as a rattlesnake.

She should have expected Herby. He’d represented more than a dozen Confederate Syndicate MC members over the last ten years. He was practically their in-house counsel. Silently, she cursed the paramedic who had insisted on splinting and bandaging her broken toe, making her late to the jail. There was no way Herby was going to allow Rankin to be interviewed by Jack Birch. Herby liked to do all the talking for his clients and he liked to do that talking in court where his hourly rate doubled. His motto was Innocent Until Proven Bankrupt.

Herby grinned at her as he rose from the bench, his eyes sweeping over her from wild hair to bloody knees. He stepped forward, blocking the booking room doors, a nasty twinkle lighting his eyes. Up close, Herby smelled bad. All that fat and the Texas heat added up to a sticky funk that no amount of Polo was going to cover.

“I know I look like crap,” she snapped before he could open his mouth. “Rub it in and I’ll make sure I’m assigned every case you have even if it’s traffic court.”

“Hey, as long as you
know
you look like crap,” he said. “I ain’t no beauty queen myself.” His breath smelled even worse than his BO.

“I’m warning you Herby,” Victoria said through her teeth.

Herby instantly changed course, coming on all chummy. “Hey, you heard the one about the lawyer in the zoo?” he asked then hurried on before she could cut him off. “A kid asked why they had a lawyer in a cage and the zoo keeper said, ‘The jackal died.’” Herby brayed through his nose but Victoria didn’t join in.

“Get it? The Jackal died.” Another horsy snort of laughter.

“What do you want, Herby?”

Herby shifted gears again. He dropped the smile and adopted a dour frown. “I’m here to defend the poor wretch Detective Birch just arrested. To stave off a gross miscarriage of justice.”

“And collect a fat fee.”

“And that,” Herby agreed with a shrug. “But first, the miscarriage.”

“It’s too early for opening arguments, Herby. Save it for the courtroom.” She started around him, heading for the booking room.

Herbert held a palm up. “The boy’s seventeen, Victoria,” he said, dropping the act. “That’s a little young for lethal injection even in Texas.”

“Seventeen is old enough by statute, especially for a cop killer,” Victoria pointed out. “Besides, his ID says he’s twenty-seven.”

“It’s a fake,” Herby said. “He’s a minor. I’ve been retained by his mother. She signed the legal guardianship papers this morning. He doesn’t talk without me in the room. Not a word. Not a syllable. “

Great, Victoria thought. Better and better with every minute. She made no reply. What would be the point? She stepped past Herby, rang the buzzer and showed her ID to the blunt-featured deputy sheriff who opened the door. He nodded without changing expression and held the door for her. But Herbert wasn’t done talking.

“I hope you’re not thinking of prosecuting him yourself,” he called after her.

That got her attention. She paused in the doorway and turned to face him.

“The way I hear it, you were part of the arrest team,” he continued. “You’ll be numero uno on my witness list.”

Damn it! Herbert wasn’t expensive because he was stupid. While Valentine’s past history with the Suttons was enough to force her to recuse herself from the trial itself, if she were scheduled to take the witness stand she couldn’t even perform her normal role as Felony Trial Division Chief; supervising the prosecution. That would be an ethical breach that could cost her her license. And the DA’s office didn’t have many attorneys who were a match for Herby. Rankin just might beat the death penalty after all.

Grinding her teeth, Victoria spun on her heel and strode past the deputy, seething inside. She’d make Herby pay for this, someday, in some courtroom, but that did nothing to assuage her anger.

At this time of day, the booking room was almost empty. A few afternoon drunks and half a dozen morose citizens who hadn’t paid their traffic tickets were sitting unshackled in blue plastic chairs that faced the booking desk, waiting to be taken back for photos and fingerprints. Axel and his pal didn’t rate the trust required for the chairs. Axel was shackled to one end of a metal bench that ran along the back of the room. His older cohort, still wearing only dirty white boxer shorts, was chained to the other end.

Jack was leaning on a shoulder-high desk that ran the length of the room talking to one of the four deputies on duty, a huge black guy named Craig Tatum who had biceps like over-ripe cantaloupes. Both of them were staring at Axel who was staring right back, his eyes lidded. Birch glanced her way and stopped talking. She crooked a finger at him and he crossed the dingy tile to stand beside her, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes stayed on Axel.

The teenager yawned, tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“Herby Lubbock is Rankin’s attorney,” Victoria began. “Says he’s got legal guardianship.”

“Driver’s license says he’s twenty-seven,” Birch replied without turning her way. “Little old for family court.”

“Does he look twenty-seven to you?”

“He looks like a murderer to me,” Jack said. “Bastrop and Abby and God knows how many others.”

Rankin started to snore.

Victoria sighed and her shoulders slumped. “I agree, but we can’t take the chance. No questions without Lubbock present,” she said, but she wasn’t so sure about Abby Sutton being Rankin’s handiwork. The teenager had seemed sincere in his denial outside the dope house. She almost believed him. Almost. “Until we get a birth certificate we play it careful.”

Jack nodded, still watching Axel.

“Book him, but don’t put him upstairs. Lock him up in one of the holding cells until morning.”

“You bet,” Jack said. A long two minutes passed as Jack continued to stare expressionlessly at Axel while Victoria stared at Jack’s profile, frowning.

“Jack.”

“Hmm?” He was barely listening to her.

“Maybe you should let another homicide team take this case,” she said.

That got Birch’s attention. His eyes were as cold as February on the Panhandle when he turned them on her.

“Abby was mine and Bastrop’s, counselor,” he said. “We started it and I reckon I’ll finish it. And that’s enough said about that.”

Victoria didn’t argue, though she was still concerned. Not about the case - Birch was a professional to the gristle; he’d do everything by the book as coolly as a machine. No, she was worried about Jack. She could tell that he was hurting, though she doubted that most people would have seen it. She knew that his remoteness was more bluff than fact. A shield that hid a sense of honor and compassion that was challenged every single day on the job.

“You know, Bastrop was in love with you,” Birch said, his eyes defrosting a few degrees. He gave her a sliver of a smile.

“More like in lust,” Victoria said and couldn’t help laughing. But it wasn’t a good laugh. It got stuck in her throat and almost turned into a sob.

Victoria and Birch stopped talking when a pair of uniformed deputies came in from the back of the jail. The jailers unhooked boxer shorts and led him back. Rankin kept snoring.

“We need to get the records for Rankin’s cell phone,” she said. “Find out who warned him about you and Bastrop.” She still couldn’t believe it was a cop, but if it was…she’d nail the bastard.

Birch nodded. “Got an officer writing up warrant requests right now. Cell phone, car, apartment. Dizzy’s team is on standby.”

“Let me know what they find.”

Birch nodded. “I gotta call Bastrop’s sister,” he sighed. “They weren’t close, but she was all the family he had.”

Victoria nodded numbly. From somewhere back in one of the holding cells a man called mournfully for Jesus.

“I’ll call you tomorrow about Axel,” Birch said over his shoulder as he headed for the rear doors.

Victoria stopped him with a question. “Did you ever talk to Val about Abby?’

Birch shook his head. “No, never got the chance.”

Victoria nodded glumly. She watched Birch exit the booking room, then turned her gaze back to Rankin. Maybe he really was seventeen. In repose he looked even younger. That thought just deepened her depression. She knew the boy was a stone-cold killer and that he’d almost certainly pay for that with his life, but she couldn’t help thinking about Rankin’s parents. Of how she would feel if the situation was reversed. She shivered again. That could never be Max or Kyle, she told herself, but she knew it for a lie. She had seen too many good parents crying in courtrooms to believe that anyone was immune.

Victoria shook herself. There was nothing left for her to do. She was exhausted, filthy, and sore from head to broken toe. She just wanted to get out of there. To get far away from killers and creepo-lawyers and the cold cinderblocks impacted with the musty, sweaty smell of desperation and rage. She wanted the twins to hug and kiss. She wanted a hot bath and clean clothes.

She went out the way she had come in. Herby was waiting for her. He flew up from the bench, his mouth already open and running, but Victoria wasn’t listening anymore. She walked right past him to the rear doors.

“He’s going to be held downstairs this evening, but you better have a birth certificate on my desk by tomorrow morning or he’ll be on level six in time for bologna sandwiches,” she said as she blew past him.

She pushed through the door, slamming it closed behind her, cutting off anything Herby might have had to say. That made her feel a little better.