Overkill (5 page)

“What do people do around here, anyway?”

“Ranching and farming are the mainstays. Not much manufacturing or white collar here. We’ve got the farm store. The John Deere dealership off the main highway. There’s a feedlot fifteen miles to the south.”

“Feedlot? That’s not a restaurant, is it?”

“It’s where cows are fattened up for market. You don’t want to be downwind.”

“Gotcha.”

“There’s a grain elevator between here and there.” He shrugged. “Pretty exciting stuff.”

“Crime rate?”

“Nil. The occasional DUI or bar fight. Those are about the only incidents that occur on a regular basis.” He glanced at her, but she was already looking out the window, ignoring him. “We’ve got some badass cows in this county, though. You ever get into a tussle with a cow?”

She turned to him and blinked. Then her lips curved. “Not since that biker chick on the Fifty-seventh Street Beach.”

She had a pretty mouth. Very white teeth. This time, the smile reached all the way to her eyes, and for an instant, Clay couldn’t look away.

“I’m betting she lost,” he said thickly.

“She did.”

“Speaking of cows, have you ever been to a rodeo?”

“Do biker bars count?”

Now it was his turn to smile. “There’s one at the sheriff’s posse arena this weekend, if you’re curious. Might be a good way for you to get out and meet some people. Get a feel for the community.”

She didn’t reply, and he wondered if she already had plans. If maybe she was going to fly back to Chicago. If maybe she had a boyfriend there . . .

Before he could order himself to stop, Jo Nell’s voice crackled over the police radio. “Chief, you there?”

Recognizing his dispatcher’s tone, he quickly reached for the mike. “I’m here.”

“I just got a call from Nola Miles a minute ago. We got a disturbance again over at Foley’s Bar.”

Annoyance swept through Clay. Foley’s Bar was Caprock Canyon’s main drinking establishment and a magnet for thirsty troublemakers countywide. “What kind of disturbance?”

“How do I know? Some kind of ruckus. Nola was screamin’ her head off and didn’t give too many details.”

“I’m on the way.”

Racking the mike, he made a U-turn in the middle of Cactus Street and hit the gas.

“Trouble?” Hogan asked.

Clay didn’t miss the anticipation that jumped into her eyes. “Bar fight.”

She arched a brow. “Really?”

“Don’t get too excited, Hogan. You’re going to sit this one out.”

“Good to know you have such faith in my policing skills, Chief.”

Clay shot her a sideways glance and frowned.

“So, do you get many calls like this one?”

“We average a call a week from Nola, the bar owner. Everything from fights to fires to bathroom drug deals and prostitution.”

“Wow, I’m impressed.”

“Foley’s Bar is pretty much one-stop shopping. You get that when you mix booze, boredom and discontent.”

“I’m starting to feel right at home.”

Clay cut the conversation short when he turned into the gravel parking lot of the bar in question. Pickup trucks of every shape and size, a single car of indistinguishable origin and a row of a dozen or more chrome-laden Harley-Davidson motorcycles formed a haphazard line outside the front door. It was one of only a handful of drinking establishments in Deaf Smith County. The music and booze and lure of the occasional female drew cowboys, bikers, wayward teens and the unwary traveler from miles away.

Gravel spewed as he slid to a stop next to a pickup truck where four scruffy Australian shepherds stood erect, their combined attention focused on the front door. Clay and Marty slid from the Explorer simultaneously. Two pickup trucks down, a man in a black leather vest and suede chaps had fallen to his hands and knees and spewed vomit onto the gravel.

“Pretty glamorous place you got here, Chief.” Marty stepped around the downed man, giving him a good bit of room. “I’ll bet you bring all the girls here.”

“You think the parking lot is nice, just wait till you see the inside.”

“I can hardly wait.”

Walking into Foley’s Bar and Grill was like entering a cave replete with intoxicated cavemen, wild monkeys and the occasional cavewoman. Clay paused just inside the front door and gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light and the onslaught of stimuli to his senses. From speakers the size of refrigerators mounted above the bar, Eric Clapton belted out a song about an illicit narcotic. The bass drums rattled glasses and bottles with the violence of a small earthquake. The odors of cigarette smoke, hard liquor and spilled beer mingled with the darker scents of unwashed bodies and marijuana.

Clay didn’t have to ask where the problem was. A crowd had gathered between the two pool tables at the back of the room, all eyes on some commotion just inside the wall of bodies. A couple of dozen men wearing everything from cowboy hats to black leather hooted and cheered and shouted the occasional obscenity. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had them so excited.

“Catfight,” Clay muttered.

“Still want me to sit this one out?”

“Yeah, I do.” He cut her a hard look to let her know he wasn’t kidding. He knew some of these people. Knew how to handle them to keep the situation from escalating. “Call Jo Nell,” he said. “Tell her to get Jett out here pronto.”

Marty didn’t look happy about being relegated to the sidelines, but she reached for her mike and relayed his request. As they started toward the crowd, he saw her slip into cop mode. Eyes hard and watchful, her hand resting easily on her expandable baton, she scanned the room, an occasional glance over her shoulder. A cop through and through. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he felt confident he could count on her to watch his back.

“Fucking
bitch
!”

A series of earsplitting shrieks ripe with expletives exploded from a female mouth somewhere in the melee.

“Police. Step aside.” Clay fought through the throng of people, toward the nucleus of the fight. “Come on, folks. Let me through.”

He heard Marty behind him, echoing his words, stronger than he would have liked, but backing him up the way he’d asked. “Police! Move it! Now!”

Two dozen undulating bodies crowded into the small space between the pool tables. Clay pushed forward. Marty brought up the rear. So far so good.

A man as wide as a barn stepped aside, and Clay caught his first glimpse of the fracas. Pale flesh and black leather and long strands of blond hair clutched in a fist. Two women grappled as if in fast motion on the stained linoleum floor, in a blur of fists and hair and bare flesh.

“Get off me!” one of the women screamed. “Get the fuck off me!”

Clay didn’t wait to hear more; there was no way he could wait for backup. He knew from experience that this was the kind of situation that could escalate quickly. He had to defuse things before everyone in the place started punching everyone else.

Bending, he caught a skin-and-bones brunette beneath the arms and attempted to haul her back. “Police. Let’s go.”

She snaked around, bared tobacco-stained teeth and snarled like a dog. “Get your hands off me!”

“Not in this lifetime.”

She twisted her head to one side. Clay jerked his hand away just in time to avoid what would have been a nasty bite. “Have it your way, sunshine,” he growled. “You’re under arrest.”

The cuffs were midway from his belt when someone bumped him from behind. Clay didn’t know if the shove was on purpose or by accident, but it was hard enough to send him to his hands and knees. The brunette scuttled away. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder to see a bald man the size of a woolly mammoth start toward him. Clay recognized him; he’d seen him before in this very bar, as a matter of fact. Had a weird name for such a big oaf. Timmy or something. And Clay knew from experience that, despite his size, Timmy was relatively harmless. But this time he looked pissed.

Clay got his legs under him, scrambled to his feet. “You need to calm down,” he warned.

“I ain’t gonna do nothing,” the man said. “Just don’t want you getting rough with my woman.”

The way he was coming toward him, Clay wasn’t so sure of Timmy’s claim. Just to be safe, he set his hand on his baton. “Back off now.”

The flash of blue uniform seemed to come out of nowhere. He saw lips peeled back in a snarl. Determination etched into a pale face. The black steel of a baton being snapped to its full, effective length. Marty, he realized. And all he could think was that Timmy had just bitten off more than he could chew.

FOUR

“Huh?”

As if watching a scene from some second-rate action flick, Clay saw Marty slam the baton down between the man’s shoulder blades. Her voice rose above the bawdy shouts as she ordered him to put his hands behind his back.

Evidently, Timmy had other ideas.

An animalistic howl erupted from his throat as he spun. Hogan, a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, dropped into a street fighter’s stance. To Clay, she looked like a house cat about to square off against a rogue pit bull bent on having her for lunch.

“That hurt, you bitch cop!”

“Drop the weapon! Do it now!”

Hit-or-miss teeth clenched in an alcohol-induced rage, the man lunged at her.

Dancing back a few steps, Hogan swung the baton a second time. Barry Bonds slamming in a home run. The weapon connected with the man’s shoulder, so hard Clay heard the slap of steel against flesh and muscle.

It wasn’t enough to stop Timmy.

“Get down on the floor!” Hogan shouted. “
Now!
”

It was as if Clay were stuck in slow motion. The crowd’s attention had shifted from the fighting women to the female cop about to face off with a man twice her size. Clay couldn’t move fast enough to stop any of it. Snapping his own baton to its full length, he lunged into the crowd and began pushing his way toward them.

Through the throng of bodies, Clay saw the man swing at Marty. Not the jab of some staggering drunk. But a bone-crunching, roundhouse blow that could have launched even the biggest man to kingdom come. Clay didn’t want to think about what it might do to a 110-pound scrap of a woman. Knock her head off, maybe.

But Marty seemed prepared and ducked right with the prowess of a boxer. Before the man could line up for another shot, she pulled her pepper spray canister from her belt and blasted the man’s face with capsicum acid.

“Get on the ground now! Put your hands behind your back!” She didn’t wait for him to comply, and drew back the baton a third time.

Clay used his shoulder to get through the final line of bystanders separating them. From ten feet away he saw what was going to happen next, and knew he couldn’t get there in time to stop it.

The brunette came at Marty from behind, screaming as if she were on fire. Marty raised the canister and sprayed the woman in the face. Screeching like a set of bad brakes, the woman went to her knees, clawing at her face.

“Hogan!” Clay yelled a warning.

But he was too late. She spun back to Timmy, but the man was already too close and lined up for another punch. His fist shot out like iron from a cannon. Marty raised the canister and sprayed, but she wasn’t fast enough. The stream of capsicum acid hit Timmy between the eyes right about the same time his fist connected with her cheek. The impact snapped her head back. She reeled backward. Her legs tangled. She hit the floor hard on her back and lay still.

“Hogan!”

Clay broke through the crowd. Fury infused his body as he rushed toward her. The knowledge that the situation was now officially out of control rushed his mind. Before he even realized what he was going to do, he found his revolver in his hand, leveled at the man.

“Get down on the ground!” he shouted. “Do it now!”

A few feet away the man clawed at his eyes and bellowed a curse. “It burns!”

When the man didn’t move fast enough, Clay shoved him to the floor. Once he was down, he quickly snapped the cuffs on wrists the size of tree trunks, then turned to help Marty.

He gave her points for getting to her feet. She stood next to the bar, head down, leaning heavily against it. Nola Miles, the bar owner, gripped her biceps. One look, and Clay knew she’d been clobbered a good one. A cut stood out stark and red on her cheekbone. Her left eye was already beginning to swell. It would be black by the time they got back to the station.

Damn it.

“Hogan,” he said, surprised to find he was still out of breath. “You okay?”

“As soon as I find my eyeballs, I’ll be just fine,” she said.

Even Nola, who was as hard and dry as the Texas plain, looked shaken. “He hit her hard, Chief. She’s going to have one hell of a shiner.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.” Marty gestured toward the cuffed man. “He’s got a weapon.”

Clay cocked his head. “A gun? Knife?”

“I’m not sure. But I saw it. In his waistband at the small of his back. He reached for it.”

“I ain’t got no fuckin’ gun,” the man growled.

Frowning, Clay knelt beside the man and yanked the hem of his shirt from his pants. “Where is it, Slick?”

“I ain’t got nothin’!” he spat. “Get this shit out of my eyes! It burns!”

Clay felt around the waistband, pulled out a wallet and checked the driver’s license. “Timothy Burris. Tucumcari.”

“It ain’t against the law to be me, is it?”

“Only if you hit a cop or have a gun on you without a conceal carry license.”

“I ain’t got no gun.”

Roughly, the chief turned him over, checked the front of his pants, his pant legs, even his shoes and socks. “You got any warrants, Timmy?”

“I ain’t got nothin’.” He glared at Marty. “She’s lyin’, man.”

Clay made eye contact with Marty, pleased that she held his gaze. But the initial fingers of doubt walked down his spine. Rising, he approached the bar owner. “You know that guy?”

“Been in before. Comes in every so often with some biker types from New Mexico. Usually keeps to hisself. Don’t know what got into him today.”

“I think it’s called alcohol.”

The bartender chortled.

Raising his head, the man glared at Marty. “She’s what got into me. Hit me with that damn stick.”

Clay ignored him. “He won’t be back for a while.”

“We ain’t going to miss him none.”

Clay turned to Marty, caught a glimpse of the cut on her cheek and had to bank the rise of protective instinct. She was a cop. He had to keep that in mind. But the man had hit her hard. Broke the skin open on her cheek. She would, indeed, have a black eye. “I’m taking you to the clinic.”

“I don’t need to go to the clinic.”

“Yeah, I can tell by the way your eyes are crossed.” He was about to hit the mike clipped to the lapel of his jacket to check on backup when he spotted Jett coming through the front door.

Clay did a quick scan of the place. The skinny brunette was nowhere in sight. Probably halfway to the New Mexico state line by now. Some of the bystanders had decided now was a good time to leave. The rest had lined up at the bar for another round. A catfight and an arrest all in a single day were about all the excitement they could hope for.

In any case, the situation was under control. He supposed he could type up his report when he got back to the station.

Now all he had to do was deal with Hogan.

 
“The good news is you’re not going to need stitches. The
bad news is you’re going to have one hell of a black eye.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.” Marty sat on the gurney in the exam room of the Caprock Canyon Medical Clinic and tried not to fidget. She’d never liked doctors, especially when she was a patient. But Clay had ignored her protests and brought her here anyway.

Doc Harrigan was almost interesting enough to make her change her point of view. He was ninety years old if he was a day, with wrinkled brown skin and long white hair he kept pulled into a neat ponytail at his nape. His brows were the color of a raven’s wing and rode low over dark, intelligent eyes that made him look much younger.

Doc made a sound of annoyance, and it was clear he was more distressed by the notion of a male assaulting a female than a drunken hoodlum slugging a cop. “I hope the perpetrator is in jail.”

“He is.”

At the sound of Clay’s voice, Marty glanced toward the door to see him leaning against the jamb with his arms folded, a toothpick jutting from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t look too happy to be here, either. Judging from the silent treatment she’d received on the drive over, she was probably going to get another lecture on the way back to the station.

The way her day was going, he might even fire her.

But she’d been
certain
she’d seen a weapon. When the suspect shoved Clay, his shirt rode up, revealing a dark object in his waistband.

So where the hell was the gun?

Clay’s eyes were on the doc, but she could tell his attention was on her. “She going to be okay?”

“I butterflied the cut.” He looked at Marty and smiled. “Advil or Tylenol for pain. Ice for the first twenty-four hours, then heat, if you need it.”

She nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“Moral of the story, young lady: don’t pick a fight with someone twice your size.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

The doc turned back to Clay. “Give her the rest of the day off, will you, Chief?”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” Clay’s expression made her wonder if maybe he was going to give her the rest of her life off. “We all done here?”

“She’s good to go.”

Clay pointed at her. “Let’s go, Hogan.”

Marty slid from the gurney and thanked the doc on her way out. She was surprised to see that dusk had fallen. Even more surprised to realize she was only midway through her shift. She felt as if she’d pulled a double. Her head was beginning to pound. The left side of her face felt as if it were twice its normal size. One look at the chief’s expression, and she had the sinking feeling things were going to get worse before they got better.

He didn’t speak until he pulled onto the highway. “How’s the eye?”

“It only hurts when I blink.”

“Try not to blink.” He glanced at her and frowned. “Did you really see a gun?”

She met his gaze evenly. “I saw him reach. I saw something in his waistband. I drew the logical assumption.”

“You saw me search him, Hogan. There was nothing in his waistband.”

“I saw something.” But she could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. That hurt more than she wanted it to. “Maybe he ditched it.”

“It’s possible. He would have had to do it fast. Kick it away or hand it off when we weren’t looking, then have someone snatch it up for him.”

“Maybe someone did.”

He returned his attention to his driving. Marty didn’t know what to say. But her heart was pounding. Her mind was racing. She’d come into this with a shadow of scandal hovering over her head. Combine the incident from this morning with her fellow officers and the fiasco at the bar, and she couldn’t blame the chief for doubting her.

“What the hell were you thinking jumping on that guy, anyway? We had no backup. He had a hundred pounds on you. You thought he had a weapon.”

“He had a weapon. I know you don’t believe me, but I saw him reach.”

“So why didn’t he use it?”

“You know the type. Not a cop killer, but willing to go to great lengths to avoid jail time.”

“So where’s the gun?”

“He ditched it.”

“No one saw it.”

“Except the person he handed it off to.” She grappled for patience that had long since worn thin. “How many times are we going to go over this?”

“As many as it takes.” Clay pulled over.

Marty hadn’t realized he was driving her home. They were parked outside the house she’d rented. She wasn’t sure why, but it embarrassed her. The place was a dump. She was a mess. And her head was pounding like a damn jackhammer.

“You can type up your report tomorrow.” Without speaking, he got out and crossed in front of the car. Realizing he was going to open her door for her, Marty reached for the handle and swung it open herself.

He stepped back and watched her exit the Explorer. She tried not to wince when her head felt as if it wanted to split open, but wasn’t sure she succeeded.

“I’ll walk you in.”

“That’s not necessary.”

He made no move to go back into the Explorer. Feeling awkward, Marty started for the house, trying not to notice the cracks in the sidewalk or the little swirls of dust kicked up by the wind because there wasn’t a stitch of grass in the yard. She walked slightly ahead, refusing to acknowledge the clumsiness of the moment, and tried not to look at the peeling paint or the grimy windows.

On the porch, she fumbled for her key, stuck it in the lock. The door opened to the same drab living room she’d left earlier in the day. In the back of her mind, she wondered if Clay was trying to work up the nerve to fire her.

She turned to face him. “I think I can take it from here.”

He stood just inside the door, his expression inscrutable. Jesus, she was going to have to learn to read him. Not knowing what he was thinking could drive a girl nuts.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get rid of me,” he said.

“I’m not. I just . . .” Her words trailed when he moved more deeply into the house. At first Marty didn’t know what he was doing. Then she realized he was heading toward the kitchen. That he’d spotted the bottle of vodka on her kitchen table. And she knew he was going to ask her about it.

She trailed him as far as the kitchen doorway. He didn’t go directly to the bottle. Instead, he went to the back door and looked out at the bleak landscape beyond.

“I don’t believe you about the gun,” he said.

Six months ago Marty would have given him an argument he wouldn’t soon forget. But because her confidence was at an all-time low, she suddenly felt uncertain. Had she seen a gun? Or had she merely caught a glimpse of a wallet or cell phone and let her imagination take care of the rest?

“You think I’m lying?”

“I think you’re mistaken.”

Because she wasn’t sure which was worse, she didn’t respond.

He wandered to the kitchen table and picked up the bottle of vodka, which was just over half-full. “You drink alone often?”