“Who the fuck is that?” yells Oakley.
Before his partner can answer, the brakes screech, the truck slides to a stop, and Lincoln Turner leaps out of the driver’s seat, a sawed-off shotgun in his big hands. He loses no time pointing the gaping barrel at the man nearest him, which is Oakley.
“Throw down your guns, motherfuckers!”
The two men look at each other, then one pistol hits the boards of the pier.
“Kick it in the water,” Lincoln tells me.
I do.
“Yours too, shithead!” Lincoln barks, jabbing his shotgun at Oakley.
Oakley’s pistol hits the pier, and I kick it into the water as well.
“Check their ankles.”
Oakley is wearing an ankle holster with a .25 automatic in it. I draw that and pocket it, then take out the men’s wallets. In short order I learn that they are police officers, both from Monroe, Louisiana. Oakley’s last name is Kennard, and his buddy’s is Grimsby.
“They’re city cops from Monroe,” I say, walking over to Lincoln’s side and facing the men. “Who sent you here?”
Neither answers.
“Forrest Knox. Right?”
The flicker of surprise in Kennard’s eyes tells me I’m right. Turning to his partner, I say, “You know what happened last night. You were here, weren’t you?”
Grimsby’s eyes keep flicking to Lincoln’s shotgun. “Who the fuck is this?” he asks.
“No friend of yours,” Lincoln bellows. “Although you probably figured that when you saw my color.”
“Dad was here last night,” I tell Lincoln. “I think this asshole was, too. We need to know what he knows.”
Lincoln steps forward and cracks Grimsby across the jaw with the barrel of his shotgun.
The man staggers but manages to hold his feet, blood dribbling from his mouth. Rage brews in his eyes, but Lincoln just laughs and says, “You cops ain’t used to that kind of treatment, are you? That’s how the other half lives.”
“You’re a dead man,” says the cop in the sunglasses.
Lincoln’s half smile vanishes, and he steps up to Kennard. The man flinches when Lincoln raises his hand, but instead of hitting him, Lincoln yanks off the Oakley sunglasses and crushes them in his hand. “I’ll tell you boys right now, there ain’t no percentage in staying quiet. Next man who refuses to answer a question get his jaw broke.”
Kennard shakes his head, but I can tell Grimsby is afraid.
“What happened here last night?” I repeat.
“Your old man shot my partner,” Grimsby says. “Late last night. Right there.” He points at the bloodstains on the grass.
Lincoln and I share a glance, but I can’t read his eyes. I know this, though: if Dad really killed another cop, he’s thrown away whatever chance he had of survival.
“How did that happen?” I ask. “How did he get the drop on two cops?”
“He had a pistol in his pants pocket,” Grimsby says. “We didn’t know it was there.”
“Why did he shoot?”
The cop’s eyes go wide. “I don’t know!”
“He wouldn’t have shot except to save his own life. You were about to kill him, weren’t you?”
“No!”
“Bullshit,” says Lincoln, stepping closer to Grimsby. “Who told you to kill him?”
“Nobody, I swear!”
“I’ll fuck you up,” Lincoln says, raising the shotgun over Grimsby.
“Go ahead,” says Kennard. “Kill him. You’ll be doing him a favor, compared to what would happen if he tells you what you want to know.”
Lincoln gives me a questioning look.
Taking out my cell phone, I start looking for John Kaiser’s number.
“Who you calling?” Lincoln asks.
“FBI.”
“No,” says Kennard. “Don’t do that.”
“Tell us who sent you here.”
Neither answers.
“You work for Forrest Knox. Nobody else would scare the piss out of cops, except maybe Brody Royal, and he’s dead. And you two are way too young to be Double Eagles.”
Kennard is looking hard at his wallet in my hand. Is he stupid enough or desperate enough to try to escape? I point my .357 at his belly. “Where were ya’ll when I pulled up?”
“Neighbor’s house,” says Grimsby. “Nobody home over there. Our car’s on the far side of that house.”
“What you want to do with them?” Lincoln asks. “Give them to the FBI?”
Grimsby shakes his head and says, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you’ll let us go.”
“Tell me what happened last night. Everything.”
The man takes a deep breath, then looks over at the blood on the grass. “My partner was going to shoot your old man. We had orders, that’s all I’ll say about that. But at the last second, the doc shot my partner in the stomach using a pistol in his pants. Then he put the gun on me. He made me carry my partner up the hill, then drugged me with something. Later on he dumped me out in the middle of nowhere, and the body with me.”
“If you guys had been working as legitimate cops at the time, that would have been all over the news. In fact, I still don’t know why Forrest wouldn’t put out a release saying Dad killed another cop. What kind of game is Forrest playing?”
Grimsby shrugs, and Kennard doesn’t look like he knows the answer either.
“Why the hell would you come back here?” Lincoln asks.
“Forrest ordered him to,” I guess. “Right?”
Before Grimsby can answer or evade the question, Kennard breaks to his right and sprints past me, running in a zigzag pattern. Lincoln fires his shotgun, but only into the air. Seeing this, Grimsby bolts as well.
Lincoln aims after his retreating figure. “Want me to shoot him?”
“No. I’ve got their IDs.”
“I can hit him in the legs.”
“We don’t need the hassle.” I shove the cops’ wallets into my pocket.
As the men disappear around the neighbor’s house, Lincoln lowers the shotgun. “Whose house is this?”
“Drew Elliott’s. One of Dad’s medical partners.”