Before I Wake (2 page)

Justice, Illinois.

At least it had the sound of being an interesting town.

* * *

Justice was a quiet town; all his friends said so. Sheriff Nathan Justice drove down Main Street watching a group form on the east side of the street in front of city hall. He slowed.

Teenagers congregating on corners were his normal problem on a Saturday morning, but today it was the adults. He scanned the backs of jackets for union logos and sought out faces. Several were long-term union members and in the center of the closing circle was the union treasurer.

Nathan pulled over to the curb and let the squad car idle. He watched his patrol commander Chet Peterson leave the coffee shop and walk over to join the group, his bulk and uniform parting the crowd.

Chet had been a union member before joining the police force, and his presence had the desired influence. The group spread out even as the discussion grew louder. The strike at the tile plant had entered its fifteenth day and stress was growing in proportion to the days without a paycheck. The union contract had expired, a new one to replace the rolling extensions wasn’t in place, and emotions were rising.

Chet glanced his direction and quietly motioned that he had it covered. Nathan put the car back in gear.
May the day just end without violence. . . .

Nathan parked in the nearly empty parking lot behind the Justice Police Department and unbuckled his seat belt, but he did not open the door. He sat and looked at the chipped paint on the hand railing leading to the back entrance and he waited, hoping for any sense of optimism to return.

The town bore his family name and he was the one on duty watching it crumble.

If only he were wealthy and wise, he’d buy the tile plant and keep it open, keep employees paid, and keep this community together. If the plant closed, the stress of losing fifty-two direct jobs, as well as the work that flowed to local businesses, would decimate the town economy and trigger a cascade of business failures.

Those failures would ripple through the downtown area, forcing people to move to find work, collapsing housing prices, and weakening the tax base. The mayor was his mother; Nathan knew in excruciating detail how the plant’s closing down would impact the town budget.

If there was optimism to be found, he couldn’t find it. He pushed open the car door. Someone had to keep the peace and he had sworn the oath to do so. He just hoped this didn’t end with his having to arrest his friends.

Nathan entered the police department and took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor where officer desks dominated the open space. His small office tucked into the corner had a door for privacy, but it was open, a box fan in the doorway turned on high. Winter outside meant the building’s old furnace created a sauna inside. He stepped around the fan. His deputy chief was waiting for him.

“I heard it was a bad wreck,” Will Rickker said, offering the transfer sheet Nathan had come back to sign.

“The SUV went down the embankment on the east side of the river and slammed into the railroad bridge. The gas tank punctured, and the fireball scorched the wood to the second level of crossbeams. It could have been a disaster. I’ve got railroad engineers out there now assessing the damage.”

Nathan shed his gloves but not his coat and searched for a pen. “If we don’t get warning lights ahead of that curve, it’s only a matter of time before there’s another fatal accident out there. The state highway department is promising action before the end of next week, but I’ve heard that before. I want us to step up patrols and start issuing speeding tickets a mile ahead of that curve until the problem is resolved.”

“I’ll talk to patrol.”

Nathan scrawled his signature approving Noland Reed’s application to the county narcotics task force. Every department in the area was vying for the precious slots on the task force, for once there, an officer had access to better resources and his salary was paid for by a federal grant. He hoped Reed got accepted.

Drugs flowing from the south up to Chicago were coming through the county in ever increasing volume and it was creating a cottage industry of safe houses and homegrown labs. Nathan had been diverting ever larger portions of his department’s budget to keeping the problem out of his community. He handed the papers back to Will.

“The posting for the opening is going up at ten and I’ll be there to hand over the paperwork,” Will promised.

“You could send Carol.”

“I could, but we need the radio upgrades and shifting Noland’s salary is how we pay for it. If there are problems with the paperwork that I can’t solve on the spot I’m tracking you down.”

“I’ll stay reachable.”

Nathan moved around to the credenza to pour himself a cup of coffee. He’d fixed the pot at 1 a.m. and it was almost gone. “What’s the latest here?”

“The contract talks broke down about twenty minutes ago. The union team walked out first. Adam looked mad as a hornet and he pushed through the gathered men without stopping to comment.”

“He’ll go steam somewhere in private rather than spread that anger to his men. What about management?”

“Zachary paused to make a short statement to the newspaper. The bottom line is still the health-care cost increases. There was some pushing and shoving between the picket-line guys and the company guys when word spread there were no new talks scheduled.”

Nathan drank his coffee and let himself worry. “There’s going to be trouble.”

Will nodded. “The union is riding close rein on their guys, but if no new talks get scheduled soon, we’re going to start losing control. We’ve already had some minor vandalism of plant trucks: graffiti and slashed tires. We need to avoid either side having a press conference and digging in their positions.”

“I’m more worried about management trying to bring in strike breakers next week. Can we get through Monday with the officer rotations we have now?”

“We’ve got three officers at the plant, another two monitoring the picket lines, and we’ve stepped up patrols around the homes of the negotiators and plant managers. Short of having to start making arrests, we can handle it.”

“How’s morale?”

“Officers are wondering when this will end, but for the most part keeping their opinion of the strike to themselves and doing their jobs.”

Nathan studied the duty board. The names ran out before the assignments did. He had four ladies with protection orders against ex-husbands and boyfriends, two unsolved rapes, five open burglaries, and the county task force suspicion that there was at least one clandestine meth lab operating somewhere in his area.

He had more problems than he did men to solve them. The department only had twenty-six officers and some of those were part-time. “I don’t want to ask for more overtime unless it’s a crisis; we’re already pushing the men hard. What else happened in town overnight?”

“We had three calls reporting a prowler out on Kerns Road that haven’t been resolved. Someone took Goodheart’s pickup again; officers found it out of gas down by the lake pavilion. Overall, it was a pretty quiet night.”

“We needed one. I need to have a frank talk with the union steward today. If a man can’t pay his bills, he gets angry. If a man can’t feed his kids, he gets desperate. The other side of desperate is dangerous. We need a better handle on how guys on the picket lines are doing.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange.”

Nathan spotted the chief dispatcher. He leaned out the office door. “Eileen, how’s your voice doing?”

“Raw, but there. Just don’t come near me and catch this.”

“The pharmacist has your prescription refill ready. Call over, and he’ll deliver it here.”

“What did you do, bribe him?”

“Anything to keep my favorite lady answering my radio calls.”

She laughed. “Thanks, Nathan.”

He looked at the clock. “Will, after you deliver that file, why don’t you head home and get some sleep. You can spell me around dinner.”

“I can take tomorrow morning for you.”

“I’ll take you up on it.” Nathan had yet to find a substitute to take his Sunday school class of junior high boys and the last day he had off—it had been before the strike started. “If you need me in the short term, I’ll be patrolling on the highway, keeping speeds down while they clear that wreck. After that, I’ll be over at the plant.”

Will nodded. Nathan pulled on his gloves and headed back out to patrol.

* * *

Death was such an interesting process. Nella’s eyes flickered open. She tried to focus on him. Her eyes began to water as they widened. Her hand pushed against the blanket to slide out but didn’t have the strength to push the heavy weight aside. Her breath began to come in gasps. He watched, interested in the way her nerves reacted as the seizure hit. Her neck stiffened and tilted back. Her blue eyes filmed over as membranes broke. She bit her tongue. As seizures went, it was small and lasted less than a minute.

Her breathing stopped.

He watched for death changes, in her eyes or in her muscles, and saw her go slack. A double dose of the new formula killed; there was no surprise there. The tougher question would be to find a dose that gave the euphoric high without killing as it wore off.

He turned away and swung his legs to the floor, sitting on the side of the bed and stretching. He picked up his shirt.

He tugged against her weight to free the sheet; her limp body settled into the bed and pillow. He tossed the blanket back up and made his presence in her bed less obvious. He buttoned his jeans and bent to pick up his shoes.

He had to force the window to get it to rise in the aged frame. The window screen had numerous tears in the wire mesh; he used his finger to widen a few of them. He let the window come down under its own weight and it jammed off center, half an inch from closed. He rocked the frame with his hand and it just jammed tighter. Good. Let the bugs come in.

He turned on the ceiling fan and closed the bedroom door. In the hallway, he turned the thermostat to eighty-four. Nella liked to keep her rooms warm; she complained to everyone about the heating bills and how her poor circulation gave her cold feet. He’d attest to the fact that her feet were cold; it had annoyed him for the last four years.

In the kitchen he retrieved the last of the wine he’d brought and poured himself another glass. He walked to the window. The rising sun left the woods between the house and the town of Justice in dark relief.

He could go home or back to work or to meet the guys at the union hall. He considered that and the absolute senseless way this weekend was going. Had she just been able to keep her mouth shut, he could have had another couple hours of sleep. But she liked to talk to strangers.

He finished the wine, took the bottle with him, and closed the front door, letting it lock behind him.

2

What did she know about being a private investigator? Cheating spouses, missing child support, employee theft, insurance fraud . . . Rae winced just thinking about the cases she’d likely see in her first year working with Bruce. The shift from the intensity of undercover work to working small jobs for the public was going to be an abrupt change of pace. She’d learn to enjoy the work or she’d suffer the boredom.

She rubbed at her right forearm. She didn’t care if there was a scar; she just wished the gash would stop itching as it healed. She had dealt with a lot of violence in her undercover career, but never before at the hands of another agent.

Reaching down, she changed the radio station. She could tell she was nearing her childhood home. The talk radio had turned conservative, snow-covered fields dominated the landscape, and she grew accustomed to passing semis and tanker trucks that stacked in the right lane in long convoys. She loved the Midwest even though she’d not been back very often in the last decade.

Sirens interrupted her thoughts.

She instinctively looked ahead at the heavy interstate traffic and then looked in the rearview mirror and saw flashing lights.

She checked her speed and immediately eased up on the gas. She had a faint hope those lights were not for her but as the police car closed the distance it moved into the lane behind her.

Rae sighed and turned on her blinkers, acknowledging she saw him. She slowed. There were no exits ahead she could see but there was a wider shoulder where the railroad joined to flow alongside the interstate. She pulled to the side of the road, activated her hazard lights, and put the car into park. She’d made it all the way to her home state before getting pulled over; she didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.

She touched a button to lower the window. The temperature immediately dropped. The radio was blaring outside and she hit a button to shut it off. In the rearview mirror she could see the officer sitting in the police car, talking on his radio, likely calling in her license-plate numbers and location of the stop.

The officer got out of the squad car, a tall man with dark hair blowing in the stiff breeze, his jacket a deep blue and designed for the cold.

She left her hands on the steering wheel as she watched him walk toward the car. He was watching her as well as studying the car. She waited until he drew even with her before moving to rest her arm on the open window frame.

“Good morning, Ma’am.” He scanned the interior of the vehicle. “Do you realize you were speeding?”

“When I heard your sirens I did. I’m afraid my thoughts were elsewhere. My error.”

“I clocked you crossing eighty miles per hour. May I see your license and registration please?”

“My purse is in the backseat.”

He nodded and she turned to retrieve it. She fumbled unzipping her purse. He patiently waited while she figured out how she had zipped fabric into the zipper teeth and got the inside compartment open.

Her leather case that had held her badge for so many years was empty, but she didn’t think she’d have tried to ask for a law enforcement courtesy to get out of the ticket even if she still carried it. Speeding was her own private little demon and she paid for it regularly. She handed over her license and car registration.