Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (12 page)

18

After
a long soak in the bathtub, Victoria entered the kitchen dressed in her rattiest pantsuit-pajamas to find Val dishing out Thai takeout from the Green Papaya.

She shambled across the linoleum, walking on the heel of her left foot, keeping her splinted toe clear of the floor. Her knees were scabby, her ribs felt cracked, and her legs and butt were bruised jaundiced yellow, but all her aches and pains were drowned out by hunger when the smell of spicy beef and peppers hit her nostrils. She hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

But even hunger wasn’t enough to push Abby Sutton’s murder out of her thoughts. She was dreading passing that information along to Val, anticipating the dark storm front that would form in his eyes when he heard the name ‘Sutton.’ She wished Jack had called Val with the news. Or that she wasn’t such a coward. What a thoroughly rotten end to a thoroughly rotten day.

Val glanced at his wife. She looked a little better, though still pale and haggard. He knew what she was going through. He had seen more than his fair share of death on the job - crooks, citizens and cops. It wasn’t the kind of thing easily set aside. It changed people, and never for the better.

“Sit,” he told her as he loaded the boys’ plates with seared vegetables and chicken in peanut sauce.

Victoria gratefully dropped into the chair between Max and Kyle’s highchairs. Kyle immediately started rocking his highchair back and forth, managing to get two legs off the floor before Victoria put a giggling-wiggling halt to that by stuffing her hand under his shirt and tickling his belly. Then Max needed tickling too. Soon she was laughing along with them, the boys acting like a tonic for her fractured nerves.

She looked up at her husband. “Feed us already,” she said impatiently. “We’re hungry!”

“Hungy!” Max echoed. “Hungy-hungy-hungy!”

“Never rush the chef,” Val said as he ferried plates to the boys’ highchairs.

“Chef,” Victoria snorted, snagging a snow pea off Max’s plate and popping it into her mouth. “More like box opener.”

“Quit filching the kids’ food. And be quiet.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “Put food in my mouth and I’ll be quiet.”

Val grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “Oh, I’ve got something to put in your mouth.”

“Valentine!” Victoria looked quickly at the boys. They didn’t look up from their plates.

“I was thinking of a dirty dishrag,” he said as he returned to the counter. He opened the cardboard container of beef and peppers and started dishing it onto a plate. “Is S-E-X all you think about?”

Victoria snorted. “You think about it enough for both of us.”

“I wasn’t the one who started it last night,” he reminded her as he put the plate in front of her. He ducked in close and whispered in her ear, “Can’t go a night without it, can ya?”

She whispered back: “Keep running your mouth and we’ll find out just how long I can go without it.” She snatched up her fork. “A lot longer than you, I bet.” She scooped up a huge load of beef and peppers and jammed it into her mouth. She could barely keep her lips closed as she chewed.

Val knew she was kidding, but…he shut up, grabbed a pair of Negro Modelos from the refrigerator, plopped one down in front of Victoria and took a fat swallow of the other. He loaded a plate and joined his wife at the table.

Victoria spoke between swallows of beer and mouthfuls of Thai food, relaying the events of the day from the crime scene on the levee to the shootout at the Syndicate’s dope house, leaving Abby Sutton’s name out altogether. And Laroy Hockley’s, as well. She felt bad for omitting Abby, but not for leaving Laroy out. Call it a twelve-year old girl’s idea of romantic etiquette, but she hesitated to mention the name of an ex-boyfriend. And keeping it on a twelve-year-old’s level was logical when dealing with men: that was about the age when their maturity slowed to a stop.

Even with the omissions, it did her good to talk it through. She had a rough moment there when she told Val about Bastrop, but she managed to get past it without fresh tears.

Val ditched his plate in the sink. Phil Bastrop had been a drunk, and rumor was that he took it out in trade with a series of low-rent hookers, but he was a talented detective.

“More!” Max bellowed, shoving his plate at Val, almost rocketing it right off the highchair’s tray. Val snatched it up and carried it to the counter.

“Say please, Max.”

“Peas!” Max said, but it sounded like a demand. “Peas!”

Val scooped food onto the boy’s plate. He didn’t look up at Victoria as he spoke. This was going to be hard enough.

“So, you think this Rankin killed Abby Sutton?”

Victoria’s head snapped up. How had Val found out about Abby? Probably one of his cop buddies. Or, she thought darkly, that ‘old friend’ of his at the Dallas Morning News, Renee Petersen. Victoria was glad to not be the bearer of that news.

But it better not have been Petersen.

“Yes,” she replied cautiously. Once again she considered how fortunate Abby’s murder was for the Sheriff’s Special Tactics Unit, but she didn’t mention that nagging suspicion to Val. When it came to the Suttons, the less said the better. Four years of his grim silences had driven that point home. “Abby was Axel Rankin’s girlfriend.” She shivered, remembering the flies crawling over the dead girl’s face.

“Love’s tangled web,” Val replied pessimistically. “Praise God you were lucky enough to find me.”

Victoria was almost too stunned to reply. Valentine was acting very nonchalant. Calm. Almost indifferent. But she wasn’t going to question it.

“I am a lucky girl,” she agreed a little sarcastically, relieved to have the subject pass so easily. She pushed her plate aside, leaned back in her chair, propped her hands on her belly, and burped, then grinned embarrassedly at her husband.

“My delicate little flower,” he said as he grabbed her empty plate.

“Jack will be by to talk to you tomorrow,” she told him. “About Abby.” If Val was going to go all crazy-eyed it would be now.

“Is he bringing a warrant and handcuffs?” Val asked, trying to keep his tone light and not achieving it. Victoria was too tired to notice.

“Just a few questions,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “You know how it works.” For a moment she considered giving him the whole story - telling him about Laroy and Erath’s allegations that Val had murdered Abby - but cowardice got the better of her. She’d leave that to Jack.

Val nodded. Yes he did, but not from this side of the equation. Once again he considered telling Victoria about Garland, Zeke and Jasper Smith, but he just couldn’t do it. She had been through enough that day, and so had he. The past hour with his family in the kitchen had been a balm for the turmoil and violence he had encountered that day. No, for the violence and turmoil he had
perpetrated
. It could wait until after he talked to Jack. Maybe all of this would just blow over and he’d never have to tell her…

Right.
Bottom line: Val was afraid of his wife.

Max and Kyle were done eating so he wiped their faces and checked their diapers. Both were dry and clean front and back. He took the boys out of their highchairs and put them on the kitchen tiles with a pile of stuffed toys. Victoria climbed down between them, leaned back against a table leg and hugged a plush zebra to her chest.

By the time Val had the counter cleared, the leftovers stowed and the dishwasher loaded, Victoria was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

“Go to bed,” he told her as he dropped cross-legged to the floor beside the three. “I’ll keep the kids company.”

Victoria nodded sleepily, stood, knelt to kiss the boys on top of their heads then padded upstairs with a mumbled, “G’night.”

Val checked his watch. It was only 7:00 PM. The sun was still high in the sky, but the heat had started to fade…and the boys had brand new baseball gloves.

“Time for batting practice,” he said as he pushed himself up from the floor. He led the boys out the back door where an oversized red plastic bat and a hollow ball the size of a cantaloupe were waiting. It was never too early to begin training. Val was pretty sure that if his softball team, the Wanderers, was ever going to have a winning season he’d have to breed the team himself.

19

Batting
practice didn’t go as well as Val had hoped. The twins seemed more interested in kicking the ball than hitting it over the fence. That just confirmed his biggest fear: soccer was genetic. The boys were taking after their mother.

Val booted the ball around the overgrown backyard with them until they started to get grumpy. It was almost dark by then so he plopped them into the bathtub for soap and suds. He let them splash around until the water started to turn cold then fished them out, wiggling like freshly netted tuna, diapered them and zipped them into their pajamas. They were all yawns and whines by then, but if he tried to put them down in their crib they’d pitch a fuss and wake Victoria. Instead he took them into the living room, fixed a pallet for them on the floor and flicked on the news.

The shootout was the top story. They replayed the video footage of Victoria’s sprint through gunfire three times from beginning to end. Val could have lived without that, but at least the shootout had taken the wind out of the Abby Sutton murder story. It got barely two minutes, mainly a rehash of her brothers’ crimes and violent deaths. Val’s name was only mentioned once, as the cop who had been run off the force after crippling the teenage girl. One more accusation without substantiation. By the time the weatherman was done predicting a weekend of cloudless skies and bacon-crisping temperatures, the boys were sound asleep, curled up into a pile like baby rabbits. Val waited a half hour longer, flipping back and forth between the local sports roundup and a rerun of Cheers then carried them upstairs to the nursery. He left the door open and went back to the kitchen for the next-to-last Negro Modelo.

Normally, this was the best time of the day - chores finished, boys in bed and a couple of hours for him and Victoria to relax. Maybe even get a little frisky if the mood took them, and he did his best to make sure it did, but tonight was different. He was keyed up. Tense. He couldn’t put the day behind him. And watching another three replays of his wife risking her life sure hadn’t helped.

Val sighed and sipped his beer. She’d taken it too far today, but she’d been doing her job as she saw it. How could he criticize that after what he had done that day? His anger at her was nothing compared to how furious she’d be if she found out that he had ditched the boys to go roust a bunch of ex-cons. And that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that he had lied to Victoria. And she
would
find out eventually. Christ, he didn’t even want to think about the fireworks that would produce.

It wasn’t that late, but Val was beat. He rose, ditched his empty beer bottle in the trashcan then circled the interior of the house, checking all the doors and windows before setting the burglar alarm. A nightly ritual, but there was nothing ritualistic about it tonight. It was deadly serious. Jasper Smith was out there somewhere…

Val ended his tour in the garage, in front of his gun safe. He spun the combination and opened the door to the almost empty lock box.

He had sold almost every gun he owned when the twins were born. He didn’t want them in the house, but he hadn’t parted with his Winchester Defender twelve-gauge pump or the .45 caliber Colt that his father had carried in Viet Nam. Those two weapons were more than enough firepower for your average Texas househusband.

Val stared at the shotgun, tempted to haul it out, but he knew the statistics for a loaded firearm in a home with children. Instead, he took an oblong cardboard box from the top shelf, relocked the safe and returned to the living room.

He sat on the sofa, took a police band scanner out of the box, plugged it in and turned it on. It immediately started screeching at top volume, the sound reverberating through the silent house and scaring the hell out of him. He juggled it for a moment, almost dropped it on the floor, but finally got a grip on it and cranked the volume down. He set it on the end table and clicked off the lamp. In the dark, he stretched out on the sofa and listened to one call after another. The dispatch codes and patrol car call signs brought back old memories. The cops were busy that night. Domestic squabbles and bar fights. Thursday night in the big city.

Val dozed in and out.

He awakened to the pad of feet on the floor above him. He listened as the feet continued down the upstairs hallway to the stairs. Victoria was up.

Brilliant detective work. He hadn’t lost his touch.

The footsteps turned stealthy as they came down the steps. Val caught the swish of silk and the smell of perfume. He smiled up into the darkness, squeezed his eyes shut and faked a snore as Victoria crept up to the sofa. Her bare knee brushed his elbow as she leaned over him and flipped the scanner off. Her loose hair tickled his nose. He muttered and opened one eye.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Playing watchdog,” Val whispered back. “Thought I heard something outside.”

“Some watchdog,” she said as she slithered down on top of him, moving gingerly, obviously still hurting from the day’s activities. “Snoring away,” she breathed in his ear then sank her teeth lightly into the lobe as she shifted around, moving fully on top of him, straddling his hips. Her eyes widened and she chuckled.

“My, my, I guess you
are
awake.”

“Woof-woof,” Valentine said as he rolled her over onto her back.