Stillborn Armadillos (John Lee Quarrels Book 1) (25 page)

Chapter 48

Three days later he followed the silver gray Mercedes G-Class SUV at a distance until they were two miles outside of town, then turned on his overhead lights. It took the driver a moment to notice him, but when he did the SUV pulled to the side of the road. He checked to make sure his dashboard camera and body cam were working before he got out of the Charger and walked up to the Mercedes.

The driver was waiting with license and registration in hand.

"What did I do, officer?" Then recognizing who had pulled him over added. "John Lee. What are you doing?"

"Step out of the car, please."

"Really?"

"If you would, please."

"Okay. Why so formal?"

"I want to show you something."

The driver got out and asked, "What is it?"

"This."

"The
Guardian
? You pulled me over to show me a high school yearbook?"

John Lee opened the book to a marked page and pointed to a photograph of four young men.

"Look familiar?"

"Why, sure it does. Me and you and Patrick McKibbon, and Dan Westfall. What about it?

"What were we then? Sixteen, seventeen years old?"

"I guess. If you want to reminisce about the old days, can we do it someplace besides standing alongside the road at the end of the day?"

"You were a good looking kid back then."

"I like to think I'm still halfway decent looking."

John Lee turned to the back of the book and pulled out a photograph.

"What's this?"

"It's your grandfather, Troy. It's a print of a picture I took on my phone at the historical museum a while back. Something about it looked familiar and I couldn't place it. I didn't until we were at Mister Donald's funeral and they were showing all those old pictures from back in the school days. They had that picture of the four of us up on the screen. Do you remember seeing it? Oh, that's right, you didn't make it to the funeral, did you?"

"I wanted to. I really did. But I was stuck down in Gainesville in a meeting. I'll tell you, John Lee, there are times I think the worst thing my Daddy ever did was turnin' the business over to me to run. It's like I never have any time to do anything I want to any more. Hey, we still need to get out on a boat someplace and catch us some fish."

"You weren't at Ray Ray Watkins' funeral either."

"Ray Ray? I didn't really know him all that well. He wasn't in our class. I think he was a couple of years after us."

"Did you know the FBI and the State Crime Lab had people up there taking pictures at his funeral?"

"Why would they do that?"

"They said sometimes murderers go to someone's funeral. I don't know if they do that to make sure the person's really dead, or to gloat, or what."

"I guess you can never know what goes through somebody's head that would do something crazy like that."

"You know what I think, Troy? I think there might be some people who stay away from the funeral of somebody they killed, too. Maybe because of guilt."

"Maybe so. Like I said, crazy people do all sort of things."

"Is that going to be your defense, Troy?"

"What the hell you talking about, John Lee?"

"Is that going to be your defense? Are you going to plead insanity? I imagine with your family's money you could find a high dollar lawyer that might get you off that way. Sure, you'd spend some time in one of those fancy treatment facilities, where you could play tennis all day long or something, but that's better than getting the death penalty."

"This conversation is over."

"Like I said, that picture was familiar to me. But I figured whoever that guy was on the horse, he was probably dead a long time ago. Then when I saw that picture of the four of us up on the screen at Mister Donald's funeral, those eyes and that nose and forehead. Your grandpa would've been nineteen or so back then. The family resemblance is amazing, isn't it? You were the spitting image of him when he was a young man."

"Okay, I'm out of here. If you've got anything else to say to me, you can talk to my attorney."

"I remember that .308 rifle," John Lee said. "What was it, between our sophomore and junior year, when your dad bought it for you when he took you to Montana to go deer hunting? You came back with that big old ten point buck. Your old man's still got it hanging in his den. What did you say it went field dressed? Three hundred pounds or something like that?"

Troy didn't respond.

"You always were a hell of a shot. I remember when we were kids plinking with .22s, you were the best shot of any of us, even with open sights. I imagine with the scope it wasn't hard at all, was it?"

"John Lee, you're crazy."

"No, we've already had that conversation. You're the one who's going to plead insanity. Otherwise they're going to take you to Raiford and stick a needle in your arm."

"Are we done here? I already told you, if you want to say anything else to me..."

"I don't think you meant to kill Ray Ray. You're too good a shot for that. The way he was twisted in the seat, those folks from the state think he turned to look in the back for something just as you pulled the trigger. There was no way you could have prevented that. Well, except for not shooting in the first place. No, I think the first time, out there at the construction site, you were just reacting without thinking. You heard about those bones and you remembered how your grandpa used to talk about the war and how much he loved killing the Japs. When we were kids, that was exciting. I also remember him talking about riding hard on the niggers. Back then I thought he meant making the black folks at the company work hard. But I was wrong, wasn't I, Troy? No, he was one of the camp captains. And he liked it. He liked having that kind of power. Maybe he couldn't kill Japs anymore, but who was going to miss a stray nigger now and then?"

"Don't talk about my grandfather that way, John Lee. You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about. That man was a hero! He fought his way halfway across the Pacific."

"No, he didn't," John Lee said. "He went in right at the tail end of the war, and when I was able to pull his records from back then from the Department of the Army, they said he never saw any combat. He spent his time guarding prisoners in the Philippines long after the shooting was done there. But I think he got a taste of it then. Who knows? Maybe one of them tried to escape and he shot him? Or maybe he just shot a couple of them because he wanted to. I figure Japs were just another kind of nigger to him. Who cared if he killed one now and then? But apparently somebody did care. He got a General Discharge. That's what they give you when you're unfit for service, but they can't prove you did something bad enough to court-martial you for."

"You shut up! You shut up right now!"

"Or what, Troy? Are you going to kill me like you did Ray Ray? Oh, that's right, that was an accident, wasn't it? But running down Mister Donald, that wasn't any accident. I showed that old man the picture on my phone, the picture of your grandfather. He said he didn't know who it was, but he knew. I blame myself for that as much as you. When your dad said your grandpa was too old to bother, I told him about the old man I talked to. A man who was a lot older than him, and still sharp as a tack. When we do talk to your grandfather, I wonder what he's going to have to say."

"Grandpa is batshit crazy. He could say anything, that doesn't make it real!"

"So anyway, here's the way I see it. You heard about those skeletons we found, and either your grandpa told you about killing them men or you'd figured it out before, I don't know. But the way that old man used to talk, I think you knew. That's why he was out there when they were widening the road so long ago. He thought the road crew back then was going to dig them up, but they didn't. But over time the road expanded. Hell, they even started calling it a highway. Then they went and widened it again and uncovered your family's dirty little secret. Did you think firing a couple shots our way was going to make us forget the whole thing? Then when you realized how stupid you'd been, that's when you shot at Greg Carson's car, and then at Ray Ray. You were thinking that would throw us off the trail and we wouldn't connect the two things, right? Who cares about some guys that got themselves killed a lifetime ago when somebody's shooting at deputies today? And as terrible as Ray Ray getting killed was, it totally took the focus off those skeletons, didn't it?"

"I'll say this for you, John Lee, you're wasting your time being a cop. You ought to get yourself a typewriter and start writing detective stories, because you've got one hell of an imagination!" Troy walked back to the driver's door of his Mercedes and opened it. "Now like I said, and I'm telling you for the last time, anything else you want to say, you say to my attorney."

"I hope you hire yourself a good one," John Lee said. "And I wouldn't wait too long to call him. Because I've got everything I need to convict you and I'm taking it back to D.W. right now. I guess maybe that grandfather of yours is too old to prosecute, but I really hope the stress gives the old bastard a heart attack so he can burn in hell."

"Don't do this, John Lee."

"I'm just doing my job."

"I can make it worth your while. How much? Name your price."

"You might be able to afford to buy fancy cars and boats and even women like Jolene Thompson. But you'll never have enough money to buy me, Troy."

"We're friends."

"I don't have friends who are murderers."

"Please, John Lee, I'm begging you. I never meant to kill Ray Ray. It was just like you said. He moved at the last minute just as I was squeezing the trigger. And Mister Donald? Come on, he was like a hundred years old. It's not like he had long left in this world anyhow, and who's going to miss an old nigger anyway?"

"Come on back here so I can put handcuffs on you, Troy."

"That's not going to happen. Not today, and not ever."

"You're under arrest for the murder of..."

The gun had been in the door pocket of the Mercedes, a .40 Smith & Wesson semi-automatic. John Lee saw it in Troy's hand as he turned back to him and was already diving sideways when the first shot rang out, the bullet passing so close by that he felt the hot buzz from it on his face.

John Lee rolled behind the back of the Mercedes and pulled his Browning from its holster.

"Drop the gun, Troy."

"I'll see you in hell before I do that!"

John Lee rose up and scooted to the passenger side of the car as Troy came around the back end, pistol at the ready.

"Drop it!"

But Troy didn't drop it. Instead he pointed his gun at John Lee. The deputy felt the Browning's recoil as he fired three quick rounds. The first one hit Troy in the chest and staggered his old friend backward, but he managed to raise his pistol again. The second and third shots hit within three inches of the first, the jacketed hollow point bullets shredding muscle and tissue on their deadly path. Troy's gun dropped from his limp fingers and he fell backward onto the hood of John Lee's Charger, then slid to the ground.

The distance between them had only been ten feet at the most, but it felt like a mile as John Lee cautiously approached, ready to shoot again if necessary. One look told him he didn't need to do that. He slid the safety up on the Browning to engage it and holstered his weapon. He stepped over Troy's body to get to his radio and called the dispatcher.

"This is County 16, officer involved shooting on Washington Road two miles east of town. Suspect down."

"10-4, County 16, units responding. Are you okay, John Lee?"

He wanted to tell Sheila that he wasn't okay, that he didn't know if he would ever be okay again. But all he said was, "Suspect is down. I'm not hurt."

Epilogue

John Lee was put on two weeks paid administrative leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation into the fatal shooting of Richard Troy Somerton. There was some question about why he had chosen to confront Troy Somerton alongside a road instead bringing him to the Sheriff's Department or at his office, but nobody questioned his explanation that he wanted to save his old friend from embarrassment in the event that John Lee was wrong in his accusations. After all, everyone in the county was accustomed to handling the rich and powerful Somertons with kid gloves. But the video and audio from John Lee's dash camera and body cam made it obvious that the deputy had no choice, and had only resorted to deadly force when the murder suspect refused to surrender and had attacked him with a handgun. When investigators executed a search warrant at the dead man's home and found the scoped Remington Mohawk .308 bolt action rifle used in the shootings, there was no question about Troy's guilt. John Lee was cleared of any wrongdoing in the case and allowed to go back to work.

He delayed his return to uniform by one day so he could attend the joint funeral of the three men whose remains had been discovered on Turpentine Highway. Shania Jones, wearing a conservative black dress and heels, attended the funeral. John Lee liked the way she looked in it. Not many women in Somerton County wore dresses any more, except to church and funerals. She told him she was sorry that they had not been able to recover enough DNA to identify the murder victims. "It's just been too long. Time and weather and the elements destroyed anything we might have been able to find."

"That's okay, I know you tried," he told her. "That's all any of us can do."

There were only a half dozen or so people at the funeral and they had all left except for the two of them, lingering to watch the common grave being filled back in.

"If it's any consolation to you, I hear the old man is bragging about how he and his posse chased them down and taught them a lesson. That should be enough to get a conviction, shouldn't it?"

"I wish it was," John Lee told her. "But he's also telling people about how he was riding on the same tank with General Patton when he rolled into the concentration camp at Auschwitz, and how he helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima. Swears he's one of those guys in that picture of the flag raising. Also swears he shot Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas after he assassinated John F. Kennedy."

"So he's not competent to stand trial?"

"At his age, what good would it do?"

"What about the lady that's suing you and the county for you almost shooting her kid?"

"It's not going to go anywhere," John Lee said. "That's the least of my worries."

"Hey, you were exonerated for the shooting right?"

"Yeah."

"So except for your messed up love-life, and the fact that the Chief Deputy still wants to kick your ass, and that you've got that pretty blonde deputy friend of yours standing on the sidelines, what else do you have to worry about?"

The cemetery workers had finished filling in the grave and were patting the dirt down with the backs of their shovels.

"I'm worried that when I take you to dinner tonight, you're going to find some place that serves sushi."

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