Chapter 11
“It just ain’t right.”
The only way Troy Baker was going to get through the night was to spend most of it right here at his favorite haunt—The Den.
He reached for his beer. It was his sixth or seventh and he hadn’t even been home for supper yet.
His wife would just have to bear with him.
He was in the middle of a major crisis here.
He hooked his heels on the footrest of his bar stool and chugged the cold brew knowing it wouldn’t cool the fire in his gut.
Marvin had called him, all fired up about some stupid remark Austin had made; then the fat bastard had refused to meet Troy for a beer.
Asshole. Marvin wanted to stay out of this, he’d claimed.
What the hell was his problem? What kind of friend backed off like that? Coward.
“Damn straight it ain’t right,” Larry Medford agreed as he plopped his empty bottle on the bar.
“Austin should have gotten the hint when we run his ass off the road.” Larry leaned on the counter, rested his elbow there and his head in his hand.
He looked Troy in the eye. “What you think it’s gonna take to send him packing? ”
Troy wagged his head in frustration. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I plan to make sure it gets done. God knows we can’t count on the law to do this right.”
The sound of pool balls breaking had Troy twisting around on his stool. “Perry, come over here, man.”
Perry took his shot, sending a stripe into a corner pocket.
He dropped two more before he knocked one spinning across the green only to fall short of its intended destination.
He straightened away from the table and strode over to his pals, the cue stick in his hand.
“You know I’m gonna have to drive you home, don’t you, buddy? ”
Troy didn’t give a damn how he got home. He had bigger fish to fry right now. Austin was waltzing around town like he owned the place.
“We should burn Higgins out,” Troy growled under his breath. “How the hell could he give that son of a bitch a job? His own daughter went to school with my sister!”
Perry shrugged. “Ray probably put the pressure on him.” He gestured for his challenger not to wait before taking his turn. “You know how Ray can be. Higgins probably had a slew of parking tickets he hadn’t paid.” Perry slapped Troy on the back. “Anyway, you’re drunk, buddy; you’re talking crazy.”
Crazy. Yeah, right. Troy was making more sense than any damned body else in this town.
As far as Ray Hale went, Troy no longer had any use for him whatsoever.
It was bad enough he’d gone to see Austin in prison, but to hold his hand now that he was out .
. . hell, that was just going too far. Maybe the good old chief of police was going soft.
“I’ll make him pay,” Troy promised. “You know I will.”
Perry nodded. “I know you will, buddy. Just not tonight, okay? I think we should lay low a while.”
Perry was scared shitless that Ray would find out he’d run Austin off the road while Troy distracted Emily Wallace.
Even if Austin filed charges and managed to convey a description that led the cops to Troy’s pals, it would just be his word against theirs.
Perry had been smart to pad his brush guard with rubber ensuring no paint transfer from that shitty red car of Austin’s.
No one was going to believe Austin over Troy or Perry.
Well, maybe no one but Chief Ray Dickhead Hale. Ray would get his if he got in the way.
“Where’s Keith?” Larry asked as if he’d just noticed that another of their gang hadn’t shown up.
Troy grunted. “I don’t know. He’s acting all weird. He gave me hell last night when he found out why I told him to park that car on the road and wait. You’d think he was on Austin’s side or something.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that, Troy,” Perry argued. “Keith feels the same way we do; he just has a bitchier wife than the rest of us.”
That got a laugh out of Troy. That damned Violet had to have been a Marine drill sergeant in another life. She stayed on Keith’s ass like a bad rash.
“Hell yeah,” Larry endorsed. “All I can say is that woman must be part Hoover, the turbo model. Otherwise I sure as hell wouldn’t put up with her bullshit.”
Troy hated to burst his buddy’s bubble, but he’d dated Violet Manning a couple of times before she’d gotten engaged to Keith and she’d been a major disappointment on her back and on her knees.
Whatever power she held over her husband, it wasn’t sex, oral or otherwise.
Troy finished off his beer and gestured for the bartender to bring him another.
“Gotta take my shot.” Perry sauntered back over to the pool table to drop the last of the stripes.
“I’m cuttin’ you off, Baker.”
Troy pointed a nasty look at the guy behind the bar. “You saying I’m drunk, Bradley?” Bradley Peters had been a bully back in school, and not much had changed. Then again, with a last name like Peters, what was a guy to do?
Bradley leaned across the bar and put his face in Troy’s. “That’s right; you got a problem with it?”
Troy grinned. “Hell no.” He hitched his thumb toward the pool table. “No need to get your panties in a wad; Perry’s giving me a ride home.”
Bradley turned his junkyard dog glare from Troy to Larry. “You’d better catch a ride with Woods yourself, Medford. I don’t want the chief on my back.”
The chief. Ray Hale had his finger in every damned thing around this town. It hadn’t been a problem until he’d let the world see his secret obsession with Clint Austin. Just went to show that you couldn’t really trust anybody.
Nursing his last beer, Larry leaned toward Troy and whispered, “What do you think we should do next?”
Now there was a friend a guy could count on when the chips were down. It chafed Troy’s ass that Keith was wimping out the way he was. He was supposed to have loved Heather. She had sure as hell loved him.
Troy closed his eyes and tried with no luck to shut out the images from that awful night.
He’d sat on the stairs watching through the railings after the doorbell rang, waking everybody up from a dead sleep.
Chief Don Ledbetter had given Troy’s folks the bad news.
His mother had collapsed. Ledbetter’s wife had stayed with Troy and his mom while his father went with the chief to the Wallace house.
Troy had needed to know what was going on.
So he’d sneaked out and run all the way to Emily’s house.
The cops had been so busy trying to make heads or tails out of the crime scene that they hadn’t noticed him peeking from the bedroom doorway .
. . staring at his sister’s motionless body and all that blood.
Emily Wallace had been rushed to the hospital. Shock or something like that. But her father had been right there in the room with the cops and Principal Call. Troy would never forget how the men in the room, including his own father and the chief, had cried.
Troy hadn’t cried. Not then anyway. He’d just wanted to know where Austin was. He’d wanted to hurt Austin.
But Austin had already been taken to jail.
The county coroner took Heather away in a big, black body bag that night. It was the last time Troy had seen his sister until the funeral nearly a week later. As her coffin was lowered into the ground, he’d made a promise. Clint Austin would get what was coming to him.
Troy turned toward his friend. “I’ll tell you what we do next. We make sure Austin knows we mean business.”