Chapter 41
forty-one
Jude
The fleet's GPS trackers give me Rob’s exact coordinates. He couldn’t turn it off. Since the system is meant to watch the boats and employees, an alert would be sent to both my phone and Willa’s.
I wait for my brothers in the same spot where I had my first taste of Greer. It’s a reminder that this has to end here and now. I can’t keep worrying about Rob when Greer and the baby deserve that time.
Odin thunders in long before I expect, Flinch and Folgers following behind. Controlled anger rolls off Odin as he approaches. We might not know what we’re walking into, but we all know it’s not good, not if it involves a high performance boat. You’d only need it to smuggle goods around.
“You found the boat?” Odin asks.
When I name a particularly difficult to navigate area, Couyon swears, “When I get ahold of him.”
Leading them into the office, I divulge, “There’s an old fur trader's shanty at those coordinates. Looks like that’s where he’s docked.”
“What do you know about it?” Odin asks.
“It’s on pilings about ten feet or so from the shore. The only way to get to it is by waterway.”
Folgers, who has been listening nearby, remarks, “This isn’t good.”
I nod, acknowledging what’s being left unsaid without a spark of sadness in my heart. The area’s bad for fishing and not part of the normal tourist routes. There’s only one reason he’d be out there. “Rules are rules,” I answer in a blasé tone.
Flinch hangs up the phone. His boots crunch on the gravel as he paces over to us. “The others are twenty minutes away. They’re bringing our fleet.”
It’s best. The club’s airboats are designed with special compartments and customized for our usage.
“Have you found anything useful?” Folgers asks, looking around at the file cabinets and desk.
“Nothing yet.”
While we talk, Folgers takes a seat at the computer my brother-in-law uses. He doesn’t ask for passwords, and I don’t insult him by offering them.
It takes less than five minutes for Folgers to let out an ironic laugh. Without looking away from the screen, he says in a deadpan voice, “Rob’s been messaging back and forth with a woman named Kellie in Thibodeaux, and Kellie thinks they should talk about the baby she has on the way.”
“So he needs to pay off Kellie,” I snark. Willa might be a pushover, but she would leave his ass over this.
Rob can’t sneak funds out of the company coffers, not with me watching. Willa would know as well, but she also sticks her head in the sand at times just to keep the peace. Rob’s only option is to earn in other ways.
Looks like he found one.
We leave in three groups, ready to deal with whatever the fuck we’re going to find on the other end.
I wish we could have brought one more, but only four of us know how to steer an airboat, and someone has to bring The Dolly back.
Fuck knows Rob isn’t doing it.
Since he’s taken such a keen liking to the cabin, I should leave him there. It doesn’t have much of a roof left, but his ego is big enough to shelter him.
It pisses me off that he’s using Dad’s boat when he has an entire fleet.
This fucker is just stupid enough to get it seized by the authorities.
The business does well enough, but buying The Dolly was a financial hit, since we had it gigged out with special rescue equipment.
We can’t just replace it on a whim without making other sacrifices.
The whirl of the fan blade engines cut through the tranquility of the still waters as I led the way to our destination. Used to ecotourism, alligators follow behind like a pack of wild dogs, eager for the cuts of raw meat they’re usually given by tour guides.
The entire drive, I think of Willa and the boys. Silly Aiden, who lights up any room he’s in, and serious, quieter Braxton. He’s the rule follower, the one who shares his toys and cleans up after himself. One way or another, this is going to touch their lives in ways they don’t deserve.
We’re a two minute ride out when the smell of paint thinner permeates the air. Folgers and I share a look as a cold chill crawls across my skin. It’s the confirmation I don’t want. How could he do this? The acrid smell of smoke follows, growing heavier as we approach.
Latex gloves and plastic tubing float in the murky water next to tin roofing. Taking in the trash off the bow, Odin growls, “These dumb fucks were cooking on our turf?”
Rob was using The Dolly in the shallow Bayou waters to pick up the cooked meth and then using the larger vessels to transport it to nearby cities. There’s no denying what he has done and what we are about to find. No wonder he hates the club so badly. He knows we’re playing for the other team.
A quiet approach is impossible when you’re in an airboat, so as we come into view of the once abandoned shanty, we ready our guns. Slowing our speed, I use my hand to block the smoke from choking my lungs as my brain scrambles to take everything in.
The back half of the structure is missing and charred, smoke rising from the aged wood. A large figure is slumped over, their arms dangling from the still standing porch. We’ve just missed the meth lab exploding.
Like a well oiled machine, we all know our parts. This isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with a similar mess.
The three boats divide. The one driven by Couyon circles to the back, searching for the safest entry point. When the thunder of the engines dies, I grab my ever present medic bag and climb onto the bench seat, so I’m level with the porch.
Rob is recognizable only by the remains of his designer polo.
His cries are white noise as I examine his injuries.
His burns are third and fourth degree in some spots.
A long recovery, if he makes it. I have everything in my kit to stabilize him until a medivac copter can get here.
Morphine, too, but I’m not wasting it on him.
Why should I offer him any comfort after what he’s done to my sister?
To my nephews.
My sister is pregnant, with two other children at home, living with diabetes, and running a business. She will not be burdened with this piece of shit. This is the one thing that may keep her with him if she discovers the affair, if only while he recovers.
I think it’s time for Willa to enjoy a little freedom.
Out of the corner of my eye, Couyon rounds the side of the porch from the back and lifts his pistol at Rob. “Leave him be,” I bark. “Willa won’t be able to bury him with a bullet hole in his head.”
“We don’t know how long he’ll hold out like this…”
I look my brother in law straight in the eyes and say, “We won’t last long. Rob always was a pussy. He doesn’t have the balls to fight. Even for his own life.”
As I climb down, I realize not one, but two women will now be single mothers. Four children, two not yet born.
They’re better off.
Army training has helped me compartmentalize in the search for anyone else who may have survived the explosion.
They, too, will be dealt with. If the authorities get involved with arrests, there will be a trial and questions.
Rob’s name will come up, and God knows what will happen to the business, to Willa and the boys.
Why go through all the trouble and expense when the club can deal with them tonight? It's one of the reasons we get along with the local law enforcement…well, except for the sheriff and Odin’s pissing contest.
A gun cocks nearby, and Flinch muses, “Well, lookie here what I found.”
It’s painstaking work covering our tracks by generator light.
Boot prints need to be hidden, and the debris from the explosion needs to be removed from the waterway.
The brothers have shown up en masse to help clean, the work too sensitive to trust to a prospect.
Not the physical labor, but the knowledge.
Some things stay within the patched members. This is one of them.
Hours pass as the bayou fades into darkness. The alligators are scared away by the strange smells and noise, so Couyon drives further upstream, laden down with wrapped tarps.
I wipe sweat with the back of my hand and load another bag of trash onto the deck. Even when we’re on the same side as law enforcement, we have to make our sins less glaringly obvious.
Gesturing towards the wrapped bundle at my feet, I ask Folgers, “You think the sheriff is going to go along with this?”
“He will when he gets an envelope.”
“What about Wildlife and Fisheries?”
“Couyon’s cousin is still on the payroll. They’re on they’re way.”
I don’t feel bad for not giving my nephews a chance at having their father live.
They’ll have me.
In the end Rob’s made it all too easy to free my sister.
Greer and I get to live our lives together without the time demands of the business.
Our baby will get more time with their cousins without Rob’s interference.
Kellie’s baby will never have to suffer a neglectful parent.
Odin marches up to me with a black book sack clutched in his hand. Flinch found it on one of the men hiding in the trees. He thrusts it toward me. “You know what to do with this.”
Cash. I can tell by the feel of the cheap Nylon.
I’ve become the money man, the one who handles the physical cash and distributes the payouts.
Bags of cash are all in a day's work for me. Willa and the boys will be okay. They have the profits from Bayou Blue, all of it now that Rob’s gone, life insurance, and survivors’ benefits from Social Security.
Kellie’s baby will be left with nothing.
The bag of cash is to make sure Rob’s other child is taken care of in all this.
“I’ll cover the gratuities for the Wildlife officers.”
Odin quirks an eyebrow in surprise, “How did a new brother come to have that type of money lying around?”
“I still get a cut from Bayou Blue Charters, but put it aside. I live off what I earn.”
Odin nods his approval, “There may be others we need to take care of as well.”
“The money might as well do some good.”
We leave the inlet one at a time to avoid drawing attention. Odin throws a glass bottle into the shanty. As we drive off, the flames warm the skin on my arms.
Two Wildlife and Fisheries agents wait upstream. As I cruise past driving The Dolly, they give me a nod to say shit’s handled.
Their engine idles to life, telling me our part is done for now.
I’m ready to close this chapter of my life, to get home to my woman and baby, to worry less.
It says a lot about a person when they die, and life gets easier.