Jack Frost: Detective Jack Stratton Mystery Thriller Series Read online

  “I need to know what happened,” she said quietly, again wishing that Jack was with her.

  Joe picked up the empty beer bottle and held it to his lips. Like a parched man in the desert, he let the last drop trickle down the glass and fall on his tongue. “Hold on a second.”

  They waited until the bartender came back with three beer mugs in one hand and a whiskey shot in the other. He set the shot down first, and Joe threw it back before the beers even touched the table.

  “I’ll cover his tab,” Clark said.

  The bartender nodded and left.

  “Are you trying to force me to help you, Derrick?” Joe asked.

  Clark’s jaw flexed. “No. I thought if I picked up your tab, you wouldn’t be as offended when I say that beer should be your last tonight.”

  Joe rubbed his chin and wobbled in his seat. “It is. My ride’s on the way. Lost my license again.”

  “Then the clock is ticking,” Kiku said. “Will you assist us?”

  Joe’s yellow eyes tried to focus on Alice’s. He leaned closer, and the reek of whiskey, stale cigarettes, and beer wafted across the table. “Finding out what happened won’t bring your family back or give you any peace.” He leaned back and looked at Clark. “You know that. I know that.”

  “This isn’t the same thing at all, Joe,” Clark said.

  Alice opened her mouth to speak, but Kiku’s boot pressing against her sneaker cut her off. With a subtle narrowing of her eyes, Kiku signaled her to be quiet.

  They waited for Clark to elaborate, but he and Joe just stared at one another. Joe looked away first and reached for his beer.

  “Derrick’s talking about old cases,” Joe said after a long swallow. “My first homicide and my last.” His bloodshot, yellowed eyes seemed to stare past Alice. She’d seen the look before. He was living in a constant nightmare, unable to shake the ghosts of his past. “The first murder case I was assigned, I solved. I had the guy dead to rights, but it got pleaded down to manslaughter. Man. Slaughter.” He tapped his glass against the table as he said each word. “You ever been to a slaughterhouse? Tell me how slaughtering a man should be a lesser sentence?”

  He downed half the beer in three long gulps. “The victim was a nurse and a mother. Her boyfriend killed her, but he let their daughter live. The guy served twenty years, and when he got out, the little girl tracked him down. She needed answers. She thought it would bring her some peace, give her some closure. She just wanted to ask him one question. Why?”

  “What did he tell her?” Alice asked, hanging on Joe’s every word.

  “Nothing. He slit her throat. He blamed her for testifying against him. Putting him away again was my last case. Bookends that sum up the meaning of all I did in my career. Much ado about nothing.”

  Kiku looked at Alice, urging her on.

  “I need to know,” Alice said, bracing herself for the information to come.

  Joe shook his head. “Leave it alone. You might as well ask the tornado why.”

  “Unlike Job and that little girl you spoke of,” Kiku said, “Alice does not want to know why. Who? is the question to which she needs an answer. And you may be able to help.”

  Joe eyed Kiku. “You know your Bible. Job was sitting there after he lost everything and God showed up as the whirlwind.” He pointed a trembling finger at Alice. “What do you think that story means?”

  Alice felt the prickle of tears and looked down so the men wouldn’t see—it was impossible to hide anything from Kiku. “Bad things happen to good people.”

  “Yes.” Joe dropped his hand onto the table with a loud thump. “And bad men are usually the cause.”

  “And they must be stopped,” Kiku added imperiously. “That is how you and Detective Clark lived. You are detectives. You stop bad men.”

  “Please, I need your help,” Alice said, at last having to resort to drying her eyes with a cocktail napkin.

  “It was over fourteen years ago,” Joe said. “There’s no way a DA will touch the case without a confession. Even if you did find the guy, there’s nothing you can do to him now.”

  “I am not bound by the same limits as you, Detective.” Kiku’s lips pulled back in a slow smile. Her long canines and sharp features produced a grin that made Alice shiver. “When I find the man, I will deal with him in my own way.”

  Joe glanced at Clark and then studied Kiku. He leaned closer, his sickly eyes searching hers. He didn’t stare for long. He took another sip of beer and nodded. “I don’t know how much help I can even be. I didn’t really work the case. I only had it for a day before it got bumped up.”

  “Can you run through what you remember?” Clark asked.

  “I think you’re opening Pandora’s box, but…” Joe held his beer with both hands and spoke directly to Alice. “How much do you remember about the accident?”

  “Nothing.” Alice twisted the cocktail napkin in her hands and her knee began to bounce under the table. Kiku shot her a glance that intimidated and strengthened her at the same time. “I woke up in the hospital. I think… we were happy, tired from the sun. I fell asleep in the backseat.”

  “I got on the scene after you were taken away in the ambulance. The responding officer said you were in shock when he got there. When he reached the car, he didn’t think anyone had survived. The car was crushed and the truck, a dump truck, was stuck on top of it. The driver of the truck was long gone.”

  Alice looked up, waiting to hear her lost story, but almost crying out, “Stop! Don’t tell me!”

  “The officer heard a soft voice coming from the backseat area. You were pinned to the floor in the wreckage.”

  Singing a lullaby. I thought everybody was asleep.

  She dug her fingernails into her palms and fought the tears. For the first time, that memory came to her, as if it had been lurking there all along. The thinnest sliver of a memory… and it pierced her soul like a dagger. She was singing and stroking her brother Andrew’s blond curls. They were wet, as if her mother had just taken him out of the bath.

  “I interviewed you later that night at the hospital,” Joe was saying, but Alice barely heard him. He sounded far away. Her chest felt heavy, like someone was pushing down on it. Each breath felt like a struggle.

  “You didn’t remember anything then, either. The doctors said you might later, but if you haven’t by now…” Joe shrugged. “Your parents were heading home on a back road. There’s nothing out there but a trailer park and a convenience store that closed down.”

  “Why was a detective called to a car accident?” Kiku asked, giving Alice a minute to regroup.

  “Multiple fatalities, and the other driver had fled the scene. We didn’t know the truck was stolen until the next morning, when A.R. Construction reported it missing. It was a dump truck loaded with rocks, from their site a mile down the road. It completely crushed the car.”

  Alice’s mind reeled, like she’d been hit in the head. Her heart hurt and her temples throbbed. Focus on what’s in front of you. Aunt Haddie, the foster mother who raised her, had taught her that trick, and she used it now, staring at a stain on the table and forcing herself to focus on the words being spoken.

  “Were there any witnesses?” Clark asked.

  “None we can check now. An old guy lived in a little trailer down the road. He’s dead now. He heard the crash, went outside, and saw a motorcycle rider checking on the car. Then he went back inside and called it in.”

  “He didn’t get any description of the man or the motorcycle?”

  “He saw the rider on foot; he didn’t see the bike.”

  Clark looked like he’d smelled something bad. “How did he know the man checking on the car was a motorcycle rider if he didn’t see a motorcycle?”

  “Because the guy was wearing a motorcycle helmet.” Joe finished his beer.

  “No other witnesses?” Clark asked.

  “None that came forward. And we didn’t have cameras all around back then. An earlier patrolman noted a dar
k four-door sedan parked to the side of the closed convenience store. He was going to check it out when he swung back on his loop. The sedan was gone when the responding officer got on scene. I figured whoever crashed the truck might have stolen the car, too, to make their escape.”

  Clark’s index finger tapped the table like he was sending Morse code. “Anyone ever report a stolen car matching that description?”

  “Not that I heard. So you gotta figure it isn’t connected to the crash.”

  “Did you find anything in the cab of the truck?” Alice asked.

  “Nope. Clean.”

  “Hey, Joe!” the bartender called out. “Your taxi’s here.”

  Wait! I have a lot more questions!

  Joe reached toward the back of his chair and fumbled for his coat. “You’re getting my tab, right?”

  “I’ve got it. I’ll give you a lift home, too,” Clark said.

  “I have more questions,” Alice heard herself say.

  Joe shook his head, planted one hand on the table to stabilize his swaying, and picked up his beer with the other. He gazed forlornly at the empty glass but still tipped it to his lips. “I told you everything I know. Why keep rehashing it?” He looked at Alice. “If you want my opinion, I’d leave it alone. Why torture yourself?”

  Alice’s fist crushed the napkin in her hand. I’m tortured by this every single day and can’t even escape it in my sleep. I can’t leave it alone.

  Joe set the glass down, misjudging the height of the table by an inch. The glass bounced once and started to fall to the floor, but Kiku’s arm shot out. She caught it by the handle and set it down.

  “One last question, if I may,” she said. “Who was the case reassigned to?”

  Joe grabbed the seat back for support. “Feds took it. Organized crime unit. Probably ’cause the truck was stolen from A.R. Construction. There were always whispers they were mobbed up.”

  He gave them all a loose wave and staggered for the door. “Thanks for the drink, Detective.” He left without looking back.

  A gloomy silence settled around the table, which Clark finally broke, muttering, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

  “Yours is a hard profession, Detective,” Kiku said. “You cannot unsee what you have seen.”

  Clark pushed his unfinished beer away. “I’ve got a friend in the Bureau. I’ll reach out to him. If the FBI was investigating A.R. Construction, it doesn’t make much sense they’d tip their hand over a stolen truck.”

  Kiku nodded in agreement.

  Alice stared at Joe’s empty shot glasses. She wasn’t a drinker, but for a moment, the thought of getting blind drunk flashed through her head. If it offered an alternative to reality, she was all for it. Her temples throbbed with every heartbeat. What she really needed was aspirin and the comfort of Jack Stratton, not Daniel’s.

  The bartender came over. “Total is fifty-seven dollars.”

  “Keep the change.” Kiku handed him four twenties and made a discreet signal to Clark to let her have her way.

  “I would have gotten that,” Clark said.

  “I know.” Kiku crossed her legs.

  “Hey!” A beefy man in jeans and a blue-and-white shirt approached their table. “That old drunk called you ‘Detective.’ I thought I recognized you. You Detective Clark?”

  Four other men in similar blue-and-white shirts came to stand behind the first.

  Alice cast a nervous glance at Kiku, who sat calmly and sipped her beer.

  Clark stood. “I am.”

  The man leaned closer to Clark and snarled, “You sent my father to prison for life, you stinkin’ pig.”

  Alice held her purse under the table and quietly unzipped it.

  Clark faced the men as calmly as if he were ordering a sandwich. A lifetime of dealing with criminals showed in his demeanor; his voice and hands remained steady. “Technically, your father’s crimes landed him in prison. I only shined a light on them.”

  The guy’s beefy face was pinched as he played back what Clark had said and got to the punch line. Then he shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the door. “Outside, old man.”

  “Five-on-one is very unfair odds.” Kiku picked up one of Joe’s empty shot glasses. “I am assuming your friends will back you up?”

  “He arrested Frank and Tim’s old man, too.”

  “And my mom,” a shorter guy in the back added.

  “You guys aren’t stupid enough to beat up an old cop.” Clark looked at Kiku and Alice and tilted his head, trying to signal to them to move to safety. The women exchanged a look and remained where they were, watching and waiting.

  The designated spokesperson pointed at Clark and called over to the bartender. “Hey, Victor! This guy drank a lot of beers then started picking fights, right?”

  “He sure did.” The bartender’s bored expression had changed to a creepy grin that reminded Alice of a brat burning insects with a magnifying glass. “He started it.”

  Alice wrapped her fingers around her little Taser. She’d only used it once. Jack had promised to give her another lesson, but hadn’t had a chance. Judging from the way the drunk vigilantes were looking at Clark, she was about to learn real fast.

  Kiku smiled and stepped forward, holding a shot glass in her left hand and her beer with her right. “Would you be so kind as to hold this, please?” She handed the beer to a guy with a big nose. “This is for you”—to the beefy guy. “Catch.”

  Kiku tossed the shot glass into the air, high over his head. When he looked up, tipping his head back and stretching out his throat, Kiku slammed the side of her hand into his vulnerable windpipe.

  The odds turned out to be quite a bit better than five-to-one. While the first guy was gagging and dropping to his knees, Kiku caught the shot glass and slammed it on the bridge of the second man’s nose, the one holding her beer. As he tumbled backward, Kiku’s leg snapped out, catching the third man solidly in the groin and lifting him an inch off the ground.

  The fourth man stepped forward with his fist pulled back, met Clark’s solid right cross with the base of his jaw, and dropped to the floor in a heap.

  As the fifth guy reached for his knife, Alice ripped out her Taser and fired. The man shrieked and arched his back, dropping the knife.

  While Clark was kicking his assailant’s weapon across the room, Kiku leapt over the bar. She snagged a hunk of the bartender’s greasy hair and slammed his face against the beer taps. The baseball bat fell from his limp hands and rattled on the floor, followed by a couple of teeth pinging down the wood bar as she bounced his head against it.

  Kiku exhaled slowly. “I expected a shotgun.” She dragged the man off the bar and let him fall to the floor, then walked back around to the front of the bar, where the beefy guy was making an effort to get to his knees, and knocked him out with a punch to the base of his skull.

  “Are you okay, Detective?” she asked.

  Clark gazed around the room and flexed his right hand. “Now I know why Stratton thinks so highly of your abilities.”

  Kiku smiled. “I am sure you were more than capable of handling the situation without my intrusion, but I thought I should defuse it before it escalated.”

  Clark arched his eyebrow, looking at the men groaning on the floor among the Taser confetti. “So that’s… defusing.”

  “What do we do now?” Alice asked as she stuffed the Taser back in her purse.

  “I should call it in,” Clark said. “It will dissuade them from retribution in the future.”

  Kiku said, “You’ll need to wait with him, Alice.”

  Alice grimaced, but Kiku was right; she needed to stay—and Kiku couldn’t be found here.

  “What do I say about you?” Clark asked.

  “The truth. You don’t know me. You offered to buy me a drink, and we were having a lovely time when these men came up and tried to assault me.” Kiku picked up her purse. “I would recommend not pressing charges and only having the incident noted.” Kiku walked t
o the door. “I trust you will give Alice a lift home?”

  “Of course. And thanks.” Clark nodded and proceeded to call the police.

  “Wait,” Alice called, stepping over one of the men, but Kiku shook her head.

  “There is no time. We can discuss what we have learned back at your apartment. I will stop by later.” Kiku hurried outside.

  Alice stood in the doorway and watched her go. Kiku reached the car as sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer, and pulled out of the rear exit of the parking lot just as the police cruiser zoomed in at the front, lights flashing.

  How Alice wished it were Jack coming to get her, so handsome in his uniform, and she saw herself running out and throwing her arms around him, nuzzling her head into his strong, hard chest...

  Detective Clark put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a wink. “I think it might be best if you let me do most of the talking.”

  21

  Walkie-Talkie Trouble

  Jack unzipped the flap a bit and peered out of the tent. The night had paled, revealing a morning sky dotted with dark clouds.

  He covered his earpiece with a gloved hand and cupped the other hand in front of his mouth. “Leah, come in. Can you hear me?” Jack had no idea if the earpieces were constantly monitoring or not, but he was hoping Leah was listening now. She had checked in with him a little after midnight, but the conversation had dissolved into static. Jack had tried a few times that morning to reach her but had gotten no response.

  The earpiece buzzed in his ear, and Leah’s voice broke through the static. “Jack. Come in. Jack, can you hear me?”

  “This is Jack.”

  “Still no”—static cut her off—“you two should head back… the lodge. We’ll—” The speaker buzzed and crackled, followed by silence as the line went dead.

  Jack flipped his tent flap open, knocking a small pile of snow off the tent in the process. Large flakes swirled around both tents. A blast of frigid air shot down the slope and whipped the icy snow against his cheeks.

  “Sun’s up. Leah wants us to head back. How long do you need to get ready?” Jack called out.