Chapter 13: Girl Scouts and Mercenaries

More than a few hours later, I was pretty sure Special Agent Stratton didn’t believe us, but we still had half a large pizza, a second order of cheese-covered breadsticks, and Sheree was watching with unconcealed amusement from the couch of the Deputies’ lounge. I was willing to play along for a while, at least until we ran out of pizza.

Besides, watching Delaney try to bait him into a game of five-card was worth the price of admission all by itself.

When Delaney shuffled the deck smoothly, he eyed her suspiciously.

“That’s the sound of someone about to pay out on a lot of chocolate bars.” Deputy Hyatt stood in the doorway, cane in hand.

He looked up at her. “What?”

“It’s a trap. I think she did an internship at Caesar’s Palace or the Bellagio or something.” She was obviously getting ready to go off shift, pulling her purse out of her locker.

“Deputy Hyatt!” Delaney scowled. “You’re not supposed to warn the patsy.”

Stratton gave Delaney a wry look. “Did you forget? I’ve already met you. I was assuming this was a setup.”

Delaney curled her lip and went back to shuffling.

“How’s the leg?” I sat up so I could see Hyatt a bit better.

“Not bad, I’m healing ahead of schedule, according to the physical therapist. Another six months on desk duty, though.” She grimaced.

We talked about her injuries for a few minutes until she headed out.

Stratton’s phone buzzed, and he looked at it. “They found him. Or at least most of him. Gunfire and meth labs really don’t go together well.”

Delaney sighed and stared at the tabletop. “Dammit. He can’t answer questions now, can he?”

Stratton studied her for a moment. “We’re looking into his background; that may clear things up, and they’re going to be combing through the site for the next couple days. We’ve also got pretty good video from the restaurant.”

Sheree tilted her head. “You see anything on that?”

“Nothing that conflicts with what they told me or what the sheriff saw.” He paused and looked at me. “Although someone may have glossed over some details a bit. I don’t think the phrase ‘got free’ quite covers it. We could use it as a training clip on how to break a chokehold.”

“We may have gone over it once or twice after the trouble with Stein.”

He shot a look at Delaney. “Once or twice? That was calculated, precise, vicious and executed perfectly.”

“You must be talking about Delaney.” Tara walked into the room. “What did they do this time?”

The agent leaned back and held his hands up defensively. “They’re not suspects; they’re...” He paused. “I don’t think ‘victims’ really fits.”

“Witnesses?” Tara gave a slight smile and an arched eyebrow.

He gestured helplessly. “Sure, we’ll use that.”

Tara turned to me. “Any problems?”

“Nope. We’re being completely honest.”

Delaney stood up rigidly and held her hand up. “Scout’s honor.”

“You’ve never been a Girl Scout.” Tara gave a slightly melancholy smile. “And that’s not the salute; it’s three fingers, not one. Definitely not that one.”

Shrugging, Delaney sat back down.

Stratton eyed Tara for a moment. “So, were you a Girl Scout?”

“All the way to Gold Award.”

“I was an Eagle Scout.”

Delaney made a sound like a cat throwing up. “God. I’m so gonna hurl.”

Tara and Stratton shot a mutual look of amusement at each other. Tara gave a soft ironic smile then looked at me. “You two have been completely up front?”

“He knows everything we know.” Well, not everything, but I didn’t see any point in mentioning that we’d probably killed off a bunch of Billy’s friends at Eagle River. It wasn’t going to solve anything anyway. I was pretty sure Tara-the-lawyer wouldn’t thank us for admitting to multiple homicides with an illegal weapon, even in self-defense.

After a few more minutes of negotiations, it was decided that we could return home and wait for further information, but Agent Stratton emphasized that he didn’t want us to leave the state. Although I suspected that he wasn’t under any illusions that we’d really listen if we decided we didn’t want to.

We didn’t even make 24 hours before we were called back down to the sheriff’s office.

We only waited in his office for a few minutes before the sheriff walked in with a handful of paperwork. “Son of a bitch.”

I glared at him. “What?”

“Your special agent sent this down. It’s about your good friend Billy Aleshire.”

“Was he connected to a drug gang?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. There was a damn military arsenal in the trunk of that Charger. Several handguns, a couple M4s, a Russian PKM machine gun. Even some C4. Federal boys are going to be coming down for that.”

“That sounds like an awful lot of firepower for a local meth and weed gang.”

He sat down at the computer and pulled up a file from his email. “Let me show you something. We got a facial recognition match from the feds. This is dash-cam video from Wyoming a few years ago.”

We watched the grainy dash-cam footage of a police pursuit. After taking several spike strip hits, the car went into a very neat and controlled side skid. Even before the car slid to a stop, the driver’s side door was kicked open, and the driver turned in his seat, levelled a handgun at the oncoming police car and began firing – emotionless timed-rate-fire, as calmly as if he was on a practice range, right up until the video blacked out.

“Was that him?”

I nodded.

“Jesus.” Delaney stared in shock at the screen. “That really was Billy. What the fuck?”

“His name wasn’t Billy Aleshire. It was William Douglas Halston. He’s done everything from murder to illegal gun sales to...” He shuffled the pack of papers for a moment. “This list goes on for about a dozen pages.”