The Shack series

Chapter 18

Maybe a ham roll this time. Shake it up a bit. I'll head over there in a couple of minutes, I just have to finish the quarterly report." I sat at the little desk in the office and started painfully tallying up numbers.

She snapped the chinstrap. "I'm taking the alley behind the Sheriff's department."

"Stein may still be out there. I agree with Tara on him. He had to have serious incentive to try what he did."

She nodded. "I won't take any chances."

Less than twenty minutes later I was at the Sheriff's office, watching Sheree calm an alternatingly horrified and furious Delaney.

"That Damner destroyed my moped." I'd seen it on the way in, all that was left was a mangled red and white heap of metal, half-shoved under the fence around the department. Delaney had repeated herself a half dozen times, getting a little calmer as the adrenaline shakes started slowing down. The tears in her eyes were more from fury than fear, though.

The Sheriff came in and sat down at his desk. "We already found the F150. It was stolen in Richmond last night, and one of my guys found it abandoned a couple miles out of town. I have guys out, but..." He held his hands up.

Delaney sucked in her lower lip for a second and blew out a long breath. "The driver was a big muscle guy. It wasn't Stein. He was waiting in the auto parts store parking lot. Just..." she slapped her hands together, "like that."

"I have the video here." He pulled it up and we walked around to look over his shoulder.

We watched the grainy video. Delaney on her moped carefully riding along the fence, then the truck erupting onto the screen at full speed, catching the moped and raking it along the fence for a dozen yards.

He stared at the screen. "That wasn't an accident. And it looks like the truck was sitting here for at least an hour and a half, waiting."

Sheree pulled Delaney in tight. "How did you even..."

The sheriff backed it up, ran it slowly and we watched Delaney kick free of her moped and roll under the front bumper of the truck, let it pass over her and throw herself under the damaged fence, dashing towards the camera.

Delaney shivered. "I don't even remember doing that." She looked over me with a weak smile. "At least I didn't pee myself." She paused. "I need to go to the bathroom."

Sheree went with her, refusing to relinquish her hold, even for a second.

I looked at the Sheriff silently.

He grimaced. "Damn. I get it. You do what you have to do, but try to keep it out of my house as much as you can. Do you have any idea what the hell this is about?"

"Not a goddam clue what started it, but it's obviously about Delaney."

Sheree, tight lipped and grim led Delaney back into the office. "Les. I think you need to call Tiffany and tell her you have to have word with your ex-wife. This all started the same time she got shot."

I couldn't argue with that.

*****

We walked in past a pair of nurses checking the heart and oxygen monitors attached to Charlotte by tubes and wires. Charlotte took a slow breath and looked steadily at Sheree. "I don't want her here."

I shrugged. "Want in one hand and s**t in the other, see which fills up faster, Charli." I noticed Sheree give me a slightly jaundiced look, but there was a hint of a smile.

"What is she doing here, anyway?"

Sheree gave her a patently fake smile. "I'm just here to keep Les from givin' in to his baser reflexes. Like, maybe smotherin' you with a pillow."

Charlotte looked over at me. "I don't feel comfortable with her here. She used to be an exotic dancer, you know." She said it a bit triumphantly like it was supposed to shock me.

I looked over at Sheree. "An exotic dancer? Really?"

Sheree shrugged. "Don't know 'bout 'exotic,' I was born less'en 50 miles from here." She screwed her face up a bit. "Not really much of a dancer either, really, but nobody seemed to mind as long as I got the 'girls' out."

I nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I can see that."

Charlotte realized I already knew and stared at me hatefully. "Strippers are w****s; everybody knows that."

Sheree leaned forward with a saccharine smile. "It'd probably be best if you jest stopped talkin' for a bit."

"Or what?" Charlotte rolled her eyes.

"Or nothing, Honey. Just tryin' to help you out."

"Really?"

"See, I was dancin' to pay off a court fine. I got myself in trouble smashing up the truck of a cheating asshole boyfriend. Spent three months in county lock-up, then had to pay a three thousand dollar fine. It was a brand new truck." Charlotte's face fell as she grasped Sheree wasn't hiding anything from me. Sheree noticed but drove on. "That was a lot of money and the Judge don't have a sense of humor if you don't pay the fine. I had to do somethin'. But that's not important part fer you."

Charlotte's patience was clearly running out. "So what is important to me?"

"Well, see, I was workin' there to pay the fine off, but most the girls was workin' there to pay their way through college." She paused and I noticed the same glitter in her eyes she usually had when she drew a straight flush in poker. "Nursing students, mostly."

Charlotte took just a second to soak that in then looked over at the two nurses who'd been working on the equipment. The older nurse was looking at her coldly with narrowed eyes while the younger redhead was openly glaring at her. "Oh."

The older nurse straightened up. "We'll just give you three some privacy." She nodded to Charlotte. "I'm the day shift Nurse Supervisor. You can just call me 'Jasmine'." She reached out and touched Sheree's shoulder. "Nice to see you again 'Candi.' Be sure to say 'hey' on your way out."

I waited until they shut the door. "You put an investigator on us? Not very Damning bright to put a private eye on me with everything Charles was involved in. Could have dragged you down on accident."

Charlotte gave an exasperated breath. "Just a computer background check on you and her. I did it after Delaney... chose to go live with you, before Charles' unexpected death. I just wanted to be sure she'd be okay... I wasn't expecting you to kill off half of North Carolina."

I wasn't responding to that, not in a room full of electronics. I changed the subject. "So what the Damn is going on? Somebody shoots you, I get rolled up by a crooked cop on a bad warrant who seems awful interested in Delaney. The judge is connected to Chucky's old law firm."

"I may have... inadvertently triggered something." She shifted uncomfortably.

"May have?"

"You know Charles wasn't Delaney's father."

A bad feeling soaked through me. "So who was?"

"I'm afraid I'm not certain."

"Jesus Christ, Charli. Is this one or two guys and uncertain timing? Or are we talking half the Virginia Bar Association and 'I don't have eyes in the back of my head' here?"

She sat up primly. "We were entertaining a great deal at that particular period in time."

Sheree raised one eyebrow at me and I could see her fighting the urge to ask Charlotte how she had the nerve to accuse anyone of being a w***e.

"Damn." I took a second to look out the window. "So all real movers and shakers, guys that could help Chuck's Damning career, right? But it's been over 14 years, why would anybody do anything now?"

She sat silent, looking out the window.

"Charli, what the Holy Hell did you do?"

She pursed her lips. "You have to understand. The election campaign very nearly bankrupted us. We spent a great deal and even had to borrow money."

"Charli."

"I may have let a few men know that I would appreciate some assistance in supporting their daughter." She said it quickly, spitting it out as if that would keep me from understanding it.

Charlotte had never so much as offered a dime to help with Delaney. Not that'd I'd have taken it. We stared wordlessly at each other. "Damn. You were blackmailing lawyers and judges?"

"Not blackmail, I was just looking for a little help re-establishing my financial security. I have to maintain some standard of living."

"That CM Consulting financial record, that was it, wasn't it? Your little game is going to get Delaney killed."

There was at least a small flicker of guilt over that. "I didn't think anyone would be that aggressive. They're respectable men and I was careful not to ask for too much."

"Respectable? Like Chuck? That Damner tried to have Delaney killed for votes, and planned to w***e Tara out at the firm, just like he did you." She winced at that and I hoped there really was a recording device so she could relive that later.

"That's not... relevant at the moment."

"Okay then let's talk about 'relevant.' Let's Damning forget about just how many guys you banged to give Chuck a Damning hand. Let's just narrow it down a bit from half the Damning population. How many of them could have influenced Judge Knowlton? Knowlton issued the warrant against me."

"I thought you said it was a bad warrant."

"He claims he didn't sign it, and that one of the court clerks must have forged it. Nobody can prove s**t, but I'm not buying it."

She looked thoughtful. "Just the senior partners, I suppose. Not Burns, he's gay. So Sharpton, Franks and the Calloways."

"The Calloways?"

"Father and son. They're both partners."

"So which one..." I trailed off as she gave me a stone face. "Jesus. Both, right?"

She nodded.

Sherry looked at her. "Oh, Honey. Please tell me it wasn't at the same time."

"Of course not."

Charlotte turned to me, away from Sheree. Over her back, I could see Sheree mouth the word "Ho" and roll her eyes.

"The older Calloway couldn't be her father though, it was only one time. He had prostate surgery shortly after that."

We left as soon as we could, Sheree dragging me out. I suspect she caught me eying the extra pillow.

*****

I'd just come out from rearranging the battery shed and nearly tripped over Delaney.

"I wonder what that's about?" Delaney had stopped rolling a worn out tire to the tire stacks for a moment. If it had been any other teenager I'd ever met, it'd have been just an excuse to stop working, but Delaney worked as hard as possible just so she could get back to working on her car. The meticulous work of rebuilding the engine was almost weirdly fascinating to her.

I followed her gaze. A black SUV was sitting just outside the closed gate, and a county Sheriff's car was pulled up behind it, the deputy, probably Hyatt, from her lack of height, was talking with the driver, but she didn't have a ticket book out. He handed her something and she looked over it, stepping back toward the rear of the vehicle as she did it.

It didn't look like a pleasant exchange, and we watched until the SUV drove away. The deputy turned like she was going to get back in her cruiser, but saw us and headed our way. I waved her over to the smaller gate on the sidewalk and we met her there.

She shot Delaney a smile, but turned serious as she turned to me. "Sir."

"What can I do for you?"

"I have reason to believe the man in the black SUV was taking pictures of Delaney, but the camera SD card was pulled out, so I didn't have proof. With everything that's happened, I thought you should know."