LYING COP Read online

  LYING COP

  By

  SANDY NIGHT

  Copyright © 2010 by Sandy Night

  Cover Design by DigitalDonna

  SECOND EDITION

  April 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  “Set that whiskey down!” Aunt Esther spat, pointing at the kitchen countertop. “And get that cocky grin off your face.”

  The moment Whip Cunningham’s fingers released the Mason jar—she slapped his face with the force of a ping-pong ball. He wanted to laugh but didn’t dare, so he bit the end of his tongue, picked the jar back up, and shot out the door.

  Tiny flecks of snow fluttered around him as he hurried along the footpath, bobbing up and down from his limp. Words he heard a thousand times echoed in his mind. Don’t do anything stupid, Whip. Stick to the plan, Whip. There’s a lot at stake here—screw up and I’ll kill you myself.

  After a quick nip of bogus moonshine, he ambled into his dead uncle’s shop. Dirty boxes, tools, rusted coffee cans, and whatnots cluttered a workbench lining the wall. Tomato cages were heaped in a twisted tangle with chicken wire in the back, and two-by-fours lay all over the place. A dim bulb hung over a yellow, 1941 Willys Coupe with its narrow hood gaping open.

  His cousin, Tom Ketch, sat on a stool by the front end, and Blade Roper, Whip’s long time nemesis stood on the opposite side.

  “Hey, man,” Whip said, sauntering over toward his cousin.

  “What’s up?” Tom asked in a pleasant manner, which was not how he usually spoke to him.

  “I made some hooch.” Whip handed him the jar of Johnnie Black.

  Tom knocked back a swig. His eyes widened and he coughed.

  Whip drunkenly giggled.

  Tom’s glaring at him like a vulture eyeballing road kill, communicated the message, you’re supposed to be sober, ass-wipe.

  But Whip didn’t care. He took back the phony moonshine and took a gulp, dribbling it down the side of his chin. He swiped his mouth with his denim sleeve and gazed toward his soon-to-be victim who was studying the engine. “Hey, Roper.”

  Blade, who stood a good foot taller than Whip, gave him a quick nod. “Cunningham.”

  “So what do you think?” Tom leaped up and patted the small antique automobile that buyers shunned when first produced but flocked to after World War II, turning them into a hot-rods. It boasted a humped trunk, rounded fenders, a narrow windshield, and two tiny windows in the back. “Will this settle my bill?”

  Blade took a step back. “She doesn’t look too bad, could be worth a whole lot of money, how much, I really couldn’t tell you. You ought to find out and sell it. Heck, you only owe me seven hundred and forty three dollars.”

  “I know, but I feel real guilty for running up a bill I can’t pay. I don’t want to lose you as my mechanic. Hell, you’re the best one around here. You can restore it. And then sell it. It runs like shit but turns over. I’ll show you.”

  Tom grasped the door handle and pulled. The hinges didn’t creak like they used to. He sat down then abruptly got out. “The key’s are in the house.” He sprinted out of the shop as if flames were licking the walls.

  Whip maneuvered toward the corner, watching his boot scuffle a dead mouse squashed almost beyond recognition. His enemy ignored him like he was a tick on the ground, which was how he and his sister had always treated him.

  Blade ambled over to the car’s opened door and leaned inside.

  Whip sidled up behind him and shouted, “Want some—”

  Blade jolted out of the Willy, elbowing Whip’s shoulder. The jar dropped to the concrete, shattering glass and splashing whiskey in every direction.

  “Aw, now look what you did.” Whip said in a mechanical way.

  “It’s your own fault! You shouldn’t have snuck up on me like that.”

  “Snuck up? You’re stuck up. You think you’re too damn good for my whiskey, don’t you?” Whip’s voice rose to a high pitch and spittle flew out of his mouth. “You always thought you were better than me. You and your bitchy sister, you both think—”

  “Get out of my way.” Blade pushed him aside and headed for the door.

  Whip grabbed a two-by-four and jabbed the end of it into his adversary’s lower back.

  Blade gasped and spun around. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “You and me have a score to settle.” Aiming the board at his groin, Whip lunged.

  Blade caught the two-by four and pulled it out of his hands. “Back off Cunningham!”

  Whip grabbed another two-by-four. And stepping toward him, screamed as if a swarm of killer bees landed on him.

  Blade swung his plank of wood up like a baseball bat.

  This was it, the moment everybody had so painstakingly plotted for, arguing and disagreeing over details. Whip bent his knees and allowed the long piece of wood aiming for his shoulder to slam across the side of his head. It struck like a clap of thunder. He reeled, crashed against the workbench, and then collapsed to the cement like a rag doll.

  Chapter 1

  Eighteen months later

  Crap, someone’s calling in sick. Or it’s Stormy drunk again.

  Alaska’s hand flew out from beneath the comforter, knocked a glass off the nightstand, and located her cell in the darkness. She flipped it opened. “Lo?”

  “Hey, wake up,” her brother’s voice sounded, “I’m out of the pen.”

  “What?” She sprung upright into a sitting position on the bed. “They let you out?”

  “No. I escaped.”

  “Escaped? Blade, are you kidding me?”

  “I’m serious. You have to come get me.”

  “Holy shit!” Alaska yanked the cord on her Tiffany style lamp. The light illuminated blue dragonflies with purple wings on a glass shade. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I don’t want to say, they could be tapping your phone. Remember where we ate steak and eggs after that last concert we went to?”

  “Umm…yeah, we had a food fight there one time when we were kids.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay.” She pushed long strands of hair away from her face. “Where will you be hiding?”

  “I’ll probably be in a booth. I’m hungry.”

  “What! But you just escaped from prison. And you’re going to sit in the middle of a restaurant and eat?”

  “Well, yeah. I’ll look stupid squatting in the bushes. I have to blend in.”

  “What about your prison issues, won’t somebody get suspicious?”

  “I got rid of them. I’m wearing stuff I pulled out of a garbage can in the back of the lot. Man, it was nasty digging through there.”

  “Oh my God, I don’t believe this.”

  “I need you to go to my trailer and get me some clothes and my sleeping bag. How much cash do you have?”

  “Bout a hundred.”

  “Good, bring it, I don’t have any money. And don’t bring your cell. They could try tracing your signal.”

  “Okay, it’ll take at least an hour to get there, but I’ll hurry.”

  “Not too fast, just make sure you get here, and don’t panic.”

  Alaska’s feet landed in plush purple carpet, and her bare skin tingled as she left the warmth of her feather-topped bed. She turned off the box fan in the open window. The heavy, sweet scent of honeysuckle saturated the air as if a per
fume bottle had broken.

  God, Blade. What were you thinking?

  She hurried into a pair of stonewashed jeans, a cream colored T-shirt with the Cliff Café’s logo, and a red flannel shirt. Then she put on tennis shoes, grabbed her purse, and bounded down the rickety steps of her clapboard house that set nestled among hardwood and pine. She hastened into her rust eaten Ford pick-up and tore down the unpaved road toward Blade’s trailer which was half a mile further into the Arkansas Ozark Forest. The truck’s high beams broke the black on black night like the front line of a storm. Startled rabbits with bobbing white tails scurried in front of her before jumping back into the bushes.

  Glad she had left the electricity on, she entered Blade’s trailer and flipped on the switch for the overhead light. Gone were the DVDs, leather sofa, and big screen. He sold everything to pay for his defense. The sale of his truck and tools wasn’t enough. Even the Civil War artifacts he used to display were missing.

  A wave of relief overcame her as she stood in front of his bedroom closet. He no longer sat in a cement cell, locked in like a dog with evil criminal men who daily teetered on the brink of insanity. His incarceration had tormented her heart and mind. She used to imagine what his reality was. The everyday chaos he had to endure of yelling and cursing threats, all echoing off the walls, penetrating Blade’s own sanity like darts doused in poison.

  Not sure of what all he needed, she grabbed shoes, socks, underwear, denim jeans, two shirts, a toothbrush, and his sleeping bag. Where did he plan on going?

  She hit the smooth blacktop of highway 7, and drove as fast as she dared off the mountain, focusing on the truck’s speed going around the curves. Then cruised at the point the dashboard vibrated.

  Upon approaching a tiny city enshrouded in a dim glow from its streetlights, she eased off the accelerator, allowing the needle to drop. Even though Main Street was deserted at three in the morning, she didn’t want to attract the attention of some predatory cop who could possibly be waiting and watching for someone like her to come along and inflict his tickets on.

  After the center of the town passed and the speed limit signs increased to fifty-five, she then sped to the interstate where she merged behind a big rig. The massive form outlined with red and yellow lights snapped her out of a frenzied daze.

  Was Blade’s phone call some kind of dream her subconscious cooked up? Maybe, he wasn’t even there? Maybe, he was still in the pen? And that would be okay because then he wouldn’t be an escapee, being hunted down by men with guns thinking him to be dangerous. He was getting another attorney and a good one too. Or maybe, he’d been caught and he’s on his way back to that horrible place that nightmares are made up of. Or shot.

  Following the taillights of the semi to the Skid-N-Go truck stop, she pulled around back to a full lot. About eighty tractor-trailers were parked in rows, side by side like dominos. Her jaw and hand muscles relaxed when she saw no law enforcement or emergency vehicles anywhere. She turned her pick-up around, drove up to the front of the restaurant and parked two slots away from the only car there.

  With a spring in her step and her heart thumping, she entered the large building that not only housed the restaurant but also a convenience store, and a drivers’ lounge. She knew she was in the process of committing the crime of aiding and abetting an escaped convict and could go to jail for it, but she didn’t care. She loved her brother.

  She went past the register and a ‘Please Be Seated’ sign. A dozen or so customers were scattered about, sitting at the counter or in high-backed booths. But she didn’t see him. Her stomach pressed against her throat. Strolling past the enclosed tables, she peered into each one as if she looked for a place to sit. Finally, she found him hunkered down in the last one, reading a newspaper.

  “Blade…”

  “Hey, you made it.” He smiled.

  “Well, of course.” She sat next to him.

  He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead.

  She sniffed a foul odor and tugged on his shirt. “It’s on inside out.”

  “I had to, its got grease and blood on it.”

  “I’m bout ready to freak out now,” she muttered.

  A waitress appeared and placed a menu on the table.

  “Oh, I’m not having anything,” Alaska said, without making eye contact with the woman.

  “Are you sure?” Blade removed his arm. “Why don’t you have some coffee, have you had any yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “She’ll have a cup,” he said to the waitress, who then picked up empty plates and left.

  “Blaade,” Alaska pleaded. “Don’t you think we should get out of here?”

  “We will, but I want to change first. And the coffee will do you some good. You do seem a little tense.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re fine.” He nudged her. “Let me out.”

  Her hands trembled as she ripped open packages of sugar and dumped the granules into the steaming mug. She peered out the glass front. He stood next to the Ford with the door open, changing his clothes. Damn it Blade, he was the only family she had. She couldn’t lose him. She took a swallow and almost scorched her mouth. They needed to get the hell out of there.

  She dribbled ice water into the coffee and downed it. Then she got up and paid the bill. Blade met her by the register and she gave him the rest of the money she brought.

  He strolled through the store, loading his arms with a variety of snacks, a flashlight, and bottled water, handing some of the items to her to hold. He must have had a plan? But she couldn’t ask him there, where other people milled about.

  She stared at the surveillance camera as they stood at the checkout counter. It wasn’t like they were robbing the place. No reason for the tape to be viewed.

  Plump raindrops splattered on them when they strolled out of the truck stop. They tossed the bags in her pick-up and got in.

  She backed up with a jolt and peeled out of the parking lot. “Damn, Blade! How did you get out?”

  “Whip Cunningham’s not dead.” He leaned toward her over the plastic bags.

  “What? Whip’s not dead?”

  “Yeah, Whip. He’s alive and well and partying in Branson.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Heck no, I’m as serious as a rattlesnake. I’ve been sitting in that frickin’ hellhole for months and that son-of- a …” Blade slapped the dashboard. “He ain’t even dead!”

  Chapter 2

  Colt Mallett slipped his cell into his belt clip, stepped out of the rental cabin, and closed the door behind him. He stared at the foggy grayness blanketing the forest by the Buffalo River, patting his back pocket, making sure his billfold hadn’t fallen out of the jeans he tossed over the chair the night before. A chaotic orchestra of birds squawked, chirped, whistled, and cawed. There must have been thousands of them.

  He took long strides down a narrow path of wet grass, determined to not stop and throw a glance over his shoulder. The obsessive urge to constantly be looking behind himself had leached onto him after a suspect struck him on the head with a liquor bottle, two weeks earlier.

  A natural tunnel inside a dense canopy of trees loomed before him. The obscurity slowed his gait but he figured he’d make it through okay without any light. He entered and a flashback of the bottle assault overwhelmed him, paralyzing his legs. He stood there like a human icicle as his mind slipped back in time to the pitch dark area by the side of a house. The beam of his flashlight switched back and forth, searching for a home invasion suspect. The shrub shook and he unhitched his semi-automatic from his holster. Then sharp pain hit the back of his head and the stars in the sky fell upon him. But it was what happened after his fellow officers called him back to consciousness that haunted him the most. His semi-automatic was gone.

  Branches rustled from the gregarious flocks of birds as if the trees themselves had come alive. He peered upwards. There’s nobody up there. No bottle flying through th
e air. He wasn’t in uniform. No firearm to steal. Then what about the escapee from the Arkansas State of Corrections? Colt envisioned a desperate, wild looking man in white prison issues lurking behind him. He spun around.

  Nothing happened. He drew in a deep breath, and then released a leisurely exhale. Moving a downed tree blocking the road to his cabin was going to be his first project. He needed to be able to drive his car back there.

  He jogged the rest of the way through the tunnel but slowed to a stroll when he entered a clearing. He glanced at his Cadillac and proceeded on toward his parent’s residence cabin.

  He approached the door, listened for a moment, stepped to the side, and knocked.

  Bunny, his mother, swung it open. “Morning,” her voice sang. “I thought you would sleep latter than this?”

  “Captain called.” He ducked under the low doorframe and entered a spacious living area. The aroma of wood smoke still lingered from a blackened fireplace.

  Frank, his dad, sat at the breakfast table with a newspaper spread out in front of him. “What did he want?”

  “He wants me to do him a favor.” Colt headed for the kitchen.

  “But you’re on vacation,” Bunny said.

  Colt opened the refrigerator. “A prisoner escaped from the penitentiary last night.” He pulled out a slim bottle of water, turned his back toward the counter, and drank as if he’d been in Death Valley.

  His dad, a retired cop, raised one thick eyebrow. “How did that happen?”

  “You don’t look too well.” Bunny placed her hand on her hip. “Didn’t you sleep okay?”

  “Bunny, now leave him alone,” Frank barked. “What happened?”

  Colt gulped the last of the water. “Apparently a guard left his post and went to play around at another one, and accidentally opened the doors to a block without realizing it.” He tossed the plastic bottle into the garbage. “And a bunch of inmates went wandering about.”

  Frank pushed his chair back. “Well don’t that beat all. We risk our damn lives to put them in there and those incompetent guards just let them out.”