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The twins took care of them. We need to know what happened. ”
He stared back at Rowdy. Normally, Zeke would have believed him, but several years back, Rowdy had pulled his own bullshit over on Zeke. He hadn’t forgotten it. There were times he wasn’t sure he had forgiven it. He used to believe he was friends with these men, until he learned how easily they would hide the threats to the county he was duly sworn to protect.
They were here, and they didn’t know shit about what he was doing; only Cranston was aware of it, and only because the other man was well aware of who and what Zeke was looking for. While they were here, he may as well get what information he could.
“I don’t know what happened yet. Not fully,” he lied as he leaned forward and stared back at the cousins. “Did those boys do hard drugs that you knew of?”
They looked at each other in confusion before Rowdy shook his head firmly. “Joe and Jaime were hell-raisers, but they didn’t do the hard stuff. ”
Well, hell, that didn’t help him much where the coroner’s report was concerned.
“Do you have the forensics’ or coroner’s report yet?” Special Agent Timothy Cranston leaned forward in his chair, the wrinkled material of his cheap gray suit jacket shifting loosely on his shoulders.
“Cranston, what’s your business in this?” Zeke leaned back in his chair with a brooding look. “If this has anything to do with another operation in my county, then now’s the time to give me a heads-up. Otherwise, I’ll stop playing nice. ”
And that was Cranston’s only warning. The agent was hiding too much information from him and Zeke was losing patience with him.
Timothy grunted. “You stopped playing nice when your buddies in the Justice Department kicked my ass last year. Now, I’m being nice. ” His smile was all teeth.
“Janey’s upset over this. Rogue’s her friend and mine. Those twins were her friends, and Janey asked me to see what I could find out. I’d prefer not to pull in my own favors in D. C. at the moment, Sheriff. Might need those favors to get my job back. ” The lying bastard. “So why don’t we all just play nice, and see if we can help each other here. ”
Which pretty much meant Cranston was involved up to his beady little eyes in Zeke’s business. Playing along was easy enough, for the moment.
“Well, hell,” he growled, lifted the file, and tossed it closer to the edge of the desk.
“Initial report. Joe was pumped on heroin. The city’s investigative coroner still has the bodies, but this is the county coroner’s initial findings. Joe was pumped, walked in, shot Jaime, then himself. ”
Natches lifted the file from the desk, sat back, and opened it. Two cousins and one portly Homeland Security agent read over his shoulder.
“Not possible,” Dawg murmured. “Joe didn’t do this shit, Zeke. And he wouldn’t kill Jaime. ”
“Dawg, I’m doing my best with what I have here. ” Zeke sighed. “Forensics hasn’t come up with anything yet. No vehicle tracks were found outside the twins’ trailer, other than official vehicles that arrived that day. There was rumor of a fight over a girl, but no one knows who the girl was. There’s just nothing to stand on here but my gut and your suspicions. That’s not going to get me far. ”
Natches tossed the report back to the desk before breathing out heavily and raking his fingers through his shaggy black hair.
“If we hear anything, we’ll let you know. ” Dawg shook his head at that point. “But I know Joe or Jaime wasn’t doing heroin. That’s a promise. They weren’t exactly upstanding citizens, Zeke, but they didn’t do trash, either. ”
Zeke could only shrug in response. “I need proof, Dawg. You know how it works. I’ll wait until forensics and the coroner’s investigator finish their reports. But initial calls to each aren’t promising. Until then, I’m asking questions and trying to piece this together.
If Joe and Jaime were murdered, then someone knew what the hell they were doing, because I can’t find so much as a whiff of suspicion. It’s that simple. ” And it was a message to Cranston. Zeke knew who he was after; the agent could stay the hell out of his way if he didn’t intend to play fair with Zeke in this little game.
“Damn. ” Dawg rubbed at the back of his neck in a rough gesture.
Zeke’s gut went haywire when he knew things weren’t as they seemed. Dawg’s and Rowdy’s neck itched. Natches just became a time bomb with an assassin rifle. Who the hell knew what Cranston did; Zeke sure as hell couldn’t figure him out.
The Mackays weren’t happy, Zeke wasn’t happy, Cranston was smiling, and Zeke knew that this was a bad sign. Welcome to Lake Cumberland, he thought caustically. The last few years had been hell, for law enforcement as well as citizens. Pulaski County was a quiet little place, despite the tourism to the lake.
The mountains, vibrant forests, fishing, and hometown atmosphere hadn’t made up for the realization that a dark underbelly had been existing for decades beneath their notice.
The operations Homeland Security had conducted, using the Mackay cousins as agents, had revealed a festering evil that Zeke had been fighting far longer than the Mackays could ever guess. It had become his own personal battle, the only way to make up for his sins as a child.
“What about the explosion last night?” Natches asked. “Their mobile home went up like fireworks. If it was murder-suicide rather than two homicides, then why would anyone bother to blow the place up?”
Zeke lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I went over it with the state police and the arson investigator. We didn’t find jack. There was a call made here to the office that there were vandals at the place. It went up in flames as Gene pulled into the driveway with the state police. There was no sign of a body. ” He lifted another file as he glanced at Cranston. “There was a gas stove in the mobile home that the arson investigator believes must have been faulty and caused the explosion. ”
Zeke didn’t believe that for a moment. It was too easy and it was too similar to how he knew the League’s exterminator worked. Zeke knew things the Mackays didn’t. He knew things Cranston didn’t. And he knew this was the work of someone from the homeland terrorist group that had escaped the net Cranston had used to pull the others in.
“I have an idea. ” Cranston smiled as he leaned forward in his chair. “Right now, whoever you’re looking for, if this was a murder, knows you’re looking for him. Let him think you’re distracted, otherwise occupied. ”
