Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

“I hear you, sir,” he said, a little too smugly for Grimsson’s taste. “But the Hernandez trial has the potential to go south in a hurry.”

“I don’t want it to go south,” Grimsson said. “I want it to go away. I have certain financial obligations, and those idiots got an extremely large investment impounded by the federal government.” He jabbed at the air with his pipe again. “That creates a problem for me. I don’t need to tell you, but I’m losing money every day that I’m not taking gold out of that new adit. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can happen to delay that road, you understand me? I’ll take care of any investigation later, or even a corruption trial if it comes to that, but I need cash flow. There’s enough gold in that mine to provide a hell of a lot of goodwill in the way of jobs.” Pipe in his teeth, he nodded toward the back room and the sounds of strained female laughter. “And the things money buys, buy me my politicians.”

“I can slow down the trial,” Dollarhyde said. “Taint the jury or whatever, but to be honest, that only gives the US attorney more time to run at the brothers with a plea deal. Sooner or later, they’re going to see it is in their best interest to cooperate. I’m already hearing whisperings.”

“I was under the impression those shitballs wouldn’t be a problem much longer. Neither of them knows me, but they know people who know me. If either one starts naming names… So how about you tell me why they’re still breathing?”

Dollarhyde gave a little shrug. “Lemon Creek Correctional is relatively small. That cuts down on the pool of inmates who might be willing to do a hit.”

Grimsson gripped both armrests of his chair and looked hard at Dollarhyde. “I pay you to solve problems like this. Solve it.”

Dollarhyde swirled the ice in his ginger ale and stared into it, like it was something potent enough to offer advice.

Grimsson let his head fall sideways. His wife’s golden-green eyes stared at him from above the mantel. For some reason, seeing her face there, so vibrant and alive, soothed him, focused his thoughts.

“I want this fixed,” he said at length. “Understand?”

“I do.” Dollarhyde set his ginger ale on the side table and rose, as if he was getting straight to work. “I’m glad to fix what you need fixed, but in order to do that, things will get bloody.”

Grimsson thought of the dead archeologist, dumped in the sea because he was more attached to a bunch of ancient bones than his own. “It’s already bloody.”

Dollarhyde gave a chilling smile, a dog finally let off the leash to yield to its more basic natures.

“Well, bloodier then,” he said. “We’ll hit them tomorrow in their weakest spot – between Lemon Creek and the federal courthouse. It’s just a couple of marshals and a sedan.”

Chapter 8

Anchorage

Mim Cutter sat at her kitchen table and tried to hide a satisfied smile from a prickly teenage daughter who sat across from her doing homework. Something was brooding between the twins, but Mim was used to that. Eight-year-old boys fought as hard as they played. Matthew, the younger, and outwardly the tougher of the two, could break into tears at any moment. For now, Arliss had them both happy, and Mim would take all the happiness she could get, thank you very much.

Constance was a different story. She was fifteen and wasn’t content unless everyone around her was just as grouchy as she was. The poor kid had a right to be sad, they all did. Mim had basically curled up and gone catatonic after Ethan was killed. Thankfully, people from the church had brought over food for two solid weeks. Otherwise, the kids might have starved. You never really snapped out of losing a spouse – but Mim had gotten numb to the pain. A little. Arliss helped. A lot. Right now, with the sound of the twins’ laughter mixing with the celery and black pepper odor of caribou stew on the stove, she just couldn’t bring herself to be glum – even if it did piss off her daughter.

Suddenly chilled, Mim reached behind her for the cardigan she’d draped over the back of her chair. It was a ratty thing of natural wool, with frayed sleeves and an oblong hole the size of a hen’s egg where the bottom button should have been. As a rule, Mim changed out of her scrubs as soon as she got home from work – too many animalcules floating around the hospital that she didn’t want to bring home to her kids. Today, ten minutes before the end of her shift, her last patient was an off-duty police officer who’d nearly severed his thumb with a new hunting knife. She’d been standing directly in the line of fire when he took away the wad of paper towels he’d used as a makeshift bandage, and got a healthy squirt of arterial blood in the chest for her trouble. That put her in a fresh pair of clean lavender scrubs before she walked out the door – perfect for sitting at her laptop and facing the bills. Dirty-blond hair was pulled back in a no-fuss mom-ponytail. Peaches-and-cream complexion flushed, her heart warmed as she watched her brother-in-law try to teach twin eight-year-olds how to cook biscuits.

A white dish towel thrown cavalierly over his shoulder, Arliss explained how his grandfather, Grumpy, had made the perfect biscuit – taking care not to manhandle the dough. Folding it into layers and cutting it square so there wouldn’t be any wasted pieces that had to be reworked. Mim’s boys had the attention span of a couple of squirming puppies. She’d written off getting anything close to the flaky biscuits she’d known Grumpy Cutter to bake. But, as Arliss often told her, cooking together wasn’t about making perfect food, it was about making better boys. If