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

to beat the lunch rush and grab a venison burger at The Sandpiper, thinking the call might come while she ate.

Nope.

So back to court she’d come, stalling as long as she dared before heading back up where she’d have to turn off her phone. Maybe she’d chance an evil eye from one of the marshals and leave the phone on vibrate. It might piss off the judge, but at least a contempt charge would liven up her day.

This trial was a big deal for Juneau. Conspiracy to distribute heroin – black tar, which was still just heroin, but sounded far more evil in a news story than China White or Mexican Cinnamon. The trial should have been interesting, but legal rules and lawyer brinksmanship kept getting in the way of the narrative. Van Tyler, the hotshot assistant US attorney, was making his case with boat manifests and chains of evidence. He’d yet to produce anything close to a smoking gun. She hoped something would break soon, or she’d have a whole load of “This is Lori Maycomb reporting on absolutely nothing from the Juneau Federal Court. Back to you, Matt.”

Oh, the Hernandez brothers were guilty as hell, but that didn’t make them interesting people. Van Tyler would never have brought this case to trial if he didn’t know he could win it. It wasn’t a fluke that the federal government had something like a ninety-two percent conviction rate. But those pesky juries were always a wild card – and Tyler just wasn’t winning their hearts. He wasn’t from Juneau, or even Alaska. He came from somewhere back east and gave off the definite air that he thought himself just a tad smarter than everyone else in the courtroom. Even Judge Forsberg was obviously put off by his demeanor, which wasn’t doing him any favors.

Maycomb checked her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, then glanced at the guy in the pickup. Her auntie had taught her early on that an animal could tell if you were looking at it from far away, by the whites of your eyes. It worked with people too, and the bag of bones across Ninth Street was definitely locked in on her.

He pretended to look down at something in the seat. Tapped his hand on the steering wheel, trying to be nonchalant. He was too far away to hear, but she imagined him whistling what he thought would be an inconspicuous tune.

Her source had warned her that the Hernandez brothers were nowhere near the most dangerous people involved with this trial. There were elements that would do anything to keep information from seeing the light of day – people who would “grind your body into crab food and dump it into the Gastineau Channel.”

Maycomb shuddered, then took a deep breath, getting control of herself. She’d been through far too much to be frightened by a scarecrow who wouldn’t even get out of his truck.

Still no call from her source. Dammit. She’d have to go up soon, pass through the humiliating layers of security screening and all the guys with guns. She was a reporter, paid to be observant. Might as well have one more cigarette while she observed the guy in the pickup, see what he was up to.

She found a spot by the wall, out of the way, to minimize being hassled by any of the chai latte crowd, and pretended to look at her phone while she watched. The longer she looked at him, the more she realized this guy was more of a worm than a snake. She began to doubt herself. He probably had nothing to do with the Hernandez trial – if he was even watching her. Maybe he was just attracted to women with crooked noses and overly high cheekbones.

So far, her source was coming off as more than a little maudlin, promising a tale of danger and corruption.

Maycomb tried to ignore the creeper while she finished her Marlboro. She thought about the book she was writing, or to be more precise, the book she was going to start writing. Any day now. If it were true that every shitty thing that happened to a novelist could be chalked up to research, then Maycomb had enough material to win a Pulitzer. Some people whined that they didn’t deserve all the shit they got in life. Lori Maycomb had earned every heartache and inflamed joint. All of it. The argument could have been made – and her sister-in-law made it all the time – that she had it far better than she deserved.

She pondered the taste of a whiskey, pushed the thought away, and savored the last of her cigarette. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, making her jump, but rescuing her from her pity party.

About damn time.

Instead of her source, it was her news director. He wanted an update.

“Nothing yet.”

She studied the guy across the street. Maybe he did have a little bit of snake in him. She caught his eye this time and didn’t look away, staring at him hard instead, letting him know she’d seen him. Knew his face.

He started the truck and drove away. His leaving should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d simply moved to stare at her from a different vantage point.

Shuddering again, she turned to hustle through the front doors, suddenly glad for the layers of security and all the guys with guns.

Chapter 12

Dallas Childers leaned into a gradual curve on the little Yamaha XT250 dual-sport, turning off Glacier Way onto Vanderbilt Hill Road, tracing the route from Lemon Creek Correctional to the federal courthouse. He’d watched the transport go by that morning from the parking lot of the Dragon Inn. They were making it easy – two prisoners, two marshals, one car. A dedicated kid with a cap gun could take them all out.

Childers had learned about choke points in the Marine Corps. This interchange in front of him now