Cut and Run(4)

Crow had a small deck out back that faced west and gave him a view of the sunsets. The old man liked his twilights, and he spent most evenings sipping whiskey from a saloon glass that reflected the sun’s oranges and yellows in the amber liquid.

When Hayden came around the side of the trailer, he saw two buzzards pecking at a man’s leg as he sat in his lawn chair, facing west toward a sunset that was still hours away.

“Get on out of here!” Hayden shouted. “Get out!”

The birds hopped several paces and then flapped their wings, landing on top of the trailer so they could watch until this new predator cleared out.

The old man was slumped back in his chair, and even from fifteen feet away, Hayden could see fingers bent and twisted at horrific angles. Several of Crow’s fingernails were also missing, and puddles of blood dripped and pooled onto the deck.

Whoever had killed him had left slices in the flesh, knowing the smell would bring the buzzards from over a mile away.

Judging by the evidence, he knew Crow had been dead for several hours.

“Jesus, Crow.” Sadness circled like the buzzards, but Hayden chased it away as well.

Instead of rushing toward Crow, Hayden searched the horizon for signs of an ambush. He moved around the trailer, scanning every angle before he climbed up the four narrow porch steps, crossed the wooden platform, and opened the front door.

Finger resting on the trigger, he switched on a light and peered inside. The place had been tossed. The cushions on the couch had been pulled off and cut open, the recliner had been upended, and the drawers from a small desk had been dumped out on the floor. A collection of pictures, mostly of a younger Crow and a little girl, lay crumpled in the center of the room, their thin black frames smashed along with the glass. Worn carpet muffled the sound of his boots as he moved deeper into the trailer toward the back bedroom, where he discovered an upended mattress hacked open, its white tufted innards scattered around.

Determining the trailer was secure, he returned to Jack Crow’s body and found that two buzzards had landed back on the porch. He stamped his booted foot on the deck and yelled violent curses until the raptors left him alone to study the body.

The old man’s rugged face was covered in white stubble, and thin lips twisted into a snarl born of pain and anger. His plaid shirt was unbuttoned, exposing a round belly protruding from a white T-shirt stained with blood and sweat.

This close, he could see Jack Crow’s legs were turned at odd angles, as if someone had taken a hammer or crowbar to his kneecaps.

Hayden holstered his weapon, allowing the first flicker of sadness. The old bastard might have broken a few laws in his time, but under all the gruff and bluster there’d been a decent soul.

Hayden searched Crow’s pockets, not expecting to find anything. However, in his front breast pocket, there was a playing card. It was the king of spades. It was clean, the paper slick as if it had just been removed from a fresh deck. None of the gangs who circulated in the area used cards like this, but it was clear. Someone was sending a message.

Hayden reached for his phone and called the local sheriff, then the state medical examiner’s office. Crow hadn’t given any hints about why he’d wanted to see Hayden. He’d just said it was real important. “Crow, what the hell did they want?”





CHAPTER TWO

Monday, June 25, 3:00 p.m.

Austin, Texas

Dr. Faith McIntyre of the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office stood at her autopsy station studying the body of the sixty-four-year-old male lying on the gurney against a stainless steel sink. Country music played softly from a small set of audio speakers next to a whiteboard covered with her daily schedule written in tight cursive. Beside it rested a TEXAS mug filled with red, green, and black dry-erase markers. Above the gurney hung a microphone as well as a large adjustable light that reflected on the stainless steel instruments on the tray.

According to the death investigation report, the subject of her examination had been found sitting outside his trailer in a lawn chair and had sustained multiple traumas to his joints. Paramedics had declared him dead at the scene.

When the body had arrived at the medical examiner’s office and his clothes and shoes stripped, she’d immediately noted horrific signs of torture, including seven broken fingers, lacerations, and a shattered kneecap.

This was the kind of death reserved for those who landed on the wrong side of the drug cartels. “Did he have a connection to drug trafficking?” Faith asked.

Her question was directed at Texas Ranger Mitchell Hayden. His tan face, weathered by years in the Texas sun, was stoic and with no hint as to what he was thinking. Large hands weren’t clenched at his side, but were primed to curl into fists in a blink of an eye. His large, muscled body, which had taken a gunshot directly into his Kevlar vest just three weeks ago, was as still as stone.

Hayden had a reputation for being decisive to the point of unfeeling, but she’d known him for a few years and recognized the quieter he was, the deeper his feelings ran.

“Why do the Texas Rangers care about Jack Crow?” she asked.

“Jack Crow contacted me on Friday. He never called just to chat, so if he had a story to tell, I listened. I couldn’t get out to see him until yesterday, and when I did, I found him like this.”

“Do you have any idea what he wanted to tell you?” she asked.

“He wouldn’t say anything over the phone. He never liked them because he thought his calls were being monitored.”