Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(71)

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, Claire. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Darren, this sounds like a bad idea. A bad plan all the way around. If you go in there, don’t go without a SWAT team.”

“I don’t want to get a bunch of people hurt, Claire. An ATF SWAT team went into Waco. Remember that? They got shot to pieces.”

“But you’ll get yourself killed!”

“I hope not. Believe it or not, I’ve done this kind of thing before. But if it goes bad, I just wanted to hear your voice one more time. Take care, Claire. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She said, “You better, Darren Street. You better call me,” and I hung up.





CHAPTER 41

It was dark when I awoke. I’d managed to doze off for only a couple of hours. A chill ran through me as I rolled out of bed at 3:30 a.m. and went in to take a shower. As soon as I’d hung up with Claire, I’d called the sheriff and told him to pick me up at five in the morning.

“Why?” he’d said. “Where we going?”

“Just pick me up.”

I didn’t know where Roby Penn lived. Hell, I didn’t even know what the man looked like. I’d heard he was a skinhead and had a white handlebar mustache. I knew him only secondhand, by his legend, the same way thousands of people knew the mobsters and Bonnie and Clyde back in their heyday. I had no idea what Tree Corker would do when I told him what I had in mind, whether the blood of family would overcome the seemingly sincere turnaround of his moral compass. And speaking of moral compasses, I had no idea where mine was pointing. I didn’t know whether I was going after Roby Penn because I thought it was the right thing to do for the safety and betterment of the community or whether I just wanted to kill the man I had come to regard as a plague that needed to be eradicated.

I was the district attorney general, but I had no illusions about whether I was acting under color of law. I wasn’t. There had been no meaningful investigation into Roby Penn. There was no evidence in the files of a law enforcement agency that could be brought forward in a court of law. He would receive no due process. Had I taken the time—and it would have been a long time—I could have eventually gathered enough evidence to get a judge to sign a warrant charging Roby with illegal gambling. Maybe. But in the course of gathering that evidence, I would have had to develop witnesses and informants, and every one of their lives would have been at risk. If Roby so much as suspected someone of helping the police make a case on him, I had no doubt he would have killed them, just as he’d killed Morris and the others.

I dressed, drank two cups of coffee, and cleaned the Walther pistol I’d become so proficient with. I could put a .22-caliber round into a thimble at fifteen yards with that pistol, and I could rapid-fire ten rounds into a circle the size of a teacup. When I was finished, I secured the pistol in its holster at the small of my back and thought again about whether this was something I wanted to do. I decided it was.

Maybe it was akin to a death wish. Maybe I’d lost all hope that I would ever find anything good and decent in the world that wouldn’t be taken away from me. And thinking about what had been going on in and around Knoxville, the hustles and the scams and the corruption that reached all the way to Nashville, made me nauseous. I also realized the corruption was going on all over the world, all day, every day. What difference did it make if Roby Penn blew my brains out and I was no longer a part of this world? Besides, my original intent had been to gain some kind of revenge on Morris and to find an opening for Granny to get into gambling and drugs. Who was I kidding? There was nothing honorable about any of it.

I heard a soft knock on the door at precisely five o’clock and picked up my coat, a stocking cap, and a pair of gloves. A cold front had settled in, and it was chilly and blustery outside.

“Morning,” the sheriff said when I opened the door. He was wearing his uniform, including the Pythons.

“Morning,” I said. “I see you put your guns back on.”

“Felt kind of naked without them.”

“Ready to go?”

“I reckon so. Whose vehicle we taking?”

“Let’s take yours,” I said. “I’ve never ridden in a car that looks like a tank and has the words High Sheriff printed on it.”

“Mind telling me where we’re going?”

“I’m going to arrest your uncle Roby. You need to take me to where he lives.”

“You got a warrant for his arrest?”

“No. I’m going to make a citizen’s arrest.”

We walked to his cruiser, and I was surprised to hear the sheriff chuckle as we strapped ourselves in.

“Citizen’s arrest,” he said as he started the car and pulled out of my complex. “That’s a good one. You think you’re going to just walk up to the door and knock and tell Roby Penn you’re there to arrest him, and he’ll just come along quietly?”

“I don’t think it’ll go that way, no.”

“It ain’t gonna go that way, I promise.”

“I don’t expect you to get in the middle of it. Just drop me off near his house.”

“He lives in a trailer.”

“Then drop me near the trailer.”