Fallout (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Fallout

  A

  Joshua Stokes

  Mystery

  By: Lila Beckham

  Fallout - a Joshua Stokes Mystery (Joshua Stokes Mysteries)

  Copyright © 2013 Susan C Beck

  Cover art: S C Beck

  Editing: C Seitz-Sanderson

  Other Joshua Stokes mysteries include - the novel, Dumping Grounds, which is the first in the Joshua Stokes series - and the book that began it all is the novel by Susan Cobb Beck, titled - A Murder in Moffettville - where many of these characters first appear.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written consent of the publisher, except for excerpts or brief quotations in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  For my friends

  Joyce Williams, Sandy Smith, & Carol Sanderson

  I want to thank my lifelong friend and accomplice, Joyce Williams for always having my back and being there for me no matter what. I also wish to thank my good friends Sandy Smith and Carol Sanderson for their friendship and constant encouragement to keep writing and telling my stories. Moreover, I want to thank y’all for being a sounding board when I needed you, for reading, offering suggestions whether I heeded them or not, and for listening to my stories without complaint.

  I would also like to thank my motherin-law Cricket, who said I had to write a sequel because she needed more of ‘The Sheriff.’ Thank you all!

  Chapter contents:

  1 Cause and Effect

  2 An Ill Wind

  3 Bound for Glory

  4 Absolute Authority

  5 Yellow Belly

  6 Nit and Pea Picking

  7 Time in a Bottle

  8 Soothsayer

  9 The Cock of the Roost

  10 The Mexican

  11 When the Pain Comes

  12 Photograph

  13 Sacrifices

  14 Pusherman

  15 Photographs and Memories

  16 Confessions

  17 Reservation Blues

  18 Bound by Blood

  19 Unfamiliar Territory

  20 Illusions

  21 Replicas

  22 Who Killed the Main Street Flasher?

  23 Detour

  24 Déjà vu

  25 Fallacious Intentions

  26 Dissention

  27 Backtracking

  28 Smoke Rings

  29 Damned

  30 The Great Escape

  31 Liars and Thieves

  32 Wind of Change

  33 Bad Moon Rising

  34 Whiplash

  35 Renewal

  36 Letdown

  37 Impositions and Inquisitions

  1

  Cause and Effect

  Joshua Stokes lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair and propped his booted feet on the railing of his back porch. It was what he did when contemplating life’s ups and downs and since shooting Tom Stringer he had been doing a lot of contemplating, a lot of soul searching. He heard Hook’s old work truck pull up to the front of his cabin, but made no move to get up, instead, he reached for the bottle of whiskey that sat on the small table beside his rocker and poured himself another glass.

  Joshua felt no remorse for killing Tom; Tom needed killing. However, he knew that for every action there is a reaction and a consequence because of that action, they call it Cause and Effect. None of that had entered his mind before he pulled the trigger and ended Tom Stringer’s life. It all happened so suddenly there wasn’t time to think period. Besides, Tom would not have survived prison anyway, thought Joshua, especially not long enough to make parole on a double homicide charge, someone would have stuck a shiv him the first week because of his smart mouth; he had no doubts about that.

  However, in the days since the incident, much like the giant mushroom cloud that formed from the explosion of the atomic bomb and spread across the barren deserts of New Mexico, he could feel the fallout from his having to pull the trigger and shoot Tom, spreading across the bayous of Mobile County and moving closer and closer. He knew that eventually, those clouds would reach him and he would have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

  He felt bad for Tom’s kin, even the few friends Tom had. However, the world—his world, was going to be a better place without Tom in it.

  “You back there, Hoss?” James yelled. James ‘Hook’ Fortner was Sheriff Joshua Stokes’ best friend since childhood; he was also cousin to the late Tom Stinger.

  Joshua began to wonder if their friendship was thicker than blood.

  “Yep” Joshua mumbled.

  “I figured you was back here, I saw the smoke signals” Hook grinned.

  Joshua was not in the mood for any of Hook’s carrying on. He was dreading the funeral, but figured it was his duty to go. He wanted to pay respect to Tom’s mother and sisters, especially Hannah. She understood him. Hannah knew if he had not a killed Tom, Tom would have surely killed him. He also wanted to pay his respects to Emma Carr and her mother, Pearl, who was Tom’s sister.

  He knew Tom’s death along with what happened to Emma had hit Pearl hard. He saw her the day after Emma got out of the hospital. She was drunk as a skunk and hanging all over some fellow coming out of the Oasis Club.

  Joshua was making his rounds, checking on things when he saw Pearl. He wanted to make sure the nightclubs in the area were operating according to state laws. It had really been bothering him since he saw the underage ‘Bobbsey Twins’ partying as if they were grownups down at the Ala-Miss Club. He knew neither one of them was over sixteen. Hell, the Hawse girl just had gotten her driver’s license about a month before all the shit went down when the pair of psychotic brothers, Vernon and Earl Dixon, took Emma Carr captive. They held her for several weeks doing lord knew what to her. They would have killed her too, if he had not gotten to her in time…

  Joshua had also been doing a lot of thinking about his own mother. He kept thinking about the heads on the shelves of the trophy room. He wanted to go look at them again as soon as he had the chance. He wondered if he would even recognize his mother if her head was one of those they had found; he was only a boy when she disappeared.

  He did not even remember seeing any pictures of her after she left. His father had put all of them away several months after she disappeared.

  “It looks like we’re gonna have to put off our fishing trip for spell, Hoss.”

  “Yeah, looks like it. I thought I could finish the paperwork and be done with it, but now the coroner wants to hold an inquisition, which means they want to question the hell out of me about the whys, what not’s, and what ifs of Tom’s death; it pisses me off.”

  “They don’t believe you about what happened?” James asked, in disbelief.

  “Hell, I don’t know, don’t really give a shit if they do or don’t. Thirty years ago, something like this happened, they did not question anything as long as you told them you were justified in shooting them. What’s done is done, too late to dwell on it now; I got more important stuff on my mind than Tom Stringer.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you do…” James hesitated. “All those heads those Dixon boys had in their possession. It’s going to be hell identifying all of them,” James said. He knew that Joshua was wondering if his mother’s head was among those found. He thought he would bring it up in case Joshua wanted to talk about it.

  “Hell, I don’t know if I would even know if one of
them was her, Hook… I have trouble remembering what she looked like. It has been thirty-eight years since I saw her. Most times when I remember her, she is sitting on the couch with her hands folded in her lap, almost as if in prayer. I never really see her face.” Joshua took a long draw off his cigarette and then another swallow of whiskey.

  James stared off through the trees toward the river trying to put himself in Joshua’s shoes wondering how his childhood would have been without his own mother around.

  “We had better get going,” Joshua said as he stood. He picked up the bottle and glass and set them inside on the kitchen table. “We’ll take my patrol car, if that’s alright with you,” he said, grabbing his hat off a hook by the back door.

  “Fine with me, Hoss; I don’t mind a’tall,” James replied.

  Joshua shoved his Steppenwolf tape into the 8-track player and lit up a smoke before he drove out the drive to the highway. James rolled down the window and lit him one too. He propped his elbow out the window as they pulled out onto the highway. Instantly, he was reminded of their high school days. James cut his eyes over at Joshua. He could tell Joshua was deep in contemplation about something. He did not know if it was about the funeral or his mother. Either way, James knew he would be there for him; he always had. They had been friends since the fifth grade when Jake Glover was beating him up on the playground and Joshua took up for him by fighting Jake. James had returned the favor the next week when Jake’s younger brother Austell tripped Josh on the playground; James tripped him back. They had been friends ever since.

  James knew he would get the cold shoulder from his kin for upholding Joshua in the shooting death of his cousin, Tom. His own father had already voiced his opinion on it and he knew his brothers were going to give him hell about it too, but he didn’t care. Joshua was like a brother to him. He was closer to Joshua than he had ever been to Tom or Willie, even though Tom and Willie were his cousins. He had already heard talk that several of them, including Hannah’s husband Leonard Page, planned some sort of retaliation. He was just waiting to see what would come of it. Leonard and Tom were tight. Most of the time, you did not see one without the other.

  Joshua was thankful for James’ friendship, and he was glad he had insisted on going to the funeral with him, but he did not feel right coming between James and his kinfolk. He felt he was making James an outcast from his family. That was not right to his way of thinking. He did not want to cause strife between him and his kin.

  There were not as many cars at the cemetery as Joshua expected there would be. He glanced at his watch thinking they were either early or late, but the hearse was backed through the gates of the cemetery. He could see they had not yet removed Tom’s coffin from the hearse. Two or three more cars pulled into the parking area. One of them was Mrs. Stinger and several of her daughters. From where he sat, it looked like Jessie and Hannah. Briefly, he wondered where Pearl was. However, he did not look forward to seeing Pearl, especially if she was drinking. When he had seen her at the Oasis, she had cussed him for every sorry son-of-a-bitch she could think of, and then began crying and saying she was sorry because if not for him, Emma might be dead.

  Joshua did not want all that drama there at the cemetery, not that day or any day for that matter. It was not respectful to the dead to be acting like that at a funeral.

  High-piled black hair and sunglasses caught his attention as two women got out of one of the other cars. It was Mazy “Gypsy” Jones and Kathy Powell. Mazy made a beeline toward his patrol car; Joshua sighed.

  “Oh my goodness, just look-a-here Kathy, we got us two good looking men waiting to escort us to the graveside,” Mazy said, looping her arm through James’ as she stopped beside him. Well, maybe she’s not just thinking about jumping my bones, thought Joshua to himself, grateful for her moral support. Hardly a week before, she’d had her hand between Tom Stringer’s thighs trying to put her moves on him at the Ala-Miss Club and now here she was escorting his killer to his graveside. Maybe she does think about something besides sex, thought Joshua as he muttered “Hello, Ladies” then nodded his head toward Hannah and Jessie Stringer as they helped their mother from their car. Neither smiled or said anything, maybe waiting to take their cue from their mother.

  When Mrs. Stringer made it to a standing position, she gave Joshua such a sharp look, that if it had been a knife, it would have sliced straight through him. He nodded, expecting no less from the mother of a man he had shot and killed.

  “I can’t believe he’s got the gall to show up out here after what he done,” she muttered to Hannah and Jessie. They both glanced toward Joshua. He saw the pained look on Hannah’s face. Joshua knew that he could not expect them just to welcome him as if nothing had happened, but it still hurt his feelings when Mrs. Stringer said it. He was not going to turn tail and run though, Tom Stringer was a bigot and a murderer.

  A car roaring up the road to the cemetery drew all their attention towards it. When it came to a stop at the cemetery, they were all looking to see who it was. Joshua knew who it was; it was Roy McGregor and his father Royce.

  “Oh shit,” James muttered. Oh shit, is right, thought Joshua as he headed towards Cassie Bohannon’s car. Since her death at Tom Stringer’s hands, Roy had been on a bender. Roy McGregor and Cassie Bohannon had shacked up together like a lot young couples were doing, and while Roy was gone to take his father Royce to Houston, Tom Stringer attempted to rape Cassie at the house she shared with Roy.

  A colored man named Joe Dyas who was working for Tom, tried to help Cassie. Tom killed him for interfering and then killed Cassie. He killed them both; stabbed them multiple times with a butcher knife.

  “Roy, what the hell” Joshua said through gritted teeth as he neared him.

  “Jest coming ta pay our `specs, Sheriff” Royce slurred. Damn’it to hell, thought Joshua as he tried to corral Roy back into the drivers seat.

  “You two, need to just turn around and go home. There will be no showing asses here today, do you understand me,” Joshua said, as he held firmly to the drivers door to keep Roy contained in the vehicle.

  “But, I-”

  “But nothing; you heard what I said,” said Joshua, his eyes cold as he stared Roy into submission. James had come over and stationed himself on the other side of the car to keep Royce from getting out. “Tom is dead. There is no sense in you and your daddy coming up here and showing your ass, disrespecting his mother and sisters. They have been through enough already. Now, go on, get out of here,” he told Roy. “I will come up to your daddy’s place when I leave here. You had better be there waiting on me or I will hunt you down and haul your ass to jail!” Roy started to speak several times but then cranked the car, backed out, and drove off. Joshua let out a slight sigh of relief; one hurdle down, probably many more to go, he thought.

  “Da`yum, you handled that well, Hoss. Now, let’s see what else we can handle,” James said when he saw Leonard Page coming through the gate of the cemetery headed straight toward them. Leonard was Tom Stringer’s brother-in-law, Hannah’s husband, and neither Joshua nor James cared much for him. He was a conniving smart-mouthed prick most of the time. Joshua did not trust him any further than he could see him. Leonard always appeared to be sneaking around no matter what the situation was and he even looked that way as he came toward them. However, Joshua could tell that Leonard was seething; his eyes were black with anger. Joshua slipped his palm across his holster and unsnapped it just in case he could not handle Leonard in a peaceable manner.

  “You’ve got a set of nuts as big as a water buffalo, Joshua Stokes, a coming your ass up here to Tom’s funeral after what you done. You sorry sum’bitch, you think just because you’re the sheriff, you can do as you fucking please! And, just who the hell do you think you are, Hook” he spat. “You a siding with this motherfucker that done shot and killed your cousin!”

  Joshua saw that several more of the ‘cousins, in-law’s, and outlaws’ were headed toward them too. He glanced toward Hook who ha
d come to stand beside him.

  “We was just leaving,” Hook said calmly. “We come to pay our respects.”

  “Well you can respect your asses on down the road!” one of the boys behind Leonard yelled out.

  “We’re going,” James looked Leonard directly in the eye. “We are not going to disrespect Aunt Bea and the girls by fighting with you boys here at the cemetery.” James turned and walked toward Joshua’s patrol car. “Come on, Hoss” he called over his shoulder. Although he hated turning his back to them, Joshua fell into step behind Hook. It was not his usual manner to let others defend him, but he did not want to have to kill Hannah’s husband or anyone else in her family so soon after having to kill her brother.

  He was surprised to see Kathy and Gypsy still standing by his car. Even with all that was going on, he could still appreciate a good-looking woman and Kathy looked as pretty as ever, her pale blue eyes glistening in the sunlight; she was gnawing her thumbnail. A habit that must run in the family, thought Joshua, remembering Kathy’s nephew Junior Cobb gnawing his when he was nervous. She averted her eyes and removed her thumb from her mouth when she saw him looking at her, but did not look directly at him again. It bothered him a little, but he would worry about that another time. He had too much on his mind to worry about without adding the mysteries of a woman’s feelings to it.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone walking toward them; it was Emma Carr. She looked a lot better than she had the last time he saw her at the hospital. The puncture wounds around her mouth, where the Dixon brothers had started sewing her lips together, were barely visible; she walked straight up to Joshua. He did not know what to expect. It was hard to read the expression on her face or in her eyes.

  Emma tiptoed, whispered in his ear, and then kissed him on the cheek. She then turned and made her way back toward the cemetery gate. Joshua watched her go. He glanced over to where Leonard and the others stood smoking and talking. Leonard’s shifty eyes shot daggers through Emma’s back as she went. Once she passed through the gate, Joshua turned toward James.