CHAPTER 6

JEFFREY SAT IN A BACK BOOTH at the City Diner listening to the messages on his cell phone. The coffee here was the hi-test kind, and when the waitress came over to fill his cup again, he smiled and waved her away, thinking if he drank any more of the black tar his head would vibrate off his neck. He was already hearing a buzzing in his ears and this, combined with the pouring rain outside, was making him feel like he had stuck his head in a hornet’s nest.

He pressed the three button on his cell phone, fast-forwarding through the Heartsdale mayor’s message asking him to get to the bottom of a group of vandals who were kicking over trashcans on his street, an act that to the mayor’s thinking was one of the first signs of lawless thugs taking over the city.

Jeffrey closed the phone after the last message, which was from a vinyl-siding salesman wanting to talk to him about exciting distribution opportunities. There was nothing from Sara and she wasn’t answering the phone at the motel. He hoped that she was taking a long bath, then thought about the grime he had seen at the bottom of the tub last night and hoped instead that she’d stepped outside to get some air. He was worried about her. She had been much too quiet, even before Lena had run rings around her. The many times he’d woken up in the middle of the night, he’d found her wide awake, curled into a ball, her back to him.

He hated leaving her alone this morning, especially in that disgusting room. Frankly, he hated exposing her to the seedy underbelly that, until last night, she hadn’t known existed. The place was what Jeffrey thought of as a jerk-stop motel, the sort of establishment that catered to truck drivers, whores, and the more than occasional cheating spouse. Jeffrey had spent more than a few evenings in such motels with more than a few women, so he recognized the signs. Even a fool would figure something was going on as soon as he checked in. The clerk behind the front desk had asked Jeffrey how many hours he needed the room.

Jeffrey had parked the BMW in full view of the street in case Lena was looking for him. Though, for all he knew, Lena was halfway to Mexico by now. Part of him hoped she stayed there. He was angry at Lena for not trusting him, even angrier with her for duping Sara, and furious with himself for letting it all happen in the first place.

Sara was right about one thing—Lena had been terrified last night. She’d obviously felt that short of getting Jeffrey to leave, her best option was escape. The question remained: Why did she want to get rid of Jeffrey? What could be so bad that she’d refuse his help? The person in the Escalade had been killed. Still, in the cold light of day, Jeffrey couldn’t think of anything—not even murder—that would make him turn completely against her. There had to be an explanation, a reason for her involvement in this death. Lena always played it close to the bone, but she had never willfully jeopardized anyone but herself.

And, still, he could not help but wonder if it was Hank Norton’s body in the back of the burned Escalade. On the way to the diner this morning, Jeffrey had called the station back in Grant County and gotten Hank’s address off Lena’s personnel file. He had tried the phone number she’d given, but no one picked up. Surprisingly, the satellite navigation in Sara’s car had actually recognized the address. Jeffrey had taken this as a sign that he should drive by and see if Hank Norton was home. The place looked abandoned, but Jeffrey assumed that was because it hadn’t been painted or repaired in the last thirty years. He would’ve gotten out of his car and checked for himself, but there had been an Elawah County Sheriff’s Department cruiser parked right across the street. The man had given him a wave as Jeffrey drove by.

If Hank was in the back of the Escalade, that might explain why Lena had run. No matter the bad blood between them, if someone had killed her uncle, she would hunt him down like an animal. If she had killed him herself…Jeffrey had stopped there, not letting his thoughts take him down that dark road. After almost two decades of knowing Lena, he should have a better idea right now about whether or not she was one of the good guys.

Last night at the hospital, she’d had her chance to ask for his help and voted with her feet. Obviously, she wanted to go it alone. Obviously, Jeffrey wasn’t going to let her do it. There was still the matter of her being a detective on his force who was involved in a violent crime. She had left that hospital because she was running from something—something she desperately did not want Jeffrey to know about. Whether she was involved in the explosion or had set it herself, Jeffrey was going to figure out what had happened. Jake Valentine couldn’t find his ass in an ass-storm. If Lena was going to be extricated from this mess, it was all down to Jeffrey.

Of course, this would have been a lot easier if he had any idea what the hell was going on.

After he drove past Hank’s house, Jeffrey had called the Georgia Department of Corrections to make sure Ethan Green was still locked up. They had assured Jeffrey that Ethan was still behind bars, but as nice as the woman on the phone had sounded, Jeffrey didn’t quite trust the information she had pulled up on her computer. He had called Coastal State Prison himself and spoken directly to the warden. It was a relief to hear from the man that Ethan was still a resident of the state penal system, but Jeffrey was not stupid enough to dismiss the con from his list of possibilities.

Though he claimed to be reformed, Ethan Green had been a skinhead since childhood. He was raised in a skinhead family and had been arrested along with his skinhead friends. Jeffrey had seen the black swastikas and disgusting images the young man had etched into his skin. There was no way Ethan hadn’t realigned himself with his boys the minute he’d walked back into prison. The only way for animals like that to survive was to live in packs. The only question was how far was Ethan’s reach outside the prison walls? The man at the hospital last night had sported a red swastika on his arm. Was he somehow connected to Ethan? Had the imprisoned skinhead sent one of his boys to get to Lena? That might explain her fear. But, would it explain why she would refuse Jeffrey’s help?

He looked at his watch, wondering why Nick Shelton was late. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s southeastern field rep was a busy man. They had chosen the diner as a halfway point for both of them—far enough from Reese to avoid prying eyes and close enough to Macon so that Nick wasn’t out of the office too long. Jeffrey had been cryptic on the phone last night as he arranged to meet the man, but he was hoping Nick could fill in some blanks on Jake Valentine and what was going on under the new sheriff’s watch. Nick worked on cases that crossed county lines, and Elawah was in his district. If anyone could tell Jeffrey whether or not skinheads were operating in town, Nick Shelton could. The GBI agent took pride in bringing down the bad guys, and despite his tendency toward the flamboyant, he was a damn good cop.

He was also late by almost an hour.

Jeffrey picked up his cell phone and thumbed to the number for the motel. Before he’d left, Jeffrey had asked Sara to get in touch with Frank Wallace back in Grant County, but they both knew that this was just an excuse for Jeffrey to call in later and check up on her. Jeffrey very seriously doubted knowing who the white sedan was registered to would open any earth-shattering leads. It was the kind of base-covering work that Jeffrey usually assigned to junior officers.

Jeffrey was listening to the phone ring, his chest feeling tight as each one passed unanswered, when Sara finally picked up.

“Jeff?”

“You sound out of breath,” he told her, relieved to hear her voice.

“I went for a walk,” she told him, then started to explain why. When she got to the part about buying a map, he found himself squeezing the phone so hard that it nearly popped out of his hand.

“So,” she continued, obviously excited by her little stroll. “It was just a vacant lot, but still, I thought I could go to the county courthouse and see whose name is on the property deed. What do you think?”

Jeffrey couldn’t speak. Tracking down the registration from the relative safety of the motel room was one thing. Walking into what could have been a den of skinheads—or worse—was quite another.

“Hello?” Sara said. “Are you still there?”

Jeffrey cleared his throat, trying to keep his tone steady and not go with his gut reaction to demand what the hell she thought she was doing. “I’m here.”

“I was saying that I can go to the courthouse—”

He stopped her dead in her tracks. “I need you to stay in the room, Sara. Don’t go to the courthouse. Don’t make any more phone calls. Just stay in the goddamn room and keep out of trouble.”

She was the one who was quiet this time.

He spoke through gritted teeth. “I can’t do my job and worry about you at the same time.”

She let some time pass before answering. “Okay.”

He could tell from the way she’d said the word that she was angry, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. “Promise me you’ll stay there until I get back.”

Again, there was the hesitation. Suddenly, he realized he was wrong. Sara wasn’t angry. She was disappointed with herself because he was angry. He could almost hear her thoughts, knew that she was berating herself for doing one more stupid thing.

“I know you were just trying to help out, but, Sara, Jesus, the thought of you traipsing out on your own like that…this isn’t Grant County. You didn’t grow up here. These people don’t know you. It’s not safe, Sara. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Baby…” He shook his head, words failing him. “Please, just stay in the room. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“No,” she told him. “Do your job. You’re right. I’ll stay here.”

Now he felt like a complete asshole. He looked out the diner window. Nick Shelton was getting out of his Chevy pickup.

“It’s not your fault,” he told her. “Listen, Nick just pulled up.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

She didn’t slam down the phone, but Jeffrey wished she had. Sara wasn’t compliant. She was headstrong and arrogant and demanding—all the things a man could want in a woman. Over the last few months, he had watched her go from a fighter to someone who just rolled with the punches. Jeffrey wanted her to be angry again. He wanted her to tell him to fuck off, that she knew what she was doing and he should be grateful she was wasting her time down here helping him out when she could be back home tending to patients. He wanted her to scream at him, to rail against the Powells and all the other bastards who were trying to keep her down.

He wanted his brilliant, beautiful wife back.

“Hey, Chief.” Nick Shelton came through the front door of the diner, rain flattening his long brown hair to his skull. “Sorry I’m late.”

Jeffrey stood up, shaking the other man’s hand. “No problem.”

“Raining like a pisser out there.” Nick called over to the waitress, “You got some fresh coffee for me, darlin’?”

She gave him a big smile. “Sure do.”

“Leave me a little room at the top, will you? Maybe this much?” He held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

“Be right back.” She giggled, giving him a wink. Jeffrey had barely gotten a “good morning” from the woman, but he gathered Nick, with his tight jeans and the heavy gold chain around his neck, was more her type.

The GBI man watched the waitress leave, giving her wide bottom an appreciative smile. “Might get me some fries with that shake.”

Jeffrey tried to steer the conversation away from the waitress. “How you been doing, Nick?”

“Working like a dog, is how.” He picked at the napkin dispenser on the table, shredding the first few. “State cut my budget in half for goddamn Homeland Security. We got gangs and drugs and murderers running around here faster than clam chowder through my grandma but the feds are making us shoot our wad on fighting damn terrorists who couldn’t even find Elawah or Grant County on the map. Hell, they don’t even need to make the trip. Give us a few more years and we’ll all kill each other on our own.”

Jeffrey had never had a conversation with Nick that didn’t involve some kind of complaint, but he tried not to fuel it with his own. “Sorry to hear you’re having a hard time, Nick.”

“Bob Burg’s working some consultancy job up north making twenty times more than the state ever paid him.”

Jeffrey felt himself getting pulled in. Bob Burg had been Nick’s counterpart, handling counties that ran along southeastern Georgia. “What happened?”

Nick used the shredded napkins to wipe the rain off his face, saying, “I guess they figured all that time I wasted popping home to sleep and change my underwear could be put to better use. They kicked him out and gave me his territory.”

“They fired Bob?”

“‘Merged the offices to streamline the operation,’” Nick quoted in a businesslike drone. “Bunch of dumb-ass pencil-pushing motherfuckers, and don’t even get me started on them cash bonuses they’ve been handing out to the higher-ups to thank them for all this kissing up and kicking down.” He sat up as the waitress came back. “Why, thank you, darlin’. You did it up perfect.” He gave her a wink and the woman giggled again before sashaying off.

Nick continued, “I can’t blame Bob for being pissed off, but he left a freakin’ mess for me to clean up. Paperwork missing, files incomplete.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Nick shrugged, brushing it off. He asked, “How’s Sara doing?”

“She’s good,” Jeffrey lied, trying to fight the sadness he felt.

Nick gave him a sharp glance over the coffee cup. “Heard you and her’s already made some friends in town.”

“That got around fast.”

“It’s not every day that a crack squad loses a prisoner.” He gave Jeffrey a wink. “And gets gut-punched for their trouble.”

Jeffrey felt a grin on his face. “He was asking for it.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Tell me what you know about Jake Valentine.”

Nick grabbed the sugar dispenser off the table. “Jake Valentine,” he echoed, giving the name a jaunty ring. “Ol’ buddy Jake was a deputy for maybe two days before he ran for office.” He kept pouring the sugar as he talked. “There was this old coot, Don Cook, wanted the job, but people in town were sick of the codgers sitting on their asses, collecting their paychecks, while the rest of the town was going to hell in a handbasket.”

“Meth?” Jeffrey guessed. There wasn’t a town in America that wasn’t being slowly crippled by the scourge of methamphetamine. It was cheap to buy, cheaper to make, and almost impossible to quit. The drug ruined the life of anyone it touched, including some law enforcement officers who had unwittingly walked into booby-trapped labs.

“Meth,” Nick confirmed, finally finished with the sugar. He grabbed the creamer, saying, “Jake’s a little wet behind the ears, but he’s a good kid.”

“He didn’t look old enough to drive a car.”

“That’s true, but he’s willing to learn, which is more than you can say for most everybody you meet. I guarantee you, if he can hang on to the job long enough for his balls to drop, he’s gonna make a good sheriff.”

“He doesn’t seem to have much support from his deputies.”

“Maybe one or two will bug out on him, but only when the chips are down.” He added, “Don Cook’s not as powerful as he thinks he is.”

“What about Jake’s predecessor?”

“Al Pfeiffer. He was a good guy, but nothing says it’s time to retire like a firebomb thrown through your front window.”

Jeffrey was sure he’d heard wrong. “What?”

Nick nodded, pouring cream into the cup until the liquid touched the rim. “They firebombed his house. Wife and grandkid barely got out. The old man suffered third-degree burns on his face and arms. Lost one of his fingers. Never made a case because nobody would talk: no witnesses, no crime scene evidence, no nothing. Happened in broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon. Take that as a warning, Chief. These boys don’t fuck around. They’re making too much money.”

“Skinheads?” Jeffrey asked.

“Guessed it again, Chief.” Nick gave him a careful look. “Something tells me you’ve played this game before.”

Jeffrey knew it was his turn to share. “I saw this guy outside the Elawah hospital last night—tough-looking con. He had a big red swastika tattooed on his arm.”

“That old thing.” Nick waved his hand like an old lady fielding gossip. “It’s used by the Skin Brothers. Now, there’s an interesting bunch of Nazis. Started in the prisons back in the late fifties. Integration on the outside, segregation on the inside. All them white boys running the cell blocks didn’t like the black guys coming in and they made it known every way they could.” Nick leaned forward, kept his voice low. “In the 1950s, you had maybe sixty-five, seventy percent white in all the federal and state prisons, basically in line with the white population on the outside, right?”

“Right.”

“Now, it’s upside down. You got maybe a sixty-forty, eighty-twenty mix in some prisons. The whites are the minorities, the blacks and Hispanics are the majority.”

“So, in come the gangs.”

“Crips, Bloods, the Boyz, Tiny Raskals, MS-13, Nazi Low Riders.”

Jeffrey said, “Which brings us back to meth again.”

“That kind of quick money to be made, there’s always gonna be some kind of war going on, some asshole wanting to swing his dick around. Whites on whites, blacks on blacks, all that matters anymore is the green. You got the Aryans telling the Low Riders what to do, the Low Riders telling the Aryans to fuck off, the purists telling them both they’re selling out the white race…long story short, whoever’s in charge better be looking over his shoulder all the time.”

“Who uses the black swastika?”

“Just about all of ’em but the Skin Brothers.” He anticipated Jeffrey’s next question. “And never the twain shall meet. You put a Skin Brother in with, say, a Low Rider, they see their tats, you might as well put two tomcats in a cardboard box. Only one of ’em’s gonna come out alive.”

“You positive about that?”

“Their feud goes so far back nobody even remembers how it got started. Part of the oath they take when they jump in is to kill any motherfucker playing for the other team. Red or black, you get that tattoo, you better be damn sure it’s for life. You’ll see peace in the Middle East before those two get together.”

Jeffrey breathed a little easier. Whatever was going on in Reese, he could take Ethan Green out of the equation for the moment.

Nick leaned back, cupping his coffee in his hands. “You hear about that case with the Hells Angels out on the West Coast?”

Jeffrey shook his head.

“Let me tell you, them’re some violent motherfuckers. Been inside most of their adult lives, no hope of getting out, they’ll cut you just as soon as look at you. The feds are trying to go after them with the RICO statutes, saying they’re the same as organized crime. They had to bolt the bastards to the floor during the trial. One of ’em was already in for stabbing his lawyer with an ink pen. These guys got nothing to lose; just biding their time at the old SuperMax, waiting for their number to come up. They know they’re never gonna see the light of day without a set of bars casting a shadow through it and they don’t care how many bodies they leave in their wake.”

Jeffrey felt his blood turning cold in his veins. “Let’s go back to the Skin Brothers.”

“Technically, it’s the Brotherhood of the True White Skin, but that don’t flow off the tongue near as well.”

“Tell me more about them.”

“For the last five, maybe ten, years, it’s been run by two brothers, Carl and Jerry Fitzpatrick. Carl’s in prison and Jerry lives out on a zillion-dollar compound with the rest of the family. Thinks he’s some kind of preacher for the Way of Whitey.”

“True believer?”

“Sadistic true believer,” Nick amended. “You don’t cross Jerry. He takes care of the stray lambs himself—tracks them down and shatters their little legs so the rest of the flock knows they better keep on the path. You got grown men, mean-as-fuck skinheads with twenty kills under their belt, who piss their pants at the thought of Jerry coming after them.”

“He’s never been caught?”

“Oh, he’s been charged plenty, but nothing sticks. Witnesses tend to change their minds when their fingernails are pulled off and their children go missing.”

“Where’s the compound?”

“Up in a little town called Keene, New Hampshire.”

“Why is it always a relief when these guys are Yankees?”

Nick pretended surprise, clutching his hand to his chest. “Racists in the liberal North? How dare you, sir.”

“Shocking,” Jeffrey agreed, wondering not for the first time why the rest of America wanted to believe racism only happened south of the Mason-Dixon. It was as if Watts and Harlem, the cases of Rodney King and Abner Louima, were startling anomalies on their respective coasts.

Nick continued, “The FBI has the Fitzpatrick brothers on their watch list, but I’m not sure what kind of priority they’ve been given. All this anti-immigration shit that’s been stirring up has been like free PR for the neo-Nazi groups. Suddenly, saying we should close our borders and kick out the people with the funny-sounding names doesn’t sound like extremist rhetoric anymore.”

“Good thing we let the Fitzpatricks slip in first,” Jeffrey commented. “What’s the brother in prison for?”

“Shooting two cops.”

“New Hampshire have the death penalty?”

“Just for this very thing,” Nick said. “Only problem is, they’ve set their age limit at seventeen. Carl was two weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday when he pulled the trigger. Life in prison without the chance of parole. Smart boy, our Carl. He met the right people on the cell block, made some good contacts, worked his way up in the group, and—as these things happen—beat his boss to death with a dumbbell and took over the organization. Real upwardly mobile guy.”

Jeffrey tried not to think about the two cops that had been shot, how their families, their children, had coped with the loss all these years. “So, how do the Fitzpatricks pay their bills?”

“They’re real heavy into meth. Like, super-heavy, kill-your-mama heavy. The Fitzpatricks control everything going in and out of the southeast corridor, from Florida on up. Some of those boys are billionaires. Only catch is, they’re dead before they reach the age of thirty.”

Jeffrey already knew this. “And?”

Nick added more sugar to his coffee as he spoke. “They say they’ve got skin privilege, that being white means they’re better than everybody else, that they should be in control. They view it as a special ordination from God.” The waitress walked by and Nick gave her another wink. He turned back to Jeffrey, asking, “You like your history, right?”

“Well enough.”

“Then let me tell you this story,” Nick began. “The Skin Brothers got started by a World War II vet, an Army National Guardsman from out West by the name of Jeremiah Todd. Claimed he was with one of the infantry divisions that helped liberate Dachau.” Nick tried the coffee again, then started back with the cream. Jeffrey suppressed the urge to throw the cup across the room as Nick continued, “Todd gets back from Germany and starts telling everybody it’s all been overblown, that the press is just making a big deal out of nothing. He was there and saw it with his own eyes, and it was just a bunch of Jews stirring up trouble, trying to bring down America.”

Jeffrey felt disgust welling up into his gut. “He was a Holocaust denier?”

“Right.”

“Where does the red swastika come in?”

“Before Hitler came along—no shitting you—Todd’s National Guard unit had a red swastika on their badges.”

Jeffrey provided, “It was a Native American symbol for luck.”

“Yep,” Nick confirmed. “A lot of the southern and western divisions had Native American call signs. Of course, come the war, the Guard made them change it, but it was on Jeremiah Todd’s division uniforms up until the early thirties. You know how those military boys are. They don’t let go of tradition without a fight.”

“How did Todd end up in prison?”

“Liquor store, convenience store. Some kind of holdup with a gun or a knife or whatever. I don’t know the details. Suffice it to say, the fucker ended up inside the same stupid way they all do.”

“I take it he’s dead?”

“Shanked in the food hall over an extra bread roll about twenty years ago,” Nick supplied. “But obviously there were some believers left over. They passed on the gospel, all the way up to New Hampshire, it seems. Prisons are seeing a big-time resurgence of these gangs, especially the white pride assholes. First thing you have to do when you get inside is declare yourself, pick a side for protection so you don’t get shanked by the brothers or raped by the Aryans or beat by the brown-skins. And it don’t stop at the prison gate. Some gangbanger fucks them up on the inside, they reach out to the guy’s family on the outside. Like I said, most of ’em ain’t got nothing to lose. What’s the worst that can happen? They get another life sentence tacked on to the six they already have? The SuperMax only gives them an hour outside a week instead of two? They know they’re never getting out, so what does it matter?”

“And they’re running drugs on the outside, too?”

“Inside and out,” Nick said. “Somebody’s gotta pay for Armageddon, and these guys sure as shit ain’t gonna make the money digging ditches.” He sipped some more coffee before asking, “How does Lena tie into this?”

“I have no idea,” Jeffrey admitted.

“I would’ve like to’ve seen Jake’s face when he realized she’d run out on him.”

“He wasn’t smiling, I can tell you that.”

“You figure out why she legged it?”

Jeffrey shook his head. “You think after all these years I’ve figured out why the hell she does anything?”

Nick gave an appreciative chuckle. “She always was a pistol.”

Jeffrey wasn’t up for discussing Lena’s finer qualities. “How come you know so much about this group?”

“Remember Amanda Wagner?”

Jeffrey had met the hostage negotiator a few years ago when the GBI had been called into Grant to handle a situation gone bad. He asked, “What does this have to do with tactical?”

“Nothing. Wagner’s got some new team she’s put together to deal with violent crimes that cross county lines—some kind of quick response unit that’s supposed to cut through the red tape, ha-ha-ha. These guys, the Skin Brothers, they’ve been causing a lot of problems up north; Cherokee, Rabun, Whitfield. She had all the field reps come into Atlanta a few months ago to give us the lowdown, let us know the signs to watch out for.”

“What are the signs?”

“The red swastika, mostly. They run meth out of these small towns like it’s freaking IBM, straight up the drug corridor through Atlanta, New York, New England, and on up to Canada. We don’t even know how many people are in the organization. Estimates run from a couple hundred to a couple thousand.” He paused, shaking his head. “It’s the same old story: they go after the teenage boys who feel misunderstood and isolated and they give them a family to be a part of, a belief system to explain why the fact that they’re white hasn’t saved them from being poor. They pump them full of hate and put a gun in their hand. You’ve seen it for yourself, Chief. These kids go in and out of jail, in and out, until they get popped for something major, and then the next thing you know, they’re king of cell block nine, raking in money on the inside, giving orders to their soldiers on the outside. Hell, look at Carl Fitzpatrick. You think he’d have this much power on the outside?”

Jeffrey suddenly felt an overwhelming tiredness. He wasn’t even certain this was connected to Lena. All that he had was a gut feeling, and right now, his gut was telling him that no good would come of getting involved with this group. “Are you going to tell Amanda they’re operating in Elawah now?”

“Hell, she’s the one who told me,” he answered. “Thing is, you know as well as I do that the GBI can’t come onto an investigation until the locals directly ask for help.”

Jeffrey knew Nick was telling the truth, just like he knew the GBI sometimes made sure it was well-prepared in anticipation of a town asking them to step in. “Have you gathered any information on the group operating out of Elawah?”

“Not much,” Nick admitted. “Seems to be a tight structure. Some of these gangs, you know exactly who’s running the show because the bastard in charge wants you to know. They don’t become gangsters so they can hide behind their mamas’ skirts. They wanna be out in the open, playing the big man, seeing the fear in people’s eyes when they drive down the street.”

“But not in Elawah?”

“Not in Elawah, and not with the Brotherhood,” Nick confirmed. “How the Fitzpatricks work is, they get a handful of key people in town and if there’s a problem, they send in out-of-state help to take care of it. That way, nobody gets their hands dirty and nobody knows who to rat on if they get caught. They’re real serious about this Armageddon shit. Jesus is gonna come and wipe out darkie and Carl and Jerry Fitzpatrick are gonna inherit the earth.”

Jeffrey felt his uneasiness grow. It was always the true believers who felt they had nothing to lose. Christ, what had Lena gotten herself mixed up in?

Nick told him, “There’s a couple or three henchmen in Elawah doing the dirty work. Don’t ask me their names because I’ve got no idea. We’ve kind of poked around, but everything ran cold. Whoever’s running them is keeping himself to himself. Playing the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. That’s how the organization works. It’s not about flash or showing your piece or banging the hos, it’s about money and control.”

Jeffrey sat back in the booth, watching Nick add more sugar to his coffee. “What about the sheriff?”

“Valentine?” Nick shook his head. “No way Jake’s running this. It’s too sophisticated. Somebody with a lot of patience and a lot of control is pulling the strings.”

He meant someone older, more mature. “Cook?”

“I’d buy Cook taking some cash to look the other way, but being a part of it?” Nick shook his head again. “Might be, but I’d be surprised.”

“Pfeiffer, then? Maybe he got greedy and that’s why they threw the firebomb?”

“That’d make sense if there’d been a vacuum. You know how it is—take out the guy and all the cockroaches scramble to take his place. There wasn’t a scramble. Matter of fact, you trace back the purity levels and they actually spiked after Pfeiffer left.”

Jeffrey knew that drug agencies tracked their effectiveness through the purity of the drugs on the street. The weaker the mixture, the better they were doing at shutting down the supply line. The higher the concentration, the more likely it was that the bad guys were winning the game.

Jeffrey asked, “How much money do you think’s involved here?”

“Just in Elawah?”

Jeffrey nodded.

“Shit, hoss, more money than you or me’s ever gonna see in our lives unless it’s in the evidence lockup. They just did that bust up in Atlanta, right? Caught two guys driving a U-Haul packed to the rafters with crystal meth. Paper says the street value’s upwards of three hundred million.”

Jeffrey could not even fathom that kind of money. “The sheriff before—Pfeiffer. Why didn’t he call in the GBI?”

“You’ll have to ask him yourself.” Nick reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of damp notebook paper. “When you told me you were in Reese, I assumed you might have some questions I couldn’t answer. Sorry it got wet,” he apologized, unfolding the page. “Old guy lives a far piece out, so you’re gonna need a good map. I’ll let you borrow mine if you promise to get it back to me.”

Jeffrey scanned the address, noted that the town was at least four hours away from Reese. “He doesn’t have a phone?”

“He’s so far off the grid I’d be surprised if he’s got electricity.”

Jeffrey looked again at the piece of paper Nick was offering him. Elawah wasn’t his county. These weren’t his people. Jake Valentine hadn’t said word one about needing any help, and even if the man had, it wasn’t Jeffrey’s job to bail him out. He was here to help Lena, not take on a bunch of skinheads. The problem was, he didn’t have much else to go on. Short of following up on Sara’s idea and going to the county courthouse to look up the property deed, there was nothing else Jeffrey could think to do.

Sara. He couldn’t leave her alone in the motel room while he drove to within spitting distance of the Florida border. Of course, she might make the trip look a little less official. Nick mentioned that Pfeiffer had a wife. Sara could help get the woman out of the way while Jeffrey asked the man some hard questions.

Nick was still holding out the paper. He asked, “What’s it gonna be, hoss?”

Jeffrey hesitated again, thinking about the terror in Lena’s voice as she’d told Sara to get out of town. He wasn’t fooling anyone, especially himself. “I’m going to need to borrow your map.”