Sinners & Scarecrows Read online

  “Let’s go!” She held the girl’s hand and led her up the stairs.

  She rounded the corner in the stairwell and stopped in her tracks. Archer was standing in the doorway on the top step, waiting for her with a pistol outstretched in his hand. “So you thought you could pull a fast one on me, eh? I noticed my master key missing only moments after you left my office.”

  “I’m sorry,” she replied, with tears streaming down her cheeks. “But what you’re doing to these girls is wrong. I had to do something,” she said sheepishly. The young girl stood behind her, clinging to her leg, trembling with fear.

  He sighed. “It’s such a shame you feel that way, Ellie; you’re such a beautiful girl,” he said, then casually pulled the trigger on his pistol.

  Ellie’s head snapped back as the bullet tore through her skull and into the wall of the stairwell behind her; she died instantly. Her body slumped backwards and lay in an awkward heap on the stairs. The young girl started screaming uncontrollably, piercing Archer’s ears. He couldn’t stand the irritating racket. He raised his pistol and put her out of her misery. Her body fell on top on Ellie’s, and the stairwell was peaceful once more.

  Francois came running after he’d heard the gunshots. When he arrived, Archer curtly said to him, “Clean up this mess, at once.”

  “Yes, Governor,” he replied, and limped towards the cleaning supplies cupboard for a mop and bucket.

  Chapter 62

  The bar stool creaked as Blaze shuffled his weight back and forth while sipping his whisky at the bar in the clubhouse. He had been sitting there staring at the photo Ryan had given him for what seemed like an age. Fucking ancient technology, he thought. I can barely make out his face in the picture.

  He downed the rest of his drink, and walked across the room to where Danny was lying down on one of the grubby couches, and said, “I need to go pay your computer geek friend a visit. You got his address?”

  “Sure, I’ll text it to you, so you don’t forget it.”

  “No need, I’ll remember it,” he replied.

  Danny gave him the address.

  “Thanks, man. I should be back by tonight.”

  “No worries, I’ll call ahead and let him know you’re coming.”

  Blaze went outside to look for Spider. He was sitting alone in front of the clubhouse, slowly dragging on a cigarette. His mind was miles away, in a sad place; the gaping hole left in his heart from Charlotte’s betrayal was evident. “Fancy taking a ride?” Blaze said as he approached him.

  Spider snapped back to reality. “Nah, man, I think I’m gonna sit this one out. I’ll just bring down the mood.”

  “Come on, man, it’s just you and me. Which means you can be as much of a sook as you want.” He grinned.

  Blaze saw a hint of Spider’s cigarette stained teeth through his beard as he grinned back. “Fuck it, I’m in,” he replied.

  They roared out of the driveway, and within ten minutes they were out of the confines of Brighton. Spider felt his despair slowly dissipating as the wind rushed over hm. He’d loved riding ever since he had got his first pushbike as a five-year-old, and Blaze knew that a blast on the open road would work wonders on him.

  An hour later they rolled into the medium-sized industrial town of Woodridge. Danny’s friend lived in a block of apartments in the main township. Spider and Blaze left their bikes parked on the busy street and made their way up several flights of stairs before knocking on his door.

  “Who is it?” a deep voice called from inside the apartment.

  “It’s Blaze. I’m a friend of Danny Foster.”

  The door opened. “You made good time; I’ve been expecting you,” he replied.

  Danny’s friend wasn’t what Blaze expected. He was tall and stocky, the size of a professional football player; some would say he was quite handsome. He wasn’t the scrawny nerd with giant glasses Blaze had pictured in his mind.

  “I want you to track someone down for me,” said Blaze.

  “You got money?”

  Blaze pulled out a roll of cash. “Five grand enough? I can get more.”

  Danny’s friend took the money and pocketed it. “I’m officially at your disposal. Who are you looking for?”

  “His name is Samuel Bowman; he’s actually my biological father.” Blaze produced Samuel’s graduation photo and pointed him out. “But he changed his identity thirty-one years ago, and the authorities haven’t been able to get a hit on him. I’d say he covered his tracks pretty fucking well.”

  Danny’s friend sat at one of his many computers in the room, linked his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. “Sounds like a tricky one, but I’ll see what I can dig up. I’ll call you in an hour or so. There’s a bar a couple of blocks down the street if you wanna kill some time?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  When they spotted the bar, they pulled up alongside a row of shiny, polished Harley Davidsons parked outside the front entrance. Spider and Blaze took a few moments to admire them, before going inside. But what awaited them wasn’t half as enticing as the Harleys they’d just perused. Six men covered in tattoos and dressed in leathers greeted them, grim-faced, with their arms folded, glaring at them. One of the men was standing side on, almost with his back to them. Spider saw the name of their gang on the back of his leather cut: DEADBONES.

  For a change, Blaze tried the diplomatic approach to the situation. “You got some impressive rides out there, fellas,” he said with a friendly tone. “You sure know how to make a fellow biker envious.”

  “What’s it to you?” The president of the gang fired back.

  Blaze gave him one last chance to adjust his attitude, and said, “Look, we don’t want any trouble, we’re just passing through.” He held his hands up innocently.

  “Then you’d best keep moving,” the president replied. “This is our turf. Fuck off and drink somewhere else.”

  Spider noticed the veins on Blaze’s forehead starting to bulge as his patience wore thin. He said to Blaze, “Come on, man, let’s get outta this shithole and leave these nancies to drink their soda water in peace.”

  “What the fuck did you just call us?” the president said furiously.

  “I believe he called you a bunch of ass licking faggots.” Blaze smirked.

  The president marched forward to take a swing at Blaze, and in the blink of an eye, Blaze instinctively grabbed a bar stool by the legs from the table next to him and swung it at the president’s face. The wooden seat collided with his jaw; he went down like a sack of shit.

  Spider exploded into action. He charged straight at the man standing side on, slamming him backwards into the table behind him, then grabbed the jug of beer off the adjacent table where they had been drinking and smashed it over his face. He hit the ground, clutching at his bleeding face, full of glass shards, crying out in pain.

  Blaze swung the bar stool back and forth, keeping two of the bikers at bay, then tossed it aside, and smirked as he said, “Come on, let’s see what you bitches are made of.”

  One of them advanced on Blaze with his fists up. Blaze waited for him to strike first. He took a flurry of wild swings at him, but Blaze stayed light on his feet, continually swerving his upper body out of harm’s way, then picked his moment, launched forward, and sucker punched him square in the nose. Blood instantly ran down over his snarling teeth and chin. Blaze said to him, “Last chance to walk away with all your bones intact, asshole.”

  The man replied by landing an almighty right hook to the side of Blaze’s face, dazing him a little, but it wasn’t nearly enough to put him down. Blaze shook off the effects and tackled him around the waist, angrily driving him backwards at full force into the edge of one of the pool tables near the sidewall. Blaze felt the man go limp on impact. He flopped to the floor; he couldn’t feel his legs.

  Blaze wasted no time and reached for a pool cue from the rack in the wall, holding it by the thin end, and turned his attention to the man still standing. “I think it’s my turn to br
eak,” he said with a smirk, and viciously swung the heavy end of the cue at him. The man ducked. He felt the rush of air sweep over his freshly shaved scalp. Then as quickly as the pool cue had passed over him, it was coming back the other way. He didn’t react in time, and cried out, cursing profusely as he clutched his freshly broken wrist after trying to block its path. Blaze took a moment to chuckle before swinging the cue at his kneecaps, which dropped him to the floor. He turfed the cue aside, then kicked the man’s face with his steel-toed boot.

  Lights out, motherfucker.

  Spider was having a blast; he hadn’t been in a decent brawl for quite some time, and missed the physical contact and adrenaline rush that came with it. It felt like such a release after the heartbreak Charlotte had caused him. He had one of the remaining two men in a headlock and was delivering a series of blows to his face and stomach, while his much smaller comrade was doing his best to pull Spider off him. But he was of no use; he couldn’t match Spider’s size and strength. For Spider it was like swatting away an annoying fly that constantly buzzed in his face. Blaze came over to assist. Spider demanded that he stayed back; he wanted to finish them off himself. Then he noticed the Deadbones’ president had regained consciousness and was sneaking up behind Blaze with the discarded pool cue, ready to choke him from behind.

  “Look out, Blaze!” Spider cried out as he pummelled both men to the ground.

  They offered no further resistance.

  The president whipped the pool cue over Blaze’s head and started pulling it back against his Adam’s apple. Blaze tried to fight him off with an array of solid elbows to his stomach, but it didn’t take long till he was struggling for breath; his attempts to free himself were futile. Spider intervened, launching himself at the president without a second thought. The three of them crashed to the ground. The president fell flat on his back with Blaze on top of him. Spider quickly got to his feet and heaved Blaze aside, before snatching the pool cue from the president’s feeble grasp. He snapped it in two over his knee and drove one of the splintered ends through his thigh. The president shrieked as Spider gave it a sharp twist.

  Blaze got to his feet and dragged the president over to the pool table, leaving a smeared trail of blood across the polished wooden floor. He pulled one of the man’s arms up and wedged it in one of the corner pockets, then took great delight in stomping down on his arm, snapping his wrist like a twig. Blaze silenced his howls of agony by delivering a swift kick to the side of his head.

  Game over.

  Spider leaned over on his haunches, laughing harder than he had in a long time. “You psycho son of a bitch!” he said to Blaze in between gasps for air. “That was fucking awesome!”

  Blaze couldn’t help but chuckle along with Spider. “It’s been way too long since we had a decent rumble together, brother.” He slapped him on the back. “Those poor fuckers didn’t have a shit show!”

  They stopped laughing as the barman emerged from the storeroom with a shotgun.

  “Sorry, we were just leaving,” Blaze said with his hands up. “And for the record, those assholes started it.”

  The small, elderly man’s stern features merged into a smile. “Whatever you want to drink, it’s on the house,” he said. “Those mongrels think they own this bloody joint. And thanks to you they’ll think twice about coming in here, drinking all my alcohol, busting the place up, and leaving without paying.”

  Blaze and Spider looked at each other with raised eyebrows and smiles wider than an eight lane highway. Blaze replied, “Well, in that case, we’ll have whisky on the rocks; and you'd better make them fucking doubles.”

  Chapter 63

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Sandra said as she burst through the door into Ryan’s temporary office at Brighton’s police headquarters, anxiously waving a sheet of paper.

  “What is it?”

  She slapped it down on the desk in front of him as she replied, “The footprint analysis from the Bowmans’ garden. It just came through on the fax. It’s a perfect match with a size thirteen, standard issue New Zealand police officer’s boot.”

  Ryan was taken aback. “You’re kidding me!” he said, astounded.

  “I only wish I were.”

  “What about the material sample we recovered?”

  “Standard issue field uniform trousers. The material and colour are an exact match, except for one tiny detail.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The sample had traces of cat fur engrained in the material fibres.”

  “Why would an officer be hiding in the garden?”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, either Blaze was being tailed by an officer, or…”

  “Or, what?”

  “Or it was an officer that killed the Bowmans,” she suggested.

  “That’s just crazy.”

  “Have you got a better explanation?”

  He thought for a moment. “Jesus Christ, you could be right,” he said at last. “We already know Blaze didn’t commit the murders, and that Samuel Bowman left his parents’ house and didn’t return that day either. So that means there has to be a third party involved.”

  “And if your theory about Blaze being framed for the murders is correct, according to the footprint we found, it had to have been a police officer.”

  “Hold on, hold on, let’s think this through for a minute.” He rifled through the pages in his notebook. He found the notes he had taken from their interview with Audrey Williams, then said, “When we interviewed Audrey, she said she saw an officer arrive at the Bowmans’ residence after both Blaze and Samuel had left. She assumed that the Bowmans had informed the authorities about his appearance, and that it was just a routine call out to take their statement. Are we seriously considering the possibility that there was no report made by the Bowmans to the police, and that it’s actually an officer responsible for their murders?”

  “I think it’s definitely worth looking into. Audrey said she never saw the officer leave because she went inside to take a nap.”

  “Good point.”

  “And it makes sense that it could have been the same officer that Audrey saw go inside their house—using his position to gain the Bowmans’ trust after he witnessed Blaze standing inside their kitchen from the garden.”

  Ryan sighed. “It sounds ridiculous, but at this point it’s all we have to go on.” He paused, then said, “but that does leave me wondering why an officer would try and frame Blaze?”

  “We know he’s not exactly Mr Popular with the authorities. Maybe the commissioner had him followed by an officer in Worthington? We already know that he’s hell-bent on putting him away...”

  “True, but any officer of the law wouldn’t kill two innocent parties to get their man, would they?”

  “It does seem like a bit of a stretch,” she agreed. “But I’ll do my damnedest to find out.”

  There was silence between them until Ryan changed the subject. He said, “Hey Sandra, I’ve been thinking; now that I know you were blackmailed into getting Luther Sutherland off those sexual assault charges, I feel it’s time we brought him in for another round of questioning.”

  Her face tensed instantly. “No, you can’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t put my girls at risk,” she said emphatically. “Why do you think I haven’t brought up the subject since I told you the truth?”

  “Come on, Sandra. We can’t let him get away with what he’s done. And he must know of other such clients who indulge in his type of sexual filth.”

  “Yes, he might. But we already know who’s bringing the girls into the country: Seth Archer and the Lombardi family, along with the help of Tyrone Sanchez. We just don’t have any hard evidence to make anything stick as of yet.”

  “We are close, though. Blaze said he made a delivery to Archer’s nightclub here in Brighton. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it was a load of girls intended for the sex industry, but I think the penny dropped that it w
as more than likely. And now that we aren’t on speaking terms, I doubt I’ll ever find out for sure, which is why we need to have another chat with Mr Sutherland.”

  “Fine. But you’re going to have to find another way to do it. I won’t let you put my girls at risk!”

  “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “We can make arrangements for their safety; there is no way I’d let any harm come to your family.”

  She wasn’t convinced; she didn’t want to take any chances, so she said something that surprised both Ryan and herself. “There is a way that you could get an unofficial interview with Mr Sutherland.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What’s your proposal?”

  “You could get Blaze to beat the information out of him.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Have you gone mad? Any form of friendship or mutual respect we had for each other has long since run its course.”

  “What if I talked to him?” she suggested.

  “You want to talk to him?” he said, surprised.

  “Do you want to bring Luther Sutherland to justice or what?”

  Before Ryan could answer, the phone on his desk rang. “Detective Ryan,” he answered.

  It was the commissioner. “Sorry to disturb you, detective, but your case just got a whole lot harder that it was five minutes ago.”

  “How so?” Ryan replied, unsure of what he was implying.

  “You’ve got another double homicide on your hands.”

  “What! Who? Where? When?”

  “Two bodies were recovered at the Brighton Waste Management Depot this morning. Both females: one named Eleanor Harding, aged thirty-two, an employee of The Underground Bar and Night Club, and currently the partner of your buddy Danny Foster.”

  “And the other victim?”