McCrary's Justice (A Carlos McCrary Private Investigator Mystery Thriller Series Book 6) Read online

  McCrary’s Justice

  A Carlos McCrary Novel

  by Dallas Gorham

  McCrary’s Justice is a work of fiction. Copyright 2016 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved. Excerpt from I’m No Hero Copyright 2014 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved. Excerpt from Six Murders Too Many Copyright 2014 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved. Excerpt from Double Fake, Double Murder Copyright 2014, 2015 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved. Excerpt from Quarterback Trap Copyright 2015 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved. Excerpt from Dangerous Friends Copyright 2015 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved. Excerpt from Day of the Tiger, copyright 2016 by Seven Oaks Publishing LLC, all rights reserved.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents in all of the above works are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental. No part of any of these stories may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN-13:978-1539636328

  ISBN-10:1539636321

  16112801

  Cover art by Michael By Design www.MichaelByDesign.com.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  Hello from Dallas Gorham

  Also by Dallas Gorham

  I’m No Hero

  Chapter 1

  Six Murders Too Many

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Double Fake, Double Murder

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Quarterback Trap

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Dangerous Friends

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Day of the Tiger

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  McCrary’s Justice

  Chapter 1

  Liz lay still as a corpse in the dim light, watching the fat man’s chest rise and fall. Was he asleep?

  Earlier, the springs had screeched in protest, the bed bouncing like a dinghy in a hurricane. The clock on her dresser had flipped over to 1:11, while he hammered away inside her and grunted like a pig.

  The massive arm sprawled across her felt like a fallen tree trunk. The thick hair on his forearm chafed her naked skin like steel wool.

  Her chest felt as though a steel band had tightened around it. She fought back the tears, trying to overcome her feeling of helplessness. Her clothes were locked away in a closet. She never needed them except to dress for meals. The remainder of the time, she spent imprisoned in her room, languishing naked on the filthy bed, waiting for the next john. Day after day, night after night, men violated her. She wasn’t a prostitute; she was a sex slave. She wiped away an escaped teardrop and swore she wouldn’t be helpless much longer. Soon, very soon, she’d be free… or dead.

  Tommy had told her to treat the fat man right. This john was an ambassador from a Latin American country, the Republic of San Something-or-other. But who knew? Tommy lied just for fun.

  She’d trembled when Tommy told her the ambassador had returned and the creep asked for her. For an entire night. Again.

  “Show him another good time, Liz,” Tommy said, squeezing her breast hard enough to hurt. One more reason to hate Tommy.

  She’d almost protested, then remembered the fat man’s phone and kept quiet. Tommy kept his girls away from cellphones, but when the ambassador visited, Tommy let him keep his. He was a big man in more than waistline. She wanted that phone. With a phone, she had a chance. If Tommy caught her, he’d make the other girls watch while he killed her. And she wouldn’t die quickly. She shuddered when she remembered Evelyn. Free or dead.

  Tommy had kidnapped six women, addicted them to drugs, and rented them out for sex. He called them Tommy’s Angels. Now there were five. Three weeks ago, they’d watched Evelyn die by Tommy’s order. “Angels, this is what we do if you try to escape.” He’d taunted them while he and three gang members raped and strangled her. “Don’t make the same mistake Evelyn did.”

  Ironically, Evelyn’s gruesome death had rekindled Liz’s burning desire for freedom—a desire that drugs and depravity had dulled to the brink of extinction. Since Evelyn’s murder, Liz only pretended to swallow the pills Tommy gave her every day. When he turned away, she spat them out and hid them under her mattress. If all else failed, she’d accumulated enough pills to kill herself.

  Tommy called her an angel, but she lived in hell with the devil. She’d rather die.

 
There was nothing good about “good times” with the fat man. He provided drugs for them both, including blue pills for him. He looked young enough not to need chemical help, but maybe he liked to last extra long. He demanded rough sex in repulsive variations for an endless two hours. The previous times the drugs kept her from realizing how disgusting he was, but when she stopped the drugs, the reality of her situation sank in. She almost wished she had swallowed the last pills instead of palming them. They would have made her pain and humiliation more bearable. The fat weirdo left her sore for days.

  She shivered through the night, unable to sleep through the snores of the rancid, sweaty john. He kept the air-conditioning on high and the room was as cold as a meat locker. Still the stench of his sweat polluted the air. She stared at the ceiling in the icy room trying not to breathe the foul air. She dreaded the morning when he would awaken, take another blue pill, and rape her again. He always did.

  He tipped her well, but no tip could compensate for her degradation. With no place to spend money in captivity, she stashed the tip money in a plastic bag hidden in the toilet tank. If she escaped this brothel—no, when she escaped—she would have money to get home. The hope of escape gave her a reason to stay alive.

  After an eternity, the john’s breath slowed to a regular rhythm. His lips puffed a few ragged breaths. He rolled onto his side, and his bulky arm rasped like sandpaper across her skin. The cheap mattress bounced like a bowl of Jell-O with his movement. Heavy musk from his after-shave mixed with the dirty socks smell of sweat and sex. She gagged and choked back the bile that rose from her empty stomach.

  Tonight was her first chance to call for help since she’d decided to escape or die, but dare she move? What if Jabba the Hutt woke? Would he throw his disgusting body on top of hers, groping for her breasts with his slobbering mouth, trying to mount her?

  She scooched a few inches away from the ambassador toward the edge of the bed. It moved ominously, but he didn’t wake. He snorted once and rolled over.

  She used his movement to disguise hers as she inched closer to the edge of the bed. She wiped cold sweat from her forehead, trying not to jiggle the bed. The fat man squirmed onto his back, and she moved enough to dangle one leg off the bed, feeling for the floor with her foot.

  The clock on the dresser flicked over to 2:17.

  Do it before you chicken out. She shifted more weight to the foot on the floor and held her breath.

  As gently as a lava flow, she slid the other foot off the bed and lowered it to the worn carpet, alert to the slightest change in his sleep. She started to sit up, but stopped mid-motion when the springs vibrated. Her heart felt as though it would burst through her chest.

  His snores halted. She froze. The john wasn’t breathing. Sleep apnea. She’d learned about it in high school. Don’t panic. He’ll breathe in a few seconds.

  She felt pressure in her chest. Damn, she was holding her breath. Only when he snorted like a pig did Liz exhale. He resumed snoring, louder this time.

  She sat upright, shifting more weight to her feet, and lifted her butt off the mattress. The springs remained quiet, and she breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

  The john’s clothes were draped over a chair in the corner. Sliding his phone from the holster clipped on his belt, she moved silently toward the bathroom, never taking her eyes off the sleeping john. The phone was different from the one she had owned before Tommy imprisoned her. She fumbled with it in the dark, trying to turn it on. Her hands shook so much that she dropped it. Liz froze as it clattered on the tiled floor of the bathroom. I’m a dead woman. No one could sleep through that noise. Breathing deeply but quietly, she looked back towards the bed. Jabba snored on.

  When the ambassador had checked his messages earlier, he hadn’t noticed her peering over his shoulder. Now, she pushed every button on the phone until the light from the screen cast an eerie glow in the dark bathroom. Free or dead, she whispered as she pushed the messaging icon.

  Chapter 2

  My office phone rang. “Wilbur Jenkins on line one.”

  “Thanks, Betty.” I tapped the other button. “This is Chuck McCrary. How may I help you?”

  “Are you the guy who shot that crooked cop?”

  I have to list the phone number of McCrary Investigations. Who would hire a private investigator with an unlisted number? I hoped this wasn’t another nut job accusing me of murder. Such is the price of fame. Or is it notoriety? Sometimes the caller is a new client. Those are my favorites.

  “I prefer to accentuate the positive and say I rescued a woman whom the crooked cop had kidnapped,” I answered modestly.

  “So you are that guy?”

  “The one and only. How can I help?”

  “I’m Will Jenkins. My daughter’s been kidnapped. I want you to find her.”

  “Have you contacted the police?” There’s no point wasting someone’s money to do a job the cops do for free.

  “That’s the first call I made. They’re working the case mighty hard, but they ain’t got shit, excuse my French. Lieutenant Jorge Castellano, he said to call you, and he give me your phone number. That Castellano fellow, he’s the police detective that you sprung from that murder charge, ain’t he?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Maybe the lieutenant weren’t too proud of that murder charge, even if he did beat the rap.”

  “Maybe.”

  “The main thing he said was you might could find my daughter.”

  “Can you come to my office?”

  ###

  I stuck out my hand. “I’m Carlos McCrary.”

  My visitor switched his faded John Deere hat to his huge left hand and shook with his right. “Will Jenkins. Friends call me Will.”

  “And I’m Chuck.” I handed him a business card. Too bad it didn’t have a magnifying glass logo like the search boxes on websites.

  “The lieutenant, he already give me one of your cards.”

  Will’s callused palm matched his sunburned face. With his worn blue jeans, faded cotton shirt, and scuffed work boots, he reminded me of my father. His forehead was white below his thin brown hair.

  I got him coffee and led him to my conference room. “What did Lieutenant Castellano say?”

  “First, you oughta read these texts my Lizzie sent me early Tuesday morning.” He handed me his phone.

  The first text was sent at 2:22 a.m.

  Daddy, held captive in Port City FL by white man named Tommy Flannigan, five foot ten, thirty to forty years, medium build, palm tree tattoo on left forearm, pierced left ear with diamond stud. Sex slave. DO NOT CALL OR REPLY TO THIS TEXT. HE WILL KILL ME IF HE LEARNS I USED THIS PHONE. It belongs to a john. Love, Binky

  I read sex slave and my stomach clenched like a fist. It stirred a memory of my cousin Emily. No, not a memory, a fear.

  The second text was sent at 2:25 a.m.

  Four other girls held too, maybe more. Sex slaves. Jill from Chicago, Tawnya from Philadelphia, Delores from Shawnee, and Morgan from Cleveland. Don’t know last names or any addresses. DO NOT CALL OR REPLY TO THIS TEXT. Binky

  The last one was sent at 2:30 a.m.

  Held in house with three stories, 30 feet wide 80 feet deep, on busy street with two lanes traffic and parking on both sides. Sex slaves. Three gangsters. Scruffy, black, skinny, fifty. Vince, white, medium, forty. One big bald guy no name. DO NOT CALL OR REPLY TO THIS TEXT. Love, Binky.

  I swallowed hard and composed myself. “What did the police say?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. First thing I got to know is, can you find her?”

  “Did she leave of her own free will, or was she kidnapped?”

  “She went to Disney World. Her and her friend Jennifer.”

  “Jennifer?”

  “She and Jennifer, they been friends since they was this high.” He held his palm three feet off the floor. “Jennifer lives on the farm next to ours, maybe a half-mile down the road. Jennifer’s parents give her a new car for graduat
ion and the two of them decided to drive to Disney World. I fought it, but Lizzie, she saved the money herself and she was legal age. There wasn’t nothing I could do to stop her.” He dropped his head. “We wasn’t getting along too good, her and me, since her mom died.”

  Will didn’t say anything else, so I prompted him. “She and Jennifer left for Disney…”

  He looked at his hands in his lap. “She was so mad she wouldn’t return none of my calls while she was gone. After three weeks, Jennifer come back without her.”

  “Where was Liz?”

  Will sighed. “At Disney, Liz and Jennifer met a group of young’uns on a high school trip from Brazil. Liz, she was real taken with one boy in the group. The Brazilians was going to visit Fort Lauderdale after Disney. Liz decided to go with them. Jennifer, she drove back by herself.”

  “Drove back to where? Where do you live?”

  “Butler County, Nebraska. I’m a farmer. Mostly I grow corn.”

  “If you live in Nebraska, how did you hear about my gunfight with the cop who kidnapped that woman?”

  “When the lieutenant give me your card, I Googled you. Then I Googled him.”

  “I would’ve done the same thing.” I wrote Butler County. Corn. “How long since she left?”

  His eyes glistened. “A little over a year.”

  “Did she send you any letters, emails, anything like that?”

  “Nope. Not even a postcard.”

  “Did she leave Jennifer a note with the boy’s name or address, maybe a phone number where you could reach her?”

  “Oh sure. She didn’t sneak off or nothing. She gave Jennifer the boy’s name and phone number. But she made Jennifer promise not to tell me what she done until she—that is, Jennifer—until she got back home to Butler County.”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his eyes. “By the time Jennifer come home, the Brazilian boy, he was back in Brazil. I called him long distance. He said the last time he seen my Lizzie was at the Miami airport when they was leaving for home.”

  “You hadn’t heard from her before those texts?”

  “Nary a word.”

  “Was her cellphone on your plan?”

  “Yeah. When Jennifer come home, I called the sheriff in David City—that’s the county seat. He tried to do a phone trace, but Lizzie’s phone wasn’t on the network. The phone company said the last time her phone was used was in Port City a week after them Brazilians flew home. The Brazilian boy, he wasn’t involved.”