Page 18 of Gypsy's Lady
Oh, yeah. I do have a choice.
***
The phone in his hand buzzedandDoug jumped, eyes going from the glowing display to the frontdoor of the apartment. The message was from an unfamiliar number, and said simply, “Here.”
In the hours since he’d woken to fight for his life, he’d made a call, and then as directed by the person on the other end of the phone, madea secondone. Then he’d gone about using his knowledge of crime scenes to attempt to make it so this one would be undetectable without the right tools. Tools thatwouldn’t ever be deployed in this apartment because Doug’s reasoning was there’d neverbe causefor anyone to think something had happened.
Plastic wrap, double-thick garbage bags, heavy-duty tape, resealable bags, threadbare mismatched towels, vinegar, bleach—this was the arsenal with which he’d armed himself. With the blade tugged free from the body, he’d dropped the knife into a bag and splashedbleach in on top, setting it aside.Vogel’sID, including his badge,wasbagged and laid to one side as well. Doug carefully wrapped and taped Vogel’s neck to prevent more blood spillage, then sliced the bloody clothing off the body and placed it all inside a garbage bag. Another bag held the mask, Vogel’s shoes, and the towels Doug had used to sop up a portion of the blood.
Two more garbagebags secured Vogel’s body, and once it was covered, he’d used a long towel to sled the corpse away from the saturated area.
Once that was taken care of, he’d cleaned the surfaces whereVogel’sblood had sprayed during the first moments of his injury. Bleach-soaked rags were thrown one-by-one into another garbage bag, and by the time he’d climbed into the shower, his sinuses were complaining aboutthe fumes.
He glanced around the apartment, staring for a moment at the closed door that led to his bedroom and the body. Then he turned towards the outside door. Taking a deep breath, he peered through the peephole, drawing back in surprise at who he saw.
Swinging the door wide, he stared at the angry lines bracketing either side of Mason’s mouth. Standing beside him was Tugboat, an older memberWinger had introduced Doug to not long ago. “Hey,” he offered, shuffling back to let the two men into his apartment.
Mason gripped the edge of the door and tugged it out of Doug’s grip, seating it firmly in the frame. “Talk to me.” Doug shook his head, not certain what Mason wanted. Him appearing was so out of the blue, Doug still hadn’t caught up to the realization that the Rebel’s nationalpresident had come to answer his distress call. “Tatum,” Doug noted Mason didn’t call him Lawman, and wasgladsince he’d never felt less like an officer of the law than in this moment. “You gotta talk to me.”
Tugboat pushed past Doug, moving through the living area and towards the only closed door in sight. “Hey.” Dougstoppedbecause he didn’t know what he could say. Tugboat angled a glanceback over his shoulder and then opened the door, releasing a wave of bleach smell Doug knew would forever remind him of this night.
“In here, Mason.” At Tugboat’swords,Mason stepped around Doug, the heat from a quick clasp on his bicep the only connection between the two of them. “Step lightly.”
Mason paused in the doorway, his shoulders blocking out whatever Tugboat was doing inside the room.Doug took a step in their direction, but the moment he moved, Mason clipped out a clear order, “Stay there.” Quiet murmuring followed by the sound of a plastic bag sliding across the floor, then Mason and Tugboat were standing back in his living room, door closed behind them. “Let’s sit a spell, Tatum. We’ve got some decisions to make.”
Tugboat sidled past, careful to not touch him this timeand Doug wondered what that meant, his overworked brain reading all kinds of things into the movement, then the old man was in the kitchen opening the refrigerator and rattling in the cabinets. “Mason—”
Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by Tugboat, “Sit, son. I’m getting us something to drink.” Mason gestured at the couch and chairs with a nod.Okay. Apparently, I’m going to have adrink while there’s a dead body in my bedroom. He choked back a laugh, the sound escaping him strangled and harsh. Mason winced,andDoug pulled in a deep breath before he carefully walked the ten feet to the chair, turning to sit, staring at Tugboat as he approached with mugs in hand.
“Okay, son.” Tugboat handed off thewhiskeyto Doug and Mason before claiming the other chair. “There’s no wayto ease into this, and I know you were friends. Winger and his daughter Lockee were in a wreck tonight…last night. They didn’t make it.”
Doug’s head rocked back as if with a physical hit. He stared at Tugboat mutely, waiting for something else to be said, but the old man seemed to know what he was asking with his gaze and met him with a simple shake of his head.Dead. Doug swallowed hard,throatcatchingon what had to have been a bucket-sized ball of tar wedged between his mouth and lungs.Winger’s dead. A burning spread down, sweeping across his chest, and he twisted to set the mug on a nearby table. Linking his fingers, he cradled his forehead in his hands, elbows to knees as he struggled to recover from the blow.His pretty daughterLockee, too. The raw expressions on both men’s facesmade sense now. They’d known Winger for far longer and would be hurting. The fact they’d made time to come by and tell him, come when he called…Doug didn’t know what to make of that. He hoped he knew, but as with so much in his head right now, nothing quite made sense.
A tight grip on his shoulder warned him, but he didn’t straighten, just held his position watching as tear after tear slippedfrom his face to fall between his wide-spread feet. A second hand clasped his other shoulder, and he saw Tugboat going down on one knee beside him. Mason shifted to sit on the coffee table and completed the circle, his arm across Tugboat’s back as the three men sat with bowed heads, mourning together for a man’s life cut far too short.
***
Standing along the edge of an abandoned gravel quarryin the middle of Michigan, Doug stared down at his hand curled around a cold can of beer. He knew if he lifted his gaze, he’d see two men he never expected to stand beside him. He shivered,andthe beer made a liquid sloshing sound, echoing the faint noises that had rolled up from the surface of the water a few minutes ago. Flooded more than a decade ago, the quarry was on private land, but thefamiliar way Mason had navigated the overgrown road in from the county highway said abandoned didn’t mean unused.
He swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple slide up and then down his neck as he struggled to keep his composure. He knew Tugboat had seen when an elbow bumped his arm, followed by the old man’s gruff voice telling him the same thing Doug had been thinking. “Was you or him, man. He hadto know going in it could come out this way. I’m a hundred percent glad it’s you still standing.”
Meeting Tugboat’s eyes through the barely-there morning light, Doug nodded. “Still gonna eat at me.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else, Tatum.” Mason’s voice came from the side,andDoug glanced over to find Mason staring at him.
He was irrationally glad neither of them had called him Lawman sincethey’d left the apartment, bodyandbags of material handled between the three of them. Lawman was Winger’s legacy, at least in Doug’s head, and he didn’t want to give ownership to anyone else. Something between him and his friend, and not for casual use.
In the first flush of pain and anger, he’d questioned as hard as he could manage, hoping Winger’s accident was just that, and not somethingbrought on him by his association with Doug. It seemed to be the case, as Schwartz’s name didn’t come up at all, not even in the aftermath.
“So, what’s next?” Mason’s question rolled out slow and quiet, barely disturbing the air, but nothing about him said this was a casual inquiry.What he was asking went well beyond this small circle of two club members who stood alongside him. They were overlookinga body of water which for sure hid at least one body. These men were all in with him, and had been since he made the call because the body had been carried there in an RWMC vehicle, muscled out of the apartment by respected members of the biker community. These men who didn’t owe him a damn thing, but had still paid in sweat and a shared guilty association.Mason wasn’t asking to find out whatwas for breakfast, or what Doug thought about the state of the world. His question had weight andheft,and would alter the course of all their lives in one way or another.
He remembered Claudia suddenly, could see her in the apartment they’d shared, her leaning one hip against the counter as she cradled a mug of tea in one hand. She’d reminded him of her epiphany, a rule of life she’d triedto impress on him in the short time they’d been friends.“Taking charge of your own life isn’t running. It’s not taking the coward’s way out.”She’d been talking about the little girl who’d died, explaining how she’d walked away from the medical field without looking back, trying to make a life out of what she held in her hands.
There’s a clear line in the sand now, he thought.A cop tried tokill me. A cop, not an outlaw, not a criminal…a cop. Someone I thought I could trust. “Life as I knew it ended tonight.” Mason’s chin angled up,andTugboat’s head lifted from where he’d been studying the ground. “It’s in me to find myselfmenI can truly count on.” Doug raised his empty hand, palm up as he slashed through the air. “I’ve been uneasy for a while. Unsettled, because of shit in theforce. Some of it you know—” He studied Mason’s face closely, then continued, knowing he’d eventually be fielding questions about his next words. “—some of it you don’t.” In his head, he heard the rolling slap of the weighted mass hitting the flat surface of the water, sloshing waves against the nearby rocks settling quickly, the body gone in moments. Peace restored so fast it was as if the waterhad never been disturbed.I want a life I can be proud of. Resolved, Doug lifted his head high, shoved his shoulders back andwaited fora beat.I do. He asked Mason, “I’d asked Winger—” He sucked in a breath. “—and been working towards it, but I need to know if I continue my path…if I come to you with my back naked, no badge in my hand, will the Rebels take me in?”
