Page 132 of American Hellhound
Her gaze moved across the three of them, lingering on their faces. Cataloguing, Ghost thought with approval; he would want his own women to do the same.
“I did,” she said. “My son saw it. He…I almost called the police, but they don’t like to come out this far.”
Walsh gave her a bland smile. “We don’t mind the distance.”
She gave them each a careful once-over, then nodded to herself, mind made up. “Alright, follow me.” When she stepped down off the porch and started across the yard, Ghost saw the butt of a gun sticking out of her back pocket, half-hidden by the tail of her shirt.
God help the man who underestimated Southern women.
“My husband’s parents used to live out here,” she said over her shoulder as they walked, dry grass crunching underfoot. “They subdivided the land in their will – we got the house and the small barn. My brother-in-law got the big barn.”
The lawn sloped downward, sharply, into a copse of trees, and Ghost saw the big barn – a large metal-sided structure with a once-red roof, all of it rusted, though it had doubtless cost almost a hundred grand to install at some point. It was windowless, the roof littered with fallen pine needles.
“Bobby – that’s my son,” the woman continued, “saw some men down here last week. I thought he was just pulling my leg, but I came down here, and, well, you’ll see.”
A rude trail had been carved into the hill, braced with railroad ties, and it switched back several times before it deposited them at the base, in the cool shade of the trees. Wind hissed through the pines, dropping more needles, full of the iron scent of an approaching storm.
The woman took them to the front of the barn and its large roll-top door, and pointed at the ground. Tire tracks. ATVs, and lots of them. The dirt around the door was scuffed and littered with bootprints. Cigarette butts. Crumpled beer cans.
The woman put her hands on her hips and surveyed the scene. “My brother-in-law’s deployed, so this wasn’t him. Whoever was down here, and there were a lot of them, they weren’t invited.”
“Where does the driveway lead?” Ghost asked, spotting the needle-strewn track that snaked off through the woods.
“Main road.” She blew her bangs off her forehead with a breath. “Bobby said they were dressed all in black. Said he saw beards and wallet chains.” She gave them a questioning look.
“It wasn’t us,” Walsh said. “But if they were bikers, we think we know who they were.”
“It true there’s a new club moving into your turf? These Dark Saints I been hearing about?”
“You’ve heard about them?” Ghost asked.
She shrugged. “Heard one of y’all’s lady’s was asking around today. But I heard about it before. At Gordo’s.”
Ghost looked at Walsh and earned a shrug. Gordo’s was a bar on the opposite side of town from Bell Bar. It wasn’t anyplace they ever frequented.
Roman toed at a cigarette butt with a frown. “Kinda makes you wish you were a CSI, huh?”
“Nope,” Ghost said. Turning back to the woman: “So what’d they put in the barn? They didn’t come all the way out here to smoke.”
Her mouth pulled to the side in an unhappy way. “Lock’s busted, but I haven’t gone in yet.” The way she worried a snag in her shirt with her nails said she’d been too nervous to investigate by herself.
“Mind if we take a look?”
“Sure.” She walked over to the pedestrian door set into the front wall – sure enough, it had been kicked in – and pushed it open with her fingertips, hanging back. “There’s a light switch on your right,” she said, waving them through.
“Watch my six,” Ghost told Walsh, and stepped inside, flicked on the light. A dozen fluorescent tubes came on with a hiss, illuminating the giant space.
The inside was as he’d expected: a framework of electrical poles, open rafters, dank smell and gravel floor.
What he didn’t expect, or maybe he did, considering the tire tracks, was the stack of crates in the center of the space. They looked like the sort of thing you’d pack produce in, small enough to be strapped to the rear rack of a four-wheeler.
“Guys,” he called over his shoulder, walking to the stack. “Come look.”
Each crate was covered on the top with a piece of blue plastic tarp, sealed down with packing tape. Ghost flicked out one of his knives and cut through the tarp on the topmost crate, finding white bricks inside, just as he’d thought.
Walsh and Roman crowded in on either side of him.
“Coke,” Walsh said grimly.
