Free Rigged by Jon Grilz Page B

her hand, pinky and thumb extended.
    The slow crunch of tires driving over the loose rock made Nikki turn to see a black Town Car slowly roll past the scene on a cross street. Perez caught her stare and turned to look as well. Two men in sunglasses exited the car. They were dressed plainly enough in jeans and sweatshirts, and they looked around impassively.
    “Can I help you, fellas?” Perez asked in a half-yell across the way.
    If the two men heard him, they didn’t react. They simply looked around the scene, then glanced at each other and nodded oddly, as if they were talking telepathically or something. Without a word between them or any answer for Perez, they got back in their car and drove away.
    Perez shrugged at Nikki. “Meh, just tourists, I guess,” he said, “or rubber-neckers.”
    “I guess. I’ll run the prints off these two,” Nikki said, “if there’s anything left to print after the chemical burns. Maybe I can find some kind of connection.
    “All right,” Perez said. “While you’re at it, check into that tumbler. Maybe we’ll be lucky and find out it was purchased around here somewhere.”
    “It looks old.”
    “Even better. Maybe the meth-heads lifted it from somebody who can ID them. See if we can get a better ID on the bodies than just given names. I’m gonna do a few more door-to-door checks and see if anyone noticed anything or anyone in or around the trailer before or after it blew up.” He started to turn away, then stopped. “Hey, if you’re going back to the station to run those prints, can you do me a favor?”
    “Sure, Boss. Shoot.”
    “In the top drawer of my desk, there’s a coffee cup in an evidence bag.”
    Nikki starred back at Perez with an arched eyebrow. “A coffee cup?”
    “Yeah,” Perez paused, “I bagged it yesterday.”
    Perez didn’t have to explain any further. He’d bagged the cup Charlie Kelly had drank out of when they talked to him about his friend’s death. He didn’t have any reason to have kept it. Nothing short of what he liked to refer to as his cop sense.
    “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” Perez asked.
    “Of course not,” Nikki said, her voice restrained, professional. Though, it irked her to think that Perez thought so little of her; she would never let some guy she’d flirted with get between her and an investigation. “One thing’s for sure,” Nikki said as she walked back toward her car.
    “What’s that?”
    “If Damon is involved in any way, this isn’t over. You and I both know it’s just the beginning.”
    “Yeah, I know,” Perez said, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, “and that’s just what I’m afraid of.”
     
     

Chapter 9
     
    As far as Damon was concerned, the sun rose at his whim and set when he was tired of looking at it. That was what he told his crew, and he and they swallowed it whole.  As much as he distrusted new faces, he liked to do the dog-and-pony show; he loved to quickly put the new recruits in their place, make them feel small around them. The last thing he needed was for some little base-head to start thinking he could branch out on his own. Plus, he needed to fill the vacant spot his little learning lesson out on the prairie had created. It had taken almost two hours to bury the body. “Here’s the deal,” Damon said as he paced back and forth in front of the two new guys, neither of which looked like they were even old enough to buy him a pack of heaters. “You fuck with me, you’re dead. It’s that simple. No backing out now. You’re sittin’ here because someone vouched for you, because you slung a little White Bitch for us, and showed you can do the game.”
    Damon made a point of stopping for dramatic effect and turning slowly; when he did, he made sure his muscles flexed and bulged out of his black tank top. Tribal artwork sprawled across bowling ball shoulders and spiraled down massive, veiny, stark-white forearms. He wore a light brown, almost red Fu Manchu