Free Spectre Black by J. Carson Black

not like her to not call in,” the younger man said.
    There was a moment of quiet. Landry couldn’t tell if they liked Jolie very well or not. It felt more as if they were all contemplating their own possible disappearance.
    “Not to worry, kid,” the same cop said. “Jan’s taking care of her pets while she’s gone.”
    Then the older guy said, “You heard about the robbery in Tejar.”
    No one said anything.
    Finally the gruff older guy said, “I wouldn’t put too much stock in what the media says.”
    “Yeah—assholes.”
    There was quiet. Then another guy said, “But Jesus —if it was true. It was like a Clint Eastwood movie.”
    “Yeah, so they say ,” the deep-voiced guy said. “Probably, they made it look bigger than it was.” Added, “You ask me, someone like that, who shoots up a city street? Trouble. She probably asked for trouble and got it. Hate to say it, because she seemed OK, but . . . that kind of shit comes back to bite you in the ass.”
    Landry listened, a half smile on his face. He’d been there. Not for the bank’s ATM smash-and-grab, not for the subsequent shooting (Jolie had used her long gun), but later, for the cleanup.
    They’d done a good job, cleaning up. One of the robbers had a brother, and that brother came looking for the famous cop who killed his sibling.
    If he and Jolie Burke were lucky, no one would ever know what happened to that fourth member and ringleader—the one who stayed in the comfort of his own home while the others drove a car into the wall by the bank’s ATM and came running out with the money.
    The ringleader had been cremated. The only problem for the cremators: there was no name to go with the person they cremated; all they had was ash.
    Landry and Jolie. They had worked together. Like a well-oiled machine.
    “Hey, how’s your daughter doing?”
    “Good. She and John named the baby after me.”
    They talked about that for a while.
    Then one of them said, “You seen the FBI agent?”
    “What FBI agent?”
    “What’s she doing here?”
    The older guy glanced at the younger guy. “Maybe she’s looking for Burke. Maybe that’s her assignment.”
    Another voice said, “Yeah. She’s hot.”
    “Where’d you see her?”
    “Here.”
    “Here?”
    “Yeah, you must’ve been asleep at the switch.”
    Another cop said, “She was right at that table over there. Yesterday.”
    “The woman with the long hair? The one with the great ass?”
    “You got it, brother.”
    The cop who was quiet—there was always a quiet one—spoke up. He said, “I think she’s a cousin or something.”
    “A cousin? What’re you talking about? Whose cousin?”
    “Jace Denboer. She’s his cousin.”
    “That little shit? The one with the Camaro? Took the leg off that homeless guy and didn’t even get a traffic violation?”
    Someone else said, “No, she’s his sister.”
    “Half sister,” someone else said. “She’s his half sister.”
    “So the Denboer kid has a half sister who’s an FBI agent. Cozy.”
    “He doesn’t need a cousin who’s an FBI agent, you ask me,” another cop, the skinny one, said. “Nobody gonna give him any trouble.”
    “Got that right.”
    “Untouchable,” the oldest cop said. “And don’t you forget it.”

    Landry drove back to the motel. The FBI agent, Carla Vitelli, was related to some rich kid who was a reckless driver and took a homeless man’s leg off. Jace Denboer.
    Every town had one. A royal family. The tradition had probably been handed down from the dawn of time, down through the ages—the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Age. The wealthiest families and most royal of the royal, the cattle barons and railroad barons and captains of industry all the way down to small-town mayors. Every municipality, every small town, had a family. It had become a meme: “To the manor born.” Apparently, in this small city, the Denboers were the royal family.
    Which explained a lot. It explained why Vitelli had