Spin Out Read online

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  MLR Press, LLC

  www.mlrpress.com

  Copyright (c)

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Right guy. Wrong time.

  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

  About the Author

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  MLR Press Authors

  THE TREVOR PROJECT

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  Spin Out

  A Deputy Joe Novel

  James Buchanan

  mlrpress

  www.mlrpress.com

  Right guy. Wrong time.

  Deputy Joe Peterson understood the risks when he got involved with ex-con Kabe Varghese. He didn’t, however, see fit to warn Kabe. Now, in the middle of searching for the killer of a local boy, he has to contend with his career and his relationship spinning out of control. Solving the case may be easier than repairing broken trust.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2011 by James Buchanan

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Published by

  MLR Press, LLC

  3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.

  Albion, NY 14411

  Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet:

  www.mlrpress.com

  Cover Art by Winterheart Designs

  Editing by Kris Jacen

  Print format

  ISBN# 978-1-60820-366-6

  Also available in ebook format

  ISBN#978-1-60820-393-2

  Issued 2011

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher.

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  Chapter 1

  Ain’t nothing like the mountain air first thing in the morning. As I swung out of my new department issue Explorer, I could almost taste the first touch of snow on my tongue. Wouldn’t be long before winter hit. That meant skiing, Christmas and snuggling up next to my Kabe’s fine body under a layer of quilts. Not that I needed much excuse to do that. Three, sometimes four, nights a week he spent over at my place…and boy didn’t the gossips like to pass that bit around.

  No sense ruining my day thinking on that.

  I headed on into the oldest dinner in Panguitch, nodding as I walked into the cafe and getting a round of grunts and, “Hi, Joe.” in return. A few other folks I said howdy to even though I knew I’d get nothing but glares back. Didn’t mean I still shouldn’t be polite. Slid into my usual booth in the back corner so’s I could watch everyone coming and going. I didn’t bother to order nothing. Jane, at the front counter, just always seemed to know what I was in the mood for and brought it on out to me.

  A knot of men clustered around the big table, all of them with heads down and trading low whispers. If’n I didn’t know every last one of them and what they were up to, I’da been suspicious. But they all either made their living off the big hunts or liked to pretend they did. Hunting season meant stingy strategy sessions rivaling those of warring nations. Everyone trying to figure what each other knew about where the game was and each trying not to let spill what he’d figured already.

  After a few bites into my pancakes, I caught Carl Haley standing up out of the group of hunting guides and wannabes. He stretched. He hemmed and hawed a bit about going. Then he pulled out a few bills, tossed them on the table and…

  …walked out.

  I actually dropped my fork. Slipped right out of my hand. I think the big table, well, all them just froze in place halfway through whatever they was at. See, ‘cause all that play outta Carl, at this time in September, usually prefaced him sauntering on back, sliding into the opposite side of the booth and grinning out, “So, seen any deer lately, deputy?”

  Going on five seasons of that—me being something of an informant of sorts. Came with my job and being up and around long before the butt crack of dawn driving my patrol route along the highways and roads in a county that didn’t have hardly one person for every square mile of land.

  Elk, deer, moose; saw ‘em all the time, everywhere. And I kept it in my head and gave it off to Carl from about start of fall on through hunting season. For that, I always had a little bit of something in my freezer, and if I got a permit in the local lottery then Carl would take me out.

  I cain’t say how it even hit me right then. My mind just kept backfiring on how he’d pretty publicly snubbed not only me, but a decent professional association. And Carl wasn’t even a member of the Latter Day Saints, just a cowboy, one who apparently let his prejudices rule his wallet. Sorta set me down into this whirlpool of really black thoughts. Most times something like this happened—you know after everything hit the fan about me liking guys and shacking up with an ex-con pretty boy and getting excommunicated—I managed to just stick it in my pocket. But there’s those you expect it from, and then those that hit you blindside.

  Carl caught me off guard.

  As I’m all wrapped up in that, staring at a plate of pancakes that are getting less appetizing by the moment, I heard somebody’s butt slide into the booth. “Morning, Joe.” Rough voice, paved like country road asphalt and varnished with years of smoke—Randy Small. I looked up. He saluted me with his coffee mug. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Sure you want to?” Yeah, I was right ready to dive into a little pity party.

  “If Carl’s going to let his uptight ass keep him from good info…” With a roll of his eyes, Randy let the rest of that thought slide on by. He took a few swigs of his coffee. Me, I just tried to remember how to breathe again. Finally, Randy grunted, “Your flapjacks are getting cold.”

  I pushed them away. “Not all the hungry right now.” The whole thing soured my stomach even if Carl didn’t say nothing. Didn’t have to. I’d have had to be dead to not hear that unspoken disgust loud and clear.

  Randy chewed on my words for a moment, his mouth almost working with the thoughts, then he grunted again. “Don’t let it ride you too much, Joe. Not everyone is as limped dicked as that son-of-a-bitch.” He grinned and leaned in. “The moment we all realized that Carl weren’t headed over here…well I thought we’d have ourselves a good old fashioned brawl right here ove
r coffee to see who could get over here first.”

  “What,” I grumbled, not at him but at the whole darn mess, “you stared ‘em all down?”

  “Naw, I just stood up and walked on over.” The laugh that started ended up as a hoarse wheeze. Once he’d caught his breath, Randy finished, “Lazy dogs don’t get fed.”

  I almost managed a smile at that. “Guess not.” Eased the hurt a little knowing that not all of them felt like Carl.

  Randy grinned back. “So, seen any deer lately, deputy?”

  And that’s how I got myself a new hunting guide—for when my permit came up there in December. Treated me better than Carl had too. Only made me pay for the use of the horses, but Randy’s time came free. Said it was the least he owed me for turning him onto some of the best hunting leads he’d had in years.

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  Chapter 2

  Been out near half the day riding through snow and looking for elk, up and around Mount Dutton. I’d gotten myself an antlerless permit…picked up a space in the lottery so I could cull off a buck elk after the rut and when they’d shed their antlers. Didn’t matter to me since I wasn’t in it for trophy kills; I wanted the meat. If I managed to bag something, it’d be a nice elk loin for Christmas dinner…if’n I didn’t, we’d have chicken. Not that I could ever use a whole animal, but I passed on what overloaded me to a few folks on far more limited means—the offer of game didn’t rub like charity might otherwise. Of course, Mount Dutton in mid December was not known for successful hunts. But you won’t get nothing if you don’t try.

  It’d been a pretty heavy winter so far. Dark black trees carried so much snow in their branches they looked like a black and white picture of a summer day. Off where the mountains fell away into nothing, clouds laced the sky so thick it was hard to tell where land and air separated. Most you could hear was the jingle of the tack and the huffed out breath of the horses—all the rest of the world was smothered in silence. I figured, out here, the three of us on horseback must all look like something off a fancy Christmas card.

  Kabe leaned into the neck of Baxter, the buckskin mule Randy’d given him for a mount, and shivered. “Fuck it’s cold.” Since Kabe’s horsemanship equaled my ability to dance, I’d told Randy to bring him out the most unflappable, unconcerned and uninterested trail nag he owned. Baxter wasn’t a nag, but you could have set off firecrackers on that mule’s tail and he might have cocked one big ear back to see what was up.

  I ignored Kabe’s cussing. “It ain’t that bad,” I chided him as I slid outta the saddle on the pinto named Piggy Randy’d given me to ride. She hopped and pranced over a step or two, almost hanging me up in the stirrup and dropping me on my butt ‘cause of the snow. Piggy was a bit more ornery. “‘Sides I thought you wanted to get out in the open away from all the tourons.”

  Kabe’d landed a gig as a mountain trail host up at Brian Head this ski season. Basically, the job required him to prowl the slopes for a good four to six hours a day and remind folks not to go off-run or point out that the Extreme Black Diamond slopes were over to the left and so maybe they ought to try the skiing on the right hand trails. And tourists, being tourists, meant Kabe had to deal with a disproportionate share of morons in the mix: tourons in back-country short hand.

  I reminded him of one of our conversations on the matter. “Clean, pristine, undisturbed, snow covered mountains and God’s creatures in their winter finery.” It came out of my mouth a little more poetic than his bellyaching.

  He clambered on down and dug out the thermos of hot coffee Randy stowed in his saddle bags. “Yeah,” Kabe grunted before he twisted off the cap and slugged down a swig of coffee, “I really find it hard to get into the whole thing when the point of me freezing my nuts off is so you can kill one of those creatures.”

  Randy, who’d dismounted his bay and lit up before either of us even reined our mounts to a stop, blew out a puff of smoke and gave me a narrow-eyed glare. “He’s got a problem with hunting.” That gravely tone asked why the heck I’d brought Kabe if he did. We’d stopped for a moment so they could indulge their vices and all of us could take a piss.

  “In the big theoretical sense?” Kabe screwed the lid back on his thermos as he answered. “I understand ecological management, population control and herd thinning.” He shoved Baxter’s neck as the mule decided to ease an itch on his face by rubbing it against Kabe’s head. “I’m okay with it.” Grunting, Kabe pushed harder…no matter how much muscle Kabe sported, I laid my bet on Baxter—half-Clydesdale, eighteen hands high and built like a freight train—my boy was no match. Kabe finally gave up and moved to where he wouldn’t be tossed face first into a drift by Baxter’s scratching. “I was just thinking more along the lines of cross-country skiing than personally taking part in the slaughter of some wild animal.”

  “Should try it sometime.” Randy coughed then flicked his butt into the snow. “Might change your mind getting in the thrill of the hunt and all.”

  One of Kabe’s wicked grins slid across his mouth. “You know, I never thought there’d be an upside to having a felony record.” Not like that was any type of secret. The entire county knew within a week of Kabe’s arrival in Utah why he was there, how long his period of probation would be, and had some version of what he’d gone up for. “But now I guess there is. Can’t possess a firearm, so no hunting permits for me.” He shoved the thermos in the saddle bag and then tried to jam his hands into his jacket pockets. His right one got all tangled up in straps of the bright orange hunting vest I’d given him to wear over his red ski jacket.

  Utah only required a certain amount of blazing orange to be worn for hunting, but I’d rather play it safe. Apparently, so did Randy. He wore insulated coveralls and I had a winter-weight jacket, both in the required color. Somewhere Randy’d picked up a cowboy hat with a crown in Hunter Orange. Kabe had my extra tangerine colored stocking cap pulled down over his mop of black hair and I had a ball cap with the hood of my jacket tugged up over top…all three of us looked like traffic cones. Better an obnoxious color than getting shot by someone who mistook you for a deer.

  Kabe managed to sort himself before glaring at me. “I’m going to take a leak.” I guess all the misery of today would be laid at my feet. I’d make it up to him later. “Don’t kill anything while I’m gone.” He grumbled as he pushed off into the snow. We’d chosen a spot where the pines kept the worst of the drifts back. Maybe three feet out from the break, the snow piled knee deep. And that was over the thin crust of ice from the first snow-melt-freeze we’d had that winter.

  I called on after him, “With as much noise as you’re making, the elk will have to be deaf and blind to stick around.” Kabe flipped me off as he stomped off. I turned away and checked my rifle and saddle while Randy fished out another smoke. Then his chuckle called my attention back to him. “What?”

  “Is he worth all that?” I got the sense Randy meant more than just today’s little fit.

  I wasn’t at all sure how to really answer that. Instead I decided to deflect the question a little. “You’ve been married, what, thirty years now?”

  “Yep.” He shrugged. “‘Bout that.”

  I shot his question back to him, “She worth it?”

  Randy stared up at the steel gray clouds for a bit. Then he brayed out a laugh. “Sometimes.”

  “Okay…” I had to laugh too. “Yeah, sometimes is about right.”

  “Don’t ever let my wife know I said that.” He pointed one gloved finger at my nose to drive the point home.

  “That goes both ways.” I laughed. “Whoever spills better watch out for the other.”

  “Joe!” Kabe’s shout exploded across the snow. “Joe!” A murder of crows launched into the air at the sound, adding their caws and cackles to Kabe’s frantic yells.

  Leaving Randy to handle the horses, I lit out in the direction Kabe’d gone. Easy enough to chase his track through the snow, hard as heck to follow it though. Branches caught my clothes and d
ropped ice down my back as I careened through the small stands of pine, egged on by the sound of Kabe’s yells. All of one word—my name. I came up and around into this little hollow expecting to see Kabe bloody or broken or facing down a coyote—something.

  Instead, I found him just standing almost right in a patch of brambles and staring down at the ground. “What are you on about?” I got to admit I sounded irritated, mostly because I was. And all that annoyance evaporated the moment he turned his head to look up at me. His brown skin had gone gray and his hazel eyes seemed frozen wide. “What?” I slowed and looked him over. He may not have been physically hurt, but I’d seen the look of shock before and he wore it all over his face. “What’s wrong?”

  Kabe swallowed, hard, before looking back down at his feet. At first my mind didn’t register nothing but snow covered sticks, with tatters of something blackish-orange clinging to a gnarled stump jutting in amongst them. Five little knobs on a ball and here and there little shiny blue rags fluttered where they’d been caught in the twigs. About a second later my brain shifted and told me what it was I was looking at.

  A frozen hand jutted up out of the snow right near Kabe’s feet.

  I kept my tone even, “I’m here, boy.” No sense in shaking him up any more than he already was.

  “Joe.” Kabe sounded like he might throw up. “I think I’m standing on the rest of the arm. I heard it crunch.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t sure whether it was his sense or his shock that I should thank for him not panicking and thrashing about. “You’re going to walk backwards, right in the same footsteps that got you there.”

  “Everything okay?” Randy’s voice came from behind me.

  I held my hand out back behind me. “Stop where you are, Randy. Okay?” Then I returned my attention to Kabe. “Come on, Kabe, just walk backwards.” When he didn’t start moving right away, I hardened my tone. “I said move!” That seemed to snap him out of the stupor. He shook his head, as if to shake the thoughts physically off, and started to back up into his own trail.