The Boat Man: A Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1) Read online

  Praise for works by Dustin Stevens

  I loved this suspense/drama/thriller…I haven't read a great suspense like this in a long time and I'm very glad I read this. I look forward to more books by this author. – The Kindle Book Review

  This follow-up to "The Zoo Crew" is a fantastic, fast-paced thriller set in a small, sleepy Montana town. It's the perfect backdrop - nobody thinks of Montana or sparsely populated areas when they think of such devious white-collar crimes. I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but rest assured that "Dead Peasants" will keep you engaged until the last page. – Amazon Customer

  Love the way Dustin Stevens writes, I felt like the Zoo Crew were my friends. The only bad part was finishing the book too fast, but the good was knowing there was a 3rd "Zoo Crew". – Amazon Reviewer

  From the very first page "Be My Eyes" managed to capture my attention and keep it all the way through to the satisfying conclusion. This is a novel that runs the gamut of emotions from despair to hope, anger, happiness and everything in between. It's well-written with vivid imagery, strong dialogue and a plot that resonates with the reader long after the story is over. – Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer

  This is truly one of the best books I have read. It touches on the ugly parts of human nature without dwelling on it only. It shows the good in people without that person knowing it. And, in show how anyone person in your life no matter how much or how long you know them, can make the biggest impact on you. – Amazon Customer

  A story of David v Goliath, of big v little, of fair v unfair, all of these things rolled into one story. If any of you can remember that far back, a flavor of Perry Mason flows from the pages, new and exciting. The characters are so well written, one would expect to recognize them on the street. The reader is drawn ever deeper into the emotions of the story and into the hero’s mind. And what a hero! Lazlo is the kind of man you would want on your side if you ran into trouble. – Amazon Reviewer

  I found the book extremely well written. It took a more serious approach. A vivid yet to-the-point style of writing. Not necessarily poetic, but artistic in its own sense. I've recommended it to a few of my friends who love these 'family oriented crime thrillers' style books. They've all really enjoyed it. I'm not a huge fan of suspense stories, but this one captured my interest and held it to the end. – Top 500 Amazon Reviewer

  Other works by Dustin Stevens:

  Going Viral

  Quarterback

  Scars and Stars

  Catastrophic

  21 Hours

  Ohana

  Twelve

  Liberation Day

  Just a Game

  Ink

  Four

  The Zoo Crew Novels:

  The Glue Guy

  Tracer

  Dead Peasants

  The Zoo Crew

  The Hawk Tate Novels:

  Cold Fire

  Cover Fire

  The Boat Man

  A Reed Mattox Novel

  Dustin Stevens

  The Boat Man

  Copyright © 2015, Updated 2016, Dustin Stevens

  Cover Art and Design: Anita B. Carroll at Race-Point.com

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice.

  Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

  -- Samuel Johnson

  Crystalline spatters of sleet hit the windshield, leaving a scattershot pattern across the glass. Each time they connected, the distinct ping was the only sound inside the car. They accumulated until the outside world was almost obscured from view before the wipers rose and shoved them to the side, the rubber stripping whining as they retreated back into position.

  Seated behind the wheel, he waited motionless, his gaze never wavering as the precipitation gathered and was cleared in equal 30 second increments.

  Parked in the third row, he knew he was virtually invisible as he sat and stared at the front entrance to the chapel. Slumped low behind the wheel, the windows fogging around him, there was no way anybody could have seen him. If not for the occasional burst of the wipers, there would be no indication at all that someone was inside, his car just another anonymous sedan in a lot full of them.

  One by one, automobiles around him emptied their passengers, people jogging to the front entrance, using umbrellas or papers to protect themselves from the falling ice pellets. Once they reached the steps, they lingered only a moment, greeted by a solitary man in dark clothes before disappearing inside.

  Sliding his backside forward to the edge of the seat, he sat and let the cold chill inside the car seep into his bones. It passed through his thin, black suit and brought goose bumps to his skin. On the seat beside him rested an unopened bottle of Jim Beam Devil’s Cut whiskey and a loaded .38, both of them calling with equal intensity.

  Both seemed a cruel irony, a harsh contrast to the person who normally occupied the seat.

  Someone who was now tucked away in a pine box less than 100 yards from where he sat.

  Despite knowing that, realizing everything she had meant to him, everything he would miss about her, he remained where he was, unable to move, watching as the last few stragglers from the parking lot made their way to the door. As they passed inside, the priest stood and waited, seeming to look directly at him in the third row, imploring him to come forward.

  When no movement came, a bow of concession was offered before he, too, disappeared inside the chapel, the door closing without a sound.

  Still he remained, watching, waiting, before reaching out and turning over the ignition. Without a second glance he drove away, his tires leaving twin tracks through the slush behind him.

  Chapter One

  From his perch in the alley, the Boat Man had a perfect view of his target.

  Crouched low on the second floor fire escape, his body pressed against the cool brick of the building, he sat and stared through the iron bars at the small house across the street, waiting. He had been in position a full four hours, not once moving as he stared down at his destination, an exercise in form and discipline.

  After the first hour, bits of cold had started to pass through the flattened cardboard box he was seated on. An hour after that, the jacket he wore gave way to the cool brick behind him, his spine tightening from the chill.

  Just before midnight a thin mist had passed through, cloaking the world in dampness, his clothes sticking to his skin. Still he sat and waited, letting the beads of moisture collect on his head and drip from the front of his hood, paying them no attention as he stared across the street.

  As targets went, there was very little to distinguish it from 1,000 other identical ones around Columbus. A single story tall, constructed entirely in red brick, it sat on a postage stamp sized lot. Most of the lawn was reduced to nothing more than mud, tufts of dead grass sticking up in the corners. An old pizza box served as a makeshift covering for a broken window, light shining out around the edges.

  It was the fourth night in the past few months the Boat Man had sat on his perch observing the house.

  There wouldn’t be a fifth.

  Just shy of 1:00 in the morning a pair of headlights app
eared, refracted up from the wet asphalt of the street. Feeling his pulse rise just slightly, the Boat Man drew his feet up beneath him, his knees groaning in protest.

  Ignoring the objections of his body, the Boat Man pressed his back hard against the wall and pushed himself upright, watching as the lights drew closer. There was no doubt they announced what he had been waiting for, the only person who would possibly be out at such an hour.

  Without waiting for visual confirmation, the Boat Man swung himself over the wrought iron railing encasing the fire escape and dropped to the ground, his shoes falling silent against the wet earth. Keeping himself tucked into the shadows of the building, he jogged forward, his body bent in half, moving as fast as his crouch would allow.

  In the dead of the night the headlights cut a stark beacon through the quiet neighborhood as they drew closer, the pounding of a stereo system growing louder in accompaniment.

  The Boat Man made it to the corner just as the car came into sight, confirming what he already knew. He watched as it turned into a driveway, and the blinding glare of the front lamps fell away, revealing their source to be a faded burgundy Cadillac Coupe.

  A hint of a smile crossed the Boat Man’s face as brake lights flared, the car easing its way off the street.

  Tonight had been a long time coming. Too long, in fact. The kind of thing slowed first by inability, then by indecision. Only once both were overcome, was he able to move forward, this, the first step of many more to come.

  On the opposite side of the street, no more than 20 yards away, the Cadillac came to a stop. A moment later the dull throbbing of the bass receded to nothing, the silence noticeable in its wake.

  From his hiding spot, the Boat Man drew in one final breath. Never before had he been in a situation like this.

  Not ever had he felt more certain of anything in his life.

  There was no tremble from his hands as he reached back over his head, gripping the braided handle of the sword strapped there. In one movement he slid it from its scabbard, the polished steel coming free without a sound.

  An inch at a time the Boat Man rotated it from side to side before him, letting the slightest bit of light from the streetlamps reflect from its surface.

  Sixty feet away, the driver’s side door of the car burst open, a spray of cans and bottles hitting the pavement. Their owner spilled out behind them, his gait uneven, the streetlight above flashing off his exposed arms and clean-shaven head.

  The Boat Man watched as the man kicked at the debris scattered across the driveway, his uneven flailing giving away the fact that he had a few too many on the night. Just as fast, he gave up on the venture, muttering a string of obscenities that was audible along the street, before slamming the door shut behind him.

  Using the sound of the door as cover, the Boat Man sprang from his spot, crossing the road in eight long strides, covering the small front yard in half that many.

  There was no sound from his feet as he moved, no pause from his body as he closed the distance to his target.

  Chapter Two

  “On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. Bridge.”

  The narrator’s voice was deep and rich, bringing to mind images of James Earl Jones, minus all the heavy breathing used during his stint on Star Wars. Without even thinking about it, Reed Mattox reached across the front seat and took up the plastic CD case, flipping it over in search of a picture.

  “He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase.”

  Unable to find anything more than a one sentence blurb for each the author and the narrator, Reed tossed the container away, watching with disinterest as it hit off the seat and landed on the floorboard.

  The noise brought a stir of life from the backseat, Reed glancing into the rearview mirror as a pair of pointed ears came into view. Beneath them were chestnut colored eyes, two moist discs staring back at him.

  “Easy, girl,” Reed said, his drawl allowed to slide out in full, a voice meant to placate. It seemed to work as the creature met his gaze a long moment before dropping back out of sight, her size shifting the car as she moved.

  “This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary…“

  Three paragraphs was as far as Reed made it before reaching out and shutting off the disc, letting silence fill in around him. Once more a whine could be heard from the back seat, though this time no eyes appeared to stare back at him.

  Shifting onto his right haunch, Reed twisted his legs beneath the steering wheel, resting his elbow on the middle console. He jammed a thumb into his mouth and gnawed on the nail as he again checked the clock on the dash, watching the minutes crawl by.

  Everything about the situation he now found himself in – the car, the dog, the CD’s – all of it was new to him. Even after two months it felt odd, things seeming just a bit left of center, not quite attuned to what he was used to.

  Little by little, things were improving, but they still had a long way to go.

  “Detective Mattox?” the dispatch radio on the dash called, the metallic din of the voice reverberating through the interior of the car. “Detective Mattox?”

  Reed waited a moment before drawing the thumb from his mouth, spitting a bit of nail onto the adjoining seat and reaching out. He took up the microphone hanging on the side of the radio and drew it over to him, his movements slow and deliberate.

  “Hey, Jackie.”

  By day, the procedural protocol for handling the radio was a tightly regimented exercise in tedium. In the preceding months, though, Reed had become intimately aware of the fact that most such procedures were cast aside after midnight.

  “How you doing out there this evening, Sugar?” Jackie asked.

  A flicker of mirth passed over Reed’s face as he imagined Jackie on the other end of the line, her feet propped up on the edge of the desk, a half-eaten box of powdered donuts beside her. On her lap was most likely the latest gossip rag, picked up on the way to work at the local CVS.

  As humorous, if not clichéd, as the mental image might have been, Reed was long past commenting on it. Everybody had their own way of passing the hours in the middle of the night.

  Jackie preferred pastries and smut mags. He was now trying audio books.

  “Living the dream,” Reed replied. “What’s going on?”

  As much as he didn’t mind Jackie, and knew she meant well, he was fast coming to loathe the way she called to check in on him. It grated on his nerves in a way he couldn’t quite pin down, making him feel defective, like there was a flaw obvious to everybody around him.

  “We’ve got a report of a possible 187 in your neck of the woods,” Jackie said, her voice as bored and detached as if she were reading the weather.

  187. Police code for homicide.

  Reed pulled himself up straight in the seat, his bottom moving flat onto the cushion beneath him. In the backseat the dog sensed his change of demeanor, rising to full height, just her ears visible behind his head in the rearview mirror.

  “Where?” Reed asked, his voice carrying a bit more of an edge than intended.

  There was a pause, long enough to let him know it was heard and not appreciated, before Jackie said, “The Bottoms. You want it? Or should I call and wake up Ike?”

  The starter whined in protest as Reed cranked the ignition, the car rumbling to life.

  “We’re already en route,” Reed said. “Just send me the address.”

  Chapter Three

  The flashing lights of his car bounced off the front of the house as Reed pulled to a stop, the headlights flickering from the left to the right every few seconds. Given the hour and the lack of traffic, he had opted to run without the siren, letting the flashing headlights clear away what few other drivers were on the road.

  The house was a simple ranch affair, the kind filling scads of neighborhoods in the greater Columbus area. H
e, himself, had grown up in something similar on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, had seen the same thing in towns ranging from Atlanta to Portland.

  Somewhere inside he knew there was a family room with a connected kitchen and dining room, two or three bedrooms off a hallway from the main living area, and one and a half baths showing up somewhere.

  The front lawn was nothing more than a dustbowl that had been turned to mud by the passing rains, the outward condition of the windows and front door showing the place was in a state far past disrepair.

  Flipping the lights off, Reed took a quick glance down the street, confirming what he knew about the area, even if he had never been at this particular location before.

  The house was one in a line of single family dwellings, all equally spaced, all having the same basic design. On the opposite side of the road were multi-story buildings that looked to have at one time been apartments but now appeared deserted.

  Like the houses they stood facing, everything was red brick, splashed liberally with aging graffiti.

  “Stay,” Reed said, leaving the keys in the ignition and stepping out of the car. A thin mist enveloped him, clinging to his hooded sweatshirt, beading up on the badge hanging from his neck.

  A single blue-and-white patrol car was parked at the edge of the driveway a dozen feet in front of Reed’s sedan. Halfway down the asphalt drive sat a burgundy Cadillac appearing to be from the mid-‘80s.

  From everything he’d seen of the block so far, it seemed to fit in perfectly.

  Huddled together in front of the patrol car was a pair of officers, both turning to look as Reed approached. Neither one seemed happy to be standing there, neither making a move forward as Reed drew near.

  “You guys call in a possible 187?” Reed opened, closing the gap between them, letting a hint of annoyance show in his voice.