Shattered Justice Read online

  Also by Susan Furlong

  Fractured Truth

  Splintered Silence

  Peaches and Scream

  Rest in Peach

  War and Peach

  Written as Lucy Arlington

  Played by the Book

  Off the Books

  SHATTERED JUSTICE

  SUSAN FURLONG

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Epigraph

  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

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  Acknowledgments

  SHATTERED JUSTICE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Susan Furlong

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1172-4

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: January 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1174-8 (e-book)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1174-2 (e-book)

  Patrick: It’s been two years and three more books,

  yet in my heart, time stands still.

  Author’s Note

  It’s estimated that almost thirty thousand Irish Travellers reside throughout the United States. Descendants of nomadic Irish peoples who immigrated to the United States during the Great Famine, the Travellers settled throughout the country in extended family groups or clans, with the largest concentrations living in South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee. As itinerant workers who speak distinct dialects of Irish Cant known as Gammon or Shelta, they are often marginalized for their unique lifestyles and esoteric customs.

  I am not an Irish Traveller. I’m a story writer, and while I have tried to portray Irish Travellers as accurately as possible, they are a secret, closed sect of our American society. Endogamous, they prefer to live quietly, frequently going to great extents to protect their privacy. Travellers are often stereotyped as immoral and lawless, yet these characterizations overshadow what I have come to know as a culture filled with decency and built on strong family bonds and unbreakable fortitude. Through my writing, I hope readers will come to have a greater understanding and appreciation for the Irish Travellers’ unique way of life.

  The source of justice is not vengeance but charity.

  —Saint Bridget of Sweden

  CHAPTER 1

  Shot glasses were raised, a toast was made, and a buck-naked man galloped by on a stick horse.

  I hovered, dark and low, in the corner seat, cowboy music thumping through my veins, my heartbeat taking up rhythm with the pounding bass. Strobing lights, clinking glasses, the smell of stale beer, bad breath, and chintzy perfume. And the man—one hand clutching yellow plastic straps attached to a crazy, smiling horsey head, the other waving through the air, in time with his thrusting hips . . . Yeehaw! Ride ’em, cowboy. Bucking bronco . . . sex on a stick.

  Never seen anything like it. Couldn’t hardly believe I was seeing it now.

  The barmaid returned with another half-dozen drinks, which would, in times past, have been the only excuse I needed to stay. Now I eyed the drinks and squirmed, wishing I had an excuse to leave. Maureen (Mo) Black, a distant cousin on Gran’s side, I think—hard to tell when you have as many kin as we do—passed a glass my way and, after a quick clink, clink, downed her drink. I watched her, then set my own glass down, untouched.

  “Lighten up, Brynn. It’s a hen party. Have some fun.” To prove the point, she trained heavily lined eyes on the cowboy and waved a wad of dollar bills in the air, thick gloss glistening on the edges of her lips.

  Cowboy spied green and rode our way. I sank farther back in my seat, a mere shadow lurking in the corner, as my tablemates clamored to shove dollar bills in his G-string: Nina, Mo, Queenie, Dee Doherty (the bride-to-be), and Meg, too. Mo, the wildest one of the bunch, went for gold: she flashed a fifty and strategically placed it in her cleavage. Cowboy leaned down and, the horseshoe stud in his earlobe catching the light, dove into her breast. Gasps and giggles from the girls, and a few seconds later, he came up for air, with the fifty between his teeth. The ladies let out a whoop, all the encouragement Mo needed. She stood and mounted the stick horse and shimmied in close to Cowboy, her tangerine nails gripping his muscular flanks as she whispered in his ear. He grinned, and off they rode.

  I wanted to leave, too, but not on a stick. Just to go home, see my dog, and go to bed. Not that I didn’t want to be with my friends. I did. It’d just be easier if Jack Daniel’s hadn’t been invited to the party.

  But I stayed. Mostly out of support for Dee. And as the gals enjoyed their next few rounds, dress sizes, menu choices, and flower colors dominated the table talk.

  “Stockings or bare legged?”

  “Hair up or down?”

  “And that crazy Elva O’Neil had better not show her face at the wedding. Bitch.” Giggle, giggle.

  More drinks, a wink, and a sly grin, and the conversation took a different turn.

  “Can you believe that Mo Black?” As if we didn’t all know her last name. “Riding off with that cowboy like that. And she’s married. What a slut.” This from sweet Nina Gorman, the blond, doe-eyed backstabber sitting next to Meg.

  A tsk-tsk, a lopsided pout and slurred words from Dee. “She’s r-r-ruining my party!”

  Sympathetic nods, more drinks and a darting glance . . .

  “Haven’t y’all heard?”

  “No. What?”

  “Her husband can’t anymore?”

  “He can’t?”

  “No, not since that bad fall. You know, last summer, the roofing job?”

  “Really? You mean . . . ?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Aw . . . no wonder.”

  And just like that, sympathies changed. “Poor Mo. And so young to go without . . .”

  Nods of agreement all around. Glasses up, a toast to Dee and, what the heck, a toast to Mo and her cowboy, too.

  Heads tipped back; liquid disappeared; eyes glazed over.

  My eyes
glazed over, too, but not from booze; I wasn’t drinking any. Hen parties weren’t my thing anymore. Neither was ladies’ night at the local bar. Which I hated. Not the bar or ladies’ nights, but I hated that I’d lost those fun times. The smoky haze, the clinks of glasses, the screeching of chairs across the scarred wood floor, and the incessant music on some mind-numbing loop . . . I’d loved it all, but the hardest part was the pervasive smell of whiskey mingled with beer and sweet libations. I couldn’t deal with it now. I’d spent a fair amount of time at this very pub, escaping into a bottle, downing a few pills on the side. That was the old me. The new me was sober.

  Most of the time.

  Another drink came my way. I scanned the bar, stacked three deep with men buying drinks for ladies. They cast hopeful looks our way, wanting to cash in on the cowboy’s spoils. One of the guys raised his glass in my direction. Blue jeans and flannel, well built and a youngish thirty-something, a great prospect by any girl’s standards, just not this girl’s. Not tonight, anyway. I broke eye contact and pushed the drink aside. Girls like us came with a certain stigma, an assumption that we were easy. Truth was, we were not so easy, less than others, really, but that never stopped us from enjoying a few free drinks. We were Travellers; or gypsies, as most called us; Pavees, as we called ourselves; nomads by nature but rooted now in this tiny corner of Appalachia. We’d settled in a place called Bone Gap, a remote and densely wooded holler about ten miles outside McCreary, Tennessee. Mostly we kept to ourselves, choosing to stick to the confines of the clan. But some, like me, straddled both worlds, ours and that of those we called “settled” people. Non-Pavees. Outsiders.

  A knobby elbow jutted in front of me. I flinched and scooted over a bit. Regina McGill, Queenie, as we called her, was next to me, nervously working a strand of reddish-blond hair around her finger. Twirl, twirl, twirl . . . Itching for a cig, probably. A nasty habit, she’d be the first to say, and then she’d excuse it by saying something about how even the most fickle were faithful to a few bad habits (one of her favorite sayings), and I’d laugh at that, because there is nothing fickle about Queenie. She’s the most loyal friend a girl could hope to have.

  “Not drinking tonight, Brynn?” she asked.

  I eyed one of the still-full shot glasses. “Don’t know yet.”

  Meg shot me a nasty look. Queenie chuckled, then winced, grabbing her cheek. Bluish-purple marks haloed her left eye. Her carefully applied makeup had faded, along with her inhibitions. Her husband had been beating her again. Mean-ass drunk. ’Course, I was a drunk, too, or so they’ve told me, but never a mean one.

  “What set him off this time, Queenie?” I asked.

  She lowered her eyes. “You know how he is. Doesn’t take much to upset him. Don’t worry. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m fine.”

  I hated what he did to her. She deserved so much better. But it probably wasn’t a big deal to Queenie. Nothing her husband dished out could come close to what she’d endured in her childhood. She kept them covered, but I’d seen the little dark circles tracking up and down the white flesh of her legs. Burn scars. I hated that, too. Poor Queenie. I craned my neck, my own scar stretching and puckering like an accordion. At least my scar, acquired when my third Marine tour ended with a bang, was from the enemy, not the lit end of my mama’s cigarette.

  Nina let out a sigh, plucked an olive from her drink—what I wouldn’t do for a single drop of gin from that olive, and I’m not even a martini girl—mouthed it with her pouty lips, and sucked the pimiento from the middle. The guy at the table next to us groaned and shifted in his seat. She didn’t notice. Her focus was elsewhere, her eyes flitting over the items strewn across the tabletop: Queenie’s sunglasses, Mo’s scarf, change from my earlier soda water, an empty shot glass or two . . . Nothing was off-limits. Nina had sticky fingers. Something I’d figured out back in high school, when I saw her pilfer a push-up bra from the back aisle of Logan’s Department Store. I’d kept it from the other gals, then and now. Covered for her, actually. Any one of us would do as much. That’s the thing about Pavees—we take care of our own.

  The music changed from country to rock, intermission until the next strip act. I slid my stray bills into my pocket—no need to tempt Nina—and scanned the room for Mo. She was nowhere to be seen. Still off with the cowboy, I guessed.

  Dee tossed back yet another drink before pushing back from the table. The bride-to-be abandoned us for the dance floor, where she moved to her own beat, arms outstretched, head bent upward as she spun on her tiptoes, spun and spun until she tripped and fell.

  “Poor Dee Dee,” someone said. Queenie or Meg or maybe Nina. I’d lost track of the conversation, all my energy spent on not drinking, my self-control waning. Sobriety was overrated.

  I looked around the table. Heads were bent forward; hands cupped over painted mouths.

  “Do you know why Dee’s getting so scuttered?”

  “No. Why?”

  I stifled a moan. More gossip, a staple of any girls’ night. I leaned a bit closer and listened, against my better judgment.

  “Because she doesn’t really want to go through with it, you know.”

  Heads bobbed in agreement.

  “Riley’s no catch, after all, but she’s not getting any younger. Better to marry someone, anyone, than to get put up on the shelf.” That was Traveller speak for old maid. Which in our clan meant any girl who made it into her twenties without being married and spawning a brood of kiddos.

  Like me.

  All eyes looked my way.

  Now might be a good time to leave.

  Instead, I traced the rim of one of my lined-up glasses, round and round, and then dipped. In went my finger; out it came again, dripping with gold. Liquid gold. I caste a quick glance in Meg’s direction. She was busy typing on her phone. A social media post probably: Hen party with the girls. #funtimes.

  Yeah, right.

  One drop. One drop, that’s all. . . . I touched my finger to my tongue, then hungrily wrapped my lips around it and sucked like a starving baby at its mama’s tits. I went back for another dip. . . .

  “No you don’t.” Meg snatched the glass, tipped it back, and drained my fun in two quick gulps. “You’ve worked too hard to give up this easily.”

  The girls looked my way, then quickly pretended not to have noticed. But Meg was still in my face, glaring, daring, or maybe hoping. I couldn’t tell for sure. But she was right. I’d worked too hard to give up this easily.

  I pushed away from the table, made my excuses, and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER 2

  The next morning’s sun broke hot and angry through the cracks in my pink lace curtains. I slept in my childhood room, in the only home I’ve ever known—my grandmother’s thirty-year-old mobile home. Larger than most of our neighbors’ trailers and campers, and still movable—something that was important in our nomadic culture—yet aesthetically rooted in the late 1980s. Gran never was one for change.

  I pulled Wilco close, his muscles rippling against my body, pulsating and twitching, and accompanied by little whimpers. A dream. A good one, I hoped. Like me, my sixty-pound former combat partner, and once the best damn HRD (human remains detection) dog in the entire Middle Eastern conflict, suffered from flashbacks and reoccurring nightmares. Getting blown up by an IED tends to do that to a girl. And her dog.

  I sat up and brushed the back of my hand against his dark snout. He was a Belgian Malinois, and so his coat was darker than a German shepherd’s, his face sleeker, and eyes more alert. Though smaller than the shepherds, which were so often used in military and law enforcement work, the Malinois were more aggressive, more energetic, and faster, too. Not fast enough to avoid an IED, however. No one was.

  A twitch of a whisker, a slight curl of his lip, and a cock of his ears. His ears, two black triangles, erect and ready, yet useless. The explosion had robbed Wilco of his hearing, and more. So much more. I moved my hand along the ridge of his spine, from neck to withers, then down to the
rounded nub of his back leg. It was gone, too. Bone and bloody flesh alike, blown off his body in one searing instant, practically disintegrating midair. Gone forever. I knew the feeling. I ran my hand under my sweat-soaked T-shirt. My breasts, two mounds, but one soft and plump, alive; the other a hard bulge, dead and useless, like my dog’s nubby leg. Wilco and I were alike in that way. We’d both lost part of ourselves out there in the desert.

  But we had each other. It had been a struggle to get the Marines to turn him over to me, but maybe that was the one blessing from the injuries we shared: Neither of us was deemed fit for further service. So we were released as a team. Always would be.

  My cell rang. It was my boss, Sheriff Frank Pusser.

  “You home?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sober?”

  Every damn time I talk to him . . . “It’s six o’clock in the morning. What do you think?”

  “I’ve seen you high out of your mind this early in the morning. Have you forgotten?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Don’t. We need you at McCreary Elementary. A piece of a body was found.”

  My fingertips fell from my breast to my bare leg. “Which part?”

  “Come see for yourself. And bring the dog.”

  * * *

  My throat constricted with anxiety as I drove by a line of cop cars blocking off access to the playground area. Not a kid. Please, God, not a kid. I continued two blocks down and slipped my crappy station wagon between two economy-sized cars and headed the rest of the way on foot, keeping a tight grip on Wilco’s lead. About fifty yards out, the scent hit his nose, his over two hundred olfactory cells kicking into action. He pulled against my hold, tail rigid, ears twitching, his head bobbing as he scooped up scents, anxious to move us toward the decay. Displaying clear signs of his alert, trained into him as his singular task, was something he still did well, even deaf and three legged.