Echoes of Thundersnow

By Geraldine Powell

Eighteen months ago, Morgan Pike barely survived a bomb, two assassination attempts and fusillades of screaming bullets during a harrowing case in the Blue Ridge mountains. Put back together with forty-eight stiches and left with raging PTSD, she swore to keep her head down and do her job. No drama. No crisis. Catch insurance cheats and the occasional adulterer, and above all, stay out of those mountains.
The plan was to survive as peacefully as possible while continuing in her job as a private investigator until the four-year suspension of her law license would expire and she could apply for reinstatement. She only had five months to wait. She could get by another five months on hamburger helper and pinto beans. She’d been doing it for years. But the best laid plans can blow up in a heartbeat, literally. A declined debit card motivated Morgan to accept a sketchy but high paying job in the mountains.
Those mountains hide more dangers than rattlesnakes and meth cookers. She now faces the deadliest challenge of her life from a group of rightwing terrorists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geraldine Powell
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005036072

Geraldine Powell

Many story tellers are home bodies but not Geraldine. She loves pushing her car to the limit on the race track and long quiet hikes in the mountains. She has been a waitress, a bartender, an oyster shucker, and a bicycle messenger. During her college years she sold encyclopedias in the coal fields of West Virginia. After college she managed a couple of construction companies. She is an award winning ceramic artist and for a short time owned an art gallery. Now she and her partner operate an orchid nursery. Powell lives with her partner, five cats and a dog on the side of Signal Mountain near Chattanooga. She has spent much of her life in the mountains of Tennessee and southern Virginia and has an abiding affection for the southern Appalachians. She also loves mystery novels. So it’s no surprise that her novels combines the two.She brings this broad experience and an unusual sense of humor to her novels."

Book preview

Prologue

We were returning to the office from lunch on a nasty, gray day a few weeks after New Year’s. I was bitching to Sidney about my luck with men and how the world in general sucks.

Your boyfriend still hiding, Morgan? she asked.

Jubal’s not my boyfriend.

Then quit whining. It’s been a year and a half. He’s not the only man in the world who’s great in the sack.

He wasn’t all that good. He had the movie star looks and thought that was enough. I wasn’t going to keep him. Just use him for a while.

It didn’t look temporary from the outside.

I gave her a sour look. I’d been doing without for a couple of years when he showed up. I just wanted another month or so.

Killing his father pretty much put a spike in that. Have you heard from him?

Just a lousy generic Christmas card.

I met Jubal Watson during my search for a kidnapped young woman who had worked on his family’s farm. My investigation revealed that Jubal’s father, Frank, was involved in black market weapons trading and explosives manufacturing. In an effort to stop me from exposing him, Frank had his nephew, Andy Watson, attempt to plant a bomb in my car. It detonated prematurely, killing Andy and leaving me with scars, both physical and emotional. Frank wasn’t satisfied with failure and tried twice more to kill me. His last attempt was up close and personal. He lost.

She saw my hand reach to the scars on the left side of my face.

So, Sid said. You’re not a fright show from the right side. Then she slammed on the brakes. You’ve been bitching and carping for over a year. I’m sick of it. We’re taking a detour. Twenty minutes later we pulled up in front of an animal shelter in Chattanooga.

I don’t want a dog, I said.

No, Ms. Pike, you want a cat. They’re a damn sight more reliable than the guys you’ve been dating, and a lot less trouble. Even impoverished private investigators with PTSD issues need a friend.

I’d had three first dates since Jubal and no seconds. I don’t want a cat either. I want to go back to the office. Now please.

She turned in the seat and looked directly at me. Put cats aside for a minute, Morgan. How are your anger management sessions going?

Aargh! Now I had to appear reasonable. Effective.

We’re not moving until you at least come in and look around. Can’t hurt you to look. Take the ten-minute tour. Make a donation. It’ll be fun.

In the kitten room one little ginger-colored ball of fluff with a folded over ear rubbed against my leg and mewed. The kitty looked up at me with amber eyes and tried to climb my leg. The attendant picked the kitten up. This is 128GB. It’s four months old, she said, holding the kitty out toward me. 128GB reached out its little paws. I took the kitten and it cuddled against my neck and purred.

The cartilage in the ear was damaged when another cat chewed on it. It’s not a health problem, the attendant said.

It doesn’t have a name? I asked.

No, we have more kittens than the facility can handle. If they aren’t adopted in thirty days they’re euthanized. Names make that harder.

The kitten dug its tiny claws into my jacket and rubbed its face against my neck.

Nobody has wanted this one because of the ear, the attendant said. 128GB has two days left.

The kitten licked my ear and mewed plaintively. Geez, I’d turned into a softy. I looked at Sidney. Is it a boy or a girl?

Sid lifted the cat’s tail and said, He’s a boy, but he has really small balls.

He’s already been neutered, the attendant said.

He likes you, Sid said. She smiled. I’ll feed him when you’re out of town on a job.

Bitch, I said.

Thirty minutes later and seventy-five dollars lighter, we left the shelter. I carried a four-month-old kitten named Mr. Small Balls. And before nightfall I was smitten, wondering why I hadn’t adopted a kitten a long time ago.

Chapter 1

The Reverend Billy White’s four-thousand-square-foot house loomed against a backdrop of frost-rimed forest. Flecks of starlight reflected from the two-story expanse of wall-to-wall glass fronting the great room. The rest of the house rambled like an afterthought away from that focal point. A two-acre, winter-brown lawn sloped from the house down to the tumbling Hiwassee River in east Tennessee.

White owned more than two hundred acres, with long frontage on both sides. He felt secure enough in his privacy that he never closed the drapes. That made my job easier. The weather made it a stone bitch. The only plus was the mosquitoes had died months ago.

I’m a contract investigator for Chattanooga-based Quad States Investigations. Sounds exciting and glamorous. It isn’t. It means when Quad States has insurance fraud cases, I work. When they don’t, I’m free to take any jobs I can find, with the boss’s approval. I’d had five cases from Quad States in the last two months and that didn’t pay the bills. A referral from a contact in Atlanta offered five times my going rate. Ed, the owner of Quad States, said go for it, Morgan.

That left me hunkered down behind a line of large rhododendron bushes growing along the base of an eroded rock outcrop that bordered White’s lawn. It was my third night in a row and by far the coldest. The spot offered concealment and a clear view into all but one corner of the great room, but no protection from the temperature, which was dropping fast. My feet felt like chunks of ice. My ChapStick fought a losing battle. My sinuses ached. And every shivering minute I regretted accepting this job.

In apparent commiseration, a great horned owl hooted softly a few times in the trees behind me. All the other creatures seemed content to be in a warm, safe den or burrow. The night was clear with no wind. The woods were virtually silent. Ice chunks floated in the quick-moving river and wisps of vapor curled into the frigid air. Across the river, the forest climbed over a low bluff toward the escarpment a half mile to the west.

White had been a popular radio preacher for more than twenty years, raking in the big bucks by enflaming his flock against gays, abortionists, welfare queens and liberals. But his star had faded as the market for his brand of hate had shrunk. He’d spent the last fifteen years in obscurity, selling airtime on the radio network he owned to younger preachers spouting their prosperity gospel. Recently he had begun making a modest comeback with a weekend radio show and a Sunday sermon. This time around he focused his rants on Muslims and immigrants. But don’t count the rev as just a two-trick pony. He spiced his denunciations against Muslims and Mexicans with occasional tirades against blacks, uppity women and anyone who wasn’t white, straight, conservative and Evangelical.

He spent Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at his secluded retreat working on the script for his shows. Soon after I set up the night’s stakeout, White had paced around the great room waving his arms, haranguing the windows, rehearsing his latest sermon. He finished with a smug and satisfied bow. Since then the room had been dark. But I wasn’t there to record practice preaching. I waited and shivered.

My video camera with its long lens was secure on its tripod and focused through a clear space in the rhododendrons. Three hours after his solitary rehearsal, the great-room lights blinked on and once again Billy White waddled in. I looked through the 10X spotting scope mounted on my camera. It provided a better view than the camera’s tiny viewscreen.

He stooped to set a match to the kindling in the stone fireplace and his shimmering, baby-blue silk shirt strained to contain an awesome belly. When the logs caught, he shuffled toward the kitchen.

Atlanta’s Rainbow Brothers in Islam had become one of White’s favorite targets. Over the last two years, he’d repeatedly attacked and ridiculed them. If the information that had percolated up from the gay underground to the Brothers’ ears was true, karma was going to bite the good reverend in the ass. The rumor was that every few weeks Billy-boy entertained a local Atlanta drag show personality, Miss SoSo Fine. They wanted to spread, far and wide, a video of the five-foot-nine, two-hundred-fifty-pound sack of sanctimonious hypocrisy in action with Ms. Fine. I liked the idea of doing the gay community a favor and getting paid for it better than just saving insurance companies a few dollars.

A video of them together acting friendly would satisfy my contract. A recording of foreplay would earn a bonus and catching them doing the nasty would triple it. That triple bonus was my goal. I would stay until midnight and repeat the stakeout next week and the next until I caught Billy with his pants down. But shit it was cold. I blew warm breath into my gloved hands and hopped from foot to foot. The water bottle tucked inside my coat bumped irritatingly against my hip. The sun had set hours ago, and the temperature was fast approaching absolute zero, or so it seemed.

Billy carried a bottle of wine, two glasses and a plate of fancy crackers and cheese over to the coffee table. He eased his bulk onto the couch and poured wine into one of the glasses. He sipped his wine and took a bite of cracker. Was he trying for pre-sin communion and forgiveness in advance? If I got good vids, prayer wouldn’t help him. But then, in today’s climate, even doing the deed with a drag queen might not end his career. If his fans could scream fake news loudly enough, he might skate. And the reverend had another card he could play. That old Satan-made-me-do-it line was getting tired, but it still might work if he conjured up enough crocodile tears. Emotional performances were his forte.

A car pulled up behind the house. Showtime! The camera was set to record mode. I rechecked the focus and pushed the on button. The reverend poked at the fire and then rearranged the throw pillows on the couch. He opened the second button on his shirt. Did he really think that would make him sexier? If I didn’t know better, I would think it was his first date.

Ms. Fine walked into the room with an exaggerated showgirl strut. She was dressed all in black: boots, leather pants, a bustier under a tight leather jacket unbuttoned to the waist. An afro cloud haloed her face, and her skin was a shade or two lighter than her outfit. A leather bag hung from its strap over her shoulder. It certainly wasn’t her first date. This could be interesting, I thought. Billy poured her wine and she settled onto the couch beside him. They sat talking. That didn’t count as foreplay. Come on guys. How about a little action before I freeze to death?

Through the scope, I watched the reverend fidget and then scoot closer to Ms. Fine.

A soft buzzing noise on the other side of the river caught my attention. It sounded like a weed-eater or someone using a chainsaw, but the sound was moving over the woods beyond the river. Nothing was visible in the darkness.

Inside the house, the action was warming up. Billy slid his hand onto Ms. Fine’s thigh. The buzzing sound grew louder. It was coming closer. It had to be a drone.

WTF? Was someone else trying to get a compromising video? I looked up again, trying to spot it hovering. But it didn’t hover. It circled back toward the escarpment, gaining altitude and speed. Curious.

I went back to watching the action inside. Billy leaned in for a kiss. Ms. Fine pushed him away. I imagined I could read her lips. Bad Boy. From her bag she pulled a leash, dog collar and a riding crop. Billy bowed his head as she clamped the collar around his neck. She led him from the couch and positioned him on his hands and knees in front of the fireplace. She flicked his butt with the riding crop, then gently rubbed the business end of the crop against the rev’s cheek and lips. She smacked him hard on the ass three times and forced him prone with a booted foot. In some quarters that would constitute foreplay, but I wanted more.

The buzzing noise grew louder. I looked up, but it had already begun to loop back over the river. My eyes followed the noise. A dark shape eclipsed a swath of stars. It completed the circle and screamed straight for White’s house. It zipped past overhead, never changing course. Light from the windows revealed a miniature airplane. It crashed through the glass.

The night erupted in a white, eye-scorching explosion. A millisecond later the shockwave hammered my camera into the side of my head and slammed me into the rock face. I collapsed, barely conscious. Pieces of glass and other debris rained down on the bushes. A great chunk of smoldering window frame crashed through the leaves and landed ten feet away. I didn’t hear it. The only sound that registered was a high-pitched whine in my ears from the explosion. I closed my eyes. After-images of the blast swirled inside my eyelids.

A bomb, I thought. I fucking hate bombs.

I curled into a fetal ball and lost all sense of time. It could have been seconds or even minutes before I opened my eyes. Blood filled my left eye.

Shit, not again, I moaned. Eighteen months earlier another explosion had ravaged the left side of my face and left indelible scars. I gently explored my forehead with a finger. Blood welled from a ragged three-inch gash running from my eyebrow to my hairline. I rolled into a sitting position and instantly regretted it. The world spun and I puked. By the time the spasms passed, blood was obscuring the vision in both eyes.

I wiped at my eyes until I’d cleared enough blood to see my camera bag pushed up against the base of a bush about eight feet away. I crawled over to it and extracted a couple of paper towels from the wad inside, folded them into a thick pad and then used my scarf to tie a makeshift bandage over the wound. I used another paper towel to clean the rest of the blood from my eyes. Then slowly I became aware of shadows and the flickering orange light.

White’s great room was engulfed. Fire curled out the shattered window frames. It licked toward the edge of the roof. Smoke poured into the night. I stared at the inferno. Stunned. Mesmerized. There was no way White or Fine had survived.

Flames engulfed half of White’s house. Soon the whole structure would be nothing but ash. A remnant of the window frame collapsed, sending sparks into the night sky. I felt heat radiating from the building. The growing fire bathed the yard in a flickering glare.

I’d just watched a murder, and whoever flew that bomb could be watching also. It was almost daylight bright beyond my bushes. The dark no longer hid me. Time to run.

The camera and the crumpled tripod were caught in the branches of another bush. The long lens wouldn’t release. I shoved the whole battered thing into the backpack along with the scope that had been smashed against the rock outcrop. Two of the tripod legs wouldn’t telescope. I snapped them in half and crammed the pieces in with the rest of my stuff.

Before I could shoulder the pack, a supersonic bullet cracked past my head into a rock five feet away. The report of a high-powered rifle followed almost instantly. I grabbed the pack and dived for the gap in the outcrop that led to the path toward my car. Another bullet clipped a rhododendron branch. I took a quick look over the edge of my hide and caught a muzzle flash from the top of the bluff across the river about four hundred yards away. The shot ricocheted off the stone a couple of feet from my head.

The rough game track leading to my car wound behind a low hill that should hide me from the shooter. The problem was the fifty yards of open scrub between my position and where the hill began. Hitting a moving target from the shooter’s perch would be difficult. The rough terrain would make my movements erratic and harder to hit, but it would also slow me.

Well buttercup, I thought. Time to go. I tightened the pack straps and ran. Two thirds of the way an exposed root tripped me. I slammed into the ground and lay still for a second or two before climbing to my feet and running. Not a second too soon. Another bullet kicked up dirt in the spot where I had fallen. I made it into the trees and slowed to catch my breath.

The burning house had ruined my night vision, but it cast a dim light on the trail I followed. The car was over a mile from the house. As my vision adjusted to the dark, I picked up the pace. Finally reaching the car, I looked back toward White’s place. A column of smoke, turbulent and glowing, reflected reddish-orange light from the burning house. In the far distance a siren wailed. I didn’t pause to clean up but eased my beat-up body into the car and drove away. I kept to the speed limit and tried not to swerve when I wiped at the blood that periodically leaked from under my scarf. If a cop stopped me, any attempt to explain the blood in my concussed state would have less than an optimal outcome. Bomb, bullets, busted, that would be the trifecta.

At a shopping plaza in Cleveland, I pulled the first-aid kit out of the trunk. Using the vanity mirror, gauze pads and bottled water I cleaned around the wound. It was going to leave another nasty scar, over a couple of older scars. I’m going to need a team of plastic surgeons if this shit keeps up. I smeared antibiotic cream with Lidocaine on the cut, taped a couple gauze pads over it and hoped it would hold until I reached home.

Somewhere on I-75 the adrenaline subsided and I began to think clearly again. The Rev. Billy White had been the target of death threats in the past because of his racist tirades, but it was hard to believe he was important enough now for someone to blow him up in such a spectacular fashion. And I couldn’t see the drag queen being the target. So why? And why did the bomber shoot at me?

I pushed open the door of my apartment. One of the hinges squeaked. Every other day, I solemnly promise to buy graphite powder for the hinge and never get around to it.

Mr. Small Balls was waiting. He rubbed against my leg and asked for a can of super special kitten feast. He dug into the food. Little bits of turkey and gravy flipped off the plate. Ballsy is a sloppy eater. The shelter must have been a bit like prison. He had learned to eat fast to be sure of getting his share. Finally, something felt normal. I twisted the cap off a bottle of beer, downed half of it and sighed.

I stripped out of my blood-stained clothes while running water for a bubble bath. My head hurt, ribs hurt, and my left knee had begun to ache. Bruises were coloring on my arm, ribs and thigh. The left side of my face was a mess. I cleaned and rebandaged it. The medicine cabinet held a bottle of oxy that was left over from the last time I’d been too close to a bomb. The last few ounces of beer chased a couple of the pills. I opened another and settled into the hot water until the bubbles touched my chin. The kitten hopped up onto the side of the tub. The bubbles fascinated him. I took another swallow of beer and settled lower into the tub.

Chapter 2

When I’m late serving breakfast, Ballsy gently rubs his head against my face. He didn’t know how tender my bruises were when he brushed against the bandage. Okay buddy, I said. let’s not do that again.

Kitten fed and coffee cooked, I took a cup to my café table and examined the video camera. The lens was cracked, the chassis bent and the on switch impotent. The eject button for the memory chip was stuck. If there was a chance of getting paid now that White was dead, I needed that chip.

I twisted, poked and pulled at everything that might be movable, but my efforts failed. The long lens refused to budge. The chip thumbed its nose at me. The camera was an inert piece of junk and pissing me off. Chill Morgan, I thought. I tend to break electronic things when angry. That chip could also contain important evidence. Rather than whack it a couple of times with a hammer, I restrained my impulses. This was a job for Sidney Armstrong, guru of recalcitrant electronic equipment and the best friend I’ve ever had, even if she pissed me off occasionally. But my wounds needed attention first. The camera would have to wait.

I limped into the Quick Clinic at 8:30. In the midst of the mayhem last night I’d twisted my left knee. The minor pain in the joint last night had turned to daggers if I moved the wrong way. The receptionist pulled my file and led me to an exam room. Ten minutes later the same physician assistant who sewed me up a year and a half ago walked into the room. You again, she said as she looked over my records.

What happened this time?

Employment accident, I answered.

Workman’s comp?

Nope. Old fashioned insurance. I pay.

Think it might be time to find another job?

A few more months and I will.

She replied with a quizzical look. But only my close friends were privy to my employment difficulties. When I remained silent, she scanned my chart. Okay, let’s take a look.

She pulled my homemade dressing off as gently as she could. Did you have someone else do the bandaging? Last time, you had duct tape securing a couple of light days pads.

I bought a first aid kit.

Probably wise. Care to explain how you got cut and bruised this time?

I wasn’t going to tell her about another bomb. Fell and my camera whacked me in the head.

She sniffed my hair. Were you taking pictures of a fire? Smells like smoke. I’d washed it last night, not well enough apparently.

Come on, just sew me up and check my knee. I need to get to the office.

She stood back with her hands on her hips. Honey I’m not going to sew you up. I’m going to clean that wound and use butterfly strips. It has ragged edges so you may still have a scar, but your forehead won’t look like a laced-up football.

It already has stitch tracks. Why didn’t you use butterflies last time?

You had too much abraded skin around the wounds.

When she finished, she gave me a mirror. The whole left side of my face was turning purple. Lovely.

She manipulated my knee and felt around my thigh. Doesn’t seem like much damage, a mild sprain at the most.

Doc, my knee hurts. My thigh hurts and the whole side of my head hurts. Could I get another script for Oxy?

Is this more ‘be prepared’ than real need? she asked.

Being prepared is a good thing. It hurts a lot doc. I touched my lower jaw. I think I have a couple of loose teeth, too. She snorted but wrote the prescription and handed me some plastic patches to use in the shower.

Keep that cut dry and come back in two days unless you experience any side-effects from the bump on the head. Then call immediately.

Side effects, like what?

Headache, nausea, foaming at the mouth, the usual.

The Quad States office is in a strip of mixed-use buildings two blocks off East Main. I parked in our lot behind the building, ducked through the back door and into Sidney’s computer center.

I’ve walked into the office looking worse, but