Trouble Rumbles at Dawn

By K-lee Starland

Welcome to the tranquil yet precarious town of Indigo Flats, nestled in the vast expanse of west Texas. Its peaceful façade shatters when a prominent businessman is brutally murdered, unearthing a cache of guns and drugs that send shockwaves through the region, putting the feared Mexican Ortega Cartel on high alert. However, the stakes intensify exponentially when a second murder rocks the town—a member of the cartel’s own family falls victim, igniting a relentless race against time for determined Detective Sharon Case.

With the relentless cartel crossing the border into Indigo Flats, Detective Case finds herself thrust into a perilous battle on multiple fronts. She must navigate the treacherous landscape of solving the murders while combating the vicious intruders and scrambling to safeguard her own family. As the clock ticks relentlessly, the line between right and wrong blurs, forcing Detective Case to make harrowing choices to uphold justice and protect all that she holds dear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889101369

K-lee Starland

Dr. Starland has dedicated her life to raising awareness of the travesties of human trafficking and sex slavery. While specializing in issues pertaining to women’s rights and violence against women, she has worked as a human rights advisor to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for many years. In conjunction with several of these NGOs, Dr. Starland has contributed numerous peace program workbooks and materials that are currently in use within schools and international community forums.

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About the Author

Dr. K-lee Starland has worked for over twenty-four years as an International Human Rights Advisor for NGOs around the world. Her specialty is Women Rights and Alternatives to Violence.

It was a natural move to write exciting and entertaining mystery novels starring women as the primary sleuth(s) and ruthless mobs and cartels as their main adversaries while keeping their hearts close to family.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this work to my children—John, Kimberly, Clark and Jennifer—for all their love and support.

Copyright Information ©

K-lee Starland 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Starland, K-lee

Trouble Rumbles at Dawn

ISBN 9798889101345 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798889101352 (Hardback)

ISBN 9798889101369 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9798889104070 (Audiobook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023913726

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Sally Sanchez for her diligent reading, grammar and Spanish expertise, as well as for her constant encouragement.

Chapter 1

Patty

2002

Five-star entertainer, Patty Talvo, was an attractive woman with blue-eyes and point-of-pride brunette hair. With a petite, five-foot five, every-day-in-the-gym, workout body, she caught the eye of many men. At twenty-six years old, she earned mega-bucks performing a variety of animated voices for both the movies and cartoons in Hollywood.

On Friday and Saturday nights, she performed as a humorous singer-impersonator in several notable venues. The most popular of those venues was the Twilight Night Club on Sunset Boulevard. The last night she performed there, the club was enjoying a full house as Patty Talvo took to the stage with her hilarious songs and antics. Patty was good. Excellent, in fact. It was after the last standing ovation on that late Friday night that tragedy attacked.

Hey, good-looking. I caught your show tonight. Really fantastic. Can I buy you a drink?

Disgusting. He smells like a drunken pig, thought Patty, quickly jerking her head away from him as her shiny, shoulder-length, hair flew sideways across her right cheek. No thanks.

Sporting a hefty three hundred and twenty-five pounds of rolling fat, Drunken Pig turned around on his bar stool to block her as she passed by. Skillfully, Patty dodged his reach and walked on.

His wide nose fanned out length-wise over the middle of his fat, red face. Drunken Pig sported a full set of foul-smelling rotten, brown teeth smiling at her lustfully. He quickly gulped down the remaining straight Scotch in his glass.

Licking his lips, he turned his squinty, beady eyes toward Patty. Visually, he hungrily devoured her departing backside. Come on, baby. Just one drink, he shouted. Sporting gaudy, fake, gold rings on each of his fingers, he stood, took three steps toward her, wrapping her upper arm in his solid grip.

Patty quickly jerked her arm free. No. Leave me alone! she stated firmly. Turning back around, she continued walking toward the coat-check room to retrieve her brown, leather coat with matching briefcase. Setting her briefcase down on the floor, she reached inside her purse for couple of dollars.

Here you go, Heather. Have a good night. See you next Friday. Still feeling a bit of angst in her gut from her brief encounter with that disgusting man, she walked with speedy determination toward her car.

As Patty reached for the driver-side door handle on her new, fully paid-in-cash for, black Porsche, ‘Drunken’ Pig came unexpectedly from behind. He clutched her right arm. With his other hand, he twisted of a handful of her hair in his fingers and swung her around. Her coat and briefcase dropped to the ground.

Oh my God! It’s the drunken pig! I never heard him coming. What’s happening? What’s he doing?

No one blows me off, lady! Got it? Roughly, he dragged her over to his Ford Explorer. He released her hair in order to open the back door of his Ford double cab truck. With hurried impetus, he shoved aside an array of empty beer cans and snack wrappers, keeping a tight hold on his prey.

Intense fear sent Patty’s knees buckling, sending her sliding down onto the cement parking lot. Panic invaded every part of her body as she vainly tried to pull away from his powerful grasp. Help me! Somebody, help! Not a person in sight.

In a rage, he yanked her to a standing position. Shoving her face forward against his truck, with duct tape in hand, it took only seconds before he had her mouth taped closed as he continued to pull the tape around her head, over her hair and again across her mouth. He jerked her around and taped her wrists together behind her back. Lifting Patty by the back of her neck, he shoved her onto the back seat.

Help! Anybody! Where is he taking me? Patty’s mind raced wildly with insane, impossible scenarios of escape. Her muffled screams earned her a backhanded slap on the face. His fake sapphire ring, surrounded by zirconia diamonds, purposely left a slow bleeding, three-inch cut reminder of his dominance on Patty’s cheek.

Drunken Pig drove forty minutes to a private, secluded, late-night beach. Once parked in the empty, twenty-space, cement lot, he walked to the back seat. Fervently, he yanked her out of the truck. Patty fell over rocks and dried bushes as he roughly dragged her down the steep rocky embankment. Because her new mid-heel, black, dress shoes were no match for the rocks, she stumbled.

Get up, bitch! He jerked her back up to her feet by her hair. Patty let out a muffled scream. Once on the flat sand of the beach, he slammed her back against a large boulder. Ripping open her new, blue silk blouse and tearing off her bra, he put her whole right breast in his nasty smelling mouth and bit down.

Ow, Patty moaned in searing pain. Please, God, help me! He’s going to kill me! Somebody help. The constant pounding of the waves onto the sandy beach, was the only answer to her terrifying screams straining to escape from her muted mouth. He slammed her backward again.

Her head struck a rough boulder once, twice. Patty’s eyes began to blur as her weakening body slid down the boulder to the sand. Blood trickled freely from the back of her head as well as from newly inflicted lacerations on her face, arms and legs.

Drunken Pig proceeded to brutalize her. He beat her without mercy before proceeding to angrily rape her. Patty regained semi-consciousness as Drunken Pig’s violence ramped up and up until he finally climaxed inside of her.

When Drunken Pig felt satisfied, he warned, If you dare talk to the police about this, I’ll come back and find you. You have no place to hide. I know where you work. I know where you live. Next time, I’ll kill you. He turned and climbed back up the rock-strewn embankment. Patty heard his truck engine start, then roar off into the distance.

Bruised, bleeding and broken, Patty strained for short gasps of breath. She attempted to move only to discover that the very slightest of arm movements sent billions of sharp needles puncturing every cell throughout her body. Helplessness and hopelessness swept through her.

She surrendered her broken body limply into the cool sand. I hear one wave then another coming in to cover the beach’s edge. Come waves. Come closer. Wash me deep into your watery abyss. The darkness of unconsciousness enveloped her mind.

Upon a painful, blurry awakening, Patty found herself in a hospital bed with an array of women dressed in white clothes walking around adjusting various hanging bottles and the numerous tubes sticking out of her body. One of those women walked over to Patty with a stethoscope dangling around her neck.

She bent over Patty’s chest, placing the instrument over Patty’s heart. She’s wasting her time. My heart is gone. It’s been ripped out of me. Where am I? Hospital? When and how did I get here? She made a weak attempt at speech. Where—?

Don’t attempt to talk, Miss, Nurse Ann cautioned. You are in the Los Angeles City Hospital, recovering from emergency oral surgery. Your jaw has been temporarily wired together. There is a deep fracture on the left side of your jaw bone but thank God, it wasn’t broken completely.

Also, once all the duct tape was cut away, the doctor found numerous pieces of rock and sand embedded in the multiple wounds on the back of your head as well as in your torn back. We had to shave off all of your hair so he could pick out the rocks and clean all the many wounds in order to stitch them up.

My hair? It’s gone too with my heart.

The nurse continued, On your back, face, arms and legs too, there were tons of small rocks as well as beach sand packed in the lacerations. You’re lucky to be alive, girl. Do you remember anything at all about what happened to you?

Patty slowly and gently moved her head back and forth. Not much.

No one at the hospital could recall who had found Patty. She was transported unconscious and wrapped in an old Army blanket. She had arrived at the Emergency Room during the dark, early morning. Her kind rescuer had helped the orderly lift Patty’s limp body out of the back seat of his new Prius and onto the hospital gurney.

The attending orderly didn’t remember anything about the driver except that he was wearing military fatigues and had several military medals fastened to his shirt. As the orderly raced the gurney through the automatic doors, he heard, Please, take good care of her. The rescuer drove off.

After locking up the Twilight Club for the night, manager Tim Adkins discovered Patty’s car alone in the parking lot. Upon finding Patty’s coat and briefcase on the ground and the front passenger door partially open, Tim immediately called the police.

The first officer on the scene was Officer Liz Donovan. Although Donovan learned all about Patty’s entertainment gig from Tim, there were no witnesses to the abduction. I think she may have left about one this morning, offered Tim meekly.

Officer Donovan pulled out her cell phone in order to snap pictures of the parking lot and Patty’s car. Walking around the car, she spotted Patty’s coat and briefcase. After photographing them in detail, Donavan took both of them and placed them on the backseat of the Porsche. A full report was made. Detectives soon arrived on the scene. They immediately began their search for clues, fully suspecting a crime had taken place.

Officer Liz Donovan visited Patty in the hospital for the purpose of interviewing her but due to Patty’s many medical wrappings, was unable to obtain any information. She stood staring at the young, abused woman asleep in the bed before her.

Tears filled her eyes. Never in all her fourteen years on the Los Angeles Police force, had she seen such a brutal beating/rape. It’s only by the grace of God that she is alive. She is so young. She crossed herself. The following morning, Officer Donovan on her own time, drove Patty’s Porsche to the hospital parking lot.

She rode the elevator to the fourth floor and handed the keys to the charge nurse. Everyone in the hospital agreed that Patty had had an amazing guardian angel last night. Yes, it was indeed a miracle, Donovan agreed.

Six weeks later on Tuesday afternoon, Patty, with the wire having been removed from her aching jaw, was released from the hospital. The charge nurse handed Patty her car keys. As Patty, in the required wheelchair and another nurse waited at the front door of the hospital, a member of the hospital staff took her keys and drove the Porsche up to her and helped her into her car.

On her way home, Patty stopped at the Walgreens drive-thru and picked up three prescriptions filled and waiting for her. Medicine to help ease her constant nagging headache, jaw, as well as general aching body pain. There was also a tube of antibiotic cream to apply to her wounds. At least the ones she could reach.

Once she was back in her four-room apartment with totally furnished brown furniture, she threw her keys into the bowl on the small, round, ceramic table by the door. With a thud, she dropped her briefcase on the faux, wooden floor planks. She looked around.

The vase of twenty wilted roses, sent to her for her last animation performance by the producer Doug Brighton at Cartoon Productions, sat on the living room coffee table like a tombstone offering.

The police had kept Patty’s tattered clothes for evidence. Surveying herself in the half-mirror over the keys, she sighed. The depressing view in front of her revealed the two sizes too large, light-weight, gray sweatshirt she was wearing compliments of the hospital’s women’s charity organization.

If it were not for the worn tie string, the baggy, gray sweat pants hanging precariously off her bony hips would have fallen to the floor. She pulled them up with one hand and held them. The outfit did not do much to improve her newly-released-from-hospital disparaging, mental self-image.

At the hospital, when the police and forensics arrived, a kind forensic lady compiled a rape kit. Officer Donovan had assured Patty they would run an investigation and get back to her as soon as possible. Right. Like hell they will. They will throw my kit on top of the heap of all the other hundreds of rotting rape kits.

Patty pressed play on her message machine. The first three were from producer Doug Brighton threatening to fire her if she didn’t show up immediately for the new reads. Delete. Fourth was her best friend Allison checking to confirm their coffee date next Tuesday. Delete. Fifth was some guy named James Reynolds from Universal Fun Times wanting to hire her for an upcoming Disney Production presentation. Delete. My life in animation is over. My life is over.

Having swallowed two Oxycodone without water, Patty walked ever so slowly to the full-length mirror in her bedroom. Using a hand mirror, she turned to view the mass of skin riddled stitches covering her bald head.

How depressing. The stitches will dissolve, the doc said. The skin on my head looks like it was put through a meat grinder. I’m not sure my beautiful hair will ever grow back on this. I need my mom. I want to hear her soft, comforting voice. I’ll call her.

Patty walked over to her landline sitting on the gray tiled kitchen counter by the coffee pot and dialed home. One ring. Two rings.

Hello? her mom answered. Hello? Is anyone there?

Silence.

Hello, once more.

Patty placed the receiver back on the stand. I can’t do it. Not yet. I can’t. She would want to fly out here to take care of me. I need to be alone right now. I feel so tired.

Gingerly, Patty explored with her fingertips the agonizing array of bruises and the stitched laceration from Drunken Pig’s ring painfully decorating her face. Carefully, she sat down on the edge of her bed. Tears of sadness rushed down her cheeks in a waterfall of devastated emotion that didn’t stop for two hours. By the time the tears eased up, a pile of used tissues stood a foot tall on the floor next to her feet.

I guess I should have bought stock in the tissue company.

Exhausted, Patty laid down on her side. She curled up into a tight ball. Grabbing the edge of her soft, yellow, fleece blanket from the far side of the bed, she covered her head and body completely as she drifted off into a deep sleep. It was eight twenty-two on Thursday morning before she awoke. Forty-eight hours later.

Patty brewed an extra-strong cup of coffee, grabbed a stale donut from the fridge and sat down on the thinly cushioned, round, wooden stool at her kitchen counter. She raised the hot cup of coffee with its goddamn cheerful, sunflowers.

In a fit of rage and humiliation, she hurled it across the kitchen. The shattered cup crashed instantly into hundreds of hot wet liquid pieces giving testimony to Patty’s anger. If I ever see that bastard again, I’ll kill him. I hope he rots in hell.

Early Friday morning, Patty packed up her two Samsonite suitcases, as well as three made-for-books-size cardboard boxes and loaded them into her Porsche. With the early morning Los Angeles sun threatening the effectiveness of her sunglasses, Patty gently wrapped a daisy printed scarf around her tender head and drove away from Los Angeles.

Chapter 2

Sharon

2004

Mom? asked nine-year-old Jack, rubbing his sleepy, brown, right eye with the back of his fist, Do you have to go to the police office today? He was still in his Bat Man PJ’s, barefooted with his short, brown-black hair sticking out like porcupine’s quills.

No. I don’t think so. Why do you ask?

It’s Saturday. Channel Five is showing two new cartoons today. I was hoping you could watch them with me.

You know what, Jack? I would like that. What time do they come on?

"The first one is Nickelodeon’s new CatDog, It’s on in ten minutes. The second one, Teen Titans Go! comes on later. Around noon, I think. I’ll turn on the TV. Would you please bring me a glass of milk and a peach granola bar?" Jack purposely smiled his deep, charming, ear to ear, gleaming, white tooth grin that he knew would melt his mom’s heart.

Oh, you want me to get them for you, huh? Sharon replied, smiling.

Please, Mom. After I turn on the TV, I’ll clear off all my comic books and drawing papers from the couch.

All right, partner. Milk and granola bars for both of us coming up.

Sharon Case was an attractive, slender woman, as she thought of herself, of thirty-three years. She was considered tall for a woman, around five feet ten inches, with long black hair that she usually wore in a bun at the back of her head.

But what the heck, it was Saturday, so it hung four or five inches below her shoulders. Wearing her slightly worn pink lounging PJ’s, with her favorite worn Cinderella pink slippers, that Jack had given her for Christmas four years ago, she delicately balanced two glasses of milk with a peach granola bar on top of each.

Being careful not to spill any milk on her new plush Wayfair dark gray sofa, she gently sat down with her son to watch cartoons. After handing him his glass of milk and granola bar, she gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.

God, I love this boy. Because of her job, she wasn’t able to spend nearly as much time with her son as she would like. In her heart, she cherished every minute with him then. She happily stored all those precious minutes into her memory.

Indigo Flats, Texas was a fast-growing, laid back town in the West Texas desert. Indigo Flats tooted fifteen thousand, four hundred people according to the sign coming into town but that sign was several years old. Situated quietly—forty miles south—of Fort Stockton, in Pecos County, most of the Indigo Flat’s residents lived in old adobe houses or brick houses in order to fend off the notorious West Texas summer heat.

The town’s old timers called Indigo Flats ‘Tumbleweed Alley’ and for good reason. When the arid wind blew from west to east, which it did often, the tumbleweed plants broke off at their stems. The high, dry winds frequently pushed those prickly ‘dust devils’ down the wide streets of town.

It was not uncommon for one or two of the large rolling plants to settle in various yards, much to the chagrin of the residents. For the past ten years, the town’s council had been discussing ways to keep those nasty things from rolling into town but as of yet, nothing had been done.

In former days, the streets of Indigo Flats were known only to horse drawn buggies and a few famous bandits that terrorized the Wild West. Sharon loved to watch those old cowboy shoot-um-ups, as her late husband, Steve, used to call them. The adventurous Clint Eastwood cowboy movies like The Outlaw Jesse Wales, were her favorite.

Sharon had busy days as the city’s foremost and only detective criminal investigator. In a five-man office, she was considered a highly qualified and respected female transplant from Dallas by everyone except perhaps Marco Sanchez who loved to tease her by stating seriously, Despite your well-earned qualifications, a woman’s place is strictly in the home.

Sharon’s nights were always for Jack. That’s one reason she had relocated with her son to Indigo Flats, Texas. Not much ever went on in that sleepy little town; that is, most of the time.

The first cartoon featured a cat and a dog joined together at their butts from birth. Really now. There’s a stretch of the imagination, thought Sharon. It was CatDog’s main trial in life to figure out how to get along with their opposite animal heads. Jack laughed loud and often at the animated animal’s antics. Sharon laughed hearing her son laugh. Joyful music to her ears.

I wish I could make my cartoon drawings move like those on TV.

You mean animation? Well, we could go over to the library next week and ask Miss Judy if she has any suggestions on how you could do that.

As the credits rolled, the train whistle call alert sounded on Sharon’s cell phone. I’m sorry, son. This is Mitch at the office. I have to take it. Great cartoon. I enjoyed watching it with you. For privacy, she carried her cell phone to the front of the small entryway facing the front door.

Hey Chief, what’s up? asked Sharon opening the door and stepping out onto the eight-foot wide, wooden plank, front porch. She raised her left hand shading her eyes from the bright early morning—May sunshine. Jack and I just finished watching an exciting CatDog cartoon.

Mitch laughed. I need you to come in, Sharon. I’m sorry to bother you on a Saturday morning but something important has come up. We have a homicide. How soon can you be in the office?

I’ll be there in thirty minutes.

Great. See you then.

Jack?

I know, Mom. You have to go to work, Jack said stoically. When will you be back?

I don’t know for sure. Mitch said someone has been killed. You remember from my Dallas time, that is what my job is.

Yeah. Homicide? Right? asked Jack. I remember what you said about homicide is when someone kills another person and suicide is when someone kills himself.

Right. You’ve got a great memory. Sharon sat down next to her son on the couch. I know you have to be alone a lot. I hate that. I know you used to be able to spend a lot of time with your dad at his construction sites while I worked. But since he passed away, it is just me working so you can eat those delicious peach bars. She smiled, nudging him in the ribs. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll call Mrs. Martinez next door and see if she can come stay with you.

Oh, Mom. I’m nine now, Jack insisted, stuffing the last bite of the peach granola bar in his mouth, I can take care of myself. Pinky lock, Mom.

Pinky lock, son. They both tightly entwined their pinky fingers together. You and me forever. They both smiled. Jack gave his mom a big hug.

"As far as you’re being old enough to stay alone, yes, I know you can, son. I’m only going to let Mrs. Martinez know that I’ll be gone for a little while in case you need