Savage Reckoning

Book 1: Backwoods Justice

by C. Hoyt Caldwell

Genres: Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

In the vein of Elmore Leonard’s Justified, C. Hoyt Caldwell introduces a thriller series set in the dark side of the Appalachian mountains—featuring a heroine who’s playing both sides of the law.
 
Deputy Dani Savage would like nothing better than to shoot the wife beaters, carjackers, drug dealers, and all the rest of the low-life good ol’ boys that make policing Baptist Flats, Tennessee, near impossible. Instead, she grits her teeth and serves the God-fearing townsfolk without complaint. The “little deputy,” as she’s known, is often overlooked and ridiculed for being a small-statured woman in a big man’s world. But while investigating a cold case involving a missing teen, Dani stumbles onto some disturbing facts that cannot be ignored.
 
Soon Dani realizes that this case goes back decades. There’s a history of young women being stolen from the Tennessee hills, and a legacy of corrupt cops looking the other way. Dani’s investigation leads her to the “closeout kings,” a pair of hired killers with a tale to tell—a tale of a missing girl and a crime worse than murder. Somehow these two deranged hit men are Dani’s last, best allies. They know that it’s time for payback—and in the backwoods, justice takes only one form.

Praise for Savage Reckoning

“A highly addictive read from start to finish.”—Carrie’s Book Reviews
 
“Author C. Hoyt Caldwell has crafted a first-rate crime thriller in Savage Reckoning.”—Vera’s Book Reviews and Stuff
 
“One heck of a wild ride.”—No Glitter Blown

“The book is great, action-filled, amusing, mysterious and heartbreaking.”—A Bookaholic Swede
 
“Genuinely one of the funniest novels I’ve read in such a long time even if it does deal with some pretty gruesome stuff.”—Book Bum
 
“A well-developed mystery with strong characters and thrilling progression!”—The Black Sheep Project

Release date: October 4, 2016

Publisher: Alibi

Print pages: 317

Sample

Chapter 1

Deputy Dani Savage’s life was full of people she wanted to shoot. They ranged from backwoods crackers who excelled at druggin’, drinkin’, and stabbin’ the shit out of one another to bulbous-bellied husbands who slapped their wives around for marital infractions, which included such offenses as not cooking the catfish up right and letting their man’s beer get warm. She policed in a community that had no desire to be policed by any man, and they damn sure didn’t want a woman telling them when they stepped outside of the law.

To the unscrupulous folks of Baptist Flats, Tennessee, the legality of a thing was a fluid proposition that could only be defined once the heritage of the parties involved was taken into consideration. Those with battle flag blood thought themselves on the right side of any violation of a written ordinance. Birthright has its privileges. Dani spent a lot of energy convincing them otherwise when such violations occurred. She was constantly engaged in a delicate dance of redneck diplomacy that forced her to reason with the unreasonable, a gaggle of primordial misfits and dumb shits that she felt were better suited for bullets than conversation. She had no real desire to treat them like human beings, much less with respect, but she did both because that’s what her job required.

That’s not to say there weren’t good people in Baptist Flats. There were, but as they were good, they didn’t go foul of the law nearly as much as the assholes who saw the business end of Dani’s badge, and as a result, she was left with a warped view of the people she served.

The citizenry of the town she served called her the “little deputy,” some as a sign of affection, but most as a sign of disrespect. It was the latter’s way of letting her know that she wasn’t man enough to be a cop—that the law she was trying to keep was too big for a woman her size. It bugged the shit out of her, but she never let on because she felt like if she did, it would prove them right. She was big enough to keep the law, and she was big enough to handle being called the little deputy.

When she found herself wound up by a day filled with “little deputy” taunts, she ended up in the back of the station beating the hell out of a heavy bag that matched her size. Nearly three years into the job and she had developed a left hook that could crack concrete.

Still, it was a job she loved. She was good at it, wanted to be good at it. Her uniform was a barrier that hid her smallness—not her physical stature, but the small parts of her spirit that made her afraid that she wasn’t good enough. Not in the eyes of the people of Baptist Flats, and not in the eyes of God. With a badge pinned to her chest, she didn’t give a shit what the town or God thought of her. She was the law.

“I’m the law,” is a phrase she said to herself frequently as she drove to various calls. Anytime someone is desperate enough to call a cop, shit has gone wrong. You don’t want the authorities showing up with a decided lack of authority, so she spent her travel time puffing herself up and putting her game face on.

In the early a.m. of the day her law-keeping life got spun upside down. She was sent out on a 10-16: domestic disturbance. They were the worst calls because they usually involved a good bit of liquor, a firearm or two, and a near complete absence of rational thought. Dani left the station muttering, “I’m the law,” and didn’t stop until she rapped her knuckles against Erwin and Willow Clancy’s door.

“A knock come,” Willow said in a whispered slur, loud enough for Dani to hear through the closed door.

Erwin answered his wife in a somewhat more impaired slur, “What the f***’s a knock’um?”

“To the door, dumbass. Someone’s a knocking.”

Dani shook her head and fought back a chuckle. “It’s Deputy Savage with the BFSD. Y’all called in a disturbance.”

“We ain’t disturbing nobody,” Erwin answered.

“No, the call come from y’all, Erwin. You and Willow get into a tussle about something tonight?”

“Didn’t nobody call,” he replied.

“Willow, that true? Didn’t nobody in your house put in a call to the police?”

There was a long pause before Willow answered. “I may’ve called, but things circled around since then.”

“You called the cops?” Erwin asked with a whimper. “Ain’t enough you busted the shit out of my hand, you called the law on me to boot?”

“What’s that about your hand?” Dani asked, testing the doorknob.

“Hush,” Willow said to her drunkard husband. “You’ll get me in trouble.”

“Y’all want to open this door. I got probable cause enough to come in without your permission, but I’d like to keep this friendly.”

There was another long pause before the knob turned and the door creaked open. Willow Clancy stood in the doorway in a robe that she made no attempt to close, exposing the parts of her that had given way to gravity long ago. Her face, pickled by cheap over-the-counter anti-aging creams, was set in an expression of soused wonder.

“C’mon in. Arrest me if’n you have to, but he had it coming. If’n you’d got here sooner, I would’ve been able to avoid dealing with it my own self, so this is on you if anything.”

Dani entered the house and noted to herself the fist-sized holes in the wall and a sea of busted furniture. There was no weapon in sight. Erwin was sprawled out on the couch, still wearing a pair of work boots. His jeans were caked in dirt and his tattered bowling shirt was covered in blood. His swollen, mutilated face gave an indication of where the blood came from. “What the hell happened here?”

Erwin held up his right hand. His fingers were turned and twisted in directions not supported by their joints, and his knuckles were buried under a mound of distended flesh. “She took a hammer to my hand.”

“Had to. He come home from Son’s drunker than shit. Ain’t but one thing that happens when he gets in that kind of mind. He takes to pounding on me. I busted up his hand before he could take his first swing.”

“She’s a lie, is what she is,” Erwin said, pointing a mangled finger her way. “She snuck up on me when I was taking a piss and beat my hand broke with a framing hammer.”

“That’s what I just said, dumbass! I ain’t a lie!”

“Settle down. The both of you,” Dani said. “What’s going on with your face, Erwin? How’d you bust that up?”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with that,” Willow said.

“You a lie again,” Erwin said, mumbling through broken teeth and a lacerated tongue. “She tripped me up in the kitchen on purpose, and I fell through the sliding glass door.”

“I didn’t trip nothing up. You drunk yourself stupid at Son’s and tripped over your own goddamn feet.” Willow covered her mouth as she giggled. “Barreled headfirst through the glass door.”

“You’re a spiteful f***ing lie is what you is,” Erwin said. “I was having a good night before I come home.

Should’ve stayed at Son’s and got more of them free drinks is what I should’ve done, but I come home to be with my wife, my f***ing lie for a wife.”

“I ain’t a lie. You a lie saying you got free drinks at Son’s. Son don’t give drinks away for free.”

“He weren’t giving them away. Some fella was buying them—”

“Ain’t no fella buying shit! You was off spending our money on booze—”

“Okay,” Dani said. “Okay. Everyone just calm down.”

The ringing from the shouting dissipated, and Dani instructed Willow to close her robe and wait outside by the cruiser.

“I’m to be arrested?”

“You did take a hammer to the man’s hand.”

“That ain’t no reason to arrest her,” Erwin said.

“You ain’t pressing charges?”

“What the hell for?”

Exasperated, Dani sighed and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t surprised, just frustrated. More times than not spouses didn’t press charges in domestic disturbance cases.

“It weren’t nothing but a disagreement,” Willow said. “Nothing to get worked up about.”

“Bound to happen,” Erwin said. “Especially when your wife is a lie.”

“I ain’t a lie.”

Dani extracted herself from the escalating verbal assault between two more people she wanted to shoot and pulled out her cellphone to put in a call to 911 for an ambulance. A souped-up truck rumbled down the street, but she took little notice other than to smirk at the roar coming from the custom-built engine. Inside, the driver sucked on a cigarette while the passenger fiddled with the bill of his hat. The deputy didn’t know it at the time, but the closeout kings had arrived to do business in her town.