[Lady Justice 04] - Lady Justice And The Avenging Angels Read online

  “This Walt Williams mystery comedy satisfies on many levels. Borrowing from troubling aspects of today’s deep political divides, Thornhill gives us a more sober story in his fourth book in the Walt Williams mystery/comedy series. There’s still humor, but the message is one where a charismatic individual takes over the minds and souls of his small-town friends and turns them into terrorists bent on destroying everything they consider an abomination in the eyes of their Lord. Walt and the KC police must stop them before they kill and maim thousands at large Kansas City functions.

  An additional story that interweaves with the home-grown terrorists from the Osceola area south of Kansas City in the foothills of the Ozarks is how Willie discovers his roots in that same area after an aunt who raised him dies and leaves him what seems to be trash but turns into personal treasure. Included in the story is a history lesson on the James Younger gang of the post-Civil War era, which appears to be carefully researched.

  This novel, while making readers laugh at times, also makes them consider their own belief systems and prejudices. A well-written story with a strong message. One of Thornhill’s best to date! It’s hard to wait for the next one in the series!”

  —Christina Fullerton Jones

  “Walt Williams, now newlywed to his sweetheart, Maggie, has returned from Hawaii and is adjusting to married life. He comes home to a religious fanatic on a killing spree to rid the world of human pestilence. These religious terrorists are determined to rid the world of people whom they find unfit for society. Walt and gang set out to stop the madness of a man whose insane antics are killing innocent people.

  All the characters we love from the series are back in action. With danger, action, and humor, Robert Thornhill creates characters and scenarios like none I have read before. I eagerly look forward to more installments of this fun series.”

  —Sheri Wilkinson

  “Robert Thornhill has written a wonderful fourth installment in the Lady Justice series. All the characters we’ve come to love throughout the series are back and still the same lovable people we have come to know and care about. In Lady Justice and the Avenging Angels, Walt and Ox are in the middle of a mysterious series of bombings rocking Kansas City, and as usual Walt is right in the thick of it. Because of his skill and sometimes luck, Walt finds himself in the right place to thwart the plans of the religious zealots who are targeting his city.

  Robert Thornhill does an impressive job in creating characters and stories that the reader is immediately drawn into. The action starts immediately when Mary tries to get off the plane from Hawaii and continues to build throughout the book until the final climatic showdown between Walt and the leader of the religious group. This is a very humorous, action-packed novel that everyone who is familiar with the series will immediately love. Mr. Thornhill does an excellent job in mixing humor and action together. Along with the unforgettable characters, his novels leave you waiting anxiously for the next installment.

  —Michelle Castillo

  “I highly recommend [this book]! I’ve been reading mystery books ever since I got hooked on Nancy Drew at the age of seven (I’m in my sixties now!), and this book marks the first time a mystery story has made me laugh out loud. I laughed until tears were running and my sides ached! I laughed so hard that my husband came to see if I was okay.

  The author’s main characters are so personable that it would be great fun to hang out with them. His plots are very interesting yet easy to follow. Robert Thornhill has seniors, our lives and our foibles, nailed down tight! He holds up a mirror and makes us laugh at ourselves. Also, the craziest things happen to Walt and his over-the-hill gang that you can’t help but laugh.”

  —Beverly Brecha

  “Each one is better than the last, which is saying a lot because the first one was fantastic. Mr. Thornhill has a wonderful sense of humor, which he sprinkles liberally throughout his stories. If you have a grandfather, a dad in his retirement years, or you yourself are of the AARP generation, you will not be able to hold back your laughter as you read your way through the Lady Justice series. Can’t wait for the next installment!”

  —Barbara

  Dedication

  To our friends and neighbors in St. Clair County, Missouri.

  Author Robert Thornhill and his wife, Peg, lived on seventy acres near Osceola, Missouri, for three years and own a cabin on the beautiful Osage River.

  Robert’s grandfather was born and raised in Monegaw Springs at the turn of the century, attended the Rabbit Roost school, and worked at the Monegaw Hotel.

  Some of Robert’s fondest memories are of his grandfather taking him as a child to drink from the old sulphur spring and explore the bluffs at the Younger Lookout.

  This rural community, steeped in history, is a precious jewel in the Missouri Ozarks.

  Prologue

  The last rays of the setting sun shone through the massive oaks of the Ozark hills and cast long shadows on the grassy field that had been carved from the dense forest. Locusts buzzed in the treetops, and the shadow of a great horned owl beginning his evening hunt drifted through the trees. Nearby, mist was rising from the Osage River that wound its way through Missouri’s St. Clair County past the little villages of Monegaw Springs, Roscoe, and on to Osceola.

  In an old barn built at the turn of the century, a group of men began to gather.

  A brown haze hung in the air from the dust of the old gravel road, stirred up by the tires of a dozen pickup trucks, each with a rifle mounted in the cab.

  The men were of hardy stock, well muscled from hard labor, and their skin was parched and tanned from long hours laboring in the sun. They drifted into the old barn and found seats on bales of straw, awaiting the arrival of John Blackwell. They talked with one another about their crops, their cattle, or the big catfish they had pulled from the river, but the room fell silent when John Blackwell strode into the room.

  Blackwell was the kind of man that commanded respect, a natural born leader. He stood six feet, four inches, and his two hundred-and-fifty-pound body filled his Big Smith bib overalls. His once-black hair was now streaked with silver and hung to his shoulders. But it was his eyes that caused men his size and bigger to cower in his presence. They were almost iridescent blue, as hard as steel, and as cold as the ice that covered the ponds on a January morning.

  He stood in the old barn and surveyed the men who were seated in front of him. As he stared into the eyes of each man in turn, he seemed to be peering into the depths of their souls and held their gaze until they turned away.

  Finally, he spoke. “My friends and brothers, I have called you here because we are men of like mind. Like our forefathers, we have worked this land and raised our families in these beautiful hills.”

  He turned to the man on his right. “Levi, you are fourth generation on your family farm. Your great-grandfather claimed his land from the red savages and fought to drive them away.”

  He looked at the man on his left. “Jacob, your grandfather fought the bloody Jayhawkers who burned Osceola and helped rebuild the town after the civil war.

  “Each of you are God-fearing men, and your heritage is to protect and defend that which is right and good.”

  He stood to his full height, and his ice-blue eyes seemed to glow in the shadows of the old barn. “Each of you knows that we are in the last days as prophesied in the Bible. There are wars and rumors of wars. There is a scourge among us. We are the chosen ones, and yet we are surrounded by and outnumbered by idolaters, whore
mongers, money changers, homosexuals, and people of inferior races.

  “Even as God called upon his chosen in ages past to cleanse the earth of these abominations, He is calling us here, today, to take up his sword of righteousness and smite the unholy.”

  A murmur of affirmation spread among the men, and they nodded in agreement.

  Blackwell pulled an old Bible from his pocket and read, “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground.”

  He looked at the men seated around him. “It is fire and brimstone that shall consume the heathen, and the Lord has delivered these tools of destruction to us.”

  He turned to a man in his mid-fifties. “Micah, the Lord has seen fit to give your family a farm of four hundred acres. Such a farm requires much fertilizer. Do you have it?”

  “Sure do,” he replied. “I got nearly sixty bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in my barn.”

  “Excellent, and how about you, Luke? Do you have the proper fuel for that drag racer of yours?”

  “Yep, there’s a fifty-five-gallon drum of nitro methane in my garage.”

  “Perfect. Jerrod, how is your new job at the rock quarry?”

  “I love it, and I come across a crate of Tovex sausages that no one is using.”

  John Blackwell smiled. “The Lord has delivered not only the means of destruction but the sinners as well.”

  He opened his Bible again. “Thou shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination. If a man lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them.

  “Next weekend is the Gay Pride Parade in Kansas City. We will be there as instruments of the Lord.”

  He opened his Bible again. “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels.”

  He looked at the men now standing, with arms raised above their heads. “You and I, my friends, are the avenging angels of the Lord.”

  Chapter 1

  “Flight attendants, please prepare for landing.”

  The announcement jarred me from a restless and fitful sleep. I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

  My little wedding party had boarded the plane at nine o’clock the night before in Maui, Hawaii. With two plane changes and a five-hour time difference, we had been on planes and in airports for twenty-two hours straight.

  My sixty-seven-year-old body ached from being cramped in the tiny seats.

  My new bride, Maggie, was curled up beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. I shook her gently. “Hey, sweetie, we’re home.”

  Maggie slowly opened those big blue eyes and gazed out the window at the Missouri landscape rising below us as we made our final approach into Kansas City Inconvenient Airport.

  I looked across the aisle and saw my two friends Willie and Mary both still asleep, their heads cocked at weird angles. I was sure that with no sleep, a twenty-two-hour flight marathon, and stiff necks, my friends would be less than cheery when aroused.

  Mary is the manager of my flop-house, the Three Trails Hotel, which boasts twenty-one sleeping rooms that share four hall baths. This crusty old gal has been with me for years, and when Maggie and I decided to tie the knot in Hawaii, we invited Mary to come along as maid of honor.

  Knowing how my body felt, I could only imagine how her two hundred-pound, seventy-seven-year-old body must have felt.

  Her head was tilted toward Willie, and it must have been that way for quite a while because his whole shoulder was wet from the drool dripping from Mary’s open mouth. Willie was blissfully unaware as he snored away.

  Willie is my maintenance man in the three-story, six-unit brick walk-up I own on Armour Boulevard. He lives in an efficiency unit in the basement.

  Like Mary, sixty-seven-year-old Willie has been with me for years. He was the maintenance guy for the large portfolio of apartments I used to own during my thirty years as a realtor. When I retired from real estate and sold all the apartments but the Three Trails and the Armour six-plex, Willie sort of retired with me. But Willie is more than a former employee; he is my good friend and has saved my life on more than one occasion.

  I should probably explain.

  After retirement, I couldn’t sit still. I was restless, and my life seemed to be going nowhere. Then one day I witnessed an old woman being mugged in a grocery store parking lot. I just knew at that moment an injustice had been done and I needed to help Lady Justice balance the scales.

  I got a wild hair that I wanted to be a cop, but at sixty-five the chances of that happening would have been slim and none without the help of my old high school friend, Captain Duane Short of the Kansas City Police Department.

  To make a long story short, with Captain Short’s help, I became a cop. In my two years on the force, I have been kicked, punched, pummeled, kidnapped, shot, and have come perilously close to death more times than I want to think about.

  On several of those occasions, it was my old friend Willie who saved my sorry ass.

  So when the time came to finalize my wedding plans, having Willie accompany Maggie and me to Hawaii as my best man was a no-brainer.

  At that moment, the flight attendant came down the aisle and gently nudged Willie’s shoulder. “Sir, we’re about to land. You need to put your seat back in the upright position.”

  Willie aroused to semi-consciousness, and feeling Mary’s head resting on his shoulder, he reached up to wake her. The first thing he felt was his drenched shirt. “Wot’s dis?” he exclaimed. Then he saw the drool spilling from Mary’s mouth. “Oh, man! Dat ole woman is drownin’ me in her slobbers! Dis is so wrong!”

  He reached over to give her a shove, and his hand inadvertently landed on Mary’s boob.

  This got Mary’s attention right away, and she reflexively smacked his hand away. “Get your hands off me, you little pervert!” she screamed.

  If anyone in the cheap seats was still asleep, they weren’t anymore.

  The plane landed without further incident, and when we finally came to a stop and the seat belt light went off, there was the usual pushing and shoving as passengers fought to the aisle to retrieve their luggage from the overhead bins.

  Sleek little Willie had his bag in hand and was standing two rows ahead of us.

  Mary, ten years his senior and sixty pounds heavier, had struggled to the aisle and had just grabbed her carry-on when a guy reached over her shoulder, grabbed his bag, and, giving it a jerk, whacked Mary on the side of the head.

  It was one of those moments when everything seemed to move in slow motion.

  Mary dropped her carry-on and turned to face the offending gent. When he saw the look on her face and the fire in her eyes, he tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go in the crowded aisle.

  Mary grabbed him by the collar and lifted him onto his tiptoes. “I guess your momma never taught you no respect for ladies or for the elderly, so I guess I’m gonna have to give you a lesson right now.”

  Mary was in no mood to be trifled with. Fortunately, at that moment, the line started moving toward the door.

  I gently grabbed Mary by the shoulders. “Mary, look, the line’s moving. I’m sure the man is sorry.” I looked at the poor guy still on his tiptoes. “You are sorry, aren’t you, sir?”

  The wide-eyed guy didn’t say a word. He just nodded vigorously.

  “See. Now let the man go and let’s get off this plane. Vince will be waiting for us.”

  Mary narrowed her eyes, gave the guy
a shake, and released his collar. Assuming the incident was over, the man breathed a big sigh of relief. Mary reached down and grabbed her carry-on. But when she turned, the handle struck the poor guy squarely between his legs. He crumpled to his knees, groaning.

  “Oh, sorry about that,” she said, but as she turned away I saw a smile on her lips.

  That’s why Mary is in charge of the Three Trails Hotel.

  We deplaned and headed toward the baggage carousel. Vince was waiting for us with a big smile on his face.

  After Ox, my partner on the force, and I had made some impressive collars, the brass at the department decided that maybe old guys did have a valuable contribution to make in law enforcement. Consequently, the City Retiree Action Patrol was formed, and since I was the first golden-ager to wear a badge, they put me in charge. Only after all the paperwork was done and the program was launched did someone notice the acronym for my new group was C.R.A.P.!

  Vince was my first, and so far my only, recruit in the new program.

  He is a retired athletics coach, and, unlike my diminutive, hundred-and-forty-five-pound frame, he is a robust hundred and seventy-five pounds, all muscle. He is also bald as a cue ball. The guys give him suckers all the time and call him Kojak.

  Our situation was not unlike the old Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue.” Stuck with a moniker like C.R.A.P., we had to prove ourselves fast, or our program would die.

  Fortunately, Vince, Ox, and I work well together, and through a combination of hard work, good luck, and a helping hand from a higher power, we have achieved an impressive arrest record and the respect of the squad.

  Vince gave Willie, Maggie, and me a big hug and was looking for Mary to welcome her as well.

  Apparently the adrenaline was still coursing through Mary’s body from her encounter on the plane. We watched as she elbowed her way through the crowd to the edge of the baggage carousel. Watching Mary work a crowd was like watching Moses part the Red Sea.