Three Deadly Twins
David A. Thyault
Copyright 2015 by David A. Thyfault
The book author retains sole copyright to his contributions to this book.
All rights reserved.
Published 2015
Printed in the United States of America.
No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a total work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and many places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, to real names, places or events is entirely coincidental.
This book was published by BookCrafters, Parker, Colorado.
This book may be ordered from www.bookcrafters.net and other online bookstores.
Licensing Notes
E-Book by e-book-design.com.
Dedication
To my lifelong pal, Eddie Marquiss.
I wish you were still with us so you could read the book that you inspired.
With Gratitude
Many people contribute to a book like this so thanks to you all. Special thanks go out to:
George Andrews
Robert Arnold
Caroline Byers
Kristin Feldkamp
Heather Rhode Hughes
Liz Netzel
Mary Ann Rhode
Jason Thyfault
John Walker
The gang at Fire Station 28, Denver, Colorado
BookCrafters
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-One
About the Author
Books by this Author
Chapter One
If it weren’t for the bars on the windows and the glaring lack of walls around the stool, Don’s cell would have resembled a dorm room in a struggling junior college. Breakfast was over and it would be a couple of hours before he’d be allowed in the common area, which was one of the token rewards for being less bad than most of the others.
At five-foot ten, early thirties, and white, Don ought to be doing something more productive. Instead, the ever-boring routine of minimum security dragged on while the well-trained wisp of brown hair that dangled above his baby face added to the collegiate effect. But prison wasn’t a place for no college boys.
One of the worst parts of living in this particular ten-by-twelve chunk of real estate was the bathroom arrangement —or the lack thereof. Don had pooped in worse places, especially during the brief period he spent on the frontlines in the early part of the Iraq war.
At least those sons-a-bitches had a good excuse. Port-a-Potties would have been easy targets. This was different. The state could have built some walls around his friggin’ stool if they had wanted to. He shook his head, unbuckled his belt and parked his butt. About all he could do for the next few minutes was read a recycled mag and think about Miranda.
With the paperwork finished, Don washed up better than he needed to just to kill a few extra minutes before returning to his bunk, where he laid down. As always, his flattened foam pillow smelled stuffy. So did everything else around there. No wonder. Fifty miles inland, Lancaster California was nearly always dry and hot in spite of the air conditioning.
Bored beyond bored, he sighed. At least this was better than living among the general prisoner population where he could easily get stuck with a know-it-all tough-guy cellmate. For now, maybe he could sleep some time away. Horny, he wondered what Miranda was up to.
Slow minutes crept past before he heard a familiar clinking coming in his direction. It had to be Jingle Keys, as Don thought of the huge black guard with the perfect smile- except for the gold tooth on the lower right. His official name was Officer Jackson. Something was up. This wasn’t part of the routine. Probably had something to do with somebody else in one of the nearby cells. A moment later Jingle Keys stopped just outside Don’s extra-thick hardwood door. Don opened one eye. A large key invaded the deadbolt.
“Evans,” Jingle Keys said with more authority than the drill sergeants Don once knew. “I brought you a present.”
Huh? Don rolled over and sat on the edge of his bunk as a wide-eyed fellow about his age, with a folder-sized envelope in one hand and a blanket and coffee cup in the other, eased his way into Don’s not-so-private hideout. A goddamn cellmate. He glared at the new guy, who was both taller and thinner than he, then back to Jingle Keys. “Couldn’t you stick him with somebody else?”
“Nope,” Jingle Keys said. “It’s your turn. He’s a first-timer.”
The newbie’s anx
ious eyes scanned the boxy cell as if they were getting used to a dark room. Then he extended his shaking hand. ”I’m Thomas. Sorry to invade your space.”
Invade. He got that right. Don preferred to be alone, especially at night when he was free to think about Miranda. But what the hell could he do? This wasn’t no damn hotel and any boisterous protests would be perceived as making trouble. Like it or not, Don had a new cellmate. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, taking the dude’s hand. “Ain’t your fault. I’m Don Evans.”
Jingle Keys stepped backwards into the doorframe. “You girls play nice,” he said, his golden tooth accenting a mischievous grin. “I don’t want to hear no banging on the walls, if you get my drift.”
“Cute,” Don said just before the heavy door clanked shut and the auto-lock clicked. He turned to his new cellmate, would have liked to say what he thought of smart-ass guards, but opted instead to ask the usual question. “What you in for?” He’d best not be no chi-mo ‘cause Don didn’t have no sympathy for child molesters.
Thomas carefully placed his coffee cup and blanket onto the counter, but clung to his folder as he slowly eased onto the remaining bunk as if it were a nest for Amazon-sized bedbugs. Don resisted the urge to laugh.
“I fell off a ladder, broke my collarbone and over-dosed on pain meds,” Thomas said. “Doctor cut me off but I met a guy who said the stuff was basically just heroin and he could get me some on the cheap. So I stockpiled a couple dozen decks. Then I got busted. Cops said I intended to sell it, which was bullshit.” He shrugged. “Since I wouldn’t rat out my source, the bastards sent me here.”
There was probably more to this guy’s misfortune than that, but Don had learned a long time ago that most of the greeners fluffed up their stories – at least until they understood that they weren’t getting out early. At least the guy wasn’t no stooly. Don respected guys who knew how to hold their mud. “We all got screwed in one way or the other,” he said. He flashed his arm around the cell as if he were a magician introducing a beautiful assistant. “Now we’re both stuck in the Shithole Motel.”
Thomas pulled his folder close to his chest. “What about you? Get caught in the arms of some other dude’s wife?”
Don snickered. “Not me. There’s enough women out there without doing that crap.”
“But it had something to do with a woman, didn’t it?”
Don sat up tall. “How the hell’d you know that?”
“Simple. You’re more focused on getting out of here than making waves. You must have something going on.”
Good observation. This guy didn’t seem so bad, especially for a newbie. If nothing else, his fresh ears lent Don an opportunity to burn a half-hour or so. “Her name’s Miranda. We met over a keg of beer at a twins convention.”
Thomas grinned for the first time since he’d arrived. “Twins convention?”
“Twinsburg, Ohio. Not far from where I grew up. They do it every year. I just went for kicks.”
“So you’re a twin?”
“An identical. But me and Mac ain’t like normal twins. We hate each other. Ain’t spoken in years.”
“Mac and Donald? Like hamburgers?”
Don smirked. “Worse than that. When we were one damn day old, our old man was drunk, as usual, and named us after that goddamn fairytale.”
“Old McDonald had a farm?” Thomas said, grinning even bigger than before. ”Didn’t your mom say something?”
Don waved his hand dismissively. “Couldn’t. That bastard beat her up when she argued with him.”
Thomas tilted his head. “Well, neither name is that bad —until you hear them both together and in the right order. What did your brother do to piss you off?”
“Everything. Asshole always thought he was better than me. When our old man beat us, Mac cried like a damn girl, so I got the worst of it. After high school, he got a motorcycle and rode around the country, but I had to go in the goddamn Army. When I got back I tried to look him up, but he had a girlfriend and wouldn’t let me crash with him. He was always screwing me over so screw him back.” Don suddenly realized he cussed a lot more when he talked about his brother.
“What about Miranda? She got an identical too? Maybe you could hook me up when I get outta here?”
“She’s fraternal. Got a mentally challenged brother named Mickey. He acts like a ten-year-old. Lives in a group home. Gets mad as hell sometimes. She brought him to the convention for a change of pace. All she wants is to take care of her brother.”
“So you hit it off pretty good, but something must have gone wrong.”
“You got that right.” Don checked the clock again. Time moved faster when the bullshit was flying. “We hooked up and I came back here to California. We was getting along pretty good when we went to a bar where some half-drunk asshole tried to pick her up. You know the type. Big son-of-a-bitch. I told him to leave her alone, but he didn’t like me butting in, so later him and two friends with billy clubs was waiting for me. I coulda handled that one dude, but not all three with weapons. They got me on the ground and banged on my head and face pretty good.” Don proudly pointed to a scar on his eyebrow. “Took eight stitches. I hung in there as best I could, then that first bastard grabbed Miranda. I thought he was going to rape her. I got back to my knees but one of the other pricks treated my head like a goddamn golf ball and took a full swing. I woke up in the hospital with my eye swollen shut, and damn near lost my ear. Good news was enough other people was standing around by that time that Miranda didn’t get hurt.”
Thomas shook his head. “But it wasn’t over, was it?”
“Hell, no. I wasn’t going to let that chicken shit get away with his crap. He didn’t know I’m a bad ass with cutters, knives. Grew up with ‘em. Trained with ‘em as a Green Beret. Even became a butcher when I got out of the service. I can split a toothpick with a machete. Coulda slit that son-of-a bitch from ear to ear too, but Miranda stopped me.”
“Really? If she stopped you, how’d you end up in here?”
“She talked me out of killing the bastard, but I wasn’t gonna let him off that easy, so me and her compromised. One morning, after he went to work, I jimmied his door with a Bowie knife. I wanted to cut up everything he owned, furniture, kitchen cabinets, all of it. But when I got into his bedroom, I was attacked by a big old boxer that was hiding from the noise until I got too close. Damn thing was lightning-fast.”
Thomas’s head snapped back. “You stabbed a dog?”
“Sliced. It was an accident, cause of my reflexes—how was I supposed to know that dude was watching somebody else’s pet? Anyway, the damage was done and I had a ton of blood on me when I got back to the parking lot. Trouble was I had parked in a reserved spot and the woman it belonged to just come home and already got my plate number to have my car towed.” He shrugged. “I got a three-year bit in this shithole for destruction of property and cruelty to an animal —although I never would have hurt that dog if he didn’t catch me off-guard.”
“Three years, huh?”
“Only got four months left. Miranda thinks I’m some Prince Charming ‘cause I stood up for her, but she’s the one who’s got her shit together. In addition to taking care of her brother, she comes to see me every week, and once a month we get to go to the bone yard.”
“Bone yard?”
“Love cabins, Dude. For conjugal visits. The main reason I keep my nose clean. Don’t want them to take that away.”
“Now you’re making me wish I had a girlfriend.”
“Just wait a while. It gets worse.” Don pointed at Thomas’s folder. “That’s enough about me. What you got in there?”
Thomas lifted the file. “This?” He glanced inside. “Papers from my attorney. We were just talking about filing an appeal with the court.” He frowned and tugged a few pages out. “Hey. This can’t be mine. My dumbshit attorney musta – oh, I see what happened. These people have the same last name as me. He got some of their papers mixed up with mine.”
>
“Interesting. Mind if I take a look?” Don asked, reaching for the misplaced papers. Practically anything was better than reading the same magazines over and over. He glanced through the pages. “This stuff was written back in the ‘eighties. Looks like some old farts left a bunch of money to their granddaughter.” He scanned further. “Says she don’t get the money ‘til she gets married.”
“That’s strange. How much money we talking about?”
Don flipped the papers over and back. “Can’t tell. Some of the pages are missing. Gotta be a lot, though. Nobody would spend money on legal fees to do something like this over peanuts.”
“That girl’s probably filthy rich by now.”
“Not if she ain’t married yet. You got any more pages in that folder?”
Thomas thumbed through his file. “Nope. Looks like we just got part of it. Why don’t guys like us ever catch a break like that girl did?”
Don tossed the papers aside. “’Cause we’re a couple a losers in the Shithole Motel, that’s why.”
Chapter Two
Miranda pressed her blonde hair aside and delicately spritzed some Euphoria behind her ears. She climbed out of her black SUV and into the relatively cool ninety-nine degree desert heat. At thirty-five years old, the heat bothered her a little more than it used to. She brushed her hand down the front of her blue polyester pantsuit and heard the clickety-click of her sandals as she strode toward the building. She wondered if it were possible to overdress for a conjugal visit.
Her visits with Don had nothing to do with pity sex. She genuinely loved him. He’d always treated her differently than most men she’d met—including the married ones—who all seemed to have one thing in mind.
In fact that was the problem with nearly everybody she’d gotten close to in her life. They’d exploit nearly anybody if they could get ahead in some other way. Her parents were like that.
Back in Chicago, where she grew up, her daddy was an attorney and her mother enjoyed the relative comfort that his success afforded them. But Daddy had immoral dealings. For instance he once convinced an elderly couple to sell their long-held family deli to a friend of his at half its value when he could have just as easily helped them get a loan and keep their store. Miranda never forgot how proud he was for his so-called accomplishment.
Her mom had moral problems too. At the time, Miranda was too young to understand that when Mommy dropped her off at a midday baby sitter’s, from time to time, she was actually sneaking off with a lover. It wasn’t until Miranda was in sixth grade that she saw the guy waiting in a car for her mom and was later told he was Uncle Larry, but there were never any other references to this mysterious relative. What else could it have been?