Atonement

by Michael Kerr

  Larry didn’t learn any more than he already knew. He had another coffee and asked Amy how her ailing mother was doing, and shook his head and made appropriate comments when Amy said that her mother was finding it hard to remember her own name these days, and how awful it was to see a loved one lose all memory of her life.

  Affecting a practiced limp, he crossed the street to the department, noting that the sheriff’s Charger was not in its slot. He walked in and spent some time in the bullpen talking with Denny Matthews.

  “How’s your back Larry?” Denny said.

  “A lot better,” Larry said. “I plan on bein’ back on duty in a few days. Seems like I’m missin’ out on all the action.”

  “We’ve got next to nothin’, yet. But that guy Logan has convinced the sheriff that it’s some local that killed the girl. He found a slider off her jacket out on the road”

  “Could have been someone passin’ through,” Larry said.

  Denny hiked his shoulders. “Where would anyone be passin’ through to at that time of night in this neck of the woods?”

  “Right,” Larry said. “Makes sense. What do you know about Logan? Maybe it was him, bein’ a stranger in town.”

  “I didn’t consider that. Lyle says he was a Marine, then an NYPD cop for twenty years. From what I can gather he just moves around now, and doesn’t stay in one place long enough to start puttin’ down roots.”

  “Could be the killer. Probably drifts around the country rapin’ and killin’ girls.”

  Denny’s eyes widened. “You think?”

  “I dunno, Denny. It’s a possibility. Put it to Lyle when he comes in.”

  “I’ll do that. Where’s Bama?”

  “In the truck. He brought a young whitetail buck down in the woods yesterday. He’s a good ol’ boy.”

  “He’s a lethal weapon, Larry. I wouldn’t want to piss him off, even with my Glock in hand.”

  Larry smiled. “He only attacks what I tell him to, Denny. How are Carl and the others?”

  “Hurtin’. They were gonna beat up on Logan with bats, but he took them out. Carl’s in a mess. They had to operate on his leg and arm. And he got three of his fingers broken.”

  “This Logan guy sounds like a psycho. You watch yourself, Denny.”

  “I’ll do that. Be glad when you’re back on duty, Larry. We’re stretched as thin as a fly’s wing, now that Carl is out of the picture.”

  Out on the street, Larry was almost back to his Chevy Silverado when he saw the man he knew from his description to be Logan walking out of the general store with a large brown paper sack tucked under an arm. He looked to be about six-four, and a solid two hundred-fifty pounds.

  “You must be Logan,” he said, after waiting for the big man to approach him along the sidewalk.

  Logan stopped, made eye contact, but said nothing.

  Larry found the man’s demeanor disconcerting. “I’m Larry Horton, one of the sheriff’s deputies.”

  “Fine,” Logan said and made to step around Larry, but found himself blocked.

  “I wanted a word with you, Logan.”

  “You don’t always get what you want, Larry. And as you are out of uniform and obviously off duty, and that this is unofficial, I’d appreciate you getting the hell out of my way.”

  Logan was human. He sometimes took instant dislikes to people, and had just done that with the smug deputy who was wearing shades on an overcast day.

  A low growl came from the pickup next to where Logan was standing. He glanced through the passenger window of the cab to be met by the intimidating gaze of a critter that he supposed was a dog but looked more like a small mutant-faced grizzly.

  “That’s my pal, Bama,” Larry said. “I don’t think he likes you.”

  “Well, Bama,” Logan said through glass that the dog’s breath was beginning to mist up. “I don’t think I like you either, or Shades here.”

  “You’ve got a real bad attitude, Logan,” Larry said. “I don’t hold with what you did to Carl and the others.”

  Logan gave the other man a cold smile. “Carl’s mistake was coming at me a little short-handed, Horton. He underestimated who he was going up against and paid for it.”

  “Tough guy, eh?” Larry said.

  Logan mulled that over for a couple of seconds before saying, “Yeah.” He then shouldered Larry aside and carried on walking.

  “You’ll regret that,” Larry called after him. And he meant it. As far as he was concerned the ex-cop was a potential threat to him. And he knew just the right person to contact to make Logan go away, permanently.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sunday morning was bitterly cold. But the sky was clear with just a few smudged white lines of jet contrails tracking across it, which Logan thought were mainly from flights into and out of DIA; Denver International Airport. Flying was his least favorite mode of travel. Packed into a steel tube with wings at thirty plus thousand feet was not his idea of a fun way to move around the country.

  He had bought a heavy insulated parka, a thick pair of snow pants, walking boots, some new socks, underwear and a couple of plaid shirts from the general store before running into Larry Horton the day before. And now he was sitting outside his room again, suitably attired and drinking coffee. He planned on a walk into the Creek and a big breakfast at the Steamboat Diner. After that he would make his way west out of town and loop through a part of the Pike National Forest, to see more of it than he had so far during his stay in this beautiful part of the state.

  Clearing his mind of the Foster case, Logan enjoyed the invigorating stroll, and was famished and ready for what Amy called her Sunday morning special. After eating it, he set off without a care in the world. He had learned in the Corps to live in the here and now, and to put all problems on hold when you needed to. That had got him through tough times, serving him well throughout his police career, and all the tension that burned a lot of cops out, or even ended up with them eating their guns. You had to be able to keep things separate, disassociate when necessary and not let that bitch called life grind you down too much as you passed through it.

  Kate Donner came to mind as he walked along a wide woodchip-carpeted trail through the forest. He liked her a lot. She exuded a certain degree of melancholy, which he reckoned was due to something major that she had experienced and not been able to dispel, but was coping with in her own way. She didn’t seem to fit in Carson Creek, so was probably an outsider like him. She seemed more of a big city girl, who’d uprooted and started afresh. But why?

  Entering a large clearing that was a designated picnic area with rustic tables, Logan sat down on a bench for a spell and absorbed the great outdoors. Being in such a tranquil spot caused him to think of all the large cities that spread like morbid growths all over the planet. The majority of the masses were trapped in an environment that he had been fortunate enough to walk away from. Way back, he had visited Shanghai in China, to be totally overawed by the teeming multitude that was now approaching eighteen million in number. Up till then he had thought that New York was big. Perhaps in the way that nature seemed to regulate numbers of animal species, humanity would eventually be cut back by a super virus or some other catastrophic happening.

  Setting off again, Logan looked forward to having the promised steak meal with Kate. Decided that he wanted to know her. And wanting to know someone was a very rare occurrence. He closed doors behind him as a rule as he moved endlessly on through time and space. He had almost lost the capacity to truly bond, need relationships or long-lasting friendships, and supposed that he was the personification of what others would label a loner.

  Back at the motel several hours’ later, he found a note taped to his door, it read: Took a call for you. Drop by for coffee, Clifton.

  He walked over to the house, knocked the door and heard Clifton shout, “It’s open, come on in.”

  Wiping the soles of his boots on a welcome mat inside the door, Logan made his way through to the rear of the house and took
a seat opposite were Clifton was pouring freshly brewed coffee into two mugs.

  “You can take the pickup whenever you need to,” Clifton said, sliding a spare set of keys across the tabletop. “No need to ask. I’ve got an old Impala in the garage that I use most of the time.”

  “Thanks,” Logan said, pocketing the keys.

  “Kate phoned. When I told her you’d gone off hiking, she just said for you to call her back whenever. Said it was nothing important.”

  “Uh, okay,” Logan said.

  Clifton smiled. “Kate’s a nice person and a looker too,” he said. “Maybe destiny is keeping you in the Creek, Logan.”

  “I don’t buy that there is a predetermined future laid down for us, Clifton. We just muddle through the chaos and manage the best we can while we’re here.”

  “I tend to agree. But it sometimes strikes me as strange how some things work out as if they’re meant to.”

  “Just seems that way. I don’t believe that anything is laid down for us as individuals; that we have no power of self-determination. That would make me feel like some kind of puppet.”

  “I still think that you and Kate are on a collision course, Logan.”

  “Whatever. We don’t even know each other. What can you tell me about her?”

  “All I’ve got is secondhand info. I heard from Amy at the Steamboat that she came here from Chicago after being mugged or something. Wanted to start afresh. And she implied to Amy that she’d been married, way back. That’s it. She’s a damn good lawyer, and would rather help than hinder anyone.”

  Logan nodded. Asked, “How’s Ray?”

  “Not so good. He’s finding it hard to accept what went down. Spends a lot of his time in his room, and hardly talks.”

  “You want for me to have a word with him?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d rather give him time to work it out himself. But thanks, Logan.”

  Back in his room, Logan called Kate. “You wanted a word?” he said when she picked up.

  “It wasn’t urgent. Just an update. I ran into Lyle at the indoor market over in Westcreek this morning. He took time out to mention that there were no tapes from the CCTV at the Wagon Wheel. Also said that there had been a minute amount of tissue under one of Tanya’s fingernails, but that it was too degraded to use for matching.”

  “Any good news?”

  “Yes. Among other things, the market sells fresh local produce, and I bought some choice cut beef.”

  “That sounds like an invite. When did you have in mind?”

  “Tonight if you aren’t watching TV in your motel room.”

  Logan laughed, which was something of a rare event. He sometimes looked at the weather channel, and took in an old movie, but that was about it. “Give me a time and your address,” he said. “I’ll find my cleanest dirty shirt.”

  He used the pickup and was parking in the driveway of the linked house on Cherry Street an hour later.

  Kate answered the door wearing a check shirt and blue jeans.

  “Come in, Logan,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”

  He felt big and awkward in the small house. He was not used to being in such close proximity to a woman he found so attractive. His relationships with the fairer sex were sporadic to say the least. The last woman he had slept with had been Sharon Jennings, who with her mother, Rita, he had protected from hitmen that had been contracted to kill them both. Sharon was young enough to have been his daughter, but was an adult, and so he had been happy for her to seduce him. He was not in the habit of kicking a gift horse in the mouth.

  “You look ill at ease, Logan,” Kate said. “You want a cold beer while I start grilling the steak?”

  “Sounds good,” he said, following her into the kitchen, taking his parka off and hanging it over the back of a chair.

  Kate was a bag of nerves. One on one with a guy she didn’t know too well was now not as good an idea as she had thought a few hours’ ago. But he didn’t crowd her, or seem to have any side that threw up warning signals.

  They made small talk as they ate. Logan told her about the hike he’d taken through the forest, and how if he had been an artist he would have wanted to build a cabin with a view of the Rocky Mountains and stay there and paint till he died.

  “I wish I had your attitude,” Kate said. “It must be nice to have no sense of responsibility, and just keep moving on with no need for stability.”

  Logan drained his glass of beer and said, “I was what you may think of as responsible for decades, Kate. I took my duty in the Marines and then my police career very seriously. I’m fifty now, and feel that I’ve earned the right to take time out. I keep on the move because there is no such thing as permanence. A lot of folk live in the same house in the same town or city all of their lives, with the same neighbors dying around them as they get older. I find that a little depressing. Nothing lasts. Even the sun is slowly burning itself out.”

  “I didn’t mean that you were irresponsible, Logan. I just haven’t met anyone like you before. My life has all been about learning, and then putting that knowledge into practice.”

  “So was mine for a long time, Kate. Tell me, why are you in Carson Creek? What are you running away from?”

  Kate realized that she had inadvertently begged inquiry, after digging into Logan’s mindset. Decided to lay it all out and keep the air clear between them from the outset. “I’m thirty-five, was married briefly to what turned out to be the wrong man, and while working for a firm in Chicago, managed to get myself beaten up and raped. So I decided to relocate somewhere that is hopefully safer. Although after what happened to Tanya Foster it would appear that nowhere is really safe.”

  Logan admired her forthrightness. Everybody has secrets, and most people keep them just that, a secret.

  “I shouldn’t have pried,” he said. “I apologize.”

  “No need, Logan. Shit happens. I’m getting on with the present, but needed new surroundings to do it in. And I’m finding it hard in some ways.”

  “Nothing much in life is easy, Kate. Peace of mind may exist, but I’ve never met anyone that really has it. Everything is a tradeoff.”

  “You don’t seem too worried about anything.”

  “I’m a survivor, Kate. I have the ability to absorb most of the dire consequences of what others do and keep some balance. I’ve witnessed so much of mans’ inhumanity to his fellow man that I must have built up some kind of immunity to it.”

  “What do you see as your future?”

  “I don’t even think about tomorrow too much. Things just work out for better or worse. Most of the time we have no control over it, so why sweat it?”

  Time flew. It got late, and Logan said that it was time he left. Kate had the sudden urge to ask him to stay over, but didn’t. There was something so relaxed and dependable about Logan that it was hard believe that a man who she had not even met until a few days ago could have such a powerful impact on her.

  “The steak was terrific,” Logan said. “It’ll be on me next time, but I won’t be cooking it. We’ll have to go to a nice restaurant.”

  At the door, Logan wasn’t sure what to do so bent down and kissed Kate lightly on the cheek, said goodnight and walked across to the pickup without looking back.

  Kate waved as he drove away. He raised his hand and was then gone as falling snow shrouded the vehicle from view.

  He didn’t need to follow Logan. Just lit a cigarette and thought things through as the radio churned out shit-kickin’ country rock. Looked like the big guy and the bitch lawyer were becoming an item. And they were both actively attempting to solve the murder to clear Ray Marshall. He needed them out of the way, or discouraged from poking their noses too deeply into police business. He knew from meeting Logan that the drifter was not the type to back down; he’d proved that when he’d beaten the crap out of Carl and the other two. No, Logan would need to be dealt with.

  Larry drove home and had a large shot of JD, and then another. The guy
he knew in Denver would take care of the problem. He would drive out of town and call him in the morning. With any luck, Logan would soon be out of the picture.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Wade McCall had got into drugs back in high school, taking them and selling them, and dropping out to pursue a life of crime. As a kid, his two best friends had been Larry Horton and Tim Noone. It was like an old gangster movie with Cagney, Bogart and Pat O’Brien. Wade had grown up to be a gangster, Larry was a cop, and Tim Noone had been a priest, up until his god had taken him young by way of a brain tumor. They had lived in seedy apartments off East Colfax near East high and City Park; an area of Denver that was populated by prostitutes, gangs and homeless people. More drugs were consumed than burgers in this underbelly of the city.

  Wade owed Larry. As a young patrol cop, Larry had seen Wade shoot a guy dead in an alley, but had turned a blind eye.

  Larry drove for ten miles before stopping at a diner to use a public phone to contact Wade.

  “Hey, Wade, it’s Larry. How’re you doin’?”

  “Never better, pal. You still out in the boonies issuin’ speedin’ tickets and generally avoidin’ any action?”

  “I’m livin’ the American Dream, Wade. Got myself a lakeside house, a good old dog, and a quiet life.”

  “Sounds like being dead but still breathin’ pal. Why the call?”

  “Hopin’ you can help me out, Wade. I need for someone to vanish.”

  “Who?”

  “A drifter in town. He’s causin’ me grief.”

  “Give me a name, description, and where he can be found.”

  Larry furnished Wade with the details.

  “He’ll be out of your hair within thirty-six hours, Larry,” Wade said. “Tomorrow night seems a good time to deal with him, so make sure you have an alibi from between eight p.m. and dawn.”

  “Thanks, Wade,” Larry said. “I owe you one.”

  “What are friends for?” Wade said. “I know you’re there for me if I need you, Larry. Make some time to visit. We’ll have a night on the town that you won’t forget in a hurry.”