The Debt Collector

by Lynn S. Hightower

  “You sent them out to do collections, Jack. How could you?”

  He was shaking his head. “No, Sonora, no possible way. They were screwing me, the two of them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that when I let a debt go, Kinkle and Aruba would collect and pocket the money.”

  “Oh my God.”

  He was nodding. “I told you I have bad days? Kinkle knew that. Knew I didn’t always … have a handle on things. Do I think he would have done it without Aruba? I don’t think he had the nerve, but the idea had to be his. Maybe they hatched it together. It’s too easy to underestimate Kinkle.”

  “There was a third man, that day at the Stinnets’,” Sonora said.

  Van Owen’s face stayed impassive. “No.”

  “Somebody punched Aruba. Somebody stopped him from raping that girl.”

  “Kinkle.”

  “Kinkle my ass. Joy Stinnet saw him. She called him the Angel. That was you, wasn’t it, Jack? You’re the Angel.”

  Van Owen smiled with a self-confidence that was unsettling, that told her she was wrong wrong wrong, she didn’t have it yet.

  “Detective, we are talking about a woman who was near death. A woman who was saying her catechism. Maybe she was having a religious experience. Maybe she saw an angel.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Know what?”

  “That she was saying her catechism.”

  A pause. “I read it. It was in the report.”

  “No it wasn’t.”

  “It was in the report.”

  “If it wasn’t you, Jack, who then? Who are you protecting?”

  “Give it up, Detective. You’ve got your men, Aruba and Kinkle.”

  “Both dead.”

  “They deserved to die.” He waved a hand at the wall. “Look at that. I’ve looked at it every single morning since it happened. I face that every day and know it was my fault and my responsibility. I will never take those pictures down and I will never forget. And I take care of my responsibilities.”

  “It was you, Van Owen. You’re the Angel. You set this up, you made it happen, you walked into that crime scene and you made it stop, you were just too damn late.”

  “I was shopping at Wal-Mart, Detective, like the rest of the population. I wasn’t there. And I guarantee you that you have not found one piece of evidence, one strand of hair, one drop of blood, one tiny little scrap of DNA that puts me there, because if you had, you wouldn’t be sitting over on that couch all by yourself. It’s time to let go, Detective. I read you the last page, I showed you the end, now walk away.”

  She stood up. “I am not going to let this go.”

  He looked tired suddenly, almost uninterested. He rested his elbows on the top of his desk and looked up at her. “You have a life, Sonora. You have kids, you have a career and a mortgage and a horse. Walk away.”

  66

  Sonora, trying to sleep in the next morning, found that she couldn’t. The thought of walking into the bullpen, the thought of seeing Crick, was like a brick wall she could not get around. She headed into the kitchen to make coffee, passed the television, saw the little footprint in the dust on the screen. Thinking how children can be precious and horrible all at the same time.

  She didn’t want coffee. She didn’t want to be at work, she didn’t want to be in the house. She decided to go shopping.

  Sonora took the Visa card she had paid down, kept it tight in a sweaty fist, looking at all the pretties. She took her time, bought two portable CD players that were on sale for sixty-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents apiece. Imagined Heather and Tim’s faces when they saw them. Then she went to Abercrombie & Fitch and bought each of them a flannel shirt, gift-wrapped for no particular reason. She stopped at the pet store and got pig ears for Clampett.

  She was home before the kids got out of school. Walked in through the garage, saw Clampett stretched out in front of his water bowl, watching a mouse perched on the edge, drinking tiny mouse sips.

  “You are way too kind, puppy dog.” She sent him straight to dog heaven with three pig ears all at once.

  For some weird reason she was crying as she arranged the gifts on the kitchen table, a big surprise for the kids. Something out of the blue, because Mom loves you.

  This business with Crick was a hard one. She felt bewildered, and oddly hurt. She had always looked up to him, admired him. He was a tough boss and a good cop and kind of scary to work for, demanding and cynical, but with an ethical core she could depend on. He protected his people, ran interference; no one could have been kinder when Stuart was killed. And now. Now she didn’t know what to think. Maybe best if she didn’t.

  On impulse she called Gillane, caught the message on his machine. “Hi,” she said. “Just called to say hello.”

  That night she worked alone, sitting behind her desk in the bullpen in the middle of the night, feeling weirdly nostalgic. Her life seemed divided now, to before and after the Stinnets. She missed the before, missed the time when being behind that desk in the dead of night felt like overtime, not refuge.

  She missed the hell out of Sam. She was odd man out now; she knew she was watched, suspected, banished from the inner circle. It would not be possible to feel more alone.

  Sonora rubbed her face, stared at the computer screen. She had the accident report; she had gone through every death certificate in every relevant year. Lacy Van Owen had died thirteen years ago in a car accident in Union, Kentucky, but there was no mention of son Van Owen, and no death certificate that she could find. She did, however, find a birth certificate, dated 1972. Angelo David Van Owen: aka—the Angel?

  Sonora stood alone, barely breathing, in the hallway on the seventh floor of Van Owen’s warehouse. There was no light, except what leaked in through the grime-soaked windows, neon and moonlight, the uncaring eye of the city. This was, indeed, a place that she knew, a place she did not want to be, but a place she had known was coming. Portents.

  Her night vision was not good. She gave her eyes time to adjust. For once in her life she was not in a hurry. She had come before, in her mind, many many times. And she had never, in her mind, come back out again.

  Some people never made peace with death. It was not a bad place to be.

  Sonora was aware of the beat of her heart. The crumbling black plastic quarter round at the base of the brick walls. The mildew-stained linoleum. She smelled the accumulated filth of the institution. She smelled the years of minimal, uncaring upkeep combined with heavy, indifferent use, which had left layers of scent and fatigue. No one had ever loved this building.

  She walked slowly, listening. She had her barn boots on, worn brown Ariats, and they gave her an elusive frisson of good feeling, bringing to mind the smell of horses, the feel of old tack, the sweet scent of baled hay. But they also made her footsteps loud. She crouched close to the floor, unlaced the boots, and left them behind.

  Before, she had been like a swimmer, not wanting to touch her feet to the bottom of that dark place, struggling up to the surface for light and air and relief.

  She would not struggle, no longer willing to make that particular effort. She would let her feet touch bottom and she would be still. There was no light in the depths where she was, but she could still breathe, slowly and quietly, she could feel her way, blindly and—wonderful, this—peaceful now, and not at all afraid.

  67

  Sonora had passed him by before she paused and headed back two steps, drawn by the black shaded lamp and the man who sat alone behind the desk, contemplating the pool of light. He was as still as death; she thought for a moment he was dead. All she could see was the back of his head, the battered brown leather chair, his feet flat on the floor.

  “Your feet must be cold, Detective.”

  The chair turned ever so slowly. She could only think, as she always did, how easy it was to watch Jack Van Owen. Wondering what he would do next, wondering what he would say.

  What was it about him
that drew the eye, even in a room full of people? How could he generate such presence—was it a natural attribute, did he do it on a conscious level?

  Perhaps it was a primitive recognition that this man was way ahead, having thoughts and opinions you definitely wanted to know. Intentions it would be safer for you to be aware of.

  Perhaps it was a recognition of danger. No point in watching your back if this man was in the room; better for you if you watched him.

  Sonora curled her toes. Her feet were indeed cold, and it was a shocked joyousness, that cold through the socks on her feet.

  Either way she could not take her eyes off Jack Van Owen. She listened for footsteps behind her and heard nothing. She did not think she would have looked away.

  So familiar now, the roundish face, the stocky build, five feet ten inches tall. Thinning black hair, brown eyes that went flat with danger but were warm now with an intimacy he could project from across the room.

  And there he was smiling at her, and she caught herself smiling back. There was something in his eyes, an attentiveness she craved.

  “You think about it a lot lately, don’t you, Sonora?”

  Sonora swallowed. She knew exactly what he meant. She should arrest him now and end this. But she couldn’t. She wanted to hear more. He was talking about her now, the inside of her, like he knew. And she believed that he did know. And she could not help but wonder if he had some kind of insight here. Maybe, somehow, he could save her. Maybe it was not too late.

  He shook his head ever so slightly. “Don’t be embarrassed about this, Sonora. Every really intelligent, thinking person comes to this, sooner or later. Or over and over, for ones like you and me.” He grinned, just a flash, to let her know that he understood.

  “Over and over, Sonora, the thoughts just won’t go away, will they?” His face changed. He held up his wrists, looking as weary as she felt. “Are you here to arrest me? Or are you here to return my jacket?”

  “To arrest you.”

  “You have no proof.”

  “I have proof and you know it. I’m wearing it.”

  “I’m not following you, Sonora.” But he was. She wondered when he’d realized the mistake, a fatal error, generated by kindness and good manners.

  “You left your gloves in the pocket. The gloves you were wearing when you hit Aruba. The gloves you were wearing when you went into the Stinnets’ house.”

  “Try to do a good deed. How about this? They’re not my gloves.”

  “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

  “I don’t particularly care anymore. You know that, don’t you? But don’t you want to know what happened?”

  She didn’t answer. Didn’t trust herself to play these games and win.

  “Follow me, then.”

  He led her down the hallway like the Pied Piper, and she followed him like a child.

  He led her the length of the wasted hallway till they faced a freight elevator, metal sides covered with peeling black paint that showed the dull silver beneath. A crisscross metal rack gated the dark opening, door yawning open like the gates of hell.

  Van Owen stepped in and turned to face her, and she half-expected something, like a gun—but no. Just that gentle, knowing smile that frightened her because it hinted at a knowledge of things she wanted to keep totally private. And promised an understanding that she craved.

  “I’m a burning house. Are you going to run away?”

  “No, and neither are you. Come off the elevator, Jack.”

  He waited, looking so … polite. Waiting.

  “Step off the elevator, Jack. I’m not playing games with you.”

  “Shoot me or let me go. Your choice.”

  “Death by cop?”

  “Death by perp?”

  She had no answer to that one.

  He waved a hand. “I can see it, that death wish you have. It hums in the air around you like an aura. Like the sound of bees in a hive. If I were to kiss you, I could taste it on your mouth.” There was such intelligence, a knowing something in his eyes like a candle in a jack-o’-lantern. She had to watch him. It was like driving by a terrible car wreck.

  “There is a third option,” he told her.

  “Explain it quick, before I lose count.”

  “You can find out what really happened.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He pointed upward. “To the roof.”

  “No.”

  “We’ll do it at gunpoint. You’ve got your weapon there, tucked in the back of your jeans, right? Get it out. Take the safety off. Point the gun at my heart. I want you to come to the roof, and I want you to feel safe.”

  She did as he said. Took out the gun, so familiar in her hand. She felt better. More in control.

  He smiled.

  She followed him into the elevator. She had a bad moment as he shut the gate, hating the cavernous freight elevator, like something out of Angel Heart. She stood with her back to the wall and watched him push the button for the roof.

  The elevator moved slowly at first, then gathered speed. He spoke quickly, a man running out of time.

  “When my son was born, Lacy and I felt so blessed. We named him Angelo, and we called him our Angel. We’d been trying to have a child for five years.” He turned his head to face her, keeping his back to the wall and his hands at his sides. “Detective Sonora Blair, you have two children. A boy, Tim, who is seventeen? And a little girl named Heather, who is eleven.”

  He knew her, knew the names and ages of her kids. She thought of the way her house looked that first night when she was called out to the Stinnets’, brightly lit against the falling dark, the living room that was probably dark now while the kids slept in their rooms down the hall, trusting that she would come home, as she always did.

  What did it mean to be a mother? Did it mean that you were sentenced to life?

  “Listen to me, Sonora. Last week your son was arrested in Boone County for speeding, driving with a suspended license, and carrying a concealed weapon.”

  “His license was fine; it was a computer glitch. It happens.”

  “The weapon?”

  “A machete he takes camping. And it wasn’t concealed, it was sitting on the floor of the backseat. It’s still legal, as far as I know, for teenage boys to go camping. And I checked this weapon myself. The edge is so blunt you couldn’t cut a sandwich with it.”

  He smiled as if making a point. “Listen to you, Detective. To hear you talk, the poor child was set up by a computer. And you dismiss the machete like it’s a joke.”

  “This isn’t about me, and it isn’t about my son.”

  “It’s about every parent who ever made an excuse for his child.”

  “Then that’s every parent, Jack.”

  He turned sideways and faced her. “Bingo.”

  The gates of the elevator opened to darkness. Sonora smelled rain. She got that horrible closed-in feeling, a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. The only light came from the interior of the elevator. Van Owen did not move, his back plastered to the wall.

  “You’re not so different from me, Sonora. You can’t distance yourself on this one. I loved my son like you love yours; I saw the good in him, saw it every day of his life—”

  “You talk about him like he’s dead.”

  “He is dead.”

  “He did not die in the wreck with your wife.”

  “No, he did not. He took the wheel of that car and jerked it out of her hands, sweet Lacy, and their car crossed the path of a coal truck. She died twelve hours later in Union, Kentucky. She was down there in the same place you were, bailing our son out of trouble, just like you did with Tim.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I hope not. For your sake, Detective. You want to know why he grabbed that wheel? Because he wanted to stop for cigarettes, and she said no. He told me everything. He cried and said he was sorry. But I’m a cop, Sonora, I can’t lose it, I live, eat, and breathe cop, and while the daddy in me saw t
he good in my son, the cop saw the bad boy, the antisocial, no conscience, manipulative … the Angel, my son. Angelo.

  “I had him committed to an institution in Arlington, Texas, until he turned twenty-one. It’s easy enough, Detective. The definition of mental illness and typical teenage behavior are surprisingly similar. If you’ve got insurance, or if you’ve got money, you’ve got a soft little room. Drugs, shrinks, and therapy. Until he turned twenty-one. And then I brought him home. Cured. To help me run the business.”

  “Where is he now?” Sonora said. “You can’t protect him, not after this.”

  The look he gave her was puzzled. “Still not there yet, Detective?”

  The elevator light, keyed to a timer, blinked and went out. Sonora took a step forward and Van Owen touched her arm.

  “Hold on just a minute. There’s a light here, somewhere.”

  She noted that he knew exactly where, that he flipped the switch like a man following a script. But she was grateful for the blinding yellow light, which showed a small room with metal doors thrown open to the roof. Jack Van Owen beckoned and she went behind him, gun steady in her right hand.

  Sonora felt the bottom of her socks go instantly soggy, the roughness of wet concrete beneath her feet. A car passed on the street below, the tires making a shushing noise on the wet pavement, then the peculiar silence of a city at night. Somewhere, a long way away, she could hear a train.

  “Are you afraid of heights, Sonora?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I am.” He walked toward the edge of the building and she followed, drawing a mental line she promised herself she would not cross. He stopped a good six feet from the edge. “Hell of a view, though.”

  She knew she was meant to look away, but she was too good a cop. She watched him and only him.

  “My son cried when he told me about Joy Stinnet. Oh, I cried, too, I admit it. He told me about the baby, and the teenage girl, and the dog. He was wracked. I cried and he cried and we cried together. But I was happy, Detective. God help me, I was happy that my son had a conscience, that he had limits, that he stood up to Aruba. Angelo punched Aruba in the mouth, those are his gloves in that jacket pocket, it was Angelo who pulled him off the girl. He tried to save her, got some towels, tried to stop the bleeding when Aruba slashed her throat. He was panicked; it was useless, but he tried.