The Damage Done

by P J Parrish

  He peered down at the supports for the trestle. It was constructed of three mammoth steel towers, braced by rusty X crosses all the way to the bottom.

  Louis heard thumping and looked back to see Steele stomping on the rotted plywood that had been haphazardly laid across the trestle. “You want to drive across this thing, you go alone. Sir.”

  Steele glanced at him, offering a wry smile. “I’m just wondering if Lampo was familiar enough with this trestle to know he could drive across.”

  It started to rain again. Driven by the wind, it felt like tiny pins against Louis’s neck.

  “If he did cross, he’s on foot,” Louis said. “Let’s look at the map and see if we can send anyone up that way to intercept him.”

  They started back to the Explorer. They had less than an hour’s daylight left, but they could set up road blocks throughout the peninsula and operate them through the night. But even as that thought moved through Louis’s head, so did doubt. Maybe they were chasing air. And if they were, he couldn’t help but think about his future here. And Steele’s.

  A rustle in the trees came to him on the wind.

  Louis drew his Glock and spun around, scanning the trees and bushes. A squirrel scampered across a fallen trunk. Leaves skittered across the path, caught up in a wind eddy.

  Then something else . . . a voice?

  Shut shut shut . . .

  Had he heard words, or was it just the freakish whistle of the wind in the iron towers under the trestle?

  The sound came again.

  Shut up . . .

  Louis moved closer to the trestle and again looked into the trees, watching for movement, a speck of color, anything that seemed out of place.

  “Run!”

  No wind. Real words. Louis spun around.

  Two men bolted from trees back near the entrance to the trestle. One in camouflage, the other in dark pants and a yellow dress shirt. Buddy Lampo—and Anthony Prince.

  They stumbled toward the trestle in a clumsy kind of run, one pulling at the other.

  “Captain!” Louis shouted.

  Louis broke into a run. For a few seconds, he lost the men in a thicket but when he reached the trestle, everything was wide open and he could see them clearly. They had stopped halfway across the bridge and were huddled against the wood railing. Anthony had an arm around Buddy’s neck, talking in his ear.

  Louis started onto the trestle but stopped when he saw the revolver in Anthony’s hand. Steele pulled up next to Louis, his Glock in his hand.

  “Anthony Prince!” Steele shouted. “We’re the police. Stop now and put down your weapon!”

  Anthony’s gun came up level. “Get away from us!” he yelled. “Leave us be!”

  Anthony was waving the gun and Louis edged sideways, putting space between himself and Steele. He watched Anthony carefully, eyeing his revolver. There was nothing more dangerous than a nervous man waving a gun he did not know how to use.

  “Drop your gun, Anthony!” Louis shouted. “You have nowhere to go. Let’s end this peacefully.”

  Anthony shuffled back against the railing, dragging Buddy with him. Louis could see that Buddy’s hands were empty, but he was wearing a bulky jacket that could conceal a gun.

  “Prince! No one else has to die!” Steele shouted.

  Anthony yanked Lampo against him, leveled the gun and started yelling into the wind, but he wasn’t making demands—he was quoting scripture.

  “The unbelieving, the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers—”

  “Don’t use the Bible to justify what you’re doing!” Steele shouted.

  Anthony fell silent and looked over the railing, down into the gorge. Then abruptly, he started shouting again.

  “All shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone!”

  “You want the lake, you go ahead and jump!” Louis shouted. “But let him go.”

  “He’s my brother!” Anthony shouted.

  Louis heard Steele let out a hard breath behind him. They had been right.

  Anthony said something in Buddy’s ear and started climbing the railing, gripping Buddy toward him as a shield. Buddy was shaking his head, grasping at his brother’s arm, but it didn’t look like he had much fight in him.

  “Buddy!” Louis shouted.

  Buddy put a shoe between the slats and started to follow his brother over the railing. Louis thought about rushing them, grabbing Buddy to pull him back, but Anthony was not yet out of view, his revolver still visible.

  “Buddy, listen to me!” Louis shouted. “You don’t need to follow him down!”

  Buddy threw a leg over the railing and started a descent down the other side, never looking back. A few seconds later, he and Anthony disappeared below the trestle.

  Louis ran to the railing and looked down. They hadn’t jumped. They had managed to get down to a narrow catwalk suspended about ten feet below the bridge.

  They stood huddled together against the wind, Anthony holding on to his brother and Buddy holding tight to the only thing he could grab—a thick iron girder. A hundred feet below them the river snaked through the rocks.

  “Buddy! Look at me. I want to help you!” Louis shouted.

  Finally, Buddy looked up, his hair flying around his head, his eyes tearing from the wind. It was an odd expression—a resigned kind of terror, the same look a man got as he was strapped into the electric chair.

  “Buddy!” Louis yelled. “You don’t have to do this! You owe him nothing!”

  Anthony clutched his brother close, still talking frantically in ear. Louis could not hear what he was saying.

  “Buddy, look at me. Don’t listen to him!”

  This time Anthony looked up, and when he did, Buddy shifted his body and Anthony’s shoe slipped off the beam. He skidded off the catwalk and suddenly both of them were grappling frantically for the other. The gun dropped, clanking against the catwalk before falling away into the gorge.

  “Help me!” Buddy screamed. “Help me!”

  Buddy was gripping the girder with one hand and holding the back of Anthony’s shirt with his other. Anthony dangled in the air, clinging to the catwalk, desperately trying to get a foot back up.

  “God, please help me! Help me save him!”

  Louis took off his jacket and ripped off his Kevlar vest to discard the extra weight.

  Steele put a hand on his arm. “No.”

  “I’m going down there,” Louis said. “Go get the rope from the Explorer. I’ll need it to get back up.”

  If Steele said anything else, Louis didn’t hear it. He climbed over the railing and started down the outside of the trestle. Once he got below the bridge, he could see what the brothers had used to lower themselves to the catwalk. There was a rusted cable scalloping the underside of the trestle. Hanging from that, he would have to drop the last four feet to the catwalk. And if he couldn’t catch the girder when he hit, it was another hundred feet down.

  “Help me!” Buddy screamed.

  Louis grabbed the wet cable and lowered himself as far as he could. He took a breath and dropped to the catwalk, catching the girder. Once he got his balance, he turned toward Buddy.

  Anthony was hanging off the edge of the catwalk, too weak to get his legs or elbows up on the ledge to give himself more support. Buddy’s fingers were white-knuckled around his brother’s wrist, but he didn’t have the strength in only one arm to pull his brother back up. He had to keep his other hand around the girder or he would be dragged to the gorge below.

  Louis sidestepped along the catwalk toward Buddy, trying to stay upright against the push of the wind and trying not to look down. As Louis neared Buddy, he could hear Anthony’s voice, the words pouring out breathless and fast.

  “The righteous see their ruin and rejoice. The innocent mock them . . .”

  “He’s slipping!” Buddy shouted. “I can’t hold him.”

  Louis dropped to his knees, one hand around the girder, the other stretched down toward Ant
hony.

  “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored. If you remove wickedness from your tent—”

  “Shut up and give me your hand!” Louis yelled.

  Anthony looked up at him. His eyes held the glazed stare of a man who was already dead in every way but one.

  “Give me your hand!” Louis shouted.

  Anthony let go of the ledge and for a few seconds, he spun in the air like a kite, held only his brother’s hand around his wrist.

  “Antero!” Buddy screamed.

  Anthony gave his brother a final look then jerked his wrist free. He dropped through the air with a surreal kind of calm. No screams, no flailing. Just a silent falling away through the wisps of fog below the trestle.

  Louis gripped the edge of the trestle, unable to look away until he saw the body hit the rocks at the river’s edge and tumble like a doll into the coppery water.

  Buddy let out a wail. “No! No! No!”

  Louis looked up, and tried to focus on Buddy, but he couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to get a full breath. Then he saw Buddy lean forward and Louis rose and put a hand to Buddy’s chest, bracing him against the girder. Buddy almost collapsing against Louis’s palm.

  “Oh my God, oh my God! I dropped him! I let him go!”

  “Buddy, listen to me,” Louis shouted. “There was nothing you could do.”

  Buddy was trembling, tears streaming down his dirty face. Louis could feel Buddy’s heat, smell the beer on his breath. God, he hoped the man wasn’t drunk.

  “Listen to me,” Louis said, shaking him. “I get it. You wanted to protect your brother, but Anthony wasn’t what you thought he was. He changed. He was not the brother you knew.”

  Buddy shook his head and looked down into the gorge. “You don’t get it! You can’t know! It was just us. Always just us. That never changes!”

  Louis tightened his grip on Buddy’s coat. “I do know. I had someone I couldn’t save. I know how much it hurts. It hurts bad, but you can’t go down with him!”

  Buddy wasn’t listening, or maybe he couldn’t even hear him over his own sobs. He was shivering, soaked to the bone. And so was Louis. His hands were so numb he could barely bend his fingers. He had to try something else to reach this man.

  “Naatan!”

  Buddy shut his eyes tight.

  “Naatan, listen to me!”

  Buddy opened his eyes, trying to focus on Louis’s face.

  “God would not want you to jump, Naatan,” Louis said. “God would want you to go on. He wants you to forgive yourself. That’s how it works, right?”

  “God doesn’t care!” Buddy sobbed. “He gave up on me and I gave up on Him a long time ago. Let me go, just let me go.”

  Louis kept a firm grip on Buddy’s sleeve. He had to get Buddy off this bridge. He had to find a way to reach him.

  He dug into his jeans pocket and retrieved the Saint Bosco medal. He thrust under Buddy’s nose.

  “Look at this!” Louis demanded. “Look at it.”

  Buddy pulled away, almost losing his balance.

  “Look at it, Naatan!”

  Finally, Buddy saw it and he froze, his eyes wide. “No, I can’t talk about that,” he said.

  Louis shook him by the collar and kept the medal right in front of his face. “Listen to me. I know you left this medal for those two little boys. I know you cared about them.”

  Buddy shook his head wildly, batting blindly at Louis’s hand. “No, it’s done. No one can fix that. It’s over!”

  Louis yanked on Buddy’s coat, bringing his face close. “People need to know how the boys died,” Louis said. “I need you to help me with that.”

  Buddy closed his eyes. Louis pressed closer, trying to hold him up on his feet as he talked.

  “They don’t have graves,” Louis said. “They don’t even have names. And if you jump off this bridge, they never will.”

  When Buddy opened his eyes, Louis saw a bone-deep sadness, and with it, a glimmer of clarity.

  “Buddy, please.”

  Buddy started to nod, slowly at first, then with more vigor. “All right,” he whispered. “All right . . . all right.”

  Louis put the medal back in his pocket and placed a hand on Buddy’s chest, bracing him against the girder before he looked up into the rain to the top of the trestle.

  “Captain!” Louis shouted.

  Steele’s face appeared above the railing.

  “You got that rope?” Louis shouted. “We’re coming up.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  It had to be eighty degrees inside the Explorer but still Louis couldn’t get warm. He felt a little off center and lightheaded. In his mind, he was still seeing Anthony falling away.

  “You’re shivering,” Buddy said from the backseat. “You might have hypothermia.”

  Louis didn’t answer him.

  “You should see a doctor.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Buddy was quiet for a few seconds, then, “What’s going on?”

  Louis sat up and looked out the front window. Two state SUVs and two Keweenaw County Jeeps that had finally made it up the hill. Nurmi had been moved to one of the Jeeps and was directing his men to secure the scene. Headlights lit up the trestle, and it looked like the bridge was floating in the coming darkness.

  The driver’s side door opened, and Steele climbed inside. He closed the door, flipped on the dome light and handed Louis a Thermos.

  “I stole it from one of Nurmi’s deputies,” Steele said. “Thought you might want something warm.”

  “Thanks.” Louis unscrewed the top. His hand shook as he poured himself a cup. It was hot and to his surprise, spiked lightly with something.

  “You need something for that hand?” Steele asked.

  Louis looked down at his palm. It was smeared with rust and blood, the palm slashed with a deep cut. He remembered losing his grip on the rope when he was scaling the trestle and he had grabbed at a sharp piece of iron. He hadn’t noticed it at the time, but now it was throbbing like hell.

  “It can wait.”

  Steele got out of the Explorer, went to the rear hatch and returned with a first-aid kit.

  “Clean it up before it gets infected,” Steele said, dropping the kit in Louis’s lap. “How about you, Lampo? You got any injuries?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You warm enough?” Steele asked.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  Steele pulled a clipboard from between the seats. “I need to confirm something. You are Nathan Prince, right?”

  “Naatan Prinsilä,” Buddy said.

  “There’s a baptismal certificate in your cabin for Buddy Lampo dated 1955, when your family was still in Wisconsin,” Steele said. “Explain that.”

  Louis knew Steele was asking not only to confirm Buddy’s ID, but to satisfy his own curiosity about the piece of paper that had sent him off the deep end and almost derailed their investigation.

  “It was for the real Buddy Lampo,” Buddy said. “The family I went to live with had a son who died. They seemed to look at me like a replacement son, so somewhere along the line, I just took his name.” Buddy leaned forward in his seat. “Can you tell me what’s going on out there?”

  “Keweenaw County’s going to secure and monitor the scene for us,” Steele said. “Search and Rescue will be here at first light to recover the body.”

  “My brother is going to lay down there all night?” Buddy asked.

  “He won’t know the difference,” Steele said. Then after a moment, he added, “It’s the best we can do. Someone will be here all night to keep an eye on him.”

  Buddy fell silent. Louis thought about offering him some coffee, but after they had confiscated the .22 from his coat, Steele had handcuffed him. A search of the woods near Buddy’s cabin had turned up his white pickup, with a big SISU bumper sticker. Inside were three guns and two empty gin bottles.

  “It was me, wasn’t it?” Louis asked Buddy. “It was me telling you
about that candle box that set all this in motion, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Buddy said softly. “When I knew you were reopening the thing with the boys, I . . . I just lost it. I knew I had to talk to my father.”

  “You went downstate to his cottage?” Louis asked.

  “Yeah,” Buddy said. “It took me forever to get up the nerve, but I finally knocked on the door and he let me in. At first he didn’t want to listen, but I just kept talking and talking until finally I saw him start to understand.”

  “Understand what?” Louis asked.

  “That we couldn’t keep the boys secret anymore.”

  Louis turned in his seat but before he could ask about what had happened with the boys, Steele gave Louis a subtle shake of his head.

  “Let’s stay with Anthony right now,” Steele said. Then to Buddy, “What did your father say?”

  “He said he was going to fix it, that he was going to talk to Antero after that night’s service,” Buddy said. “He believed me. First time in my whole fucking life my father believed me. He even gave me a hug.”

  Buddy paused, his next words softer. “But like it always did, everything went to shit.”

  Steele was quiet, writing on his clipboard. Louis looked away, toward the trestle.

  “Can I go back to my cabin?” Buddy asked.

  “No, you’re under arrest,” Steele said.

  “What for?” Buddy asked.

  “Harboring a fugitive.”

  “I didn’t know he was a fugitive,” Buddy said.

  “You had to know he killed your father,” Steele asked.

  “I didn’t know for sure,” Buddy said. “He never talked to me about that.”

  “Your long-lost brother shows up after your father’s murdered and you don’t talk about that?” Steele asked.

  “He wasn’t long-lost,” Buddy said. “He wrote sometimes. Sent me money a couple times a year.”

  Steele sighed impatiently. “Answer my question, Lampo.”

  “All I know is Antero showed up late, sometime after eleven and said we needed to talk. I think he was drunk. I gave him my bedroom, but he was up for hours bumping around in there. He finally went to sleep.”