Darkness the Color of Snow

by Thomas Cobb

  Ronny shrugged. “It seemed like time.”

  “You weren’t planning on taking another shot at it, were you?”

  “No. No, just the one.”

  “Because normally you’d wait until your last shot, not the next to the last.”

  “Turns out, there was no next shot. That was the last one.”

  “No, man. I loaded it myself.”

  Ronny shook his head. “I think you lost count.”

  Matt grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “You lost count. I didn’t lose count. That was your eighth shot, dude.”

  “You just said it was my seventh.” He looked over at Stablein and Cabella. Stablein looked away and Cabella shrugged.

  “It was your eighth. Gun holds eight.”

  He started to say something. He wanted to insist that he had kept his count. It was his seventh shot. There was no eighth bullet. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I got it.”

  “It matters. Are you saying I short-­loaded you?”

  Ronny was confused now. How had this changed so fast? Just a minute ago, everything was cool. It was fun. Now Matt was clearly mad, ready to fight. He thought about Laferiere holding the gun to Cabella’s nose. Would he really have pulled the trigger? Why would you hold a loaded gun to your friend’s head? What would make you that mad? He didn’t know, and now he was starting to be scared.

  “I’m not saying anything, man. Nothing. Can I have another beer?”

  The simple question seemed to knock Laferiere off his stance a little. “Hell, yes. It’s why we’re here. Have another. Get me one, too.”

  “You going to shoot, Matt?” Cabella asked.

  Laferiere shook his head. “No. No more shooting. Buffalo Bill here took the prize. It’s beer time.”

  They grabbed beers from the cooler. The atmosphere had cleared like the sky after a storm. “Buffalo Bill,” Stablein said.

  “Wild Bill,” Cabella said.

  “Ronny Earp.”

  “Annie Oakley.”

  At that, everyone started to laugh. Laferiere caught Ronny around the shoulder with his arm and pulled Ronny to him, dripping a small stream of beer on his head. “Annie Oakley, dude. Not Virgie, anymore. Annie Oakley, for sure.”

  WHEN HE GETS home from school, Sammy sees his father’s Camry in the driveway. Shit, he thinks. What did I do now?

  When he gets inside the house, his father is sitting at the kitchen table. Across from him is Martin Glendenning.

  “Here he is,” his father says. “How was school, Samuel?”

  Sammy shrugs. “I don’t know. Like always.”

  His father nods. “I guess that’s good, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Sammy says. “I guess so.”

  “You know Mr. Glendenning.” Sam nods at Martin.

  “Yeah.”

  Martin Glendenning gets up from the table and walks over to Sammy, extending his hand. “Good to see you, Samuel. Are you doing all right? Recovering from the accident the other night?”

  Sammy doesn’t even know what that means. Recovering? “I guess so. I’m OK.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Samuel. Glad to hear that you weren’t injured. It was a horrible thing. A real tragedy. A tragedy for all concerned. I’m glad you’re all right. I hear you have been talking about what happened. In school, I mean.”

  “Everybody wants to know.”

  “I’m sure. Nothing like this has ever happened in Lydell before. Everybody wants answers. I wonder if you would mind telling me what you remember about that night?”

  “He can do that. Can’t you, Sammy?” his father says.

  “It’s still kind of fuzzy. It happened really fast.”

  “I’m sure it did, I’m sure it did. It would be very helpful if you could go over this with me,” Martin says. “It’s vitally important to the town.”

  Sammy nods, takes a deep breath and begins with the pull-­over, the arguing between Matt and Ronny Forbert, the struggle, then the car coming over the hill and Matt flying through the air. Then Matt lying dead.

  “That’s very good,” Martin says. “You have a good memory, and you’re very observant. You would make a good witness. Very credible. Lots of details.”

  “Witness for what?”

  “Well, for whatever. We have lots of questions. Everybody does. I don’t know if there will be an inquiry into this, but if there is, you will be very helpful to everyone. One of the things we’re most interested in, of course, is the actions of Officer Forbert that night. We’re going to need to know, for example, if we have a bad officer on our police force. You can help us with that. You can help the whole town.”

  “I told you what I remember.”

  “Yes, yes you did. And you did it very well.” Martin leans forward and puts his chin in his hands. “How did Matthew Laferiere end up in the road?”

  “I’m not sure. Sometimes I think one thing, then sometimes I think something else.” Sammy stops and exhales hard and fast. Then he is crying.

  “Oh, I know this is hard,” Martin says. “Take your time. No one’s blaming you for anything. And we can be done with this in just a minute or two. Let me ask you. Did Officer Forbert throw Matt Laferiere into the path of the car that hit him?”

  Sammy shakes his head, then nods. “Maybe. Maybe he did.”

  “Again, Samuel. I don’t want this to be hard on you, and I’m really sorry I have to make you go through all of this, but I think we have an officer who may be a danger to other ­people. I’m pretty sure you don’t want anyone else to go through what you did, do you? Can you be a little more definite?”

  No, Sammy shakes his head. No. He doesn’t want anyone else to go through this.

  “Did he throw Matthew into the road, Samuel?”

  Sammy nods. “Yeah. I think he did. I think so.”

  “Martin. Maybe he’s had enough,” Sam Colvington says.

  “Of course,” Martin says. “Again, I apologize. You’re a very brave young man, Samuel. And you’re doing a ser­vice to your community. I need you to stay brave. Maybe you’ll even save someone else’s life. I wonder if you could help me out? Help all of us out?”

  WHEN RONNY GETS back to the apartment, he sees the Channel Eight truck parked up the road. He pulls into his driveway, parks the truck and picks up the aluminum case with the Desert Eagle and goes into the apartment. He puts the case on the kitchen counter, unlatches it, and takes out the gun. He holds it in his hand, flicks on the laser sight, and moves the red dot around the outside of his refrigerator.

  It’s an ungainly thing, and the red dot still wobbles as he moves it across the refrigerator door. He shouldn’t have bought this. It can’t be his ser­vice weapon, and he has entered into an illegal, unregistered gun sale. It was a foolish thing to do.

  But, still, he feels an attraction to the gun that he can’t quite explain to himself. It goes beyond wanting and feels like need.

  There’s a knock on his door, then another. He puts the gun back in the case, puts the case on the floor next to the kitchen counter, and goes back into the living room.

  It must be Nessa, but he’s not sure he wants to see her right now. He keeps picturing her with Matt Laferiere’s arm around her shoulder.

  Another knock on the door, and then, “Mr. Forbert. Mr. Forbert. Renee Lawson, Channel Eight News. Can I have a word with you?”

  He parts the living room curtain just a bit and peeks out. Renee Lawson, in a parka, stands at the door. Behind her is an older guy with a camera on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Forbert. We have some questions for you.”

  “I have nothing to say,” he yells.

  “Mr. Forbert. We have new information on the hit and run you were involved in. Just give me a minute or two of your time.”

  “No. Go away.”

  “Mr. Forbert, we have an eyewi
tness who will testify that he saw you throw Matthew Laferiere into the path of the oncoming car. Will you comment on that?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Forbert, did you throw Mathew Laferiere into the road that night?”

  He can feel his heart beginning to pound. He steps back away from the window and says nothing.

  “Mr. Forbert, did you kill Mathew Laferiere?” She pounds on the door. “We need a comment from you, Mr. Forbert.”

  He slowly walks backward out of the living room and into his bedroom.

  “Mr. Forbert. Did you kill Mathew Laferiere? Mr. Forbert. Are you a murderer?”

  He stays in the bedroom while Renee Lawson continues to pound on the door, and then when the pounding stops, he sits down on the edge of his bed. A murderer, he thinks. They think I’m a murderer?

  PETE KNOCKS AT Gordy’s door and then opens it. “Prosecutor’s here.”

  Gordy looks up from his reports, takes the open bag of M&M’s off his desk, rolls the bag shut, and shoves it into his desk drawer. “Send him in.”

  “Channel Eight called again.”

  “I don’t have anything for them. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.”

  Pete motions to the outer office and then backs up a step. A large woman in a long down coat comes in, dragging a wheeled briefcase behind her. She sticks out her hand as she comes through the door. “Chief Hawkins, Julie Summersby, County Attorney’s Office.”

  “Oh. I was expecting Kent.” He extends his hand, and she takes it.

  “Kent will be involved in this, I’m sure, but I’m here to get the preliminary information. God, it’s cold out there.” She unzips her down coat and pulls it off.

  “There’s a coatrack,” Gordy says.

  She throws the coat over a chair. “This will be fine. You have a suspect in your hit and run. Is that right?”

  “Sean Gross. He admits he was the driver.”

  “You Mirandized him?”

  “Yeah,” Gordy says. “He admitted it before and then again afterward. He’s requested a lawyer.”

  “Got one,” she says. “Rob Weingarten. He owes some pro bono. He’s going to meet us here in a little while. I wanted to get together with you before he arrives. Just to get our facts right.”

  “Sean Gross. Like I said. From Waynesville. He was driving his grandmother’s car. Car’s in state impound. Says it was an accident. Ran because he was scared.”

  Julie Summersby pulls out a yellow legal pad and a pen from her briefcase. “And he said this after he had been Mirandized?”

  Gordy nods.

  “Did he put it in writing?”

  “No. He’s waiting for his lawyer.”

  She takes a small digital recorder from her briefcase and puts it on the desk. “Just in case I miss something,” she says.

  “Of course.”

  “So, you’re sure you have the right guy?”

  “No question. He was the driver. He was alone.”

  “That’s good. Why don’t you just give me a quick rundown of what happened.”

  “All right. Sure. It was Sunday night, about midnight. My officer pulled over a Jeep Cherokee heading west, clocked at sixty-­eight miles an hour, one headlight out. Matthew Laferiere was the driver, and there were three other boys with him. They’d been drinking and smoking grass.”

  “Drunk?”

  “All four of them. We have Breathalyzers on three of them, blood alcohol on Matthew Laferiere. All over the limit.”

  “I’ll need paper on all of that. And so your officer . . .”

  “Patrolman Ronald Forbert.”

  “And so Patrolman Forbert pulls them over.”

  “For excessive speed. Sixty-­eight in a fifty-­mile zone.”

  “And he placed them under arrest?”

  “One of them. Matthew Laferiere.”

  “The victim.”

  “Of the hit and run, yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “The three passengers were cooperative. They got out of the car. But the driver, Laferiere, was uncooperative. I should say, at this point, that there was history.”

  “With the patrolman?”

  “He used to hang out with Laferiere in high school. And there was some trouble from a few years back when the kids, including Forbert, burned down the gazebo in Henry Stuhl Park.”

  “And they were charged on that?”

  “No. We settled that. The boys rebuilt the gazebo.”

  “So no charges were brought?”

  “No. They confessed and agreed to rebuild the gazebo, but Laferiere didn’t want to confess that. I have their confessions. Forbert confessed first and the others followed. Laferiere was unhappy about that.”

  “So the kid who burned down the gazebo is now the arresting officer?”

  “Yeah. He was a good kid. It was kid stuff. And he’s been a good officer. Not a single write-­up before this.”

  “You wrote him up for the accident?”

  “He neglected to call for backup. I gave him five days’ suspension.”

  “I don’t really like this.”

  “There’s more. Patrolman Forbert is dating Laferiere’s ex-­girlfriend.”

  “Messy.”

  “A little. Like I said. There was history.”

  “OK. So Patrolman Forbert puts the Laferiere guy under arrest.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a struggle when Ronny—­Forbert—­tried to cuff Laferiere. There’s some pushing and shoving. Laferiere slips on the ice at the side of the road, goes into the road, and gets hit by the oncoming car. Dead at the scene.”

  “And do you have corroboration on this?”

  “More or less. The three others were off to the side of the road. They didn’t really see the whole thing. The Jeep Cherokee blocked their view. But they’ve all agreed that’s pretty much what happened.”

  “Be nice if we had a clear eyewitness.”

  “Yeah. It would. But we don’t.”

  “And the officer is on suspension?”

  “Right. Five days. He’s got two more to go.”

  “And you have no reason to doubt his account of what happened?”

  “No. None.”

  Julie Summersby leans heavily back in her chair and exhales hard. “Can the driver, what’s his name, corroborate the officer’s account?”

  “I think so. It sounded like that’s pretty much what he saw.”

  “We’ll need him to corroborate. If he does, this looks pretty clean. And you have details on the driver?”

  “No. He’s admitted striking Laferiere and leaving the scene.”

  “Speed? Alcohol?”

  “We don’t have anything on that. He had to have been going pretty fast. There was black ice on the road. Nothing verifiable on skid marks. The impact threw Laferiere into the back of his Jeep Cherokee. That’s what killed him, we think.”

  “You have confirmation of cause of death?”

  “No. We’re waiting for the autopsy results. I don’t expect any surprises. Laferiere’s injuries seem consistent with hitting the Cherokee headfirst. It was a bad mess.”

  “You have pictures?”

  “Pete can give you those. They’re pretty awful.”

  “All right. We can question the driver—­Gross?—­when Rob gets here. I’ll need to see the reports, the photos, whatever you have.”

  Gordy gets up. “I’ll get Pete to give you all we have. It’s well documented.”

  “And the Gross guy. He have any paper?”

  “Not that we know of. We’re checking with Warrentown and the state on that. No outstanding warrants. He’s pretty scared.”

  “He should be. How did you charge him?”

  “Leaving the scene. I thought we’d leave the rest up to you.”

  �
�Maybe vehicular homicide.”

  “That would be your call.”

  “Kent’s, actually. OK. Let me have the material. Is there a place I can go over all of this?”

  “Use my desk. You can shut the door.”

  GORDY GOES BACK to the outer office and asks Pete to give Summersby the files. He looks at Sean Gross, who’s sitting in the holding cell, head down, arms on his knees. “Your lawyer will be here shortly,” Gordy tells him. Gross nods without looking up.

  RONNY IS TRAPPED. He stays in the bedroom. He would like to go out, but he’s afraid that the Chanel Eight reporter and photographer are out there someplace, waiting for him. “A murderer?” Is he a murderer? He didn’t kill Matt Laferiere. The hit-­and-­run driver killed Matt. He was just there, doing his job. He didn’t throw Matt into the road. Matt went onto the road on his own. He slipped on the ice. How can they call him a murderer?

  He calls the police department and asks for Gordy. Pete tells him that Gordy’s with the prosecutor and can’t be interrupted.

  “Channel Eight was here. They told me a witness saw me throw Matt into the road. They called me a murderer.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Pete says. “We have the driver. He’s confessed. And we’ve got him. Gordy’s talking with the prosecutor right now. He killed Matt Laferiere. I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. You want me to have Gordy call you when he’s done?”

  “Yeah,” Ronny says. “I need to talk with Gordy.”

  As soon as he hangs up, he calls Nessa. Her phone goes immediately to voice mail. She’s taking a final, he thinks. Then he looks at the clock next to the bed. It’s three twenty. Matt Laferiere’s funeral is going on right now. Is Nessa at the funeral? Would she go to the funeral? He goes back into the living room and peeks through the curtains. There’s no one there. Still, they could be waiting for him downstairs, by his truck. How could they call him a murderer?

  “I SAW THEM when I came over the hill,” Sean Gross says. “There was this guy in the road. I don’t know. I hit the brakes, but suddenly he was in front of me, and I hit him. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t swerve around him. He was just there, and I hit him. And I saw the other guy on the side of the road. The cop. It was like something was going on. I don’t know. My car went into a spin. I was scared. Scared as hell. Scared shitless.”