by Gerry Boyle
Another sigh. The sound of tapping keys.
“It’s sixty-six,” he said. “First hired in eighty-six. What else you need to know?”
“Oh, just where he worked, which facility. We do some private jail contracting and it sounded like Martin might be pretty versatile.”
He cleared his throat. “Three years in Walpole, that’s maximum security. Two years in Deer Island. That’s minimum, a lot of intake. Then left. Says he went to Plymouth County.”
“Which is—”
“Big county jail. Adults and juveniles,” he said. “I guess he liked that ’cause he stuck with it right to the end.”
“Huh,” I said. “Is this facility all male?”
“No, it’s both, but it’s all women working on the blocks.”
“And he said his rank was—shoot, where is it? Hang on a sec. I’ll find—”
“Sergeant,” he said.
“Which is supervisory?”
“Yeah. He’d be supervising a shift, corrections officers one and two. Those are levels.”
“But he’d be among the inmates, not just in an office someplace.”
“Oh, no, a sergeant’s out there working. Gotta be to keep your finger on the pulse of the facility, know the current climate, be alert to any problems that might be bubbling up.”
“Would he know the female inmates?” I said.
“Sure. Not as well as the female officers, maybe, but yeah. What’re you securing, anyway? A girls’ school?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Kind of like to have the right guy for the job.”
“A girls’ school in Maine. Sounds pretty cushy.”
“Still gotta be vigilant.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“Listen,” I said. “You probably can’t tell me this, Jacob, but I’m assuming Martin was honorably discharged.”
“We don’t do that,” he said, but there was a change in his tone, a new guardedness.
“So how do I know if a person was fired for gross negligence or if he got the medal of valor?” I said.
“Google,” he said. “But I didn’t tell you this.”
“No.”
“You’ll pick up the heroes. You’ll pick up the real bums. The rest of the great unwashed, they don’t show up anywhere.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” I said. “They show up here.”
And I heard a car door closing. The rattle of the side-door latch.
I put the phone down, went to the door, notepad still in my hand.
“Mr. McMorrow,” Trooper Ricci said. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“What is it?” I said.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,” she said.
Chapter 33
She stared at me from under the brim of her hat.
“Oh, no,” I said.
Ricci held up her hands. “No, no,” she said. “It’s not your wife. It’s Cheree Wilton.”
“What about her?” I said.
“Is Mr. Varney here?” she said.
“Yes. Out back.”
“I’d like to see him, too,” Ricci said, then stepped in and closed the door. I led the way to the back deck, where Clair was still sitting.
“Everything alright?” he said, Mandi’s papers on his lap.
“Cheree Wilton,” Ricci said.“Tell me again about how you left her.”
I hesitated, glanced at Clair. “She was afraid of her husband,” I said. “She shot at us with this old shotgun, thinking we were him. He’d beaten her and then left, and she was afraid he was back.”
“So she fired her gun. In the house?”
“Yeah,” I said.
A humming bird, iridescent green, buzzed by us. Ricci didn’t seem to notice. “Did Mrs. Wilton seem despondent?”
It started to become clear, like someone moving toward you through fog.
“She’s dead,” I said.
“Yes,” Ricci said.
“And you want to know if she was threatening to kill herself?” I said.
“Among other things,” Ricci said. “Detectives will want to talk to you, too.”
“She was upset,” Clair said. “All beat up. Bruises on her face.”
Ricci waited.
“But more angry than despondent,” I said.
“She said she wanted to kill him, but now she couldn’t because she only had one shell for that old shotgun and she’d used it shooting at me,” Clair said.
“So she was fine when you left her,” Ricci said.
“Relatively,” I said.
“I gave her two shells from my gun,” Clair said, half to himself. “So she could protect herself.”
“What kind?” the trooper said.
“Double Aught Buck. Low-recoil load.”
He stared off. “So it didn’t protect her,” he said.
“No,” Ricci said.
“When?” I said.
“Two, three hours ago. I just left there. Crime-scene people are there, homicide.”
“We should have made her come with us,” Clair said.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’d cut her ear, face was all bruised, her eyes swollen.”
I looked to Ricci. “Well, you saw what she looked like.”
“No,” she said. “She didn’t show herself when I stopped there last night. I went back this morning.”
The meaning hung in the air, surreal against the blue sky, the flowers.
“Point blank,” I said. “In the face?”
Ricci nodded.
“Was there a shell left in the chamber of her gun?” I said.
Ricci hesitated, then shook her head slowly.
“She missed,” Clair said.
I looked at him.
“He’s back.”
“Daddy!” Sophie shouted, sandals flapping, arms outstretched. She crossed the kitchen, hit me at a full run. I swung her around once, hugged her tightly, kissed her on the cheek.
“That was a juicy smacker,” she said, wiping her face, sitting in the crook of my arm.
“I’m glad to see you,” I said.
“Mommy’s coming. She’s—”
Sophie stopped, looked at Ricci. “You have a big hat,” she said.
“Yes,” Ricci said. “It keeps the rain off.”
“You’re a policeman except you’re a girl. You’re a police girl.”
“That’s right,” Ricci said. She smiled, a gentle expression I hadn’t seen on her before. “Girls can be police, too.”
“Do you put bad guys in jail?” Sophie said.
“Sometimes,” Ricci said. “When they’re really bad, I put them in jail.”
“Like a time out?”
“Right. A long time out.”
Sophie looked at Ricci. “Are bad guys here in my house?”
Ricci hesitated.
“No,” I said. “There are no bad guys—”
I heard the suitcase drop to the floor. Roxanne appeared in the doorway, saw Ricci, and said, “Hello.” She turned to me and said, “What’s going on?”
“Hey, Punkin Pie,” Clair said to Sophie. “I’m thirsty. You can get me a drink.”
“There’s juice,” Sophie said.
She took him by the hand and led him into the kitchen.
“So,” Roxanne said. “Tell me.”
Ricci did, the story of the death of Cheree Wilton, cops undecided whether it was suicide or homicide.
“She wouldn’t kill herself,” Roxanne said. “She was cowed by him, but she loved her kids.”
She took a deep breath. “Somebody’s got to tell them,” she said.
“You?” I said.
“I’ll call and find out,” she said.
Then it was my turn: Clair and I at the compound, Cheree Wilton beat up, Clair leaving her with the two shells for her gun.
“So you think he killed her?” Roxanne said, her work face on.
“I do,” I said. “Nobody’s seen him in a couple days.”
“Said he got on the bus to go south,
” Ricci said.
“Could have been anybody,” I said.
“Or he got off at the next stop, took the next bus north,” Roxanne said.“Or he never left at all. His buddy dropped him in Portland and kept going, hang-up calls along the way to throw us off.”
“I don’t want to take Sophie back to Portland,” Roxanne said.
“We’ll pick him up if he’s around here,” Ricci said. “We want him. We’ll be going all out.”
“We’ll stay with Clair and Mary,” Roxanne said.
“Retreat to the stockade,” I said. “But for how long?”
“Until he’s in jail,” Roxanne said. “Until he’s—”
“No longer a threat,” I said.
Ricci looked at both of us. “Be careful,” she said. “I hate to see guns around children.”
We told Sophie that she had just finished her city vacation and was now going to start her Clair and Mary vacation. She ran upstairs to get new toys and books. We heard her shriek.
“Twinnie,” I said.
We went upstairs, found Sophie standing in the middle of her room. There were stuffed animals and books strewn on the floor around her feet like an offering.
I picked her up. “Twinnie,” she sobbed. “Where is she?”
I took a deep breath and told my daughter my carefully rehearsed lie, not the first, not the last, but painful still.
“She’ll come back when she’s all cleaned up?” Sophie said.
“Yes,” I said. “When she’s all cleaned up.”
We packed her bag, then one for ourselves. Sophie stayed with us every second, asked me to carry her downstairs. I put a sweatshirt on her against the cool evening coming on, and carried her out to Roxanne’s car. She rode in the front. I went back to the house, got the rifle, and put on a canvas field jacket. I poured bullets into the jacket pocket, and felt their weight swinging as I walked out to the truck.
Clair made popcorn, then slipped away. I sat with Roxanne, Sophie, and Mary on the couch and watched Muppet Treasure Island. The Muppets were still at sea when Sophie sagged into my shoulder, sound asleep.
I carried her up to our room, one of three bedrooms at the front of the house. There was a double bed and a cot, and Roxanne started to lay Sophie down on the cot.
“I’ll take it,” I said. “I may be up and down.”
She looked at me and understood. When Sophie was tucked into the big bed we both kissed her good night, my lips lingering on her forehead. I closed the windows and locked them, looked out on the road. It was dark and deserted, the moon peeping through the big maples on the front lawn. I closed the shades. Then we walked into the hallway, alone for the first time since Roxanne had gotten home.
We embraced. “Oh, I missed you,” she said, her face against my neck.
“I missed you,” I said. “Both of you.”
“I feel like we’re on different planets.
“I know,” I said. “It’s been kinda crazy and—”
I paused. Roxanne leaned back, knew me so well. “What?” she said.
I hesitated, then told her the rest of the story: the A.D.A. squeezing me, Roger on the boat, saying he never touched her. Mandi leaving with Marty. The box of papers.
“I asked you to stay away from her, Jack,” Roxanne said, a cold flatness in her voice.
“I feel responsible.”
“You are,” she said. “For us.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said.
“It never is with you. Once, just once, I wish—” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“Someone will get him,” I said.
Roxanne paused, swallowing her anger down.
“Soon, I hope,” she said. “That poor woman.”
“And I think Mandi will be moving on. It’s her pattern.”
“Soon, I hope,” Roxanne said again.
Chapter 34
Clair had the walkie-talkies, the kind families bring along when they’re skiing. There was one radio on the kitchen table. I picked it up and called.
“Where are you?” I said.
“Barn,” he said. “Upstairs.”
Mary was in the den, the shades drawn. Roxanne was on the phone, talking to her supervisor about the Wilton kids. I got her attention, mouthed to her that I’d be right back, and went out the kitchen door, across the dooryard to my truck. I took the rifle out of the scabbard behind the seat. Turned to the barn, which was dark.
The stairs were at the back of the workshop. I felt my way along in the darkness, across the room and up, carrying the rifle. On the second floor was a loft that smelled of hay and oil. On the end facing the house there were double doors. They were open to the night. Clair was sitting by them, silhouetted against the sky, which was gray-blue in the moonlight.
I walked over and stood beside him. His deer rifle, a Mauser with a scope, was across his lap. The shotgun was leaning against the wall to his right.
“Hey,” I said.
“Can see most of the back lawn, the field all the way to the treeline,” Clair said. “Don’t think he’d walk up to the front door.”
“You wouldn’t think so.”
“Then again, he is taking orders from a higher power,” he said.
“What are you going to do if you see him?”
“Shoot him,” Clair said. “Put him down. For good.”
“I can take a shift,” I said.
“I’m fine for now.”
“You just don’t think I can shoot straight.”
He smiled. “Did this for a long time, Jack.”
“She’s my daughter,” I said.
“She’s mine, too,” he said. “You all are.”
We stared out at the night. A bat slipped by us and flitted away, a late sleeper.
“I made a big mistake, Jack.”
“She didn’t want to go.”
“Could have picked her up and taken her with us.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Old junk gun. Inside of the barrels all rusted, probably. That’ll affect the spray pattern. Maybe she got off one shot, missed. You know, people think a shotgun, all they have to do is point it in the general direction.”
“Way it works on TV.”
“Close range like that, all the way across the room, the shot would have spread maybe four or five inches. You still have to aim.”
“You tried to tell her,” I said. “And I left her there, too.”
“Talk, Jack,” Clair said. “It’s cheap.”
We were quiet. I got a crate and moved it over and sat. A half-hour passed and neither of us spoke. My butt was getting stiff and I shifted. Clair was motionless, still and silent as a sphinx. I took a deep breath, listened more than looked.
A barred owl. A bat flitted in, made a couple of circuits of the loft, and slipped back outside. Mosquitoes hummed faintly. Clair reached in his pocket and handed me a small bottle of bug dope. I put it on my face and neck.
Another fifteen minutes. And then there was a rustle in the trees. Then another.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“Deer,” Clair said, and a small doe materialized in the field.
“If there’s deer moving out there, he’s not.”
“Probably right. Why don’t you go in, get some rest. You have the radio?
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call when I need you.”
“Don’t wait that long,” I said, and I turned and started across the loft toward the stairs.
Mary was watching the news on TV, the sound turned down. I left the rifle in the hall, poked my head in. Mary said, “She went up to check on the baby.”
I said goodnight. Picked up the rifle and went upstairs, my footsteps nearly silent on the carpeted front stairs. There were back stairs going up from the kitchen, a door at the end of the hallway, to the right. I walked down the hall, checked the door. It latched with a hook and I dropped it in place. It wouldn’t stop him, but he’d have to rattle it to get it open.
I wa
lked back to our room, where the door was ajar. I pushed it open and it creaked. I stepped in, heard the whisper of their breathing in the dark.
My eyes adjusted. Roxanne was asleep on top of the covers, still in her shorts and top. Her arm was laid across Sophie, who was on her back, her mouth open. I watched them for a minute, then turned and leaned the rifle against the wall. I put the radio on top of the bureau and fingered the switch, making sure it was on. I took off my jacket, draped it by the radio. Then I stretched out on the cot, stared at the ceiling.
I listened to them, Sophie’s breaths coming quickly, Roxanne’s longer and deeper. There was a distant yapping outside, coyotes way back in the woods. More time passed. I heard Mary come upstairs, her footsteps receding down the hallway. Her door closing. I wondered if Clair had told her where he was going, or if, after all their years together, she just knew. Did she know what he was feeling? Why didn’t I feel it as strongly. Was it wrong that I still partly blamed Cheree Wilton? Maybe she was there when Twinnie was stabbed. Maybe she was driving the car. Why didn’t she leave him? Why did she let him control her? Maybe . . .
I opened my eyes. It was lighter, not yet dawn.
“Jack,” Roxanne whispered. “There was a noise.”
I rolled off the cot, grabbed the rifle.
Listened.
A banging.
The front door.
I picked up the radio. Pushed the button. “Front door,” I said.
I slipped from the room, down the hall and the stairs. Another rattle at the front door, someone trying the latch. I moved through the house quickly, went out the side door. Behind me, I heard the barn door open, turned and saw Clair emerge, rifle ready. He motioned to the back of the house, then made a circle with his hand. He’d go around the far side, I’d approach from the driveway.
I counted to five, let him get in position, then moved across the grass. Paused at the corner of the house and eased out, the rifle pointed.
Another rattle at the door—the latch again. There were rhododendrons across the front of the house, blocking the view of the front door. I raised the rifle to my shoulder, stepped out.
A figure stood with its back to me in jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt, the hood up. I took another step, said, “Freeze right there. Hands on top of your head. Move slow.”
The person froze. The hands moved up, clasped on top of the hood.