Lesser Crimes

by Aitana Moore

  "Mr. Bryce!" the chief called in a loud, exasperated whisper.

  James put his finger to his lips, and they had no choice but to follow him. Good men, that's the way to do it. They had their bloody guns, which would be useful. He wished he had one.

  "Watch out!" Noah shouted.

  James instinctively ducked, just as something flapped over his head. He knew it was a bird, a large one by the sound of the wings, and he lay flat on the ground, his hands over his head. A bird usually only attacked a man if it had a nest nearby, in which case it could get unreasonable. He glanced up to see that Noah and Fisher had also dropped to the ground, and a hooting drew his eyes to a naked branch above them.

  An owl, opening its wings to full span. Blimey, it did look big like that, and its black talons, clutching the branch where it had perched, looked dangerous. The bird’s yellow eyes stared at him as it opened a sharp little beak to emit a more threatening noise.

  That beak and those talons could certainly create some damage, if mama owl decided to land on a man's head.

  James' eyes widened as he stared at the bird. Those talons could certainly create tri-pronged linear lacerations.

  "Owls dive-bomb people sometimes," Noah whispered as he crawled sideways to get out of the creature's vicinity. "They been getting aggressive lately."

  They could attack people — and that's what one of them had done to Joe Keane in the woods next to his home.

  All the time, it had been an owl. An owl that had created such deep and painful lacerations on Joe's head that he had entered his house in a panic, profusely bleeding, had missed a step on the stairs and fallen, breaking his neck. And if April Keane hadn't put Cora's fingerprints on a fake murder weapon and dropped it next to him, Lee wouldn't have thought her mother had killed Joe; she wouldn't have set herself up or run away. There was so much that would never have happened to her.

  These thoughts raced through James’ head as he said, "It was an owl. Joe.”

  The chief looked up at the bird, as all three men managed to move slowly out of the way without provoking its fury. "Are you saying—?"

  A voice below made them stop in their tracks. It was a man's voice, but James couldn't hear what it was saying. He rushed toward it, leaving the policemen behind.

  "We can't—" the chief began again.

  James didn't care what Fisher thought that he could or couldn't do. He weaved through the trees until he reached the level of the creek. The burning cabin was behind him, the water to his right, and a weeping willow in front followed the curve of the banks. There was a small boat, like a dinghy, under the tree, but he heard the voice again, ahead and slightly to his left.

  "I'm so sorry, Lee ..."

  As James rounded a corner, there was the big, burly form of Ross Olson, and beyond him there was Lee — holding an oar, her other hand in the air. Olson had a gun.

  "... I can't let you live!" he said.

  "No!" James shouted.

  Olson turned, and James saw his horrible, staring eye, a flap of what looked like skin and nerves over his cheek and a bloody face. Then he heard a loud, dry noise and felt an impact on his chest, as if he had been pushed, and a burning.

  Somehow, he was lying flat on his back, looking at the branches above him. They were beginning to have leaves, and the blue sky looked pretty. Spring was coming.

  He heard Lee’s scream and, before his eyes closed, he thought, Lee, the whole time it was only an owl.

  THIRTY-ONE

  In the harsh light of the hospital, Lee's downcast look stirred James’ compassion, but the acute pain he felt at the tiniest movement reminded him to appear stern.

  He couldn't help wishing he hadn’t been such a ponce and fainted; he wished he had seen the blow Lee had delivered to Ross' face with an oar. Or, rather, the two blows. She had knocked him unconscious and broken his jaw.

  His Lee was something else. In her wake there had been a burning cabin, a man with broken bones and without an eyelid, and another man saved by her courage.

  And there had been Lee and James, almost killed once more by her belief that she had to face things alone.

  He frowned as she threw a hopeful glance his way. She really needed to learn — because she had had to fight almost to the death because of a danger she might have avoided, if she had only trusted him.

  It was time to sit up, and it hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. The bullet hadn't caused more pain than a blow, the wound hadn't burned as much as he thought it might, and he was used to stitches — but a tiny nerve hurt something awful, as a native Carolinian might have said.

  Yet he was dressed, his arm in a sling to avoid more movement, and he was ready to go. Lee ran around the bed to help him. He wanted to kiss her, but he wasn't going to. She really needed to learn. There were only so many times that fate would let you get away from sure death.

  Again he scowled at her, and she leaned against the bed, her body making nice shapes.

  "You'll never talk to me again?" she asked.

  "Hurts to talk," he said curtly.

  "Here's the lucky man!"

  Paxton walked in followed by Ava and proceeded to shake his head at Lee. “My, my. Were you trying to kill James before he paid me, sugar?”

  Ava patted Lee’s arm. “He’s all right, though. It’s what matters.”

  “Hmmm,” James said.

  “You’re off the hook, dear,” Paxton announced to Lee. “The lab work returned traces of owl DNA in those lacerations, apart from the evidence under Joe’s nails that includes bits of feather and wood bark. They say it was most likely a great horned owl.”

  “I assume it has four talons, and that first puncture on Joe’s head was the back claw?” James asked.

  “Yes, Nature Man.” Paxton smiled. “The owl took a good hold of Joe’s head with all four talons on one side and three on the other. Perhaps that’s why Joe managed to dislodge it. But he got those long lacerations when pulling the bird off, that’s for sure.”

  Lee shook her head in wonder. “All that time, Joe was just attacked by a bird.”

  “It was a bit of a—” Ava glanced at Paxton. “—a confusion.”

  “I guess I added to it,” Lee said. “Won’t they indict me for messing with the crime scene?”

  “They don’t know you did that,” Paxton said. “And I think their tails are between their legs at the moment. Once all the paperwork clearing you is through, we might even prosecute them, if we have a mind to it.”

  “We don’t,” James said decisively. “We want it to be over.”

  Nodding her agreement, Lee said, “Yes. Please.”

  Paxton looked at James. “About that other matter?”

  “Can you give me a moment, before you go there?” James asked.

  “Sure, dear. We’ll wait out here.” He looked at Lee, then back at James. “You two will be all right. Come on, Ava.”

  “It was … strange to work for you,” Ava told James. She turned to Lee. “And you’ve got to get a little bit less crazy, but you’re fierce.”

  The attorneys almost bumped against the doctor on their way out. The man walked in looking down at a clipboard and briefly glanced at James but kept writing on the chart. "A few inches lower and that would have been your heart."

  "You don't say."

  "Crazy story, from what I hear," the doctor continued, still writing. "But if you're happy to leave today, I'm happy to let you go. Always better to avoid infection." He held up an orange bottle and rattled the pills inside. "That pain should subside on its own soon, but in the meantime I'm prescribing Vicodin."

  James and Lee began to laugh as if on cue.

  "I guess it's an inside joke?" the doctor said, looking from one to the other.

  "We met over Vicodin," James said. As Lee crept closer to him, he mouthed, "No."

  "Will you be changing his dressing?" the doctor asked Lee. "If you go over to the nurse station they'll show you how to do it. Won't shake your hand, Mr. Bryce. I know it woul
d hurt."

  "Thanks for everything."

  "You bet," said the doctor, walking off briskly as he clicked his pen a few times.

  Lee was still there. "Won't you ever forgive me?"

  "Don't know. But cute pout."

  "James, I couldn't talk about what I found out because of Caleb. I had to know more before I ratted on him."

  "There's always going to be a reason, Lee. You'll be protecting someone or wanting to make sure of something, and you'll do it again."

  "But you almost died! I've learned now. If I promise never, ever to—"

  He interrupted her, "I think I've aged ten years since I met you."

  "I'm sorry.” She looked at her own feet. “Because it only did me good to meet you."

  He narrowed his eyes. "Good try. I've been cooped up too long. I'll wait for you outside." As she moved, he added, "A nurse costume might go some way toward obtaining a pardon, by the way."

  It was worth hinting at forgiveness: he got a naughty look from her as she left the room.

  James didn't immediately go outside. Instead, he popped the Vicodin. It would start working in a moment, and he tolerated the pain as he moved down the hall to another room. The door to it was open, but he rapped it with his knuckles anyway.

  "Mr. James Bryce," Caleb said from the bed in a raspy voice.

  "May I come in?"

  "Sure!"

  Caleb seemed expansive; he probably had some drugs in his system as well, considering he had undergone exploratory surgery just a few days before. He was gaunt and pale, but his eyes were darker than usual as he smiled.

  "You look all right," he observed.

  "Hurts like a fucker," James confessed. "Caught a nerve."

  "They had to take a piece of my liver,” Caleb announced. He was competitive.

  "But you'll make it, huh?"

  A shadow fell over the officer's face. "Only the good die young."

  "Your friend Scott wasn't so good."

  "No. No, I guess that was a disappointment. He didn't have to do what he did — lots of people poorer than him are honest."

  James leaned against the wall. "You still protected him."

  "I was protecting his parents. Didn't want them to realize what Scott had done. I almost grew up in that house. They were great folk to me."

  "Why did you keep the money, if you weren't ever going to use it?"

  Perhaps it was the drugs, or the brush with death, but Caleb looked pensive. It was the first time James managed to see him as a kid, young in years and experience.

  "I don't know. When you grow up without money, it gives you a turn to see so much of it — and then realize you should burn it. You think maybe someone will need it — someone will need a doctor, or a place to live or something."

  They stared at each other for a second, and James almost wanted to laugh, thinking that his parents had once wailed about being poor. Most people had to make too many of their decisions based on money; even the rich did so, although he didn't have a lot of sympathy for the dilemmas of his class.

  "So, did the lab confirm the owl thing?" Caleb asked.

  "Yes. Lee has been cleared."

  "Dang. I guess I wasn't prepared to be that kind of cop. I'd never have thought about an owl, even though I know they can dive-bomb people sometimes. One went for my friend's dog once. But hell, there was a fire poker lying right there!"

  "It was a mess, and the lab didn’t do its best work, but a more experienced cop like Putney ought never to call any case open-and-shut."

  "We all sucked,” Caleb said softly. “I was shitty, Putney was shitty, the lab. Scott was shitty, and Ross was a huge piece of shit."

  "Ross will certainly pay for being a shit, and Scott paid with his life. Ross probably killed him, you know."

  "He what?"

  Poor Caleb, it seemed, would never make much of an investigator.

  "They've found a short blond hair inside the rubber that was around Scott's arm," James explained. "It was also overlooked at first, because his death was set up to look like an overdose. I’m sure it will turn out to be Ross' hair."

  "Why the hell would he kill Scott?"

  "Maybe Scott was flashing the money too openly? He bought a house, didn't he? Or maybe Scott had a change of heart, or a fit of conscience. Ross wanted a steady, stable business, but he allied himself with a kid and with a big mouth like Joe."

  "Maybe he'd have killed Joe, if the owl hadn't,” Caleb remarked. “For taking Jada Phillips to the cabin, with the lab just hundreds of feet away. I mean, that was pretty dumb of Joe."

  "Criminals are not often smart people. But it was a convoluted case. The most obvious crime wasn't even committed by a person."

  "You figured it out,” Caleb said. “And Lynn did as well."

  "I figured out some things because I care about Lee, and because I could afford to get good people on the case. She figured out things because she's smart."

  Caleb nodded. "Yeah, she's smart. Always was. And she has more guts than anyone I know. All this stuff was right under my nose, and I figured zilch. Imagine, if I had seen it she might never have left."

  Easy there, Officer. She did leave, and she ain’t staying either.

  "But the poker?" Caleb frowned. "Who put the poker—?"

  "All will come to light quite soon, I'm sure," James said. He unglued his back from the wall, trying not to grimace. "And you'll be all right."

  "Well, I guess I'll be going down for tampering with evidence and hiding some bad secrets."

  "You did it for Billy, no?"

  "Yeah. Couldn't leave Billy and Maddy without a breadwinner — but I didn't know Ross was a murderer. I thought he'd been making and dealing drugs, and that he was going to stop. He did stop. No one used that lab in years; Ross just couldn't sell the land because it was in Scott's name. That day I told him to go there and destroy it, though there wasn't anything inside anymore.”

  Paxton had found out that the corporation in St. Kitts had been set up by Scott. Although Ross had probably administered everything behind the scenes, he hadn't wanted anything in his name — until his wife made a cash payment for property taxes and foolishly asked for a receipt. How that must have thrown him for a loop … James wondered what had made him send Maddy on that errand. Perhaps he had been out of state, but it had been a fatal mistake.

  Everyone made a mistake, sooner or later, but there had to be someone there to notice.

  "What you did is a serious offense for anyone, especially for a cop," James told Caleb. "I guess your career will be ruined, but you can still work in private security or something like that."

  "With a rap sheet?"

  "That attorney of ours is interested in taking your case."

  Caleb whooped with laughter. "I can't pay that man. I ain’t got no more money under a floorboard, James Bryce."

  "He'll do it pro-bono."

  "Why would he do that?" Caleb's eyes widened in understanding. "Oh, did you put him up to it?"

  "You said people take care of each other in your town, don't they?"

  "You're not from my town, though."

  "Lee is. Sort of. And if she risked her life to save yours, it must be worth saving." James tapped the metal at the foot of the bed. "You take care, Brooks."

  Caleb's voice stopped James before he left the room.

  "English guy!"

  "Yes?"

  "You take care of Lynn. She looks like she doesn't need it, but she does. Everybody does. And if you ain't good to her—"

  James scoffed. "I'll probably get an oar to the face or a comb through the eye."

  A delighted chuckle rose from the patient. "That's right." Caleb's expression sobered a little. "She'd leave you, James Bryce. And then you'd spend your life trying to find someone that can make you forget her."

  "I know that. I just wish she'd stop trying to kill me."

  As he walked down the hall, there was more whooping laughter from Caleb. "That ain't never gonna happen, English guy!”
>
  Was Lee ever not going to be trouble? In any case, she was still worth it, and she was already outside, leaning against his car. As he approached, she unfolded plain blue scrubs and shook them. "Nurse costume, as requested."

  He raised his eyebrows and made an African sound of disdain with his tongue against his teeth. "You really don't care to be forgiven, do you?" As he got into the passenger seat and she behind the steering wheel, he added, "On the other hand, perhaps you might be able to rock that. You could try."

  She turned to smile at him, and he allowed himself to smile back. A moment later her eyes took on an uncertain look as they searched his face. "Where are we going?"

  Poor Magpie, she didn't yet know where she belonged. She would find out, but first James said, "Your people really like the word 'closure', don't they? Then I think there's a stop we ought to make."

  “Maddy won’t forgive me.”

  “You know I’m not talking about Maddy.”

  Lee did know, and she seemed more scared than when facing a Glock.

  "But you're in pain," she said in a small voice.

  "The Vicodin has kicked in. And I can give you a pill, if it will help your state of mind. Sometimes, a very few times, it's better to confront bad things in your life when you're high."

  "What kind of advice is that?"

  "It's what the Buddhist monks told me." James put the car on D. Stupid transmission. "Drive, Mag. Let's get this over with."

  THIRTY-TWO

  "Well, it's a crazy, crazy thing, this owl business," April Keane said, tapping her own chest with long-nailed fingers. Today the polish was red. "Who on earth would have thought?"

  She cleared magazines and plates from the sofa, as if Lee and James had come on a social visit.

  "My poor Joe!" April added. "Still, Lynn, you'll be cleared now. I'm happy for you."

  The look on Lee's face made April stop short after taking a step in her direction. The woman would actually have tried to embrace her daughter.

  April stepped back instead. "Why you looking at me like that for, Lynette?"