Cast in Stone
Page 25
"My men are trained to exercise due restraint."
He tried to leave, but she stopped him again. The cop was patient.
"Don't let them bring him out like . . . Tell them to fix him up, please," she said finally.
His eyes narrowed, but he stayed professional. "I'll take care of it."
With the crook of a finger, he summoned the two radio officers down from the porch. They leaned in close, throwing glances our way as he spoke, returning to their positions when he'd finished.
Without any visible signal being passed, both front doors were suddenly assaulted. On the right, the yellow door shattered, and bounced inward on its single remaining hinge, and then swung fully open, leaning awkwardly against the porch rail. The inside of the door was adorned with a colorful poster: LOVE SHOULDN'T HURT. The team disappeared inside.
On the left, the lock held, leaving the ram huried in the cheap hollow-core door. While the officer struggled to pull the heavy ram free, one of the others reared back and planted his booted foot just above the lock. The door burst open, dragging the ram, still imbedded, with it. The armed officers went in back to back.
The undercurrent of weather" was drowned amid the shouts coming from the duplex. One by one the lights in both units came on. The shouting died down. The three cops still outside shooed the neighbors back to their homes. Katherine Swogger leaned heavily on my left side. Marge had slipped her arm through mine. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. "Take it easy," I said. "It'll be over soon."
The team on the left appeared on the front porch.
"Empty," the sergeant shouted.
One by one the officers walked back into the street and waited. A shadow appeared in the door of the right unit. Both women tensed. The sergeant walked briskly over to the Statie with the stripes. I disengaged myself from the women. "Stay here," I said. As I closed the distance, I began to pick up parts of the conversation.
"Well then, give him a frigging shower," said Statie. He saw me coming out of the corner of his eye and motioned me over. He was angry.
"Did you know what was going on in there?"
"No, and don't tell me," I said.
"I been at this twenty-four years, but this is the capper," he huffed. "Jumping Jesus." He spoke to the sergeant. "Bring the women out. Make sure they're decent. We'll transport them separately."
As the sergeant hurried back inside, I walked back over to Marge and Katherine. "They're bringing the women out," I said. The two women stood huddled together, fused by some unspeakable kinship.
Claire Hasu came out first, her eyes rolling in her head like a spooked horse, handcuffed behind, and officer on each elbow, her head sticking out from the top of an orange police-issue poncho. Her feet and legs were bare and otherworldly, seemingly translucent, in the purple glare of the mercury vapor lights.
A red-and-white Shephard ambulance pulled up in front of the house, partially muffling her voice, blocking our view. The doors were opened from the inside. Two white-shirted EMTs stepped out into the rain.
Terra came out next. Same arrangement. Another orange poncho, this one cinched in place by a bungee cord around the waist. In the odd artificial light, her
black-clad legs all but disappeared, leaving her torso to float on air. From behind the ambulance, Claire's voice rose again.
"Tell them they've made a mistake. Tell them," she said as Terra was led by.
"Be quiet," Terra said without looking at her mother.
Claire offered pointless resistance as they pulled her, skidding on her bare heels, around to the back of the ambulance, lifted her onto a collapsible gurney, and pulled the straps tight.
Whatever else she had to say was cut off as they lifted her into the ambulance. Two members of the assault team, bulky flack vests still in place, climbed in after her, pulling the doors shut behind them. Without turning on its lights, the ambulance purred off down the street.
Terra didn't watch it go. Her eyes were locked on Marge Sundstrom, who had crept out from beneath the tree and stood now in the rain-slick road no more than twenty feet from the woman she had known as Allison Stark. Marge opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.
A white state police cruiser came to a stop between the two women. The driver hustled around and opened the door. Only Allison's head was visible above the car. Her lips curled as she spoke.
"You cow," she said in an even tone. "I only wish I had a chance to work on you. I'd make you bark like a dog." The cop tried to push her into the car. She kicked a leg out backward and locked her chin onto the roof. "You want to hear about your precious Nicky? How he liked it with the Vaseline. How he liked me to—"
The Statie with the stripes shouldered his way through the other cops, grabbed her by the hair, bent her head to her waist, and, using his knee as a catapult, launched her into the backseat.
"Get her the hell out of here!" he shouted at the driver.
As the police car pulled away, Marge stood transfixed in the middle of the street, her feet wide apart, hands thrust deep in the patch pockets of her plaid wool coat. She stood for a long moment after the car had gone, then turned quickly and walked toward me.
"I'll be in the van," she said, brushing my shoulder on the way by.
By the time they brought Jeffrey Swogger out, fifteen minutes later, Katherine had gravitated across the street. She stood tall among the knot of police officers along the sidewalk, her wet black raincoat shimmering with reflected light.
His curly hair was soaked and plastered to his skull. He wore the same blue suit he'd worn when I met him, except without the tie and the belt this time. They'd done the best they could. Although his face was ruddy from a recent scrubbing, the lips were still a bit too bright, the eyelids still a shade too defined. Katherine called his name. He tried to speak. The lips moved, but nothing seemed to come out.
"Oh, they're gonna love him down at King County," said one of the cops behind me. A second cruiser pulled to the curb.
I turned and walked around the corner to the van. My legs were stiff. I felt like the Tin Man. Marge sat low in the passenger seat, staring out the side window into the darkness.
"You okay?" I asked, as I buckled up.
She took a deep breath. "That wasn't nearly as much fun as I thought it was going to be."
"Funny, but I think that's what the Reverend just said."
The little smile told me she was going to be all right.
THE END