A burst of grief pushed past my lips. My fingers shook as I traced the picture of this perfect little girl, an innocent who'd learn too quickly that the world is capricious and cruel. Crushing the frame to my chest, I gave into the sobs, sunken by the mind-blowing enormity of what I'd done.
***
I don't know how long I sat there blubbering like an idiot. I'm sure it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. Eventually, I put the picture aside and took stock of my situation. I didn't know if I'd be able to swing a diversion or not, but I needed to find out what sort of resources I had at my disposal. I scrambled over to the upturned desk and started rummaging around through the contents that had spilled across the floor. I found the judge's purse lying abused in the corner. Dumping it out, I spied four useful things at once.
The first was a S&W snub-nosed model 36. I checked the barrel and saw that all five chambers were loaded. I shook my head. In a way, I ought to have been grateful, but I couldn't escape the feeling that I was alive only because the judge was stupid. What good is a .38 revolver if you leave it in your purse instead of taking it with you wherever you go? Maybe it was the kind of thing she kept to make her feel better—or make her husband feel better—but hoped she'd never have to use. Maybe she even believed it. I wonder if she'd thought about the gun when I took out the bailiff. It's not like she had time to say, “Wait, lemme get my purse.” Not that I'd have let her if she had.
The second item was her wallet. I pulled it open and withdrew the cash. A couple hundred bucks. It wasn't much, but as I wasn't carrying anything at the moment, it wouldn't hurt to have it on hand. As an afterthought, I stuffed her driver's license in my pocket. It's not like I could've passed for the judge, but it might be useful in trade if I needed to score some kind of ID. I can't say that I was planning on running down to Mexico or into Canada, but it couldn't hurt to have something to use that might pass a cursory examination.
Next was her cell phone. It came fully loaded with the internet and other useful apps. If they found out I had it they'd probably try to ping its location against whatever cell towers it was using, so I couldn't hang onto it for long, but it might be useful in the short term.
Lastly was something I knew I could use, assuming I could get to the parking garage. Her car keys. Looked like she drove some kind of Honda. The keys had a remote for the door locks that'd make it a hell of a lot easier figuring out which ride was hers. I stuffed them into my front pants pocket and turned my attention to the desk. After tugging open the drawer, I spied an upside down bottle of Vodka. I pulled it out, unscrewed the cap and took a swig, grimacing as liquid fire coursed down my throat and into my belly.
“Guess we all have our vices,” I said aloud to no one. I wasn't about to begrudge the judge hers. She'd also had a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her purse, but I didn't smoke. I wondered if she'd ever thought about quitting.
The second item in the cabinet was a strong box. I lifted it free and set it in my lap. I wondered what sort of things the judge kept in it. I began searching the desk for a letter opener or knife to jimmy the lock when it occurred to me that I had her keys. Feeling a little idiotic, I pulled them back out, located the key, and opened the box.
Inside, I found a plain brown envelope about an inch thick. I undid the string clasp and dumped it out. A stack of fifty dollar bills wrapped in a band that read “10,000” fell onto the floor. I picked it up and stared at it. Beside it lay a passport as well. Opening the passport, I saw the picture of the judge, but the name beneath her image was Patricia Hunt. A sly grin toyed at the corners of my mouth.
Now what was a judge doing with $10,000 cash and a passport under an alias?
Chapter 3
I didn't have time to contemplate the incriminating possessions of the judge in my case, though I was dimly aware that the mere presence of these items indicated some kind of illicit activity—the sort of thing that probably would've gotten my sentence tossed if it had ever come out, which it wouldn't have and still might not except that I'd shot the judge, broken into her office and dumped it onto her floor.
I only thought a moment about leaving it there for the cops to find when I decided against it. Whatever use it might have once had in getting me off for threatening those federal agents was overshadowed by the attempted murder, aggravated assault, and whatever other charges I'd face if they took me into custody again. If I could get out, both the money and the passport would prove quite useful. Far more so, in fact, than the hundred bucks and driver's license I'd swiped from her wallet.
I didn't find anything else that looked helpful in the desk, however, which meant I was back facing my primary problem. How to get out.
At that moment, the phone rang.
The sound startled me, and I felt my heart leap into my throat, pounding away. It rang again. I slid it over to me, staring at the myriad of buttons and flashing lights on its surface. On the third ring, I picked it up.
“H-hello?”
“Gerrold Smith?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Detective Bryce Rogan of the Ontica Police Department.”
“And what can I do for you, Detective Rogan?” I leaned back against the wall, settling in for the long conversation. This would be their attempt to “talk me down.” Get me to surrender. They'd use my kids. I was sure of it. In fact, I sorta hoped they did. I'd love to be able to speak to Matt and Sara again. Let them know I was okay. I didn't know if I'd be able to get a message through to them or not, somehow find a way to tell them that I'd be coming for them, but it was something to consider.
“Well,” Rogan said, “I was wondering how long you planned on staying in there.”
“Can't say.”
“Can't say or won't say?”
“Can't. Didn't exactly plan for this, y'know?”
“Well that's good to hear.”
I'm sure it was. Less than a minute on the phone and already I was giving up valuable intel. Now they knew this was a spontaneous act—that I didn't have a plan. I might've been able to convince them otherwise and use that to my advantage. I bit my lip. I needed to be more careful, more guarded about this. I also needed to come up with a plan, something that would get me out. They didn't know about the cash or the car keys, or the judge's fake ID. They might not have even known about the .38 special. I only had four shots left from the bailiff's service revolver, and I'm sure they were aware of it. The rest of the information I had to keep to myself.
The police Detective was still waiting on the phone. “So how do we do this?” I said.
“I don't suppose you'd mind opening the door.”
I laughed mirthlessly. “No thanks.”
“Can't hurt to ask. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“How 'bout safe passage out of here?”
“Sure. Just throw down your weapon and open the door.”
“Right. Not gonna happen.”
“This isn't gonna end any other way.”
“Sure it can.”
“Not in a way that's good for you.”
“Nothing you've offered so far is good for me.”
“What else do you think is gonna happen here? You gonna shoot yourself? Open the door and try to take us out? We've got thirty cops out here. You've got four bullets. Do the math.”
“Math's never been my strong suit,” I replied, and slammed down the phone.
***
It was sorta inevitable. A good old Texas boy like me had no business living up here in Yankee country as it was. And if I hadn’t a fallen in love and married a New Yorker, I don’t suppose I'd have moved up here. My beau was named Mary Clemente. She had dazzling blue eyes the color of sapphires that sparkled when she smiled her pearly whites. Come to think of it, they were more like the clear blue sky, and I always felt free and at peace when I got lost in them. I reckon she thought I was a man of few words when we met, but that’s only because I couldn’t think of what to say, entranced by such beauty. Frankly, no words
seemed good enough. We got married less than nine months after we met, and had our son Matt less than eight months after that. I ain’t proud of that fact. I’d like to think I had more self-restraint. I suppose if we hadn’t moved up the wedding date he’d have been born a bastard, and that wasn’t a label I wanted him saddled with the rest of his life. Not that it made much difference these days. Most kids were born bastards anymore, and about half of them never grow out of it. I figure that’s probably what happened to those FDA agents.
Matt was two years old when we first noticed the trouble. Came right around the time when we weaned him from Mary’s breast. He stopped gaining weight, got real rowdy and such. We figured it was just the terrible twos. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the signs were there from the get-go.
It was right around this time that Matt’s sister Sara came into the world. She was a feisty one. Had a shock of flame-red hair atop her head that left us scratching ours to know where it came from. Some recalcitrant genes leftover from my Scots-Irish forebears, no doubt. We joked that it must’ve come from the milkman, which I guess would’ve been funnier had we lived in the days when they still delivered milk to your door. Now it was all self-serve at the supermarket, but I can remember the glass jars left on the front step in a little red-wire basket each week. We’d leave the empties out for the milkman to pick up on his rounds, and sure as clockwork he’d leave my folks a couple of quarts of wholesome goodness in their place when he was done. Until I grew up, it always seemed kinda magical. Cycles of life. Funny the things you remember.
Mary didn’t stay with me as long as I’d hoped. Sometime after Sara’s fifth birthday we got the news. The big “C.” I still remember sitting in that doctor’s office, hearing that word, and then hearing the sound of the blood rushing from my head. All she’d done was go in for a routine physical two days before—the kind of thing I suppose we ought to have done every year—except that our busy schedules didn’t always make it possible. They discovered a mass on her kidney, about the size of a five-pound bag of sugar. How the hell we never noticed it before still blows my mind.
Renal cell carcinoma. Chromophobe, whatever the hell that means. The oncologist said it was a good sign—that this kind of cancer was the best kind to get, if you were going to get it, that is. It liked to stay in the kidney. It didn’t respond to chemo or radiation therapies, so he’d do surgery. Open Mary up and take out her kidney and all the cancer with it. She could get by just fine on one, he said. He didn’t give us much hope because, he said, he wanted us to be fully cognizant of the risks. Cognizant. That was his word. I think he used it ‘cause it started with ‘C.’ Like cancer.
Mary took to calling him the Grim Reaper. She said she’d have to have enough hope for both of them, since he was so hell-bent on being realistic.
I’m grateful to the man, don’t get me wrong. I know he did all he could. But after everything was done and she was patched up in the recovery room with a massive cut along her abdomen to midway around her back, stitched together with staples like something out of the Bride of Frankenstein, he hit us with the bad news. She was stage four. The cancer cells had invaded her renal vein and escaped into her lymph nodes. There was no stage five.
I remember asking him, “You said it liked to stay in the kidney.”
“It does,” he said, “but if it’s left untreated, it will expand into other systems. We didn’t catch it in time. I’m sorry.”
I squeezed Mary’s hand and said, “What do we do?”
There were treatments. Health therapies. Alternative medicines. And some stuff that was just downright desperate. Quackery. But what wasn’t there, was hope. I remember looking back at Mary, but she turned away from me, staring out the window, trying to see the sky. The hospital’s windows were tinted, and everything outside looked brownish gray. I think in that moment, we both knew the truth. Cognizant.
She was dead six months later.
I suppose I should’ve moved then. Packed up the kids and gone back to Texas. Things might have turned out differently had I done so. But Mary was buried in a cemetery not ten miles from our home, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave her. Besides, the kids were in school. Our church was here. Our friends were here. My job was here.
Like it or not, I wasn’t going anywhere.
But that didn’t mean I was gonna settle. I’d done my homework when Mary got sick. We both researched the internet and studied just about every damn article and website we could find. Aside from wanting to fix the cancer, which was beyond cure, we just had one other question: how the hell did it happen?
I guess that’s when we first started thinking about nutrition and about the foods that we eat. The stuff we put into our bodies. Maybe I turned into one of those health nuts—though I swear to God I’m not one of those granola-parent types. We just started thinking about it. Paying attention to what was written on the ingredients labels of our cans and boxes. About how practically everything we consume in America is processed through some factory and laced with so many chemicals and other preservatives, it’s amazing there’s anything left resembling food.
I can’t say for sure that food was the culprit in Mary’s cancer. I suppose it could’ve been something genetic. On the other hand, the cancer rates in undeveloped countries—countries that didn’t have the big factories and chemicals unless we shipped it over to them in the name of charity—those countries didn’t have our cancer rates, either.
At any rate, all this research is what led me to the realization that my son Matt’s health and behavior problems might have a cure—that maybe he had a food allergy. At the very least, I wanted to protect both him and his sister from their mother's fate.
I’m not a big believer in protecting children—especially boys. I think all kids need scraped knees and chickenpox and exposure to bugs and bacteria. It’s how we develop immunities. It’s how we toughen up to face the realities of the harsh world we inhabit. That being said, we are organic creatures. We are meant to live in fresh air and dirt, eating food grown from freshly turned earth. Life doesn’t fit into neatly trimmed boxes, and neither should our food.
I started Matt on a whole foods regimen, with raw milk from a local dairy farmer in our church, and he actually started improving. I’m not saying every kid needs it. Hell, I grew up on pasteurized, whole milk delivered to our door each week. I’m just saying Matt needs it. And when it comes to protecting my kids, I suppose I’d do just about anything.
After all, they’re all I’ve got left.
I reckon that's how I wound up here.
The phone rang again, precisely ten minutes after I'd slammed it down on Detective Rogan. I know because I was timing it using the clock on the wall. I wanted to see how long he'd give me between phone calls.
I picked it up on the fourth ring. “Yes?”
“I wondered if you've had a chance to think about your situation?”
“Yeah, but it's not like I've got anything to say about it.”
“Well, we've got someone here who might want to say something to you.”
Here it comes, I thought. A moment later, I heard my son's voice over the phone.
Chapter 4
“Dad?”
“Hey Buddy, how you doing?”
“I-I'm okay. I guess.”
“They treating you and your sister all right?”
“Yeah. I guess so. What's going on?”
“What have they told you?”
“Umm... I guess I overheard them saying that you shot someone.”
I pushed out a breath, suddenly wishing I hadn’t asked. “Yeah. Yeah, that about sums it up. Two people, actually.”
“No. No you didn't. You couldn't have. You, you're not like that.”
Now I wished I hadn’t answered. “Matthew, I would do anything for you and your sister. Including shoot someone.”
“But—”
“I know this doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. But I need you to understand: they
were gonna take me away from you. Make it so we couldn't see each other anymore. I couldn't let them do that without a fight. Maybe things have gotten out of hand, but I'm not backing down. I can't. I'm gonna fight for you and Sara with all I got. I know things look bad. But you're gonna have to trust me. If I have to pull this whole damn city down around our ears to get back to you, I'll do it. Now, what's done is done, and there's no sense crying over spilled milk. I need you to do something for me. I need you to stay strong. Don't let them tear the two of you apart. You hear me?”
His voice broke. “Yes.”
“I love you, son.”
“I love you, too, Dad!”
I hung up the phone, and for a long time sat there cradling it to my chest. I hadn't told him the one thing I really wanted to say. I couldn't afford to let the cops hear it. I only hoped he heard it in my voice. I said it aloud now, praying it got through to him somehow.
“I'm coming for you, Matt. For you and Sara. Ain't no power in this world can stop me.”
***
It felt like another hour went by before I could move again. Talking with Matt had sapped my strength. Sucked the will right out of me. All I could think about was my kids growing up as orphans. I wondered whether or not some other family would adopt them. Whether they'd learn to call some other man “Daddy.” It felt like someone was cutting my heart out of my chest. I took a few more swallows of the vodka. Probably more than I should have, given what I needed it for, but still the ache in my chest didn't go away.
Detective Rogan tried calling a few more times after I spoke with Matt, but I just kept hanging up. There wasn't anything he could offer me that I could accept, and there was zero likelihood that was gonna change any time soon.
Bottom line was, I had to get out of this room.
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