by Torsten Krol
Kraus’s phone rung in his pocket. He has got a very ordinary ring tone. He brung it out and listens, then he closed it and says to Deedle, “Go down to the front desk, there’s a fax coming through for us. Our eyes only.”
“Got it.”
Deedle got up and left the room. Kraus says, “I’m waiting, Odell.”
“I expect he’ll be back soon.”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me something I need to hear.”
“Well, I don’t know what that might be. And anyway, you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you something, so why bother?”
“That’s not the right attitude, Odell. That kind of an attitude is only going to sink you deeper in the poop than you already are. You’re running out of friends fast. Agent Deedle and I came here prepared to be your friends, but you’ve treated us like enemies, told us untrue things and got us thinking you’re deliberately withholding important information. This is something serious you’ve gotten yourself involved in here. Now, look, I can understand how you might’ve gone over to these people because you fell for Lorraine, but that’s no excuse in the eyes of the law. You don’t strike me as the lawbreaking type, Odell, so I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you’ve got to deliver something we can use. Will you do that?”
Well, I wanted to, but then I’d be confessing to murder, which I was prepared to do last Sunday because Chet made me feel bad about not being a decent Christian and so forth, so I wrote that letter to Condi, only now I don’t want anybody knowing about that so it’s a good thing I didn’t mail the letter because I see everything different now. Maybe it was still in among the floor mess in the truck and got blown to smithereens like the phone, so I’m safe about that so long as I keep my mouth shut. Being a murderer and body hider as well as being mixed up in drugs is not what I need right now to improve my situation. And why did Agent Jim Ricker tell me lies?
“So, got anything you want to say to me?” asks Kraus.
I didn’t have one single thing, so I crossed my arms over my chest, which hurt the hand that’s bandaged but I kept it there so he knows I have got nothing to say about what he wants to know. That’s how things stayed till Agent Deedle come back in with a sheet of paper which he showed to Kraus, who reads it twice then looks up at me very sharp around the eyes.
“Odell, are you a letter-writing kind of guy?”
“No.”
“Only I’ve got a letter here with your name on it.”
“Well, I don’t see how.”
He showed it to me. It’s a fax copy of the letter to Condi.
“I didn’t write that.”
“You haven’t read it yet.”
I pretended to read it then gave it back to him.
“I didn’t write that.”
“A handwriting expert will find out just by comparing this with an example of your own handwriting.”
I held up my bandaged hand. “Got a problem.”
“That’ll mend. You aren’t going anywhere, Odell.”
“Why would I write a letter like that to Condoleezza Rice that says I killed someone. I’d have to be totally crazy to do that.”
“Uhuh. Did you expect a reply by return mail?”
“No.”
“Maybe later in the month?”
“I didn’t expect any kind of a reply because I didn’t write it.”
Kraus gave me this look says he’s disappointed in what I’m saying. “Odell, when you got pulled out of the wreckage there your clothes got cut away at the hospital they’re so torn up and filthy, and we took a peek inside your wallet, that’s our job, and guess what we found. Well, you wouldn’t need to guess, would you. A picture of Condoleezza Rice. Now that is an unusual thing to carry around, wouldn’t you say? What’s your interest in the Secretary of State, Odell? Is she a target in some assassination plot, or maybe she’s the object of your affection, which is it?”
“I don’t know how that got there. Maybe you put it there.”
“You’re accusing us of fabricating evidence against you?”
I didn’t say anything. Kraus put the fax away in his jacket and says, “There’s a forensics team still going over the Lowry place. We’ll have them dig up that so-called empty grave again. That’d be smart, to stash him in a hole that’s already been opened up twice and videoed as being empty. Maybe you’re smarter than you look, Odell.”
“No I am not.”
They both got up. Kraus says, “You think things over. Think hard and you might just see where your safest course lies. It’s not just dope now, Odell, it’s murder, even if the victim was a terrorist.”
I asked him, “Where did that letter come from?”
“Head office in Washington.”
“No, I mean how did they get it?”
“That would be classified information. Admit you wrote it and maybe I could give you some background. Just to help you do the right kind of thinking, I’ll tell you this much – the informant who handed this in says he got it from inside the cab of a Dodge truck with lawnmowers in the back. He’s after that Lowry reward money. Think hard, Odell.”
They went away then. Things did not look good for yours truly, I had to admit. So how come the ones that stole the truck and set the bomb are now trying to get reward money from the letter? Wouldn’t they be admitting they did the deed and get in trouble over it? There has gotten to be way too much confusion here since I woke up with a sore head and sore hand.
Then the nurse comes back in and asks is there anything she can get me. Well, a helicopter would be nice, only I can’t fly one, so I asked for lemonade. She says they don’t have that but will get me some apple juice, which I don’t like but I didn’t want to offend her by saying so.
In the movies the guy in the hospital that wants to leave just gets up and goes to the closet and puts his clothes on and walks out, so I gave that a try. Only there’s no clothes in the closet, too messed up to keep after going through a bomb blast like they did, and when I went over to the door in my hospital gown with the peekaboo slit up the back there’s a cop sitting in a chair right next to the door. “Forget it,” he says, so I got back in bed and drunk my juice when that got brung to me. Even if it was liquid sunshine it would’ve tasted like piss, the situation I’m in.
I think I slept for awhile after that. You might think that sleeping all day Tuesday would be enough but no. Then I got woken up by the door opening and closing, and here’s Lorraine coming over to sit beside me looking real concerned for my health.
“Listen,” she says, “don’t be such a selfish prick. Tell them.”
Well, that was not what I’m wanting to hear from her, which got my back up so to speak. She’s glaring at me like I’m someone did something wrong to her, which I never did, I didn’t do anything.
“Well?”
“Huh?”
“Odell, I’m in big trouble about this. They tapped my phone and have got me and Cole discussing the operation openly and —”
“You had an operation?”
She has done me wrong but I still cared, how about that for dumb.
Lorraine rolled her eyes and says, “The drug operation. They played it back for me and now me and Cole are toast because of it. That wire tap wouldn’t have been put in place if you hadn’t done what you did, Odell. You owe me.”
“What did I do?”
“Jesus . . .okay, they just now showed me this letter you wrote to that woman, that Condi Rice, where you say you killed Dean and buried him in the yard. Is that true?”
“No.”
I made a decision on the spot about that. From now on I’m denying everything till I get a lawyer. I am not a liar by nature but I am between that rock and that hard place we have all heard about.
“Odell, they showed me the letter. It says you did.”
“It’s a forgery they made to trap me.”
She squirmed around in her chair some, then she says, “Now, you listen to me, you big idiot, Cole and me are look
ing at serious prison time because of you. Those agents, they told me confidentially they can help if they get what they want, which is the terrorists, not Cole and me, we’re little fish. They say you know something, so why don’t you tell them and then they’d go easy on Cole and me. You don’t want us to get thrown in prison, do you?”
“I don’t know anything. And I didn’t do anything.”
“Oh, jeez, Odell, can’t you think about other people for once in your life? Look what I did for you, offered you a steady job with perks over the moon, let you keep all the lawnmowing money for yourself and sleep in my house . . . that isn’t even there anymore! What did you do to make someone want to blow you up like that?”
“I don’t know. . .”
“Like hell you don’t! You’re hiding something, Odell. You put on this big dumb ox routine but I can see through it now. Too late I see it, this other side of you, the terrorist connection. You’ve got to tell them what they want to know, Odell. They’re digging up the yard out there where you buried Dean, so when they find him they’ll know it’s true you killed him . . . Why the fuck did you put it in a letter? You aren’t dumb, I know that now, so why did you do that, Odell? What’s the hidden agenda here?”
While she yelled at me I felt a very sad thing. I felt my affection for Lorraine seeping out of me like steam from a leaky boiler, all those fine feelings about love and getting married blowing away in little wisps of vapor. I can’t stop it, can’t plug it up, it just has to leak away now that I know the truth about her and Cole. It only took a little while, maybe less than a minute for all that love steam to drift away on the breeze and get replaced by ordinary air. Having that steam inside of me made me feel good for a week now, and feeling it ease out of me like a silent fart left me empty and alone, not a good feeling.
“Well? Say something.”
“I don’t know anything and I didn’t do anything.”
“Selfish,” she says, slitting her eyes at me. “Selfish and mean and unbelievably vicious, to let two people that offered the hand of friendship and employment and got smacked down for it, to let them get burned this way . . . Christ, Odell, just tell the feds what they want to know and they’ll go a whole lot easier on all of us . . . Can’t you see what it is you’re doing? Odell?”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. What else could I say? She didn’t love me and never had, it was all in the mind as the saying goes, and it made my mind a happier place for a week but it isn’t like that anymore. My mind is a cold place now with snowflakes and icicles. I could tell them where Dean is really buried and do Lorraine a favor even if it makes more trouble for me, but the fact is I wanted to punish her a little for letting me fall in love like that, cupid’s dart, and not returning the feeling one little bit, I could see that now.
“Think about it? You better do more than that, Odell.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“No shit.”
“You have to get me out.”
“Yeah, how?”
“I don’t know. You get me out and I’ll sign a legal paper that says where Dean is buried.”
That brung her up short. She looks at me then says, “So he is dead?”
“I won’t answer that question without a lawyer right here says I can.”
“You . . .you aren’t a normal person.”
“Am too.”
“No normal person could refuse to tell a sister if her own brother’s dead or not.”
She did have a point there even if I don’t care for her anymore, so I told her, kind of a teaser to keep her going, I told her, “He didn’t suffocate from the burying.”
“Meaning he was already dead.”
“My lips are sealed about that. It was an accident but I’m real sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Odell. What can I tell them?”
“Tell ’em . . .I’m thinking about it. Meantime, I want you to get me out of here.”
“That’s just ridiculous. There’s an armed cop outside the door and those FBI guys are hanging around this place like it’s their headquarters. Cole and me are both under the hammer for smuggling drugs into a state penitentiary. We’re looking at hard time here, Odell, and it’s your fault for telling the world Dean’s a terrorist! If you had’ve kept your mouth shut about that and finding Bree in the freezer none of this would’ve happened, he’d just be another missing person like all those hundreds of others that take a hike every year. But because of you we’re all under the spotlight now. For fuck’s sake, Odell . . . do the right thing . . .”
Lorraine was real upset now, with tears etcetera, not faking it. This made me feel bad all over again and wanting to tell her the truth that will get passed on to Kraus and Deedle, only I could feel myself holding back just like they all told me I am, so that part is true.
“Lorraine?”
“What!”
“You don’t need to shout at me.”
“I can’t help it, Odell, you make me so mad.”
“I’m sorry. Do you watch CSI?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“But do you?”
“Yeah, not every week, so what?”
“Well, is it true what they can do, examining dead people and finding out stuff, how it happened and so forth? Is that part true?”
“I guess. What’s your point?”
“What I’m thinking, if they brung in the CSI team to look at Dean, for example, which I’m not saying it is Dean, I’m just saying some dead person, brung the team in to do an examination, would they find out the exact truth of how that person died?”
“Probably. Is that what you want, to get Dean examined? Did you kill him, Odell? If you did I forgive you, he was asking for trouble all his life . . . only now it’s important to say what happened and let other people off the hook. It’s not just about you, Odell, other people are involved here. Do you want me to tell those agents to bring in a CSI team and find out what happened to Dean?”
“If it was Dean, which I’m not saying it was.”
“Is that what you want, Odell?”
“I . . .okay.”
There, I had gone and done it, said what I was scared to say. But the CSI team would be able to see that I didn’t hit him hard with that baseball bat and it was accidental that he died that way. They would see this with their special examinations that they do and maybe charge me with accidental manslaughter instead of murder, that’s what I’m hoping here, plus it was a first offense and I feel real bad about it and told the truth at last so maybe they won’t go so hard on me as I’ve been thinking, death penalty and so forth for premedicated murder, that’s the worst. So now I’m hopeful for something not so bad as that and it’s a big weight off of my shoulders all of a sudden.
“I’ll tell them, Odell, but they’re going to want to know where Dean is. Are you saying he’s not in the back yard like you wrote?”
“He’s over by the cottonwoods in this little dry wash where the stream kind of cut away the bank. He’s under there, they’ll see the new dirt I brung down to cover him up.”
She looked at me a long time with this expression which I don’t know how to say what it means, like she can’t believe me or she hates me, I just can’t say. Then she says very slow, “When did it happen?”
“Monday night. He come downstairs and says he can hear a prowler or something, whispers it in my ear . . .”
“I know, you told me that part about the whispering. Then what happened?”
“Well, he had this shotgun in his hand . . .and I already saw the hole in back of the house and I figured it’s for me . . .and when I saw that shotgun I guess I thought . . .He’s come to murder me. Which he would not have whispered me awake if that’s what he wants to do, just shot me while I’m sleeping . . . but I didn’t think of that fast enough and just kind of . . .hit him with the bat to save my life, I guess . . .”
“With a bat? A baseball bat?”
“Uhuh, had it right there beside me
for protection. On account of the hole.”
She looked down at her lap, gone all quiet now, then she got up and looks at me again with the strangest expression. I’m thinking this is where she says it’s okay, I didn’t mean to do what I did and she can understand how it happened the way I told her and it’s okay about all of this. What she says is, “You lame-ass idiot son of a bitch. I hope they burn you good for all this trouble you caused.” Then out she goes, leaving me feeling very confused over what she said, that last part.
In a little while Kraus and Deedle come back in with this little laptop computer. They said to tell the whole thing again about how I killed Dean accidental and where he’s buried etcetera. Deedle types up the whole story while I’m telling it, real fast with his fingers, then this little scroll of paper comes winding out of the computer and Kraus gave me a pen to sign at the bottom, which I did. He says to me, “You did the right thing owning up to all this, Odell.”
“I know it. I feel better now.”
“That’s good. We’ve told the forensics team to check out the cottonwoods. They already found the backyard hole is empty an hour ago.”
“Did you call the CSI team yet? If they look at his skull they’ll see I didn’t hit him hard. I think maybe Dean had one of those thin skulls you hear about that break real easy.”
“They’re on their way.”
“But it won’t be the TV team, will it. It’ll be some other bunch.”
“That’s right, Odell, it won’t be the TV team. They’re busy today solving other crimes.”