Fractured Truth

by Susan Furlong

  I’m really ticked now. I lunged forward, got a piece of Hatch’s jacket this time, yanked the SOB forward, and slammed my forehead into his nose. Crack.

  He clasped his hands around his nose and went dull-eyed. Blood trickled between his fingers. He sank to the ground and hunched forward. Blood ran from his left nostril and down his ski jacket like red spidery veins. I snatched the cuffs from the ground and locked him down.

  I looked up. We’d drawn a crowd. A dozen kids had closed in on the scene. They heckled and called out names: “Police brutality!” “Frickin’ sow!” Cell phones were aimed my way.

  Grabowski slowly stood, shaking his head and rubbing his jaw.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He worked his jaw a couple times and leaned in, just inches from my ear, his eyes darting between Hatch and the cell phones, then back to me. “You’re really in trouble now, Callahan. Did you have to head-butt the mayor’s kid?”

  “What? He resisted arrest, assaulted a cop. Was I supposed to play nice? Besides, it’s your fault, you know.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “You were supposed to be babysitting me. Remember?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Winnie slouched in the straight-back chair, sucking on a strand of stringy brown hair. Grabowski and I sat across from her, Grabowski all serious-like, pen in hand, ready and capable. Me? I licked my lips and let them curl into a Cheshire cat grin, not even feeling a teensy-weensy bit guilty as I’d replayed the sickening thunk of cracking bone in my mind. It’d felt good, damn good, to bust that scumbag’s nose. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  Hatch had been transported to the hospital and witnesses interviewed. They all claimed police brutality. No doubt I was in trouble. I expected it to catch up to me at any moment. Until then, I wanted to get as much out of Winnie as possible. “Hatch was pushing you around. Why?”

  She picked at a piece of loose laminate on the edge of the table.

  “Come on, Winnie. He was choking you.”

  Her knees bounced. Her eyes darted toward Grabowski. Nervous and twitchy, she was like a caged animal. And a man, or more accurately a settled man, a cop, made her feel uncomfortable. I understood. So did Grabowski. He grabbed his chair and moved out of her line of sight to the corner of the room. I changed my approach and kept talking, softer this time, small talk about this and that, until her shoulders relaxed and her hands quieted. I reached out and touched her arm. “Why was Hatch so angry at you?”

  Pick, pick, pick. She worked the laminate.

  I glanced back at Grabowski’s self-satisfied, smug look, one that said, “See, I was right.” He’d already pegged Hatch as the angry type. Too angry to be our killer. In Grabowski’s analytical mind, Maura’s killing was too methodical, too calculated, for someone harboring rage. Maybe so. But to me, most killings were about anger in some form: revenge, jealousy, hate. Murderers were angry people. Period.

  “Listen, Winnie. You and Maura grew up together.”

  Tears built along the edges of her eyes, she quit picking and started twirling a strand of hair. Back into her mouth it went.

  “Hatch isn’t even one of us.” My tone was hushed, Pavee to Pavee. “You don’t owe him anything. But Maura? She was your best friend.”

  “I know. I know.” Tears flowed now.

  She knew something, I could sense it, but what? Could Hatch have used the occult symbols to try to cover his crime? Did Winnie know something about that, and had Hatch been trying to shut her up?

  “Are you into the occult?”

  Her eyes widened. “The what?”

  “Occult. Devil worship.”

  “No. Of course not.” Her eyes darted to the door. I’d touched a nerve.

  “Kids your age sometimes mess around with stuff like that. You know, Ouija boards and things. Just for fun.”

  “Maybe other kids, but not me. I don’t do that type of stuff.” Her voice turned high and whiney, words clotting in the back of her throat. “Why are you asking me this?”

  Grabowski cleared his throat. I changed directions. “Tell me what happened that night.”

  She swiped her cheek and looked away.

  “You’re scared. I get it. But you need to tell me what you know, Winnie. More girls could die.”

  Her shoulders opened up and she turned slightly in her chair, fully facing me. I’d found a soft spot. “Maura and me, we told our mothers we were going shopping that Friday after school and then sleeping over at each other’s houses, but we went out to Stoners’ Draw. You know the place?”

  I gave her a jittery nod, memories flooding my brain. Oh, yes, I knew Stoners’ Draw well. Stoners’ Draw, which was really Old Fire Tower Road, a bit off Old Highway 2, but over the years, it’d become a popular spot for kids smoking pot and whatever else it took to get stoned. Hence the name. Also the spot where, at fifteen, I went halfies on a bottle of whiskey with Jimmy what’s-his-name, pierced my navel, and danced half naked in the moonlight. Years ago, a decade and a half before any of the real humiliations of life had caught up with me.

  “Just you and Maura?”

  “No. Hatch went up there, too.”

  “Did he bring anything?”

  “Just some beer.” She shrugged and looked away.

  I lowered my chin, captured her gaze again. Soft, Brynn. Be soft. “And what else?”

  She started crying again. Wrenching sobs. I rubbed the back of my neck. If he’d brought something else, I wasn’t going to get it out of her. Not yet, anyway. What I needed in here was Wilco, not Grabowski hunkering like a vulture in the corner. Wilco recognized grief and pain and had his way of reacting, with a look or nudge or a sympathetic whimper, that calmed anyone. But he was so keyed up after the Hatch incident: pacing, lying down, getting up and pacing again, whining.... I finally walked him down the hall to visit Parks for a while. She had a giant bowl of doggy biscuits on her desk. He was happy and settled; still, I wished he were here to soothe Winnie, and me. I shifted in my seat and glanced around the room: the floor, the ceiling, the wall, the hole in the wall where a felon had punched his fist through. And people think I have anger issues. I looked back to Winnie; she was still crying.

  I tugged her arm, trying to bring her back around. “So you three partied for a while.”

  “Yes. And Maura and Hatch . . . they . . .”

  “They paired up.”

  Her expression changed. Her lips pressed thin, her nostrils flared. She’d gone from misery to . . . to what? Rage? It dawned on me. “You like Hatch, don’t you, Winnie?”

  Her eyes bore into mine.

  I sat back. A high-school love triangle. Girl likes boy, boy likes girl’s best friend. I should have seen this coming.

  “And Maura knew I liked him. I couldn’t believe she’d do that to me. And she already had a boyfriend. A fiancé. But she didn’t care. She was like that. She got a rush out of flirting with him.” Snot dripped between her nose and lips. She swiped it away with her shirtsleeve.

  “Had she been with Hatch before?”

  She met my gaze with a bewildered look. No doubt Hatch and Maura had been together before. More than likely, Hatch was the baby’s father, at least Maura thought so. Winnie’s best friend had been messing around with her boy crush for a while, and she had no clue. Better to back down from this before she puts it together and gets all worked up again. “Why was Hatch so angry with you?”

  “He told me to lie. He didn’t want the cops to know that he and Maura were together that night.”

  “But you decided to tell the truth. Why?”

  “I thought with Maura gone, and if I covered for him, he’d see . . .”

  He’d appreciate her. Like her, even. Poor kid. She had a long ways to go when it came to understanding men. “But he didn’t.”

  Her lips tightened. “No. He ate lunch today with Shelby Reynolds. She was practically sitting on his lap. He kept touching her butt.”

  Out with the old, in with the new. “So you planned t
o rat him out to the cops.”

  She clamped her mouth shut. Uh-oh. Too much, Brynn. I sighed and sat back for the next couple minutes while she vacillated between seething and sobbing.

  This girl was a tornado of emotions. Seventeen, the age where teen angst and womanly desire collide to make or break the young female. Some navigate this time gracefully; others turn into manipulative snarks and spend a lifetime striking out at any female they see as a threat. It sounded like Maura was that type of girl, throwing herself at Winnie’s would-be love. Had Winnie had enough? Had she been pushed too far? Did she know Maura was pregnant, possibly with Hatch’s baby?

  Time to get serious. “Did you take a baseball bat to Maura’s car?”

  Her jaw went slack. “No. Why? What do you mean?”

  “Someone vandalized her car that evening.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “She was making out with the boy she knew you liked. You must’ve been angry.”

  She lowered her eyes. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “It was cold out that night, Winnie. Snowing. Where were Maura and Hatch making out?”

  “In the back seat.”

  “With you in the car?”

  She looked disgusted. “No. I got out and went for a walk.” She shifted in her seat. “I took the bottle of beer and left.”

  “You left? Where’d you go?” Stoners’ Draw was an isolated stretch of mountain road. There’s only one way up and one way down. The ideal park-and-party spot for kids in the area, but not so great if you were on foot.

  “I went to a friend’s house. He lives up that way.”

  Really? There used to be a few houses up that way, but most of them were long-ago abandoned. “What friend?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  I let it go for now. She continued: “When I got there, I called Nevan and told him where he could find his fiancée.” A little smirk played along the corner of her lips. She enjoyed causing trouble. Gone was the withering flower, replaced by little Ms. Mean Girl. Who was the real Winnie? I had no idea. This interrogation was giving me mental whiplash.

  “Did Nevan go up there?”

  Her expression changed. Yet again. “I . . . I don’t know. I stayed with my friend for a while. We drank and played video games, and then he drove me home.”

  “So you don’t know if Nevan showed up.”

  “I . . . I wish I knew.” Her eyes rounded with worry.

  Give me a break, girl. I slid the legal pad and pen her way. “Write down this friend’s name. We’ll need to verify your statement.”

  She scribbled the name and passed the paper back to me.

  Jacob Fisher.

  CHAPTER 16

  Parks sat at her desk, with Wilco curled around her feet. “Harris just came by. He was talking about you.”

  “Yeah? You don’t actually listen to that dumb ass, do you??”

  “That you busted the mayor’s boy’s nose.”

  “He deserved it.”

  “No doubt. Still . . .”

  “How’s my dog?” I pulled up a seat next to her.

  She held up an empty bag of doggy treats. “He’s not a dog. He’s a pig.”

  I squinted. Chicken Chews. Great. Chicken still turned my stomach, but my dog? Inside Wilco’s contented stomach, chicken chews churned into chicken farts. “I just got done interviewing the Joyce girl.”

  “I did that already.”

  “I know. She lied to you.”

  “Figures. They all lie to me. I must look easy.”

  I glanced at her profile. Hardly what most suspects would call “easy,” let alone what guys might refer to that way. Hair cinched into a tight bun, a creased uniform, an even gaze, and a serious set to her jaw, a straight talker. Yet chubby cheeks and laugh lines hurt her tough don’t-mess-with-me image. A capable cop, but did she have the guts to press suspects where it hurts? Doubtful. I skimmed the monitor in front of her. The Tennessee Incident Based Report System (TIBRS) was up on her screen. “What are you searching?”

  “Pusser has me double-checking evidence from the crime scene you and Wilco turned up the other day.”

  “They found something?”

  “A bullet. Pulled from the skull. Thirty-eight Special ammo. So I’m thinking a small revolver, a .38 or 357.” She clicked on the keyboard. “I’m going back about five years in the database, just to see what turns up. A long shot. Probably a waste of time. But you never know.”

  Gran’s gun was a nickel-plated Smith & Wesson 36 J Frame, chambered with .38 Special ammo. Easy for her small hands and compact enough to carry in her purse, or pocket, if needed. There might be cases with similar guns. I hoped there would be—anything to derail this investigation. But nothing would turn up linking the gun to Gran. She hadn’t fired it before plugging Doogan full of bullets. Or . . . had she? Had she used it in the years I was away? I’d have to ask her if anyone had ever seen her . . . Damn! Last year, when the press was hounding us, Gran waved her gun in front of the cameras. Did that air on the news segment? I’d never seen it. Meg told me it took Uncle Paddy and Jarvis stepping in to finally get the cameras to back off, but had they been rolling when Gran stuck her gun in their faces? I had to know. Was that the television station out of Greenville? Ah, crap. The local paper ran the story, too; that nosey reporter and her camerman had been glued to the porch that day as well. Not that it was proof of anything. Just the kind of connection that slaps handcuffs on Travellers. A Pavee with a small revolver that took .38 Special ammo. Another Pavee murdered with .38 Special ammo. To settled law, that kind of “one plus one” equaled “case closed.”

  “Brynn? You okay?”

  I blinked. “Yeah. Why?”

  “I was talking to you. The Joyce girl? You said there was something—” Her focus shifted across the room. I turned. Pusser was coming my way. Mayor Anderson shadowed him, slightly off step, his thick gut straining his shirt’s buttons. Out of nowhere, Harris appeared, coffee mug in hand and a stupid grin on his face, anticipating the drama about to unfold, no doubt. Maybe I should’ve asked him if he needed a doughnut to go along with his coffee, just a little snack for enjoying the show. Or a scone perhaps? Or a smack in the mouth. I stood and faced the approaching entourage head-on, my good-soldier face ready for the assault. Fearless. Stoic.

  My stomach churned.

  Three months. Three lousy months on the force and I was getting canned. Temper issues, flashbacks, can’t play well with others . . . Why can’t I get my act together? Hell, I’d blown a job as a security guard at a stupid storage facility in only one month. Three months looked like a lifetime career by my current standards. But this job . . . I really needed this job. No, I wanted it. And I’d be damned if I was giving it up without a fight.

  Pusser stopped a few feet in front of me. Behind him, Mayor Anderson stared me down, arms crossed, face flushed. I scrambled for something, anything. “Some more info just came in regarding the case. We should probably talk in private before—”

  He ignored my words and, with a jerk of his head for me to follow, he moved toward his office, Mayor Anderson on his heels. I followed. Behind my back, Harris laughed.

  Inside his office, Pusser started with a slick lead-in. “Deputy Callahan, the mayor wanted to meet with you to discuss—”

  “You broke my son’s nose.”

  I looked to Pusser for help. Nothing. A regular Mr. Poker Face.

  “I said, you broke my son’s frickin’ nose. You don’t have anything to say about that?” His jowls quivered, spittle on his fat lips.

  “I’m sorry?” My words came out more like a question than an apology.

  He slammed his fist down on Pusser’s desk like he wanted to drive his knuckles through my skull. “Bullshit. This is the second time you’ve gone after my boy. You got something against us, some sort of personal vendetta? You had no right to go to his school and—”

  “Your son resisted arrest! He took a swing at me. I had every right to defend myself.”r />
  Pusser’s head swiveled. “Careful what you say, Callahan. The altercation was recorded on a dozen cell phones.”

  “Good. Then you’ll see that what I’m saying is true.” I looked at the mayor. “Hatch brought this on himself. He was out of control, dangerous. He assaulted another officer. I was justified in using force.”

  Mayor Anderson jabbed his index finger in my direction. “I want her dismissed.”

  Pusser’s jaw tightened. “No.”

  “What?” Anderson’s eyes bulged. He turned red jowls on the sheriff.

  “No. I’ll have DOJ review the recordings. If they rule that Officer Callahan used excessive force, I’ll take appropriate action.”

  “I’m warning you, Frank. Get rid of her. Didn’t you watch last night’s news? She lost control of her dog. Compromised evidence at the scene. It was all over the television. An embarrassment to your department. To my town. She’s a hothead. A drunk. A liability.”

  My jaw clenched. I’d been called worse. I could handle any hateful smear. Trouble was, in this case, I couldn’t argue with it.

  Pusser leaned forward, his tone cold. “A drunk? Really? You got proof of that?”

  Anderson turned beet red. “My son’s no killer. He had nothing to do with this. If you people pursue this, you’ll be—”

  “Pursue what? The truth? That’s our job.”

  Anderson stood. “We’re done discussing this, Frank. From here on out, you can talk to my attorney.”

  He slammed the door on his way out.

  I blew out a long breath. “Thanks for defending me, boss.”

  “Don’t thank me.” He sat back in his chair, his voice even colder now as he looked up at me. “I agree with the mayor. You’re a drunk. And probably an addict, too.”

  I swallowed hard. It wasn’t like that. He didn’t get it. Drinking was . . . My throat felt dry, begging for a belt of Black Label or a cold beer. I forced myself not to lick my lips. Okay. So maybe I drank a bit. But the meds? The doctors prescribed those for me. At least they used to. My usual VA doc wanted me off them, so I found another one who understood me better. Or I thought he did. Last visit, he mentioned something about a new pain-pill policy, how I might have to taper off the meds or look at alternative therapy. What a crock. As if acupuncture or yoga was going to touch my pain. No, Doc, there is no alternative for vets like me. We’re home, but we’re still fighting a war: the scarring, the physical pain, the anxiety that comes with the flashbacks.