The Mercy of the Night

by David Corbett

  Putting aside for a moment the subject matter, the kid had talent. Skellenger wondered if the models had willingly posed or if Ethan had simply relied on his hormone-addled imagination—and which would be more disconcerting to the prudes and paranoids? Or the lawyers.

  Time for the letter.

  He skimmed most of it, lingering on the citations—Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser—and the operative language the school’s legal counsel applied—“creates or threatens a substantial disruption or interferes with the rights of students to be secure . . . offensive or lewd or runs counter with the school’s educational mission to inculcate values . . .”

  “They’re treating it like sexting.” Rosellen, having slipped down quietly from upstairs, stood in the doorway, arms crossed, dressed in a V-neck and drawstring pants. “Like he took naked pictures of these kids on his phone and shared them with everybody in school.”

  “Where’s the rest of the sketch pad?”

  “I don’t know, they gave it back I guess, why—”

  He held up the drawings. “They make copies of these?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “They did, that’s possession of child pornography.”

  She cocked her head slightly. “You’re not serious.”

  “If he wasn’t showing them around, they’ve got no basis—”

  “Is that really the point?”

  “How’d they find out he drew these?”

  She leaned against the doorframe, eyelids fluttering, like he was troubling her. “Some other student caught him sketching, I think, glanced over his shoulder or maybe grabbed the pad, I’m not sure, but a couple kids found out and you know how they talk. Then one of his teachers asked for the sketch pad or searched his backpack and he got called down to the office.”

  “He give them his consent?”

  “Them. Who?”

  “The principal, teacher—”

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  “Did he think he had a choice?”

  She started to say something, checked herself. “Jordie, that’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “Do the kids in these pictures know he drew them? Do the parents know?”

  “Jordie, what are you so angry about?”

  “If these kids posed he can be accused of lewd conduct.”

  “He’s a minor.”

  “So are they. All it takes is one parent.”

  “I don’t know if they posed. I don’t know who they are. One I recognize, I think, the McPartland girl. But I don’t know what happened, I was waiting for you.”

  “Say one of these girls—better yet, the guy—starts getting the business. ‘Hey, faggot, wanna pose for me? Wanna sharpen my pencil?’ What if he gets depressed, starts talking suicide? What if he follows through?”

  She moved from the doorway, drew up a chair, and sat. Hands flat on the table, like she was joining a séance: “Jordie, calm down, okay? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  He picked up the letter, shook it. “You know why they’re doing this, right? He’s the son of a cop. Yesterday morning, Mike Verrazzo gets caught with a seventeen-year-old hooker in his car, four guys not much older than Ethan beat him to death with fifty other kids watching. Not one steps up. Not one. Hear a single school official pipe up on that?” He pitched the letter back down and it sailed across the table, spinning to a stop as it hit the pepper mill. “Inculcate values. Fucking farce.”

  “Jordie, I’m not following, I’m sorry, but—”

  “Schools are an open sewer but it’s our fault, not theirs.”

  “Our fault—what, you mean me and you?”

  “I told you—this is because he’s the kid of a cop.”

  “You think this is about you?”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s still in his room.”

  “Get him down here.”

  “He may still be asleep.”

  “Wake him up.”

  73

  Tierney left with his notes and yearbooks. Jacqi and Cass drifted from the kitchen to the TV room, parking on the sofa and sipping tea, trying to avoid the morning news shows. A welcome sense of normalcy crept in, like sunlight warming the room. Noble started barking near the back of the house.

  Jacqi said, “He okay?”

  “He gets restless when he needs to go,” Cass said. “And he hates squirrels.” She put down her cup, rose to her feet. “I should take him out.”

  “You gonna walk him?”

  “Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “Can I come?”

  Like it was the coolest thing imaginable. “Not like that.” Cass twiddled her fingers at the oversized sweats. “Your clothes should be done, go get them out of the dryer. I’ll put on some shoes and leash up the boy.”

  Her things were still warm as she tugged them on, everything feeling too snug now, the tights especially, like she was a teenage mummy. But clean.

  Where the hell were her shoes?

  She padded up the wood plank steps from the cellar with its smells of bleach and wood and stone, Noble going nuts now at the door to the back, sounding a little unhinged, his bark high-pitched and sharp like a punch, nails clicking against the glass.

  At the top of the stairs she caught sight of Cass near the sink, gripping the phone, looking pissed—gesturing: Wait. Stop. Don’t come out.

  And Jacqi knew. Like a nervy little gong inside her mind, she knew what and who and as she stood there, no shoes, toasty in her fresh-smelling clothes, she made peace with it. I had these few hours, she thought. I felt cared for and listened to and seen. For a couple hours at least I got to be the girl they were glad was alive.

  “It’s all right,” she said, and came out into the kitchen and walked back to the sliding glass door where Noble was still going batshit at Richie and Ben Escalada on the porch. Richie looked haggard and, guess what, mad. Escalada looked like he’d been dragged behind a car for a couple of blocks and was ready to get even—hands bandaged, cuts and splotches of harsh red skin on his face. You need a nurse, she thought, then watched as one gauzed hand reached inside his jacket and she knew she had to be quick.

  “I’m coming,” she said through the glass, trying to calm the dog. “Don’t hurt anybody, okay?”

  She spotted her shoes in the kitchen and sat down to tug them on, trying not to look at Cass, who was gripping the phone like a rock she wanted to pitch at whoever was on the other end.

  “What do you . . . Look, I get it, I hear you, you’re backed up on calls, but I’ve got two men at my back door, trying to break in, okay? They’ve come to . . . I told you, Jacqi Garza, you know who I’m talking about, she’s here, she’s staying with me and these two men are here to take her, they’re going to hurt her, I can’t wait in line for the next—”

  “It’s okay,” Jacqi said, getting up.

  Cass shouldered the phone. “No. You stay here. Don’t go out there. Don’t—”

  “I had no right to come here, bring this. I shouldn’t have.”

  “Stop talking like that, all this I’m-not-worth-it fucked-up loser horseshit. You’re not that girl, okay? Just sit tight, we’ll—” The voice on the other end of the line squawked into her shoulder and she pressed the phone to her ear again. “Yes. I told you. Two. I don’t know—”

  Jacqi went over and took Cass’s free hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. “It’s okay, I promise. Don’t come out, okay? They’ve got a gun. If anything happened to you or Noble I’d never forgive myself. Whatever this is, I can handle it. I have to.”

  Cass tried to lock their hands together but Jacqi broke free and crossed the kitchen and unlocked the door, holding the dog back with her leg—“It’s okay, Noble, good boy”—wanting to kneel down, bury her face in his fur one last time, then s
queezing through the opening and sliding the glass door shut behind her.

  She turned and hurried down the steps into the yard, scared if she didn’t move quick she’d lose her nerve or Cass might come charging after her. The trees dripped, the soft wet ground gave beneath her feet. The garden smelled like morning.

  Beyond the wood gate Richie’s Impala idled at the curb. Someone was sitting in the passenger seat, a man, his back turned.

  “How’d you two numbnuts find me?”

  Escalada spun fast and his gauzed backhand came with it, catching her hard across the face. She almost went down.

  “You don’t open your mouth,” he said. “Get in the car.”

  Richie just stood there, gray hooded sweatshirt beneath his old letter jacket, hair wicking up in the breeze off the river. Finally, he said, “Don’t make this hard. Mom’s worried half out of her skull.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Richie. You don’t have to be this huevón’s bitch.”

  Escalada grabbed her hair, gripped it tight in his fist and he dragged her to the car like that, slamming her face against the roof just once for punctuation.

  “Oops, clumsy.”

  It felt strangely good and right, the pain. She hoped she was bleeding. She never should have come here, bothered these people, invaded their home with her Jacqiness. She should have stayed in the hills. Give the coyotes a nosh.

  The car door opened, Escalada shoved her into the backseat and then slid in beside her. The interior reeked of leather conditioner and rug shampoo. Richie got behind the wheel and lodged the tranny into drive and they roared off as the man in the passenger seat finally turned back to look at her.

  “You may be wondering,” he said, “where Hector is.” As always the voice was calm. Quiet as a flame. The Impala’s V-8 almost drowned him out. “Hector, unfortunately, was unable to make it.”

  Escalada tensed beside her, and she wondered how many seconds would pass before he took another shot. In the front seat, Pete Navarette just sat there, bulky and still.

  “You’ve made things difficult and dangerous for a great many people. That’s over, you understand? You’re now going to make life simple and safe and easy. For everybody.”

  74

  Girls, he thought, waiting for Rosellen to bring Ethan down, they’re so much easier than boys. No matter how much they scream and stamp their feet and call you every godless name they know, in some deep recess of their being, they get it: you’re trying to protect them. No matter what else fails, there’s always that between you.

  Couple months back, the new manboy came over to pick Emily up in his tricked-out Mustang—blue flake finish, monoblock chrome lip wheels, cherry-bomb glass pack dual exhaust.

  Skellenger, never one to sit and wait for disaster, saw an opportunity—Em still upstairs, teasing and spraying, locked on the mirror—so he barged out the door and down the porch steps and plowed toward the car with his hand outstretched, catching the guy—Trent, the clown’s name—before the kid could even plant the first foot on the driveway.

  “Whoa, that’s like a gearhead’s wet dream. How much this set you back?”

  Barely waited for the answer, didn’t hear it when it came.

  “Okay if I sit in it?”

  Tooled around to the passenger side, dropped down into the deep bucket seat—vinyl, not leather. Chucklehead.

  “Man, this is sweet. Mind if I push the seat back?”

  It’s some kind of universal law. Always the passenger side. Sure enough, seat pushed back, there it was—the pipe, the plastic bag. Dirt weed from the looks of it.

  “Gee, Trent. What’s this?”

  Sure, Em threw a fit when the Mustang drove off but it was theater. She knew she was slumming, the guy a hunk but a half-wit, and she knew as well that word would get around, about Emily Skellenger’s cop old man. It meant she was safe. Because things happen. And sometimes you never see it coming.

  Rosellen’s slippered feet slapped down the wooden stairs. For whatever reason—because he sensed she had the more honest handle on this, because that’s what mothers did, it was their privilege, seeing the kids clearly, so much more hands-on, because he resented her for that, because they hadn’t made love or even talked about it in how many months or was it millennia, because she’d set the terms when he gave up drinking—he couldn’t look up when she entered the dining room.

  Pulling out a chair, a ragged sigh. “He’ll be down in a minute.”

  “He’s still in bed?”

  “Kids need their sleep.” She waited till, finally, he met her eye. “So do you.” Pushing back her tinted hair. “You look like hell, Jordie. You’re pale, you’ve got coal-miner eyes. Your hand’s got the shakes.”

  Should he tell her? A kid was about to ruin their lives and it wasn’t their son, though he sure as hell wasn’t helping. Jacqi Garza, God bless her pitch-black soul, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon was going to get her second fifteen minutes of fucked-up fame. At risk was his tin and all that went with it, the income, the health care, the pension. This house. This life.

  Should he tell her?

  The slow mindless thump of bare feet on the stairs, the boy coming down. Skellenger told himself: Take a deep breath. Feeling the piece on his hip and thinking: There are days.

  75

  Tierney sat at his desk wrapping up the list, the names of the kids Jacqi’d identified, kids at the scene, kids who’d watched a man get murdered like it was entertainment. Alphabetical order, Patrick Valdez the last, and he chuckled, remembering the girl’s surprise. “Only name I ever heard him go by was El Palillo.” Toothpick.

  His cell lit up and shuddered atop a stack of bills—incoming call, Cass. He thumbed the sliding lock. “Everything okay?”

  “They came and took her.” Voice tight in her throat. “Two men, they were at the back door.”

  Processing that. “They break in?”

  “No, no—I tried to stop her but she said one of them had a gun.” Breathless pause. “I’m feeling sick about this.”

  “You called 911.”

  “Don’t get me started, but yeah.”

  “Was there a car, did you see it?”

  “An old Chevy sedan, I told the police all this.”

  “And?”

  “I fucked up, said she left with them. The dispatcher’s like: So what’s the problem? I’m almost screaming: She had no choice. And the woman, swear to God, she actually says this: ‘Well, we don’t know that for a fact, do we?’”

  He patted his pockets, wallet, keys. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Phelan?” A crack in her voice, but just a crack, then a breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Sit tight. Lock the doors. I’ll call back when I know something.”

  He went out to his car and felt through the grit beneath the bumper and sure enough, there it was, exact same place, just like the first one, tucked inside a magnetic box. Probably put there at the restaurant, he thought, Los Guanacos, when they drove up and saw the Honda in the lot. God, they must think I’m dumb. And they were right.

  76

  Richie closed the bedroom door behind him and threw a suitcase onto her bed. “I’m driving you to Chico. Pack your shit.”

  Jacqi stared at the bag, pink shiny vinyl trimmed with yellow, a girl’s bag. It was old and scuffed and dusty. Inside, no doubt, it smelled. Not the kind of thing you used for stuff you actually wanted. Just stuff you intended to throw away. Your shit.

  “What’s in Chico?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  He went to the window, slumped against the wall, and began gnawing on his thumbnail as he stared out through the blinds at the tiny backyard.

  “There’s nothing in Chico,” she said. “You know it, I know it. I’m never gonna make it there.”

  “Will you just shut up?” C
losing his eyes, he leaned more heavily into the wall, as though hoping he might sink into it, merge with its solidity. “Sick of your mouth.”

  She ran her hand across the comforter, so cool and smooth, like she never expected to touch it again. “What happened to Eastwood, Richie?”

  He opened his eyes and stopped breathing for a second, like she’d somehow managed to peel away a bit of his shadow, and it hurt. Then he shoved off from the wall and came toward the bed, clicked the latches on the suitcase, ripped the thing open—sure enough, musty and rank—and he turned toward her bureau, jerked open a drawer, started grabbing things.

  “Richie, I need to know, okay? I need to know what—”

  “He took off for Texas.” Richie threw two fistfuls of blouses into the bag. “Said he knew a guy.”

  “How the hell could he know a guy in Texas?”

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, fucking drop it.” He turned back to the bureau.

  “They killed him, didn’t they.”

  He stopped, back still turned. “I told you already, he left. Let it go.”

  “They made you watch.”

  “You always think you’re so damn smart, everybody else is stupid.”

  “They made you do it, made you kill him. So you’d be stuck.”

  He yanked open another drawer. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I can’t live like this anymore, Richie.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “They’re going to kill me.”

  “Will you shut . . . the fuck . . . up!” He rested his elbows on the top of the bureau and clutched his head. “You’re going away to school. You had any sense, you’d realize you got the best hand of anybody. Play it.”

  “I don’t wanna go.”

  “Then fuck yourself.”

  “Richie, please, look at me. I’m not some crazy bitch—”