by Dave Stanton
“I would have hit him in the face, but he ducked and it was just a glancing blow. Then he got up and hit me hard enough to give me a concussion.
“My father arrested him that night. He lived in the neighborhood, and people said he was mentally disabled, his mother took drugs, he didn’t know what he was doing. He spent two years in jail, that’s it. Before he got out, Felicia hanged herself. She just couldn’t live with what happened.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, a lump in my throat. I wished I knew how to say something more. Candi continued staring out the windshield, as if unwilling, or maybe afraid, to look at me. But she was not crying, nor was pain etched on her face. I imagined her trauma was so personal she loathed sharing it, hated imposing it on anyone. Instead she internalized it, tried to relegate it to a deep, seldom visited chasm in her mind. I knew of such wounds. They bleed, they scab over, they fade and retreat into the past, and over time they’re replaced with brighter memories. The human psyche heals itself. But the scar resides permanently on the soul. I reached over and took her hand, and she finally turned toward me.
“The world’s a beautiful place, but there’s danger out there. You don’t have to try and hide it from me. Don’t try to tell me otherwise.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, and when I looked in her eyes I felt an odd kinship, one born of grief and suffering and the horrible realization that our fellow man has the capacity to commit acts so heinous that the agony never stops, but lives on eternally in those who survive. You’re never the same after a loved one’s been victimized. You lose a basic faith in humanity, in the belief we all share a common decency. And that changes a person.
“Now tell me how you killed the man who tried to hurt you,” Candi said.
• • •
I drove to where my truck was parked and dug the spare tire out of the snow and replaced the flat. Despite being unlocked, the interior of the cab appeared undisturbed. I unlocked the steel box in the bed and saw that my gear was intact. My Beretta automatic lay atop my body armor. I picked up the gun, feeling its weight, the grips caressing my palm. Then I followed Candi home.
It was past midnight, but Candi claimed she couldn’t sleep. We sat on the couch, her .38 resting on the coffee table. It wasn’t long before she lay down, her head in my lap. As for me, the dope Massie shot me with must have run its course, because I was wide awake. Once I felt her steady breathing, I covered her with a blanket and went to my office and called Cody.
“Hey,” I said, “Did I wake you?”
“Do I sound like I just woke up?”
“No. What are you doing?”
“Driving.”
“Oh. Listen, I just got home from the hospital. I was there for five hours or so, recovering.”
“You’re fine, then?”
“Yeah. Hey, man, did you say something to me before about not telling the cops it was Massie?”
“Are you telling me you forgot about that?”
“I was nearly passed out when we talked. I just remembered it.”
“So, you told the cops?”
“Yeah.”
Cody laughed.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Did I tell you about that case in San Francisco where the Mafia kid was trying to impress the big bosses?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Humor me, Dirt. I’ve got a long drive in front of me.”
“Where are you?”
“Bungfucked Egypt. Now, listen up. The young son of a Mafioso takes it upon himself to wage a one-man war against his family’s enemies. He sees this as a shortcut to being a made guy. But his method ain’t guns or knives. He somehow got ahold of a stock of military-grade C4 cartridges. The same stuff the Navy SEALs and the black ops commandos use. A cartridge the size of a wallet can blow a car to smithereens, I mean doors flying off, the frame a twisted mess, the whole thing burnt to shit. So the kid starts with cars. Plants a cartridge on a greaseball’s car, underneath near the gas tank where no one can see it. Then he waits until the right moment to dial a cell number that triggers a fuse, and, bla-bloowie, the car launches into the air and parts go flying and there ain’t nothing left of the unfortunate goombah.”
I heard the gurgle of a bottle, followed by Cody’s sigh.
“The kid’s having so much fun he decides to take it to the next level. He creeps the home of his pop’s archenemy, a mobster who lives in a big mansion across the bridge there in Sausalito. He plants enough C4 on the place to not only reduce it to rubble, but to likely take down the whole freaking block.”
“You worked this case?”
“Yeah, I was hired by an interested party, so to speak. Anyway, me being the concerned citizen I am, I intervened and stopped the imminent slaughter of not only the mob boss, but also many innocent civilians. In a sane world, I’d be granted a medal, but I’m still waiting on that.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“A story, what does it sound like?”
“There’s an APB out on Massie, Cody.”
“And I bet they’ll find him soon. In the mean time, I wouldn’t worry.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Hey, I got to get off the freeway. There’s this country western bar up here that’s supposed to be packed with babes.”
“Goddammit, Cody. I’m sitting here with my gun, wondering if Massie’s still in town.”
“Hang loose, Dirt. He’s probably at home, throwing a barbeque.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You’re drunk.”
“You ought to have yourself a drink, too, I’m serious. I’ll catch you later.”
“Cody?” I said. But he’d hung up.
I found a pack of cigarettes and stood in my kitchen and stared at nothing for a long time. I didn’t know what to make of Cody’s drunken babble. Or maybe it wasn’t drunken babble; maybe he was really, finally losing his mind. Regardless, I decided to take his advice. I poured two inches of whiskey into a water glass and put on my heavy coat and went outside to the deck. The snowfall had lessened, and I could see the moon in a black clearing in the sky. With my arm, I swiped the snow off a section of railing and set down my drink. The blanket of snow covering my yard was unblemished. Out on the street, my neighbors’ homes were dark, save for a few scattered lights that broke the darkness like random campfires in a desert. I lit a smoke and drank from my glass in one long, continuous pull.
After a minute I walked the perimeter of my property, the white fluff coating my shins. I saw no tracks except those of a small animal, and heard nothing but my footfalls. The whiskey had settled pleasantly in my gut, but my fingertips were going numb and the cold was penetrating my coat. I double checked the hidden wiring for my home alarm system, then kicked the snow off my boots and went back inside.
Her lips parted as she slept, Candi looked angelic. I lifted her from the couch as gently as I could and brought her to the bedroom. She murmured in protest, and after I pulled the blankets around her, I returned to the couch and surfed the channels, hoping to find a movie to keep me occupied. When that failed, I sat in darkness, wandered the house, and sat some more. The hours passed slowly.
14
Candi woke me the next morning. I’d fallen asleep shortly before dawn, and slept fully clothed on the couch.
“Here,” she said, handing me a coffee cup. “Did you get much sleep?”
“Enough.”
“Dan, is it safe for me to go to work?” It was Wednesday, and her first class was at eight thirty.
I rose and stretched and sipped at the coffee. “Even if Massie is foolish enough to hang around town, he won’t try anything in broad daylight, with witnesses. Just stay away from any secluded area.”
“I’m taking my gun in my purse.”
I knew that was coming, and though I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea, I wasn’t about
to stop her. Not that I could if I tried. “I don’t think you’ll need it, but just be careful,” I said. “Why don’t I drive you this morning? Grier wants me in his office at nine anyway.”
“You better go take a shower.”
“All right. I’ll come get you at noon, take you out to lunch.”
She smiled. “Okay, my guy.”
We left the house half an hour later, and I saw no sign we were being watched or followed. Stalking a target in daylight is difficult if the target is on the alert. And I didn’t suspect Massie was trained in the art. He’d taken me down at night when my guard was down, but he’d blown his chance, and I would not grant him another.
I dropped Candi off at the campus and made it to Grier’s office fifteen minutes early. He came through the glass doors five minutes after nine. I was reclined in a plastic chair, my legs stretched out straight and my hands clasped on my stomach.
“Morning, Sheriff.”
“My favorite PI, alive and well,” Grier said. He wore a police-issue winter coat and a hat with earmuffs. “Let’s go,” he said, and walked back toward the doors.
“Where?”
“I want you to take me to where they took you.”
“What for?”
“Would you quit asking questions? Come on.”
I followed Grier out to his Ford Explorer sheriff’s vehicle. “I doubt this rig will make it,” I said.
“It’s got four-wheel drive. We’ll chain up if we need to.”
We drove away from the lake to Pioneer Trail and followed it toward the state line. The landscape was buried under last night’s storm, the main road plowed, but everything else covered in white. Clumps of snow fell continuously from the pines as we drove, landing on the road and hitting our windshield with dull thumps. Once I saw the gondola cables rising up the mountainside, I said to Grier, “Hang a right.” We turned into a residential area, the road slick with packed snow, and weaved our way through a series of turns before reaching a wire fence bordering the forest. We drove parallel to the fence and past a hillside meadow, until there was an open gate and a faint trail leading up the grade. The trail was covered in fresh snow, but I could still make out tire tracks.
“Stop,” I said.
Grier looked up the trail, and his face creased in doubt. “This is it?”
“Yeah, I think, so.”
“Chains?” he said.
“Chains.”
Grier pulled a heavy box from the rear of the SUV, and after a minute it became clear he was not particularly adept at chain installation. I told him to stand aside and completed the job. Then he drove up onto the trail and nearly ran into a tree.
“Where’d you get your license, Cracker Jacks?”
“There must be a sheet of ice under all this snow.” Grier inched forward at a speed that did not register on the speedometer.
“I do have other things to do today, Marcus.”
“You want to drive?”
He stopped and I took the wheel. Five minutes later we came into the clearing leading to the wood plank A-frame garage.
“It was two patrolmen who found you passed out last night,” Grier said. “Bill Worley and another detective came afterward and secured the crime scene.” I pulled up to the garage doors. Yellow tape in a giant X stretched from one side to the other.
We got out and tromped through the snow to where a padlock hung from a metal slide bolt that had been mangled by the shots I’d fired. The padlock had been clipped with bolt cutters.
We went inside and he hit the light switch. A chalked outline of the man I killed was the only sign anything had taken place. That, and the congealed puddle of blood where his head had came to rest. Everything else was gone; the branding iron, the remnants of the chair, the small propane stove. We stood in the middle of the room, looking around and blowing steam. It seemed surreal, as if my abduction had occurred in a dream.
“They’re looking at some prints they took from the door,” Grier said.
“They might be able to lift something off Massie’s gun. Did they find it?”
“Yeah, it was outside. Next to where you were lying in the snow, Worley said.”
“Have the police in Stockton raided Massie’s house yet?”
“Raided? An APB is out on him. But he could be in Mexico by now, for all I know.”
“He tried to kill me, and said Candi would be next.”
“I know that. What else can you tell me about what happened last night?”
“Like I told your man at the hospital, Massie shot me with horse tranquilizer, kidnapped me, and tried to brand a swastika on my face.”
“I read the report,” Grier said. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and walked around the garage, peering in the corners and up into the rafters, as if searching for some hidden artifact. Then he walked out the garage doors.
“You stood here and fired at Massie as he drove away?” Grier pointed down the trail we’d driven up.
“That’s right. I hit his truck twice, once on the tailgate, and also on the roof.”
Grier took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “We need physical evidence to prove he was here.”
“Find his truck and maybe you can find a slug, run ballistics.”
“That’s pretty weak. Maybe the prints will pan out.”
“Are you saying you don’t have enough to arrest him?”
“Arresting him is one thing. Trying and convicting is another.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Grier’s cell rang. He turned his back and walked a few paces away and had a brief conversation consisting mostly of “okay” and “got it.” Then he turned toward me.
“What?” I said.
“Douglas PD made an arrest in the murders of the two girls.”
• • •
We didn’t talk much as I drove Grier’s rig back to the police station. The sun had burned through a smear of purple-tinged clouds, and the sky was tiger-striped in blue and white. Crystals glittered in snowfields along the road where streaks of sunlight fell with blinding intensity. On another day I might have paused to marvel at the setting, at the reminder of why I chose to live here. But today the moment escaped me, because I was consumed with Grier’s remarks about the potential difficulty in prosecuting Massie. I could not tolerate Massie remaining free, not after what he said he’d do to Candi. But if he was really tied to the AB, even jail did not eliminate him as a threat.
I parked and followed Grier through the lobby to Bill Worley’s office. The detective from El Paso wore a bolo tie, and in the corner of the room a beige cowboy hat banded with silver squares hung from a rack.
Worley looked at me and hesitated. Grier nodded at him and said, “Just tell us what you got, Bill.”
“Awright, then. Greg McMann called and said they made the arrest this morning. The suspect is named Tim Elkind. Lives out in Fallon. He’s got a rap sheet chock full of small time stuff. Busted for drugs, DWI, domestic abuse, shop lifting, and, get this, he was also jailed once for having sexual congress with a sheep.” Worley handed Grier a stack of papers.
“What kind of evidence do they have?” I said.
“McMann wasn’t specific, Dan,” Worley drawled. “Reckon they had enough to make an arrest.”
“Does it say what kind of car he owns?” I asked Grier, who was flipping through the pages. He grunted ineligibly.
“He was one of the men whose picture you had from Pistol Pete’s,” Worley said. “White trash hillbilly type, straggly beard. Remember him?”
“Yeah.”
“Galanis busted him years ago on the bestiality charge. Elkind got probation, but apparently the rap ruined his marriage and forced him to move.”
“And that’s the basis of his grudge against Galanis?”
“It was no small thing for him, according to McMann. He worked at his father’s ranch near Carson City, but after the bust he became known as Ole Sheep Dip, both behind his back, and some called him that to his face.
After his wife left him, he moved out of state for a while. Then he moved back to Nevada, out to Fallon.”
“Says here he owns a black 1999 Ford Ranger,” Grier said.
“McMann said we’re free to interrogate him this afternoon, after they’re done.” Worley looked at Grier, who still was studying the pages.
After a moment, Grier’s eyes rose. He looked at neither of us, his expression glazed and tentative, as if he was deciding how to deal with a problem not of his making.
“Well, I guess that’s what we’ll do,” he replied.
• • •
Before I drove from the sheriff’s complex, I unlocked the steel box in my truck bed and shrugged into my Kevlar body armor. The vest had stopped lethal rounds on four occasions—more than that if I counted a couple shots that probably wouldn’t have killed me. It was heavy and not particularly comfortable, but it was my favorite goddamned piece of clothing. I looped my shoulder holster over it and snapped my Berretta automatic into place. I’d cleaned and oiled the weapon around three in the morning.
Did I think it likely Massie was lurking around town, waiting for the right moment to finish the task at which he had failed? The police were looking for him, and he was someone who would stand out in a crowd. The logical thing for him to do was head for a different state, or even a different country. But hardcore felons often don’t subscribe to logic that prioritizes staying out of prison. That’s why recidivism rates are so high. Career criminals don’t know how to behave otherwise. It’s the same concept as trying to force-feed democracy to third world countries that have known no political system other than dictatorship.
I drove to the community college where Candi was teaching and spent half an hour scouting the surrounding area. Then I parked and walked the campus. After that I spent another fifteen minutes watching with binoculars from different vantage points.
Satisfied the campus was secure, I drove over the state line and past the casinos, to the Douglas County police complex. I parked under a huge fir on the edge of the lot and sat for a minute, wondering if Galanis and Greg McMann were still with their suspect. If they weren’t, maybe I could have a word with them. Perhaps they’d share how they figured a man with a history of mostly petty crimes, a man caught screwing a freaking sheep for crying out loud, was the brazen yet elusive killer of two young women.