Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

by C. J. Box

I said, “We could have done that or we could have hit the road right away and decided to go out with guns blazing. Maybe we could have created a media spectacle, gotten the press and the public on our side. Maybe that would have scared the judge and Garrett away.”

  She took in a deep breath. “I’ve thought of those things. Believe me, Jack, I’ve never once stopped thinking of what we could do. Neither would have worked. I think you know that.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “At least we could have tried.”

  “We did try,” she said, her eyes tearing up. “We tried with the help of our best friends, and we did everything we could do. And I want you to stop speculating right now. All I’ve got in the world is the knowledge that we did all we could.”

  I sat down heavily at the table. She came over and put her hands on my shoulders, leaving flour handprints.

  “And we still don’t know why they really want her,” I said.

  But I had an inkling, a thought so dark I still couldn’t share it, despite what Torkleson had said. And when I looked up at my wife, I could see by the emptiness in her eyes and expression that it had crossed her mind as well.

  Sunday, November 25

  The Day

  TWENTY-THREE

  AND IT WAS OVER.

  Even now the events of that morning are wispy and sharply painful and disconnected in my mind. I remember everything, but I have trouble putting the events in order. Even now, as I recall them, my heart palpitates and my breathing gets shallow and irregular and I find myself reaching out to steady myself.

  It was early in the morning when the doorbell rang, I remember that clearly. The sun hadn’t yet percolated through the clouds and, with an inch or two of fresh snow on the ground, it seemed ice blue outside. I remember my eyes shooting open and being instantly awake and thinking: It’s them.

  A BLAST OF WINTER as I opened the front door to find Sanders, Morales, the sheriff with his big gut and gunfighter’s mustache, plus a female deputy I hadn’t seen before. All of them crowded on my front porch wearing identical sheriff’s department dark coats, condensation like smoke from their mouths haloing around their heads as they stood there like a small black army from hell. They stamped snow from their boots as they came into the living room.

  Outside, parked in my driveway with the motor running, were Judge Moreland and Garrett. Waiting.

  Behind me, Melissa came down the stairs holding Angelina. When she saw the cops she said, “Oh my God.”

  The female deputy was introducing herself, talking in I’m sure what she thought as competent and soothing tones. I didn’t hear a word she said.

  I can’t recall if I lost it as she held out her arms for our daughter or when the sheriff said the Morelands “just want the child. They aren’t interested in the boxes.”

  Something white-hot exploded behind my eyes and I was on them—punching, kicking, gouging, trying to get through them to the door so I could get outside and pull Moreland and Garrett from their car into the snow and kill them with my bare hands. Sanders went down with a surprised look on his face, and his fall took down the sheriff. The female deputy shouted while she unclipped her pepper spray and threatened me with it. Either Sanders or the sheriff clipped me hard in the jaw with a frozen fist and my teeth snapped together and my head snapped back and for a second I was staring at the ceiling. Then my arms were pinned to my sides and my feet left the ground as Morales picked me up in a bear hug and slammed me face-first into the couch. I saw spangles and little else for a moment. There was a knee in my spine and my arms were wrenched back. I heard the zip sound of flexcuffs being pulled tight around my wrists.

  Through a fog, Melissa said, “I just can’t hand her over to you. I can’t perform that act.”

  The female deputy said, “That’s all right, I understand. Just put her in that swing, and I’ll take her out. You don’t have to hand her to me that way.”

  “I can’t. I can’t.”

  “Please, ma’am. We don’t want to have to restrain you to take the child. Think of the girl, think of the girl in your arms. We don’t want to risk hurting anyone.”

  Melissa did it.

  I heard an animal roar that turned out to be me.

  Deputies cried, looked away.

  The female deputy wrapped Angelina in blankets she’d brought along and backed toward the door, flanked by Morales and Sanders.

  Directly in front of me, inches away, was the hem of the sheriff’s coat as he directed them. I could feel the cold emanating from it.

  Angelina realized that she was being taken away and she screamed and her chubby hands shot out from beneath the blanket toward Melissa. The deputy quickly covered them back up.

  Melissa shrieked and dropped to her knees.

  The front door closed as the female deputy went outside with Angelina.

  The sheriff said to Sanders, “Call the EMTs.”

  To me, “Can I trust you to help your wife if I cut you loose?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Melissa climbed back to her feet with the help of Morales, who was openly blubbering.

  The sheriff watched the exchange outside through the front window, then said with grim finality, “It’s done.”

  My cuffs were released, and I rolled off the couch to the floor, scrambling to all fours. Melissa was clutching herself, her eyes wild, her face bone white. I rushed to her.

  She collapsed in my arms, but I held her body tight against mine so she wouldn’t slide to the floor. I duckwalked with her that way to the couch.

  They say that when a person dies, the body suddenly becomes lighter as the soul leaves, that it’s been measured. Melissa didn’t die, but I remember thinking that her soul had left her because she felt featherlight in my arms.

  As I picked up her legs and put them on the couch, I heard the tires of Moreland’s car crunch snow as it backed up and left.

  A few moments later an EMT van, lights flashing, swung up into the driveway. The EMTs had no doubt been on call just down the street in case they’d be needed. Suddenly, there were more dark-clothed people in our house. They helped Melissa up the stairs into bed. I stood on the landing shell-shocked, my eyes burning. My jaw hurt.

  There was a heated discussion as Morales and Sanders told the sheriff they refused to arrest me for assault, and if he insisted on it, he could do it himself, and they’d walk off the job. I heard him say, “Jesus, okay, okay. You guys are too damned close to this situation, that’s for sure.” While he talked, he sucked on a bloody front tooth that had been dislodged during the scuffle.

  Sanders said, “You bet your ass we are.”

  I went upstairs.

  Melissa was sedated. Her eyelids fluttered and her grip on my hand relaxed to nothing and her hand dropped away. I looked up at the EMTs and insisted I didn’t need anything, didn’t want anything.

  When I went back downstairs, the sheriff had left. Morales and Sanders stood there with their heads down, staring at their boots.

  Sanders said, “I hate my job.”

  Morales said to me, “Can we leave you? You won’t do anything, will you? You won’t hurt yourself or anyone else, will you?”

  I shook my head no. Which meant yes.

  And it was over.

  THAT EVENING, as the sun set and suspended snow and ice crystals lit up with the cold fire of it and the temperature dropped to minus ten, I checked on Melissa in our dark bedroom. Still sleeping. The EMTs said she would likely be out all night. Nevertheless, I left her a note on the night table in a scrawl I didn’t recognize. I wrote:

  I’M GOING TO GO GET ANGELINA.

  IF I DON’T COME BACK I WANT YOU TO

  KNOW I LOVE YOU WITH ALL OF MY

  HEART.

  LOVE, JACK

  I slipped the Colt .45 into the front right pocket of my parka. It was heavy. To balance out the load, I emptied the box of cartridges in the left.

  THE COLD SLAPPED ME right in the face. When I breathed in, I could feel ice crystals form in my n
ose. The snow squeaked beneath my boots. That sound made me grit my teeth, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  I’d forgotten gloves, and the metal of the door handle of my Jeep stung my fingers.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Jack?”

  I froze. Cody.

  I turned stiffly. He was walking across my lawn. His car was parked in front of the house, and I hadn’t even noticed it.

  “I’m going to kill Judge Moreland.”

  “So it’s over? They took her?”

  “Where were you? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

  “I broke my stupid phone on a guy’s head.”

  “I need to go.”

  “He probably does need killing,” Cody said. “But not now. Not by you.”

  “Stay out of my way, Cody.”

  He reached out and grabbed my coat sleeve. I wanted nothing to do with him, had no desire to hear his words. He wasn’t there when we needed him, and I had to do this myself.

  Cody said, “What I’m saying is that you don’t need to go over there right now. You won’t get close anyway—the sheriff’s got cars in front of Moreland’s house just in case you thought of trying something like this. All this will do is land you in jail.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You should,” said Cody. “Because I’ve fucking cracked this thing. We’re going to be able to get that son of a bitch Moreland and get your daughter back.”

  I blinked.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “How?”

  “I’ve got somebody with me you’ll want to meet.”

  I looked at Cody’s car again. There was no one in it. But I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. The car was trembling a bit, rocking slightly side to side.

  “He’s in the trunk,” Cody said. “Let’s go get him and have a little talk inside.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO MR. MCGUANE,” Cody said to the disheveled little man he shoved roughly through my front door.

  He mumbled something in a tight-lipped way that sounded like “My-wott.”

  “Where’s Melissa?” Cody asked me.

  I chinned upstairs. “Sedated.”

  Cody shook his head. “Bastards. Is she okay?”

  “How could she be?”

  “Bastards.”

  “They came this morning. The sheriff and three deputies. The judge and Garrett stayed out in their car and didn’t even come in.”

  My-wott stood there, watching us go back and forth as if he were observing a tennis match. By his blank expression I could tell he had no idea what we were talking about.

  “Sit,” Cody said to My-wott, indicating the couch. The little man shuffled over to it stiff-legged and sat down. I could see now why he couldn’t talk and could barely move: He was freezing. His skin was sallow. His teeth were chattering so hard it sounded like popcorn popping. My-wott was thin, stooped, mousy. I guessed his build at five-four, 130. He had badly cut brown hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses, no chin but a prominent Adam’s apple, and his face was a moonscape of old acne scars. He had furtive, darting eyes and a manner to him that was weak and annoying. I felt sorry for him but wanted to hit him at the same time. He wore a red-checked plaid shirt, baggy jeans, and Crocs shoes. His arms shot out when he sat down, and I noted a massive gold Rolex on his wrist that just didn’t go with the rest of him. It looked like it weighed two pounds.

  My-wott had a nasty-looking bruise right in the middle of a small bald spot on the back of his head. Cody saw me looking at it, and said, “That’s how I broke my damn phone.”

  Cody dragged two chairs from the kitchen and placed them in front of him. He spun his around and straddled it, placing his arms on the top of the backrest. His eyes were gleaming, and his mouth was set in a sarcastic snarl. “I said, introduce yourself to Mr. McGuane.” To me: “Jack, have a seat.”

  The little man looked down at his Crocs. His legs shook violently.

  “Speak the fuck up,” Cody said, and slapped him sharply on his face. I glared at Cody, who ignored me.

  “Wyatt,” the man said.

  “Wyatt what?” Cody barked.

  “Wyatt Henkel.”

  “And where are you from, Wyatt Henkel?”

  “You mean now, or where I was born?”

  Cody slapped him again.

  “Jesus, Cody,” I said.

  Cody looked at me. “When you hear what he’s going to say, you’re going to want to do more than slap him.”

  “Still,” I said.

  “I was born in Greeley, Colorado,” Henkel said, forcing the words out through his chattering teeth. “I live now in Las Cruces, New Mexico.”

  “Good,” Cody said. “Now tell Mr. McGuane why you’re here. Why your telephone number was on Brian Eastman’s call log from his cell phone.”

  Henkel looked away from Cody and stared at our gas fireplace, which I’d turned off a few minutes before as I left the house.

  “I’m freezing to death,” Henkel said, turning to me. “I’ve been in that trunk for eight hours.”

  “Seven hours, tops,” Cody said. “Quit whining.”

  I got up and walked over to the fireplace to turn it on.

  Cody said, “No—keep it off.”

  “Look at him,” I said.

  “Fuck him,” Cody said. “We’ll turn on the fireplace once he starts talking.” To Henkel, Cody said, “Fuck you. Got that?”

  Henkel avoided meeting his eyes.

  To me, Cody said, “I noticed some weight in your coat pockets. Are you carrying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get that gun out of your pocket. This is your grandpa’s Colt .45 Peacemaker, right?”

  I drew it out. It was heavy and cold, and it looked like a blunt instrument in my hand.

  Cody said, “Cock it and put the muzzle against Wyatt Henkel’s forehead. If he tells a lie, I’ll ask you to pull the trigger. Don’t worry about his brains splashing all over the wall because I don’t think he has any. And don’t worry about the body afterward, either. I’ll just take it up to where I buried Uncle Jeter. It’s a perfect place nobody will ever look. Maybe the coyotes will dig up their bones in 2025, but by then who gives a shit?”

  Cody defused my look of horror with a barely perceptible wink that Henkel couldn’t see because his head was still down. Okay, I nodded. Now I get it.

  Henkel’s head came up slowly. He was terrified.

  I cocked the hammer and the cylinder rotated and I put the muzzle above his eyebrow.

  Cody shifted in his chair and pulled his departmental .40 Glock semiauto. He held it loosely in his hand. “In case he misses,” Cody said to Henkel.

  “Let’s start again,” Cody said to Henkel. “State your occupation.”

  Henkel’s voice was high and reedy. “I’m a janitor at Las Cruces High School.”

  “A janitor, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, I like that. Call me ‘sir.’ And call Mr. McGuane here ‘sir’ as well. Now tell me how long you’ve had your job.”

  “Seven years.”

  “What is your salary?”

  “I make $26,000. It’s considered part-time.”

  “Interesting,” Cody said. “You pull down 26K, but you live on five acres and you have two new vehicles. Is that correct?”

  Henkel tried to swallow, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Yes,” he said.

  “And you have that big piece of gold on your wrist. Is it a fake? One of those Taiwanese knockoffs?”

  “It’s real,” he said.

  “And that Escalade you drive—was it stolen?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You live well for a part-time janitor, don’t you, Wyatt?”

  “Not as well as some, but I do all right.” His voice had gained some confidence. He was warming up both literally and figuratively. Which angered Cody.

  “Shoot him,” he said.

  I pushed the gun h
arder into Henkel’s brow.

  “No!” he cried, his eyes round.

  “Then answer me straight,” Cody said. Cody even scared me.

  “Okay,” said Henkel.

  “You weren’t always a janitor, were you?”

  “No.”

  “What other jobs have you held?”

  “A lot of ’em. I’m not very smart, I guess.” Although Cody was asking the questions, Henkel was answering them to me. Probably because despite my gun, Cody scared him more. “I do my best, but people just don’t like me. No one’s ever really liked me.”

  Said Cody, “I can see why. Again, what jobs have you had in your life?”

  Henkel’s eyes rolled up as if trying to remember. “Retail, mostly. Wal-Mart, Target, Pier One. I moved around a lot between New Mexico and Colorado.”

  “You didn’t mention that one-hour photo place you used to work at,” Cody said. “You know, that one in Canon City, Colorado.”

  “Oh, that one,” Henkel said, his face getting even whiter. Cody’d struck a nerve.

  “Tell Mr. McGuane when you worked there.”

  He thought for a second. “It was 2001.”

  “Before everybody went digital,” Cody said. “Back at the end of the film-and-print days.”

  “Yes. I don’t think that shop is even there anymore.”

  “Royal Gorge is outside of Canon City, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s quite a spectacular place, isn’t it?” Cody asked. “Lots of tourists go there to see it and walk across the footbridge and look down at the Arkansas River. There’s even a state park there, right?”

  I tried not to look at Cody to ask him where the hell this was going.

  Henkel paused, then said, “Yes.”

  “In 2001, the caretaker of the state park brought in some film to have developed at your shop. Do you remember that?”

  Henkel tried to swallow again but couldn’t.

  “Could I have a glass of water?” he asked me.

  “You can have a bullet in your head,” Cody said. “Again, do you remember when the caretaker of the state park brought some film in to you?”