City Problems
Page 21
“Hello?” She sounded far away.
“Ally, I am right outside. Can you come talk?”
She paused. “Mom says no.”
“OK. Ally,” I said. “Buzz did not kill that girl.”
I heard her gasp. “He didn’t?”
“No. We caught the guys who did. You can see it in the paper tomorrow, or maybe even online now. But Buzz was not involved.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why did you tell us you saw Megan running near the trailer park one morning?”
“I … don’t know.”
“Ally.”
“I thought I did.”
“Ally. When you lie to cops, you are interfering in an investigation. You did not see her, did you?”
There was a long pause, so I repeated myself. “Did you?”
“No.”
“Why did you lie?”
“I wanted to find out about her, to see more about her.” Ally was crying.
“Why?”
“I thought Buzz and her were … you know.”
“You were jealous.”
“Yeah.”
“And you thought you’d talk to us, learn more about her, maybe get Buzz in some trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t do it. He may not be Mister Awesome, but he did not kill that girl.”
More silence, more sobs. Then: “Thank you.”
“OK.”
“I am sorry I lied.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“OK.”
“I could charge you. I am not going to charge you,” I said.
“OK.”
“Just don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
I ended the call.
I started walking home. If Ally Phelps had been a better liar, if I had believed her, would I have assaulted Buzz? Would I have gone out of my head and beat him, maybe killed him?
Jesus.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sunday, 8:36 a.m.
I SAT ON the oak stump, staring across the pond, squinting in the reflected late morning sun.
A streak of lightning had torn a wound in an oak on the other side of the water, years ago, long before I came here. I stared at that old scar, shaped like lightning itself, and tried to imagine the flash, and the sizzle, and the burnt smell. Zap. Rip. Done.
Things happen fast in this world. Too fast, sometimes.
I’d had less time than that lightning strike to decide whether to kill Jeff Cotton or not. I still was not sure whether I had made the right call.
I heard a car door slam, but I didn’t bother to turn around to see who it was. I knew who it was.
I watched the red-tailed hawk circle, and listened to the sound of footsteps through the tall, dry grass.
There was no convenient stump next to mine, so Linda plopped onto my lap.
She placed her forehead against mine. “You OK?”
I brushed her hair away from my eyes. It took me a while to answer.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you supposed to be working at the art fair?”
“I took a mental health day,” she answered. “By the way, I picked up the guitar parts. Thought I might make something artsy out of them. If that is OK.”
I kissed her nose. “That is OK.”
We sat that way for a little while, her wrapped in my arms, not talking. A dog barked somewhere, and crows squawked, and the water lapped against the bank.
Eventually, she broke the silence. “I read the Gazette this morning. Jesus, that was scary shit.”
“Farkas spell my name right?”
“Yep. You know, Ed, you could not possibly have saved her.”
“Not so sure,” I said. “I did not look for her full-time, you know. SWAT calls. Drunk hooker with a gun. Too many distractions.”
“None of which were your fault, right? So nothing you could have done, right? Not your fault at all what happened to her.”
“I know. I guess.”
“So … why so down?”
“I quit my job, Linda.”
“I know. Debbie called me. She’s worried. I am not sure if I am worried or glad. Tell me about it.”
“I just walked into Daltry’s office, put my badge and ID on his desk and told him I was going to take all of my unused vacation time. I have a lot of that. And I told him I wasn’t coming back.”
“I meant tell me about why you quit, not the gory details with Daltry, but OK. He didn’t say anything? Try to keep you on?”
I laughed, hoarsely. “Hell no, he’s glad to see me go. By the way, I think Daltry tipped off Brian Cotton.”
“What the actual fuck?”
“They are buddies, Daltry and Brian, and Jeff was on a hair trigger. He was calm and cool when we talked to him before, but as soon as he saw my lights this time he bolted, and he was packing a serious gun. Anyway, I think Daltry said something to Brian, maybe on purpose, maybe accidental, that tipped the Cottons off that we were coming for Jeff. Or maybe Jeff overheard something and got spooked.”
“Jesus.”
“Can’t prove it, but I mentioned it to Bowman. He’ll poke into it, I suspect.”
“Jesus,” she muttered. “Will Cotton’s friends be an issue?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “His property is a crime scene, and it is crawling with cops. Those guys can’t get to all their deadly stuff. They might have stuff at their own homes, probably do. But Brian is talking about lawsuits, not insurrection. We’ll keep an eye on them, but I think we’re OK. Besides, Jeff confessed to everything, and so did his buddies. Brian and his gang are nuts, but I suspect this all has them stunned. They are probably as confused as anyone.”
I took a deep breath. “Anyway. So I don’t trust Daltry, and he does not trust me. Other guys are wondering about me, too, no doubt, probably not eager to work with me.”
“Why?”
“I should have killed Jeff Cotton.”
“No, it is good that he is alive, Ed. He’s a kid. He can redeem himself, maybe.”
“You don’t understand.”
“OK. Make me understand.”
We sat a while longer. My legs were falling asleep, but I needed Linda in my arms more than I needed to feel my toes, so I just endured it. A splash in the water caught her attention, and she twisted around to see. “What was that?”
“Probably a frog jumped in. We have some fat frogs out here. They make a lot of noise jumping in.”
She turned back to look at me. “I am proud of you, Ed. You could have … Jesus, you could have killed that boy. And I know you wanted to, and the guys say you are a damned good shot, but you didn’t. And I just, I just … I am proud of you.”
I lifted her off my lap and stood. “Don’t be. You don’t really understand, Linda. No way you could.”
She stood and squinted. “What? I understand that boy is not dead. What is wrong with that?”
“I fucked up,” I said. “I broke training.”
“Please explain how letting a boy live was the wrong call.”
“We had probable cause and evidence to think Jeff Cotton had been involved in a murder,” I said, quietly. “We went to arrest him. Jeff ran, carrying a semiautomatic rifle with God knows how many bullets in the magazine and a fucking bump stock attached.”
“Bump stock?”
“Lets him shoot way more rounds way faster,” I said. “Anyway. I chased him into the woods, alone, which I should not have done. Jesus. I endangered my partner. Suppose he had circled around and shot her while I was running around playing Rambo in the woods looking for him, huh? What if that had happened? He could have cut her to pieces while I was off looking for him. No. I should have waited for backup, we had a chopper, we had SWAT, we had all the pieces in place. We’d have gotten him. But I chased him, and he turned that weapon on me … and goddamnit!”
“Ed …” She brushed hair away from my eyes.
I was staring at the ground, fists clenched, jaw clenched, everything clenched.
“I should have blown him away! God help me, Linda, I should have blown him away.”
“Ed …”
“No! No! Hear me out!”
“OK.”
We stared at each other. A hawk’s shadow crossed her face.
“I took the wrong shot,” I finally said. “When a perp turns a gun on you, you aim for the chest and you keep shooting until he can’t hurt you or your fellow officers or anyone else. That’s what you do. That’s what I should have done. But I didn’t do that.”
“You did the human thing, Ed.”
“I did the stupid thing! My head was all full of rage, and full of you, and everything else, and … and …”
“Full of me?” She sounded surprised.
“Yeah,” I said. “You. And things you said. About justice and all that. I should have been dispassionately killing the guy with the big bad gun who was trying to kill me. Instead, my brain was AWOL, listening to a hippie angel.”
She took my hand. “What next?”
“I aimed for his leg. I took a bunch of risky, stupid, godawful low-percentage shots at his knee. It didn’t kill him. If he had not dropped the gun, he could have killed me. Easily, even after I shot him.”
“Ed—”
“And, fuck, he could have killed any of the SWAT guys coming out of the trees. With that much firepower, he could’ve blasted the fucking helicopter out of the sky. You get that? He could have killed guys on my team! And he could have run off through the woods, into town, and hell, if he’d gone off his nut, he could have killed the fuck out of a lot of people …”
She wrapped me in her arms. “None of that happened.”
“It could have.”
“It didn’t.”
“It could have. And it would have been my goddamned fault.”
We stood that way, holding each other, a long time. I was shaking, for a while, until she broke the silence. “Is that why you quit, Ed? Because you think you fucked up?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. I may be all off in the weeds on … on Megan, and Bree. But this, I fucked up. Ask anyone else in the department, or on SWAT. They know it, too. I fucked up.”
She stepped back. “OK. So, you fucked up. Human beings do that every goddamned day. And, for the record, I personally am glad you fucked up on the side of not shooting a boy dead. Bad as he is, as ugly as his crimes are, as bad as his friends are, he is young and he has time for redemption. So do they. Right? You see that, right?”
“Jesus, no theology, OK?”
She smiled. “You know I love me some do-good Jesus, Ed, but OK, I won’t preach at you. I am just saying that kid will pay for his crimes, the others will, too, but he has a chance to get past all this, and so do his friends, thanks to you.”
“Megan Beemer doesn’t have a chance. And you weren’t in the interrogation room with him. I did not do the universe any favors letting him live.”
Linda sighed. “Fine. We can discuss redemption and change and human spiritual growth and all that shit later.”
“All theology is amateur theology,” I said. I had said that to Linda many, many, many times.
“OK.” She waved her hands in the air, as if to ward off mosquitoes. “So, OK, you quit a job that I think was maybe not good for you anyway. What are you going to do?”
I spat. “I have time to think about it. You would not believe how much unused vacation time I am taking.”
“OK.”
“I am serious. Want to go to Cancún?”
“Sure. Let’s take a trip. Somewhere sunny and bright with drinks that have umbrellas in them. But that is a short-term plan. What are you going to do after that?”
“Well, before that, I am going to church.”
Her eyes bugged out. “What?”
“Nancy keeps inviting me. I was shitty to her the other day. So I am going to a party at her church, after all the amateur theology, and apologize to her. I’ll take her a couple of fry pies, too. And Bax might be there—I think he goes to her church. I owe him an apology, too. Want to go?”
“You at a church picnic? Won’t miss that. OK. So church lunch, Cancún, then what?”
“I thought I might get my PI license.”
“PI?”
“Private investigator. Like Philip Marlowe.”
“Who?”
“You never read the books I recommend.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Yeah, I remember. Guns and shit, not my thing. But really, a private detective?” She did not seem to be on board with the idea.
“As a PI, I could take the cases I want to take, and not have to worry about someone’s fucking stolen tractor or getting called aside to handle a goddamned OD or domestic incident. No SWAT shit coming at me out of nowhere. I could focus one hundred percent on whatever case I take on. And if I screw up, it’s on me, not on the rest of the team. I won’t get anyone else killed.”
“OK, I see some logic in that. Maybe? What kind of cases? Cheating husbands? Cheating wives?”
“Might have to do some of that, to pay the bills. But … I thought, maybe, I could specialize.”
“In what?”
“Missing kids.”
She had me in her arms again before I finished saying those words.
“You do that, Ed. You do that.”