by Joe McKinney
“Excuse me, son. Are you Paul Henninger?”
“Yes, sir,” Paul said, and he thought, Doesn’t he recognize me? He doesn’t, does he?
“I’m Detective Keith Anderson, from Homicide. You mind if we walk and talk?”
“Um,” Paul said. “Are you the one who’s gonna be taking my statement?”
Anderson smiled. “I was hoping to.”
Paul put the coin away and said, “I was told I needed to talk to my attorney before I said anything to you.”
“You were? Who told you that?”
“My partner. And my sergeant, too.”
“Hmm. I wonder why they told you that.”
Paul kept quiet.
Anderson said, “You mind if I see your hands?”
“No, sir.” Paul stuck them out for the detective to see.
Anderson made a show of looking at them, turning them over, looking at the palms, the knuckles, under the fingernails.
“I don’t see any blood,” he said. “Did you clean yourself up already?”
“No, sir. I didn’t have any blood on my hands to wash off.”
Anderson nodded. “Yeah, you’re right about that. I mean, that’s obvious just from looking at them.”
Paul waited.
Anderson stepped back and motioned towards Paul’s police car. “Do you mind if we walk while we talk?” he said.
“No, sir,” Paul said. “I guess not.”
Anderson put his hands in his pocket and they walked, side by side, towards the cars. He said, “I heard that boy in there got torn wide open. That true?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what it looked like.”
“And there was a goat there too, right?”
Paul hesitated before he answered. “Yes, sir.”
“Was it one of those weird looking ones? The ones with all the gray curly hair all over it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s the same kind of goat that was at the Morgan Rollins factory last night. I’ve never seen goats like that. Must be some kind of weird Asian goat or something, you know?”
Paul said, “Asian?”
“Yeah, you know, like in the Himalayans or someplace like that. Looked like something Richard Attenborough would do a TV show on.”
“It was an Angora goat, sir.”
“Angora?” Anderson stopped and looked at him. “You know about goats?”
“Sure. I grew up on a farm, sir.”
“Really? Where?”
“Smithson Valley, sir.”
“Ah,” Anderson said. He started walking again. “You’re a Hill Country boy.”
“Yes, sir. We raised the same kind of goats. That hair you saw, it’s called mohair. Lots of folks ’round here raise Angora. You can shear it four, maybe five times a year. They’re good eating goats, too.”
“You eat those things? Really?”
“Yes, sir. The meat’s supposed to taste like veal. I don’t know about that. I’ve never tasted veal.”
Anderson glanced at him, his smile easy, friendly. “But they taste good, that’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmm.”
The cars were less than a hundred feet ahead of them now. Paul could see a crowd of sergeants and lieutenants and even a captain hanging around, talking about the scene. Seeing them, realizing they were there because of him—and, though they didn’t know it, because of his father as well—was almost crippling. He felt like a bug under their microscope.
“This is me over here,” Anderson said, and pointed to a blue Ford Taurus, covered in dust. “You wanna have a seat?”
“Sir?”
“What?”
“What about my attorney, sir? Don’t I get to...talk to him or something?”
“Yeah, you said that before. Why do you need an attorney?”
“They told me...”
Anderson waved his hand in the air like he was dismissing the whole thing.
“Look,” he said, “you didn’t kill that kid, right?”
“No sir.”
“I didn’t think so. Nobody here does. You don’t have any blood on your hands. You don’t have any under your fingernails. Hell, even if you had time to go and put on a pair of those big yellow dishwashing gloves before you killed him, you’d at least have gotten some blood on your uniform. Am I right?”
“Uh, yes sir,” Paul said slowly. “I guess.”
“So it’s obvious to everyone here you didn’t kill anybody. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All you did was chase some kid who ran from you, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you were chasing him because he broke the law, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you were doing your job, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then, see? That’s what I’m saying. You’re not a suspect in anything.” Anderson opened his door and motioned for Paul to open the passenger door. “So what’s the problem? All I want to do is get your statement so I can find out who did kill that little piece of shit. You see, I’m thinking whoever killed this kid also killed those people at the Morgan Rollins Iron Works. You follow me on that?”
Paul nodded.
“Good.”
He got into his car.
Paul stood by the open passenger door, looking down at him. Anderson motioned to him to sit down, and he did.
Anderson took out what looked like a digital video recorder, about the size of Bic lighter, and hit the record button.
He said, “So, Officer Paul Henninger, you’ve been made aware of your right to an attorney?”
“Yes, sir,” Paul said.
“How do you feel about giving me a short statement about what happened?”
Paul felt his mouth go dry. He could sense what was happening, and he didn’t want to be here, but it was like he couldn’t stop it. He said he didn’t mind making a statement.
And besides, if you do say you don’t want to give a statement, you sound guilty. You can’t afford that. You got a charge to keep, remember?
Anderson put the recorder down on the dashboard between them. “Good,” he said. “So just take it from the top. Pretend I don’t know anything about what happened. Tell me what it looked like for you.”
***
Paul did just that. He started from the alley, where he and Mike had watched as the three heroin dealers made a sale, and progressed all the way through the story, telling it all in a tired, almost bored tone, as one reciting lines of memorized poetry that no longer have any meaning. It wasn’t until he described rounding the corner and seeing the goat that his tone and pace changed. After that, he spoke slowly, choosing his words like they were steps through a mine field. He started to feel light-headed.
When he was done, he put his hands in his lap and sat there, staring at the digital recorder on the dashboard, waiting.
“And that’s it?” Anderson said.
“Yes, sir. That’s it.”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“No, sir.”
“No screaming?”
“I didn’t hear anything, sir.”
“Hmm. That’s odd.”
Paul waited in silence.
Anderson said, “I think it’s odd because you were just a few feet away from where a kid was being ripped open. A goat, too, for that matter. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I didn’t hear anything, sir.”
Anderson nodded.
He stroked his chin and seemed to stare at his dashboard. Paul followed his gaze and saw an old, yellowed photograph covering the speedometer. It showed a boy with long, wavy dark hair and clothes that looked to be from the mid-nineties, sort of grungy.
They waited each other out in silence.
Finally, Anderson said, “You don’t talk much, do you?”
“No, sir,” Paul said. “I guess not.”
“Well, that’s okay. You don’t have to, really. You se
e, whether you know it or not, you’re actually telling me an awful lot.”
Paul cocked his head to one side. “How’s that, sir?”
“Earlier, when I asked you if you heard any screaming, you crossed your arms across your chest. Up to this point, you’ve been looking at your hands in your lap. You know what that little motion tells me, crossing your hands like that?”
“No, sir.”
“It tells me you’re getting defensive. It tells me you’re hiding something. Maybe you did hear something. Who knows? Maybe you heard the kid cry out, but you didn’t go to him because you were scared. Is that it? Were you scared, Paul? It makes sense you know. Being in a gunfight situation isn’t like a walk in the park. It’s terrifying as hell. I know. I’ve been there.”
Anderson looked at Paul and waited for him to say something, anything.
The silence went on and on.
Anderson said, “Paul, you mind if I tell you a story?”
Paul looked up at him and shook his head.
“This was in August, 1991. I was working the warehouses around Pop Gunn Drive. You know that area?”
“No, sir.”
“Run down, nasty place. Nothing but warehouses. The south side at its worst. Well, anyway, they’d been having a string of burglaries in the area, and my sergeant ordered me to drive the area all night, you know, seeing what I could see. Well, I hear this disturbance come out on the radio, shots fired in a house about two miles or so from where I am. I figure, I’ll stay in the area, listen for what happens. Well, the officers get there, and the next thing you know, the emergency tone’s going off. The officers are calling in shots fired, two people hit. Turns out, a husband lost his mind and took it out on his wife and youngest son.”
Anderson glanced at the picture covering his speedometer, and Paul thought he saw a dark cloud pass over the detective’s face.
“So of course the guy manages to get into his truck and flees the scene,” Anderson said. “The officers put out his description and I start looking for the truck. You can guess what happened next, right? There I am, driving around with my thumb up my butt, and sure as hell, guess who comes tearing around the corner right in front of me?”
“The guy from the shooting?”
“Right. So I go after him. We have this little car chase around the warehouses, and the next thing you know, the guy crashes. He jumps out of the truck, and I follow him in my car. Well he stops and turns and points a gun at me, and I lock up the brakes. He runs off around a corner of a building, and I go after him on foot. I go around the corner, and I hear this loud boom, right? It’s the guy’s gun. I think, Oh shit, he’s shooting at me. So I jump back behind the corner and I stand there, breathing so hard I can barely talk on the radio. I stand there for a real long time, you know? Just me, listening to the wind blowing through the eaves of this building above me. When my cover got there, they asked me what was going on. I couldn’t tell them, I was so scared. Finally, they moved in, and you know what they found?”
“What?” Paul asked.
“They found the guy behind a pile of lumber, dead. The shot I’d heard, that was him, popping himself off.”
Anderson stopped there and looked at Paul.
“Tell me, Paul, is that what happened to you? Did you hear that kid screaming out? Did you get scared and freeze? There’s no shame if that’s what happened. The public may think we’re nothing but a bunch of baton happy racists, just living for the chance to beat the shit out of some hapless minority, but you and I know the truth. It isn’t that way. Believe me, I know.”
Paul didn’t say anything. His mind was playing the same loop over and over again. Slowing to a stunned walk as he saw the slaughtered goat. Turning and looking at the figure of his father crouched over the dead kid. His father talking to him.
You’ve got a charge to keep, boy.
“Is that what happened, Paul?”
Nothing.
“Paul?”
“I didn’t see nothing, sir. I didn’t hear nothing, either. I looked into the boxcar, and the kid was dead.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes, sir. Just like that.”
Anderson nodded to himself again. He smacked his lips and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Paul said. “You mean...I’m okay to just go?”
“Yep.”
Paul waited, but when it was obvious that Anderson wasn’t going to say anything else, he opened his car door and made a move to step out.
“Hey, Paul?”
Paul stopped, half in, half out of the car. “Yeah? I mean, yes sir?”
“We’re not going to be charging you with anything. Just so you know.”
“Okay, sir. Thanks for saying so.”
“No problem.” He paused. “Oh. There is one other thing.”
“Yes sir?”
“How long have you been on, son?”
“I graduated in March, sir. This is my second night off my FTO rides.”
“Your second night? You’re kidding?”
“No, sir.”
Anderson laughed. “Lord, son. Hold on to your hat, because you’re gonna have a wild ride of a career.”
Paul regarded him for a moment, then walked away without saying another word.
***
Paul and Mike were in the car now, headed downtown to the Homicide Office, where the two of them would be spending the next four or five hours, at least, writing their reports. Mike was driving—calmly, for once—strumming the top of the steering wheel like it was a guitar to the song on the radio. Paul wouldn’t have known it was Alice Cooper they were listening to if Mike hadn’t told him. To Paul, it just sounded like noise, and if there were chords in there somewhere, he couldn’t hear them.
“But this is a guy singing?” Paul said.
“Yeah.”
“So...his name is Alice?”
Mike stopped strumming the steering wheel and looked at Paul in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Alice Cooper? Paul, you remember when you gawked at me when I told you I didn’t like Willie Nelson? Well, I’m having one of those moments right now. You’ve never heard of Alice Cooper? Really?”
“Sorry.”
“You know what your problem is, Paul?”
I got a lot of problems, Paul thought. But all he said was, “What?”
“Your taste in music sucks ass. I’m serious, Paul. All that country music is gonna rot your brain. They’ve done studies on that, I think. Next thing you know you’ll be marrying your cousin.”
Paul didn’t even bother to smile. He sank down into the passenger seat and tried to think. Outside the car, the sky was turning the dark purple of bruised fruit, a glow of crimson spreading across the horizon. They drove by dark, weather-beaten houses that were crammed together so densely they reminded him of a hive. Paul watched it all go by without really seeing it. His thoughts kept coming back to the image of his father’s back curled over his bloody work, his hands submerged into the kid’s chest.
You have a charge to keep, boy.
“Can you unlock my window?” Paul said to Mike. “I gotta get some air.”
“Sure thing,” Mike said. “You feel sick? I can stop if you want.”
“I’ll be all right. Just open the window.”
Mike nodded, then went back to driving. He slowed to a stop at a red light and, to Paul’s surprise, actually waited it out, rather than merely checking if the coast was clear and going on through the intersection.
After a while, Mike said, “That better?”
“A little,” Paul said.
“Good.”
The light turned green and Mike slowly pulled away from the stop line. “You’re gonna get through this,” Mike said. “It looks weird right now, I know. Believe me, I know. But you’re gonna come through this smelling like a rose. Trust me.”
“Sure,” Paul said, though he was still looking out the window at the darkened houses slipping by, thinking that he wanted to be any place else in the world bu
t in his own shoes right now.
***
Anderson found Levy at the boxcar, kneeling over the dead goat, its chest ripped open, same as the boy inside the car, same as Ram and Herrera at the Morgan Rollins Iron Works.
“I just don’t get it,” Levy said. “What’s with the goats?”
“It’s an Angora,” said Anderson. “Apparently, you can shear these things three, even four times a year. And, according to Officer Henninger at least, they’re good eatin’ goats, too.”
“They’re what?”
Levy looked up at him then, and under different circumstances, Anderson might have laughed at the confounded look on his face.
“I talked to Henninger, got his statement. He tells me he grew up on a farm out near Smithson Valley High School. He said they used to raise these same kinds of goats out there.”
“Really?”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“That’s a mighty handy coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Maybe not,” Anderson said. “According to Henninger, these things are raised all over the country.”
Levy looked down at the carcass.
“Doesn’t look like any kind of goat I’ve ever seen.”
“Me either,” Anderson admitted. “Of course, neither one of us are goat farmers.”
“Are you gonna check that out?”
“Sure, Chuck. I’m gonna drop everything else I got going on and run out and interview every damn goat herder in the Hill Country.”
Levy scowled at him. “Don’t be a jerk, Keith.”
They both stood over the dead goat, looking down at it for a long, quiet moment.
“It is a lead worth checking on,” Anderson said. “Somebody had to bring these goats into the scene. It’s not like they run wild around here.”
Levy nodded. “If you don’t have time for it, I’ll have Massey and Vogler check it out.”
“Thanks.”
Levy walked back to the cars and motioned for Anderson to follow. The two men crossed under the crime scene tape and left the bluish glow of the helicopter’s spotlights behind.
“Deputy Chief Allen is waiting for us back in the office.”
“Okay.”
“Did you learn anything else from Henninger besides a natural history of goats?”