Point of Law

by Clinton McKinzie

  “Hands in the air!” he screams through the open window at us.

  Roberto and I comply, Roberto rather leisurely. The two deputies realize something’s very wrong and come running toward the Suburban with their own guns out.

  “Sheriff, you’ve made some big mistakes—stupid mistakes,” I say evenly. “Don’t compound them. Look in the backseat.”

  Gun extended, Munik steps to his left so that he can get a view behind Roberto’s seat. His eyes widen, then narrow, as he takes in the sight of Fast’s red face and the duct tape that’s wound around his mouth and head. And Kim, sitting beside him, touching a gun to Fast’s stomach.

  “Sheriff!” one of the deputies says from behind Munik, as if the sheriff’s attention were not already riveted to the backseat.

  “We’ve made a citizen’s arrest of David Fast for the kidnapping of Sunny Hansen and for the murder of Cal Watkins,” I say in my official voice, loud enough for them all to hear. “His accomplices are being brought down by other citizens in a pickup that will be following in a few minutes. The bodies of two others are up in the meadow.”

  I’d asked my father to stay behind for a few minutes until I could get things straightened out at the police roadblock. He’s going to come down five minutes from now, in one of the construction pickups with Fast’s remaining men bound in the bed. Dad and the two parajumpers accompanying him had rounded up the men from the trailers beside the burnt-out lodge. Leaderless, Fast’s employees wisely decided not to put up a fight.

  The sheriff is only half listening behind the revolver. “Put down the gun, missy,” he says to Kim.

  “She’s not going to put down the gun. And you better not call her ‘missy’ again,” I say, unable to suppress a smile. “You put down your gun, Sheriff. Your men, too. If you’re thinking about trying to save your benefactor, forget it. There are U.S. soldiers—my father’s men, Special Forces—in the trees on both sides of the road. They have you in their rifle sights.” I’m exaggerating, but my smile makes the lie believable. I feel absolutely bulletproof right now. With my brother and Dad nearby, nothing can stop me.

  While the deputies look around and lower their guns, Munik focuses on me with both his eyes and the long barrel of his revolver. I can almost see the wheels turning in his brain, trying to figure out if he can kill us and save Fast and make it plausible. Trying to figure out just how implicated he is already. Trying to figure out what kind of a cop he is. I decide to help him before he makes the wrong choice.

  “We don’t have anything on you, Sheriff. Just that you’ve been a little too helpful to Mr. Fast in protecting what he mistakenly believes is his property. You’re going to lose some pride but that’s it. Now put down the gun before you get yourself killed.”

  The wheels turn for a moment longer. Then he slowly nods. The gun lowers to his side until it’s pointing at the ground. He hitches it up into the holster at his belt as his men do the same.

  “Now, what’s this kidnapping about?” he asks carefully.

  Sheriff Munik argues to take custody of David Fast and his surviving employees, but I insist that we be the ones who will deliver them to the jail. I’m not going to risk Fast somehow “escaping.” Once the pickup comes up behind us, with Dad and Sunny in the front and two camouflaged soldiers in the back with their side arms pointed at Fast’s trussed men, we drive in a slow procession to the courthouse complex in the center of town. While we drive, Kim borrows Fast’s cell phone from the console between the front seats and calls reporter friends in both Tomichi and Denver. She wants to ensure that the sheriff and the DA don’t try to pull any tricks. The press will provide a little extra insurance.

  She also calls the hospital, arranging for an ambulance to meet us in order to take Sunny for an examination and to submit to a rape kit. And she tries to get Roberto and me to agree to go with the girl. I’m convinced, though, that my ankle is just sprained, not broken. And I know from experience that nothing can be done for my ribs. Besides, I have too much still to do. Roberto refuses, too. He says his head’s too hard to break.

  When we arrive at the courthouse, a television camera from the local station and a small crowd are already waiting for us. They shoot both video and still images as the town’s leading citizen, the son of a former United States senator, is led into the jail.

  “Come on in, Agent Burns,” Roger Acosta, the Tomichi County district attorney, tells me, waving me into a pale blue chair opposite his desk in the office.

  He’d been waiting in the jail when our small caravan pulled up. The sheriff must have alerted him to the situation on the radio. Fast glared at the man whose campaign he had funded when he was led past with his mouth still taped shut. The prosecutor shook his head sadly in response, causing Fast’s face to turn redder. He briefly struggled with the two uncertain deputies escorting him, who were obviously embarrassed to have a man of Fast’s prominence in their custody. I reached in and shoved Fast’s bulky shoulder, bouncing him off a wall, teaching him the new manners he would need to learn in prison. The DA intervened then by taking my arm and making quieting noises at Fast. Then he asked me to meet him upstairs, in his office, and I said I’d come after borrowing a crutch from the jail infirmary and seeing David Fast put in a cell.

  I try to keep my face neutral as I hobble into the comfortable office. A variety of emotions are stirring inside me and I’m too exhausted to be able to judge which of them I should display. I slouch in the big chair, laying the crutch on the floor beside me. I’m unconcerned that the dirt and blood caked on my clothes must be staining the chair beneath me.

  “Well,” the DA says, “I’m assuming you’ve got some evidence to back up these citizen’s arrests you’ve made?”

  “I do.”

  “Can you summarize it for me, Agent?”

  I explain that Fast and Burgermeister had killed Cal while trying to learn the location of the Indian ruin he’d found, which could foul up the land exchange, and to retaliate for the burning of Fast’s lodge. Sunny will identify him and his now deceased employee, Alf “Rent-a-Riot” Burgermeister, as well as testify to her kidnapping from the lake and subsequent rape. My father, his two men, my brother, Kim, and I will all testify that Fast, Burgermeister, and Timms then tried to murder us all at the foot of the red cliff. Roberto stabbed Burgermeister in self-defense, I tell him, knowing the others will back me up. While I talk, the DA leans forward on his desk, propping himself upright with his elbows and resting his chin on his clasped hands.

  He doesn’t say anything when I finish. His eyes have drifted to the wall behind me. I guess he’s considering the evidence, wondering how it will sound in court and perhaps trying to figure out how he’ll be implicated in all this.

  “You should know the sheriff had a role in all of it,” I say. “He ignored evidence that Fast was Cal’s killer. He arrested my brother based just on his criminal history.” I don’t mention that the DA was a part of that, too. “He didn’t try very hard to find Sunny, the only witness to the murder. He ignored me when I tried to get his help in rescuing her. Then he blocked the road up into the valley for Fast.”

  “Can you prove anything against him?”

  “Probably not. Just ignorance and stupidity.”

  The DA nods, unable to keep from looking a little relieved. If the sheriff’s safe, then he probably is as well.

  “You say this girl Sunny can ID everyone? She can identify the killers of that boy in the valley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can all of you give statements this morning?”

  “Yes, all of us except Sunny, who’s at the hospital right now. But we need some food and coffee first.”

  “All right then,” he says with an unconvincing sigh. “Let’s get it over with.” He starts to stand behind his desk.

  I don’t move. “I want the charges against my brother dismissed now. And his bond released.”

  “All in good time, Agent Burns. All in good time.”

  I lean forward, igno
ring the pain in my stomach and ribs. “Do you want me to go down there and tell those reporters that David Fast was your number one campaign contributor? About how you are as culpable as the sheriff in at the very least turning a blind eye to all the evidence pointing at Fast instead of my brother?”

  The DA sits back down in his chair. He shakes his head sadly. “That’s unnecessary, Agent. All that will come out anyway when a special prosecutor is appointed. You can trust me to do the right thing.”

  “I’d rather you just do it.”

  He shakes his head again but turns to the computer. He taps at the keyboard, prints out a piece of paper, and fills in some blanks on it. He signs it and passes it to me. It’s a Motion to Dismiss case number 97CF2343, The People v. Roberto Burns. “You can take it down to the judge for her signature while we start interviewing your family and friends. I’ll call the clerk and tell them to expect you.”

  The rest of the morning passes in an exhausted daze.

  With the exception of Sunny, who remains at the hospital undergoing the indignity and new violation of a rape kit, the rest of us crowd into the sealed-off lobby of the District Attorney’s Office. One by one we’re called in to give videotaped interviews. True to his word, the DA has called in a prosecutor from another county to act as an impartial witness and later, when appointed by the court, a special prosecutor in the case against David Fast.

  Kim commandeers the receptionist’s phone. She dials and speaks fervently but I’m too tired to pay much attention to what’s being said. The two PJs who’d flown across the country and then jumped into the meadow with my father sleep on the floor with practiced ease. They’d been embarrassed by my profuse thanks earlier. They shrugged it off, making my throat swell by saying they would follow my father anywhere. Even into a court-martial. I never say thank you to my dad, but he knows how I feel. Saying it out loud would just cheapen the emotion. He nods back at me whenever I look into his hard blue eyes.

  I overhear him being berated by some general in Washington. The voice over the big satellite phone is loud and clear. Dad in all likelihood will be court-martialed. Perhaps even charged criminally for leaving his post and disobeying orders. But he absorbs the abuse without expression or comment. He knew what the consequences would be when he talked a friendly Air Force pilot into flying him across the country and making the parachute drop into the valley. The only defense he strives to present is for the two men who’d volunteered to come with him. Dad makes it clear that he alone is responsible. Both his sons and his men would expect nothing less. The voice on the other end in turn makes it clear that my father’s career is officially over.

  At one point Dad and Roberto step out into the hall for a private talk.

  It’s a long, long time before they return. The whole time, I’d been listening for the sound of yelling, but it never comes. When they come back, Roberto is smiling sheepishly. His mad eyes are still lit up with something—I can’t tell if it’s that he’d found his hidden stash in the woods or if it’s from the blow to his head or if it’s the stupor of a blood lust satisfied. Whatever it is, it seems to have put him in a gentle trance.

  He sits on the couch next to me. “I guess I’m coming to visit you for a while in Wyoming,” he says. “Where the men are men and the sheep are scared.”

  I laugh at the old joke. “What the hell, bro?” but I realize now what his strange look means.

  He knows Dad had ultimately been willing to sacrifice everything for us. Those old lectures about family loyalty—they were true in the long run. Now it is Roberto’s turn to make a sacrifice. He’s agreed to come back with me to Wyoming, to attend that rehab center near Jackson Hole that Dad had mentioned a week ago. I’ll need to arrange it with the parole office in Durango, but that should be easy. Suddenly everything feels easy.

  Roberto shakes his head. “Che,” he says softly, “I can’t fucking believe the old man came through.”

  Kim comes out of her interview with the prosecutors positively glowing. Her filthy hair is covered with the blue bandana again except for the tendrils she’s pulled free to cover her eye patch. Her face and clothes are smudged with streaks of dried mud, but she’s never looked more beautiful. She’s never looked younger or stronger.

  “This is it,” she tells me. “They’re going to arraign him in two hours.”

  The excitement has overridden her exhaustion. Her single brown eye is shining with the thrill of vindication. This is when Fast starts paying for what he did to her all those years ago, paying in the way she always intended—with the law as the instrument of justice that will bring him to his knees. I don’t want to tell her how from my perspective, a cop’s perspective, the law seldom results in justice. A bit of the euphoria I’d felt on learning of Roberto’s promise drains away.

  “I can’t wait to see the look on the bastard’s face when the judge reads the charges and sets bail.”

  “Let’s hope he can’t make it,” I say. For a lawyer, Kim certainly doesn’t have a lawyer’s usual cynicism. I guess she hasn’t had much exposure to the criminal process. Maybe she doesn’t realize yet that the rich and famous get special treatment. Unlike the masses, for instance, they don’t have to spend time in jail while waiting for their trial to start.

  “Ha! I talked to the Forest Service supervisor and I told them where the Anasazi ruin is and that it’s everything Cal had claimed and more—they’ve put the exchange of deeds on hold. Then I called friends at a couple of banks, too. With the swap a nonevent, they’re going to seize the assets he put up for the loans. Every dollar David Fast’s ever made is going down the drain. He won’t be able to make a ten-dollar bail.”

  Instead of sharing her elation, I think about all the sad, angry years Kim’s spent here in Tomichi, waiting for the chance to start her vendetta. To get her revenge. All the years living in the same town with the man who humiliated her and caused the loss of her eye. All the years of waiting for something like this. I hope it’s been worth it. Fast is unlikely to serve more than a few years in prison. The average homicide defendant receives only about six years—eligible for parole in two. And Fast, because of no prior convictions, and because the wealthy and famous, even when their money is gone, get special consideration, will likely do even less. And that’s if he’s convicted at all. Look at O.J. Simpson and all the other rich and famous defendants. Justice isn’t the same for them.

  “Remember what you said to me about the law, in the hot spring after the fight? You said it’s a joke. Well, have a little faith, Anton. It may not be perfect, but it’s going to work.”

  I nod without enthusiasm.

  “You’ll come with me, won’t you? To the arraignment?”

  “Of course,” I tell her, masking my reluctance. What I really want to do is sleep with my arms around her the way we had in the canyon by the lake, but without the cold and the fear. I wish that coffee-colored eye would shine for me instead of with the sparkle of her vendetta’s culmination.

  Kim’s friend the veterinarian is more than happy to see us when we come to pick up Oso at noon. Even from outside the building, in the parking lot, I’d been able to hear him bellowing. The outraged roars grow louder as she leads us through the lobby, where her other clients grasp their terrified pets close to their chests, and then into a kennel. Oso stands in a large cage near the gate. He’s swaying on his feet from the sedatives they’ve given him in pieces of meat shoved through the fence. A nylon muzzle strains to contain his jaws as he thunders. His left hind leg is heavily bandaged and he holds it in the air, close to his stomach.

  Because of the drugs, he doesn’t recognize me at first. I put my fingers through the chain link and then jerk them back when he attempts to snap at them. The sound is like a bear trap slamming shut. “Easy, boy, it’s me. C’mon, Oso, it’s me.”

  Finally quiet, he tilts his massive head to one side, staring at me through glassy yellow eyes. Then he snuffs at my fingers. His tongue is dry and rough when it emerges from the muzzle to lic
k them. And the stumpy tail begins to swing.

  “Get this thing out of here before he ruins my business,” the vet tells us. She’s already explained that she removed thirteen shotgun pellets and miscellaneous metal fragments from his hip and leg. Several of them had been buried deep in the bone. He’ll recover, but it will take a few weeks of rest. And he’s likely to be a little cranky during that time, she says with a nervous laugh.

  Kim pays the bill with my credit card while I sit on the cage’s concrete floor and rub Oso’s chest. Not surprisingly, we’re asked to leave by a rear door. After we get Oso into the backseat, Kim forgets about my bad ankle and starts to climb into the passenger seat. The anticipation of seeing Fast at the defendant’s table has blocked out all of her other thoughts.

  “Do you mind driving again?” I ask her. “I would have Oso do it, but if people see him behind the wheel, they might think road rage.”

  Kim laughs and apologizes for her forgetfulness. We switch seats. With growing excitement, she drives us back to the courthouse for the arraignment.

  FORTY-FOUR

  DAVID FAST SHUFFLES into the courtroom with the other prisoners for the afternoon’s arraignments. But unlike the five other men in orange jumpsuits, he wears slacks, a coat, and an open-collared shirt. His short, graying hair is combed and moussed. He isn’t even chained to the orange-clad men, although he is handcuffed. Despite the damage evident on his tan face—a swollen mouth from where Kim had broken his front teeth with the barrel of his own pistol and the black eye from Roberto’s blow just hours before—he looks surprisingly unaffected. He still maintains his arrogant posture.

  There is a low murmuring from the packed gallery all around me. The room is full to the bursting point. A few of them are probably reporters, as they have notepads balanced on their knees, but the rest appear to be regular citizens who have come to stare at the wonder of the town’s favorite son in chains.