I sit up and look around me as the adrenaline begins to subside and my lungs relax. Darkening towers of granite are all around me as far as I can see. They are purple in the twilight. Stars are just beginning to make themselves apparent in the still-bluish sky, and a sliver of a moon hangs over the scene to the east. For the first time in a long time, I feel content as I peel the bloody athletic tape from my hands.
Just when the goose bumps begin in earnest and I start to shiver, I crawl back to the edge and lean my head over. Oso sits amid the boulders below, loyally staring straight up at me just as he used to do when excursions like this were an everyday occurrence. I call to him.
“Thanks for the spot, Oso. I'll be down in a minute.”
Then looking beyond the dog, where the boulders meet a screen of aspens, I see a blonde-haired girl with taped hands sitting very still, as if she's been watching for a while. Beside her is a small backpack with a pair of climbing slippers clipped on by a carabiner. Oso follows my gaze back at her and glances there for a moment in annoyance before again focusing his gold eyes on me. I wave at her and she grins back, giving me a thumbs-up. She's the second woman who has caught my attention in just hours. Maybe I am finally coming back to life.
I turn and head down the series of ledges that lead off the backside of the tower, feeling young and strong again. The reckless urge that sometimes overcomes me to scare myself silly and put it all on the line is sated for the first time in many months. La llamada del salvaje, the call of the wild, my mother describes it, taking the phrase from the Spanish translation of the Jack London story she read to us as children. It's a sort of genetic flaw that according to her descends from my father to my brother and me. It's a need that we learned to release, as our father had, by climbing rocks and ice and getting lethal amounts of air beneath our heels.
He taught us about moving in the vertical world just as he taught us a seemingly endless array of other strange sports and skills that were a part of his everyday life as an officer of the elite Pararescue Corps. Scuba diving, horseback riding, distance swimming, endurance running, skydiving, shooting, wilderness survival . . . even the arcane arts of jujitsu and archery. But climbing was the only activity that received the passion and devotion of the family's men.
It has always been enough for me, but not enough for my brother. He eventually turned to the far riskier sports of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. With that in mind, and after the shooting in Cheyenne, I resolved to ignore the Call altogether. But the Call's voice has proven too powerful. As I hop off a ledge on the tower's backside, then stem my way down the wide space in the middle of a giant broken boulder with a hand and foot smeared against the opposite sides, I feel like an eagle soaring far above the earth, gazing down on the granite, aspens, and pines before me, owning the whole place. My brother must feel something like this when the needle slams home.
Ten minutes later I find Oso in the growing dark, but the girl is gone. I look around for her as the heavy dog pushes his shoulder against my thigh and licks the blood from my fingers. I bend and rub the beast's chest, watching to see if she'll reappear. The only sound is the hum of the wind through the trees and me murmuring to Oso about what a good old fellow he is. I pull a sweatshirt over my head. I sit for a few minutes and drink half a quart of water, then slowly pour the rest for him while he slurps at the trickle. It's only then that I notice the woven necklace of alpine daisies entwined in Oso's collar. I'm surprised he would let a stranger that close.
Headlights, taillights, and neon signs reflect off my windshield as I move my truck with the evening traffic on Grand Avenue. Oso has his huge head out the passenger window, drooling again down the door and drawing smiles from the other drivers. The white petals from the flowers on his collar are blowing off in the wind and swirling around the truck's interior like victory-parade confetti.
Brightly flashing blue and red lights slow the traffic. Like the other drivers, I twist in my seat to see what's going on. A massive uniformed man who could only be Jefferson Jones is yelling orders to other deputies as they wave the traffic past. Curious, I pull in behind two patrol cars and get out, telling the dog to stay. I walk up to one of the uniformed officers, who immediately challenges me.
“Get back in your car and keep moving, sir,” he snaps at me.
I ignore him as Jones approaches.
“You sure came back to Laramie on an exciting day, QuickDraw—I mean Anton,” Jones says, rolling his dark eyes at my sensitivity to the nickname and waving at the uniform to let me across the invisible crime scene line.
“What's going on?”
“Just a little more freakiness. Icing on the cake, the way things have been going around here lately. Take a look for yourself—we've got a drunk Klansman in a tree.”
I look down the residential street in the direction Jones points and see he's telling the truth. A few houses away there is a white-robed figure perched high up in a skinny oak that shades someone's front yard. It's an old man, with wisps of white hair streaming in the wind. The spotlights from more police cars illuminate him as if he's an acrobat about to perform a trick. Below him are three uniformed deputies yelling for him to get his ass down from there. A police dog, a lean German shepherd, stands on hind legs with its front paws planted on the trunk, growling upward.
“You're not kidding” is all I can say.
“C'mon, my man, check it out.” Jones leads me down to the action. As we walk, Jones asks, “Where you been lately?”
“Up in Cody. My assignment in this end of the state didn't make me too popular around here.”
“Lord, I know. Read about it. Still reading about it.” The big man shakes his head and laughs. “You sure showed 'em that you DCI guys can shoot, though.”
I ignore his comment, saying, “There's a hearing for summary judgment next week. My lawyer's hopeful it'll settle then.”
When the hoodless Klansman spots Jones's approach, he begins to shout, “You get the fuck out of here, nigger! Go back to Africa, you big spade!” Then calmer, to the officers below, “I ain't coming down till the nigger's gone.”
Jones chuckles and holds up his hands toward the tree in a gesture of surrender and begins to back off. He says to me, gesturing at my freshly torn hands, “Looks like you're still doing that Spiderman shit—why don't you go up and get him for us?”
Before I can respond there's a loud crack. We both jerk our heads up at the pathetic figure in the tree. The bough that was his perch has snapped and the old man is falling, crashing through more thin branches. He barely misses landing on the police dog, which lets out a startled yelp. In one swift motion the dog turns and bites the back of the old man's sheet.
The Klansman wails as the K9 officer drags the dog away. Laughter erupts from the deputies as they whoop and cheer the dog.
“Jesus Christ,” Jones says, disgusted. “Someone call an ambulance.”
The old man lies on the ground, crying and cursing, as two officers quickly pat him down and take a long folding knife from his pocket. Looking to Jones for approval, they don't bother to handcuff him. Their sergeant nods back at them. The old man is obviously drunk and fairly harmless, and it appears that in addition to having been bitten on the butt he's broken his arm as well. He holds it cradled against his chest. An ambulance rolls up within minutes and carts him off.
While Jones is orchestrating the old man's transport, another deputy approaches me. “What are you doing here, QuickDraw?” he asks without smiling.
“Hey, Bender. I can't say. You know, state business. But it's good to see you,” I lie, looking up straight into Leroy Bender's wide moon-face. He's almost as tall as Jones, and nearly as heavy, but his bulk comes from fat rather than muscle. The uniform he wears is sloppy, one shirttail partially untucked and a white T-shirt showing between the straining buttons across his belly. He wears a cowboy's mustache like an upside-down horseshoe. It looks both absurd and menacing at the same time on his broad face. I know him as a suspect from an
excessive force investigation two years ago, the last time I was in Laramie. The charges I filed against him were dismissed, I was told, for political reasons. I later learned that his uncle is the Albany County sheriff.
Now the deputy stands too close to me but I don't step back. He's rocking on his boot heels, his gloved hands on his waist with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. The tight black leather gloves he wears are the universal sign of cops with too much testosterone; their sole purpose is to prevent splitting a knuckle on someone's head.
“Fuck you, Burns. That your rustbucket over there? If you know what's good for you, you'll get in it and out of my town.”
I don't reply. I just keep my eyes on him.
“What went down in Cheyenne don't make you a hero. It just makes you a lucky piece of shit. QuickDraw my ass.”
“You got lucky too, Leroy. You never got convicted.”
The cop moves even closer. “Funny, I didn't feel so lucky with you pushin' those charges, and with that reprimand you had put in my file.” He spits out a brown foam of tobacco waste and I feel its gentle tug at my pant leg.
I look away for a moment, down at my shoes, trying to will away the anger that's rising in me. But the hot pressure is too great. Just as I'm telling myself to do nothing, I shoot out one arm and plant my palm hard in Bender's solar plexus. “Stay away from me,” I say as my hand presses into his soft flesh. He staggers back, more surprised than off-balance, and one boot heel catches on the grass. His gun belt clatters as he goes down. The deputies and other spectators around us freeze, watching.
Then Jones comes between us like a brick wall. “Cut it out,” he says.
Bender's face is red and flared in the streetlights when he rolls to his feet. To Jones he says, “You got no rank on me, Jeff. Back off!”
“No, Leroy, but I got size.”
It's a long moment before he turns and walks away. With a final hard look he says to me, “I take back what I said before—I hope you have a nice long visit in Laramie, you little fuck. I'll be seeing you. You can bet on that.”
“Quite a town you live in,” I say to Jones when he's gone.
Jones is frowning. “What the fuck you doing, Anton? You know better than to tangle with that peckerhead.”
“I've got nothing to lose.” It's true. My name and my reputation, once highly regarded in the state's small law enforcement community, have been sullied by the suspicions the Cheyenne shooting raised. For a while now I've sensed that my career as a cop is coming to an end.
“What about your badge? Shit, what about your life?” Jones finally smiles. “You sure made a lot of friends the last time you came to this part of the state. Most of the good cops think you've freaked out, they say you've become some kind of Dirty Harry rogue, while the bad cops love you. Excepting that scumbag Bender, of course.” Then he laughs, adding, “And the sheriff.”
I think for a minute. What have I done to offend the sheriff? Then I groan. “I'd forgotten about the sheriff.”
Jones chuckles again. “I haven't. That was the funniest thing I ever saw. Anyway, I was hoping to catch up to you, Anton. Seeing you today, I figured you must be the supersecret agent on that Danning girl. I just love the way the state takes these things off our hands whenever there's a hint of a conflict.”
“I don't really know anything about it yet. The office just told me to come down and see Ross McGee about it. I tried to talk to him at the courthouse, but he didn't have the time. I'm seeing him later tonight. Anything I should know?”
Jones looks at me for a fraction of a second too long before speaking. “Nope, I don't know anything about it either. It's the sheriff's deal. You ought to go on down and see him. I know he's working late tonight. Shit, we're all working late tonight. But go see him and get it over with.” He flashes teeth that are brilliant against his dark skin and the night. “Y'all can talk about old times. And give me a call tomorrow. Let me know how it goes. We'll get a few beers while you're here, long as I'm not seen with you.”
I take Grand Avenue to Third Street and then go south past the interstate to the Holiday Inn. Another NO VACANCY sign flashes brightly there just as one had from every motel I passed. Yesterday a secretary at DCI's main office in Cheyenne described the trouble she went through to get a room. Every hotel or motel had been booked for months, she said, for the Lee trial. The only way she finally reserved a space was by threatening to have the Department of Health pay a lengthy and determined visit. A reporter from a distant, small newspaper was apparently booted out and rendered homeless so I could have a place to sleep.
Despite the secretary's threat, the motel is actually Laramie's finest. It consists of a single sprawling brick building, two stories high, with a long wing of rooms that faces a grass courtyard and a partially covered swimming pool. There's a coffee shop and a bar just off the lobby, as well as a gift shop and some convention halls. The motel is at the very southern edge of town, where the land turns from tree-lined neighborhoods into scattered ranches and rolling plains.
After changing into a soft flannel shirt, jeans, and Tevas at the motel and feeding Oso, I leave him there and drive to the sheriff's office. The three-story building is next to the sandstone courthouse and houses the jail, the twenty-man Laramie Police Department, and the fire department in addition to being the headquarters of the Albany County Sheriff's Department. Inside the lobby I show my badge to the Explorer Scout who's manning the front desk and explain that I want to find the sheriff. The Scout takes my name and gives me an astonished look, probably having read my name in the papers or having heard some of the talk after the Cheyenne shooting. Then he makes a quick call and gives me directions before buzzing me through.
I vaguely remember the way down the maze of hallways to the sheriff's office although I've only been here once before. It was in more carefree days, two years ago, when one of the less notorious cases I investigated involved two deputies, Bender and another named Arnold, for the use of excessive force. The two officers had beaten a drunk Mexican farmhand outside a south-of-town bar, in front of a crowd of spectators. DCI, which is mandated by the state to investigate all allegations of official misconduct by city, county, or state officers, sent me to conduct the inquiry and to make a recommendation to the Attorney General's Office about the potential filing of charges against the officers.
I came to this very office to interview the sheriff. I was a little puzzled at just how helpful he acted in providing witness statements. Generally, the locals resent an outside agency poking around. But the sheriff gave me an animated demonstration of what the witnesses had said happened. First he braced his big belly and arms against his own desk, showing how the farmworker didn't cooperate in putting his hands on the hood of a car for a pat-down. Then he got on his hands and knees in front of me, facing me, to illustrate how the worker refused to lie flat when the two officers tried to take him down.
And it was at that moment that I made the mistake that earned me what is probably the sheriff's devoted animosity. I was standing in the doorway to his office with my hands on my hips, the sheriff on all fours before me, when I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Jefferson Jones, my roommate from the police academy four years before. How strange the situation must have looked to Jones: me blocking the doorway with my back and the sheriff barely visible beyond, on hands and knees. So I did it. I winked at Jones and with one hand made a short zipping motion in front of my pants.
Jones's short burst of laughter before he brought himself under control betrayed me. It caused the sheriff to look up from his demonstration and catch the gist of my unspoken but obscene joke. The sheriff threw me out of his building and filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office.
At this time of night there is no one at the secretary's station outside the sheriff's office. I go right to the familiar open door and knock on the frame. Inside I can see Sheriff Willis not behind his desk, but slouching in a corner easy chair watching the news on a s
mall TV propped on a bookshelf.
“Special Agent Antonio Burns, right?” he asks, taking a stubby cigar out of his mouth. I appreciate the sheriff's greeting, acting as if he barely remembers me. That makes things easier for both of us.
Without rising he gestures with the cigar toward another chair. The office walls are crowded with community service plaques and photos showing the sheriff with his arm around various local and state politicians. Cardboard boxes are scattered across the floor, some spilling their contents. With a glance I see they are pamphlets advertising Nathan Karge for governor. I remember hearing somewhere that the sheriff is Karge's campaign manager, and that he's expected to follow Karge to the capital after the election.
As I sit, I'm struck again by the wonder of how this fat, balding redneck can remain an elected official for so many years in a town like Laramie. The town today has as many Internet commuters and yuppies as it has ranchers. Probably more. In addition, it has a large and visible population of hippies. People in other parts of the state think of the town as Wyoming's version of Berkeley. Sheriff Daniel Willis is a throwback to a time when Laramie was a hard and dusty cow town, full of saloons and whorehouses, and where the western railway abruptly terminated not far from the peaks of the Snowy Range. He always seemed to me like the epitome of heavy-handed cowboy justice. Maybe a sheriff like him keeps Laramie's new citizens feeling as if they're in the midst of some rustic charm.
“I hear you're the one that's gonna look into that young gal's fall,” he drawls. “Make sure it was an accident and that we're not covering nothing up. Should be pretty easy, I expect. Routine.”
“I don't know anything about it yet, Sheriff. I haven't even seen the witness statements or the coroner's report.”
“Coroner already made the determination, son. Accident. See what I mean about easy?” He's selling something and appears anxious that I buy.
The Edge of Justice Page 3