The Edge of Justice

by Clinton McKinzie

  Dominic “Dice” Torres stood alone in a band of moonlight that ran across the filthy living room from a window. He held a sawed-off shotgun in one hand, flat against his leg. Then two others stepped out from an interior doorway. Luis “Flaco” Gallegos and another I knew only as Smiley. They both had small, cheap pistols down at their sides. True to form, Smiley's teeth flashed in the half-light.

  “Oye, ese. Qué pasa?” Dominic said as he raised the shotgun to just under his chin. My hand snaked down under my jacket and gripped the plastic butt of my 9mm Glock as I stared into the twin voids of the shotgun's barrels. The room erupted with flashes and explosions like lightning and thunder across the plains.

  It would turn out that, inexplicably, Dominic still had the safety on. Only one of the other two even got off a shot, which buried itself in a wall of ruined stucco. Dominic went down with a 9mm hollow-point bullet through the bridge of his nose. Luis got one in the shoulder and another in the chest. Smiley took his through the teeth. Somehow I wasn't touched. Besides the bullets and bodies, all there was in the way of physical evidence when my backup arrived was the tape from the wire I wore with Dominic's innocuous words: “Oye, ese. Qué pasa?”

  During the deposition, Mo Cash was at first attentive and polite. He pointed out some inconsistencies. Why would I go in there alone when I knew that my cover had been burned? Why were there no accusations on the tape but simply a harmless greeting? Why would Dominic Torres have the safety on when he raised the gun to kill me? How could I possibly have managed to shoot dead three armed men who already had their guns drawn, who had the drop on me?

  Later, Cash's questions became a little harder, like, “Isn't it true, Agent Burns, that the three men were unarmed, that you in fact planted the guns on them after they were dead?” He would wink at me sometimes when he'd ask these things, since there was no jury present, saying in subtext, No hard feelings—it's just my job, pal. And I had to answer as my almost prepubescent attorney instructed me, “No sir, that is not true. I did not plant guns on anyone,” instead of responding the way I wanted, which was something like a simple “Fuck you.”

  The plaintiffs' theory of the case is that I went to the ranch house with the single-minded intention of murdering the three “friends” there. That I walked in, murdered Dominic Torres and his friends in cold blood, then retrieved some stolen weapons out of my truck to plant on them. The complaint states that I was motivated by frustration. According to it, I was discouraged because over the entire period of a three-month undercover investigation, I had failed to obtain reliable evidence of any criminal activity by Sureno 13. That is simply untrue. There are hours of tape and other evidence that could conclusively prove numerous criminal acts by Torres and the other two. But Clayton Wells, my attorney, warned me that we might not be able to go into any of that during the trial. The judge could rule it irrelevant to the central question of whether or not I had acted wrongfully in causing the deaths of the three men. When I snapped at him—“I thought the purpose of a trial was to find the truth”—his eyes just slid away once again. I should know better than to make such stupid statements. Without that evidence, my defense will hinge upon just two things: my testimony and that of Jimmy Hernandez, who can tell the jury that I'd been burned. And Mo Cash will ask the jury if they can believe me, when it's my money and the office's at stake, and whether they can believe Jimmy, a twice-convicted felon. I expect to lose the trust account my grandfather left me as well as whatever's left of my professional reputation.

  “You don't look so good, Burns. You look frigging beat. . . . We should call you Deadeye instead of QuickDraw,” McGee says, studying me as he comes into the interview room.

  “I'd rather we just forget about the nicknames,” I say. I chew slowly on the pizza and concentrate on swallowing.

  McGee sits heavily in a plastic chair. “Can't say I blame you, lad. What happened?”

  I give him a shrug and explain the run-in with the seventeen-year-old gang member. “I didn't recognize the others, but the one we hooked is Dominic Torres's little brother. They're going to send him to Evanston for a psych eval.”

  “It seems a little strange. That he'd just run across you like that. . . . I would have expected him to have stalked you instead. . . . Something like a shot through a window . . . or a bullet in your back. . . . Or just take all your money in that civil suit. . . . They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”

  “Well, he wasn't. He was pretty damn hot, stoked up on crank, I guess. Anyway, the local cops don't think he was over here looking for me. They say it was just coincidence. His gang, Sureno 13, is out of Cheyenne and Casper. They just come to Laramie to stir up trouble with the cowboys and hippies and look for girls at the university. The cops are out trying to find his buddies. How they knew I'd be here, I don't know. I wouldn't put it past my pal Bender to tip them off, though.”

  What was Bender doing there in uniform just hours after the duty sergeant told me he worked nights? I take this to mean something's definitely fishy with the Danning case. Am I paranoid or could this thing with the Surenos have been a setup to get me out of action?

  McGee doesn't respond to my accusation. Instead he says, “I got a call from the sheriff. He wants you out of town. . . . He said he didn't want any more trouble . . . with the gangs. I guess I don't have to tell you to watch your ass, lad. . . . Especially when you go to Cheyenne . . . next week for the hearing. Wear a friggin' vest.”

  I toss the crust back in the pizza box and pick up another piece.

  McGee watches me chew and I look down at the floor. Ever since the shooting, every time I've seen him, I can feel him studying me, as if he can weigh what's in my heart and in my head. McGee has been my sole support among the brass at the AG's Office, but I think his endorsement is somewhat reluctant. Like everyone else, he has questions of his own about that night. The administration had wanted to charge me criminally and see where it led. That would have been good politics for people such as the then–Attorney General, who was running for national office at the time. It would have sent a message that Wyoming will not whitewash the police-related deaths of their minorities, that they take such things as seriously as Los Angeles or New York. I suspect it was McGee and the fact that I'm something of a minority myself that saved me from an indictment. But they can still file a case at any time. There's no statute of limitations for murder.

  The cheap carpet on the interview room floor is stained with vomit and urine. I stare at it and realize the healing I've felt since my return to Laramie the day before is totally gone.

  “You want off this investigation? If you can't hack it here . . . let me know now. I'll get you back up north. You'll only have to come back . . . for the hearing next week.” McGee's voice is uncommonly soft.

  I shake my head angrily and feel tiny pieces of glass fall on the bare skin of my arms. “Fuck that, Ross. I'll finish this.” I'm glaring at him and I realize he wanted to make me mad. So I smile and say, “Everyone tells me this Danning thing is supposed to be routine anyway.”

  McGee gives me a nod with a rare and crooked grin, displaying two decades of military dentistry.

  SEVEN

  AT THREE O'CLOCK we drive out to the county coroner's office in the basement of Ivinson Memorial Hospital. The coroner himself, Dr. Jim Gustavson, meets us in the narrow lobby. Apparently the job in a small town like Laramie doesn't require a receptionist. Nor does it require a full-time coroner—on the way over, McGee told me that Gustavson works part-time as a mortician. He is a small, bald man with the sort of pasty complexion you would expect from someone whose professional life is spent among the dead. The white hospital smock he wears is stained with dried blood and other unidentifiable bits of gore. There is a nauseating chemical smell about him. He introduces himself to me without offering a hand and hellos McGee in a casual way. They've apparently met before. It sounds to me as if they are professional acquaintances rather than friends.

  “Come on around, gentlemen. I'
m finishing up a little project in back.”

  I follow them past the unmanned counter and through a pair of metal doors into a room with a single stainless-steel table. The air in it is cold. It stinks of death. Cluttered shelves line the walls above long counters except for one side, where the entire wall is taken up by large, square doors, each about the size of a coffin. It looks like some sort of enormous filing cabinet. McGee had warned me that the coroner would want to talk in the cutting room. “The prick likes to keep you off-balance . . . when you question his incompetence. . . . A typical friggin' ghoul's ploy.”

  A twisted corpse lies naked on the table. I look away from it quickly, but McGee limps right up and examines it with a critical eye.

  “Car accident?” he asks, puffing hard from the short walk.

  “Right. The boy was sixteen. He lost control of his car out on 287—driving far too fast, of course. He was sideways across the highway when the eighteen-wheeler caught him. See the bumper imprints where it came through the top of the door and crushed his chest? You can read the license-plate number there. His parents will never have to ask if anyone got the number of the truck that hit him.” The coroner chuckles as he makes the feeble joke. Neither McGee nor I join in.

  I spot a counter along the wall that doesn't look as if it has any body parts or blood spatters on it and place my briefcase there. Opening it, I take out the file on Kate Danning and spread it on the counter. I don't want to be in the same room with the corpse any longer than I have to, so I interrupt McGee and the coroner as they study the body.

  “Dr. Gustavson, I'm hoping you can answer a couple of questions about Kate Danning's autopsy. You did the cut on her Monday, right?”

  “Oh yes, just three days ago. She was a pretty girl, at least before she landed on those rocks. I actually know her parents.”

  “As Sheriff Willis probably told you, I'm looking into it as a routine inquiry. There's a potential conflict of interest because the County Attorney's son is the primary witness. Do you know him?”

  Gustavson chuckles. “Who, the County Attorney? I see him almost every day.”

  I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. I can already tell this guy's going to jerk me around. “The kid, Dr. Gustavson.”

  “Sure, I've met the boy several times over the years. Nice young man. I saw him just the other day at the funeral. He looked devastated.”

  That doesn't quite match with how I'd seen him at the bar. I remember him ignoring my wave when Lynn pointed him out. He was with the other climbers at the table, laughing and spraying beer from his mouth, just one day after his girlfriend's funeral.

  “I just wanted to ask you about the injury to the back of her skull. Do you know what caused it?”

  The coroner looks at me as if I'm dim-witted, and then looks at McGee and smiles. “She fell off a cliff, Agent Burns.”

  I'm not in the mood to put up with any shit, but I try to ignore his tone. “The reports and pictures I saw indicate that she landed on her face. What I'd like to know is how did she crack the back of her skull?”

  “Let me see my report.” The coroner takes the pages from my slim file. I grimace inwardly. He hadn't washed his hands after touching the corpse during his discussion with McGee. I stand at his side and point out the mention of the injury to the rear of her head. The doctor grunts, then shakes the autopsy photographs out of the envelope. In them the thin girl is naked on the same steel table, posed in sad postures for the camera. Sure enough, one of the photos shows the vivid yellow bruise and jagged tear of parted skin at the back of Kate Danning's freshly shaved scalp. I also point out to him the picture of her at the base of the cliff and the small bit of matted hair visible on the back of her head.

  “It looks to me like she struck it on the way down. There's your explanation, Agent. She bounced on the cliff.” He's smiling again.

  In my already fragile emotional state, the pictures have affected me strongly; I want to wipe the smile off his face with my knuckles.

  I show him the eight-by-ten of the sheer cliff, vertical to overhanging, as well as the picture of it I'd found in the Vedauwoo guidebook. Trying to control the aggressiveness I'm feeling but not doing a very good job, I say, “Show me what she bounced off of, Doctor.”

  The coroner remains adamant. “Well, young man, that's the only way she could have gotten that. Maybe you should go up there and jump off yourself—see what pops you in the head.”

  “How about we go up there together and I throw you off?”

  His spine jerks straight and he glares at me. I glare back. I expect a rebuke from McGee, but it doesn't come. He's shuffling through the autopsy photos. I'd offered to show them to him before, in the hotel, but he'd declined.

  “Gustavson,” he suddenly barks, “what the hell's that?” He holds up a shot of the crushed face and chest. With a thick finger he draws a line across the girl's throat. There is an angry red mark there. The coroner takes the photo from him and looks at it closely.

  “Oh yes, I remember that. She was wearing a necklace of some sort. A piece of colored string, if I remember correctly. I couldn't untie it and had to cut it off. It must have caught on something, probably when she hit the back of her head.”

  “You keep the goddamn necklace?”

  “No, I put it in the incinerator. It was inexpensive and not very glamorous, for a girl with such wealthy parents.”

  I glance at McGee and see that he looks as worked up as I feel. His labored breaths are increasing rather than diminishing. His fierce blue eyes blaze above his beard. Heat and blood are brightening his face. “You did the cut on Lee, right? She was strangled. . . . With a narrow pink cord . . . I've seen the fucking pictures. . . . And she was using meth. Just like Danning . . . or at least had been. . . . Are you catching my drift, Gustavson?” He says the doctor's name as if it's an insult.

  Gustavson turns away. “Coincidence.” He slides all the photos back into the envelope and tosses it rudely on top of my other papers on the counter.

  “Christ!” McGee continues. “Did you check for binding marks on Danning?” He steps closer to the coroner. I can see the doctor wince at the smell of McGee's cigar-flavored breath.

  “No, Mr. McGee. There was no need—that girl fell off a cliff, damn it.”

  McGee moves even closer and Gustavson steps back, looking cornered. “Landed facedown? And got a fractured skull in back? . . . Never looked into a strangle mark . . . on her neck? Christ, you better not . . . have fucked this one up too.”

  “I hope you at least did a rape kit,” I say.

  “I was told it wasn't necessary.”

  “Who the fuck told you that!” McGee swings his cane in a low, agitated arc. With a sharp crack it strikes the steel table upon which lies the boy's body. I half expect the corpse to jump off the table and run. There's something particularly profane about our anger in a room where the crumpled and naked body lies partially cut open.

  The coroner is now glaring back at McGee, red-faced. “The sheriff did! And he was passing the message on from Karge!” We both stare at him, stunned. “So if you want to shout at someone, go shout at them. Listen, I did what I'm supposed to do. I cut them up and tell you how they died. And she fell off a cliff, so don't go making this kind of stuff up! I've suffered enough with this Lee trial!”

  McGee speaks slowly. “If you're looking for sympathy, look it up in the dictionary. . . . It's between shit and syphilis.”

  Gustavson regains some of his composure. “Please leave. I've got to finish this one.” He motions at the boy's corpse. “And you're chasing your tail if you think anything except that the girl fell off a cliff.”

  I gather the papers and photos back into my briefcase. On our way out the door, McGee turns and again growls at the coroner. “Where is she? Buried or cremated?”

  “Buried Tuesday,” Gustavson says, as he stands unmoving over the boy's twisted corpse. Then he adds, uselessly, “Closed casket, of course.”

  Outside in the heat and th
e wind I walk slowly with McGee to his office-assigned Ford sedan that we're driving. The vinyl seats are hot and the car reeks of his cigars. McGee had earlier declined to drag his bulk high up into the Land Cruiser and have the beast drool down his neck. So I'd left Oso at the hotel with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door to save an unwary maid from a surprise.

  “What's this about the Lee?”

  “Possible clusterfuck. . . . She was strangled by a thin cord too. . . . But all the way.”

  “The Knapp brothers were in custody when Kate Danning died, right?” I say, thinking out loud. “It happened in the middle of their trial. Another young, dead girl involved in the local drug scene, possibly strangled, at least partly. So I guess we have a problem with the good doctor's coincidence theory.”

  “Coincidence doesn't get a trial, lad. . . . I presume it guilty until proven innocent.”

  “What are you thinking, then? Someone else did Kimberly Lee? Not the brothers? I thought that case was about as solid as they get.”

  McGee jams a fresh cigar in his mouth and paws at the car's cigarette lighter. He doesn't answer me but curses some more around the fat roll of dried leaves.

  “What about the rape kit on Lee? I don't remember hearing about that. What did it show?”

  McGee tears the cigar out of his mouth, his eyes as bright as its hot cherry. “That's what the little shit was talking about. . . . That's why the defense raked him over the fucking coals. . . . He didn't bother to do one on Lee . . . since everyone knew who killed her. The incompetent prick!”

  I'm amazed. On the same day he was burned for not doing a rape kit in the Lee trial, he doesn't bother to do one on Kate Danning. You would think he'd learn from his mistakes. And why would Karge not want one done? Even if his son's semen or pubic hair were found on her, why would it matter, as everyone knew he was her boyfriend? It's too late now—Kate Danning's body is in the earth and even if we dig her up, she'll have been washed by the mortician, probably Gustavson himself, before the funeral.