Last Words

by Michael Koryta

  The rental house that Evan Borders currently called home was probably close to a hundred years old, with a deteriorating stone foundation, vinyl siding that bubbled in most places and curled apart at the corners, and an aluminum porch roof that had pulled loose from one support and hung at a precarious angle, dumping melting snow onto the steps below. Three plastic bins lined the base of the porch, each one overflowing with Busch cans floating in the snowmelt. There was a vehicle parked in the weeds beside the house, an old Jeep with oversize tires and a roof rack of lights. A shame. Mark had been hoping for a white Silverado or a panel van.

  Mark pulled his car in across the street and sat with the engine running, looking the place over and hearing echoes of the various warnings. Let’s get to it, Mark’s mind said, but his body didn’t agree. Mark didn’t often have a pronounced size advantage, but he generally had a strength advantage, and ever since he was a child, he’d had one of the greatest advantages you could carry into a fight: he didn’t mind getting hit. You learned a lot about fighting when you didn’t disappear after the first punch, and in the circle of towns that Mark had passed through, there’d been a lot of first punches. That came with the constant string of new neighborhoods, new schools, new shames.

  All of these things were supposed to be gone from him, of course. They had been, for a while. A few good years. But now he sat outside of the house of a man who possibly had held a knife on him, and then a needle, and what he wanted wasn’t the sight of that man in handcuffs or a jail cell. What he wanted was blood. What he needed was the truth.

  Whether Borders was the guilty man or not, there was a chance that Mark’s walking onto his front porch was going to start a war. And today, when Mark could exhaust himself just by walking up a flight of stairs, that would end badly for him.

  Still, some part of him wanted it.

  The frame of the storm door was bent, keeping it from closing, so he pulled that open, blocked it with his heel, and pounded hard on the main door. A police knock, the kind that suggested you had a short window of time to open it yourself or it would be opened for you. Evan Borders had probably heard that kind before.

  The door opened fast, and Mark’s focus from the start was on the other man’s eyes, because he knew they would tell him more than anything. Mark wasn’t sure he’d be able to recognize anyone from that snowy road, not with the way they’d been dressed and had their faces covered, but he was damn sure anyone who had been there would recognize him.

  Evan Borders took the detective work out of the equation fast. He said, “Hey, hey, the man himself. Novak, right?”

  “I’m a familiar face to you?”

  “Familiar face to anybody who reads the paper. You’re one famous fella around here.”

  Mark looked into those eyes, trying to place them. Blue, and that seemed to fit, but he couldn’t be sure. His size eliminated him from two of the three possibilities—if he’d been there, he’d been the man who waited in the middle of the road, the one who hadn’t worn gloves. Mark looked at his hands, wondering if he’d have better luck recognizing something there. Again, it was impossible to tell. Evan was wearing an old T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, exposing tattoos on both biceps, a snake surrounded by flames on the right arm, a crucifix on the left. Perhaps that was an attempt at irony.

  “Figured you’d drop by,” Borders said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you weren’t shy about throwing my fucking name around town, and even around the newspapers.” His eyes were flint. “But then, after somebody decided to chill you out, I wasn’t sure if you’d hit town again. After a thing like that, some men would head south.”

  “I’m not one of those men.”

  “Too tough, eh?”

  “Or too stupid.”

  Borders smiled a mean smile and said, “That one would get my vote.”

  “I understand you and Ridley did some chatting the same day I took a beating.”

  “No shit?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Yeah? So what of it, boy?”

  Boy. It echoed in Mark’s mind, familiar for reasons unknown. A simple word, but still, something about it taunted.

  “Well?” Evan said.

  “Mind telling me why?” Mark said. “Man’s believed to have killed your girlfriend ten years ago, but you call him up at home same day I arrive asking questions? Seems odd.”

  “Those feel like police questions. You ain’t police.”

  “If you don’t answer me, the police’ll be asking the same questions eventually. I’ll see to it. You could save yourself the hassle.”

  Evan Borders smiled. “Appreciate you thinking of me that way, though I understand that the police have questions for you. Me? I’ve got nothing to hide, and I’m telling no lies, not like you. So you ask me an honest question, you get an honest answer in response. I called Ridley Barnes to offer my services. You might recall that it was snowing that day? Maybe you don’t; you got an unusual memory, is what I hear.”

  “I remember the snow.”

  “Well, that’s progress. During the winters, I plow snow. I was plowing all day; you can ask my cousins and our clients if you don’t believe that. Plenty of witnesses on my side. Doesn’t sound like you’re too familiar with witnesses. I asked Ridley if he needed help ’cause I was out near his place, and turned out he didn’t. He called me back and told me that. Now, I’ll go ahead and answer your next question, which is whether I can prove this. Unlike you—notice how many differences there are between you and me and the stories we tell?—I sure can. I was working with two other people, and I got a client list a mile long that the police can check if they want to. You don’t get that list, because I’m already being more generous than I need to be. Point is? I know what I was doing that day. What you were doing crawling into that cave? Boy, I got no idea on that front. Nobody in town seems to.”

  “Did you actually have feelings for Sarah?” Mark said.

  Borders worked his tongue over his teeth like he was preparing for the taste of Mark’s blood.

  “You don’t need to say her name. No more than you needed to say mine to that reporter. Saying too many names in this town will eventually get you in trouble.”

  “I’m just trying to put myself in your shoes. If I had feelings for a girl who was killed, last person I’d offer to help—clearing snow, of course, there was nothing more to it—would be the man people blame for her murder. But that’s just me.”

  Evan Borders reached in the pocket of his jeans, removed a plastic container of chewing tobacco, and methodically worked a dip onto his fingertips and tucked it between his lower lip and his gums. He sucked on it for a few seconds and spit into the snow, all the while looking patient and thoughtful.

  “Listen,” he said, “I could invite you in out of the cold, but I’m not going to. Still, I’m a nice guy, right? Considerate. I’m aware that you’ve spent more time in the cold lately than you probably cared to. So I’ll hustle things along, let you go on back to your car and get warmed up again. Looks like you need it. Don’t mean to offend you, but you should be in bed, my man. Get you some chicken soup and some ginger ale, right? I don’t have any to offer or I would, of course.”

  “Considerate,” Mark said.

  “Exactly.” Borders leaned his lanky body against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest. The muscles bunched against his skin. “And out of consideration, I’m going to save you time. I’m going to answer the rest of your questions with one word. That word is—”

  “I don’t have any other questions.”

  Borders raised his eyebrows. “No?”

  “Was hoping you could do me a favor, though.”

  “A favor, he says. No shit? You toss my name around, stirring up old shit that you don’t know a damn thing about, getting people to look sideways at me all over again, getting whispers started again, and then you come to me for a fucking favor? That’s bold, brother.”

  “It would take o
nly a few seconds of your time,” Mark said.

  “Well, let’s hear it, my man. What favor can I do you?”

  Mark reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out the black wool ski mask, and unfolded it methodically. He extended it to Evan Borders.

  “Try this on, please. Just for a few seconds.”

  Borders stayed where he was and though his expression didn’t change, one of the muscles in his arm trembled.

  “Get the fuck off my porch,” he said, his voice low. It was a classic threatening line, the get-out-of-my-face type of thing that a million assholes who thought they were hard would utter in a million situations, but it felt different coming from him. It felt real.

  “Won’t even try it on?” Mark said. “A considerate guy like you?”

  Borders straightened, took the mask in his hands, and then, in a blink-fast flash, pulled it down over Mark’s head. He’d turned it around so the eye- and mouth holes were at the back, leaving Mark blind again, just like he had been with the hood over his head. He tensed his abdominals, expecting a punch, but none came. He reached up and grasped the mask but didn’t pull it off. Instead, he rotated it until it was in the proper place and he could see Evan Borders again.

  “Feels good,” Mark said. “Nice and warm. The last time I asked you for one, you weren’t as generous.”

  Evan Borders leaned close to him and said, “You walk your ass back to your car now. You get in it, and you leave. And the next time you feel my name on your lips? You keep them shut. Garrison hears enough lies from Ridley Barnes. Don’t need to add yours to the mix.”

  “If he’s a liar, then why are you his cavalry when trouble comes?”

  Evan Borders stepped back into his house and slammed the door.

  Mark kept the mask on as he walked to his car.

  This world? It’s run by pressure.

  The dials were beginning to tighten down in Garrison, and Mark was going to keep tightening them. He’d see Ridley Barnes again, but there was no need to rush for him. When he did see him, he wanted Ridley to have had plenty of time to consider Mark’s presence back in town.

  26

  They made him wait an hour for the sheriff, at which point he began to whistle. Mark wasn’t much for whistling these days. Uncle Ronny had been great at it, could imitate a harmonica if he chose, but most of that had been lost on Mark. Still, he had volume, and although it took all of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the beginning of the marching song from The Bridge on the River Kwai, folks eventually decided the sheriff could see him after all.

  Blankenship opened the door, gave Mark a sour look, and said, “I thought you were supposed to be back where the sun always shines, Novak.”

  “‘Sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass every day,’” Mark said.

  The sheriff blinked at him.

  “You don’t know that line?” Mark said. “Son of a bitch, sheriff, that’s Catfish Hunter’s finest material, borrowed in the movie Hoosiers. I’d have expected more from you, being from Indiana.”

  “Get in here,” Blankenship snapped, “so you can get the hell out faster.”

  Mark followed him back to the same office where he’d started this thing. The last time, he’d cruised through the department without noticing it, but now, with his labored breathing and heavy stride, he had the chance to take a good look at the place and all of the hostile, watching eyes. It was like the diner only with everyone in uniform.

  “Why are you back?” Blankenship said when they were in his office.

  “Because a very serious crime occurred in your county. A felony. A handful of felonies, in fact. You don’t seem to be aware of it.”

  “This would be the tale you told about how you ended up in the cave? I spoke with your boss. He gave me your, um, take on that.”

  “You heard about a kidnapping and attempted murder in your county and didn’t so much as bother to check in with the victim?”

  “I also heard from a member of your board of directors. A Greg Roche? Name familiar?”

  Mark said, “I know Greg,” and hoped his face didn’t show more than that. Greg was the reason Innocence Incorporated existed. A well-known prosecutor who’d worked high-profile cases and was appointed U.S. district attorney for Florida, Greg Roche had had one of the more famous change-of-heart moments in American law after he’d been presented with evidence that one of the death-row cases he’d prosecuted had resulted in the execution of an innocent man. He’d formed Innocence Incorporated then, bringing Jeff London on as his first investigator. Greg had also been Lauren’s moral guide, a man she respected more than anyone else in the profession. The board of directors operated, theoretically, on majority rule, but Greg’s vote counted the most.

  “He was very interested to know my take on you, what your conduct had been, how you were representing the organization.” Blankenship inserted a pause. “I got the impression that you’re in a little bit of trouble with your own team.”

  “You got the right one. That’s exactly why I’m back. I can’t afford to leave here without the truth. I need your help proving it.”

  Blankenship shook his head. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt with your story about Diane Martin. I’m not wasting time on you again unless you have some evidence.”

  Mark nodded. “Understood. I don’t have the evidence yet. I intend to gather it.”

  “Terrific. You step wrong here, and I mean at all, and I’ll arrest you. To tell the truth, if it had been anyone other than Ridley Barnes that you’d bloodied up, I already would have. Ridley, though? He deserved what you gave him.”

  “Speaking of Ridley, I understand that he’s the one who found me in the cave.”

  “He was the first one to you. The rescue team had located your general area, but Ridley was the one who determined how to actually reach you.”

  “Because he knew where I was. Have you considered that?”

  “I have.”

  “And yet you show no interest in pursuing how I ended up in that cave. You tell me that I need evidence, but you don’t have evidence to prove me wrong. Don’t you want that?”

  “After your opening act in town, no, I don’t. You told a savage and sick lie, Novak.”

  “I would hope,” Mark said, “based on your personal relationship with Diane Martin, you would have some interest in finding out who’s pretending to be her.”

  Blankenship moved his large, heavy-knuckled hands around his desk as if looking for something to fill them with before they found their real target: Mark’s throat.

  “Let the dead have their peace,” he said softly. “What is wrong with you?”

  “You and I might understand each other a little better if you looked into my background, Sheriff.”

  “I’ve done so. I know what happened to your wife. I’m sorry. If that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back of your sanity, I am truly sorry. But the verdict is in: You lied. Why, I don’t know. But I do know that you lied. And as for the next story? The three men who you say came for you? Well, Ridley doesn’t have three friends in this world.”

  “I had the same notion, and I was proven wrong. Painfully. So I’d be careful in underestimating the reach of Ridley Barnes. I’d also like to know whose call it was to bring him into the cave looking for me.”

  “It was mine. He knows the place better than anyone alive. The only person who could solve my problem was him, whether I liked asking for his help or not.”

  “He’s Captain Quint himself, eh?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Really? That might be the saddest thing I’ve heard yet. Hoosiers, sure, but you don’t even get the Jaws reference? My goodness, Sheriff. Disappointing. Mind if I ask you another question about Ridley’s, um, assistance in my situation?”

  “Fire away.”

  “You called for him when you wanted Sarah Martin found, and that didn’t go well. But when I went missing, you said again that you needed him, because he’s the best.”


  Blankenship looked at him for a long time, the stare dim, as if he didn’t want to allow himself to see Mark in focus. Or maybe as if he were trying to see someone else.

  “He knew the cave best,” he said finally, and his voice was hoarse. “Everyone said that, even Pershing admitted it; Pershing had hired him to explore the place! Pershing said he didn’t trust Ridley, that they’d had disputes over the cave, but I didn’t care about the cave, I cared about her.” He thumped a hand on the desk. “Every caver I talked to, and I didn’t give a damn what Pershing had to say, every expert I talked to told me that Ridley Barnes had to be involved because he was the only one who really knew the place, and I needed someone who could reach Sarah.”

  He choked on the last words and took a moment to collect himself.

  “So why did I let him go after you?” Blankenship said. “Honestly, I wanted to see him in there. I wanted to watch him, watch where he went. I wanted him to go to the right place.”

  “You mean the place where she was found.”

  “Yes. No such luck. But it saved your dumb ass, so you can thank me and then go on your way.”

  Mark nodded. “Here’s what I’d do if I were you,” he said.

  “This ought to be good.”

  “You might want to nudge around my story about those three men with shotguns, Sheriff. If they came for me the way I said, then Ridley called them. And if I were you, sitting there with a cold case still waiting to be closed? Well, I’d want to at least have a look at who Ridley might have called. I think you might find that real interesting. I think you might want to have a different kind of talk with me then. More cooperative.”

  “You talk like you already know what I’ll find.”