Badwater

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by Clinton McKinzie


  twelve

  Luke shuffled papers while the courtroom emptied. Occasionally someone leaned over the rail and clapped his shoulder. Luke would turn, and the man or woman would say “You get him, Luke,” or “You make him pay for what he did to our Cody,” or, once, “Hang him high, Luke. Hang him high.”

  The county attorney would nod solemnly by way of reply and go back to shuffling, the same surreptitious gleam in his eye. I suspected he was about as sorry over the boy’s death as he would have been if he’d won the lottery. It was manna from heaven for a politician, especially a struggling one. Everyone would be talking about how tough he was on crime, about how hard he went after an outsider who had the audacity to kill a local child. I stayed in my seat even though the urge was strong to get away from him.

  I really hated politics and the way it could pervert justice.

  But I stayed not only because it was my job but also because I owed it to Luke. He still had a limp from the bullet he’d taken for me. I wondered if the wound still pained him very much. I wondered, too, if the bullet might be the reason he’d gotten so damn fat. Not that he’d ever been skinny, but he was so fat now he’d probably die of a heart attack at an early age, and in a way, it might be my fault. But at least I couldn’t blame myself for the loss of his hair. It had already been thinning when we first met. I could still picture him as he’d been that day eight years ago—he’d been trying to infiltrate an Earth First! rally near Jackson Hole and was dressed as an over-the-top hippie from a quarter century earlier, complete with beads, bell-bottoms, and granny glasses. The idiotic outfit exposed him as a narc as fast as the obvious calculation in his eyes. I would learn over the months we spent together that he was far more effective at running CIs—confidential informants. Kicking their butts and always sending them in for more and more evidence. He was also known for protecting them from overly curious judges and defense attorneys, and for building rock-solid cases that the prosecutors would too often give away so they wouldn’t have to bother with another trial that would take time away from their fishing and hunting trips.

  I had still been an FNG—a trainee—when he caught the bullet. I hadn’t even gone through the academy in Rock Springs yet. Luke was my partner and training officer. One night we were in the mountains outside Story, Wyoming, surveilling a house whose owner we intended to arrest. At 3:00 A.M. a car finally drove up with our suspect inside. Luke covered me as I jogged up the driveway behind it, intending to be in the driver’s face as soon as he stepped out of the car. Only he somehow saw me in the red glow of his taillights. Without even stopping, he opened the driver’s door, twisted halfway out, and started shooting.

  I dove into the trees on one side of the driveway. My desperate lunge for cover was so sudden and so spastic that Luke thought I’d been hit. He returned fire then yelled my name. Since our suspect was still sporadically firing back with vicious little small-caliber pops, I thought it wise not to answer and give away my position. Luke took my silence for mortal danger—he probably pictured me with blood spilling out of holes in my flesh. He charged out of the trees like a short, balding Rambo. He was emptying an entire fifteen-round clip as he ran in a weird sideways scuttle, trying to make himself a skinnier target, I guess, which might have been a good strategy if he weren’t already showing signs of his current chubbiness. The suspect somehow wasn’t shot, but his very last bullet struck Luke in the meat of one cheek and passed through both it and the other. It was lucky for him that he disabled Luke in this way. If he hadn’t, I had no doubt Luke would have killed him, whether the poor idiot who’d shot him had any more ammunition or not.

  I was following the rules in those days, just as I was trying to now. I didn’t even take a cheap shot for my partner—not even a little kick to the groin of the man who’d tried to kill both of us—when I tackled the asshole as he tried to run from his car. Luke had given me shit about that for months. Goddamnit, Burns, the fucker pops me and you cuff him like he’s your mom and take him in without a scratch while I’m lying there bleeding out of my ass.

  Things sure had changed. With me, at least.

  The courtroom’s doors banged shut a last time and the room was silent.

  “What did you think, amigo?” Luke asked, finally letting the grin lift up his jowls the way he’d been aching to all through the morning.

  I thought it sucked.

  But I forced myself to recite my mantra. Besides, it really wasn’t any of my business. I just gave him the facts and he made the charging decisions. That’s what good cops do. I couldn’t stay totally silent, though.

  “I’m not sure I see the factual basis for murder, Luke. The intent element, I mean. I don’t think I put anything about that in my report.”

  The smile dropped along with the jowls.

  “What are you talking about, QuickDraw? You were there at the scene. You arrested the son of a bitch. He threw that kid off the cliff into the river.”

  “But did he really intend for Cody to die?”

  Luke drew back and studied me.

  “Christ, have you gotten limp-wristed or something? Of course he intended for him to die. Strasburg had just come down the biggest, baddest rapids in the river and then he pushes that kid into the same water?”

  The fact that it was downstream from the rapids didn’t register with him. He continued. “And you just saw our potential jury pool—do you think they’re going to believe it was an accident? They’ll buy extreme indifference, at the least.”

  I shrugged. It was probably true. It depended on the abilities of the defense. Not, as justice should, on the actual facts.

  Another smile crept onto Luke’s face, this one sly.

  “Besides, this is just for openers. I’m not going to have to prove anything. You know the game, QuickDraw. That kid and whatever putz the judge rustles up to represent him will fall all over themselves to plead to any lesser I can name. They’ll take anything, anything at all, just so long as they don’t have to risk mandatory life under Murder One.”

  I’d always hated plea bargains. It seemed to me that if you commit a crime, you should be convicted and sentenced for your actions. Not some other, sometimes unrelated, offense, just so the state didn’t have to go through the effort and uncertainties of an actual trial.

  I wasn’t stupid, though—I understood that in a wildly overcrowded and underfunded judicial system, you can’t take everything to trial. And that each year lawmakers make it a thousand times worse by trying to look “tough on crime” and passing new laws and mandatory sentences. Deals had to be made—the system had long ago been overwhelmed. What I really objected to was the politicization of the process. Prosecutors were elected, and their first priority was always to stay in office. The pleas they offered—and the charges they filed and overfiled—were far too often based on that priority. A county attorney had to have a politician’s instinct for the sound bite and know who to hammer and who to soft-sell to keep the money and votes flowing.

  It had little to do with justice. Less and less each year.

  Luke chuckled.

  “I bet they’ll be so scared of the murder charge they’ll jump for criminally negligent homicide and a ten-year minimum.”

  “That’s what you’re going to offer?” I asked.

  But Luke didn’t answer. We were interrupted by a voice from the back of what we’d assumed was an empty courtroom.

  “You’re disgusting,” a voice said, not much louder than a whisper but with enough emotion behind it that it carried like a scream.

  I turned around in my chair. Luke did, too. Mattie Freda was still huddled in the far corner, her black bangs above dark eyes looking as sharp as Mungo’s fangs. I noticed that she’d taken out the facial jewelry she’d worn on the river. Her blouse was some black, shiny material. If it weren’t for her dyed hair, she’d look almost respectable.

  “Who the hell are you?” Luke demanded.

  “Mattie . . .” I called to her.

  “Don’t
even fucking speak to me, you goddamn Nazi!”

  With jerking movements, she grabbed her bag, lurched to her feet, and almost ran out of the room.

  Luke chuckled.

  “That’s the girlfriend? Bet she wouldn’t be too bad in the sack if you like a little strange. Looked like she has a body on her. Anyway, she’ll be fucking great if we ever get her on the witness stand. Piss off everyone in town with that attitude.”

  I wanted to go after her but didn’t. I rationalized that it would be good to give her a little time to cool off. It was also true that I didn’t want to chase her down, apologizing, in front of Luke.

  Instead I asked, “Did you hear how Strasburg got those bruises?”

  Now he laughed. “Sounds like my old buddy Smit was angling for early release. He sure opened a can of whup-ass on Strasburg, all right. I didn’t think that big bastard would beat up anyone but his girlfriend—all we ever seem to get him on are piddling little DV charges, even though he’s the ringleader of half the tweakers in this county. But you’d better be watching your back when that boy gets out—he’ll probably try making another exception for you. I heard he had to get six stitches in his tongue after you zapped him.”

  Then he turned serious. “By the way, I met with the sheriff about it before court this morning. He wasn’t too happy with you for stirring things up in his jail. He wants you to stay out of there, understand? Putting Strasburg in solitary will be a big drain on his resources, and if we piss the sheriff off too much he’s not going to endorse me when the campaigning starts.” He shook his head, remembering, and frowned at me. “No, he wasn’t happy at all.”

  I said, “I wasn’t too happy that his deputies allowed our suspect to get the shit kicked out of him.”

  “Come on, QuickDraw. What did you expect when you put him in that jail after he killed a local kid? In this town, there’s always going to be a little unofficial payback. Might even make him a little malleable, if you know what I mean, when it comes time to do a deal. After what I heard about you in Cheyenne, I’m surprised you’d be so squeamish about something like that.”

  I decided to reason with him in a language he’d understand.

  “Do you want him coming into court looking like a victim instead of a perp? Do you want him filing lawsuits against you, the sheriff, and the county for violating his civil rights?”

  Luke considered it and scowled. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.” Then the scowl changed into a leer. “You know all about those kinds of lawsuits, don’t you, QuickDraw?”

  I ignored the question and the old pain and anger that flared with the reference.

  “I hear you’ve got some experience with other forms of retaliation, too,” Luke said. “Perpetrating it, I mean. I bet there’s some stuff nobody even knows about, right? Took you long enough to figure it out, amigo. But it’s the way the real world works.”

  The pain and anger turned suddenly to fear. I found myself staring into his piggish eyes, feeling my own eyes growing hard and sharp until he looked down at his papers.

  What did he know?

  He was just a small-town prosecutor and former Wyoming cop—he couldn’t possibly know anything about a botched FBI operation, my brother’s “accident,” or my role in the disappearance of the Mexican drug lord who’d been responsible for it all. He couldn’t know. McGee just wouldn’t betray me like that. And no one else knew, or at least no one had any evidence.

  But for a moment my world was thrown off-kilter, and I could see myself standing in a moonless Baja desert, a wounded man crawling at my feet, the boom and kick of the shotgun in my hands, and the splash of hot blood on my bare legs. I remembered feeling no pity, no remorse. And, sick as it was, I still felt none.

  Luke was shuffling his papers a final time, this time organizing them into a neat pile and stuffing them in his briefcase. He stood and hefted the case.

  “I want you to interview those kids today, okay?”

  “Who?” I asked after a pause.

  “The Manns. Wake up. And quit giving me those cold snake eyes.”

  thirteen

  Having met the brothers and their dad once already, I wasn’t looking forward to meeting them a second time.

  The desk sergeant at the sheriff’s office who gave me directions seemed to share my concern. After he drew me a map on the back of a complaint form—diagramming several unsigned roads and turns off the main highway—he gave me a funny look.

  “You going out there alone? About this river thing?”

  “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

  He shrugged.

  “Just curious. There could be a lot of reasons for a DCI guy to head out that way.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “The family’s a little high-strung, you might say. Not a lot of respect for authority. The father used to be a regular customer in here when he was a young buck. The two older boys—a pair of twins—are doing their damnedest to follow in his footsteps. I’ve got a daughter their age, and she thinks that they’re getting into meth pretty heavy. It’s becoming a real problem around here. But being with DCI, I guess you already know that. Anyway, I suppose the younger boys are still nice kids.”

  I thanked him for the information. And I decided it would be a good idea to call ahead instead of just dropping by.

  On the phone I talked to a woman who identified herself as Elizabeth Mann, the boys’ mother. She sounded surprisingly friendly.

  “Sure, come on out,” she said. “We’re all lying pretty low this morning, feeling blue about Cody. I’ll send Ed or one of the boys down to meet you at the gate.”

  In the late-morning heat, Mungo and I headed out of town. The route took us west along the highway beside the river. There were several vehicles parked on top of the hill above the big boulder. I didn’t slow to gawk. Past the turnout, we forked right on a county road and rose up into the foothills. It was a pretty drive. The sagebrush was still a little green from the spring, and the peaks of the Wind River range gleamed with fresh white snow. I could make out some of the distant couloirs, ridges, and faces, and took note of the ones I had climbed, remembering good times in simpler days.

  Ed Mann seemed even smaller in the daylight than he’d appeared last night in the darkness. Maybe it had something to do with having vented his anger on me already. He was leaning against the bumper of a ranch truck at the last turn that was marked on my hand-drawn map.

  Seeing me, he nodded without smiling, tugged on the brim of his dirty baseball cap, and climbed into the cab of his truck. He stuck out an arm and waved for me to follow. I quickly saw why Mrs. Mann had thought it necessary to send out her husband as a guide. After passing the gate and entering the Manns’ property, there was a maze of double-tracks leading off in all directions.

  I followed close to the ranch truck’s bumper, observing the gun rack and the sticker in the back window that read:

  “Freedom at Any Cost”

  —Randy Weaver

  Ruby Ridge, Idaho

  Nice. Really nice. Especially for a cop already apprehensive about making this trip. I was glad, at least, that I didn’t wear a uniform or drive a police cruiser. If Mungo could read, she wouldn’t have liked a sticker on the tailgate: “Shoot a Wolf, Save a Rancher.” And then there were the usual round decals proclaiming the driver’s affiliation with the National Rifle Association. I rolled up the back windows so Mungo couldn’t stick her big head out.

  As expected, the house wasn’t much. Just a regular ranch house, unlike the Wallises’ fancier residence. A functional place that had been added to many times over the years with unprofessional labor, surrounded by dirt, sage, and weeds. But it was relatively neat—there was none of the usual ranch junk in the yard. An L of tall cottonwoods screened it from the west and north winds. The height of the big trees indicated the house had probably been here a very long time. Mann didn’t stop in front of the house, but more than fifty feet away, behind the line of trees. Here I found all their junk—old pickups, tra
ctors, and appliances all in various stages of either deterioration or reconstruction. He parked and I did, too. I expected that someone, probably the missus, didn’t want all the crap in front of the house. There it would ruin what was an impressive view of high, rolling plains leading up to the peaks.

  She met us on the porch. Tall and powerfully built, she resembled Cody’s father, and this, along with the different last names, led me to assume that the familial connection went through her. She wore a clean white uniform. It turned out that she was a nurse in Badwater’s emergency clinic.

  “I was there when they brought him in,” she told me, shaking her head sadly. “He looked so tiny I almost didn’t recognize him. We worked on him for almost an hour and did everything we could think of. But he’d been under for too long.”

  I bowed my head, feeling again that maybe I’d really screwed up by chickening out on that first dive. Maybe a single minute would have made a difference.

  “Our boys told us what you did. I want to thank you for going into that river after my nephew. For trying to resuscitate him, too.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. “I wish I’d gotten there sooner.”

  She turned to her husband. “Make sure the boys don’t give this young man any guff.” Then she marched out to her car to start her shift.

  I was sorry to see her go. Her forthright, appreciative manner contrasted with what I already knew of her husband and at least his younger sons.

  Ed Mann silently escorted me upstairs. He hadn’t yet spoken but a few words to me. Randall and Trey were waiting in a shared bedroom. It was a disaster—what you’d expect of kids their age—but not particularly dirty. The only offensive things about the surroundings were the posters on the walls and the related music that was playing too loud.

  I was familiar with it, although I’d rather not have been. The group was called the Insane Clown Posse. White guys dressed up in leather, spikes, and clown makeup like Kiss, but playing shock rap-metal, singing about graphic violence in terms full of expletives. Their music had been pulled from one Wyoming store, and a school district banned their apparel, after a few concerned parents connected it with an uptick in teen shootings and suicide. This, of course, only added to that band’s luster among the tasteless kids who were really only looking for a way to jerk around their parents.

 

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