by Allen Kent
Her jaw tightened and her eyes filled in the corners, but she remained mute.
“I believe so,” Doc Waterman answered for her. “When she came in, she said she’d been in what she called ‘a bit of a domestic disagreement.’”
I reached toward the cheekbone that was already turning a bloodstained purple. “Any damage to the bone?” I asked, mainly to the doctor.
He stepped up beside me and gently encouraged Grace onto her feet. “No. But this isn’t the worst of it.” He began to turn her, but she resisted, casting Mara Joseph a glare that told her she wasn’t welcome in the room. Joseph didn’t need encouragement.
“I’ll just step out,” she said, moving quickly to the door, “and will be in the waiting area if you need anything.”
With the door closed behind the state investigator, Grace was still hesitant.
“Please, Grace,” the doctor encouraged. “Tate needs to see this.” She reluctantly turned with her back toward me. Waterman gingerly lifted her shirt. Her ribs, from hip to shoulder blade, were an angry mass of bruises, broken by darker stripes where some hard object had pounded her side.”
“We completed x-rays before I called,” the doctor said, pointing to two midnight blue welts. “She has two fractured ribs about here, and I’m worried about a bruised kidney lower down. She needs to be off her feet for a week, then get checked again before she does more than light work.”
I nodded grimly. “Doc, could you give us a minute alone?”
He lowered the shirt and slipped out of the room.
“What happened?” I asked, turning Grace back to face me and helping her ease onto the table.
“The Webber sisters warned me,” she said cryptically.
I dropped back onto the folding chair. “What did they tell you?”
“That they saw pain and injury. That I was going to be hurt.” She paused, then added, “We had an argument.”
“You and Sal?”
She dropped her eyes to the floor.
“One hell of an argument,” I muttered. “What about?”
She sat in silence for a long moment, her battered face a mask. “About you,” she said finally.
“About me?”
“He knew I’d ridden up to Springfield with you and thought I was going back with you today. He got all bent out of shape about it. It’s happened before—like when we went to Muskogee and Tulsa when Nettie was killed. He doesn’t like me taking trips with you. And when we were gone that overnight, he got really angry. But I’ve been able to calm him down before. This time was different.”
“When we went overnight, nothing happened. And we weren’t gone overnight this time. You were home at regular shift time.”
She nodded sourly. “Yeah. But I made the mistake of talking about what we’d done. About getting the lists and about needing to go back today for video. He said I couldn’t go.”
“And you said . . . ?”
“I said that was my job. That’s what I do.”
“And . . . ?”
“He said, ‘Not anymore.’ He said he’s tired of his friends telling him they wouldn’t let any woman of theirs run around with another man like I do. I told him I wasn’t his woman, and I’d go wherever I damn well pleased with you. That’s when he hit me in the face.”
“Why did he keep at it? This one must had knocked you off your feet.” I reached again for her cheek. She let me gingerly touch the swollen eye.
“I got back up. I told him again I’d do what I wanted as part of my job, and if he ever hit me again, I’d cut his balls off in his sleep.” She grinned painfully through the cut lip. “I guess he didn’t believe me. He hit me again.”
I felt the blood that had been rising in my face approach a full boil. “And you got up again.”
She looked down at her scraped knuckles. “Then it really got nasty. I rushed him and hit at him, trying to knee him in the balls. He twisted, so I got him in the thigh, and he started punching hard into my side. I caught him in the mouth . . .” She held up her fist. “. . . then he grabbed this little club thing he takes with him to the garage and smashed my arm and pounded it into my ribs.”
“How bad is the arm?”
“He just cracked the top bone—the radius or whatever that is. It’s not broken all the way through.”
I sat back in the chair. My first thought was that I needed to take her home with me. Let her use the spare room until she could find another place to stay. But I realized just as quickly that being at my place would be used by that asshole as proof he had reason to be jealous. I went to the door and called to Doc Waterman and Joseph, then sat again in front of my battered deputy.
“I’m going to ask Officer Joseph if you can stay with her for a few days. I know you don’t like the idea, but it gets you out of town. I also know you well enough to know you’ll want to be doing something. We can have you calling people who were at the hotels and, if the Doc agrees, have you pick up the tapes and watch video of the parking areas.”
She shook her head firmly. “You’re right. I won’t go up there, even if she’ll take me.”
“Then give me a better idea.”
“I can stay at the Super 8 and come to the office to call people.”
“Not acceptable. If you’re in town, you won’t be safe.” Joseph followed Doc Waterman back into the examination room. Before Grace could object again, I stood and turned to the state investigator.
“Do you think you could put Grace up for a few days? I think she needs to be out of reach until this cools down.”
Joseph looked quickly over at the glowering deputy, then back at me with a flash in her eyes that didn’t suggest complete enthusiasm. Either the tension between the women was greater than I realized, or she’d been looking forward to a night at my place more than she was letting me know. But the glint disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Of course, I can,” she said. “I’m about ready to head back up that way.” She turned to Grace. “Are you feeling up for a drive?”
“I can find a place here,” Grace grumbled, letting the spark remain in her eyes as she glared at me.
Joseph stepped forward and looked seriously at the battered woman. “You know Tate’s right, Grace. You need to get out of town for a few days—and be someplace this guy doesn’t know about.” She tossed her head toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get going so we don’t get up there too late.”
“Before you go,” I interrupted, “could you make a visit with me? Doc, can you stay here with Grace for another twenty minutes? We shouldn’t be long.”
He nodded. “I want to check a few more things before I let her go anyway.”
The peeling clapboard house was four blocks from the clinic. We walked, avoiding the alert a patrol car would give if it pulled up in front. And I needed time to cool to a simmer. I knocked sharply while Joseph stood tucked in close against the doorframe, out of view of the front window.
“What do you want?” Sal yelled through the door.
“Open up,” I called back. “We need to have a talk.”
“I got nothing to talk to you about.”
“You’ve got plenty to talk to me about, Sal. Open the damn door before I break it in.”
“I’ve got a gun, Tate. You’ve got no right to be coming in here. You come through that door, and I’ll blow your damn head off.”
I glanced over at Joseph who was unsnapping the strap on her weapon. “I’ve got every reason to come in, Sal. You’ve assaulted Grace.”
“Maybe she assaulted me,” he shouted. “Maybe I’m the one needs to be charging her with something.”
“Then open the door and do it,” I snapped back. “And just so you don’t decide to get stupid, there are two of us out here, both armed. So put the gun down.”
There was silence for a moment, then the door inched open. Joseph stayed pressed along the wall. “I don’t see nobody else,” Sal growled.
“I’m here,” Joseph said sharply.
Sal pulled the d
oor far enough inward to allow him to crane his head around to being her into view. She had her firearm pressed against her hip.
The young Latino’s lip was split and swollen, his left cheek deeply bruised with the color running up into his eye. Grace had landed one hell of a blow—or more. He held a 9 mm Glock up against the swelling.
“You see this? This is what that cheating bitch did to me. And you should know why.” Joseph raised her weapon and centered it on Sal’s forehead.
“You better lower that thing very slowly off to the side,” I said. “Officer Joseph here is the woman who shot LJ Greaves. She can get a little trigger happy if a gun gets pointed at someone she’s with.”
Sal slowly lowered his weapon, his glare showing the same rage he had unleashed on Grace.
“Put it on the table there,” I ordered, nodding at a side table beside the door. Sal hesitated long enough for Joseph to extend her weapon menacingly, then lowered it to the tabletop.
“Okay,” I said through the screen. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. Grace works with me. That’s it. As part of our work we sometimes go places together. That’s it.” I leaned into the screen. “But I will tell you this. She’s an important part of my team. And I promise you that if you ever so much as threaten her again, I’ll come back over here and kill you. Do you understand what I’m telling you, you big prick? I don’t mean I’ll beat the shit out of you. I’ll goddamn kill you. Are we clear?”
Sal blinked hard, his jaw tightening. “You threatening me in front of a cop?”
I shook my head slightly. “Not threatening. Promising. And I can also promise that if something happens to you, Officer Joseph here will deny she ever heard anything.”
Sal glared sullenly at the two of us but said nothing. I jabbed a finger into the screen.
“You got that, Sal? Never, ever touch Grace again.” I turned and walked down the three concrete steps. Joseph stood long enough to give the man her own confirming look, then backed away.
When we heard the door slam behind us, she holstered her weapon and looked over at me. “That was a pretty risky threat. He might tell people. You better hope nothing happens to the guy in the next while.”
“If something does, it may very well have been me. It was all I could do to keep from beating the shit out of him tonight.”
“That’s quite a commitment to your deputy.”
“I’d do the same if it were you,” I muttered, and we walked the rest of the way to the clinic in silence.
14
On the second day of her sequester, Grace Torres packed up her few belongings and left Joseph’s apartment without notice.
“She’s being good to me, but she really doesn’t want me there,” she announced when she showed up at the office at 9:00 on Friday morning. The purple splotches on her face were beginning to fade and yellow around the edges.
“Sure, she wants you there,” I argued. “She wouldn’t have asked you to come if she didn’t want you there.”
“She didn’t ask,” Grace retorted. “You asked her for me.”
“And why wouldn’t she want you there?”
Grace dropped her duffle onto a chair and a thick folder onto her desk. She stood looking at me as if I didn’t have a brain in my head. “Sometimes . . .,” she began, glancing over at Marti, but didn’t complete the sentence.
I waited. No more comment. “Well, you can’t go back to Sal. You’d better go stay with your parents.”
“Not a chance,” she muttered. “I’ll stay out at the Super 8 until I can find a place.”
Marti had been running copies and dropped a pile of duplicated reports on her desktop. “We’ve got a spare room. You can stay with us,” she offered. “I was going to suggest that to begin with, but Tate had already talked to Joseph.” She cast me a cynical frown. “I didn’t see how that was going to work.”
Grace started to protest, but Marti waved her concern away. “Just come home with me after work. We’ll set you up for as long as you want to stay.”
Grace gave her a grateful nod, opened her folder without sitting, and turned to business. “I pretty well eliminated the people on our call lists. But I started to watch the parking lot video yesterday and there’s something I think might be good.” She handed me five sheets of paper with car descriptions and license numbers neatly listed in two columns. A white, late-model Mercedes Sprinter box truck was highlighted in yellow in several places on every page.
I glanced over the sheets, resisting the urge to change my morning plan and get right on this. That damned obsession. I laid them back on Grace’s folder.
“Tug Divine’s memorial’s this morning,” I said, glancing over at the wall clock. 9:30. “It starts at ten and won’t last long, but I’m worried there won’t be many there. I want Matt to know how much I appreciate him doing the service for the old man. Marti’s going with me, and D’Amico’s meeting us there. You want to come along?”
She shook her head. “Not looking like this.”
I nodded my understanding, unbuckled my weapon, and waited for Marti to grab her jacket. We left Grace with her files and turned up 2nd Street toward the gray stone church with its twin Norman belfries that stood at the corner of Madison. Marti chuckled under her breath.
“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about a crowd, Tate,” she said. Ahead of us, most of Crayton was lined up at the church’s high wooden doors, waiting patiently to join in a community remembrance of their mail carrier who couldn’t resist the bottle. By the time we made it into the sanctuary, it was standing room only against the back wall. Three rows ahead of us, the Haddad clan filled a full pew. I wondered if they had even heard of Tug Divine before news of his death appeared in the Daily, or just felt like being there for any service was part of being a good church citizen.
As I’d guessed, the service was short. Amazing Grace sung by Carol Langley, a short obituary read by David Masterson, who had been postmaster when Tug was walking his route, and ten minutes from Reverend Frazee. There was no mention of hellfire and about as little of heaven. Matt focused on the acts of kindness Tug had done for people as he walked the streets of town. Returning a lost kitten. Dropping his carrier bag on a porch to clear a walk for Mrs. Briarson after an unexpected snow. Taking ten minutes to console Denise Wallace when he realized, as he reached the end of her walk, that the letter just delivered told her of the passing of a cousin who had been a close friend and playmate when they were girls.
“Tug’s passing has reminded me of two important lessons,” Matt said as he wrapped up. “The first is that each of us has our weaknesses. Some more visible than others. We should never allow our awareness of them in others to cause us to overlook or forget the good and the kindness they brought into our lives. And the second lesson—as much to me as to anyone else here—is that we should never be a community that allows a man who has been our friend and supporter to die alone in the woods because he didn’t have someone to help him make it home. I’ll be forever grateful to Tug for those two reminders.”
Around me, the people of Crayton nodded and sniffled and, as Carol sang I’ll Fly Away, we all committed to be better supporters of each other.
“This van was parked in the lot every day Farid Sayegh was at the Hampton,” Grace said when we were again gathered around her desk. “It left the day he stopped showing up at the hotel. The desk has no record of the van being registered to anyone who was checked in. It’s a Mississippi plate. Joseph had her office trace the number for me. It’s registered to a Jason Anzar who lives in Brandon.”
I looked through the dates recorded beside each highlighted van entry. In some cases, the Sprinter had moved three or four times during the day. “This is good work, Grace. And what do we know about Jason Anzar?”
She lowered herself gingerly into her desk chair and punched her computer’s “on” button. “I just got the report from the state police last evening,” she grumbled. “That’s why I’m here this morning.”
&nb
sp; “We can run this down. You need to give those ribs a few more days to heal.”
She sniffed. “My ribs are fine. It’s my brain that’s starting to turn to mush. I need to be working at more than calling business people who happened to be at the Hampton for four nights.”
I waved the parking list in front of her. “This supports the theory you had earlier, and it’s the best lead we’ve had in a week. All your work.”
“Well,” she said defiantly, “now I’m ready to chase that lead from here at my desk.”
Mara Joseph pushed through the street door, gave each of us a quick look, and settled on me and the sheets in my hand, saying nothing about Grace’s departure.
“I see you’ve been talking about the van. Rosario called about half an hour ago with something that could be another break. He thinks he may know where the explosives came from.”
I nodded toward the door to the fishbowl. “Grace, why don’t you join us in the inner sanctum?”
As Joseph crossed to my office, Grace detoured by Marti’s desk and handed her a slip of paper with Jason Anzar’s name and hometown written on it. “If you’re tired of filing, maybe you could run this through social media and see what we can learn about our Mr. Anzar. Then check to see if he’s got a record anywhere.” Marti took the paper with a relish that suggested she’d been hoping something might bring a little variety to her morning.
In my office, I plopped behind the scarred oak desk that was one of the few carryovers from the old bank. “What have you got?” I asked Joseph when we were all settled. She had managed to beat Grace to the corner chair. Grace chose to perch beside the door rather than accept one of the fold-outs.
Joseph spoke as if I were the only other person in the room, leading me to wonder what the hell had been going on at Casa Joseph the last two days?
“The Bureau’s been able to trace the explosive that was used at the dam site,” she announced. “That particular pack was made up of blocks of what the Army calls M112, which is basically C4. These blocks were part of batches that had been ‘repurposed’ in 1999 at one of three munitions plants: one in Iowa and two in Tennessee.” She paused to see if I had questions, still keeping her eyes focused across the desk. I gave her a quick nod to go on.