Done for a Dime

by David Corbett

  “One of those cops was a friend of mine. Great guy, played center field in college, Notre Dame. Partner material, kind of cop I should’ve been. Maybe. Any event, Winters says nothing about this strong-arm effort to my friend or the other cop, doesn’t tell them the pimp’s scared—been told he goes to jail, he’s dead—doesn’t tell them he’s threatened to wax anybody who comes to get him and lately is jacked so high on crack he can’t tell a whore from a hayride. Oh no, why tell this to the cops serving your warrant. They might say, ‘No, thanks. You do it.’ Besides, pimps are such pussified little skels anyway, what’s to fear, unless you’re one of his women.

  “My buddy and his backup, they show up at this loser’s crib, figuring it’s a routine warrant—be polite, ‘Yes, sir, come along, thank you.’ Get him in the car, no problem. Cancel that. Mr. Pimp—he’s been up three days, chasing shadows around the room—he goes postal. My friend takes one in the head. Other guy has to chase this fuckstick up the fire escape to the roof, call for backup, while my buddy bleeds to death in the pimp’s doorway.

  “I hear all this, I went a little nuts, yeah. There’s an IA review, sure. Pro forma, you know what I’m saying. Winters, he’s got wheels. Skates in, skates out. Nothing.

  “I started in on the piece of shit. Wasn’t hard, he was big news on the grapevine. Found out he had a slice on the side—call girl he’d busted once, that a picture or what?—found out when he went to see her. Found out where, this condo rehab up off Milwaukee. So I waited. This alley, where he parked the car. He saw me, went for his piece.” Ferry stopped for a second, noticed he was breathing hard. “Funny the way some things just stay in your head. His own damn fault. Haven’t been back to Chicago since. Way I hear it, though? Lot of guys thank me.”

  He finished his aguardiente, wanted another, but no one had awakened from the midday nap as yet. He might raid the bar himself if no one showed up soon.

  “You’re kind of quiet,” he said finally. “You heard that story before?”

  “I know one that’s kind of similar.”

  “Your partner.”

  “Kind of. How’d you—”

  “Like I said, I know things. Your partner. Sent in without everything he needed.”

  “There was no time.”

  “Goes in and doesn’t come back out again.”

  “Yeah, it rings a bell. You’re right.”

  Murchison’s voice sounded thready and lost. He was getting dragged inside, Ferry figured. Into the house of no hope. Meanwhile, at the mouth of the harbor, Ferry spotted an approaching dinghy, its aluminum hull glinting in the sun. A lone man sat astern, guiding the outboard. Ovidio’s friend, coming in from his fishing boat, anchored out beyond the shallows.

  “So what are you going to do, Dennis?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve told you all I can. All I’m going to. You know my side of things. What I told you, my last voice mail. It’s true, every word. I think you know that. So what are you going to do?”

  “It’s not … I’m not the one who gets to decide.”

  “Let me put it another way. It’s your hometown. You grew up there. What would your brother want you to do?”

  The silence was much longer, almost agonizing. Long enough for the dinghy to drift in to the pier, its outboard cut. The boatman—Rafael, Ferry remembered—he was thirty-something, slender and dark, wearing a Packers jersey and cutoffs, Keds with no socks. He made the boat fast, tying its painter to a bollard.

  Finally, Murchison said, “How do you know about my brother?”

  “We’ve been through this, Dennis. I know things. It’s my reason for being.”

  As Murchison drove, his migraine worsened, hammering behind his eyes, like something inside his head couldn’t escape. I’m losing it, he thought, not with fear but a kind of wonderment. It took two hours, along winding two-lane roads, before Murchison reached the place—Ferry had told him how to get there, just before hanging up—located in the wetlands northwest of Lake Berryessa. There was little to announce its being there, just an ironwork fence topped with press-metal silhouettes of ducks. LA CASA DE CAZA, a sign read at the gate. The House of Hunting.

  In fact, it was a rice farm. Not the best region for rice—you found that fifty miles farther northeast up the Sacramento Valley—but Murchison remembered reading a story in the paper about how Bratcher had managed to finagle his way into the farm subsidy program while building himself one of the more enviable duck clubs in the area. He got money for production and a second payment to reimburse any differential between loans and cost. He was guaranteed a profit by the government, for a ruse.

  That’s the sign he ought to have out front, Murchison thought. RICE PAYS TWICE.

  The plan—if it deserved such a word—was to ask some tough questions point-blank, judge for himself by Bratcher’s carriage, his eyes, his tone, whether he was a liar or not. He wasn’t sure what this would prove or to whom it would prove it beyond himself, but it had seemed enough when he’d gotten in the car. Even if he couldn’t prove anything, at least he’d know. And if Bratcher stonewalled, resisted? Murchison hadn’t quite thought that part through. Improvise, he guessed.

  A security guard manned the gate—retired sheriff’s deputy from the looks of him, bald with a mustache, wearing black slacks and a blue windbreaker. Daylight was fading, the sun had gone down. A cold drizzle whirled in the headlights as Murchison showed his badge. The guard held his umbrella with one hand while the other flipped open his cell phone.

  Murchison reached out, stopped him. “Just let me go up. Unannounced.”

  The guard looked at him like he’d asked for money. “My job we’re talking about.”

  “You won’t lose your job. I promise.” Murchison let go of the man’s sleeve. “You heard about the fires down my way last night.”

  The guard shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Some guy claims your boss had something to do with it. I’ve got to prove this loon wrong. But to do that, I have to come on like I’m serious. Can’t just go through the motions.”

  “I don’t see why that means I shouldn’t call up, tell him you’re here.”

  Murchison smiled. “Look, you’re a cop, right?”

  The guy looked vaguely defensive at first, then nodded, sensing comradery. “Yeah.”

  “Napa County sheriff?”

  “Lake County.”

  “Lake County? You’re a ways from home.”

  “Not so bad. Just over the hill. Middletown.”

  “Well, look. Here’s the thing. I gotta look like I’m doing my job, okay? Put a little element of surprise into it. Besides, if I thought I’d have to do anything serious, I’d have come with a squad, not like this.”

  Sent in without everything he needed.

  The guard glanced around the interior of Murchison’s car. “Yeah. I was thinking that.”

  “This is just a formality. But if I show that up front, let Mr. Bratcher call all the shots, it won’t pass the smell test. Look like I came up, kissed his butt, and turned back around. Which won’t solve anything. I’m doing him a favor.”

  The guard winced. “Not likely he’ll see it that way.”

  “He will once we’re done. I promise.”

  The guard looked off into the growing twilight, agonizing. Rain droplets fattened along the lip of his umbrella. “I could tell him my cell battery died. Wouldn’t be the first time.” He chuckled disconsolately, as though recalling a browbeating. “Let’s say you told me you were just here to pass along some info, okay? Cleared it with him beforehand.”

  “That’s good. Put it on me.”

  “Said you knew about the meeting, figured they’d want to know.”

  “Meeting?”

  “Him and his lawyer and a couple other guys, Craugh the developer, that Glenn guy—”

  Sure, Murchison thought. Time for champagne. Roll out the plans for a brand-new Baymont. “They still here?”

  “Naw, they came out, shot some skeet, left o
nce the rain started. Just Mr. Bratcher and his lawyer, guy named Peter Gramm. Know him?”

  “His lawyer’s there. Perfect. That’ll square things on both ends.”

  “I sure as hell hope so.” The guard finally turned around and opened the wrought-iron gate. “Pay some mind once you’re up around the house. He’s got the damn dogs out.”

  The driveway wound for a half mile through thick groves of oak and walnut trees. Rice fields stretched low and green to the east, with duck blinds tucked along the levees. More trees, dense and dark, stood to the west, all the way to Putah Creek.

  Cracking a window, he could smell the bay leaves from the trees clustered around the stock ponds and wellheads, where the geese and ducks collected on their journeys north and south along the Pacific flyway Duck season was over, had been for several weeks. The guard had said they were shooting skeet, but that could be a ruse. Who from Fish & Game would actually come out here and write the citation? He spotted snow geese, some Canadas, plus ruddies and stiff tails, gadwalls and mallards. Willy would have loved this place, he thought, which brought the whole thing full circle.

  Just this isn’t nothing, he reminded himself. One sacrifice can’t redeem another. Unless, finally, it somehow does.

  For the rest of the drive, he couldn’t help imagining everything out here burned to the ground. Beyond the last turn, the house sat atop a low rise, ranch style, modest in its lines but huge. Lights glowed in the windows, but no one appeared to be inside. Murchison, feeling his pulse throb in his neck, put the transmission in park and checked his side arm. The clip was full; he had an extra round in the chamber, ten shots. He flipped off the safety and holstered the piece as the dogs appeared.

  There were six of them, an odd pack, a mix of pets and protection: two birders, a wolfhound, two rotts, and a sleek, needle-faced Doberman leading the charge. They barked with an ugly vehemence, outdoing one another, baring fangs and flaring their hackles—he remembered the guard at the gate, shame as well as fear in his warning—but it wasn’t that so much as simply their presence, the Doberman especially, that started it. He felt his mouth dry up, his skin grow cold. His heart raced as he tried to draw breath. From around the corner he saw two men, but more to the point, he saw the barrels of their pump loaders as they came to investigate the unannounced car. It all seemed of one piece then—menacing dogs, shotguns, a house that might be empty, might not be. Rain. We don’t live in a world of things, Murchison thought. We live in a world of shadows.

  He got out of the car, drew his piece, and shot the first dog, the Doberman. So much for the plan. There’d been another plan at work all along, he realized. The 9mm’s report stopped the charging men. The other dogs whirled backward, yelping in fear, whimpering for a moment as they gained safe ground. Then the barking began all over again, even more savage than before. They nosed forward. Murchison took aim at one of the rotts as a voice called out, “Hey! Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

  Better the day of death.

  Make them pay.

  “Restrain your dogs, sir.” Like he was there to read the gas meter. He steadied his aim.

  “Who the hell are you? How did you—What are you doing on—”

  Murchison fired again, took out the rott with a slug to the head. It collapsed like a switch got thrown. The end of things. Again the remaining dogs spun backward, regrouped. The men lugged forward.

  Murchison recognized Bratcher from city council meetings. Murchison, contemptuous of politics in all forms, had never paid him or the stories about him much mind. Now the man who’d inspired so many rumors strode toward him—big, hulking, an aging onetime fireman, which was the sickness at the heart of the whole damn thing—a shotgun in his hands, waist level, trained in Murchison’s direction.

  “Put the fucking pistol down. Now.”

  “Police!” Murchison reached in his jacket, withdrew his badge. “Restrain your dogs or lose them all.”

  “Put the damn gun down.”

  “Dogs first.”

  “Wait. Wait. Wait.” It was the lawyer, Gramm. He was wearing a Redman cap—looking foolish in it with his gold-rimmed aviators and jowly, stubbled face—plus a down vest and camouflage pants. “There’s no need for this. What do you want here? This is private property.”

  It came out like a plea to a madman. Bratcher kept edging forward. He wore waders and a lumber jacket. Murchison removed his aim from the nearest dog and switched to Bratcher.

  “You. The shotgun. On the ground. Now.”

  Bratcher ignored him. He knelt beside the Doberman’s carcass, felt for its heart. “You killed my best damn dog.”

  “What is this about?” The lawyer’s voice peeled high. He stayed back, beyond the dogs. “You can’t just come here—”

  “Both of you. The guns. On the ground.”

  “This is insane, you can’t—”

  “On the ground!”

  He saw the barrel of Bratcher’s gun float upward, a clean swift movement, sign of long practice. It seemed a kind of deliverance. You killed my best dog. This is insane. By the time Murchison had his own trigger squeezed, firing off three rounds, he’d registered the shotgun’s report and muzzle flash, caught its blast in his chest. Not trap shot. Nine shot, he guessed, feeling eerily calm, buoyed on a flood of adrenaline, despite the horse kick of the shotgun’s load slamming his flesh, the pain. In an eerie slowdown of time, like he’d felt once during a car accident, he tumbled backward, hitting the ground hard, the whole time watching Bratcher spin off his haunches into the dirt with a startled cry. The lawyer stood there gaping, like an innocent.

  The dogs charged while Murchison scrambled through a daze onto his knees. He shot one at close range and was aiming at the second when the lawyer fired. The blast caught Murchison high, the chest again, the face. He was blinded but raised his gun anyway, aiming toward the remembered sound through pain and blood and firing till he heard the man scream and fall.

  Murchison lifted himself onto one elbow, dragging himself back toward his car. He couldn’t breathe, gagging on the blood. He heard the lawyer sobbing, the sound punctuated by gasping cries for help. The dogs continued barking but kept their distance, confused, scared, not sure who or what they had to defend now. In the background he heard Bratcher coughing up blood, too, his only sound. Justice in that, Murchison told himself, pulling himself into a sitting position. Through his smeary field of vision he found Bratcher’s body, then readied himself to use the gun in case the dogs regrouped. Pity they were here, he thought. The dogs, they really set me off.

  Things swam and he felt himself closing down, growing cold, his vision hazing darker. So hard to breathe—he convulsed, trying to inhale, gargling blood. As the adrenaline drained away, he felt the pain more clearly and couldn’t help himself. His eyes filled with tears, he soiled himself, descending into a formless place of terror and want. I know this place, he thought. Known it all my life.

  You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.

  He caught the sound of a vehicle roaring forward, slamming to a stop and then the door opened. Steps churned across the damp gravel. The security guard from the gate, Murchison thought, unable to see. He heard the man wailing, “Good God, no, fucking hell, no, no …” A voice like a strangled trumpet. Then shouts into the cell phone, calls for an ambulance, but the nearest hospital was so far away.

  Murchison eased himself onto his side, laid his head down. Time to let go. Embracing the terror and want, in time he felt them give way, till a vast cold stillness encircled him. Too hard to breathe, a voice said, and what for? His own voice, and yet—

  Above him, a presence, the security guard: “Go ahead and bleed. Lying bastard. Go ahead.” Well said, Murchison thought, as the guard kicked the gun away from his hand. You tell the tale now. Look at the bodies, figure it out, save yourself.

  26

  The funerals began. Every church in Rio Mirada, it seemed, served double duty, a shelter for the homeless, a chapel for the bereft. Services ran nonstop,
packed with mourners who offered ritual prayers and tried to steady their voices as they joined together in hymns.

  Murchison and Stluka were honored together—matching flag-draped caskets carried in identical white hearses, proceeding at dirge speed behind row after row of motorcycles and squad cars, cruiser strobes flickering blue and red. Over one thousand officers came, as though to say, You can’t kill us all. They traveled from across the state and as far away as Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, each cop wearing a funereal armband or a black-banded badge.

  News crews stationed themselves at the base of the charred hillside, pointing their cameras toward the devastation, framing it as backdrop, while the mile-long motorcade edged solemnly past, heading toward the high school stadium for the memorial service as the public, held back behind barriers, looked on.

  The stands were full—men and women in uniform, a mosaic of blues, plus mayors from across the state, the families of the fallen men and selected local officials. The public, again, was excluded, in keeping with custom. This ceremony was for the brotherhood. Twenty motorcycles in slow procession led the two white hearses around the cinder track, then a bagpipe played “Amazing Grace” as Holmes and the others in the honor guard, wearing their white gloves and dress blues, carried the flag-draped caskets to the stage and placed them on stands marked by wreaths bearing each man’s badge number.

  The speeches came next, some sweetly personal and teary, others droning, pompous things that made Holmes cringe. If I hear one more politician say, “We’re all family here,” or “They paid the ultimate sacrifice,” he thought, I’ll draw my piece and fire. Officers from the outside departments, growing bored, chatted or cracked jokes among themselves in the stands. Later they’d hit the bars or show off the latest bells and whistles in their cruisers.

  No one mentioned how Murchison died, nor the deaths of the men found with him. It seemed eerie and odd and almost poisonous, that silence. The circumstances remained a riddle, made no more clear by the brief, implausible, self-serving tale proposed by the security guard on the premises at the time, who promptly hired a lawyer and said no more.