A Blood Thing

by James Hankins

  “So what happened with Dave?” Andrew prodded gently.

  With his eyes still glued to the porch floor, Henry picked up the story again. He had followed Dave to the Rutland Projects, which had been closed for a few years and had become nothing but a place people went to do illicit things. Dave had a big envelope with him, the kind that could contain a file, and Henry confronted him while he was waiting to meet with Zachary Barnes, whom his father had tasked with obtaining the records from Dave. Henry tried to convince his old friend to forget about the case and bury what he’d found. He’d said Andrew would be good for the state, while Clifton Barnes was a thug in an expensive suit who only wanted to see Andrew lose the election so he could continue to do all the illegal shit he was doing. But Dave wouldn’t hear of it. He said burying what he’d uncovered was the wrong thing to do, and besides, he’d taken the job, and he intended to see it through. He had a reputation in his business, after all. Besides, if Andrew was innocent of wrongdoing, which he probably was, the truth would come out. Henry said that Dave just wouldn’t listen, and things heated up quickly, escalating shockingly fast given how close the two had been. Somehow—Henry couldn’t even remember how—he ended up with a gun in his hand . . . not the service weapon that was still in its holster, but an unregistered throwaway. He wasn’t even sure why he’d brought it with him that night, he said.

  “While I was holding the gun on Dave, the door behind me opened, and I turned to look. I only had time to register someone coming into the building before I heard something and I turned back around, and it was Dave coming at me, going for the gun.” He took a breath. Then another. When he spoke again, his voice was small. “It went off and . . . Dave went down.”

  Even though he’d known essentially what was coming, the words turned Andrew cold.

  “I went right for the other guy,” Henry said. “I wasn’t sure why exactly, instinct, I guess, self-preservation, and we struggled for a few seconds until the door opened again, and another guy came in. I got distracted, the guy I was grappling with hit me, and I lost my grip. He took off and, seeing the first guy run, the second guy followed.”

  Henry looked up and, finally, met Andrew’s gaze. His eyes looked almost empty. “I didn’t know what to do. I should have stayed with Dave, I know that, but the two guys ran, and maybe out of habit or instinct or . . . I don’t know, maybe because I was worried they’d seen my face, I chased them. They split up, and I followed one of them at random, but I lost him somewhere in the projects. I looked for a while, but he was just gone. So I hurried back to Dave and . . . he was gone, too.”

  He dropped his eyes again.

  “I don’t think it would’ve mattered if I hadn’t left him,” he said. “I really don’t. He would’ve died anyway. Bullet caught him in the neck.” He paused for several seconds, maybe half a minute. “I’ll never forget the way he looked lying there.”

  Henry fell silent again. Andrew recalled how that night eight years ago seemed to change Henry. How he had struggled through a dark time from which it had seemed to take more than a year for him to emerge . . . and though Henry eventually seemed to reach the other side, Andrew had always thought he had lost a little something of himself along the way. Everyone naturally assumed it was because he had lost a friend, a friend whose body he had discovered. But Andrew now knew it had been more than that. He wanted to say something, to comfort his brother, but he said nothing. Henry needed to finish the story. They both needed him to finish it.

  A long moment later, Henry said, “The envelope was still there, so I took it. I should have called the situation in right then, I know, but . . . well, I didn’t want to be tied to any of it. For either of our sakes, you know?”

  Even though he hadn’t known about it at the time, Andrew was horrified to hear that he had any part in this, that Henry had done what he’d done, that Dave Bingham had died, to protect him.

  “I was on my way back to my car,” Henry went on, “when I heard something. I followed the sound, and coming out of another building was one of the guys I chased, one of the guys who saw . . . you know. I stopped him, and the thing is, he was high as hell, jittery, not talking coherently.” He looked up. “Again, I didn’t know what to do, Andy. I didn’t know what he’d seen, but at the same time I doubted he’d remember anything he did see. I was standing right in front of him, and I didn’t think he would’ve been able to describe me later. I had just decided to let him go and take my chances when I heard sirens, and the Rutland Police rolled up quick. Somebody heard the gunshot, I guess. So then I really didn’t know what to do. The cops saw me, their guns were out, so I identified myself, told them a man had been shot . . . and they just assumed I had the suspect in custody.” He paused a long, long moment. “And I didn’t tell them otherwise. Neither did the suspect . . . Kevin Austin. He wasn’t in any condition to say anything.”

  Even given his accidental shooting of Dave, to Andrew, that might have been his brother’s greatest sin.

  Andrew closed his eyes. Not only was Henry his brother, he was his closest friend, and Andrew loved him dearly, despite all this. And to know that he was capable of such things . . . that he had done these things—some unintentional, but some definitely not—and kept it all inside . . . made Andrew heartsick.

  “I gave my statement,” Henry continued, “made up a bullshit story on the spot about Dave asking me to meet him there, and that was it. If they saw the envelope I was holding, they never asked me about it. I burned it later. I kept waiting for the cops to find Dave’s work files or research on the case and come knocking on both our doors, yours and mine, but they never did. They had their shooter; they had the testimony of a state police detective. Case closed.”

  “And Kevin Austin . . .”

  “Was a junkie,” Henry finished for him. “That was all I saw,” he added with a self-loathing shake of his head. “It shouldn’t have mattered, of course, but at the time, I let it matter. I convinced myself that it mattered, that one junkie wasn’t worth your career and all the good you were going to do as attorney general.” He paused, then added, “And that he wasn’t worth my going to prison for, either. At least, that was how I felt at the time.”

  He met Andrew’s eyes squarely, something Andrew didn’t think could have been easy for him in that moment. To be honest, it wasn’t easy for Andrew, either.

  “You don’t have to tell me how wrong I was, Andy. And you won’t believe this—no reason you should—but after that kid went to prison, every day he was behind bars, I considered coming clean. I thought about it every single day, all those years . . . right up until he died, and then it was too late.” He gave a weak shrug. “I was kidding myself, though. I never would’ve stepped up.”

  Henry became quiet and looked out at the dark night. Andrew studied him and tried to imagine what it had been like for him to live for so long with what he had done. It was hard to feel terribly sorry for him under the circumstances. But then again, this was Henry. His brother.

  “I always tried to tell myself that it probably didn’t make much of a difference,” Henry said, “that the kid would have OD’d somewhere along the line anyway, but I was just trying to justify something that was unjustifiable.” He shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t until I got home that night that I realized I didn’t have the gun. I went back and looked for it a few days later, after everything died down at the scene, but I didn’t find it. I always figured they’d find it and come knocking, but they never did. I never knew what happened to it. I figured some gangbanger had picked it up, and my prints would be wiped away.”

  He fell silent. He seemed spent, leaning forward in his chair, his arms resting on his knees, his shoulders slumped, his eyes on the porch floor again. He looked hollowed out. He also looked as though his story was finished. So, for the first time in several minutes, Andrew spoke. “I meant to tell you this earlier . . . I’m not even sure yet if I wish I had, or whether it’s good that I hadn’t . . .” He trailed off.

  Wi
thout looking up, Henry said, “What is it, Andy?”

  He took a deep breath, let it out, then said, “I’d asked Detective Ramsey to keep me informed on the Pickman case, and he called me this afternoon to tell me that the report on the gun Gabriel Torrance found came in. Ballistics matched it to Dave Bingham.”

  Henry nodded.

  Andrew went on, “But they were unable to get usable prints off the gun.”

  He knew that the length of time fingerprints might remain on an object depended on a variety of factors, including, among others, atmospheric and environmental conditions where the item had been located, surface properties of the object, cleanliness of the fingertips at the time, and the unique condition of a person’s fingertip skin. It was possible to lift fingerprints from objects that were decades old while failing to do the same with objects that had been handled recently.

  Upon hearing this news, Henry looked up, and Andrew didn’t see a trace of relief in his eyes, even though it meant there was no physical evidence to tie him to Dave’s shooting. He looked out toward the darkness—they both did—and a heavy, uncomfortable silence settled on them. Andrew had heard too much. Learned too much. He still loved his brother and always would, but he wished Henry were the person Andrew had thought he was all these years.

  Eventually, Andrew’s mind began sifting through Henry’s story, as much as he didn’t want to think about it. “There’s something I can’t figure,” he said after a long while. “Why would Clifton Barnes pay off Kevin Austin’s father, fifty grand a year until Kevin died, if Zachary didn’t kill Dave?”

  Henry took a moment to answer, as though he needed a few seconds to change gears. “Maybe the old man didn’t believe his kid when he said he didn’t do it. Or maybe Cliff was worried about how his partners in organized crime would react if they even suspected that his kid had killed an ex-cop—those guys tend to want to keep low profiles, and they expect their associates to do the same—so he made his deal with Kevin Austin. If Kevin kept his mouth shut about Zachary being there that night, then Kevin’s father wouldn’t get hurt. In fact, he’d get paid. I’m guessing it wasn’t hard for Kevin to do that, seeing as he probably couldn’t remember much of that night anyway.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Henry thought for a moment. “I wonder what Pickman would have done if Torrance never found the gun.”

  Andrew said, “Grady Austin told us the answer to that, and it was confirmed by information in the binder that Pickman kept containing the details of his plans. Austin was insistent that they use the gun to take Zachary Barnes down. Torrance, who believed Barnes had committed the murder for which his lover was convicted, wanted that, too. They both wanted Barnes’s actual fingerprints on the actual weapon to do him in. But if Torrance came up empty on the gun, Pickman was going to frame Barnes. The plans were all in his binder and files. The evidence, which he’d already manufactured, was in a closet in his basement. All he had to do was plant it convincingly, which, as we both know, was something he was good at.”

  Henry nodded, and they fell silent for a while. Andrew had no idea what his brother was thinking. Then Henry said, “It’s all my fault. Everything that happened. Everyone who died, what Tyler went through, what happened to your career . . . all of it.”

  Andrew gave it only a moment’s consideration. “I made my own choices, my own mistakes. You don’t get to own those. The rest of it, though? Okay, what happened to Kevin Austin, yeah, that’s on you. No doubt about that. I’m not telling you anything there you don’t already know. But everything else . . . there’s no way I’ll let you take the blame for any of it. It was Grady Austin and Wyatt Pickman.”

  Henry didn’t reply. Either he agreed, or he didn’t have the strength or will to argue. Finally, he nodded to himself, drew a big breath, and said, “So, I guess in the morning, I’ll turn myself in.”

  Andrew considered that. As he’d listened to Henry’s confession, he couldn’t help but wonder where things would go from here. He was glad that, finally, Henry wanted to do the right thing, even if it was far too late. Andrew thought about Henry in prison. He was aware of the generally accepted purposes for incarceration, which included locking up the offender so he couldn’t commit another crime while behind bars; rehabilitating him; and punishing him as an effort to deter him from offending again. In Andrew’s opinion, despite what Henry had done, such considerations didn’t apply in his case. Henry would never commit another such crime. That was obvious. Similarly, he didn’t need rehabilitating. Which meant his going to prison would be merely to punish him. And it sounded to Andrew like he’d been punishing himself for eight long years, and would be doing so for the rest of his life. His being in prison wouldn’t bring back any of Pickman’s victims. It wouldn’t bring back Dave Bingham. And it wouldn’t bring back Kevin Austin.

  Andrew truly believed all of that. But if he were honest with himself, there was more behind his thinking. Because Henry was family. Henry was his brother. And though Andrew knew that almost no one else would understand . . . it was a blood thing.

  “I don’t want you to turn yourself in,” Andrew said. Then he told him why. He also told him that he’d been a really good cop once upon a time and had the potential to be one again.

  “We need good cops, Henry.”

  Andrew watched subtle changes ripple across his brother’s face as it first displayed confusion, then introspection, then what looked to Andrew like resolve. Then, reluctantly, almost imperceptibly, Henry nodded. “So what now?” he asked.

  “What now? Nothing, Henry. Life goes on. For us, anyway.”

  With those words, which would forever remain private, Andrew Kane issued another pardon.

  They held each other’s eyes for a long moment; then Henry nodded in understanding.

  They sat side by side for a little while, staring into the darkness. Eventually, Henry said, “It’s not your fault, you know.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Any of it. I know you, Andy. I know you’re probably not too happy with yourself. You probably think you made some mistakes of your own. But if you think you share the blame for anyone dying, you’re wrong.”

  He was right. Andrew had indeed been thinking that.

  “It doesn’t matter that you pardoned anyone,” Henry said. “Even if you hadn’t, Pickman still would have gotten to everyone on his and Grady Austin’s list. That’s what he did. He devised plans and schemes. If you didn’t do what he wanted, he’d simply have found another way.”

  “How about Kyle Lewis? If I hadn’t pardoned him—”

  “God, Andy, Lewis was working with Pickman.”

  “I just . . . I’m not sure . . .”

  In Andrew’s head, what Henry said made sense. But in his heart . . .

  “Andy, if you’re not gonna let me torture myself over the people Pickman killed, you sure as hell can’t do it. He killed every one of them. Not you. He’s responsible. He and Grady Austin. Not you.”

  Maybe after more time had passed, Andrew would see things that way.

  “At least we did a little good,” Andrew said after a moment. “We stopped him from murdering Jackpot Barker.”

  “I thought you were gonna tell me something good we did,” Henry said, and Andrew felt the smallest of smiles crease his lips. Henry met his eyes and said, “Look, we’re both gonna be thinking about all of this for a long time. And who knows, we may never again feel quite the same way about ourselves, or maybe even each other. I sure as hell have avoided looking in mirrors for the last eight years. But I want you to remember something, Andy—and I realize it’s probably not enough, it doesn’t completely balance the books, but remember this—no matter how guilty you feel or how badly you beat yourself up, if you hadn’t done what you did, granted those pardons, Tyler would have gone to prison for the rest of his life. I believe that with all my heart. But now he won’t. Because of you. I believe that with all my heart, too.”

  Andrew considered his brother’s words.

/>   “A lot of bad happened, Andy,” Henry added, “stuff we’ll probably never forgive ourselves for . . . but that, at the very least, is a good thing.”

  Less than a mile away, Tyler cruised along a quiet, moonlit road, his headlight stretching before him as he headed nowhere in particular, just enjoying the night ride. He hadn’t been able to take his motorcycle out for weeks back when he was in trouble, and he’d missed it. In fact, he didn’t even have it for a while. They took it. But they gave it back because he wasn’t in trouble anymore, and he decided he’d ride it every day from now on. Every night, too. Now that he didn’t have to stay home all the time, he found that he hardly wanted to be inside his house anymore. There were so many places to go. So much to see.

  He rode through the crisp, cool night, smiling into the breeze that blew back his hair, thinking about how good it felt to be so free.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When writers want to distort the truth—or perhaps even make up stuff entirely—they often rely on the concept of poetic or artistic license. It’s an invaluable tool in a writer’s tool kit, one of which I made good use in the writing of A Blood Thing. While I strive for accuracy whenever possible, sometimes facts must take a back seat to the story. Among the liberties I took as I wrote this book were my depiction of Vermont’s clemency laws and its pardon process. Where I took the greatest liberty, however, was with the descriptions of recent corruption in Vermont’s government and law enforcement agencies. In truth, I know of absolutely none. What occurred as backstory in A Blood Thing was pure fiction. Vermont is a beautiful, well-run state, and Vermonters are fine people. Indeed, those truths factored into my choosing Vermont as the setting for the book. For the story, I needed a state with certain kinds of clemency statutes, but I also wanted one in which government and police corruption would be truly shocking. Vermont is that kind of a state. There’s a reason, after all, that it typically places near the top of every list of best US states in which to live. It’s a terrific place.