by Lee Schultz
He opened number 4 and we entered the small, clean room. He pointed at the bed, and I sat down on it. He opened the door to the cat carrier, and J.P. stalked haughtily out, giving me a glance that could blister paint. He sniffed around the perimeter of the room, then gracefully arranged himself on the room’s only chair.
Nate chuckled. "Guess I get to sit on the bed with you." And he did. Only for a moment. "I’m going to go over to the Subway and bring back some food, and then we’ll talk."
I was too sore, tired and dazed to even comment, and when he closed the door behind him, I sank down into the pillows, after, of course, making sure that my butt was in a comfortable position. The dog sank down on the floor beside the bed. The cat ignored both of us.
49
We sat on the edge of the bed with the tiny round table pulled away from the window so we could set our food on it. The cat had decided he liked me again, and kept trying to steal the meat out of my sandwich.
"Sorry I don’t have any Chocolate Decadence cake for you, but if you’re up for it, I’ll take you over to that ice cream place by West Realty."
My mouth was full so I shook my head in the negative. When I had swallowed and washed it down with a slug of raspberry iced tea, I said "Maybe tomorrow. I’m so numb right now I can’t even taste this sandwich."
His cell phone chirped. He listened for a minute, then said "Good work. Can you get a clean up crew in?" More listening. "Okay, do that. I’ll see you when you get through at the jail."
He closed his phone and turned back to me. "I’m having a cleanup crew go through your house. They’ll take the bullet out of the wall, clean everything up, and when you go home, you’ll never know what had taken place there. If," he added before I could speak "you hadn’t known what had happened."
I smiled weakly. I had only felt this drained, this numb, once before. Ten years ago. I could no longer hold back the tears which cascaded down my cheeks. The ones on my face, I mean.
Nate looked at me for a moment, then put his arm around me and pulled me to him. "Let it all out, Molly. There’s nothing to be ashamed of."
Damn man had read my mind. I always regarded tears as a sign of weakness, to the point that my kids often referred to me as Old Iron Ass. Joking, of course. And that’s just how I felt - weak. Weak as a newborn kitten, completely unable to deal with my life.
I don’t know how long it took before I pushed away. "My nose is running all over your shirt," I sniffed. I slipped off the bed and went to the bathroom for something to wipe my nose. Instead, I wet one of the fluffy washcloths and washed my face. It felt good. I took some long, deep calming breaths and visualized stuffing all the recent events into a closet and nailing the door shut. It helped.
"Okay," I said, as I returned to the room. "I’m ready to hear what happened before – before...." I let it go and sat back on the bed. Nate took my shoulders and turned me slightly so my back was to him and began to knead my neck and shoulder muscles. They were so tight I could have played the dueling banjo theme from Deliverance on them. His thumbs dug deep and I leaned into it. I could feel the muscles begin to give up their rigidity, and the slight headache which had been a constant the last few days began to recede. I closed my eyes and sighed happily. This was better than sex! Well, at least as good. "How’d you know?"
He chuckled without easing up the pressure of his fingers. "I see how you’re always rolling your neck and digging your thumbs into the base of your skull. What you need is regular massage work."
"Mmph," was my only comment.
"Anyway," he said,"we used the incident where you were shot as probable cause to get a search warrant. The judge was a little iffy about it, but when we explained that these men were dressed in winter camouflage and carrying automatic rifles, he signed it. But not before making us rewrite it twice. We brought in people from two states to beef up the manpower. The plan was to have everyone in place to intercept on the three sides, then to go in from your side and tighten the noose. We disarmed the electric fence so we could go through it without getting fried. We thought we had taken care of the alarms, but must have missed something - after all, we were sort of flying blind - because when we came out of the woods there were people running everywhere. We rounded up everyone we could, and I think we got everybody - "
"Except one," we said together. He nodded.
"The only thing I can figure is when he found himself at your house, he decided to take revenge, or else he thought he could kill you and hide out there, or, God knows what he thought. One of my guys saw him going through the woods, so he and I came after him. I wouldn’t have worried so much about you if I knew what a deadly shot you are." He smiled and pulled me close. It felt good to be held, even if it was probably just a cop taking care of a prime witness.
"We found a dozen or so vehicles. They were clever - they used small trucks like the Swain’s trucks that deliver food to your home, and larger semis pulling trailers painted to resemble Wal-Mart trailers. One trailer was loaded and ready to go, with several bales of marijuana, what looked to be several million dollars’ worth of cocaine, dozens of packages of pills, and twenty illegals. We’re still trying to find out where it was supposed to be going."
I said "One-stop shopping. Want something illegal? Just drop right in."
He nodded. "This is the kicker, though. They had their buildings draped with the same type of camouflage they used on the fence, so we couldn’t see them from the air. They must have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on those winter camo tarps. They had them hung between buildings so the vehicles weren’t visible. And one building held regular camo tarps, I guess for when things are greener in the woods"
"But don’t you have heat-sensitive equipment that would have picked up the buildings and vehicles?"
"There’s where they got really smart. Every building, including garages, was heavily insulated to the point that there was practically no heat leakage. They thought of everything. Or at least they thought they did. They have someone here who gave them a heads up whenever anyone got too curious, or we were in town, and they diverted incoming shipments and held the outgoing. They had men patrolling the perimeters twenty-four seven, to make sure nobody stumbled across them. That’s undoubtedly why they wanted to buy your property, so they could have that much more of a buffer. The whole deal was to make sure we never had an iota of probable cause, and without that, we couldn’t penetrate them."
"And I was the fly in the ointment." He nodded. "Not only did I refuse their purchase offer, but I wandered into their fence."
"You’d probably be dead if you hadn’t had the presence of mind to head-butt him like you did. Even the strongest, fittest man can’t do much while his eyes are watering from a smack in the nose like that. You not only broke his nose, by the way, but you dislocated his jaw. I don’t think he likes you very much."
"Good!" I said. "I hope his face hurts every time a storm comes in."
50
For most of the next week, the Feds were in and out, bagging and tagging, inventorying, trying to tie up enough evidence to put a few people away for awhile. I had given them the ownership information that Teddy had tracked down for me, but the consensus was it would go nowhere. Just being a part owner of something did not necessarily equate to guilt. And every one of these people had stables of lawyers who do nothing but keep the mud off their skirts.
The good part was that the Feds had the power of forfeiture, and a case was filed in Iron County Circuit Court: The State of Michigan vs. 250 acres of undeveloped real property. I always get a kick out of seeing a car, or cash, or property listed as a defendant. I conjure up visions of a 2002 Cadillac ElDorado appearing in court, or a briefcase full of hundred dollar bills sitting in the defendant’s chair. A lot of strange things go on in my head.
It would take some time, maybe even a year or two, but eventually the property would be put up for auction and sold to the highest bidder, the profits going to Federal law enfo
rcement. The illegal aliens were detained until they could be processed for deportation. Half a dozen more "soldiers" were cooling their heels in the local jail, waiting transport to the Federal holding facility in Marquette. One of them was "cooperating with law enforcement" and Nate was optimistic that eventually they would be able to nab people higher up the chain.
I didn’t see him for several months. I got the occasional impersonal email, giving me an update on the case, and once when I was away from the house, he left a short message on my answering machine, saying he just wanted to say hello.
In a way, I was relieved that I didn’t have to deal with anything related to Nate Walters. I figured we’d had an attraction fueled by events; romance, lust, whatever you want to label it, is always boosted by danger and adrenalin. On the other hand, I knew he was busier than a cat in a sand pile, trying to make sure that nobody escaped the legal gristmill. So I just didn’t think about it. Much.
Rosie weathered her first round of chemo and radiation without any serious problems. I brought her back to the U.P. and she settled in to heal. She had lost even more weight and had to force herself to eat. More than once I wished I could give her a chunk of my own appetite - it would do us both good. She remained cheerful and optimistic, and I was relieved. At least she was living again, even if it might be only a short while.
Teddy spent hours of time patiently showing Rosie how to use the computer and surf the ‘net, and made herself available if Rosie ran into something she couldn’t figure out. The more Rosie researched ways to find her son, the more determined she became. Every little bit of progress, no matter how small, was cause for celebration.
I was still bothered by the fact that there had to be someone local who had alerted the people responsible for the contraband operation to patrol schedules. One of the captured men had intimated as much, but claimed he didn’t know who it was. I thought about each of the law enforcement officers in the area – I knew them all. I couldn’t see any one of them as co-conspirators. I knew some of them had financial problems to one degree or another. A couple of them either just had, or were having divorces which would not make their financial situations any better. One officer had been suspended for three months without pay after he was arrested for driving under the influence. That had to hurt his bank balance.
I finally just shrugged it off - it wasn’t my business, anyway.
51
You might be a Yooper if being a "Red Wing fan" means you like their new line of hiking boots.
The limitless stupidity of some people just blows me away. Pete’s sentencing was scheduled for Wednesday morning. It was cold and windy, and looked to be a thoroughly disagreeable day. I was waiting in the courtroom when the Corrections officers brought Pete in. He smiled at me as he clanked his way up the aisle, his wrists cuffed to a chain around his belly, his steps short and shuffling due to the ankle cuffs and chains which gave him a stride of about twelve inches per step.
I made my usual speech about how young he was, that we all do stupid things when we’re young but it takes some longer than others to figure out that you have to follow the rules in life to get along, yada yada yada. The prosecutor, in turn, gave his speech about how young people need to know they can’t just do what they want and hurt people, and so forth.
The judge lectured Pete about how his actions had affected the victims involved, listened to an impassioned speech by the owner of the car the guys stole and totaled, then sentenced him to two years in prison. Pete thanked me, and I think he really meant it. He could have got fifteen years.
The next day I stopped at the jail to visit another client. When I came out of the visiting area, the sheriff waved me in to his office.
"You are gonna love this one," he chortled. "You know your boy, Pete? Know what the dang fool did?"
I shook my head and said "What?"
"They were in Escanaba waiting to make a left turn, and the idiot bailed out of the van!"
Shocked, I said "You’ve got to be kidding me! Where did he think he was going to go?"
Sheriff Pace shook his head. "Who knows? But can you picture him, leg shackles and belly chains and all, trying to get away in ten degree weather? He wasn’t out of that van ten seconds before the guards had him on the ground." He laughed aloud, a deep, happy sound.
I could just picture Pete making fast, tiny shuffled steps, trying to stay upright on the icy ground, complete with cartoon sound effects that went "deedledeedledeedle." I laughed ruefully. "When some of these guys get an attack of stupid, it’s amazing what they’ll do."
The desk phone rang. Pace held up a finger in a "wait a sec" gesture, then answered. He listened for a moment, then paled noticeably. When he replaced the receiver on the cradle, his hand was shaking.
"Uh, something’s come up I have to see to. Nice talking to you."
"You okay? You look like you’ve seen the proverbial ghost."
He shook his head and waved at the door. "Just something I need to take care of."
"Okay, thanks for my laugh for today. See you later." I left his office and went down the hall toward the exit door. Just as I reached out a hand to push it open, someone on the other side hit the buzzer, and the dispatcher clicked the latch. Nate Walker walked in. He looked surprised to see me. Another man, someone I didn’t know, was behind him, looking very serious.
I had a sudden flash that something very bad was about to happen. I smiled quickly at Nate, then almost ran out the door.
Just as I put my hand on the car door to open it, I heard the shot.
I ran back to the door and hit the buzzer. Someone released the latch and I went in. "What’s going on? Can I help at all?" It was utter chaos. One dispatcher was on the phone dispatching an ambulance to the jail for a gunshot wound. Another was in the corner, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.
"So what’s happening!" I demanded. The undersheriff came out of Sheriff Pace’s office, a grim look on his face. I said "Do you need a first responder until the ambulance gets here?" He just waved me toward Pace’s office.
Before I even got to the door I could smell it, the unmistakable coppery odor of blood mixed with the after-odor of a gunshot.
Inside the office, I could see booted feet sticking out from behind Pace’s desk. Agent Walker and the other man were on their cell phones, talking furiously. I stepped to the side of Pace’s desk. He lay on his back, what was left of his head in a spreading pool of blood. His chair had overturned and lay partially atop his torso. His service revolver was still in his hand.
Although sickened, I bent over him, careful not to step in anything, and placed two fingers alongside his adam’s apple. I didn’t expect to find a pulse, and I wasn’t disappointed. But it never hurts to check. I was breathing through my mouth, trying to keep the smell of death out of my nose. My stomach started lurching anyway. I have never become inured to blood and death, no matter how many times I’ve encountered it. I carefully backtracked until I was at the door of the office.
Walker closed his phone and took my arm. "Let’s go back here." He led me to the small squad room and shut the door behind us. "What were you doing in there just before I got here?"
"He wanted to tell me a funny story about what happened to one of my clients." I related the story as Pace has told me, right up to the time he took the phone call.
"He looked like someone had just informed him of the death of someone close to him. His face turned white, his hand started shaking, then he said he had to take care of something, so I left. Did that something have anything to do with your coming to the jail?"
He nodded slowly. "This stays here, right?" I nodded assent. "Pace was the one feeding the information to the people running that contraband operation."
I gaped at him. "You’re shitting me!" I couldn’t, in my wildest imagination, have thought Pace capable of such treachery.
Nate looked grim. "Apparently he was being blackmailed over, um, let’s just say an i
ndiscretion of his concerning some drugs in the evidence lockup."
Things clicked into place. Pace’s wife had breast cancer, and even after chemo treatments that nearly killed her, she had recently learned it had metastasized . Marijuana is widely known to ease the suffering of terminal cancer patients. Oh, Jesus.
My eyes started burning. "So he took some weed to help his wife - even though everyone may have sympathized, he knew that he couldn’t just slide." I looked at Nate. "That call was to let him know you were coming for him, wasn’t it?"
He nodded. It looked to me like he was trying not to cry.
I said, "It really sucks when someone you like and trust turns out to have a fatal flaw. I’m still trying to get my head around this - he was one of my favorite people around here." I remembered all the times he had sat in the dispatch office and swapped bad jokes with me. The way the "hitch in his getalong" kept getting a little worse every year, and his near-daily threat to retire "any minute now." A pang of sadness threatened to flood my eyes. I reached out and briefly squeezed Nate’s hand. Then I turned and walked back to the dispatch area, and out the door. Time to get out of their way and let the law do their work.
52
As so often happens, the county’s law enforcers closed ranks around their own. Sheriff Evan Pace’s death was an accident; somehow the safety had been off, his gun had dropped to the floor and as he bent to try and catch it, it went off in his face. Somehow, I wasn’t offended by it all. The good a man has done during his life shouldn’t be eradicated by one well-meaning mistakie.
His funeral was one the biggest the county had seen in years, with cops coming from all over the state to pay their respects. None of the local funeral homes or churches had a facility large enough, so the high school gym was pressed into service. Over a thousand people showed up to send him to the big sheriff’s office in the sky. Despite his family’s wish that instead of flowers, donations could be made to some police-related charity, there were enough flowers arranged in tiers on both sides of the flag-draped coffin to sink a battleship. The local veterans’ association provided an honor guard and a three-shot rifle salute.