by Gregory Ashe
And then the memory was past, and Hazard faced Bing. The old helplessness was there. The old hate. Hazard wrestled with it and knew he was losing. He always lost.
Except with Somers.
“Sit down,” Mayor Newton was saying, gesturing at two empty chairs. “Sit, sit.”
“You said this was important,” Hazard said. “We’re very busy—”
“Investigating last night’s shooting?”
Hazard didn’t answer. Somers shifted in his seat, but a look from Hazard made him subside.
Sheriff Bingham snorted. The sound was as dry and hard and thin as the rest of him. “That’s what you get with city cops. They finish on the shitter and can’t tell their heads from their asses.”
Newton made a clucking noise and batted a hand at the sheriff. “Detective Hazard, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done since returning to our town. It’s a pleasure, no, it’s an honor to have you with us. Not just because of what you’ve done here. No, sir. You have a reputation. What you did in St. Louis, well, word gets around. We’ve heard the kind of man you are. Let me just say it’s not often a local boy makes good and comes back.” For a moment, Newton hesitated, as though he’d lost his train of thought. Then a smile flashed full force on his face, and in his patrician accent, he added, “Although I have before me living examples to the contrary. Three fine young men. Three, and they’ve all come home.”
Anger had started a slow burn inside Hazard. The mayor’s words, spoken with that expensive Yale accent, hadn’t hidden the poison inside. So, they knew about St. Louis? Of course they did. Cravens would have known. What had happened between Hazard and Jonas Cassidy had never made it into any reports, but Cravens would know. Cassidy was the captain’s son, and the captain had made sure there was nothing in writing. But—how had the mayor phrased it? Word got around. Especially among cops, word got around. Cravens must have passed it along to the mayor. Hazard fought the urge to grab the scrawny old chicken neck and squeeze until the mayor’s liver spots popped.
Sheriff Bingham shifted, agitated, in his seat. He took the cattleman hat off his knee, raised it as though to fan himself, and then gave it a disgusted look.
“Detective Hazard,” Newton said into his own silence, “I asked you to come alone today. I did that for propriety’s sake. I didn’t feel right asking you to come, John-Henry. If you need to be with your father, I understand.”
“I need to be here.” The words sounded normal, but Hazard could hear the fissures behind them. The strain on Somers, which had begun to manifest in his erratic behavior, went deep. Dangerously deep, Hazard was starting to realize. And when all those massive, tectonic forces really started shifting inside Somers, hell would come boiling up. Hazard was starting to hope he wasn’t around when it happened.
“Right,” Newton said. “That’s right, and I’ll say I commend you for it. What son wouldn’t go out and try to find his father’s killer?”
“My father wasn’t killed.”
“No, of course not. But you understand what I mean.”
“Frankly, Mr. Mayor, I don’t understand what you mean.” The stress cracks in Somers’s voice deepened. “I don’t understand any of this. The man who shot my father is dead. Chief Cravens told me that there’s nothing more to do here.”
The sheriff snorted again, the sound like a whip crack, and raised and settled his cattleman again. “That hasn’t stopped you boys, has it?”
“What’s that mean?” Hazard asked.
Sheriff Bingham shifted in his seat, his head coming up, his eyes dangerous, but before the thin man could speak, Mayor Newton said, “This is a complicated situation. Very complicated. I hope that everyone here can understand that.”
It seemed like a question, and Newton stared at each of them in turn, waiting for a sign of agreement. Bing nodded, dropping his head into his hands. Somers nodded. Hazard locked eyes with Newton, and those eyes were like pennies, but the kind of pennies that have sat in a parking lot all summer and are black with old chewing gum. Hazard nodded. The sheriff, pinching the brim of his cattleman, didn’t nod, but he did twirl the hat once, and it seemed enough to satisfy Newton.
“I don’t want to speak behind my chief’s back. I don’t want to put you boys in a position of having to choose between the chief and the mayor.” Newton paused, folded his hands on the desk, and continued, “But I feel that this situation isn’t being handled properly. I’ve already voiced my concerns to the chief. She understands. In fact, she told me that everything on her end is settled. She told me she spoke with her detectives and they understand that they’re not working this case. As far as they’re concerned, there isn’t a case to work. That’s what she said to me.”
Sheriff Bingham clutched the hat with both hands now. His jaw was set in a furious frown.
“But word gets around, boys,” Newton continued. “Word does get around. Especially in a small town like ours. I hope you understand that. And before you get ruffled, I want you to know that we’re not trying to sweep anything under the rug. This case is personal for you, Detective Somerset. John-Henry. This case means a lot to you, and it should. That’s only right. But it means a lot to the sheriff, too. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Sheriff Bingham was obviously furious—understandably so since his granddaughter had been shot and killed—but the mayor’s words didn’t sit with Hazard. It sounded like the mayor was suggesting that Bingham was working the case himself, but that didn’t seem to be what was happening. The crime scene at the Somerset household, for example, had been released much too early. So what was going on?
“From what Chief Cravens has told me,” Newton said, “she believes that Detective Somerset should recuse himself from this case because of a conflict of interest. It’s a rather poor choice of words, since I don’t think there’s any conflict at all, but I understand that she’s worried you may be too personally attached to this case.”
“I thought there was no case. There’s nothing to be attached to. My father was shot, and the shooter is dead.”
“Yes,” Newton said. “Dead in the Wahredua Regional Hospital parking lot. Shot trying to escape. And that shooting means that Wahredua’s other two detectives are unable to investigate since they also have a personal connection.”
“What’s your point?” Hazard said. “We know all of this.”
“We weren’t born yesterday,” Sheriff Bingham said. “Not the day before either. That’s our point. The two of you haven’t let this drop. You’re out there skulking, driving around in a private vehicle, hoofing around Smithfield like nobody will notice two white boys in expensive clothes.”
“You’re following us? What the hell is this about?”
“The point I’m trying to make,” Newton said, smoothing the air with his hands, “is that I’ve asked the sheriff to handle this investigation. Now, your chief has talked to you and told you to let this go. I’m telling you, as your mayor and as a family friend, to let this go. It’s in good hands. The sheriff, he wants justice as much as the rest of you. And he’s going to see that we have it.”
Somers’s face had gone red, and his hands were balled into tight fists, the skin bleached by the pressure he was exerting. He opened his mouth, but Hazard kicked his leg. For a moment, it seemed that Somers would speak anyway. Then he shoved a fist against his mouth and let out a muffled swear.
“All right,” Hazard said. “What’s your angle?”
“Our angle?” Sheriff Bingham. “My granddaughter is dead. That’s my angle. No, Sherman. I’m going to say my piece. That little girl—my little girl—got shot.” Bingham tapped his chest. “Right here. That’s what my angle is. That’s—”
At this last statement, Bing let out a groan that was only partially muffled by the hands covering his face. He lurched out of his seat, took a staggering step towards the door, and then spun back towards the desk. Snagging the metal wastebasket next to the desk, Bing sprinted to the do
or. He made it another yard before he bent, wastebasket between his knees, and emptied his stomach. When he’d finished, he clutched the wastebasket in white-tipped fingers and stumbled out of the room.
Hazard took the opportunity to study the remaining two men. Mayor Newton looked more or less the same: the liver spots danced on his trembling jaw, and his snowy hair wavered in time with his head. The sheriff, however, was almost purple with rage. He threw out one hand, pointing at the door through which his son had disappeared, as though about to utter some final statement. He looked like something out of an old painting, an allegory for justice denied. Then his fingers curled inwards, and he sank back into his seat, hands like rocks on top of his knees.
After a moment, the sheriff gained control of himself and looked at Somers. “You’re Glenn Somerset’s son. That counts for a lot with me. And Bing’s always had a good word about you. He liked you when you played for him, he liked you when he had you in shop, hell, he liked you even after you quit the team. He put his neck on the line for you, and you threw it back in his face, and he still liked you. If you’ve got any of your own family loyalty, if you’ve got any loyalty to me and mine, I expect you to nod your head and say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and for this to be the end of the talk.”
Somers reddened, and to Hazard’s surprise, he fell silent.
Hazard waited a moment for Somers’s response—honestly, the man had an answer for everything, so why had he gone quiet now?—and then said, “What you want us to do, turning our backs on an investigation—”
Sheriff Bingham didn’t look at Hazard as he spoke, and his voice stayed low, hard, and fast, like a bullet in the dark. “This is the one chance you get to speak to me, and after this, if you ever open your mouth when I’m in earshot, I’ll pick your teeth out one by one with my .22. I know your kind. Something squirming along on its belly. Slime under a rock. I heard all about you when you were a boy here, and I knew then what you were. Not a decent person in a hundred miles would believe it of Frank and Aileen’s boy, but there you were. No shame, not a scrap of it. And I know what you did in Saint Louis. I know about the boy up there, what you did to him. So I’ll tell you two things: you don’t speak to me again, ever; and you don’t let so much as your shadow get close to this case. You do those two things, and I’ll keep my mouth shut, and maybe you’ll hold onto your job. God knows you don’t deserve it.”
The words hit like a punch right on the tip of the chin. The sheriff knew. He knew about Cassidy. They all knew. The rest of it, all the hateful speech about Hazard’s youth, that rolled off Hazard like rainwater. But the part about Cassidy, that had hit hard.
“This is a complicated situation,” Newton repeated. “Very complicated. We can all understand that. We can all appreciate that. Some of us have spoken hastily, and I regret that.” Newton looked at Hazard. “But what Sheriff Bingham has said is, unfortunately, true. You need to walk away from this investigation. We’re a small town, and every one of us has a long memory. This is a chance for you to redeem yourself.”
The mayor kept speaking, but Hazard barely heard him. He was hearing what the sheriff had said, the implications about Jonas Cassidy. And he was hearing everything behind it, all those years, all the hateful things—
—Frank and Aileen’s boy—
—since he’d been a child. He was thinking about Jeff Langham, who had been seventeen and beautiful, who had loved to lure sparrows with bread crumbs, who had loved to run track and try to beat impossible records, who had loved Emery Hazard, and who, in the end, had put a shotgun in his mouth after being raped and tortured by the boys in town.
And these two old men, sitting in their positions of power and privilege, these men wanted to slip a noose around Hazard’s throat and pull it tight. They’d make him dance, and when they got bored, they’d snap his neck. His fingers had gone numb, his palms had gone numb, but even inside that numbness, there was a crazy, prickly energy, as though he’d caught up handfuls of thistles and crushed them in his hands. At the edge of that pain, he realized that he was standing, that Somers was tugging on his sleeve, trying to drag him back into his seat. Hazard realized he was speaking, and the words sounded like they were coming from somewhere far off.
“I’ll find who did this. Whoever he is. No matter how high he sits. No matter how much of this town he owns. And I’ll put a bullet in the back of his head and that’ll be the end of it. That’s what I’m going to do, and I want you to remember I told you because the next time I see you, I’ll have a gun in my hand.”
HAZARD DIDN'T REMEMBER THE WALK to the car. The next thing he knew was standing in the cold, with the enormity of the blue sky paneled in the VW’s glass, and a headache ringing all the way through his head. In one hand, he held the keys, but he was shaking too much to get them in the lock.
“What the hell was that?” Somers asked. The blond man had come around the VW to the driver’s side, and now he shoved Hazard against the car. “What the hell was that?” Somers shoved him again. “Are you out of your mind? You’re going to put a bullet in his head, in the mayor’s head? That’s your idea of keeping quiet, playing it close the chest, being safe? Jesus Christ, Hazard. You just told him we think he’s the one who did all this. Even if he didn’t do it, he’ll find a way to ruin us.” Somers touched fingertips to his forehead, then threw his hands down and started walking up the snowy street.
Hands still shaking, Hazard left the VW and trudged after Somers. It took him almost half a block to catch up, and by then the sun was in his eyes and snow had slipped inside his shoes and melted into a freezing liner for his feet. This part of the city was old, almost as old as the riverfront where the city had been born. Jefferson Street held city hall and the sheriff’s offices and a dozen other government buildings, various shapes and sizes crammed to fit on available property. Perhaps because of the presence of so many bureaucrats, Jefferson Street had thrived. It had the Wahredua Savings and Loan, Schreiber’s Real Estate, the antique store run by Lorene Berger, and a three-story building with a stone facade—office space for the defunct Missouri Pacific, subdivided now among Sandamon Trucking, the Wahredua Arts Conservancy, and the local chapter of the AFL-CIO. When Hazard had returned to Wahredua, he had been unsurprised that Jefferson Street looked exactly the same, even after fifteen years. That much power didn’t change easily.
But Hazard was glad that one thing hadn’t changed: Jefferson Street grub. Sandwich shops, salad bars, diners, cafes, The Real Beef—a Wahredua steakhouse famous for stuffing their potatoes with burnt brisket ends—and on and on. A restaurant for each and every one of the bureaucrats. Hazard’s stomach grumbled as the air brought the smell of prime rib from the steakhouse. It hadn’t been that long since breakfast at Big Biscuit, but—
Somers spoke low, but the tones were agitated, the words clipped. “You want to tell me what that was about?” He stopped at the next corner, chafing his hands while he waited for the light to change.
“Not out here.”
“Speak up.”
“I’ll tell you. Just not out here.”
Making a disgusted noise, Somers turned his head, as though scanning the street. Then he backtracked to The Real Beef, and as he put his shoulder to the door, he said, “You’re buying.”
It was the lunch rush, but The Real Beef had been designed for dinner crowds, and a waiter seated them at a table near the window. Hazard shrugged out of his jacket. Some of the feeling in his fingers had come back, but that awful weight still pressed down on him. It wasn’t a heart attack, but it felt like its dumpy cousin.
“Beer,” Somers said when the waiter drew near. The man started to retreat, but Somers shook his head and called, “No. Tequila. Cuervo, if you’ve got it.”
“Somers—”
“Don’t. Just shut your mouth, all right? When I’m ready to talk to you, we’ll talk.”
The waiter returned with two shots of tequila; Somers took both of them and pounded them back. He waved the waiter
away for more. By this point, the waiter—young, probably not past twenty-five, but still with a waxed mustache on his face like it was required for the job—was giving them a look that said he was already thinking about his tip. A few older men came by, shook Somers’s hand, and quietly asked about his father. Other than that, though, nobody bothered them until the waiter returned. After Somers had downed two more shots, he ordered the waiter back for more.
“No,” Hazard said. “That’s enough. Bring us a couple of hamburgers. Fries. Whatever you’ve got.”
The waiter sniffed. He honest-to-God sniffed. His ass had a little swish to it as he walked away, and it dawned on Hazard that the boy might be gay, that he was close to Nico’s age. Might even know Nico. Go to school with him. And here Hazard was, getting drunk with his partner in the middle of the day. Jesus Christ, if that didn’t send Nico up in flames, well—well, it almost certainly would.
“I wasn’t done,” Somers said, sinking lower in his seat. He stared at Hazard, the deep blue of his eyes hooded. “You planning on ruining every fucking thing you can? Is that the goal?”
“You want to get shit-faced, do it on your own time.”
“This is my own time. All I’ve got is my own time. We don’t have a case, remember?” Somers paused, ran his arm under his red nose, and shook his head. “You fuck your last partner? Is that your game? It gets you hot or something?”
“You say something like that again—”
“That’s what they were talking about, right? Back in St. Louis, whatever they’re trying to blackmail you with. You fucked some twink cop. That’s what it was. He freaked out, and you had to split. And now you’re here.” Somers leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So what? Same thing with me? Is that the plan?”