Trial by Ice and Fire

by Clinton McKinzie

  He makes what I suspect is meant to be a disbelieving chuckle but it comes out as almost a snarl. Then he moves.

  He takes a step forward and with his right hand pushes Jim back against the railing beside the door. The bag pendulums forward then cocks back, and I realize that with another step he can swing it into my crotch. Suddenly my gun is in my hand. It's pointing at the ground between us but I know that with a flick of my wrist I can point it at his belly.

  Wokowski's mirrored lenses flinch down toward the gun. The bag freezes in its backswing then slowly comes to rest at his side. Time freezes, too, and I'm not aware of anything but the two us standing here, three feet apart, with a .40-caliber H&K between us. Heavy in my hand. I feel loose and fluid and fast, as if all the joints in my body have been freshly oiled then scrunched down like loaded springs.

  It is a long time before he speaks. Or at least it seems that way.

  “You're a fucking maniac, QuickDraw Burns. A dangerous fucking maniac.” He says it directly into my face from just two feet away. His toothpaste breath reminds me of Cali's.

  “Look who's talking, Wokowski.”

  Very slowly and carefully, he steps back and down the single step that leads onto the sidewalk. He stares at me for a while longer before he turns and walks back to the black-and-white SUV parked down the street.

  Inside the lobby, Jim hunches over with his hands on his knees. He's breathing hard and fast. I'm feeling a little light-headed myself. Wasted, too, as if the confrontation with the sergeant had sucked out all my strength. Even though we'd never touched, it feels like we'd gone fifteen rounds.

  McGee, who has parked his walker by the glass and is staring out at the street, says, “Thought I was going to have to go out there . . . save both your candy asses.”

  “How—come—you—didn't—arrest—him?” Jim pants at me.

  McGee answers for me. “Because we don't have a goddamn thing on him. . . . Five minutes ago . . . we were thinking he was out of it altogether.”

  “It's got to be him. He's back in the number one spot,” I say.

  “No shit,” Jim agrees, standing upright now and looking pale. “That guy is a hand grenade, man. I thought he was going to lose it out there. Blow his shit up. Whew, that was close. When we take him down, we'd better have some more guys around.”

  I nod in agreement. I'd noticed when Wokowski finally walked away that his pant cuff had bulged on the inside of his left ankle. He was carrying. That's not a surprising fact, since he is a cop, but it makes me realize again how hazardous it can be to go hunting your own kind.

  “What did you learn?” McGee asks.

  “I took a chance. I let him know he was our chief suspect, hoping he'd say or do something to seal it.”

  “Well? Did he make any statements? An admission?”

  I shake my head. “No. Nothing we can use. But it was real close out there, Ross.”

  “What'll he do now?” Jim asks.

  “I don't know. Probably go home and steam. Maybe get some sleep. Wait for a better day.”

  “He might see the error of his ways,” McGee says. “Become more crafty. Maybe even give it up.”

  “Or it might stoke him up all the more. We've got to be careful now, watching Cali,” I say to Jim. I remember what McGee had said yesterday, about getting the stalker to focus on me. My boss's plan might be working, although I'm not sure if it's my favorite course of action. I'd returned Wokowski's insult at the meeting yesterday, spent the night with the object of his obsession, and I'd just bested him in a face-to-face confrontation. I'll be watching my own back a lot more carefully now.

  “Anton? What's going on?” Cali asks, coming into the lobby from the County Attorney's door and looking puzzled.

  All three of us turn to her. It seems amazing that someone could be in the building, just a hundred feet away, and not be aware of what had just taken place outside the courthouse door. It had felt like the tension should have bowed the tree limbs outside her window, forced her to pop her ears. After I'd left her in Jim's care at her house she'd changed into a green silk T-shirt and well-worn jeans.

  “Your boyfriend Wokowski just stopped by to say hi. I talked to him and he changed his mind.”

  She looks at me, eyebrows raised, figuring out why we all look so tense and drained. Although I don't further explain the encounter, she reads it in our faces. I see goose bumps on her arms.

  “Cali, you know Jim already but I don't think you've been introduced to my boss, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ross McGee. Boss, this is Cali Morrow.”

  The old man's eyes light up. He rolls toward her on his walker and holds out his meaty hand. When she reaches out her own to shake it, he pulls it up to his beard and kisses it loudly.

  “You're a ripe little thing, aren't you?” he says before releasing her hand. He's looking at her chest.

  The tiny bumps on her arms disappear as her face flushes red. Her expression is uncertain, vacillating between offended and amused. The amusement wins out and she grins crookedly at him. I roll my eyes at Jim.

  “It's nice to meet you, Mr. McGee.”

  “Ross, my dear, call me Ross . . . or anything else you like. . . . I can see your mother's features in your face . . . and, uh, elsewhere,” he says.

  “You know Mom?”

  McGee nods his square head enthusiastically. “I knew her well . . . she and I spent a lot of nights together . . . when I was a young grunt serving in Southeast Asia.”

  She frowns for a second in confusion, saying, “Mom's never been to . . .” then catches his meaning. She laughs and finally manages to withdraw her hand from his grasp. “You'll have to meet her while she's here and see if she remembers your adventures together.”

  I'm impressed, watching her manage his lechery so well.

  McGee smacks his lips. “I'd like nothing better, young lady.”

  Without thinking I joke, “Alana Reese might find you a little rough around the edges, boss. She didn't like me when I met her last night, and you know how smooth and charming I can be.” Immediately I put my foot in my mouth. I hadn't told McGee about my encounter with Danny Gorgon and don't intend to. That sort of thing was too close to the excessive-force accusations that had caused my semi-disgrace and nearly resulted in my being criminally charged. I don't ever want to do anything to make McGee doubt his decision to protect me.

  McGee is turning to look at me inquisitively when Cali says, “She liked you fine, Anton. She even told me that you were a ‘pretty Mexican boy with obviously hot, Latin blood,' and that your scar looked sexy.”

  This makes McGee laugh and cough. He repeats “pretty Mexican boy” twice before saying, “This pretty Mexican boy . . . with his delusions of charm. . . . I can assure you that he's the devil. . . . He's gotten my otherwise intelligent goddaughter . . . to think she's halfway in love with him.” He looks at me as he finishes speaking with what I take as a warning. Instead of feeling any guilt, all I can do is wonder when he last spoke to Rebecca.

  The cell phone in my pocket starts to play its stupid song again. This time, though, it earns me no smug grin from McGee. He's still busy with carving his unspoken warning on my flesh with his watery laser-beam eyes. No name appears on the phone's screen, but the number preceded by an Idaho area code tells me who it is. Excusing myself, I walk back out through the front door and onto the street.

  “So, you rat me out or what?” my brother asks in his soft, amused voice.

  “You know I didn't, 'Berto. Where are you?”

  “Should I be telling you that?” he laughs. “Who's with you right now? A bunch of cops?”

  “Actually, yeah. Two DCI guys and a county prosecutor. But they're ten feet away, on the other side of a window. So where are you?”

  “Coming down. Did a couple of routes in Death Canyon.”

  “What'd you do?”

  “The Snaz and Cottonmouth.”

  “Solo?” I already know the answer, but I have to ask in a kind of horrified
and awed wonder. The routes he'd mentioned are both long and hard, each topping out at close to a thousand feet off the deck.

  “Until you stop avoiding me, che, and tie yourself in.”

  “That girl you saw last night at my place? She's the case I'm on. Somebody's after her in a serious way and I can't bail out on her right now. Tell me, what did you see last night?”

  He laughs again, a slurry sound like slow water running over rocks. “You acting all sanctimonious, going up the stairs alone. Then you coming down after she went up. You're getting soft, bro.”

  “Rebecca's coming up this week,” I say by way of explanation.

  “Soft and whipped,” he sighs. “That girl doesn't like me much.”

  “What were you doing anyway? Peeping in my windows all night?”

  “As a matter of fact, yeah.” He'd probably been too high to sleep, too pumped up from an injected speedball and cooling his heels until the sun would invite him onto the rock. “If you were any kind of family, Ant, you'd buy a TV and stick it in the window. Or at least get the girl naked.”

  “What about the cop car last night?”

  “Big sucker, one of those Expeditions or something. Must have come by six or seven times after you came home. It was really bringing me down, thinking that maybe my own bro had called him in. Couple of times I almost put a rock through the windshield.”

  “Did you get a look at the driver?”

  “Nah. The windows were tinted and I was kinda trying to stay out of sight, you know? Dude just cruised by and then would come back an hour or so later. Had his lights off, too.”

  “I think he's the guy, 'Berto. The guy who's after her. Tell me if you see him around the cabin again.”

  “Want me to grab him for you?”

  Now it's my turn to laugh. Roberto is perfectly serious. Despite everything, the warrants out for his arrest and the possibility of blowing his deal with the Feds if he gets picked up early, he's perfectly willing to grab a cop to help out his little brother. Even as I laugh I feel my throat grow tight.

  “No. Just give me a call. And be careful, 'Berto. Don't screw things up for yourself. Be careful.”

  “Sure, che. You know me. So when are you going to climb with me? I've only got five more days.”

  I surprise myself by answering, “Soon.”

  Cali comes swinging through the big glass doors before I have a chance to recompose myself. She stands in front of me, a few inches closer than she would have before last night, and asks, “You look a little pale, Anton. Who were you talking to?”

  “My brother.” My voice is a little bit hoarse and I clear my throat.

  “Oh.”

  Apparently my expression keeps her from asking more. The sun's in her face, revealing the tiny sun-etched lines at the corners of her eyes as she squints up at me. There is something needy about her posture and the way she shifts from foot to foot, a little like Mungo. I note that she looks very nice. A touch of peach-colored lipstick brightens her mouth. Somehow I know without a doubt that she has dressed for me. I move back a step.

  “Cali, how about taking a vacation? Getting out of town would make you a lot safer.”

  She chews her lower lip like she is giving it some serious thought. It will be safer for her—and for me—to have her somewhere far away. Like Bali.

  But then she says, “I can't. The trial of the guy Wook beat up starts tomorrow. I started it, so I need to finish it. I can't run away from that. After that, we'll see.” A smile lifts her lips and her eyes sparkle. “Maybe you could use a vacation, too?”

  “I just got back from leave,” I say, looking through the window into the lobby where I can see through the dark glass that McGee and Jim are still talking. I recall the promise I'd made her this morning. Not to mess around with her. “Look, I've got a girlfriend. For the time being, anyway. And as much as I like you, Cali—” I leave it there. It hangs awkwardly.

  Her eyes lose their light a full second before the smile fades from her face. I might as well have slapped her.

  SIXTEEN

  I GO ALONE to what I can't help but consider enemy territory: Wokowski's province and fiefdom. It's only around the corner and down the street to the Teton County Sheriff's Office but the walk feels much longer. Then, at the doors, it suddenly feels way too short. I had called ahead and found out that the sheriff was in her office, working on Sunday to catch up on paperwork.

  McGee, Jim, and Cali have gone together to a restaurant in the other direction called Thai Me Up. I don't envy them eating a meal with McGee, especially not a spicy one. Even with mild food it's not a pretty sight.

  “Special Agent Burns,” Sheriff J. J. Buchanan acknowledges me coolly when I knock on the sill of her office's open door. “I don't have much time, but I understand we need to talk.”

  She is a large woman but not particularly fat. Just strong and sturdy, like so many Wyoming natives. The Anglos here tend to be big people—I think it must come from a ranch diet of steak, potatoes, and corn. The sheriff's plain face is kindly even though it's wearing a frown. The desk beneath her elbows is littered with papers and forms, which are the bane of modern law enforcement even in a town like this.

  “It's nice to meet you,” I say, hoping the frown is nothing more than the result of having to work on a warm Sunday afternoon.

  She studies me for a long moment before dispelling my hope. She says, “I wish I could say the same.”

  I let out a sigh. “Why is that, Sheriff?”

  She leans back in her swivel chair and continues examining me. “You have a reputation for using excessive force, Agent Burns. I'm told you've only been in town a few days, and already I've had a complaint about you.”

  Unasked, I close the door and sit down in one of the hard chairs opposite her desk. “Sergeant Wokowski, right?”

  She tilts her head at me, the way Mungo does when she doesn't understand one of my rare commands. “Actually, the complaint came from Alana Reese, who I consider a friend to both myself and this county. She said you assaulted Mr. Gorgon, who was a guest at her party last night.”

  I'm surprised Cali's mother had been the one to complain on Gorgon's behalf. She knew I was protecting her daughter at the party, even if she believed what I did in response to the insults was unnecessary. But then she is the one who owns property here, and is therefore more likely to have attention paid to her. I have no doubt, though, that Gorgon put her up to it. I'm glad McGee isn't here. I hadn't told him about the incident.

  “She doesn't want any charges pressed against you—she said she doesn't want that kind of publicity for Mr. Gorgon—but she made it clear that she would like you to be kept away from him.”

  I hold her eyes and speak quietly and forcefully. “He directed some extremely foul language at her daughter—one of your assistant county attorneys. Then he pointed a plastic gun at my forehead when I spoke to him about it. I responded with reasonable force to keep him from resisting arrest for Disorderly Conduct. I released him at Ms. Reese's request. There was nothing more to it. As for my reputation in general, all I can tell you is that you've heard only one side of the story. I'd appreciate it if you would give a fellow peace officer the benefit of the doubt.”

  The sheriff is still studying me. Despite the politics and the paperwork, which is probably about as close to real police work as she comes these days, she still has a cop's assessing eyes.

  After a minute she nods. “All right. I'll take your word for it. Just do me a favor and stay away from Mr. Gorgon. Understand? I know you're going to be with us for a while, hunting down clandestine labs for the SWAT team after you finish with the Morrow investigation, but please, I don't want any more complaints.”

  I nod. “I'll try to avoid it.”

  “Please do. Ms. Reese was also quite distraught when she learned that her daughter was again assaulted later last night in the bar. She claimed that you weren't doing your job, that you allowed it to happen.”

  I feel heat coming to my face.
This meeting is going even worse than I had anticipated. I'm not appearing here as a skilled state investigator but as a fuckup, someone who can't help but harass innocent civilians and can't manage to protect a woman in a crowded bar. Someone who might have been the perpetrator of a triple homicide. The bar was full of cops, I want to say. I couldn't have foreseen . . . But I could have. And I should have. I resist the urge to look down at the floor and instead hold her gaze. “That won't happen again. I blew it.”

  It's her turn to nod. “Now what did you want to see me about? And why do you think Charles Wokowski would make a complaint about you?”

  “Because a half hour ago I let him know that he's my prime suspect.”

  The sheriff smiles uncertainly and bends forward in her chair. “You're kidding me, aren't you?” Before I can answer she adds, “He's one of my most reliable men. In fact, I've all but chosen him to be my successor when I leave office in two years. When the County Attorney suggested we bring your office in, it was to avoid even the appearance of impropriety—we certainly didn't think you'd begin by focusing on one of our own.”

  “You know about the break-in? The stun gun and tape?”

  “Of course. This is my county, Agent Burns. I was at the scene five minutes after the call came in. I was the one who interviewed Bill Laughlin, the man who ran the attacker off. I was the one who took possession of the tape and the stun gun and arranged for them to be sent to your crime lab.”

  “Until recently he and Cali Morrow were dating. I understand their parting was strained.”

  “I know ex-lovers are always considered suspects. But he's a cop, and a darn good one. He would never—”

  I interrupt her. “When they broke up he said something to her about wishing they were both dead—”

  “Lots of men say stupid things—”

  “Cali stayed at my cabin up on Cache Creek last night because she was afraid to stay in her house. Wokowski drove by several times during the night and then again this morning.”