The Guilty

by Jason Pinter

  He was forced into hiding to save his life. He had to live a lie, denying his heritage until he was nearly on his deathbed.

  Bonney was a great name. Billy the Kid was the mythological name bestowed upon him. William’s parents had tried to hide that legacy from him. Better for them to die than to bury the legend, stem the blood.

  The heiress and the mogul were all targeted from the beginning. The cop was a mistake, but a fortunate one. David Loverne was a split-second decision. After reading Mya’s interview in the Dispatch, it was an easy choice.

  Mya, though, was another story.

  She had to go because of Henry.

  William Roberts was a Regulator. Some thought him a villain, others a savior. Whichever side of the coin he was on, Henry Parker was on the other, the one chosen by fate to chronicle William’s myth. Parker was a young man, just a few years older than Roberts’s twenty-one. Henry himself had been hunted, narrowly escaping death.

  We’re the same.

  Even if Henry didn’t understand what William was trying to accomplish, he would be the one to spread the gospel. Patrick Floyd Garrett didn’t agree with Billy the Kid, but it was his sensational storytelling that cemented Billy’s legend. And for Henry to be able to tell the story with the passion necessary, he needed to feel anger. He needed to feel hate. He needed to feel loss. Only then would his words have the desired effect. Once Henry Parker saw the world the way William did, that thin line separating life and death, innocent and guilty, their two sides would amount to a perfect whole.

  William remembered back to the night he learned the truth about his family. The first was the truth about his legacy. Though his parents had fought their hardest to distance themselves from it, William knew his grandfather Oliver well. And when he learned the full extent of his legacy, there was no way he could let that mantle simply fall to the floor. He had to pick it up, shepherd it into a new millennium. And New York, more than New Mexico or Texas, needed it.

  The second truth was about his mother and that smiling bastard. His parents told him they loved him, would never lie to him, that they would always put William and his sister above everything.

  They forgot to leave out the “almost” before the everything.

  William’s mission had been clear. When a patient’s limbs become gangrenous, you had to cut them off before they killed the whole. Sometimes you had to lose limbs vital to who you were. Limbs you never believed you could live without.

  But he did.

  William picked up the Winchester, ran his fingers along the cold steel, tried to envision all the lives shattered, worlds changed by this weapon. He squeezed it tight, believed he felt his ancestor, the great Billy the Kid, transferring his strength.

  William felt it, felt ready. He knew where he had to go. He knew who had to die next. Mya Loverne was a stopgap, a bonus, but to get to Henry he had to strike closer. Because for Henry Parker to truly be the other side of William, he would have to learn to deal with the death of his loved ones, as well.

  CHAPTER 50

  When I first moved to New York, I would often find myself wandering the streets at night. Walking for blocks and blocks for no real reason other than to soak in the city, bask in the dimming sun and reflections off the towers. I dreamed of being part of this town, and like a lover I wanted to caress and explore every inch of it.

  I would walk down to the South Street Seaport, breath in the salty air, stroll along the historic district with ports that looked like a relic from a Melville novel, made you forget it was a city with 3.2 coffee shops per square block.

  I would walk all the way west to the Hudson, then down to Chelsea Piers, watching young teenagers skateboarding and couples bowling while a mammoth cruise ship took young lovers around the Hudson, down past where the World Trade Center once stood, around the East River where they could see the majestic arches of the Brooklyn Bridge, the grace of the Statue of Liberty.

  Most of these sojourns took place while my relationship with Mya was deteriorating. In prior months we would have spent every moment of every evening together, cuddled up on a couch, watching a movie. Mya would wear one of my sweatshirts, purposefully drop popcorn all over my lap. Eventually we’d fool around and pass out, start the next day fresh.

  Then our relationship dimmed, and we began to avoid each other at all costs. Then after I met Amanda, after I nearly died, Mya and I lost touch completely.

  I didn’t mind. I loved Amanda. It may have been cruel to leave Mya hurting, but it would have been worse to lead her on.

  Ordinarily walking the streets alone at night wouldn’t have been such a big deal. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But tonight I was walking alone, knowing Amanda was somewhere else. Not because my relationship with her was similar to my relationship with Mya—a Band-Aid slowly being peeled off—but because it had been painfully ripped away.

  Suddenly I looked up and I was standing at the apartment building of Linda Fredrickson. I hadn’t planned it, at least not consciously.

  Linda Fredrickson was Joe Mauser’s sister. Her husband, John, had died from a gunshot wound after I confronted him. If John had never met me, Linda would still have a husband.

  After it was revealed that John Fredrickson was a dirty cop and I was exonerated of the murder charges, I attempted to contact Linda. At that point I wasn’t really thinking about whether or not she would forgive me. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

  A year ago I had come to this very apartment building, gone upstairs and knocked on her door. She opened it and stared at me with a befuddled look, the kind you might give a Jehovah’s Witness who simply won’t stop soliciting you. I told her I was sorry. She slapped me hard across the face. She slammed the door and I left.

  For uncertain reasons, tonight I felt I had to speak to Linda. If anyone could understand what was happening, she could. Mya was in the hospital. I had to cut Amanda from my life before she got hurt. I had nobody to turn to.

  But this wasn’t about me. Linda had her own life. She was still grieving over the loss of her brother.

  I stood in front of the awning, debating whether to call on Linda Fredrickson. The doorman sighed and walked over to me. He knew I didn’t live there. His eyes were raised as if to say either come in, or get the hell out of here.

  “May I ask who you’re here to visit?” He wore a red uniform and a square hat with gold tassles. I could see several newspapers littering his tiny counter; the flicker on the glass told me he kept a small television set to pass the time.

  “Nobody,” I said. “Just walking around the neighborhood.”

  “All right then,” he said, with a suspicious tone. He left me and went back inside, immediately picking up the newspaper. He raised the cover and for a moment I had a terrible sense of déjà vu. On the cover was a police sketch of William Henry Roberts. It looked both exactly like him and nothing like him. He was a young man. Like thousands of others in this city. Like me.

  I wondered if the doorman had been paranoid, thought I could be the killer.

  I hurried away.

  The entire city was being combed for William Henry Roberts. Yet as the noose tightened, the picture was becoming clearer. I knew Roberts thought he was the great-grandson of Billy the Kid. I knew he’d killed his entire family. The problem was I had no proof. The proof had been reduced to ashes four years ago.

  I begged Wallace to let me run the story, knowing full well my claims couldn’t be fully supported by facts. They were unsubstantiated, and I offered to provide full disclaimers and editorialize much more than usual. In the end Wallace nixed it. And rightly so. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to print it elsewhere. Or let someone else print it.

  I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the one number I swore I would never call again.

  The phone rang and the operator picked up.

  “This is the NewYork Dispatch, how may I direct your call?”

  “I’d like Paulina Cole’s desk.”

  “One m
oment.”

  I held my breath, waited for the call to go through. Paulina screened her calls. One of the benefits of having worked beside her for a few months. Unsurprisingly it went to voice mail.

  “This is Cole. Leave a message.”

  “Paulina, this is Henry Parker. Meet me at Ollie’s diner in an hour. I have a story for you. No tricks, just business.”

  I hung up and began walking toward the diner.

  CHAPTER 51

  I was in the middle of chewing a ham-and-cheese sandwich when Paulina burst through the door. I’d been inside just ten minutes, but decided to order without waiting. This wasn’t a date.

  Paulina’s hair was disheveled, her makeup ready to cascade down her face at any moment, and her purse clung to her shoulder by one overworked strap. She perused the diner until she saw me. Then she took an enormous deep breath and came over. I leaned across the table and pushed the seat out for her. I was nothing if not a gentleman.

  “Henry,” she said, placing her bag on the floor, then thinking better of it and hanging it over the chair back. “It’s been a long time, we need to do this more often.”

  “We need to do this once and only once,” I said. She cocked her head like I was speaking ancient Sumerian.

  “That’s not how I feel,” she said. A waiter came by and handed her a menu. He began to walk away, but she snapped her fingers and he turned around. “I’ll have a bagel and cream cheese, with the bagel scooped out and light cream cheese. I also want capers, but not too many. And a glass of pineapple juice.” The waiter nodded and left.

  “So how’s the Dispatch treating you?” I asked, taking a swig of coffee.

  “Oh, you know. Always busy, always hustling.” She made a running motion with her hands to denote that she did, literally, hustle. “Listen, Henry,” she said, leaning forward slightly. She was wearing a tight black sweater with a V-neck that exposed the top of her remarkably perky breasts. I wondered if she had them done. Then I decided I’d done enough thinking about her breasts for the rest of my life. “I know things haven’t been great between us. But I’d like to make amends.”

  “I’m sure you lose tons of sleep over it,” I replied, “but everything I say today is off the record.”

  “You can’t be serious.” I pulled a tape recorder out of my bag, held it up for her to see. “Let me guess. You got that ‘off the record’ bit on tape.”

  “Just making sure my off the record is on the record.”

  Paulina laughed. The waiter arrived with a glass of pineapple juice, pulpy and thick. Paulina took a small sip, then pointed a long fingernail at me.

  “You know, I always thought Wallace was smart to bring you onboard at the Gazette. That place is an old man’s club. And old men don’t get younger—they die. And if nobody is there to take over when they finally kick the bucket, the paper will die, too. It was smart of him to inject some new blood.”

  “You’ve spilled enough ink calling for my blood this year, I didn’t think you cared so much.”

  She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “This is business, honey. You sell newspapers. Cute, young guy like you. Remember that actor from The Sopranos, supposedly killed a cop? Every day his mug was on the front page we couldn’t print enough papers. Half the people that buy our rags don’t read them, sweetie, they look at the headlines and the pictures and move on to pictures of Paris Hilton in a bikini. The least we can do is give them something to hold their interest.”

  “Like Mya and David Loverne.”

  Paulina shrank back. I could tell I’d struck a nerve. It felt good, but I couldn’t dig too deep. I was here for a reason.

  “You know I never wanted to see either of them hurt.” She meant it. “Mya is a lost soul. People like reading about lost souls, and they like to have someone to blame for it. You and Get-Around-Town Loverne were easy marks. But you’re not so innocent yourself. I checked the hospital records. She was admitted with those facial wounds. You really did hang up on her when she called you. Your own girlfriend, lying beaten on the street, and you turn the ringer off. Brave man.”

  “Keep punching, if it makes you feel better. I’ve lived with it for a year and a half and I’ll never forgive myself. But I wasn’t the one who hit her. And I’ve learned to live with the rest of it.”

  “You say potato, I say poh-tahto. So here’s the deal,” Paulina said, ignoring the waiter as he brought over her bagel. “You don’t like me. That’s fine. I have a man who makes me come twice a night so I don’t need more friends. But you called me, Mr. Parker. So why am I here?”

  “Because I’ve got a story for you,” I said.

  Paulina eyed me while she smeared cream cheese into the crater where the bagel had been dug out. “You’ve got a story for me? I hope it doesn’t end with you squeezing sour grapes, because that’s a boring story and you’re the only schmuck who wants to read it.”

  “It’s not sour grapes,” I said. “Those are there, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not why I called you. I have another story. A better story. A story that will help you beat the Gazette tomorrow if you have time to make it into the national edition.”

  “I’m sorry, did Ted Allen put you on the payroll without telling me?” Paulina asked. She took a bite of her bagel, washed it down with pineapple juice. That combination couldn’t taste good.

  “I have a once-in-a-lifetime lead. But Wallace won’t let me run with it. He said it’d stir up a ton of controversy and he doesn’t need more of that from me right now. He wants me to lay low.”

  Paulina’s eyes lit up at the word controversy.

  “So why come to me?” she said. “Why not take it to a magazine?”

  “It needs to run as soon as possible. There’s a maniac out there and I think this could smoke him out. And if Wallace is too scared to run it, it’s my duty to make sure it runs somewhere. I’m a journalist. My duty is to the truth first, my paycheck second.”

  “It has to do with this Billy the Kid angle,” Paulina said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Does the name Mark Rheingold ring a bell?”

  She thought for a moment, tapping her nails against the tabletop. “Religious guy, right? Had some big church down South.”

  “Close enough. Do a little digging and you’ll find out just how big this guy was.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  I told Paulina what I’d discovered. Every word of it. I told her how the Roberts family had died in that fire, along with Pastor Rheingold. I told her how William Henry Roberts’s body was never found, and the county covered it up. How Roberts had been presumed dead for four years, and was continuing the bloody legacy of his ancestor, Billy the Kid.

  Paulina listened transfixed. Yet there was fear in her eyes. She knew I’d done enough digging so that this wasn’t some half-baked concoction. She could tell from my eyes that the closest thing to a real demon this city had ever seen was currently walking the streets, had killed David Loverne and three others and tried to kill Mya. I told her all of it.

  “I still don’t understand,” she said, her voice much softer, the confidence gone. “Mark Rheingold, why was he at that house? If William Roberts really did…” she paused before she said it “…kill his whole family, why kill Rheingold, too?”

  I told her about the rumors of Rheingold’s affairs with his congregants. I told her about the photo I’d unearthed.

  “I think Rheingold was having an affair with Meryl Roberts, William’s mother. I think William’s father knew about it. That’s why Roberts killed Rheingold. He was killing the man who brought disgrace to his family, Billy’s family.”

  “Jesus,” Paulina said. She looked like she’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes. “And you want me to print this?”

  I reached under the table and unzipped my knapsack. I handed her dozens of pages of documents. Copies of all the research I’d done, the photos I’d unearthed. Everything proving Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy t
he Kid, and that William considered himself heir to the throne.

  “Between William and Billy they’ve killed almost thirty people.” I looked at Paulina, her face grave. “You got into this business for the same reason I did. At least at first. You wanted to tell the truth. You wanted to find the stories that matter. Well, here’s one that will rewrite history, and with any luck save some lives. I don’t want a byline or any credit. You can take that. But it needs to run tomorrow. And if anything I said gets on the record in my voice, I swear to God I will make you pay for the rest of your life. I’ve lost my girlfriend. I’ve lost Mya. There’s nothing more dangerous than someone with nothing to lose. Right now all I have is my integrity. You take that, I will make your life a living hell. I will sue you and Ted Allen and the Dispatch for printing that shit about Mya and me. I will lie through my teeth and tell people I fucked you and then dumped your ass and that’s why you’re so spiteful.”

  “What happened to the truth?” Paulina said sarcastically.

  “Just this once, I’ll not only stoop to your level, I’ll wave hello from six levels lower.”

  “I’ll run it,” she said, knowing I was serious. She tucked the file into her purse. It barely fit. I knew she’d take good care of it. “But if it’s going to run I need to leave. I have a story to write.”

  I gave her a military salute.

  “I’ll pick up the check.”

  “Next time it’s on me,” Paulina said. She stood up, threw on her coat and purse.

  I laughed, shook my head. “If I ever have a meal with you again, expect a healthy dose of arsenic in your pineapple juice. So you’d better hope there’s no check to get.”

  “I like this side of you, Henry,” she said. “You act all nice, like you’re the cub reporter who can do no wrong, but you’ve got some ice in those veins. Keep ’em cold, tiger.”

  And she left.

  I sat there sipping my coffee, having made either a brilliant calculation or a horrible mistake. I was pretty sure it was the former. I’d find out tomorrow.