by Elia Seely
“But it’s enough, right, to arrest him on suspicion? We won’t need a warrant?” I asked. My stomach clenched with nervousness and it was all I could do to keep my voice steady.
“Absolutely. We’ve got two witnesses that put him in the car, with the victim, in the time frame. Even the goddamn shirt. I’m gonna buy this Jesse at least one round of beer after this is all over.”
We joked a little about witness tampering; we were all nervy and ready to go back up the hill to get Rabten.
“Shannon, I want you to type up that statement of Jesse’s and get over to his house and have him sign it. Today. Eli and I will go up and make the arrest.”
“Butch—” my voice faltered. “I really want to be in on this arrest. Not—not because—well, it just feels really personal, and he’s messed me around so much. I’d like to go.” I couldn’t tell them about Margo, and the visions. But I had to be there when we confronted him, cuffed him. I needed it.
“Yeah. Okay. Hell with it; we’ll all go up and once he’s in custody you work on that statement, all right?”
“Absolutely. Thanks, Butch.”
“Yep—let’s go.”
Chapter Forty-Five
I went up in my Bronco, and Eli and Butch followed in Butch’s Chevy, since we wouldn’t all fit in one vehicle once we had Rabten in custody. We weren’t going in with sirens and lights blazing. I hoped that Tsewang had kept her mouth shut and that Rabten would be completely surprised. We all had weapons checked and loaded. Though I felt that he might be hard to subdue, physically, it was unlikely he’d have a firearm, but of course we couldn’t know that for sure. It would be noon by the time we reached the monastery. We’d decided to play it subtle, for the sake of the community. Have the shining girl bring him to the office rather than arrest him in the lunch room. That was plan A, anyway.
As I reached the stand of pines just before the monastery, a coyote ghosted across the road. I’d seen him on this stretch at least twice now. He vanished into the trees as I slowed. It seemed like a bad omen.
I watched the grey brush of his tail disappear and returned my gaze to the road. The monastery’s by-now-familiar blue van had appeared around the curve in the opposite lane. I clenched my hands on the wheel; of course, it could be anyone driving it, no reason it would be Rabten. But I slowed again as the van approached to get a look at the driver.
Shaved head. Blue eyes meeting mine. Street clothes. The van accelerated slightly.
“No!” I shouted and grabbed the radio as I slammed on the brakes. Sharp quick commands to Eli’s answer, u-turn, tires squealing, as I turned around in pursuit. I fumbled under my seat for my flasher and couldn’t find it. Well, Butch would be right behind me.
Two Dog is no kind of road for a car chase. Hairpin switchbacks and narrow lanes, no shoulder and a thousand little dirt roads leading off into the National Forest land. Not one of us had thought he would run, not now. Once again, he had been two steps ahead.
I lost sight of the van until the next straight stretch. Rabten took it easy, driving fast but not flooring it. I put the pedal down and behind me I heard Butch start his sirens, saw the flashers whirling in the rear-view mirror. In that instant that I took my gaze from the road, I lost sight of the van again. The road had curved into the next switchback; I craned my neck to catch sight of him through the trees on the curves below. I had to brake; there was no way to take these curves at speed. When we made it into the next straightaway, the van was gone.
“Where is he? Where is he?” No way he’d gotten that far ahead of me. Side road? I scanned for a dust trail. Yes, there it was back up behind me and to the left. He’d headed into the forest. I braked again, signaled with my arm to Butch and Eli, and slammed into another U-turn on the straight. I floored it past the Chevy and turned onto the dirt road that Rabten had taken. The road was single track, soft dirt that soon enough deteriorated into the rocky jumble that makes up most unimproved roads in Creek County. It was slow going but I had 4-wheel drive. The van wouldn’t take the road well, and soon enough I saw it, stopped in the middle of the road, driver’s door open. I scanned the trees for Rabten as I slid to a stop and jumped out. I quick-checked his vehicle, but it was empty.
My heart jackhammered in my chest. “Rabten! Come out where I can see you, hands above your head. Rabten!” My words felt muffled, blanketed by trees. I whirled to face the other side of the road. “Rabten!”
The Chevy pulled to a stop, sirens silent, lights still flashing.
“Joe’s on his way,” Butch said as he and Eli strode up to meet me. “See him?”
“No. I didn’t see which way he went.” I started scanning the dust for his footprints. “He started out this way,” I indicated the right side of the road, on the passenger side of the van. “Let’s go.”
“We have to assume that he may be armed. Shannon, we need to be careful here.”
“We need to go.” I strode into the trees. I didn’t try for quiet. I knew that he knew exactly where we’d be. I felt him watching.
“Eli—get on the radio and get a roadblock set up on Two Dog. Get the reserves, State Police, and have Joe wait…” Butch’s voice faded as I moved farther into the trees.
I drew my gun. Stopped, listened. Moved forward again. Eyes scanning, throat dry and stomach hollow and sick with adrenaline. Somewhere behind me I heard Butch step into the forest.
“Rabten,” I called again. “You are under arrest on suspicion of the murder of Choden Khedrup. You do not have to say anything, but if you choose to do so …” I continued with the Miranda, calling out into the cool depth of the forest. “It is in your best interests to cooperate. Step out where I can see you, with your hands over your head.” I could feel him laughing at me, my procedure. Enjoying his game.
The forest echoed with sound: squirrels chittering, bird calls, the rough voices of ravens in the trees. Every flick of movement drew my eye. He couldn’t be far. The ground was dry and covered with dead fall. He couldn’t walk silently. I felt rather than saw Butch pause ten feet to the left of me. We both had our weapons ready. Noise behind me. I spun around. Eli, moving slow, fanning to my right.
Why had Rabten made this choice? Had he panicked at last, or did his arrogance assume that he could waltz away, in plain sight, get safely out of the country while the bumbling cops struggled to understand? But he had underestimated us: there was no way he could leave the county now, we’d have APB’s out to the State police, the CBI, FBI—every law enforcement agency within the region would be on alert. The forest was vast. He could stay hidden for a while, but unless he was some kind of wilderness survival guy, he’d have to show his face at some point.
We inched forward. Time blurred, the feel of my arms, my .38, became surreal. Suddenly I knew he was circling back to the vehicles. I spun around. “The cars!” I hissed, and I set off at a run back to the road.
When I cleared the trees, he was turning my Bronco around and without thinking I fired. Choden’s dismembered head, my little girl—all shuttered across my vision. The Bronco sped forward, tires churning. I fired again. I heard glass break. The engine stalled. I ran forward, alongside the passenger door, keeping low, the training I’d never used kicking in somehow. I popped up to look through the shattered window.
Rabten’s right arm was a bloody mess. He jerked open the car door and slid from the seat. I skirted around the front of the stalled Bronco, weapon drawn. He seemed like a giant. He panted; the wound in his arm ran with blood. Sweat ran down my face, into my eyes. I blinked. Rabten seemed to shimmer and then he was past me, loping toward the Chevy in an easy run.
“Rabten! Stop! I will shoot again if you do not cease and desist.” I repeated his arrest warning, the caution, voice jigging as I ran behind him down the single track. He veered back into the trees.
I can’t pinpoint exactly how I felt in that moment, when he disappeared, like the coyote I’d seen on the road. There was fury, a sense of injustice, and a kind of determination that started d
eep in my core, a feeling I’d only had twice before when giving birth. There was no way I was letting him get away. He was wounded, on foot, there were three of us. This wouldn’t happen. I sprinted into the trees after him.
The tackle took me by surprise. It shouldn’t have—but I had seen him moving up ahead, I was sure. Even with one arm compromised and blood streaming out of him, he was incredibly strong. I fell, breath forced out of me, pinecones and rock digging into my spine. He pinned me down and knocked my gun away into the dirt. His full weight upon me as he knelt on my chest, left hand gripping my throat. It was as if my arms were reeds scrabbling against a powerful wind. I scratched his skin, punched, at least one blow reaching his groin. He gasped but was unmovable. His eyes looked directly into mine.
“Someone such as yourself,” he grinned, “is powerless against someone like me. You’ve done nothing to make yourself pure. Strong. You’ve given yourself to nothing. Given up nothing. You are worthless. Just like Choden.”
A shot buried his words. Butch and Eli approached, still yards away, shouting.
I started to lose consciousness. My hand scrabbled in the dirt, searching for my gun. Rabten was no longer looking at me, though his hand squeezed and pressed my throat relentlessly. I had a sense of my own consciousness above my body. I saw the gun, inches away from my groping fingers. And then I was holding it, shaking, aiming. Unable to speak. I fired: Rabten’s body jerked back, his blue gaze met mine. Cold. Knowing. If possible, a smile. Then his body fell away.
I dropped the gun. Teeth beginning to chatter. Rabten was dead, though his legs were still entangled with mine. I struggled to rise, sat up, pushing Rabten off of me, his body heavy, no longer malevolent but empty and inert. I was horrified; this wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Training kicked in, to try and save life. My bullet had pierced his heart, a clean shot, through and through. I knelt next to him, pummeled the bloody chest. Fumbled CPR turned to rage, pounding fists.
“Why? Why? Whywhywhywhy????” I would never know, now, what exactly had led Rabten to his atrocity, never have the justice that Choden and his family deserved. By killing Rabten, I had allowed him to escape. Had he known, had he played me, again, one step ahead, to this horrible liberation of his soul? Would he be free, now, to stalk my daughter, to continue his dark arts from some other place? Was I damned, to that same otherworld that he and Choden inhabited, because I had killed a man?
I howled, slapping and punching his head, face, chest.
I was still screaming as Butch pulled me away, his face white, mouth moving, but I could hear nothing he had to say.
Chapter Forty-Six
That summer of 1985, when Dan broke his collarbone and Margo’s abilities began to shimmer and show themselves, the summer that I took another’s life, was both an ending and a beginning.
Joseph Conrad, age thirty-five, named Rabten by his first teachers, did not confess to killing Choden, although of course his flight suggested that he had. There was no confession scene, no justice: the eye for an eye that had been my role to play left no one satisfied and shattered my life as I knew it.
The inquiry that followed the shooting was perfunctory; Butch assured me that he and Eli were both witnesses to the self-defense, the repeated requests for Rabten to stand down. But the internal investigation, conducted by the State Police Internal Affairs team, required that I be suspended from duty for the weeks that it took the two dry-voiced men from Denver to determine that I would not be charged for murder.
In that long, slow time, my emotions went from numb to terror to rage. The rage was the deepest, the most profound. Although I had chosen my own actions, I felt that even at the last, Rabten had been the one calling the shots, moving me like a chess piece into a position that I could never reverse. You could say that he felt justified in his killing of Choden, however warped that perception, and that I was justified in killing him. But I could not find it within myself to feel any peace with that belief, even though he surely would have robbed my children of their mother as he pressed away my breath and life.
As the days bloomed into the full heat and light of summer, Margo’s garden grew and my mother stayed to help her tend it. I drifted through the motions of cooking, cleaning, shopping for groceries, getting Margo her sprinkler. She fluttered around me like a little moth trying hard to get close to a flame. But the rage inside me burned incandescent, and blocked everything like a too-bright sun. Dan’s collarbone began to heal, he went to work for Naomi; my mother drove him to and from the ranch.
I never confronted Ginna about her pot brownies, found molding in their plastic bag under the laundry in my bedroom chair where I’d hidden them what seemed like a century ago. Chenno came around once or twice, took the kids to pizza, but I had no room within me to spare for him: my rage was focused solely on Rabten and myself.
When the investigation was complete and I was absolved of any wrong-doing, Butch came to the house one evening to talk. We sat on the porch drinking beer, the summer light floating into blues and deep greens, the crickets beginning to sing. Margo and Dan were at the pool with my mom. Family night. I had encouraged them to go so that I could have some time alone. Butch showing up was a surprise.
“I’m not going to try to tell you I know how you feel; I killed men in Korea but I know war’s a different thing. But I believe, one hundred percent, that the investigation result is the right thing and that you are a good person who got caught in a terrible situation. You did your best, Shannon, like you always do. If you want to, I want you to come back to work.”
I let those words ripple down, into crevices within the anger that burned deep inside my bones. It was little balm, but I felt his belief in me, his care, land in my chest.
It took a long time for me to speak, and he let the silence stretch. Evening birds, kids calling, dogs barking. All so normal, like so many summer evenings in my life.
“I don’t know,” I said at last. “I’m sorry … I appreciate you asking. But I don’t know. I was thinking about that dispatch position even before—” I couldn’t say before I killed Rabten— “that I owe it to the kids to be around. But even that … I don’t know.”
“I understand. I do. But, goddamn, if you let this ruin your life, then he’ll have won, and I don’t want that.” Butch beat his thigh with a fist. “We all know he killed that man, for no other reason than that goddamn book and whatever he thought it was going to do for him. Greed. At the end of the day. Greed and power: some of the oldest motives for any crime there is.”
“Butch—”
“And he would’ve killed you, he almost did kill you, without a thought, right there in front of my eyes. It’s a good thing he’s dead, though I’m sorry clean through that it had to happen the way it did.” He paused. “We never would’ve been able to convict him, you know. He’d have gotten away with it. The DA told me as much. Circumstantial evidence at best. Clever as he was, he’d have cooked up a story, and Tenzin would have backed him up. We probably wouldn’t have even got it to court.”
That the case would have failed even without Rabten’s death somehow broke the surface, penetrated my mask of rage like an arrow into the sorrow. Tears started, against every shred of will I possessed. I hadn’t cried much; I was too numb at first and then too angry. But now they came, every doubt and fear, every particle of self-blame and hatred. I would never have been able to explain Rabten’s powers, my daughter’s knowing, the way the monks circled their holy books like trapped stars. I sobbed. I wailed into Butch’s shoulder, squeezing his arm tight, tears and snot and spit soaking the collar of his shirt. I cried for Danny, for my lost years with him and my family that should have been, for Choden, for myself. Butch held me and was quiet, murmuring as he would’ve to one of his girls. He stroked my hair and I let it all come spilling out.
When it was over—and I knew that this was just the beginning—my eyes were swollen and my throat raw. Something tiny had shifted inside of me, small but significant. I went in the house for
a damp washcloth and a box of Kleenex, and wiped my tears and pain from Butch’s neck and shirt. He made soft little jokes, and I laughed a bit and then we sat together in the dark for a long time.
I started back to work at the middle of August, filling the day dispatch position so that I could work seven to three and be home for the kids once they started school. I needed the money and I was tired of drifting around my house feeling bad. My mom had finally gone after a month. It was both good and strange to be back; the guys were careful around me at first but soon enough we fell into our familiar ways with each other. Andy had come off of reserve to fill my position, and he and Joe got on like a house on fire. Joe studiously ignored me most of the time, which was a relief. I had fulfilled every expectation he’d had about me, as a woman and single mother. The only thing that had surprised him, I overheard him say one afternoon, was that I’d had the balls to shoot Rabten.
I still breathed anger, dreamt of the attack, disturbing dreams where Rabten succeeded in killing me, where he raped me first, where he dismembered me. I told no one about these dreams, but I was pretty sure they were the cause of the permanent little frown that creased Margo’s brow every time she looked at me. She was quiet after my mom left, fluttering around the house, spending a lot of time under the willow on her swing, Barbies abandoned, calls from her little friends left unanswered.
We got through every day. Dan stayed up at Naomi’s for two weeks while she was at her horse therapy training. The house seemed empty and untethered without him and Margo slept with me every night he was gone. Norma came each day while he was away, Margo dutifully making cookies and zucchini bread and learning to knit with a little contraption that turned out knitted tubes she made into Barbie dresses. But she was fragile and so was I. When Naomi returned, it was with deep relief that Margo and I drove up to her ranch to have dinner and swim in the pond and bring Dan home.