Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He was looming over the sheriff, not from height since he was only a couple of inches taller, but where Duke had let himself go after getting out of the military, Livingston had not. The captain was big, lean, and if his short, nearly buzzed hair hadn’t been mostly gray, I’d have thought he was at least ten years younger. Once he took his hat off and I could see the hair, I’d known to notice the extra smile lines near his steel gray eyes and the parentheses around his mouth, which suggested that every sentence he’d spoken had left its mark around his lips. His mouth was wider than it looked, because the angrier he got, the thinner his lips seemed. I was never sure how some people’s mouths did that when they were angry or sad.

  I was letting the sheriff and the captain argue with each other, because neither of their viewpoints was going to help us gain more time on Bobby Marchand’s execution warrant. Until I figured out a way to get what we wanted, I was content to let the men yell at each other rather than me, because anyone who interrupted the “discussion” was going to have both of them angry with them. I really didn’t want to fight with both the sheriff and the captain until it would gain us something. Of course, Newman was newer at this than I was in every way. He still thought he could save the world if only the world would let him.

  “Marshal Blake and I will be in the cell with drawn weapons,” Newman said. “If Bobby tries to hurt anyone, we will take care of it.”

  Livingston turned on him, happy to have another target for his aggression. “Why haven’t you executed your warrant, Marshal Newman? If you had done your job, we wouldn’t need to be having this discussion.”

  Leduc moved in beside Livingston. “I’ve already had to save Blake’s ass from that damn wereleopard once.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Newman said.

  “Duke already told me that he and his deputy got you out of the cell, but the shapeshifter grabbed Blake. She’s lucky to be alive. Hell, she’s lucky she got out of there without getting cut up. Now you want me to let one of my people go into the cell with that thing. No. Just no.”

  I wondered if Leduc really believed his heroic version of the incident, or if he’d knowingly lied to make himself look better. If he believed the story, then we were fucked, because that would be how he wrote it up later. If he knew he was lying, then I might be able to get him to back down and use that to get some wiggle room with Livingston.

  “You didn’t tell me that the suspect attacked you, Marshals.” This came from Kaitlin, the crime scene tech who had volunteered to help us. She was a few inches taller than me, five-five, maybe five-six, which made her short compared to everyone else in the room but me. Her straight blond hair was tied back in a tight, perky ponytail that bobbed in the air when she spoke. Most of the people I knew who did ponytails had longer hair, so the weight of the hair held it down more. If she hadn’t talked with her hands, maybe the hair would have lain there like normal, but she was so animated when she moved that her hair was, too.

  “He didn’t,” Newman said.

  “I saw him start to change form,” the sheriff said.

  “You saw his eyes change,” I said, finally joining the conversation. I’d try for logic but didn’t hold out much hope that logic was what would win the day.

  “You didn’t tell me he started to shift in the cell after the murder,” Kaitlin said.

  “Eyes can change from strong emotions,” I said. “Finding out you’re accused of killing your father is pretty emotional.”

  “He killed his uncle, not his father,” Livingston said.

  “Bobby was raised by his uncle,” I said.

  “Bobby’s parents were killed in a car accident when he was a baby. Ray is the only dad he remembers,” Newman added.

  “I’m aware of the family history, and you can call him by his first name all you want. It will not humanize him to me, because only half of him is human. The other part is a murdering animal,” Livingston said.

  “Legally he’s human, and I don’t want to kill another human being unless he’s guilty,” Newman said.

  “You can be a bleeding heart on your own time, Marshal, but that animal has already killed one person and attacked another marshal. How many people have to die before you do your duty?” Livingston asked.

  “Bobby Marchand did not attack me,” I said.

  “I was there, Blake. I saw it,” Leduc said.

  “You pointed a gun at both of us, Sheriff.”

  “I was aiming at the monster.”

  “Then why did Newman have to point his gun at you to save my life from your bullet?”

  “You are both full of shit,” Leduc said.

  “Your own deputy told you to calm down and lower your gun,” I said.

  “I’m sorry as hell that Bobby did this, but I will not let you and Newman drag my reputation through the mud in some misguided attempt to get a stay of execution for him. Bobby has to pay for what he did.”

  I wondered if we got Deputy Anthony in here whether she’d tell the truth or lie for her boss. I’d be leaving town, and she’d have to deal with the fallout. Apparently, Newman had no doubts that she’d do the right thing, because he said, “Call Anthony up here. She’ll tell you that Bobby didn’t attack anyone in the jail.”

  I was glad that he didn’t say that the deputy would admit that Leduc had pointed a gun at me until I felt in danger for my life. If she just backed us up on Bobby not attacking me, I’d take it. We just needed Kaitlin of the perky ponytail to do her job on the evidence that was Bobby’s body.

  “His eyes had changed to kitty-cat eyes. I wasn’t going to stand there and let him do to Blake what he’d done to Ray,” Leduc said.

  “I had the suspect under control when you continued to aim your weapon at me,” I said.

  “He was starting to shape-shift, Blake. You didn’t see Ray’s body. I did. If I had to choose between that and being shot, I’d take the bullet.”

  “I wasn’t in danger from Bobby Marchand—only from you, Leduc.”

  “Well, that’s gratitude for you,” he said, and he was so calm—calmer than he should have been unless he already knew that Anthony would lie for him.

  “Let’s get your deputy up here. Once she backs you up, then this discussion is over,” Livingston said.

  “Deputy Anthony is with our female suspect,” Duke said.

  “I’ll have one of our female officers stay with the woman.”

  “We are wasting time here,” Duke said.

  “Yeah, it would be a shame to waste time when we could just kill the suspect and find out he’s innocent later,” I said. I should have saved the sarcasm, but sometimes old habits die hard.

  “I met Bobby when he was playing peewee football. I’ve known him all his life. I don’t want to see him executed like this, but he’s proved himself too dangerous to be living beside other people. He has forfeited his right to live by killing someone else. It’s as simple as that, Marshals. If I thought he could spend his life locked up, maybe I’d vote for that, but the only thing the law allows for this crime is death. If that’s all we can do to punish the crime and protect the rest of the people, then we need to do it. The two of you need to do your damn job.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew Bobby that well,” Newman said in the sudden almost uncomfortable silence.

  “My son was the same age as Bobby, so I saw a lot of him and the other boys that were close to my son’s age.”

  Leduc spoke of his son in the past tense. He also didn’t mention a name, just my son, as if the name was too painful, too real. If his son had been a friend of Bobby’s when they were boys, and then the son had died young, seeing Bobby all grown-up must have been hard. Having Bobby be the one who had killed the man who was paying for Lila Leduc’s medical bills was just rubbing salt in old wounds. No wonder the sheriff was all over the board emotionally. If he hadn’t been the only sheriff in town
, I’d have tried to get him to take himself off the case, but their force wasn’t big enough to take anyone off the roster.

  I wasn’t sure what we should have said in that suddenly silent room. I knew I wasn’t about to say a damn word. I did not know Duke well enough to risk saying anything in the face of such possible grief. A purposeful knock at the double doors ended the awkward pause.

  “Come in,” Livingston said, voice a little gruff. I didn’t think I was the only one who was happy to have an interruption.

  “You texted, sir,” a woman in a state trooper uniform said as she came through the door.

  “Yes, I want you to relieve Deputy Frankie Anthony and send her up here.”

  “Will do, sir,” she said, and closed the door behind her much more softly than she’d knocked.

  “So you don’t believe me,” Leduc said.

  “I never said that,” Livingston said.

  “You’re about to double-check my story with my own deputy. Fuck that, Dave. You and I have known each other too many years for you to doubt my word.”

  “It’s not your word I’m doubting,” Livingston said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Some cases are harder on us than others, Duke,” he said. It took me a second to realize the gruff voice was Livingston’s version of kind.

  “You think I can’t handle this one? You think I’ve gone soft?”

  “No, Duke, I’d never think that.”

  “Then, what the hell, Dave? Frankie is going to back me up, and then what? Is your heart bleeding for the poor wereleopard, too?”

  “You know me better than that, Duke.”

  “I thought I did.”

  I realized that Livingston had caught on that maybe, just maybe, Duke was too emotionally involved to oversee this murder investigation. If I hadn’t thought someone would see it, I’d have crossed my fingers that we could get Livingston on our side and that Deputy Frankie wouldn’t throw us under the bus to keep in good with her boss.

  14

  DEPUTY FRANKIE ACTUALLY sat in one of the pretty stiff-backed chairs. It was as if we’d been waiting for someone to be the first, because Duke sat down on the edge of the couch closest to her. Kaitlin sat down in the matching chair beside her.

  “The suspect did start to shift in the cell with both Marshal Newman and Marshal Blake still locked inside with him,” Frankie said.

  “His eyes changed, but that was all,” I said.

  Livingston held up a hand and said, “Let the deputy finish answering the question before you add your two cents’ worth, Marshal.”

  “No, the marshal is right about that. It was only his eyes that turned yellow like a cat’s, but we’re all trained that it’s the first sign of them changing form, so Sheriff Leduc and I told the marshals to get out of the cell. Newman did, but Blake wouldn’t leave the suspect.”

  “Which is exactly what I said,” Leduc added.

  Livingston said, “If Blake can’t interrupt, then neither can you, Duke. Let your deputy finish before you all jump in.”

  Frankie looked at her boss with nervous eyes, her hands clutching each other a little tighter. You didn’t have to know her to figure out those were nervous fidgets. “Marshal Blake was in front of the suspect, so there wasn’t a clear shot without endangering her.”

  “And you had your weapon drawn by then?” Livingston asked.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Captain. Yes, we all had our guns drawn, even Newman. We were all urging Blake to get out of the cell, but she wouldn’t do it. She told us to lock the cell door, that she thought she could talk the suspect out of changing into his animal form.”

  Livingston looked at me. “Blake, why did you refuse to leave the cell when your fellow marshal did?”

  “I thought they would shoot and kill Bobby Marchand, and I no longer thought he was guilty of the murder. I didn’t want to let them kill an innocent man.”

  “You put yourself in harm’s way to save a suspect that a warrant of execution has been issued for?” Livingston asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “One, because I think he didn’t kill anyone. Two, because I didn’t want the other officers to kill him and then find out later he was innocent. That’s a level of guilt that no one deserves.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?” Livingston asked.

  “Not for sure, but in the early days of the warrant system, I took it on faith that if the law declared them guilty, it was fact. Let’s just say that without evidence collection or any proof but he said/she said or eyewitness testimony, I’m beginning to wonder if some of my early executions were justified.”

  “You had a warrant of execution. That makes them legal,” Livingston said.

  “You and I both know that legal isn’t the same thing as justice.”

  “We aren’t in the justice business, Marshal. That’s for the lawyers.”

  “There won’t be any lawyers to help us find justice for Ray Marchand, or for Bobby if we kill him as soon as the warrant arrives.”

  Newman said, “I’m not asking to let Bobby go free. I just want another couple of days to make certain he deserves the bullet I’m going to put in his brain.”

  “And if the prints are his?” Livingston asked.

  Newman sighed. “Then he’s a lying bastard, and he probably did it. If the prints come back as his, I’ll execute the warrant, but if they aren’t his, then I’d like your help to convince a judge to grant a forty-eight-hour extension on the warrant.”

  “Why just forty-eight hours?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Because that’s all the law allows,” I said.

  “You can’t refuse a warrant even if you find out the person isn’t guilty?” Deputy Frankie asked.

  “We can refuse a warrant if there are other marshals in the area that it can go to,” I said, “but even then, you have to have a good reason why you want to pass on it.”

  “I was the only marshal in this area not already on an active warrant, so I couldn’t pass it along,” Newman said.

  “You could pass it to Blake now,” Frankie said.

  “Theoretically he could sign the warrant over to me,” I said. “They will let personal involvement with the target of the warrant be grounds for refusal. Newman knows Bobby as at least an acquaintance, and that makes it hard to put a bullet in him.”

  “What would you do if Newman tried to sign it over to you?” Livingston asked.

  “I already told him that I stopped taking over warrants just because the newer marshals found it morally or emotionally difficult. The only grounds that I would accept a warrant on now are if I thought my expertise would be a better fit for an active hunt, or if the first marshal is incapacitated so that they cannot finish their own warrant. Neither of these circumstances is true in this case.”

  “So why did Newman ask you to come in on his warrant?”

  Newman answered, “I wanted a more experienced marshal to double-check me. The facts of the case just didn’t add up from the beginning, but since this was my first time having a warrant of execution for someone I knew, I didn’t trust myself. When Marshal Blake had the same reaction to the evidence at the scene of the crime as I did, then I knew I had to find a way to make sure that this warrant of execution had the right name on it. I don’t mind killing murderers who are going to keep on murdering people, but I don’t want to be manipulated into being someone else’s murder weapon.”

  “What do you mean, murder weapon?” Frankie asked.

  “If Bobby has been framed for Ray’s murder, then whoever framed him is the real killer, and they are using the preternatural branch to kill Bobby. They are using me and my badge, my duty, to finish their murder plot. That, I do not and will not be a part of if I can legally avoid it.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Fran
kie said.

  “I don’t know why you both have such a problem with the bloody footprints he left at the scene, but before Blake goes all soft on the beast that did this, I think she should see the room where Ray was slaughtered,” Leduc said.

  Livingston looked at me. “Have you not been in the actual room?”

  “No,” I said.

  He gave me a look. I gave him one back and said, “Normally it would be the first stop, but we were already upstairs, so we started there. Once I saw the prints, they seemed like our best bet to get a delay in the execution timeline. If we don’t get extra time, then this is all moot.”

  “The warrant hasn’t been faxed to my office yet. You get forty-eight hours after it arrives—there’s plenty of time to waste on this footprint nonsense,” Leduc said.

  “Most warrants start their countdown from the moment the document is written, not when it’s received,” I said.

  “So, if there’s a delay on the judicial end, you could end up with a warrant that’s past due?” Frankie asked.

  “I’ve heard of it happening, but most of the time, the warrant arrives with the clock already ticking on how long the marshal has to complete the job, but not expired,” I said.

  “Is it just two days to complete the execution, or does the warrant become null and void after that time period, so killing the suspect would be murder?” Livingston asked.

  “The ability to kill the suspect or suspects with legal impunity remains until the warrant is completed by their deaths,” I said.

  “So why does the warrant have a timeline written into it?” Frankie asked.

  “Some of the marshals were delaying fulfilling their warrants,” I said.

  “The newer ones,” Newman said, “like me that were cops before, but had only classroom experience with the monsters. You spend years training to keep the peace and do your best to save lives, and then you join the preternatural branch and suddenly it’s all about taking lives. Not all of us can make the transition.”

  “What happens if a marshal doesn’t make the deadline?” Kaitlin asked.