by Tim Johnston
Halsey stared at her.
“And because I thought I’d killed him,” she said.
“You thought you’d killed him.”
“Yes, sir. He didn’t look too great, last time I saw him.”
The sheriff turned to look at the ice again. As if watching the scene play out before him. “Why wouldn’t he just let you drown, or freeze to death on your own? Why would he go on out there?” He turned back to her.
“I guess he wanted to make sure.”
“You guess. Based on what?”
She was out on the ice again, in that hole—Moran crawling on his belly, reaching for her, grabbing at her, grunting, trying to dislodge her from the ice.
“He wasn’t trying to help me, Sheriff.”
He sat watching her. Her eyes. Then he turned back to the river once again. Drumming the wheel again.
“Where do you think my car went?” she said.
“Oh, I expect it got towed,” he said. “There’s a mess of tracks out here.”
She watched him, the back of his head. The furrow of his sweatband in the thick hair. Then he stopped drumming the wheel and took his phone from the breast pocket of his jacket, worked it with his thumb and put it to his ear.
“Gloria, it’s me. Two—no, three things. Want you to have Deputy Moser stop whatever he’s doing and come out to Henry Sibley Park and find me. I’m about halfway in here, by the river. Then I want you to check with impound and see if they’ve got a white Ford Taurus, two thousand—” He glanced at Audrey and she said, “Five,” and he repeated it. “But first I want you to connect me to the Pawnee County Sheriff’s Department. Yes, in Iowa. Yes, I can hold.”
He turned to Audrey. “If he’s there, I have no idea what I’m supposed to say to the man.” He looked away again and said, “Thanks, Gloria.” And waited. Another few seconds passed before he said, “Good morning, Deputy Short,” and identified himself, and asked if the sheriff was in. He listened and said, “Not all morning? All right. Well, yes, I’d call it urgent. Why don’t you have him call me as soon as he can.” He confirmed the number and hung up and sat holding the phone.
“I have his card,” Audrey said.
“His what?”
“His card. At home. With his numbers.”
Halsey nodded. “We’ll just wait here a minute for the deputy.” He looked toward the river again. His fingers were quiet on the wheel.
“Can I ask you something, Sheriff?”
“You can.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it? When I came to see you before.”
He turned to her. “Tell you about what?”
“About Moran and Katie Goss.”
He stared at her. “What could I tell you?”
“You could’ve told me my dad went up to see her. To ask her about it.”
“I could’ve. But you wouldn’t have known any more than your dad knew. Or I knew.”
“So you knew about it—back then. About him going to see Katie Goss.”
“I knew about it. We all knew. Moran knew.”
“Moran knew?”
“Your dad asked him about that girl to his face. Confronted him with it.”
Audrey’s heart was rolling in her chest, rolling and pounding. “Were you there?”
“No, I was not. He did it in private. Then he told me about it later, also in private.”
“What did he say?”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
Halsey looked away, up the road. He shook his head, and she didn’t think he would tell her. But then he did. “He said he didn’t want to tell me what he was about to tell me, but he didn’t know what else to do. Said he needed my opinion on the matter. Then he told me what he’d asked Moran: Did he talk that girl into . . . whatever he called it so as to make it seem less than it was. So as to get an admission.”
Audrey waited. Watching him.
“That didn’t work, obviously,” Halsey said. “Moran said it was just a couple of high school girls telling stories to excite themselves. Said he’d swear to that in a court of law.”
The sheriff turned to her again.
“His word against hers,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
They sat watching each other, a long silence.
“And what did you say?” Audrey said finally.
“Told him what he already knew. Here was a girl, a young woman, who didn’t report it when it happened, allegedly, and who did not care to report it now. And here was his own deputy who flat-out denied it. Wasn’t much of a choice to make.”
“So he let him go.”
“That’s not how I would put it. Your dad made it, let’s say, difficult for Moran to stick around. And the man wasn’t so stupid or stubborn not to take the hint.”
She saw Moran again on the ice, on his elbows, the wounded-dog look in his eyes, a creature holding on to old pains, old betrayals.
“Why didn’t he—” she began. “Why didn’t my dad . . .”
Halsey waited. “Why didn’t he what?”
“Why didn’t he say something to the sheriff down in Iowa?”
“Same reason I didn’t,” said Halsey, and as he said it, the way he said it, the look in his eyes, she understood.
“Because he was a deputy,” she said. “Because he was one of you.”
Halsey said nothing. He seemed to study the back of his hand where it gripped the wheel, turning the rubbery padding in his fist. Audrey watching him, and with such intensity that his profile began to change, reshaping itself bone by bone—brow, nose, chin—and it was her father’s face pushing through, taking over Halsey’s face. She could smell him now too, the smoke of his last cigarette, the fuel of his Zippo lighter. But the voice, when he spoke again, was not his, and it all vanished.
“A story,” said Sheriff Halsey. “No witness, no corroboration whatsoever. Do you ruin a man’s life based on that? A man who’s had your back and whose back you’ve had? What if the tables were turned? What if it was you the story was about?” He turned to her. “What if it was your dad?”
Audrey looked away from his eyes. She looked at her fingers, twined and twisting in her lap.
“But Sheriff,” she said, and faltered again.
“Go on,” he said.
“Didn’t you have a feeling, though? In your gut? Didn’t you know?”
His eyes were on her but she could not look up again. So quiet in that cab she could hear her fingers twisting together. Could hear his breaths, her breaths. Her heartbeat. The wind in the boughs of the pines. The shifting, crackling ice; the water scouring away at its underside. And she heard the sound of car tires on the packed snow—another cruiser pulling up behind them—and when she turned to look she saw a young-looking deputy stepping out of the cruiser and coming toward them. Halsey stepping out to meet him, throwing his door shut behind him. Audrey watching the two men through the driver’s-side window as Halsey pointed and the deputy nodded. Secure it, Halsey’s gestures said, set up barriers, don’t walk in the snow. The place was once again a crime scene.
Ten minutes later, as they were coming into town, the radio crackled and a woman’s voice said, “Sheriff, I got an Iowa sheriff’s department vehicle at Wabash Auto on Main Street.”
The sheriff picked up the handpiece and said, “Is anyone with it?”
“No, sir, not exactly. It’s up on a lift in the garage.”
“Up on a lift?”
“Yes, sir. Otherwise I wouldn’t have even seen it in the windows.”
“You didn’t pull in there, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then how do you know it’s an Iowa sheriff’s department vehicle?”
“Well, sir, it isn’t one of ours, and I saw an Iowa sheriff standing in the office.”
“Sheriff Moran?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he see you?”
“He might of, as I was going by.”
“Where are you now?”
“Across the st
reet at the 7-Eleven.”
“And he’s still there.”
“Well, his cruiser’s still up on the lift.”
“All right, you stay put. I’m not five minutes away.”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff.”
“And Deputy Lowell.”
“Yes, Sheriff.”
“If that cruiser comes down and he drives off before I get there, I want you to follow and nothing more—no lights, no nothing. Do you copy?”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff, copy that.”
63
Jeff tightened the new bolt—he tightened all the bolts—and he wiped down the pan and stood watching for drips, then he came out from under the chassis and lowered the cruiser on the old lift, watching it all the way, until it was on its wheels again. He opened the driver’s door to pop the hood and then he went to the front and raised the hood, and the whole time he didn’t say a word to Marky or even look at him where he stood off to the side. Then they both heard Mr. Wabash returning with the wrecker and they watched through the glass as he came into the office and began talking with the deputy.
“Marky. Marky,” said Jeff.
“What Jeff.”
“I said bring me a quart of the 5W-30.”
“It’s synthetic Jeff.”
Jeff looked at the engine. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure Jeff.” You could feel it in your fingers and you could see the colors of it and you could smell the difference too.
“All right,” Jeff said, “just bring the quart and top this off, all right?”
Marky turned to get the quart and when he turned back, Jeff was walking toward the office and Marky was falling again—not because of what Jeff would say to Mr. Wabash but because Danny was gone. He was gone and nothing mattered now and nothing ever would. But Jeff stopped short and moved to the side of the glass door and stood looking at the red mechanic’s rag in his hands.
Marky poured a quarter of the quart into the funnel and waited for the oil to settle.
Jeff returned to the SUV, wiping his hands. “They’re just shootin the shit in there. We aren’t in any trouble. By some fucking miracle. What were you thinking, Marky? Why didn’t you ask me first?”
Marky pulled the dipstick and wiped it clean and fed it back into the spout and pulled it out again and the level was good. He didn’t know what to say without saying everything and he couldn’t say everything, not to Jeff, so he said nothing. He replaced the oil-fill cap and twisted it tight, then he brought down the hood and wiped his fingerprints from the silver paint.
Jeff shook his head. “Well, open up the bay door and I’ll back her out.”
He backed the car out and parked it so it faced the street, ready to go, then he wiped down the steering wheel with a fresh rag, pulled the paper mat from the floor and walked back to Marky, mashing the paper into a ball, and the two of them were still standing there when the deputy stepped out of the office and walked toward his cruiser, not looking at them, not even looking their way but going straight to the cruiser and opening the door and climbing in and shutting the door. And they were still standing there watching when a second SUV pulled into the lot and it was the sheriff’s cruiser—Sheriff Halsey’s white Chevy Tahoe—the sheriff pulling in nose-to-nose with the Escape and putting his cruiser in park. And there was someone else in the cab and after a second Marky recognized her, it was the girl who’d come to see him and wanted to talk to him about Danny and who’d gone into the river down in Iowa and her name was Audrey.
“Hang tight, Big Man,” Jeff said. He had him by the arm, to keep him from taking another step toward the SUVs. He pulled him back one step. “Just hang tight.”
Sheriff Halsey sat with one hand on the wheel, staring straight ahead, and the deputy sat like a mirror image in his cruiser, staring back. At last Halsey killed his engine and the deputy, taking his time about it, killed his.
Halsey and the girl did not speak, did not look at each other. They sat watching Moran, who sat back in his seat with his hands out of view and with the look of a man who could not guess what might happen next but would sit there patiently, contentedly even, until it did. Finally without looking at her, Halsey said, “You shouldn’t be here. I should’ve dropped you at the station.”
“You might’ve missed him if you did.”
“I know it.” He tapped the wheel. “I want you to do me a favor, though—all right?”
“All right.”
“If this goes bad, if you see any sign of a gun from anyone, I want you to get your head down out of view. All right?”
“All right.”
“For now you just sit here and don’t do a thing. Just sit here. All right?”
“All right, Sheriff.”
He got out then and put his hat on and walked toward the other cruiser. The two mechanics, Marky Young and Jeff Goss, were standing in the open bay door and he didn’t like that one bit. He didn’t expect Wabash to stay inside either and he didn’t; he stepped out from the office and stood watching from there in his black cop’s jacket.
Halsey came up to Moran’s door with his hands at his sides and he saw his own reflection in the glass, his face layered weirdly over Moran’s before the glass slid down and it was just Moran’s face, watching him with that look of curiosity, amusement almost.
“Sheriff,” said Halsey.
“Sheriff,” said Moran. He looked away and nodded toward the Tahoe and said, “I didn’t know better, Wayne, I’d say you’ve executed some kind of a preemptive maneuver here.” His hands were in his lap, his fingers laced, his thumbs slowly circling, not touching, round and round, like opposed magnets.
“What are you doing here, Ed?”
“I came to have a headlight fixed.”
“Drove all the way up here for that, did you?”
“No, Wayne. Drove up here because I’ve got an active investigation involving that girl I see sitting in your cruiser there. Some good citizen or other shot out my headlight for me and I thought I’d have Dave fix it while I was here. Nothing more to it than that.”
“Some good citizen or other,” said Halsey. “You don’t know who?”
“I know who. He owns that rifle in the back seat you’re eyeballing.”
“You got his rifle but not him?”
“That’s right. I figure this man has been through enough. I let him go. You want to arrest him you go ahead. I’ll give you his rifle. You can look it up and track him down for yourself.”
Halsey watched him. “How about we take one thing at a time here.”
Moran looked away then, seeing something, and said, “And now here come your deputies.”
The two cruisers had pulled in, parking where they could, Bobby and Vickie getting out of the cruisers and approaching. They did not come too close but positioned themselves behind and to either side of Halsey, no weapons drawn or even hands on their weapons but just standing by, following his lead, and he knew all this without seeing any of it directly.
“What’s going on here, Wayne?” Moran said.
“Right now it’s just a conversation, Ed.”
“We could’ve had a conversation over the phone. But then I’d be down in Iowa and you couldn’t exactly run the show down there, could you.” He looked around the lot. He looked at the Tahoe again. “And it’s a dandy show, Wayne, no doubt about it, but I have to ask—just what the fuck makes you think you can detain me for one second longer than I want to be detained?”
“Like I said, right now it’s just a conversation. I thought you might like to have your say before it went any further. Just you and me.”
“And if I don’t want to have a conversation?”
“Then I’m going to put you in cuffs and take you to the station and book you.”
“On what charge?”
“Assault, to begin with, and we’ll go from there, depending on the full testimony of the involved parties.”
“Parties,” said Moran. “What parties?”
“What happened to
your ear there, Ed?”
“Sucker punched by a drunk.”
“A drunk.”
“You heard me.”
“It wasn’t a girl in a cast?”
Moran turned to look at the Tahoe again and turned back. “If some little girl hit me with her cast don’t you think your assault charge would be going the other way?”
“Not if she was fighting you off. Not if she was fighting you off while you were trying to drown her in the river. Which of course would be another kind of charge altogether.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“That’s her story.”
“And you believe her.”
“Let’s say I’ve got reason to believe she has no reason to make up a story like that.”
“I’ll give you a reason.”
“All right.”
“The reason is she’s got it in her little head that I had something to do with a case ten years old, a case her daddy couldn’t solve and so now she’s trying to solve it by believing some crazy story she hears. But because that story is crazy and she knows it, she figures she can make up a new one and get me arrested on that charge.”
“Yeah,” said Halsey. “I considered that version of things myself. But I don’t think she’s that crazy, Ed. And I don’t think—” He stopped himself, remembering Jeff Goss at the last second. “I don’t think the other one is crazy either.”
“Other what?”
“The other girl who says you used the authority of your office to do something I won’t even say right now.”
Moran stared at him. “What girl said that?”
“Never mind her name. What matters is I’ve got two accounts from two different people, I’ve got a hole in the ice on the river, I’ve got bootprints coming and going, I’ve got blood in the snow and I’ve got that split-open ear on the side of your head. I guess you could say I’m beginning to see the makings of a case here, Ed. And that doesn’t even include Danny Young.”
Moran’s expression did not change. “Danny Young.”
“Danny Young who’s gone missing but who wrote me a letter.”
Moran said nothing. Staring at him. Then he threw up his hands and Halsey put his hand on his pistol grip, and his deputies drew their sidearms and held them two-handed and aimed at the ground. Moran looked at the roof of the cab and said, “The whole world has gone shitbird crazy on me, I swear to God.”