Eye for an Eye (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  “You want to play checkers?” Maisie asked.

  I didn’t, but I shrugged. She’d packed a travel game set, and so far we’d got no use out of it. Daniel hadn’t wanted to play on the way up, and I couldn’t as the driver. “Sure. But let me try calling your mom again first.”

  A shadow passed over her face.

  “It’ll just be quick,” I said. “I need to let her know about yesterday.”

  “About the dead guy?”

  I nodded.

  “Are we going to be in trouble?”

  “Of course not, Mais,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t entirely feel. Parents, in my experience, weren’t always rational when it came to their kids and perceived threats or danger. My former sister-in-law tended to be even less so.

  I tried to be understanding about that. She’d lost her husband just over a year ago to a serial killer, so it was natural she’d be on heightened alert since. That seemed to be how it went. Not rational, but normal anyway.

  I didn’t understand it. My brain didn’t work that way. I understood that what happened to my brother was an extremely rare event. The probability of it happening twice in a given family was almost zero, so certainly there was no more reason to worry than there had been before.

  But that’s not the way a normal human brain worked. I’d realized that a long time ago. So I understood that, even though it didn’t carry any significance to me, most people who had recently lost a loved one to violence might panic a little if they heard their kids encountered a corpse.

  And Megan and I had always had a rocky relationship anyway, long before the kids were born; long before Andy died. She hadn’t approved of the pharmaceutical treatments I’d needed for my PTSD. I hadn’t reacted well to her interference.

  We’d patched things up since Andy’s death, but we were never going to be great friends. If not for the kids, we probably wouldn’t have kept up contact at all.

  But I worried about them with her sole parenting, especially the older two, Maisie and Daniel. Ben was the apple of her eye. He could do no wrong. Maisie, on the other hand, seemed to do no right in her mother’s eyes, and Daniel wasn’t much better. They were always in the way, always in trouble, always at fault for whatever conflicts inevitably arose with Ben.

  And she needed someone to take the older two off her hands, with increasing frequency now that she and Michael were an item. Covering for their Disney World trip was just the latest in a string of babysitting assignments she farmed out to me or her parents or her brother.

  All of which left me feeling uneasy as to her reaction. I didn’t really have a way to predict how it would go. Maybe she’d shrug it off. No one got hurt, no one did anything wrong, so no big deal. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe it would be a screaming, raging tear-fest about traumatizing her kids.

  Maisie glanced sideways at me, like she didn’t really believe it. She was astute for a ten-year-old. Or, maybe all ten year old’s were that smart. I didn’t really have experience with being ten to reference beyond my own, and that had been twenty-plus years ago.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said.

  “She won’t make us go home, will she?”

  “Of course not. What’s she going to do, Mais? Leave Disney World because we spotted a dead person?”

  She considered, then nodded. “She’ll stay with Ben and Michael.”

  I didn’t miss the hurt in her tone, but I didn’t quite know what to say to it either. So I squeezed her arm and dialed Megan.

  I got her voicemail, again. “Hi, this is Megan Welch, please leave a message.”

  I hung up before the beep.

  “Well?” Maisie asked.

  I shrugged. “No answer. So, where’s that checkerboard?”

  We were two games in when the noise next door started. Maisie won the first game. Rather, I threw the first game so she’d win. I pretended to miss two opportunities to jump her pieces.

  She didn’t miss it. She crossed her arms and told me, “You don’t have to cheat for me, Uncle Owen. I’m not afraid to lose.”

  So I didn’t cheat the second time. She put up a good game, but I won anyway. She smiled and reset the board. “Again.”

  She’d just made her first move when the shouting began. It came from inside the popup: a loud, angry man’s voice. The Aaron who had been sleeping while we ate breakfast; the same Aaron who had been arguing with the ranger.

  Then came Ashley’s voice. She was apologizing for something. I couldn’t hear what. The popup muffled their words.

  Maisie shifted in her seat. I moved my piece. “Your turn.”

  The voices spilled out into the night air. “I told you this was a goddamned mistake,” his said. “The whole damned thing.”

  “We’ve got a spare,” hers said. “We can fix it.”

  “You mean, I can fix it. Like I have to fix everything else.”

  “I’ll do it. Just – you’ll have to watch Aiden.”

  “Do I look like a woman to you?”

  “Fine. I’ll put him inside.”

  He laughed. “What? You think you can change a tire now? You stupid bitch. You can’t even cook a burger without fucking it up.”

  Maisie squirmed on the picnic table bench. “Maybe we should go to bed,” I said, my tone low. “So we can get up early and go swimming.”

  “We should call the police, Uncle Owen.”

  I considered that. I remembered Ashley standing there that morning, visibly scared, but pretending she wasn’t. Refusing the sheriff’s number. “I don’t think it’ll help.”

  “He sounds like he’s going to hurt her.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But the cops can’t do anything unless she cooperates with them. And I don’t think she’s going to.”

  “Why?”

  I sighed. Maisie was ten years old. Was that too young to talk about the realities of domestic violence, and the cycle of abuse?

  “Why?” she said again.

  “Because sometimes when people get into relationships like that one – abusive relationships – they don’t realize they’re abusive.”

  She frowned. “How?”

  “Because the abuser – well, they kind of brainwash them. They convince them that it’s normal.”

  She pondered that for a long moment. The couple went on arguing in the background. He was telling her she was stupid and useless. She told him to put the beer down, and just handle the flat tire.

  “What’s going to happen to her?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Maisie frowned in thought. Then I heard something unambiguous: a hard, blunted sound, something moving hard and fast, and striking soft flesh. A quick, short cry followed it, and then the louder, sharper cries of a young child.

  “Hey,” I said, “get in your tent, okay, and stay there.”

  “But –”

  “Maisie,” I said, “do it. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded. “Okay. What are you doing?”

  “I’ll be back,” I said. “Now get in your tent.”

  She did. I waited until she was inside. Then I walked, quickly and quietly over the gravel. I reached the roadside and headed for the site down from us.

  Chapter Five

  Ashley was cradling the screaming child in one hand, while Aaron hustled her toward the popup. He had hold of her other arm, and his fingers bit deep into her flesh. She was whimpering. The child bawled.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Aaron spun around, letting go of her. She turned at the same time, pressing the free hand to her face, like she could hide it from my sight. I spotted the red handprint all the same.

  “You got a problem, mister?” Aaron asked.

  I ignored him. “You okay, Ashley?”

  Aaron scowled, repeating, “Ashley?” He turned sharply to her. “You know this piece of shit?”

  “No. We just – we met earlier today. That’s all.”

  He turned back to me, eyes full of suspicion. “That so?”

/>   “You okay?” I asked her again.

  “Fine. Please, don’t get involved. Everything’s fine.”

  The kid in her arm was squirming and sobbing. He looked like he was maybe three years old. She bowed a little under the weight, but still kept her hand pressed to her cheek. Two more kids were watching from the popup windows with pale faces.

  “You heard her,” Aaron said. “Get the hell out of here.”

  I considered for half a second. Then, I said, “I’m calling the cops.”

  “Please don’t,” she said.

  Aaron started toward me, with quick steps – quick, but a little unsteady. I figured he’d probably gone right back to drinking as soon as he woke up. “You’re calling the cops? You’re trespassing on my site, asshole.”

  “You don’t need to put up with this, Ashley.”

  Aaron’s face contorted with anger, and he closed all but the last two or three steps between us. The stink of stale sweat and cheap beer followed him. “I’m going to give you two seconds to get the hell out of here, before I remove you myself.”

  “Please go,” she said. “Please.”

  I didn’t. “It’s a public road,” I said. “I’m going to stand here and call the cops.”

  “You got a death wish, pal? You get out of here, or I will personally fuck you up.”

  I pulled my phone out and held it up like I was dialing. I recorded instead. But I pretended to be pushing buttons. Slowly, deliberately, holding his gaze as I did it.

  It wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done. Fights always carried some risk, no matter how good you were. No matter how drunk the other guy was. So looking for one was never smart.

  And this was Wisconsin. They had concealed carry, and open carry. And they had a whole weird culture about mixing alcohol and guns. This guy might have been packing.

  So the smart play would have been to scuttle back to my site and call the cops there.

  But I couldn’t do that. Not with a cowering woman clutching her child and her bruised face. Not with two little boys watching from the window – probably where they’d been all that time, watching their dad beat their mom.

  Some primitive instinct – the kind of instinct that had got lots of guys before me killed – kicked in. Maybe it wasn’t instinct at all. Maybe it was memory. Maybe it was all my own years in foster care. I’d been the one to cower once. I’d been the kid to watch once. And I knew what that did to a person.

  I knew, rationally, that this guy needed to be arrested and charged. But I knew just as certainly that first, he needed to get his ass beat. Not for his sake. That would be a happy extra.

  No, he needed to get his ass beat for his audience’s sake. Ashley needed to see him get his ass beat. So did her boys.

  They needed to understand he wasn’t invincible. He wasn’t unassailable. He was just a man, made of flesh and bone. And he could be taken down a notch, like anyone else.

  So I held his gaze, challenging him to come at me. And he did. I called, “Don’t do it, man. Don’t make this worse on yourself. I’m going to call the cops.” Not for his sake, but for the video’s. It was an alibi, of sorts, just in case Ashley decided to tell the cops I’d struck the first blow.

  Battered spouses were unpredictable. There were all kinds of psychological factors at play. I knew that. But that was the piece, as the foster kid, I’d never experienced. I knew it was wrong, and I knew I couldn’t wait to be away.

  Not everyone’s brain worked like mine, though. So sometimes, battered spouses lied when the cops showed up. They said they walked into doors, or fell downstairs. They swore seven ways to Sunday that he’d never lift a finger to hurt them.

  And sometimes, they’d blame the dumbass who tried to intervene on their behalf. And being the dumbass this time, I wanted to make sure I had proof that I didn’t hit first.

  I even took two long strides backward, putting me into the other lane, so the video would show I retreated. He kept coming, cursing and raging, fists raised and flecks of spit flying from his mouth. I chucked the phone, a quick, gentle flick of the wrist toward the bushes at the side of the road.

  And I met Aaron’s advance with a crushing blow to the jaw. He was winding up for a huge, showy haymaker, like he was some kind of Popeye the Sailor or something. His fist covered maybe half the distance by time mine reached him.

  I heard crunching and popping. The kind of sounds that a jaw shouldn’t make. He staggered backward, the haymaker fizzling out into an arc that flew well wide, and down.

  My phone was in the bushes, flat. I could see the glint of the screen, reflecting torch and campfire light. That meant it was facing the sky. It wouldn’t catch what I did next.

  So I moved in for a second strike, hard and fast, to the nose this time. Bones broke, and blood gushed out of his nose. He howled and staggered backward.

  By now, people were showing up. They’d heard the skirmish, I guess: the raised voices, the cursing, the screaming kids. They started to cluster around the bends in the road, all watching.

  So I took a step backward, away from the fight. Like a good citizen, who had acted purely in self-defense. “This guy’s going nuts,” I said. “He was beating his wife, and then he tried to jump me. I got it all on video.”

  * * *

  Deputy Austin Wagner, 9:26 PM

  I’d come home last night to a note that Jade was staying with her sister for the rest of the week. “Don’t try to contact me. I need some time to think.”

  So I didn’t particularly bother about the clock. It wasn’t like I had anything or anyone to come home to, and sitting in an empty house was going to be a lot more depressing than sitting around the office.

  And God knew, there was always paperwork that needed doing. All of which meant that I was sitting at my desk when the call came in. It hit dispatch first, and then one of the dispatchers reached out to me.

  It was an all hands on deck situation, some kind of big fight at one of the state forest campgrounds. “You’re never going to guess whose name came up,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Owen Day. You know, the guy who called in the missing body yesterday?”

  * * *

  The conservation warden showed up first. He took a look at Aaron, and then at Ashley. I told him what had happened, more or less. He took a few pictures, and asked Ashley to wait in his vehicle with the kids.

  Which worked out well for me. This enraged Aaron. He started to yell at the warden, to jab his finger into his chest and issue threats in a muffled voice – muffled, because of the nose injury. He sounded like someone who had pinched his nostrils shut. Which, I guessed, was a pretty similar effect to what he had going on. He was breathing through his mouth, so I figured the nostrils must be completely blocked.

  By now, some of his friends had shown up too. They’d been hanging out by the edge of the site, watching the proceedings and ignoring the orders to return to their own lots.

  Aaron’s anger and the warden’s interference brought them closer. They brought a strong stink of alcohol and tobacco, and more shouting.

  “What the hell are you doing, man? Aaron’s the victim here.”

  “You should be arresting that guy.”

  “What are you doing to Ashley? You arresting her?”

  The voices got angrier and the bodies pressed closer. The warden warned them off, but when the verbal warnings failed, his hand gravitated toward the gun at his belt. They backed off then, but they didn’t leave.

  They still hadn’t left when the sheriff’s deputies arrived. Some of the other stragglers dissipated when the warden showed up, and more vanished when the cops arrived. But not Aaron’s friends. They stayed on while the deputies got out.

  Lori, the one who had questioned the kids, was there. So was Wagner, and two guys I’d seen before but didn’t know.

  Wagner glanced around and frowned for half a second when he spotted me. It was almost imperceptible, a you again? gesture. Then it was gone, and he headed
over to the warden.

  They talked in hushed voices. The warden gestured at me, and at Aaron, and at Ashley and the kids in his SUV.

  Aaron demanded that the deputy pay attention to him. He was pressing charges, he said. He wanted me arrested. He’d been attacked in his own campsite. He was just trying to ward off a trespasser.

  His friends joined the chorus. A few of them claimed to have witnessed it. The warden shook his head. He’d arrived before they had. He’d seen my video. He knew they were full of it.

  The two deputies I didn’t know set up a kind of perimeter, putting themselves between us and Aaron’s friends. “Everyone go back to your sites. Everything is under control.”

  Lori headed to the warden’s SUV and spoke low and quick to Ashley. In a moment, she and the kids were getting out and heading to one of the sheriff’s vehicles.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Aaron demanded. “That’s my wife.”

  “We’re taking her to safety,” Wagner said. “There’s no need to be upset.”

  “Safety? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Mr. Tesch, you’re under arrest.”

  At which point, Aaron and his friends went ballistic, and in the process fully secured my get out of jail free card: he threw a punch at Deputy Wagner, and a few of the guys at the end of the campsite moved on the other deputies.

  It was an insurrection that lasted less than ten seconds. Aaron ended up slammed against the hood of the warden’s SUV, moaning and kicking and declaring his civil liberties had been violated.

  Some of the guys at the end of the lot ended up in cuffs, too. They all ended up evicted, the whole party. The deputies and the warden hung around, like bodyguards or backup, while the park rangers oversaw the evictions. Which made sense. They were the ones with the guns and the powers to arrest.

  Maisie finally abandoned her tent and watched the proceedings. Daniel joined her. It took about an hour and a half, start to finish. There was plenty of screaming and swearing and threats of arrest. Then, one by one, Aaron Tesch’s friends squealed off into the night.