by Eric Beetner
Nash heard sirens. “Damn it.” He pushed on Jacy’s back. “We gotta go.”
Without checking what awaited them outside the door, Nash and Jacy crashed through and hit the ground at a sprint as the sirens grew louder, the tires of the cop cars crunching on the gravel.
Nash zig-zagged around the lawnmower and the kiddie pool and felt the shade of the trees cover him as he ran for the shelter.
Behind him, Jacy dodged the mower and ran the other way around the pool and tripped over a knotted garden hose lying in wait like a coiled python. She went down and nearly disappeared in the tall grass.
Nash checked over his shoulder as he sprinted past the first of the tree trunks. He saw Jacy’s head pop up from the ground, a thin crying sound reaching him in the trees. He stopped, set his feet to run back, then saw the first cop. Another joined him and they surrounded Jacy. Nash clung to a tree trunk, only the top of his head peering out to watch his stepsister get arrested and taken away.
He knew he couldn’t help without giving himself up, so he moved slowly, quietly, deeper into the trees, trying to think of his next move.
CHAPTER 8
Brian held the girl by the neck, one-handed, her face darkening under the surface as blood stayed trapped in her cheeks and the pressure built. He lifted his badge in his other hand and pushed it so close her eyes couldn’t focus on it.
“That’s who the fuck is asking.” He snapped the badge wallet shut. “Now have you seen Jacy here or not?”
The girl’s two friends hung behind the shadow line dividing the train tunnel from the outside world. Scrawls of graffiti both indecipherable and blatantly profane rimmed the coal-dirty bricks. Tall grasses grew up between the rails and long vines hung down from the arched mouth of the tunnel obscuring the opening from the world.
Brian loosened his grip. The girl gasped for air. She coughed and spit, a hand to her throat trying to massage it back into shape.
“Relax, I’ve seen guys three times your size take it twice as long and they turned out fine.”
The two friends sank deeper into the tunnel. The edge of a mattress, stained a muddy brown, peeked out from the rank-smelling opening. Piss, sweat, and the metallic tang of charred meth smoke oozed out in air so thick with the smell Brian could taste it. He felt like if he lit a match the air would catch fire and burn like a methane leak.
“No,” the girl said, still bent over.
“You haven’t seen her?”
“No.”
“Today or for a while now?”
“Not in a while.”
Brian looked at the steep incline on either side of them, the footpath worn into the hillside. He worked his tongue in his mouth, trying to wedge loose a raspberry seed stuck in his molars.
“Well, shit then.”
The radio on his hip crackled. “Sheriff?”
Brian keyed the handset. “Yeah?”
“Sheriff, we got your daughter in custody down here. Picked her up at the scene of a shootout over on the west side.”
“Issat right? Any dead?”
“One.”
The girl took tentative steps away, moving toward the safety of the dark tunnel.
“Young man?” Brian asked. “Name of Nash?”
“No, sir. Older gent. Shot all to shit.”
Brian got the seed unstuck, spit it into the weeds. “Damn.” He keyed the radio again. “On my way.”
He balanced on a single railroad track as he made his way back to his car. He called over his shoulder, “You ladies stay out of trouble now. Hear?”
Brian came to her, as usual, on a bed.
Jacy sat with her knees up to her chest on the sagging jail cell cot. Her skin bristled with gooseflesh as the air turned a few degrees colder when the sheriff entered the holding cell.
“We’ll be alright, Sutherland,” Brian said. “You can go.”
Like a dog afraid of a stick, the deputy stood and went for the exit. “Yes, sir.”
Sutherland entered the main bullpen of the sheriff’s office and shut the heavy metal door to the jail cells behind him. The other deputy, Cliff, sat near the switchboard awaiting any new calls.
“What’s going on in there?” Cliff asked.
“Hell if I know,” Sutherland said. “Something stinks about it though.”
“What else is new?”
Sutherland glanced, worried, at the cell door. “I know. But he’s the man in charge.”
“And don’t he remind us of it every day.” Cliff managed a bitter smile.
“I tell you,” Sutherland said. “I don’t think I’d want to be that girl right about now.”
Jacy was alone with him. A hardness filled her stomach. A ball of anxiety to match the concrete floor, cinder-block walls, and steel bars of the cells. Brian’s face echoed the cement hardness of the room.
“Jacy, girl, you had your momma and I worried.” He sat on the end of the cot. Jacy pulled her knees tighter to her chin.
“You know you can’t go running around at all hours of the night. You see what happens? You nearly got yourself killed out there.”
“Is that a crime?” she asked. “You gonna keep me here?”
“Well, maybe I should for your own damn good.”
Brian reached out a hand and put it on her bare leg. Her jeans shorts barely covered a few inches of her thighs. Tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes when she felt his hand on her again, something she thought she’d outrun.
“I think you’d be better off at home where you belong. With your family who loves you.”
He moved his hand in a slow glide up her calf, then down again. His rough skin bristled against the slight stubble she’d grown on her legs since the day before.
Jacy stared at him and spoke through clenched teeth. “I’ll tell them everything. Everything you did.”
Brian let out a light chuckle, kept his hand stroking her skin. “Tell who? The law?”
“They’ll believe me.”
“Honey, ain’t no one gonna believe a little cock tease like you, nor none of your methed-out friends. You can just take that story and pack it away.”
“I got papers.”
He shifted his body toward her, his holster slapped against the metal edge of the cot. He let out a sigh. “What papers?”
“Records from an abortion.”
His hand stopped moving. The bare bulb overhead threw harsh shadows down into each craggy rise and fall of his skin. His brows cast a shadow over his eyes, making them sinister. The way they always appeared to her when she thought of him.
“Your baby,” she added, though with little confidence in her slightly trembling voice.
“Bullshit.”
“I got ’em. You better fuckin’ believe I do.”
He took his hand away, balled his knuckles into a fist. “Where?”
“Like I’m gonna tell you. They can DNA that shit and prove it’s yours.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
“No. I asked.”
Jacy watched as Brian’s ears grew red. She used to watch them change like that when he was on top of her. She knew he’d almost finished when they turned that shade.
“Listen, you cunt—”
The door clanged open and footsteps moved quickly into the holding cell area. Brian turned and saw Sutherland on the other side of the bars moving quickly ahead of another figure.
“Sheriff, he insisted. Said he was her lawyer.”
Jacy saw who it was and let her tears fall.
Nash stepped up and put a hand on the bars of her cell. “Hello, Brian.”
CHAPTER 9
“He ain’t no lawyer, Sutherland,” Brian said. “He’s my stepson.”
Deputy Sutherland got a stricken look like he knew he’d screwed up.
“It’s alright,” Brian said. “Let us be. We got family business to discuss.”
Sutherland slunk out of the holding area without
a word.
“So,” Brian started. “You the mastermind of this little prison break?”
“Getting out from under your roof was Jacy’s idea,” Nash said. “And she’s entitled, seeing as she’s over sixteen.”
“Damn, boy, you do sound like a lawyer. But I think you got your dates wrong. She can’t do shit until she’s eighteen.”
“At sixteen a child can petition for emancipation from her parents. Step or otherwise.”
“Don’t mean she can leave the custody of her parents.”
Jacy mumbled to herself, like a congregation spouting words by knee jerk after a priest has spoken, “You’re not my father.”
“As long as she’s in the custody of another legal, of-age guardian.”
“Like a brother, I suppose?”
Nash smiled, let that be his answer.
Brian stood, the handcuffs on his belt rattling, the leather of his holster creaking. “I guess you’ll be wanting to meet with your client in private?”
Nash was thrown. He expected to be in the cell with her by now, the door locked and Brian laughing. He knew no way to break her out of custody, but the idea of leaving her alone for any longer wasn’t sitting well with him. His instincts told him to walk into the lion’s den. They’d only failed him one hundred percent of the time so far. But at least this way, whatever Brian did with her, or too her, Nash would be her witness.
It beat spending the night in the poison-ivy-infested woods.
Brian pulled the heavy barred door open. “After you,” He waved a hand and stepped aside to let Nash into the cage.
Here it was. The imprisonment.
Nash stepped around Brian and turned to the door. Brian moved out and left the door ajar.
“You two catch up. I got paperwork to do. Lotta dead bodies turning up around these parts lately.” He walked toward the door in his practiced high noon saunter. “Back in five.”
Nash waited until the outer door shut with a metallic finality.
“What the hell is going on?” Jacy asked.
“I don’t know. Has he brought up any charges for you?”
“No. He wants me to go home.”
Nash thought, bit his lip. “They didn’t arrest any of the other guys.”
“What do you mean?”
“Evel and his two guys. The cops came and they all drove away at the same time. That old guy was all shot up and they didn’t arrest anyone for it.”
“What the hell?”
“I don’t know if I want to know.”
“We’re not getting out of here, are we?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Nash,” Jacy said. “I can bring him down.”
“Brian?”
Brian tilted the video monitor more toward him. “You can take a walk now, Sutherland.”
“Yes, sir.” Sutherland hustled for the door, pulling on his coat and deciding not to wait for Cliff who’d already been sent to the break room. He didn’t want to be sitting and spying on the young couple anyway. Whatever weird family shit the sheriff was dealing with, count him out. Enough shady crap went on in this station without having to bring relatives into it. Besides, Sutherland needed a damn drink after another call where he had to turn a blind eye to that shitbag Evel and his boys. Sheriff’s orders. He hated it, but to speak out would mean ending up in those cells himself, or dead as the old man on his own damn porch.
After Sutherland left, Brian turned up the volume on the closed-circuit camera feed. The camera tucked high in the corner to keep an eye on the drunk tank on Friday nights.
He leaned in and squinted at the monitor and the two figures small in the frame.
“Video? How’d you get that?” Nash asked.
Jacy avoided his eyes. “I turned on the webcam on my laptop. I knew he’d be coming in that night. It got so I could see the look in his eye, or depending on how many beers he had after dinner. I knew when it would happen.” She shifted uncomfortably on the cot. “So I recorded the whole thing.”
“Holy shit.” Nash laced his fingers together, squeezed until the knuckles went white. “I wish to hell you’d called me sooner.”
“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with us.”
“Not you. Everyone else here, but not you and not Mom.”
“Well, I thought I could run, but I guess that’s all gone to shit. Time to bust this out and get his fat ass to jail.”
Nash nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“You think we can pull it off?”
“Yeah. There’s still a process, still justice. He doesn’t own this whole town or anything. If he finds something to charge us with, they’ll give us a lawyer. We can show it then. If he doesn’t and we get out of here tonight, we can go to the media.”
Brian sat watching, feeling his ears growing warm, darkening red.
Jacy’s head swung around like she’d been slapped on the cheek. The door to the holding area hadn’t been opened so much as kicked in. Brian came swaggering into the concrete room looking like he’d recently eaten a steak dinner.
“Well, I suppose you kids is right,” he said. “She can go with a relative who’s over twenty-one. I guess you qualify, Nash.”
Nash stood, watching Brian from behind bars. He felt like the animal was on the wrong side of the cage.
“Guess I got no choice but to release you.” Brian shouted, “Cliff!”
He stood rocking on his heels, waiting for his lackey to arrive, a predatory smile playing on his lips. Nash stared at him, trying to imagine what Jacy could have felt when this hulk of a man entered her room and she knew there was no way to stop what was about to happen.
Cliff, the second deputy and the low man on the totem pole, clomped in from far down the hall.
“Take her up and process her out. She’s coming home with me,” Brian said.
“No,” Jacy said.
“You just said she could come with me,” Nash said. “It’s the law.”
“It is, but, y’see you’re not going anywhere just yet.”
Cliff opened the cell door and held out a hand for Jacy as if he were inviting her to dance.
“What the hell do you mean?” Nash said, his voice dangerously low.
“We got some stuff to talk about, you and me. In fact, there’s been a warrant out for you since the day you left town. Once you split, a lot of folks been talking about what went on those few days before you turned coward and run.”
Jacy looked at Nash, wondering if the rumors she’d heard were true. He met her eye, said, “You go on with the deputy. You do like we talked about.”
Jacy took slow steps out of the cell, guilt grew inside her as it seemed she’d lured Nash back only to send him to prison, or worse.
The cell door hung open between them once Nash and Brian were alone in the room. Nash didn’t notice, but the tiny red light on the surveillance camera had gone off, powered down for the night.
Nash never gave Brian the honor of calling him stepfather, wouldn’t even call him sir to respect the badge he wore. He stared down the man he knew had defiled an underage girl and waited for an opportunity to present itself. If Jacy could get her evidence into the right hands, Brian would go away. Nash knew he might not be around to see it happen. He’d either be in jail or in a shallow grave fertilizing a corn field.
“You wanted to talk,” Nash said. “So talk.”
Brian took a few steps forward, leaned against the door frame of the cell, a man in control.
“You wanna tell me what happened that night so I can see how it stacks up with what other people are saying? I know how small-town folk can get to gossiping. Want to know if I got the right version of things.”
“Where did your version come from?”
“I fear you are trying to get the advantage of me by fishing for information,” Brian said. “But I’ll give you this one. I got it from her.”
Nash’s cheek twitched.
Brian went on. “We brought her in on a possession charge. She was high as a kite too, so we had her for public intoxication, intent to buy illegal substances, possession of paraphernalia. A whole bunch of shit. She starts making deals where I was offering none. Spilled the whole thing. Her side of things anyway.”
“And you think that puts me in the frame for murder?”
“What would you call it?”
“Stopping a crime in progress.”
Brian hooked his fingers in his belt. “Do tell.”
“Maybe I should get a lawyer.”
Brian took two steps forward and punched Nash in the chin. Nash tripped over his own feet as he went down to the cot. He looked up at Brian with hate-filled eyes and a split lip leaking blood down his chin.
“I could run you in for twenty-five goddamn years, you little shit.” Brian stood over him, massive and commanding. “You killed that boy. Captain of the goddamn football team, not that I go in for that shit, but it gets people to notice when he doesn’t show up for homecoming.”
“He was raping her,” Nash said.
“So call the fuckin’ cops.”
“Why? So you could get tips and pointers?”
Brian punched him again, pain rocketing through Nash’s nose this time. “You watch your tongue, boy.”
“I saw him on her, heard her scream. What was I supposed to do?” Nash spit a wad of bloody mucus on the floor of the cell. “Someone around here has to uphold some kind of justice.”
“We got a legal system here, boy. And it don’t involve braining a guy with a brick if he gets up on a girl you’re hot in the jeans for.”
Nash stood, blood streaking the lower half of his face. “It was a cinder block. And I’d do it again.”
They stood close enough Brian could smell the blood. “You won’t get a chance.”
“Because of your ‘legal system’? You mean your own brand of sheriffing? The one where you do whatever the fuck you want and everyone else can go to hell.”
“I don’t know about everyone. But you sure as shit are going there.”