Davies folded her hands on top of the table.
"Growing up gay, I never had this romantic idea of being married, because it's not what lesbians got to do. Other girls, they planned weddings and tried on dresses and made bridal registries and all of that. I wanted to find someone to grow old with, and we’d rescue huskies together. My life course, though, that was a definite. I always wanted to be a Fed. But when I met Felicia, she brought a family with her, ready-made, and I wasn't ready to give those things up, but I'm not ready to give up doing my job, either, so someone needs to explain why the hell I have to make that kind of choice."
"Things work out," I said. "We don't always like how they work, but they do. The only choice we've got in any of it is accepting it and moving forward and hoping to not fuck it up any further than what it is."
"Is this your idea of being comforting?"
"It's why I don't sponsor."
43
The hospital kept Woody a while, so I told him I'd keep an eye on the dogs for him. He didn't seem to trust the idea entirely, but that was because Woody doesn't trust anyone entirely.
The dogs gave me side-eye for the first day, but got used to me by the second. Since I had the run of Woody's place, I opted to make use of the freedom and spent time on his gun range. I worked my way through a variety of handguns, emptying clip after clip until my fillings wouldn't stop vibrating and the air stunk of gunpowder.
When I wasn't at Woody's, I busied myself keeping up with Jed McCoy.
I won't say Jed did much of anything interesting. He didn't seem to have a secret life, or much of a life period. He was a punk-ass 18-year-old who didn't come out of the holler much, but when he did, it was in a rusted-out pickup sitting on a jacked-up suspension with oversized tires.
He had a girlfriend. She was a chunky thing with a bad complexion, and she hadn't figured out the three things in life that always tell the truth are young children, drunks, and Spandex pants, and her Spandex pants did not say nice things about her. She lived a few miles from the McCoy farm, and Jed would pick her up and drive out to a nearby cemetery and they would do things in the back of the pickup that tested the truck’s suspension and the realms of good taste.
Other times, he met with a group of kids who all looked his age and his IQ, and they'd jump onto four-wheelers and vanish up into the hills with rifles in tow, and come back down with a bunch of dead squirrels, or an out-of-season deer.
Every Sunday morning and every Sunday evening, he drove out to a small church with a dirt parking lot and signs that read "GOD SAID ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE" and "SATAN WAS THE FIRST TO DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS". From a distance you could hear the clatter of gospel played on electric guitars and the preacher's roar as he assailed the sins of the world.
Yeah, I bet they were a bag full of laughs.
Sometimes I followed Jed in my Aztek, and other times I used Billy's pickup. Once, I borrowed a four-wheeler from one of Billy's neighbors. I tried to switch it up enough so Jed didn't catch on he was being watched. I'm not sure Jed would have figured it out. Nothing indicated he was the sharpest pencil in the drawer.
On a Sunday night, he parked his truck toward the back of the church lot. I watched from a distance as the small crowd filtered in through the doors, and then the music shook the building to life.
That was my cue.
I took a length of rubber hose and some gas cans and went to Jed's truck and siphoned fuel from the tank. Sucking on the hose, and the spew of gas that filled my mouth at first, almost made me puke, and I struggled to hold it back while I aimed the hose into one of the gas cans. I pulled gas from the tank until it wouldn't let me get anymore. Then I added back a smidge. Not much, though. I didn't need him to get very far; just away from the church. Away from people.
I hoped this would work. I'm not a mechanic or an engineer, and I wasn't sure what sort of fuel mileage a piece of shit like Jed's got. I knew what my piece of shit got, which sucked and kept me at the gas pumps, so I guessed and hoped I was right.
I made it back to my Aztek with the gas cans as the church doors opened and the congregation emptied out into the parking lot. I watched through night vision binoculars as Jed got into his truck and drove off.
I parked on a ridge that overlooked the church and gave me both a good view of the lot and a clear path to the main road. I let him a minute before I drove out and onto the road and headed in his direction. He had three or four minutes on me. I figured between fuel already in the engine, combined with the drops I'd put in his tank, he would at most get five or six miles down the road before the truck would sputter off and die.
For once in my life, I was not disappointed.
He had pulled the truck over off onto the side of the road with the flashers on. He had the hood up, and was bent over into the engine, poking around.
I pulled off just in front of him. Late at night, dark, and he didn't know my vehicle anyway, so he'd assume he was being saved by a Good Samaritan.
He turned as I approached him, smiling at first. The lights from the truck's headlamps caught my face about then, recognition hit him like a hammer, and he saw the pistol in my hand, and he decided to turn rabbit and run.
I hit him with the Taser. The twin cable sprung forth from the device and caught him in the back, and the electrical jolts raced through the wires and turned him into a marionette at the end of a string, his body dancing and flailing like someone filled with the Holy Spirit, before collapsing limp onto the ground.
The reek of piss hit me as I got close to him. The wet stain at the front of his pants was unmistakable.
I held the chloroform-soaked rag over his face. He gave in without a fight, his body melting into dead weight. I dragged him over to the Aztek and loaded him into the back end and drove away.
Jedidiah McCoy woke up tied to a tree. It was a little after 10, and the only light in the woods came headlights from the Aztek headlights.
I'd picked the spot because it was miles from the McCoy farm, and miles from my house. There were makeshift ATV trails of muddy ruts worn into the ground, but I didn't get the feeling this was a well-traveled area. Which was what I needed.
It hadn't been easy to stand him upright and get the ropes around him, but the look on his face when he woke up—the sheer and utter stark terror, frothing at the mouth and struggling against the ropes so hard it tore open his skin and blood dripped to the ground—made the work worthwhile.
I aimed the Taser at him again and said, "Cool your shit or else."
He had a moment where he considered resisting more, but it passed, and he slumped back into the tree.
I let a smile flicker across my face. I had made sure the ropes were solid and tight, and I'd strapped his wrists to his thighs for extra measure, so I could get in close. And because there wasn't much he had to say I wanted to hear, I stuffed a sock in his mouth and wrapped duct tape around his head to keep it there.
I leaned in close to him. "You comfortable? Not that I give a fuck, but it seems the polite thing to ask."
He mumbled something angry.
I took a few steps back. "I'll ask you a question, and you'll answer. Don't make this more complicated than it is already. Did you kill my friend Pete?"
Jed tried to scream, but nothing came out. I hoped he was getting a mouthful of the sock; I'd worn it for a few days, and made it sure it got especially warm, wet, and ripe.
I fired the Taser. As soon as the metal barbs hit him in the midsection, Jed froze and stopped trying to talk. I didn't activate the device, and kept my thumb on the button.
"It's a 'yes' or 'no' thing," I said. "Did you kill Pete?"
Jed's head rose and fell.
I sighed.
"I suppose that was the answer I expected. I thought you'd put up more of a fight, but you're such a proud yet ignorant bit of pig shit that confessing to murdering a cop doesn't bother you much does it?"
Jed didn't say anything. Technically, he couldn't, but he didn't even try, eith
er. His eyes stayed wide and scared.
"You know, a while back, my friend Woody and I, we needed information from a guy—a hair or two older than you—so we took him and handcuffed him to a pole and did a redneck waterboarding on him. It was December, and he was naked, and he wasn't happy about it, but he put up a fight."
My thumb tapped the activation switch on the Taser. Jed's eyes met there, laser focused, waiting.
"The bad part was, I don't know if he was a bad person," I said. "He was stupid as fuck, and he fell into a group that gave him something when he had nothing, but like I said, I don't know that he was a bad person. But the price he paid for being an idiot, for talking to me, was he got set on fire, and he got pissed on while he burned alive."
I stepped closer to Jed. "I need you to answer this question for me again, Jed. Did you kill Pete?"
It took a moment for the words to connect, before he nodded again.
I sighed. "Maybe the difference, Jed, is that ignorant cracker wasn't a bad person, but you are. I think you're a lousy excuse for a human being. I am not sure why you killed Pete. If the old man told you to, or if you wanted the money he gave Pete, or you thought God spoke to you, or you like killing people. But whatever the reason was, it doesn't matter. What matters is you took someone away from someone else."
I took hold of the cables and gave a hard yank and pulled the barbs out of Jed's chest. The sock suppressed his scream, but make no mistake that his point was understood.
I said, "So you know, Jed, I debated on killing you. I thought long and hard about bringing you out here and putting a bullet in your head. It's the same debate I had with myself over wanting to kill Burwell. I didn't, though, because I was convinced there'd be justice. We'd take him to the authorities, and they would met out whatever was appropriate. Your kin took care of that, however, and I can't say his fate wasn't what he deserved.
"But I can't take you to the police. You confessing to me wouldn't be worth shit in a court. But you killing Pete, there's gotta be something for what you did."
I turned and paced off 20 steps, and bent down and picked up a handful of stones. One by one, I whizzed them toward the tree. Most missed Jed by a mile, but two or three nailed him. The fun part was watching him wince as they flew by his face, as he tried to dodge them and couldn't move.
I was toying with him. The cruel part of me wanted him to suffer. He deserved that, to be made to need to squirm and hurt. There weren't enough rocks or enough nighttime to make him feel what he had coming to him.
I heaved a breath. I couldn't push this all night. I didn't have the bit of heartlessness that Woody had, the ability to separate from my actions on an emotional level.
Jed stood there, breathing hard, crying.
I said, "I won't kill you, Jed. As much as you deserve to die, you're not worth the nightmares I'll have."
Relief swam across his face. He cried harder, but it took a different tone, filled with gratitude.
"But—" I said.
The noises stopped, and his body locked tight again.
"I'm not letting you go," I said. "I'm leaving you here. My guess is we're six or seven miles away from anything like a main road. You might work your way out of those ropes, then bumble your way to the road, and then find a way home. No idea how long it'll take you, but it'll be interesting to find out."
Jed lost control of everything inside him. He screamed and cried and tried to struggle his way out of the ropes, and he only ripped himself open more.
I watched him until he wore himself out, and then I said, "One last thing: should you get out of there, and if I ever, for any reason, see you again, that is when I'll kill you. Don't have revenge in your heart or think you need an eye for an eye, because I will put you in the ground myself. And if you're lucky, and you get me first, trust me that my friend Woody will come for you, and he's not as nice of a guy as I am."
I got into the Aztek and drove away as Jed's muffled cries tries in vain to get through the night. As I drove further away, winding around until I found a real road and heading for home, I thought I could still hear him.
I turned on the Fleetwood Mac CD to drown it out.
44
The paperwork from Maggie's attorney rested on the kitchen table, where I'd left it that morning, and every morning since I'd gotten it. It had been there so long, Izzy had stopped sniffing at it once we came inside, during her ritual pilfering for food crumbs she might have missed.
I started a pot of coffee. There was a knock at the door. It was Woody.
"How you doing, sport?" I said as he pushed past me.
"Great. Even better if you never call me 'sport' again."
Woody hobbled his way into the kitchen, using a cane to support himself. I had given him the name of my physical therapist and told him what an absolute delight she was. After the first appointment, he called and threatened to beat me to death with his cane.
He took a seat at the table.
"Still driving the rental from the insurance company?" I said.
"Yeah. Anonymous looking four-door something or another. Thing's got no style. I lose it every time I go to Wal-Mart, on account it looks like every other goddamn car in the parking lot. I can’t find anything I like."
"I imagine you're going for something inconspicuous, like a 1955 Thunderbird. Aqua blue, maybe."
"If I continue to associate with you, I should get something bulletproof." He gave me an appraising look. "How you doing?"
I shrugged. "I'm okay."
"Even about—"
"Yeah."
"You think he got loose? Think he's alive?"
“I drove out there yesterday. The ropes were laying there on the ground. There was an awful lot of blood on them, and all around the tree. He paid a price getting loose.”
“And if he comes looking for you?”
I sipped my coffee. “I guess I’ll kill him.”
“Very matter-of-fact of you.”
“I couldn’t justify killing him that night. I can justify it if he shows up one night uninvited.”
“Think you can handle doing that?”
“Under most circumstances I’d say ‘no,’ but for Jedidiah McCoy, I can make an exception.”
“Fair enough.”
Woody's eyes went to the envelope on the table.
"I notice this is still here," he said.
"It is."
"It's been here a while."
"It has. Thanks for noticing."
"You need to fucking fish or cut bait with this stuff, brother."
"Her attorney's saying the same thing."
"Then what's the hold up? Besides you being an asshole."
I poured us each some coffee and sat down at the table.
"I'm not ready."
"How long is it going to take you to be ready?"
"However long it takes."
"You talk to that principal anymore?"
I'd made the mistake of mentioning Dr. Wilder to Woody. I'd called her up, and we'd met for coffee, and she'd said things would go a lot more smoothly if I stopped calling her "Dr. Wilder" and called her "Lily." I told her she was probably right.
"We've had dinner a few times," I said. "Exchanged texts and whatnot. We're remaining in our upright and seated positions, however, if that's what you're hinting at. I'm not in a rush, and neither is she."
Woody smiled from behind his coffee cup.
"It's time to move on, Henry."
"I know."
"Then what the hell's your problem?"
"I'm not ready."
Woody drank some coffee.
"You say you don't know anything about me, so here's this thing that happened," Woody said. "Three different energy conglomerates wanted to build this new oil pipeline in the Middle East, in one of those countries that end in '-stan'—I don't even remember which one it was anymore—but they couldn't because some dickhead had set himself up as the supreme ruler of about a hundred square miles of sand where this pipeline needed t
o go. He'd gotten himself some followers and some guns and control over a few villages and decided that no 'white devils' would build through his little kingdom because it was somehow sacred land.
"I suppose there was a way to have built around the hundred square miles of sand, but it would have been expensive, and the conglomerates weren't about to let this guy cut into their profit margins, so they decided it was cheaper to hire me to kill him. I got together a team of guys not afraid to get their hands dirty, and we found where he lived, planted C-4 everywhere, blew the thing all to motherfucking kingdom come. Which was great, except he wasn't there. We kill out three of his wives and most of his children. That asshole, he wouldn't budge, though.
"Next we heard he was traveling with a convoy. Ten trucks, loaded to bear. My crew took the convoy out. Ten of us, and forty of them, but all anyone ever did was hand them automatic weapons and tell them how to pull the trigger and where to point. More C-4, Winchester Model 70 bolt actions with scopes, we picked 'em off until there were two left, and we marched in and killed one of them and found the last person alive was the warlord's 13-year-old son. That little fucker pulled a gun and shot one of my guys in the chest. The body armor caught the shot, but my guy killed the kid.
"The warlord still wouldn't give up. Gave us the equivalency of a 'fuck you.' The conglomerates wanted their pipeline, though, and they were paying the bills, so we find a village this guy controls, and we ground ourselves in, and we wait. We make it well known we're there. We bring in porn and beer and blast AC/DC all night, and the villagers, they're scared shitless and want left alone. They don't even like this guy, and they sure as hell don't like us, but they have no weapons, so they have no voice. They lack agency in the matter, I suppose, but we don’t care because they’re a means to an end. They're bait.
"A new convoy rolls into town, and we're ready for them. They never stand a chance. There are civilian casualties, because that's the shit that happens, but we keep killing fighters until one guy's left—the guy's brother. The brother says he hates this guy, and tells us we've killed everyone in the family except for him and who we're looking for, and he's willing to take us to him if we'll let him live.
Complicated Shadows Page 19
