by John McMahon
Had that award kept me from pursuing any doubts I had in the back of my mind?
I walked over to my computer, which had gone to a screen saver of me and Jonas in Key West by the Mile 0 marker.
My son had a short reddish-brown Afro that was a combination of his mother’s beautiful black curls and my wavy chestnut hair.
Hitting the mouse jogged the computer back to life, and the screen flashed the same message as it had earlier, below the password box:
One more attempt before password locks
I thought about what Harrington valued.
I’d already put in the name “beau.” But I thought of how Kelly had referred to the dog. And the broken frame I’d found in the drawer. The one with the two B’s. The G.U. index card in the Rolodex also had two paw prints drawn on it.
I typed “beaubeau” into the box. I stared at the nonsense word and hit Enter.
The computer beeped, and a list formed onto the screen.
A list of forty or fifty folders.
Two hours later, I’d reviewed all of Jed Harrington’s backup documents, each carefully annotated in a process he’d probably learned at places like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution or The Washington Post.
There was enough hard evidence to keep Toby Monroe out of office or trying to fend off bad press or jail for the rest of his life.
And I hadn’t just killed a school shooter. I’d done the governor’s dirty work and taken out an enemy.
I moved into the hall bath and threw up.
Shit.
Of course Harrington wasn’t innocent. He had come to a school with a gun. Had shot a teacher. But he had been lured there by Kelly Borland’s actions.
And none of that changed the fact that Monroe knew who he was.
The governor had called me with a lie that he was concerned about public safety. And I’d executed the governor’s nemesis. I’d shot a man for him.
I needed a drink, and the house being empty wasn’t gonna stop me anymore.
54
I sat at the small counter at Scala’s that faced out onto 20th Street, and a woman brought over a pint of Terrapin Rye.
I lifted the sudsy mix to my lips. The liquid felt cold going down my throat.
I exhaled, staring over at the rubble across the street that used to be the Golden Oaks.
Four nights ago I’d ordered a beer like this one as a prop. I’d committed myself to never drinking again and sat here, a PBR in front of me for a half hour until Remy showed.
And it could happen, I thought. I could stay sober.
I’d been dry since May, after all.
But I felt the old warning light go on, and I didn’t care. I knew that when that light flashed, there was no stopping for anything except violence or the type of sleep that others call unconsciousness. I could see the self-loathing out there on the pink of the horizon, and I welcomed it.
I motioned for the waitress, telling her to bring me a double of Dewar’s with two cubes of ice in it.
“You got it, hon,” she said.
Balls on the pool table clinked, and the door chimed. The music changed from something young and poppy to a song by Led Zeppelin. “Kashmir.”
“Jesus, Lena,” I said to a window that was shined so clean all I saw was my own reflection. “The only type of woman I can fall for is a friggin’ criminal. That’s how shitty my brain works since you’ve been gone.”
Outside, cars passed and sirens wailed. The numbered streets were never gonna change.
“And now I got played by Monroe,” I said. “And I got no idea what to do about it.”
I saw a glass arrive beside me, but it didn’t look like Dewar’s.
“Your buddy settled your tab,” the waitress said, picking up my empty beer glass. “He bought this for you.”
The glass held seltzer water, and the buddy, now walking closer, was Darren Gattling, in full uniform.
I eyed him, and he put his hands up, palms out.
“I don’t want trouble, P.T.,” he said. “But I can call a bunch of cops to help me get you outta here if I have to. Remy told me you might come here. After this mess with Kelly.”
Kelly.
This wasn’t even about her.
“Can you drive?” he asked.
“I’ve had twelve ounces of beer so far. So I’d say yeah. But why don’t you get the hell out of here, Darren. Go back to your shift.”
He lifted up his walkie. “Like I said, I can call others. I got a lotta friends in patrol.”
I stared at Gattling.
I knew why he had been moved to the night shift. It was because he’d agreed to help out with my undercover sting at Tandy’s and had been unlucky enough to have that kid die in his arms. I had messed with Gattling’s career, and he never said a bad word to me about it.
I stood up and passed him, walking toward the exit.
“I’ll follow you home,” he said. “Make sure you don’t stop at a liquor store along the way.”
I got in my truck, and Gattling got in his black and white.
I could ignore him. Ignore a legion of blue-suiter friends of his. But I saw Gattling’s lights go on, and I accepted my police escort, all the way into my neighborhood.
At a stop sign a block from my house, he pulled up next to me. “I think I’m gonna hang out here for a bit.”
“Go back to work,” I said. “I’m in for the night. I promise.”
“You know if you break that,” he said, “Remy’s gonna be pissed. And I’m not the one she’s gonna say disappointed her.”
I thought about his words.
“All right,” I said. “Hold a sec. I’ll be right back.”
I pulled into my driveway. Walked back the six or seven houses to where he was parked. And handed him my car keys. “Bring these back at the end of your shift. If it looks like I’m asleep, drop ’em in the mail slot, will ya?”
With my car keys safely in his hand, Gattling pulled away, and I walked down the street to my house.
As I came in the front door, I heard a racket. A barking noise, accompanied by the sound of fur against wood.
Had Beau closed himself inside the bathroom again?
I moved toward the hallway to open the bathroom door, but I caught sight of something shimmering in the low light of the dining area.
My cuffs on the table.
“Don’t even think about going for your weapon,” a raspy voice said. “You’ll be dead before you draw.”
A light turned on in the living room, and a man was sitting on my couch, holding a .45.
Steele Vankle.
55
Wednesday, September 11, 6:31 a.m.
Kelly Borland’s eyes sensed a warmth that meant sunlight, and she woke, glancing around without moving.
Jed was still asleep.
As she lifted his long, muscular arm from atop her naked chest, she smelled his scent. A mix of machine oil and body odor. He was a photographer and a writer. Why the hell did he smell like an auto shop?
Kelly slipped out of bed.
“The magic massage,” she’d called it with a few boyfriends.
She gave a man a massage along the temples. Around his ears and along his cranium. Then her pliant hands moved farther south, down his back.
Within minutes, every man melted.
For Jed, his sleep was so deep she could bang pots and pans, and he wouldn’t wake up.
She moved to the kitchen. Dressed out there and drank a full glass of water. She heard a noise and stopped. Beau-Beau came out from the spare room where he liked to sleep. Where he could hear every noise and protect Jed from strangers.
She grabbed a couple garbage bags from the kitchen drawer. A small slice of sunlight was entering the yard, and she walked with Beau-Beau out to the back.
Kelly had met Jed a month after she’d arrived in town.
Harrington was a brilliant thinker and writer. But he wasn’t turning anything in for publication. He was simply amassing stories of corruption like a Senate committee. Filling boxes with reams of paper, but no longer ambitious about doing anything with it.
Five weeks into the relationship, she ended it.
And that had been the last time Kelly spent any significant time with Jed in nine months. Until last night.
Kelly stared at the white file boxes grouped together in the backhouse. The ones he was always raving about. Jed was never gonna publish these.
She thought of the man she’d caught spying on Jed. The same man who surprised her at her apartment.
If she left the boxes as is . . . would Jed even open them and know the papers inside were gone?
She saw the letters G.U. on the box tops and sat down beside them. Dumped the contents of each of them into three black bags and then placed the empty boxes back—right where they were before.
With the bags full, she moved across the yard and out to her car.
She got in her Honda and drove then, getting on the highway and moving north.
About ten minutes later, she parked by a dumpster in an empty lot off 20th.
Jed would still be asleep, she thought. Wondering why she’d come by last night. Wondering how he’d gotten lucky.
She heard a noise behind her, and a black SUV pulled in beside her Honda.
A man rolled down his passenger window, and his eyes met hers. The same man she’d met twice now.
She popped the hatchback of her Honda CR-V, and the man got out. Walked around back and inspected the papers inside the bags. Loaded them into the back of his angled Italian SUV.
Kelly appraised the man in her side mirror as he worked. Dark hair, slicked back with product. Tall and muscular under that shirt.
He shut her hatchback and came up alongside her Honda. Close to her window. “You’re not thinking of leaving town, are you?”
“I’m headed to work,” she said. “It’s just another day at school.”
The man motioned at the bags he’d transferred to the back of his Maserati Levante. “And Harrington doesn’t have a digital copy of all this?”
“Jed?” She smiled. “He’s old-school. Paper, paper, and more paper. He probably won’t even notice it’s gone for a month.”
The man handed her an envelope then, about four inches thick.
Then he got back in his SUV and took off.
Kelly exhaled nervously.
She could go home right now. Load up the car and be gone. But his question about leaving town had spooked her.
So she decided to head to school. She’d spend time in the storage area before her first class began. Maybe even at her free period at the end of the day. Take the time to clean the place up so it looked as good as it had the first day Kelly took the job at Falls Magnet.
Life was looking up. This creep she’d given the papers to would be out of her life. And Jed wouldn’t even know what happened.
Today was a good day. A new day.
And tomorrow, the start of a new adventure.
56
The ruckus down the hall continued, and I realized that Steele Vankle must’ve locked Beau and Purvis in the bathroom.
I stared at what had originally caught my attention on the dining table.
“I appreciate you coming in person to return my cuffs,” I said.
“Your weapon,” Vankle said softly.
I pointed to my waist, where I kept my Glock tucked. Took it out slowly and dropped it on the ground.
“Toss it out the front door,” he said. “And close the door afterward.”
I placed the gun onto the concrete of the porch and shut the door.
As I moved toward the couch, he shook his head. Directed me instead to the far wall.
“Now ease on down,” Vankle said, the .45 trained on me. “Hands behind your back.”
He watched me drop to the ground and held his cannon on me. Never shaking. Never looking nervous.
“Don’t you want to know who I am?” he asked.
“I know who you are, Steele,” I said.
The sound of Beau slamming against the bathroom door changed. A different tone. More muffled. Softer. The dog had worn himself out.
“What I didn’t know until recently was that you were running Oxy under that liquor store.”
I stared at Vankle, holding the gun on me. If I was to die here, what did I still want to know? I knew about Christian Pelo. Could guess at John Adrian’s fate.
“My wife and son,” I said, my voice gravelly. “Why?”
Vankle exhaled. “Your wife was supposed to be an accident,” he said. “Nothing more than a bump to her car to get you off our backs. I mean, you’re a cop after all.”
“Meaning what?”
“No one was supposed to die. We were just trying to scare you. And believe me, it created so much damn trouble, I wish I never called him.”
“Called Tarticoft, you mean?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Vankle said. “The nerve of him coming back afterward. Trying to charge us more money. Just ’cause she went off the road and died.”
I swallowed, hearing how callously he talked about Lena and Jonas. I wanted to strangle him.
“Us,” I said. “Meaning you and Hartley?”
Vankle stood up then, a resigned look on his face. “Close your eyes, bud. You’re gonna be with your family real soon if you believe in that sorta thing.”
There was a small noise then. A wisp like plastic flapping in the wind.
And down from the bedroom came Beau. He must’ve snapped open the window frame from the bathroom and jumped into the backyard. The wisp I heard was the doggie door.
Beau ran into the room, and it was just enough to distract Vankle. Just as the dog flew through the air and attached to his leg.
I leapt for the gun, and knocked it from Vankle’s hands.
The .45 skittered across the floor, and I tackled him just as Beau bit at his leg.
But Vankle was fitter than me, and he rolled out from under my weight, connecting hard with a fist into Beau’s side.
Vankle went for the gun, but I kicked it away, under the couch.
I dove on him again, this time hitting him in the shoulder where I knew he’d come down hard on that rooftop.
“Gahh,” he screamed, and I punched him a second time. And a third.
I thought about my Glock. About where I’d left it, outside the front door.
Vankle landed a right cross that stunned me, and I felt my mouth split open. Blood ran down my chin.
Before I could recover, he hit me again, and Beau bit at his arm.
“Damn dog.” He swiped with his forearm at the animal, throwing Beau against the fireplace.
I remembered what Remy and I had found on Instagram. That video of Vankle, wrestling in that octagon-style cage. I had to get out from under him, but as I wriggled free, he jumped forward, landing on top of me again.
His fists landed with abandon on my face. Blood poured from my eyes.
“Jesus,” I said under my breath. Pushing his body so we rolled again.
I heard the gun clatter against the wall. His hand reaching for it.
The sound of metal scraping along wood. Vankle gripping the .45 under the couch.
We were locked in a death vise.
Then he kicked me hard in the chest, and I fell backward just as he backed up and lifted the .45.
“Time to meet that little Black wife of yours,” he said.
I squinted with the one eye I could open, the .45 three feet from my face.
And then the front door opened, and a figure stood there.
Vankle looked over.
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A voice said, “What did you just say?”
A light went on then. Blinding me. Someone firing once. And then again. Multiple rounds struck Vankle in the chest and his body fell forward, landing on top of me.
His blood began soaking into my shirt, and I pushed the deadweight off of me.
In front of me I saw my father-in-law, Marvin. He dropped my Glock, and it hit the wood floor with a thud.
“Did he kill her?”
I sat up, disoriented and bloody.
“My baby girl?” he continued. “And Jonas?”
I was confused as to when Marvin got there, and remembered suddenly. I’d called him to come get the dogs. A few hours ago when I wanted to leave town.
I looked at Vankle, bleeding out fast, and my training kicked in. I grabbed a blanket from the couch, balling it up and trying to cover a hole in his chest.
“Jesus,” Vankle mumbled. “What are you doing?”
I was tired of people dying on my watch.
“I’m saving you, you asshole.”
“Oh my God.” Vankle gasped. “I don’t want to go to hell.”
The blanket was sopping up the blood fast, and I hollered at Marvin.
“Pop,” I said. “Get me a towel.”
But Marvin’s eyes were glazed over and his body lay against the far wall, immobile.
I pulled out my phone. Dialed 911 and identified myself. Gave them my badge number.
“Ambulance is five minutes away,” I said to Vankle. “Just hold on.”
The operator stayed on the line and was giving me updates. “Four minutes away,” I said to Vankle.
“You must hate me for what I did.” He slurred his words. “But it wasn’t me. I promise. I just did what I was told.”
“Just try to breathe,” I said. “Nice and slow.”
“It was my brother,” he said. “The whole time. It was always my brother.”
I heard sirens in the distance, but from the noise I could tell they were MFPD cars and not ambulances.
I glanced over at Marvin and realized I had a second situation to deal with.
“Kick that gun away from you, Marvin.” I motioned at the Glock. “Kick it away and sit down over there in the corner. Patrol is gonna arrest you. At least until they sort things out.”
