“It’s not your fault that she was killed.”
“But I didn’t tell you everything about that. It’s a long story and I won’t bore you with it chapter and verse, but while Dad was still on the force, I musta been four or five I guess, he let a woman and her young daughter stay with us. Hubby was beating up on them, and when the mother finally got the kid out of the house and to a police station, my old man wanted to make sure they were safe until they could get admitted to a shelter. It was only for a couple of weeks, but that was Edie and her mother. She would only have been three or so.”
Hilda ran her fingers across my chest. I barely felt them.
“Dad would get a card every year on the anniversary of the night he took them in, with an update on how they were doing, and thanking him once again for what he did for them.
“Sometimes, especially when things were getting real tough at work, Dad would sit in his chair and re-read those cards. Over and over.
“And I took that all away from him. I wasted all the good work he’d done, just by being a stupid fucking kid.”
I was almost whispering. Hilda’s fingers stopped.
“So, once I’ve done what I need to do, Hil, I don’t ever want to see any of them again. Too much chance for me to fuck things up, and no-one deserves that.”
“You can’t control what happens to people, you know.”
“I know!” I breathed deep. “I know, and that’s the problem. Fuck it, maybe I’ve just seen too much. Seen too many people, too many kids, die needlessly. Especially on this one. Maybe … ahh … I don’t know.”
“You helped two kids this time, not just Bradley. Remember that.”
“Yeah.”
“Speaking of …” Hilda leaned up on one elbow and looked at me. “How did you know that Imani’s foster-father wouldn’t send her back to the shelter?”
“I didn’t.”
“You mean you were prepared to sacrifice that poor girl to whatever she was afraid of just to get Bradley cleared?”
“’Course not. After they left the Wright’s house, Cowboy and Mimi headed straight to Houston. Poked around a little, found the source of the problem in the shelter. Let’s say that the name of the problem was Earl, and that Earl had been a problem for a lot of other girls in the shelter, not only Imani, and … well, let’s finish by saying that Earl’s not going to be a problem anymore. For anyone.”
Hilda leaned in, hugged me, and grabbed my hand. Nuzzled her face into my chest. “You are, without a doubt, one of the best men I’ve ever met.”
“One of?” I made to pull my hand away. She held on. “And here I thought …”
She looked up, winked, stuck her tongue out between her beautiful, perfect teeth, smiled and broke into her wonderful, throaty laugh. Trailed her foot up the inside of my leg.
Whispered to me, “If you’re on your game this morning, you might be able to break into my top five.”
“But you think I should still go and see Bradley tomorrow.”
“We’ll talk about that much later … but yeah, you should.”
Chapter 33
So I went to Parkland Memorial the next day to watch Bradley Wright take his first steps out of the hospital and into a new life.
Worst decision I ever made.
I put the Pacer in a lot further down on Harry Hines and walked back to the hospital. The media scrum was camped out in front, chatting, smoking, and waiting to get the money shot of the triumphant return of the boy they’d wanted to crucify two months ago.
Dummies.
I ignored them all, walked around the block and worked my way back to the Emergency entrance. Okay, maybe not all the newshounds were dummies. Several outlets had stashed a couple of reporters here too, looked like juniors charged with covering the bases in case their subject tried to elude the pros out front.
Paul had only let me know that Bradley would be discharged in the morning, hadn’t given me a specific time. That the media were still there meant that I definitely hadn’t missed him, but anyone I could ask wouldn’t have any more idea than me on when we might be seeing his still-healing face.
I might have been wasting my time but, let’s face it, there wasn’t a whole lot else that needed doing.
So I leaned against a brick corner, smoked a pipe, and waited.
It had been nearly an hour and I was in the middle of a couple of deep knee bends to take the pressure off my back when the low murmur of the journalists started to rise to a crescendo, and I saw a few cameramen running around the corner from the main entrance, no doubt tipped off by radio.
Over the heads of the reporters I could see Bradley, flanked by Ray and Charlene, walking slowly towards the exit. He looked strong, a lot better than the last time I’d seen him, even smiling.
That boded well.
The trio stepped outside, the overhang casting a strong shadow across the top half of their bodies, and the media pack moved in.
Then the day turned to shit.
I left the screams and the whirr-clicking of cameras behind me as I chased Frank Gibbons out of the parking lot and on to the access road that looped back to Southwestern Medical Avenue. His denim shirt flapped as he ran, and I cursed my decision to wear boots instead of sneakers.
What the hell was I, a fashion plate?
Frank had already turned and started running before I recognized him, so I was twenty yards behind as he rounded the corner and ploughed right through a clutch of what looked like first-year med students.
I stepped on to the sidewalk and tried to hit the hole he’d made, but they’d already regrouped and a petite blond woman and I waited for the other to move for three precious seconds, before I picked her up and manhandled her to the side.
Now I was forty yards behind and by the time I stopped and took aim, Frank would be well out of range.
So I ran.
Traffic on Southwestern cruised past us as we ran up the block—Frank not getting away, and me not gaining.
I wondered if any of the drivers and passengers were having the day they’d expected when they woke up that morning.
Yeah, Hil, you’re right. I should be there to see Bradley when he walks out of the hospital a free boy with his whole life in front of him.
His name has been cleared and he’ll finally be able to move on with his life. Get back to school, maybe find a new girlfriend. It’s only upwards from here.
They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
While I’m waiting for Bradley to show, I’ll ponder the case and think for the first time in a very long time, I’ll feel like I made a difference. Yeah, there were a lot of kids left behind at Columbus High, but I helped this one. And Imani. And they’ll get a chance to live a full life, and I’ll feel like I actually did this one right.
Can you see it coming? Wait for it, it’s hilarious.
I’ll look up and see Bradley and his mom and uncle stepping out of the entrance doors and a few of the reporters will close in, thrusting microphones and questions at the Wrights, and I’ll think that I’m happy to not be going through that shit, and then I’ll see someone thrust something that isn’t a microphone, and before I can do anything, Bradley will be lying on the bitumen, bleeding from the chest, and I’ll be in a footrace against Frank Gibbons with no finish line in sight.
Terrific day, right?
And none of it needed to happen.
If I’d done what I should have done—what my better judgment told me to do—the first time I’d clapped eyes on Frank, I wouldn’t be chasing him now, and Bradley wouldn’t be bleeding to death in the parking lot.
So I ran.
It was happening again. I’d gone through the whole exercise just to have Bradley die a pointless death. To have protected him, to have made the powers that be see sense, so that he could come out of enforced hiding, only for him to be senselessly taken out.
Just like Edie. Just like Dad.
I didn’t want to think about that.
Frank wheeled past a coffee cart parked on the corner, scattering customers like fall leaves, and pounded through a small loading area as he headed back towards the hospital buildings.
I thought that he’d already accomplished what he wanted to for the day, and that he wouldn’t be a threat to members of the general public, but I couldn’t be certain.
And I had nothing else I could do for the moment.
So I ran.
Followed Frank as he weaved between parked station wagons, and bounced off SUVs, and ran across Campus Drive. He swerved away from the main buildings, angled between two tennis courts, and disappeared into a small parkland.
Great.
If he pushed hard through the trees, he could be out to Harry Hines Boulevard and jacking a car before I had anything to say about it. Or he might grab someone doing nothing more than taking a walk on a nice day and try to bargain his way out.
Please don’t let it be that.
I’d been wrong about too many things on this case, let me have this one, for fuck’s sake.
Please.
I thundered across the verge and into the parkland, skidded to a stop, and whipped my head side to side, trying to pick a faded denim shirt and red beard out from the stands of trees.
Heard the pounding of my heart, and the clang of metal. I cut to the right, came upon a three-story parking garage, a rusted metal door at its base with the words ‘Keep door closed at all times’ fading into obscurity.
I eased over to the wall alongside the door, pulled out my .38, wished for more gun, and thumbed the hammer anyway. Took two deep breaths and hit the door, weapon up.
Carried my momentum through the door, in case Frank was waiting inside, ready to line up my silhouette in the doorway.
Swung left and right.
Nothing.
Slowed and placed my feet carefully, and quietly, as I moved to the main parking aisle. Listened hard and blinked, trying to get my eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Nothing.
I could see the whole length of the structure, one of those simple elongated corkscrew-type designs, as it rose to the far end about seventy-five yards away.
Leaves, paper, and other assorted garbage collected in the dead corners and, from the smell, I’d have bet that more than one family of rats called this little piece of paradise home.
Most of the car spaces were filled. Busy day at the campus. Mostly middle-aged sedans, only a couple of larger pickups, but then Frank could be lying on the dirty concrete and I wouldn’t have seen him behind anything larger than a Radio Flyer wagon. He hadn’t had enough time to get to the end up to the next level, and I couldn’t hear footsteps, so he was here somewhere.
Hiding. Waiting.
For what?
I could move my way methodically up the aisle, looking between and under each and every vehicle, hoping to dislodge him, but I played a different card.
Wrapped both hands around the butt of the pistol, held it down and out to my right side, stepped about ten feet up the ramp, and focused on movement in my peripheral vision. Took a breath.
“What’d you want to go and do a thing like that for, Frank?”
Silence.
“You’ve just fucked up that family’s life and you know how that feels, right? Why’d you want to do that?”
A breeze whispered through the structure, stirring the dead leaves from their slumber. I heard a raspy intake of breath underneath the scuttling.
“Did it bring Rachel back, Frank? Did it?”
The roar came from my right-hand side. A green Chrysler rocked, its car alarm went berserk, and Frank lunged at me.
He was too slow; I was already stepping back and raising the gun. Zeroing it on his chest.
“Her name was Rebecca, you piece of shit!”
He stopped a couple of feet short, panting, glaring at me through his shaggy hair and beard. His gun was still pointed at the ground.
Reminded me of a dog that wanted to tear my throat out, if only it knew how to get off its chain.
“Ah, Rebecca … that’s right. And do you know what his name was? The kid you killed. Huh?”
He gritted the word at me. “Bradley.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Bradley. His mother is Charlene. His uncle, Ray. And you’ve just fucked up all their lives, big time.”
He shrugged at me, which was not the best move.
“That’s all you’ve got? A fucking shrug?”
“Like I should care. At least he won’t do it again.”
I gripped the gun tighter and ground my teeth. “He didn’t do it this time, you idiot.”
Frank shrugged again.
“But, let me guess, you didn’t know. Or, maybe you don’t actually give a shit.”
Third time for the shrug and, as if to prove my theory about how much he cared, Frank perched his butt on the fender of the shrieking Chrysler and continued to glare at me.
I watched the gun in his hand, wobbling in the loose grip of his fingers like he’d forgotten about it.
Over the pounding in my ears, and between the pulses of the car alarm, I thought I could hear sirens in the distance. The cops would know that we couldn’t have gone far from where Bradley was shot, but it would still take them a while to work out exactly where we were.
Thought about the situation.
From the brief glimpse I got before I gave chase, Bradley was dead or dying.
His killer wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.
The cops were on their way.
And this whole thing had been a colossal waste of time.
I’d busted my hump to prove Bradley’s innocence and none of it meant a damn thing. Done everything I could to protect Bradley, thinking that once the DA got through admitting her mistake it would be enough.
But the only thing I was left with was more cold bodies—more people left behind.
I checked the hammer. The bright brass of five shells winked back at me.
Watched the realization dawn on his face, then the confusion of wondering what he should do about it.
He eased his weight on to his feet until he was standing. I was glad about that, at least.
Stared at me.
The sirens were closer now.
Time slowed down and I looked at Frank through a dark tube.
I’ll be honest, he may have started his gun hand moving. He may have been raising it, bringing it to bear, or trying to throw it away.
Or maybe he didn’t.
I didn’t care.
I gave him two in the chest. He bounced off the Chrysler’s hood, landed on the concrete, and didn’t move anything again.
For a long time after I would wonder if I’d done the right thing.
Started 2 March 2017
Completed 13 February 2020
Fitzroy Falls, Australia
Rafferty will return in LONDON CALLING
Rafferty tries to protect a Dallas TV celebrity from death threats, but it won’t be long before he finds out—like TV itself—not all is what it seems to be on the glossy surface.
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THE RAFFERTY P.I. SERIES
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Wright & Wrong Page 26
