Castle Danger--Woman on Ice

by Anthony Neil Smith

  I was frozen for a few minutes, but only because I was still thinking like Manny. According to the Senator, I was now allowed to think like Hannah. So I got off my ass and walked through the house to the front door, opened it, and found Thorn pacing the front steps, vaping.

  “I figured you for a Marlboro man.”

  He shrugged. “My girlfriend got me to switch. I don’t know. It’s not bad. This one tastes like spearmint.”

  “I need your help.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t give you the sort of help you need.”

  I slumped against the doorframe. Yawned. “Come on, man.”

  A cloud of spearmint vapor. Somewhere in it, he shook his head again. “It’s the Marine again?”

  “How did you know?”

  He waggled his smartphone at me. “I’ve been listening. Yeah. That’s my job, you know. Taking a break from the BCA in order to make sure that man in there lives to be governor. So I heard every word, even your agreement. Right on the other side of the door.” He looked out across the yard, across the street, all the way to the distant neighbors, other old-school St. Paul homes gleaming in the morning light, just enough light to chase away some of the chill. He zipped up his leather jacket, shrugged his shoulders, and waved for me to follow as he headed down to the SUV.

  This time, no Dylan, no chauffeur. Just Thorn driving, me in the passenger seat. I was falling asleep, face propped on my palm.

  “So, I’ve got to work with Skovgaard now?”

  It woke me up. In all the adrenaline rush of the plan, it hadn’t occurred to me that Thorn still considered Joel a wannabe cop killer.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Guess so.”

  “He almost killed my partner.”

  “True, true. While trying to protect his own. Face it, you guys came out swinging.”

  Stone-faced. He stopped at an intersection, a little too long, turned his head my way. I met his eyes, kept a hold on them.

  Then he lifted his vape, puffed, and drove on. “I would’ve done the same thing.”

  I wish I could tell you there was more to it, as far as that day went. But there wasn’t, simple as that. Sitting in the back of that car, getting the silent treatment from a man who’d just given me absolution in place of an ass whooping, I felt like a child again — no understanding of the adult world’s complicated rules but increasingly nervous that I’d broken a cardinal one. While I was replaying the meeting with the Senator, racking my brain to figure out where I’d gone wrong, we picked up Joel, who had survived the rollover like a boss. Something about a tire getting shot out while he was trying to shoot out the sedan’s tires. Tit-for-tat.

  Titus: broken arm, broken leg, broken ribs. He’d survive. And more importantly, now we knew he’d been in Raske Senior’s pocket the whole time.

  Paula: a bad gash across her back, most of the skin on her left arm scraped up, embedded with gravel and glass. Oh, and they’d had to take off the mangled little finger at the middle joint. But really, she came out of it stronger than ever.

  When the public version was released, thanks to some help from Marquette, the sedan was never mentioned, nor the guns, nor the exit ramp assault. Just a blowout, a few flips, and three lucky passengers.

  Thorn took us back to my mom’s condo, now clear of Duluth cops, since their Minneapolis brethren had shown up and strongly suggested they take their act home to the north. My mom and sister were doing okay. It had been tough, but neither one had been damaged like Robin. Fifty-thousand volts. Her reunion with Joel was bittersweet. She slapped him, hard. Echoing hard. Then screeched and beat his chest with her fists until they both sank to the floor in a fearsome embrace that took the air from the room.

  We got out of there before they kicked off another one of their hardcore slapfest pornos. Even still, the grunting and smacking and squealing through the wall were enough to make Ron Jeremy blush. When the noise died down, Mom looked at me, slid the wig from my head, rubbed my real hair, and touched her forehead to mine. “We never gave you up. No matter what they said, no matter how many lies they told—”

  “Lies?”

  “They said you were corrupt. They said you’d been taking bribes, stealing police property …”

  She looked at Marcia, who finished the thought. “They said you’d killed for money.”

  I actually laughed at that one. “I’m surprised they didn’t hit you with a phonebook.”

  “They were too busy checking their phones for that.”

  I collapsed onto the couch, my mother and sister on both sides, and put my arms around them while Robin and Joel rejoined the party, now holding hands like lovelorn teenagers, whispering through their differences.

  Later, Mom fried us some eggs. Robin decided she couldn’t eat them. She was kind of considering going vegan. Kind of.

  Honestly, I felt like I’d left the Senator’s palace and landed in a middleclass kindergarten. What a fucking anti-climax.

  It wasn’t time to talk about what Joel and I had promised to do for Andrew Marquette. Not yet. We could’ve gone home right away, but why? Duluth felt radioactive to me for the moment. Just another day or two, I asked. Just another day or two to cleanse the toxins, mentally, and wash off the dirt, metaphorically.

  But it would be a long time before I could look at myself in the mirror without feeling the urge to wash my face. Not because of the make-up, though. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Hannah was staring back at me, judging me, quietly tsk-ing me.

  I deserved it.

  On the morning of the third day, I received a phone call from Thorn.

  Joel, Robin, and I borrowed Mom’s car and drove back to Duluth. It was a quiet trip.

  The first thing you should know: of course I wasn’t really going to kill the old Chief. That was never going to happen. I’d told Joel that, and he immediately agreed. Andrew Marquette might look at it as betrayal, but I was crossing my fingers that he would keep his promises in spite of our lapse. He would understand it later. Had to.

  Meanwhile, the new Chief had heard all sides of the story about why people under her command had ended up sieging a condo in Minneapolis and tazing a civilian. No charges. All of the cops were going to be let off easier than Joel and I had been.

  Someone owed that bitch Chelsea Tischer a couple of jolts, same as she gave Robin with her Taser. Just saying.

  But we did receive letters. Very nice letters. Apology letters. They didn’t necessarily apologize for anything specific, but still, it meant we could once again count on a decent reference on the job search. Yeah, right next to Sen. Andrew Marquette’s.

  But I’m getting off-track. Back to the plan. It was simple. We find the Chief — who might be expecting some sort of visit from someone soon, but maybe not us — and let him know what’s up. We lay out the evidence. We explain why we’ve been sent and by whom. We give the Chief an out — turn himself in, give a slightly different version of Hannah’s death, one that leans more on “drunk and accidental”, which will help everyone get the closure they’re looking for.

  So Joel and I made a few calls, got dressed up, pinned on our “advisor” badges (Thorn gave them to us, though they might have been from a party favors store), and strapped up. Courtesy of one of Andrew’s friends at St. Paul’s PD, I was back in the cop role: jeans and a tucked-in dress shirt, cop windbreaker, sneakers, and an automatic pistol on my hip. Quite liked the feel, to be honest. Just a shame I’d have to give up all the accessories later that day. It wasn’t standard issue for campaign advisors, except for Thorn and Joel, obviously.

  Speaking of the devil, Joel was in boots, cargo pants, a sweater that had seen better days, and a military jacket that probably reminded him of worse.

  Luckily, Chief Neudecker was still in the state, still threatening to take the whole show to the Carolina shores, but for the moment he was awaiting his fate at his cottage in Castle Danger.

  It was supposed to be a civilized chat.

  Supposed to. We had to toss th
at idea as soon as his wife opened the door, let out her breath in a rush and said, “Thank God.”

  She led us into the living room, where Chief Neudecker was sitting on the couch with his grandson, watching the kid play some video game, while he draped his arm around the kid’s shoulders. From his fingers dangled a Colt .44 revolver with a six-inch barrel.

  7

  He looked up at us, mouth agape.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” He shook his head. “You two? All I wanted was a good Mexican standoff, and they had to send me rodeo clowns instead.”

  Joel had already dropped his hand to his holster, so good at it that the Chief hadn’t noticed. In a heartbeat, he pulled out his .45 and lifted it, trained on the Chief’s chest. Center mass. Problem was, all the Chief had to do was hug his grandson a little closer, and Joel wouldn’t have a clear shot anymore.

  “So, Chief, how’s it going?” I wasn’t the marksman that Joel was, but I’d always been a reasonable talker. Maybe I could diffuse this threat. Was it a bluff? Cowardice? Was he really willing to end his grandson’s life right here and now?

  I cleared my throat. “Everything okay?”

  A feeble laugh. He lifted the gun — those things weigh a ton, I tell you — and scratched his scalp with the barrel before letting it fall again. The grandson registered a little discomfort, eyes moving from TV to me to Joel. Wide, now. Then to his grandmother, standing behind me, arms crossed.

  The Chief inched his face towards Joel, lifted his chin. “You should’ve listened to me. Should’ve sat this one out. But they figured out your talent. Killing people from far away. So now the golden boy has his own sniper, does he?”

  “I’m standing right here in front of you, Chief. I’m not up in the woods.”

  “I don’t care. They still sent you, didn’t they? I’ve heard all about it, but I thought he’d at least send Thorn. I’m due a little respect, but you two.” Head shake. “I’m not going out without taking all of you with me. Someone’s got to stand up to you. Fags and liberals, trying to drive the rest of us out to pasture. That dyke who took my job when I wasn’t ready to leave. You, Jahnke, practically a walking ad for new and gayer cops — useless, all of you. And Corporal, I had my eye on you. You could’ve held the front! Toss out all the … the … garbage!”

  “I hear you.” Joel, steady. “Still hear you, boss.”

  “Do you? Partnering up with whatever the fuck Manny is? Nearly killing an agent to protect him? And then, when he comes to you with, with, what, lies about me? And you roll right along? You don’t even try to hear my side! Not one peep from you!”

  I took a step forward, my calm-down palms out, patting the air. “Chief, listen, we understand. You can still tell your side. It was an accident, wasn’t it? You panicked. We understand. Everyone will understand. You’re lucky you didn’t go into the lake either. Isn’t that right?”

  Come on, Chief. Take the bait. Make this easy on everyone. I felt his wife behind me, heard her teeth chattering. She made me nervous. We didn’t need the distraction. What we needed was for the Chief to do what he did best: play politics.

  What we got instead was an angry, puzzled expression, that and a tighter grip on his grandson. “The fuck? I thought you’d figured it out, Nancy Drew. Hannah, she was dead. Very dead when she went into the lake. I choked the life out of her myself. Bitch.”

  Joel and I shared our own cop telepathy for a sec. Is he kidding us?

  The kid’s hands stopped moving on the game control. I heard his character die onscreen.

  “No, Chief, maybe you just remembered wrong. Think harder. It was an accident. You were both in mortal danger. You couldn’t save her. But we all know why you couldn’t come forward.”

  I wondered how much his wife already knew. Wondered if she knew about the cottage barely a two-minute walk from here. Wondered if they had some sort of ‘agreement’ after having been married so long.

  His grandson tried to scoot out from beneath the Chief’s arm, but the bastard hugged him back, the gun now pressing into the boy’s stomach. If he were to shoot, the kid would be wearing a colostomy bag for life, and that only if he got lucky and didn’t bleed out first.

  The Chief cleared his throat, obviously getting rattled now. “I know exactly what I did. And don’t call me a faggot. She wasn’t like you, Manny. She wasn’t playing dress-up. I met Hannah as a woman. Dick, balls, didn’t matter. A woman, do you hear?” He turned to his wife. “I swear, nothing happened. Nothing. Don’t you understand? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  Hey voice, icy. “I don’t care right now, if you’ll just let him go. He’s your boy. Just let him go.”

  I wished I could have stopped her from saying it. It wasn’t what we needed him to focus on right now. He knew the kid was his bargaining chip. We needed to show him a new one. But now he leaned down to kiss his grandson’s head, lingered there close to his scalp. Squeezed his eyes closed.

  “I feel so stupid saying it now, can’t believe I trusted him.” Strained. “But women like Hannah, they were victims of fate, trapped. A big cosmic mistake. But then, Hannah … if I’d known … I’d knew Hans. I liked Hans! I knew Andrew! How could he have let me believe …?”

  “She,” I said. Instantly regretted it. No time for a pronoun lesson.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘he’. You meant ‘she.’”

  He let the correction hang between us, unfinished, unanswered, but his face told the story. He’d been humiliated. Hannah comes along, sophisticated, mature, someone he wanted to spend more than a couple hours with. Someone who seemed to get him. The Chief had felt so comfortable around her, and then the revelation that part of her was still Hans, it was like a mask being pulled off. A practical joke.

  I fell into his story, forgot about the other one we wanted to ‘plant’ in its place. “You planned it. It wasn’t the heat of the moment. This took time. Thought.”

  “Malice, right? Malice aforethought.” He leaned closer to his grandson’s ear. “Remember that for your law school days, ‘malice aforethought’. I mean, if you make it to your law school days.”

  “But grandad, I want to work in a zoo, with animals,” the kid said.

  “That’s cute. Real cute. Just remember, though.” Neudecker turned back to me. “I’m a career cop. I’m not stupid. And I know that what goes into the Lake doesn’t often come out. Bonus for me, no one could come out and say that Hannah was missing. Hans, sure, but that had nothing to do with me. Even people who had an idea, like Raske, well … I never had to say a word to him, except when you started sniffing around.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment from a top cop.”

  “Take it up your ass, for all I care. I made a mistake. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. But killing Hannah wasn’t one of them. No one’s life should be ruined for … that.”

  He couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘love’.

  Joel was slowly working his way to the right, away from me, for a clear shot. The Chief was too busy with me to notice. I was still hoping we could flip him, but this mess was getting dangerous. The grandson. The wife. A trannie. And his very own Anakin Skywalker in Joel, who hadn’t succumbed to the dark side after all.

  “Chief,” I went on. Needed all his focus. All of it. “You’re not hearing me. You didn’t mean to. It was an accident. A drunken—”

  “Don’t tell me what I did! I know that trick. I know all the tricks.” His gun barrel lifted, pointed my way. I steeled myself, or tried to. A man points a gun at you, you can’t help the way your muscles react, or the sound weeping from your mouth, or the speed your eyes blink, but I did the best I could.

  Until his wife shouted over my shoulder, right in my ear, “You son of a bitch! You monster!” It became a moan, and she braced herself on my back. “Why? Why?”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, sweetie. Jesus. Calm down. Everyone calm down.” The Chief wiped his forehead with the back of the gun hand. A reflex, maybe. But both his grandso
n and I saw our chance. Our eyes met. I reached out, quickly, and he jumped off the couch before Neudecker could get his arm back around him. Instinctively I turned, shielded both the kid and his grandmother with my back to the Chief. I must’ve really trusted Joel to cover me.

  Then again, I already knew I could trust him with my life.

  I peeked over my shoulder.

  Joel was right up on him now. Inches. Dead quiet, though. They were frozen in place. The wife began yelling through tears: “You son of a bitch! You freak! You monster!”

  I began pushing her and the grandson towards the door. They didn’t need to see the Chief get manhandled, put on his stomach, cuffed up and dragged to the back of a squad car. “Let’s get some air, okay? Everyone take a deep breath.”

  And so we did. Neudecker’s wife sank to the ground. The boy hugged his grandmother, stifled loud sobs into her back, arms wrapped around from behind. I shut the front door and leaned against it. The wind battered the three of us, instantly freezing my shirt to my skin. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been sweating. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. The iciness was refreshing. It numbed the fear as much as the heat, my ears pulsing, probably fire red.

  So what if the Chief told the same story to the cops? At least he knew better than to pull Raske and the Senator into it. He was a smart man, like he’d told us. There was no reason for Neudecker to tell the truth, the whole truth, and all that, but if he told just enough of it, Raske and Marquette would catch on and make sure he ended up with the lightest sentence in the easiest minimum security prison, with the chance of beginning his life again once he was paroled, which he no doubt would be faster than I’d find a new job.

  Tell them the accident story, well, it might be an even shorter stay. Someone could get to Neudecker behind bars. The Senator wanted him gone, and here we were trying to save him. But the Chief knew better than to follow our stupid plan. He was right about Joel and me. We weren’t very good at strategy, if only we’d sat and thought about it a little more …