Smugglers Notch

by Joseph Koenig

  He knelt to tighten his snowshoes and began walking along the beach. She picked up her poles and pushed after him.

  “Wally looked up to me. He was counting on me, and I let him down. I violated all the rules of police procedure … of being a man. That’s something I’m going to have to live with. I only wish Conklin’d shot me right there.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You weren’t there either.”

  She had no reply to that. They went silently to the edge of the trees, and then she said, “What good is it to come back every day and climb on top of that shanty and fire John’s gun? To replay that night? You can’t, you know. What happened, happened.”

  His lips worked feverishly, but he was out of words, and he moved ahead of her again with long strides. “It’s not your problem,” he finally said.

  “Whose is it, then? ‘For better or for worse, in sickness and in health.’ Sound familiar?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Like what?”

  “We’re not married anymore.”

  “I didn’t think it mattered. When you were on the roof with that gun and I didn’t know if you were going to blow your brains out, do you think I was worried less because of something some judge said? Everything is the same to me.”

  “It’s not, though. It hasn’t been since you and Dick Vann.”

  She crossed her ski tips and tumbled in the thin snow, and he came over and held out his hand. She batted it away and rolled onto her side, straightened her skis without help and got up. “How long have you known?”

  “Longer ’n I care to.”

  She forced herself to meet his gaze, to hold it. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “To you, Ann, or to Dick?” He whisked the snow off her back, slapped her harder than he had to. “Either one of you, the way I felt I’d likely’ve ended up where Paul Conklin is now.”

  “And still you let me move in again.”

  “I was more miserable without you. That, or the same reason I did nothing when Conklin had the drop on me.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re pissed?”

  She began poling again, keeping a few feet behind him, her anger used up before it had gotten very far. “Nervous,” she said softly. “I was always afraid what you’d do if it came out.”

  “So was I. Guess the joke’s on both of us.”

  “I still am. Can’t we put it in the past with what happened here that night? Do I have to tell you how I feel, how badly I want your baby?”

  “Breaking up, that was another of your ideas.”

  “So was coming back,” she said.

  He walked into the trees. She watched him slip out of the Bearpaws and then skied after him. “Are you telling me to go again? Do you want—”

  “Want what?” he asked without looking at her.

  “Nothing.” He heard her sniffling, laughing at the same time. “Damn it, Larry, I was going to ask if you wanted a divorce.”

  The weave was flawless, the brown threads matched perfectly to the sleeve so that the hole was nearly invisible. St. Germain rolled down the cloth, wincing as the new stitches fell against the tender spot below the elbow, the shirt’s scar on his own. He fastened the cuff and then the other one, and as he pinched the collar together was surprised to find an extra inch of cloth between his fingers. Well, he thought, maybe Annie was good with buttons, too. He strapped on the heavy gun. As he shut the locker, the weapon slapped against his thigh. He adjusted the holster until it rode against the point of his hip and went upstairs.

  Marlow was standing with his back to the door, stooped over the low table beside the file cabinets. At St. Germain’s “Morning, John,” he spun around quickly and a stack of coffee filters sailed onto the floor like paper parachutes. St. Germain came inside with his forearm against the holster, holding the new gun in place. Marlow grabbed his hand and pumped it. “Hello, stranger,” he said. “What kind of shape are you in these days?”

  St. Germain debated it for a while. “The arm’s fine. Got a sore spot where the bullet went in and a bigger one where it came out. But I hardly know they’re there unless I’m looking for them.”

  “What about your jaw?” Marlow turned back to the coffee maker that lay on its side with the plug dangling from a torn electric cord.

  St. Germain cupped his chin with the heel of his hand. “The wires didn’t come off till last week. I’m still getting used to solid food again. First few days all I did was chew steak and Annie’s ear off, till I got a charley horse and had to rub Ben-Gay on my face. It twinges if I gab too much. I just might take the hint.”

  “It’s good to have you back, even if you are damaged goods,” Marlow said, and there was an uncomfortable silence that lasted until he began retrieving the filters, blowing off the dust as he piled them beside the broken coffee machine. He slipped the plug from the cord and showed it to St. Germain. “What do you know about small appliance repair?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t see how you’ll ever make sheriff,” he said, allowing a smile as an afterthought. “Well, maybe we can find something else for you to do. We’ve been falling farther behind every day you’ve been gone. You didn’t return when you did, I don’t know that we’d ever catch up.”

  “Catch up with who? Last month’s speeders?”

  Marlow didn’t laugh. “You sure you’re ready to go back on patrol? You still look a little peaked, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “It’s what I’m here for, John.”

  “I know that. Till you get your sea legs back, though, I’m putting you on limited duty.”

  “Doing what?” St. Germain’s jaw clicked painfully.

  “Breaking in the new fellow, for one,” Marlow said. “We found a youngster to replace Wally, a Ewells Mills boy with two years at Castleton College who seems to thrive on starvation wages. I want you to show him the ropes.”

  St. Germain fought the urge to rub his jaw. “That’s hardly the kind of action I was looking to get back to those weeks I was laid up.”

  “It has to be done,” Marlow said. “I can’t think of anybody who’d do it better.”

  “Why bother? Wally picked up everything on his own.”

  “Yes, and maybe that’s how come he ended up the way he did.” Marlow tore the plug from the cord and cleaned out the bits of copper wire. “It’s what I want, so let’s not argue. The kid’s upstairs, banging his head against the accident reports.”

  In the bullpen an overweight young man with muscular arms ending in long and bony hands, about a two-octave span, sat at a pile of paperwork almost to his chin. He slid out of his chair and had started to rise when Marlow motioned him to stay where he was. “Vaughn Halvorsen, this is Lieutenant St. Germain, my chief deputy.”

  Again the young man stood, and this time he made it all the way up. To St. Germain he looked young enough to be Wally’s kid brother.

  “Good to have you on.”

  “The lieutenant’s going to give you a refresher on reports and court papers and then walk you through some more of your duties.”

  “I can really use the help.” Halvorsen’s voice was brittle and reedy, and St. Germain supposed that it cracked when he was excited, which probably was often. “Some of these crashes have got me all bolixed up.”

  Marlow started into the corridor. St. Germain stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “John, I’d like a word with you.” They walked toward the water cooler, and St. Germain said, “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

  “Someone has to wet-nurse him. As long as you’re not up to par—”

  “Why not Dick, or Art, or any of the others? You don’t know how bad I’m itching to get back to work … to real work.”

  “Soon,” Marlow said. “For now, do this and quit bellyaching.” He lowered his head and let the water run against his lips, swallowed some. “There’ve been changes since you were gone, Larry. Had to be.”

&nbs
p; “What changes?” St. Germain’s hand flew to his throbbing jaw.

  “We ran short-handed way too long and I had to divide your responsibilities among the men. Feel flattered it’s taking four or five of them to do it all. But you can’t expect me to bust them down the instant you come back, not without a mutiny.” He bent for another sip. “Besides, in case you haven’t stood in front of a mirror lately, it might not hurt to go slow for a while. Taking it easy after what you’ve been through is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Doing accident reports? Charging road hogs? That’s for kids like Wally, who don’t know which end of the gun the bullets come out.”

  “Don’t they?”

  St. Germain forgot what he was about to say. Massaging his jaw, he drifted away from Marlow, went back to the bullpen.

  The pile of paper in front of Vaughn Halvorsen seemed to have climbed to his eyes. St. Germain moved a chair beside him and inspected the reports the rookie had completed on his own. “I can see you weren’t a penmanship major at Castleton State,” he said.

  “No, sir. Animal husbandry.”

  St. Germain put down his pen. On second thought, Halvorsen was not likely to get excited about anything, wouldn’t have the sense to focus his eyes if there was a gun pointed between them—and so probably would work out all right. “Never mind. Let me show you what you do with these and maybe we can be out of here sometime this afternoon, put in a few hours on patrol.”

  Forty-five minutes later, the pile looked higher. St. Germain loosened his tie and pushed the reports away. He said, “You’d better take some home with you, Halvorsen. Else you won’t get finished before you’re pensioned off.”

  “Whatever you say, sir. All right if I go in the hall for a drink?”

  “You don’t have to ask.”

  St. Germain pulled another report and was correcting it when Art Gray came inside the bullpen. A frayed gun belt hung over his shoulder, and the buckle was in his hand, and he was muttering. When he saw St. Germain, he began to smile. “Well, look who’s here,” he said. “How you doing, cowboy?”

  St. Germain let the report fall from his fingers. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Long time no—” Gray did a halfhearted double take. “Huh?”

  “You think it’s funny?”

  Gray hunched his shoulders, showed his palms to the empty corner of the bullpen. He went to his locker and was rummaging inside when St. Germain walked away from the table and came up behind him. “You didn’t answer the question, Art.”

  Gray turned to face him blankly. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “That does it.” St. Germain sent out a looping roundhouse that caught Gray under the ear. His head snapped back and collided with the locker door with a dull thunk, but he didn’t go down. St. Germain reeled in his fist, examined it as if it were out of order, and never saw Gray’s right. It landed high on his cheek, sending shafts of familiar pain into the knitting break in his jaw, and then they were grappling, toppling to the floor.

  Art Gray grunted. “Marlow didn’t say you’d got your brains scrambled, too.”

  Gray squirmed on top and St. Germain bucked him off, forced him onto his back and straddled him, digging both knees into his chest. He threw a short punch Gray trapped in his palm and another that got through to his heart. Gray exhaled hoarsely and grabbed St. Germain by the collar. Two buttons popped and St. Germain heard a ripping sound before a rabbit punch rattled his kidneys, and he knew that Annie would kill him if Art Gray didn’t do it first. He chopped down and saw redness between his fingers. More, much more squirted from Gray’s nose.

  “Give,” Gray said.

  St. Germain held his punch. “Let’s hear it again.”

  “Give up, chickenshit?” Laughing at him, Gray tossed a jab to the chin that St. Germain rolled with, but not far enough; another shot like that and he’d be spooning cream of mushroom again. He drew back his right. Before he could land it, heavy hands had him by the shoulders and were lifting him to his feet.

  “Let go, damn it.”

  “Not till you start acting like adults.”

  St. Germain recognized Dick Vann’s nasal tenor. He pivoted quickly with his hand still doubled into a fist. Rather than let it go to waste, he swung wildly, catching Vann in the midsection. He drove the stocky man into the barred doors, bringing his head up sharply into Vann’s face as Gray jumped on his back and the three of them crashed into a cell.

  “Big fucking hero,” Vann said, kneeing him in the ribs. “Where were you when your partner was getting killed?”

  St. Germain butted Vann again, and his forehead was bathed in warmth as blood gushed from the other man’s mouth. He was trying to elbow Gray off his shoulders when Marlow’s “Quit it! Now!” echoed off the bars.

  Marlow stormed inside the bullpen and pulled Gray from the pile. St. Germain stood up shakily, and then Vann pushed himself off the floor. He spit out some blood and put a finger in his mouth, jiggled an incisor like an overgrown child dreading a visit from the tooth fairy. In the doorway Vaughn Halvorsen took it all in, his chin as slack as if he had caught a punch.

  “What happened here?” Marlow demanded.

  “Nothing,” Art Gray said, sinking into the seat behind the accident reports.

  Marlow was steaming. “Larry, what were you idiots up to?”

  St. Germain tapped his jaw and shook his head.

  “Somebody had better answer, or I’ll have the three of you swamping toilets in the holding pen at the courthouse till you do.” He took a close look at Vann’s face and pushed it away in disgust. “Dick, do you think I’m just pissing in the wind?”

  Vann blotted a cracked lip on his sleeve. “When I came in, these two were going at it like a cat and a rat. I tried to pull them apart and got sucker-punched for my trouble.”

  “That how it happened, Art?”

  Gray was cradling his head in his hands, in too much pain to talk.

  “Larry?”

  “They were laughing at—”

  “If you have something to say, say it.”

  St. Germain lowered his eyes, studied his shoes.

  “You’d better come with me,” Marlow said, “because I’ve got plenty to say to you.” With a last look at the others he nudged St. Germain outside, and they went to the water fountain, where St. Germain washed blood off his hands. In the bullpen Gray was saying loud enough for everyone to hear, “You ought to be more particular about the company you keep, Halvorsen, if you don’t want to end up like Wally Jeffcoat did.”

  Downstairs, Marlow went to his desk for a Band-Aid. He tore the wrapper with his teeth and plastered the flesh-colored strip an inch below St. Germain’s hairline. “You enjoy getting the stuffing knocked out of you? Is this something you plan to do on a regular basis?”

  “I had them where I wanted them, John.” Grinning, St. Germain made a fist for Marlow’s benefit. “If you hadn’t ordered everyone to a neutral corner, you’d’ve really seen something.”

  “It never fails to amaze me how a head as big as yours comes equipped with such limited capacity for reason.” A red smudge colored the end of Marlow’s nose, and he flicked at it like it was a fly, then wet a finger with his tongue and rubbed it away. “You’re hardly in a position to throw your weight around, so what do you do? Right off, you mix it up with my best men.”

  St. Germain flattened his hand and used it to feel behind him for a slatted chair. On the way, he remembered to stop grinning.

  “Dick and Art might not have had much use for Wally Jeffcoat,” Marlow said, “but they’ve gauged the mood of the men when they act like he’s the most sainted officer in the history of the department. This is no time for you to be picking fights.”

  St. Germain kneaded his arm where the bullet had gone through. “They’re jerks. Who gives a damn what they think?”

  “I won’t quarrel with that,” Marlow said. “But, to be blunt, you’ve lost a lot of respect here. I don’t know that you’ll eve
r get it back.”

  “All the guys came to see me in the hospital. It never occurred to me they blamed …” He rolled up the sleeve. A fresh bruise was blending into the redness of the scar, and he covered it again quickly. “Maybe it’d be best if I go back to the cabin till things blow over, till I’m feeling more myself.” He shut his eyes, thinking about it. “I’d like that.”

  “If you were feeling any more yourself, the building would have come down during that wrestling match in the bullpen. No, now that you’ve put in an appearance, I want you every day. And I expect you to find a way to get along with Dick and Art if you have to kiss their butts to do it.”

  He felt let down, cheated of something that should always have been his. He put his feet flat on the floor, held onto the chair. “I’m still entitled to some vacation time. I think it’d be best if I took it now.”

  “You’re entitled to nothing. Conklin’s prelim comes up in three weeks and we have to start prepping your testimony.”

  St. Germain mopped his forehead with his sleeve, saw crimson streaks in the moisture. “Nobody said anything …”

  “Then let me. Old Jess Whitehead has taken Conklin’s case, and Ray Beausoleil says their best shot is to make your professionalism, or the lack of it, the cornerstone of their defense. They’re going to try to show it was a screw-up on your part that brought on Wally’s death. And if they eat you up on the stand on this one, your testimony in Becky’s killing won’t be worth diddly.”

  St. Germain forced a bitter laugh. “Shouldn’t be much of a problem for them, should it?”

  “I wouldn’t know. But if a jury comes back with anything less than guilty of first-degree murder, Wally died for nothing.” He leaned across the desk. “Or do you want to fight about that, too?”

  Annie sat under the floor lamp with her sewing box emptied all around her, pushing small, precise stitches into a pair of brown trousers. When St. Germain walked in, she held the pose and then stood up, her lips catching his cheek as he went by. “I’m getting pretty good at this,” she said, lifting the pants by a leg, “don’t you think?”