The Edge of Justice

by Clinton McKinzie

  “More like a pet tiger on a leash . . . dragging Karge through all sorts of shit,” McGee rasps. “Who's left?”

  I think about it for a minute. “That girl you saw this morning in the hall, Lynn White. She was Heller's girlfriend at some point. But she told me she left early that night, before Kate went off the cliff. Damn.”

  I have to find her, but I doubt now that she wants to be found by me, or will even be willing to listen. Not after this morning. I use my cell phone to call the climbing shop where she works in Laramie. The girl who answers tells me Lynn hasn't come in today and won't tell me where she is, even when I tell her it's an emergency. Finally I just leave an urgent message for her to call me along with my cell phone number. I leave a similar message on the anonymous recording that picks up when I call the number that I have for Lynn's house.

  With my boss's nod of permission, I also call the duty officer at DCI. I request a BOLO on Heller and Brad Karge and describe Heller's van. The Be On the Lookout report will hopefully get them picked up for questioning. It's all I can do until I get a warrant written and signed.

  A large black van comes bouncing down into the depression, going too fast for the poor condition of the unpaved road. The driver propels it like it's a vehicle owned by someone else. Which it is, even though its panels display no advertising. It skids to a halt behind the four cars gathered outside Sierra Calloway's trailer. Its approach sets the captured dogs to their manic barking again. By this time the young deputy sheriff, with the help of his colleague, has herded the last of them into the long dog run. Miraculously, neither of the deputies appears to have been bitten.

  Dave Ruddick climbs out of the state vehicle followed by two of his assistants. With only a nod to McGee and me, the three slide open the van's side and slip orange jumpsuits over their clothing. I come out of my exhausted stupor slowly. I hesitate a long time, then slap my palms against the hood of McGee's car, letting the sting penetrate the fatigue, and roll up and off it in a single swift motion. Still thinking about how much I don't want to do this, don't want to go back inside that trailer, I walk over and select a pair of coveralls and gloves for myself.

  The air inside becomes stifling as the sun rises in the sky, seeming to seek a better angle at which to increase the pressure of its heat on the tin-roofed trailer on the plain. The heat weakens us and makes the orange suits claustrophobic. I can manage the smell only with a liberal application of gasoline that scorches the skin of my upper lip and sears from my nostrils to the back of my throat. But there's no respite from the sound of a thousand flies buzzing, and there's no way to shield our eyes from the tasks we are required to perform before the body can be removed.

  I come to a point when I've witnessed all I will need to in order to testify and I can't take another minute inside. I stagger out of the trailer, and although my sense of smell has long since been burned away, I know that my clothes must reek of sweat and death. Just the thought of it chokes me as does the sight of Sierra Calloway's body. I jerk the suit off and toss it in the dirt. I start walking through the chaparral with no purpose in mind other than to suck in the high plains air and let the rising wind cleanse my lungs. McGee watches me stalk away but doesn't yell after me.

  A little later I hear Rebecca's voice calling my name. I look around me and find myself walking more or less parallel to the unpaved road, up and out of the depression in which the trailer sits. Squinting through the sunlight, I can see ten or more cars being held back at the rim by a Laramie deputy. The cars look cheap and American; I realize they are the rental cars of a town full of bored reporters.

  She's walking through the dirt and brush toward me. Despite her clean shirt and blue jeans, she looks tired, as if she hasn't slept at all. But she's still impossibly beautiful. I hold up one hand as she approaches, and she stops ten or more feet from me.

  “Stay back. I'm kind of a mess.” I don't want her coming closer to the stench of my clothes and body. It's a smell that seems to penetrate all the way to my bones.

  “Anton . . .” she says again, hesitating. “Are you all right?”

  “That girl at the hotel,” I say, “I dated her once. Not anymore, though. I want you to know that.”

  “I don't care, Anton,” she says, her expression unreadable behind the sunglasses. I don't know if she means for me or about the fact that I had seen another girl. “Did they kill Sierra Calloway?”

  “Yeah. They did, cords and all. For talking to me. That's what got her killed. Look, I'll call you later.”

  I turn and walk through the brush back into the depression on the plain.

  When I return to the vicinity of the trailer, Dave Ruddick is heading toward me, smoking a cigarette. He still wears his orange crime scene suit but he has pulled the gloves off his hands. Sweat runs out of his hair and down his face.

  “About finished?” I ask.

  “Yep. The boys are bagging her right now.”

  “You got a TOD for me?”

  Ruddick nods. “Looks like she was cooled sometime on Monday night. The parasites in her mouth, vagina, and anus—”

  “That's all right,” I tell him, “I don't want to hear about that.” The outside air has purified me to a fragile degree and I want to remember Sierra as she appeared when boldly propositioning me in my hotel room, not as the befouled corpse in a black bag that the other techs are dragging down the steps of the porch and across the dirt to the van. I want to walk over and order them to carry her gently but I don't. They deal with corpses all too often, and the only way they can cope is to treat their wards like pieces of meat. I remind myself that the body is nothing but a discarded husk.

  “Does that time frame fit in with your perps?” Dave asks.

  I nod. They could easily have stopped by on their way to the Big Horns. “Any prints?”

  “Sure, lots of 'em. But I doubt your boys were dumb enough to do this bare-handed. We'll probably have better luck with hair and fiber.”

  I'm not so sure of that. “They've both been here a lot of times before. Unless we can tie it in to the actual killing, that's going to be a problem.”

  Dave shrugs, and then looks around before speaking again, as if to make sure we are alone. “Speaking of prints, I got a result on those unidentified ones. You know, on that bottle.”

  “Heller's?”

  He shakes his head. “I'm not supposed to talk about it. Especially to you. When I IDed them, I went right to the AG. He ordered me to keep it under my hat.” Now he makes a face. “But I've been thinking about what you said the other day, about politics and justice. So I'm going to tell you.” He pauses to rethink his decision one last time then says, “To be thorough, I happened to run them through the state employee file. Surprise surprise, I got a hit. Nathan Karge, our next governor.”

  Dave is watching me closely for a reaction but I remain nonchalant. “His kid, Brad, could have taken the bottle from Dad's liquor cabinet. I used to do that when I was his age.”

  The techy looks disappointed. He was expecting to rock my world with his revelation. But instead my reaction to his information is outwardly innocuous. Inside, it's a little different. I try to soften the blow by telling him, “But thanks for telling me. I really mean that. What disturbs me more than the prints is that the AG would tell you to keep it quiet.”

  What the hell happened up there that night? I wonder.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  AN HOUR LATER McGee drives me back to the Holiday Inn. Then he turns around to head back up Third Street toward the courthouse. He's going to meet with Nathan Karge, to demand that Karge continue the Lee sentencing. The County Attorney will have no choice but to agree—if he doesn't, McGee will go to the judge with what we have learned. Although we have little in the way of actual evidence that could exonerate the Knapps—just the cord that might have been purchased by Heller and Brad Karge, and its use in the Calloway and Danning murders—it should be enough to ensure a continuance, or possibly even a mistrial, in order to allow the defense to lo
ok into it. Either way, Karge's aspirations to higher office will surely be affected. His rising star is about to become a black hole.

  During the mostly silent ride I asked McGee if he wanted me to come along, but he told me no, that I need sleep, rest, food, and to suit up before the summary judgment hearing just hours away this afternoon in Cheyenne. He felt that my being there would just piss Karge off. I couldn't argue with that. But I want to piss him off. I want to pay him back for what Willis and Bender did to me in the interrogation room. I want to see his face as he realizes that it is all unfolding—that he will never be governor once the Lee trial blows up in his face and I arrest his son for multiple murders.

  I stop before the door to my room and fumble in my pockets for the key. Even when I find it and slide it into the lock, I hesitate. I rub my face and push my hands through hair that is oily with sweat. Something is very wrong, I think, staring sightlessly at the blank orange door. It takes me a minute to realize what it is. Oso should be waiting for me on the other side of the door. The realization strikes me like a knee to the groin. After closing my eyes for a minute, willing myself to regain control, I turn the key in the lock and go in.

  The room is neat inside, having been recently cleaned. Obviously someone's already covering for Sierra Calloway. How easily we are all replaced and forgotten. My eyes are caught by the angry flash of the message light on the telephone, then the dog bowls stacked beside a twenty-pound bag of Purina. I walk past it all like a zombie, straight to the bathroom, where I peel off my jeans and shirt and use the toilet before stepping into the shower. My urine comes out bright red, courtesy of Bender's boots.

  The water blasts out of the cheap nozzle. It's so hot it turns my skin pink upon contact, but I don't feel its sting. I simply stand and let it wash over me. I sway involuntarily under the nozzle, rocking on my feet. Then, tearing upward from my stomach, the weakness overcomes me. First I crouch with my thighs against my chest and my palms on the shower floor. Then I roll back onto my buttocks and lean my back against the cool tile wall. Sounding as if it comes from a long ways away, I hear myself moan.

  I step out of the shower naked, clean, and empty. The sink and mirror are outside the bathroom, in an alcove off the main room. There I lean my wet hips against the porcelain counter and stare at myself in the mirror. The slightly blurry image is of a man who is almost a stranger to me. It isn't the reflection that I grew up with, that I spent more than a decade of adulthood with. My eyes are laced with red and sunk deeper than ever. The bruises on my face have turned a sickly yellow and blue. As if it had just happened yesterday, the long scar from cheekbone to lip is vivid and fresh. The cords of my neck stand out like twin ropes. Between the muscles on my stomach are lines that could have been cut by a knife. The weakness comes again, ripping through my gut, and I lean forward to press my forehead against the cool mirror.

  “Anton . . .”

  I whirl around at the sound, pressing off the sink counter with my hands. It's Rebecca. She's sitting on my bed, wearing the jeans and white blouse she had on when I saw her earlier at Sierra Calloway's trailer. Next to her is a tray with a sandwich and a glass of milk on it. I say nothing but pull a towel off the rack and wrap it around my waist.

  “Anton, I'm sorry, but I had to come. I'm worried about you. You look awful. I know you must feel awful too. You probably should see a doctor. Here, I brought you some food. You at least have to eat, and get some sleep.” She rises as she speaks and comes toward me, her arms outstretched and her own tired eyes sad. I stand still as she wraps her arms around me, her shirt soaking up the water that still drips from my chest.

  I feel my lungs constrict and my throat swell, as if again attempting to force tears out of my eyes. This simple kindness touches me more than grief, horror, outrage, or exhaustion. Just that, an act of compassion like a hug or the gift of food, almost overwhelms me.

  “I'm so sorry about Oso.”

  I put my arms around her and pull her hard against me as I feel her humid breath and her tears warm on my shoulder. Her lips touch my skin and some current from our hearts passes between us. I hold her with one hand low on her back and the other high. Not too tightly, but just enough so that it feels as if her body is coming into mine. I draw strength from her.

  When I finally let her go, I speak for the first time. “I'll be all right, Rebecca, but thank you. Thank you for everything. I'm going to eat this stuff you brought me and sleep now, just for a few hours anyway. Will you do me a favor and call me at noon? I've got to get up then and haul my tired ass to Cheyenne.”

  “It looked fine to me, Anton. Not too tired at all, just a little bruised,” she says, smiling faintly. “I'll call.”

  I awake to the ringing of the phone. I try to ignore it with my head sunk deep into a pillow. But even after the phone stops ringing, I can see in my mind the incessant flashing red light of the message indicator. And besides that, despite the utter exhaustion and grief, I wake up angry. My pulse beats too fast in my veins and my jaw aches from unconscious clenching. More sleep will have to wait.

  I had dreamt I was young and happy again, camping with my brother in the Bitterroot Mountains near my parents' rented cabin. We spent the night stretched out on insulated pads above the hard crust of the late-spring snow. When we sat up in our down bags and rubbed the sleep from our faces, we saw the impossibly wide tracks in the snow all around us. They were enormous, far bigger than two hands together, the fingers stretched as wide as we could hold them. Grizzly tracks.

  “Big sucker, che. Could have tried to eat us,” Roberto said.

  “Wonder why he didn't?”

  “'Cause we would've kicked his ass.” He was grinning, excited that death had been so near.

  “Yeah, right. The two of us would have been like a snack, 'mano.”

  We studied the tracks, rearing up like caterpillars in our sleeping bags so as not to leave their warmth. Roberto pointed to where the tracks came right to the head of his sleeping bag. The massive grizzly had stood right over him and inhaled his scent. “Check it out, Ant,” he said. “Bear probably kissed me in my sleep.”

  I could see in his eyes that he felt the bear had blessed him. And I was jealous there weren't any tracks by my head.

  I sit up and feel the damp towel under the covers, still around my waist. Deliberately, I look at Oso's bowls and the short nylon leash that lies on the carpet beside them. It stokes the anger—it allows me to get up. I swing my feet out of the bed and pick up the phone to check my messages.

  An automated woman's voice tells me that I have eleven new messages. Too many. I fight the temptation to simply hang up the phone, ignoring them all.

  The first, the voice says, came in at ten thirty A.M. on Tuesday. I think back—that would have been shortly after I left for the Big Horn Mountains. I press the number 1 to hear the message. It is Lynn's voice. “Hey, Anton. Where you at, man? I've been looking for you for a couple of days now. Shit, you just love 'em and leave 'em or what?” She chuckles. “Sorry about the other message I left before, I was kind of pissed. Give me a call. There's something I need to talk to you about, dude. Call me.” I press 7 to erase the message.

  The second message was from later that same day and is also from Lynn. Her voice sounds strained. “Dude, where the fuck are you? Look, I really want to talk to you. Call me, please.” I erase that message as well.

  The third is from Kristi, made on Tuesday afternoon shortly after Lynn's second message. “Hey, Anton. Please give me a call. I'm really worried about you. We all heard what happened yesterday at the courthouse. I wanted to come over but Ross McGee wouldn't let me. The hospital says you left without checking out. That doesn't sound like a very good idea, buddy.” There's a short pause. “And Anton, you should get away for a while. Maybe that's what you're doing. Anyway, my folks have a place in the mountains near Steamboat. No one's using it this weekend, and I wanted to see if you'd go with me. I guess I'm asking you out on a date.” She laughs nervously. “Oh yeah
, one other thing. That girl named Lynn White from Laramie keeps calling here, asking for you. Is she some competition or what? Anyway, give her a call too. She sounds worried, just like me.” I erase that message too.

  The fourth message came in Wednesday morning at seven A.M., according to the automated voice. About the time I found Chris Braddock's body on the ledge. It's an older man's voice, stiff and official, the same voice that left the message at my office and that I had retrieved on the drive back from the Big Horns. “This is Captain John Tobias of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation calling for Special Agent Antonio Burns. I was told by your office I could reach you at this number. It is absolutely urgent that I speak with you immediately. Call me back as soon as you get this message.” He gives a number where he says he can be reached twenty-four hours a day. I write that down along with the man's name on the pad provided by Holiday Inn. Now I know roughly at what time Roberto escaped—sometime Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday morning. I play the message again to be sure of the time and write that and the date as well.

  The next message is again from Captain Tobias. “Agent Burns, do not ignore this message. It is imperative I speak to you immediately.” He again leaves a Colorado number.

  There are two more messages after that, both from Tobias, both even more insistent.

  Then one from my mother, long-distance from my grandfather's ranch in Argentina. I can tell from her voice that she's trying hard to sound unconcerned and simply exasperated, but the deep worry carries through in the undertones. For many years she has been trying to give up on Roberto, but has never come close to succeeding. And since the trouble in Cheyenne, I have been as much a worry to her as him. “Antonio, what is happening in Colorado?” she asks in Spanish. “People from there keep calling me about Roberto. The people say he is missing from Canon City. Do you know what is happening? They will not hurt him, will they? Your office says they do not know where you are either.”