The Edge of Justice

by Clinton McKinzie

  It takes me a minute to find my voice. “That the gun you used to kill my dog, Brad?” I manage after I calm myself.

  He laughs, his voice pitched high with the fever of methamphetamine. “Oh yeah, man. We blasted that sucker when we were looking for you up in the Horns. It was Billy pulling the trigger, though.”

  A gust of wind rises up behind him and blows the links of his hair straight out from his head. I feel it sweep through me too, fanning the carefully tended anger within me.

  “Where's Billy now, Brad?”

  “Gone climbing. He's taking Lynn on her last climb, he says. Dude's psychic or something—he said you'd be coming up here tonight, just like she would. So this is your last climb too. Hope it was fun, dude.”

  Heller has left him here to kill me, knowing I would come up to look for Lynn. The man does seem psychic, or at least perceptive and very smart. But there is a madness in his actions. He has nothing to gain anymore by killing me. The Sheriff's Office in Johnson County will still seek him for Chris Braddock's murder on the east face of Cloud Peak. Sheriff McKittrick will still hunt him for Sierra Calloway's murder even if the state office tries to let it go. I can sense that he has recognized me as the enemy from the start, just as I have recognized him. Even that first night at the bar there was a competitiveness between us, a need to dominate and destroy. I have always suspected Brad is just another of his disposable pawns, but a valuable one because of his paternity. And I think it is cowardice that made him leave Brad here to ambush me. I can't help but take some satisfaction in believing Heller's afraid to do it himself. The worst part, though, the part that makes me want to scream, is that he is going to succeed—Cecelia's .32 revolver is still under the seat in the truck and Brad is out of reach, fifteen feet away on the narrow ledge.

  “Where did he take her?” I ask. “In whose car? Yours?”

  “Yeah, they took my ride. But where? I dunno, dude. Somewhere insane I bet. Her last climb'll be really something, not a shitty little slab like yours. Billy has a sense of style when it comes to that,” he says admiringly.

  “This is yours, too, Brad,” I tell him as I get to my feet so I can at least die fighting. “There's enough evidence now to nail you for three murders: Kate Danning, Sierra Calloway, and Chris Braddock. My office knows about all of it. Tomorrow morning they're going to stop the Knapps' sentencing too and arrest your dad for obstruction of justice, malicious prosecution, and anything else they can think of. And they're going to take you down for Kimberly Lee. Make that four murders, Brad. You're the one who's going to be strapped to the gurney. You and your hero Billy.”

  “That's bullshit, man. You can't prove anything, and you can't fuck with my dad. He's the next governor—your boss!” He laughs.

  I shake my head sadly at him, my eyes fixed on his, ignoring the gun in his hand but trying to think of a way to get it from him. I talk as if I'm the one holding the gun, not the one having it pointed at me. “You're wrong. Karge is history as of tomorrow,” I lie. “And I've got the rope you used to cut down Chris. We know about the cords you and Heller bought in Buffalo. We know about the cords in Heller's basement. The same cords that were used on them all: Kimberly, Kate, and Sierra—”

  He is starting to jitter a little in the shadows when he interrupts, “No, man, no. I didn't do any of that. Heller did them by himself, I just waited outside.”

  “Your prints on the bottle, Brad. Along with Kate's blood. You hit her on the back of the head with it.”

  “You got that wrong, Agent. My dad smacked her with it. That's right, the future governor of Wyoming. He came up here that night wanting to talk with me about some shit he learned during the trial of those Knapp brothers. When he was looking at the Knapps' past convictions, he figured out the pipe'd come from the evidence locker. That the sheriffs planted that piece of shit to make their case a little better, and probably made up the confession too. Dad was starting to think maybe I'd had a part in it. So he came up where you just did and snuck up on us. Saw Billy and me with Kate. And Lynn, your little friend, fucked-up and screaming at Billy like a banshee. Man, she didn't like it one bit! But good old solid, straight-arrow Pop is the one who really freaked out, started spitting and swinging at us as we were workin' on her. Kate jumped up to get out of the way when he grabbed my bottle to hit Billy—he missed, smacked her on the head, and knocked her off the fucking cliff!”

  So Lynn was there. She lied to me. I can understand why, although I can't understand why she'd go back to Heller. But all the rest of it makes sense. I remember Dave Ruddick telling me about Nathan's fingerprints on the bottle, and then I think of Sierra Calloway's comment that Billy had been talking at Kate's funeral about how he owned the cops and the County Attorney. That he was untouchable. It all fits. Billy is the one who carefully stuck the bottle in the recess in the hidden cave. His own Get Out of Jail Free card.

  “Even if you didn't directly participate in the killings, it doesn't matter. All we have to do is prove that you knew about them and assisted before, after, or during. Then you're toast. And killing me's just going to up the dosage, Brad. Killing a cop is an automatic ride. You put the gun down and cooperate with me in stopping Heller, I'll do all I can to keep you off the gurney, see that you live.”

  He hesitates and the gun slowly lowers until it's pointing at my legs. But then he raises it again with a smile, aiming at my head. I've overplayed my hand.

  “Fuck it, dude,” he says. “I'm not ratting Billy out. I'll take my chances on the lope if it comes to that. Better to die than fade away.”

  I close my eyes for a minute and think of all the things left undone. Saving Lynn, stopping Heller, seeing Karge's downfall, avenging Oso, making love to Rebecca . . . the list is endless. I feel another gust of cool wind on my face and wait for the bullet to split my flesh and tumble me off the rock. Bending my knees, I ready myself to launch at him and with any luck take him over the edge with me.

  Rather than a gunshot, a voice from behind and above Brad breaks the silence. A dark silhouette is poised on a ledge over our heads. “You pull that trigger, you're going to die a real slow death, kid.” The shadow turns and hangs one-handed from the rock, pushing off the short, overhanging wall with the other, then drops as softly as a spider on an invisible silken thread onto the tiny, flat space behind Brad. I recognize the voice and feel a thrill come over me. My brother.

  Brad starts to turn toward him with the gun and I step forward. Before I get more than a step, though, he somehow sees my movement and whirls back to me. I can't imagine what Roberto's wraithlike appearance is doing to Brad's mind, scrambled with crank.

  “Who the fuck are you!” Brad shouts. “Come closer and I'll shoot the cop!”

  Roberto doesn't even slow. He comes along the narrow ledge behind Brad with a predatory grace. Talking while he moves, his voice is hypnotic in the night, even to me. “You think Heller's a badass, you little punk? You don't know what bad is. I beat men to death with my hands, not little girls. I've ripped a full-grown man's throat open with just a piece of glass and my fingers. I tore away his face with my teeth. I've leaned farther out over the edge than anything you can imagine. I've jumped off it a hundred times and always floated back. I can eat you and your pal Heller whole, kid. Bones, skin, muscle, and blood. I can chew you up and spit you out.”

  Brad's hand is shaking violently as he grips the pistol and struggles to keep it pointed at me.

  Still talking softly, Roberto comes up right behind him but doesn't touch him. My brother keeps talking with his lips almost against the back of Brad's throat, his voice now a whisper that the wind whips away before I can decipher the words. Brad's rattling so hard he is in danger of coming apart. Behind him I see my brother lift his powerful arm like a matador's short sword, then drive it into the side of Brad's neck as if he were plunging it home. Brad is slammed into the wall. My brother almost gently catches him before he bounces right off into the night. He sets him on the ledge. The gun in Brad's hand slides over
the side and clatters down the slab.

  “Jesus, bro,” I say.

  Roberto shrugs as if to lift the menace from his shoulders. But it doesn't work. Violence surrounds him like a dark cloak. “No worries, Ant. It's just yard talk, you know? Something you got to learn in the can to survive.”

  I move toward them carefully and put my fingers to Brad's throat, where he is slumped on the ground. I feel a fast pulse. “I hope you didn't break his neck. How long have you been up here?”

  “Ever since I split out of Canon City. I remembered you saying that you were doing some climbing up here at the 'Voo and figured it'd be a good place to hang until the heat's off and I can get down to Argentina. I hoped to spot you up here and blow your mind,” he says, chuckling. “You know, write you a letter and say I saw you or something. Instead I've just been watching these freaks dope up and talk about killing you.”

  “I need a rope to get him off of the ledge. Did you see one by the cave?”

  “Be right back, Ant.”

  Spiderlike, he effortlessly ascends the wall, moving up the short vertical sections between the ledges with a sure- and soft-footed elegance that awes me. His hands and feet seem to barely touch the rock as he glides up, somehow finding holds in the darkness. He disappears up into the night without a sound.

  While he is gone I pull my folded tie from my pocket and cinch it tight around Brad's slack wrists. By the time I'm done Roberto is already returning, floating down the wall with the same elegance. In the moonlight I can see a bright rope coiled and draped over his head and one shoulder. He helps me loop it over a thick, scrubby pine that juts out of a crack over our heads. I tie one end around Brad's waist, then set up a body belay with the other part of the rope that hangs from the tree. Unceremoniously, Roberto kicks Brad off the ledge and I start lowering his limp and jackknifed body to the ground. His feet and head strike first and I hear him moan.

  While I wrap the rope around my own body to rappel to the ground, Roberto down-climbs the scooped-out slab I nearly died on. He reaches the ground before I do.

  I manage to find my shoes and socks after feeling around in the dirt. I find the heavy pistol Brad dropped too. For a few moments I balance it in my hand, feeling Roberto's hard blue eyes on me. Finally I make a decision. “Want it?” I ask, holding it out to him. “You earned it.”

  He laughs and says, “You've stepped off the edge, 'mano. Offering an escaped murderer a gun!” Then he tsks his tongue against the roof of his mouth the way our mother used to do. “No thanks. I won't be needing it. Sometime tomorrow I'm catching a ride to the airport and a flight south. I'm going to do some climbing, take a stab at the clean life.”

  He throws Brad over his shoulder as lightly as if he were a coat. As we walk through the dark trees I'm fascinated, as always, by the way Roberto moves through the forest. Normally I feel at home in the backcountry, but I'm a clumsy foreigner compared to my brother. Even with a man's weight on his back he moves effortlessly. Roberto has always been at home in his body and with the environment around him. Utterly unself-conscious, he is a part of the earth rather than just a tourist. He moves with such grace that one wouldn't be surprised to see him walk through walls and rocks. Despite his insatiable appetites and urges, his cells are somehow more directly related to the dirt, the wind, and the trees. Once again, I feel a childhood envy. When we reach the truck I open the back door and Roberto dumps his load inside. I find my handcuffs under the seat and lock the unconscious young man's hands together, taking back my tie.

  Roberto flashes a grin at me in the darkness and holds out his own hands, palms upturned and wrists close together.

  “Sorry. I only have one set of cuffs,” I tell him.

  I put my arms around him to say goodbye and feel the thick slabs of prison muscle on his back. A vision of Ross McGee enters my mind for some reason and I recite his mantra to my brother: “Do the right thing, bro—don't fuck around.” But the words sound corny from my mouth.

  Roberto pushes his hands through my hair playfully, amused, and disappears into the blowing trees as if he had never been there at all.

  I need somewhere to stash Bradley Karge, and the Albany County jail is definitely out of the question. As is DCI's holding facility in Cheyenne. I have him handcuffed and gagged with a wool sock and some duct tape I found among Oso's shedded hair under the seat. We sit quietly in the Land Cruiser while I think. Brad's waking up; he attempts to cough as strands from my dead dog's thick hair scratch his throat. I half hope he will choke on them. That would be justice of a sort.

  Finally I put the truck in gear and begin bouncing over the dirt roads. I head north, winding among the granite towers that are hidden by the night. After twenty minutes we hit the Happy Jack Road that meanders through the mountains separating Laramie and Cheyenne. Every now and then I stop to study a map from the glove box, check to make sure I can reach Laramie County and Sheriff McKittrick without straying back over the Albany County line. I don't want to drive through that jurisdiction with this particular passenger.

  THIRTY

  NOT KNOWING WHERE else to go, I return to the Holiday Inn from Laramie County. Sheriff McKittrick had been happy enough to hold on to Brad, and he still had Cindy Topper in protective custody. He told me that she was at home with his wife. “Sweet girl,” he said. “She's scared shitless that the same guys are going to come for her.” With good reason, I agreed, but wasn't so sure about the sweet part.

  I think he was delighted that I was doing all his work for him in catching the murderers of Sierra Calloway, even letting him have the credit of holding Brad in his Cheyenne jail rather than the cells nearby at DCI. And I think he was surprised I brought Brad in alive. “Your reputation's slipping, Agent QuickDraw Burns,” he said. “Maybe you ain't a killer.” He promised to keep the news of the arrest quiet until the next morning. I asked him to do that more out of fear that my suspended authority would be disclosed than to keep the media at bay.

  I call Kristi's home. Her voice is anxious when she answers the phone. “Anton, what's going on? Ross is in the hospital, and everyone's saying you've been suspended, that they're talking of filing those charges again.”

  “I need some serious help, Kristi. And I can't explain all the reasons why right now. Just that they're trying to screw with me so I can't do anything to postpone the Knapps' sentencing tomorrow morning. The Knapps didn't do it, by the way. They didn't kill that girl. A guy named Billy Heller did with some help from the Karges.”

  “Those guys you had me pull the records on?”

  “Right. They set the Knapp brothers up, and the sheriff and County Attorney went along with it. And they've killed or had a role in the killing of three other people that I know of since then, trying to shut them up. They're about to do a fourth. What I need is help, a BOLO out on a tan Jeep Wrangler registered in Wyoming to Bradley Karge. There's a good chance it's at a climbing area somewhere within a hundred miles or so of Laramie. Either in eastern Wyoming or maybe northern Colorado.”

  There is a long pause on the other end of the phone. Finally Kristi says, “Anton, I don't know if I can do that, with you being suspended and all. I'd lose my job. I'm sorry, buddy.”

  After another long moment I ask, “How do you know I'm suspended?”

  “Everybody knows it. Everybody's been talking about it.”

  “But do you know officially?”

  “You mean, like, have they sent out an e-mail or a memo or something. No, nothing like that.”

  “Then I'm telling you what you've heard is just rumor, okay? I'm not suspended. You can tell anyone who asks that I told you that. I still have my badge.” Since DCI has someone at a communications desk twenty-four hours a day to assist the agents in the field, I ask who is working the desk tonight.

  “A guy named Ted,” she says, her voice getting excited once again, “and he's got a serious crush on me. He's been trying to get in my pants for months.”

  “Get him to put out the BOLO. No one will even
know about it till morning, and then you guys can just say I lied to you about my status. Okay? Will you do it?”

  “Okay, buddy, you got it. But you owe me. I can already think of a few ways I'll make you pay. . . .”

  A little while later the phone rings.

  “We got a confirmation,” a man's voice over the phone says. Ted. “Tan Jeep Wrangler, Wyoming plate number 7–528. At Longs Peak trailhead. That's outside Estes, Colorado, Agent. It's a national park. The ranger on duty said the Jeep's been there all day.”

  “Did he check the climber's log?” I ask. When the voice at DCI headquarters doesn't immediately respond, I quickly explain, “There's a sign-in book at the trailhead where climbers write their name and intended route.”

  “Hang on, I've got the ranger on the other line.”

  There is a click and music begins to play over the phone. I listen in annoyance to an instrumental version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's “Bad Moon Rising.” The song seems a little too appropriate. I look out the window and see the turquoise water of the swimming pool. In the luminescence of the underwater lights I can see that the wind is whipping up small wavelets. If the pool were just a little larger, there'd be whitecaps. I turn out the lights in my room and look out past the curtains again, up at the sky. The stars and planets are clear, but there is an ominous, hazy ring like a halo around the moon. A sure indicator that a serious storm is brewing. I flip the inside lights back on and curse to myself.

  With the phone gripped between my ear and shoulder, I lift the lids off the crates of climbing gear that are still pushed against one wall. I kick off my pants and begin to tug on a pair of fleece tights.

  The music clicks off and the voice returns.