Dr. Sanger had obviously never been turned down by a man before, or perhaps she'd never known a real man before. Most certainly she'd never lost a fight—or perhaps anything else, for that matter—in her life. He guessed she came from money; old or new, it mattered little to him. She was white and upper-crust. Used to getting her way, having others do what she said was best. Spoiled, well-off, no dirt ever beneath the nails.
Lucas thought momentarily of his parents, an alcoholic father who provided nothing and a mother who slaved at two jobs to provide Lucas with creature comforts and books to feed his insatiable appetite. They had little else besides corn and books in the house, and one day his father, in a drunken rage, made a bonfire of Lucas's books. It was then, after he'd struck his father and almost killed him with a single blow, that the nearly full grown Lucas knew it was time to leave the reserve and his home, his mother and his grandfather, to seek a new life in the larger world. He found himself in downtown Dallas, where he applied to the police academy, sailed through the tests, and was soon a rookie in a patrol car.
At that time, the Dallas PD had been delighted to place an Indian on the force: It looked good on the books, having a Native American alongside the Chicano and Black officers. After a series of failed partnerships, he was put into a car with Wallace Jackson.
Lucas now spied a Texaco gas station, pulled over, and went inside, asking for the newspapers. He wanted any back issues the Star Mart might carry, as well as today's paper. They had two back issues and today's. He purchased them, along with a bag of chips, and stared out at a rust bucket just pulling into the station. Something told him that the two characters inside the car were hardened rednecks who were out for more than just a pleasant drive this morning.
He'd already paid, and the cashier looked curiously at him now, wondering what else he wanted. “I'm with the Houston police, son,” he told the young man behind the counter. “You got a couple of toughs coming through the door who look a bit suspicious to me. Don't argue with them if they want you to open the cash box. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got a back room, a john, anything where I can duck outta sight?”
“Yeah, straight back,” came the nervous reply. “Should I call the cops?”
“Not yet. No crime's been committed,” Lucas replied over his shoulder as he went for the back room. He positioned himself behind the door.
The two scruffy-looking men who came through the door looked as if they'd stepped from a bayou swamp. Each wandered different aisles and sections of the store, one passing near where Stonecoat lay in wait. The man reeked of booze and looked as if he'd been snaking or frog-gigging or involved in an old-fashioned crawdad hunt the night before. Both men had forgotten how to bathe or shave or trim hair. But it was more than their appearance and smell that alerted Lucas to their purpose; it had been their actions, the way they moved, the shifting of their eyes since the moment they had driven up. Best-case scenario, they'd come in to shoplift, he told himself now, since they were browsing. Worst case—but the thought remained incomplete when the man closest to the register suddenly pulled out a .22 and shouted for the money. The second man was hopping, hyper, a gun in his hand, too. It looked like his first job ever. He let his partner do all the talking while he grabbed at the bills in the register.
“On the floor, faggot! Now!” ordered the guy in charge.
Both men were white. The younger one called the boss Gerald, asking if they should rifle the clerk's pockets, saying there looked to be only a few hundred dollars in the register.
“Do it, pinhead!” shouted the boss.
Stonecoat saw this as his chance. He silently moved to within inches of the brains of the outfit and leveled his gun against the man's temple.
'Tell your pal to toss his gun over the counter and squat back there, friend. Police! Now do it!”
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.”
“Shut up and do as I said!”
“Mickey... Mickey, some cop out here's got a gun at my freaking brain, so do what he says!”
But Mickey had other ideas. He rose with the clerk held in front of him, his gun at the young man's head. He somehow had gotten some nerve. “Looks like a Mexican standoff. You blow Gerald away, I kill the kid,” he said. “Otherwise, you drop it and you let us walk out of here.”
“No way I'm dropping my weapon, mister,” replied Stonecoat. “You let the kid go, and I'll let you two walk, but I'm not so trusting that I'm going to be at the mercy of you two without my weapon. Is that clear?”
“You mean that?” asked Gerald.
“We can't believe he's going to just let us go, Gerald,” replied Mickey, whose gun hand was shaky at best.
“I'll lower my gun,” suggested Stonecoat. “And you let the kid go, and you two can get back in your car and go.”
“With the money,” negotiated Mickey.
Lucas hesitated, pretending to give this serious thought. “Okay... all right, with the money.”
“Deal... deal,” shouted Gerald, reaching about the floor for his gun, which Lucas held firmly beneath his boot.
“Let it up, man!” Gerald ordered.
“No, I can't have two guns trained on me,” Lucas coolly answered.
Gerald raised up again and shouted, “Come on, Mickey, let's get out of here. Now!”
Gerald hurried over to the counter, shoved the kid away, scooped up all the money, and started out, while Mickey's gun remained firmly trained on Lucas, who had lowered his own weapon. For a second, Mickey stared down the top of the barrel, itching to fire, to kill the obstacle before him.
Lucas calmly said, “Don't do anything stupid, Mickey. Don't do anything you'll regret for the rest of—”
“Shut up! Just shut up, man!”
“Lucas. My name's—”
“Shut up!”
“Come on, Mickey! Let's go, damn you!” cried Gerald, who was halfway out the door as another patrol car approached. “Give Gerald his gun back, now!” shouted Mickey at Lucas.
“All right... all right, kid.” Lucas booted the .22 across the floor toward the door and Gerald, who crouched for it, his hands already full. At the instant he kicked, Lucas brought his gun up and Mickey fired, the bullet creasing Lucas's ear, bloodying his shoulder, while Lucas's bullet sent Mickey sprawling into the cigarette display behind him.
Gerald, still crouching for his gun, was now frozen in that crouch, looking like some stone gargoyle.
“Go ahead, Gerald,” said Stonecoat. “It's your turn now.”
Gerald's mouth had fallen open after repeated shouts of Mickey's name. It was almost certain they were related, perhaps cousins, down on their luck. Gerald had gotten himself into much more than he'd bargained for, and young Mickey had “proven” himself a man—proven nothing, in the phony ritual of the street.
Gerald crawled toward his friend or relative, whimpering, but Lucas grabbed him and yanked viciously, sending him far across the room and ordering him to stay put there on the floor. He had taken charge of Gerald's gun again, and he wasn't sure what he might find behind the counter. The clerk had raced from the store and across the street to a Jiffy Mart to dial 911 there.
“Now, Mickey, if you can hear me,” began Stonecoat, “I don't want to hurt you anymore, so don't do anything more stupid than you already have here this afternoon. You got that? Answer me! Answer me!”
But only silence answered from behind the counter.
Lucas rounded the counter with great care and caution; Mickey still had a gun back there with him somewhere. But one look told him that the young man was unconscious and bleeding profusely from his shoulder, where the bullet from Stonecoat's .38 had penetrated and exited his back.
“Damn it, Gerald, he's bleeding to death! Get me one of those trash bags off the shelf! Hurry!”
Gerald instantly reacted, racing over with a box of bags.
“Open 'em, damn it!”
Gerald slammed a fist into the box and tore out a large plastic bag,
black and shimmering.
“Whataya doing?”
“Locate some string, rope, fishing string, anything we can use to tie with.”
Gerald did as instructed, racing about the store for the needed items even as a siren blew into the lot outside. He rushed back to Lucas with a large ball of twine, kite string.
By now Stonecoat had ripped the bag with his Bowie knife, which he kept in a scabbard in the middle of his back, and he now quickly forced a large section of the black vinyl into both the front and back wounds to stanch the flow of blood. He now worked furiously to tie the string round and round the shoulder to hold the plastic pads in place.
“Whataya doing?” Gerald asked again.
“This will help keep the blood flow in check, help the coagulation.”
“Damn, you sure shot hell out of my brother-in-law; why'd you have to shoot him? All over a measly hundred dollars! You had to force it, didn't you? Damn you cops. Is he going to die?”
“You two come in here using deadly force, placing people's lives in danger, and you're shifting the blame for your friend's condition onto me? Listen, Gerald, you got no one but yourselves to blame for this goddamned mess.”
“How'd he miss you at such close range?” Gerald wondered aloud.
“His hand was shaking like a leaf when he pulled the trigger. He might just as well have put a bullet through my head or heart. Did you talk him into this stupid business?”
Now the paramedics rushed in alongside uniformed police, who ordered Stonecoat up and away from the shooting victim.
“I'm a cop with the Thirty-first,” he announced, flashing his badge. “Best call my captain, Phil Lawrence, and he'll take it from there. You men want to take this punk into custody for attempted armed robbery?” He shoved Gerald toward the uniformed men.
“Be glad to.”
“Hey, you're new with the Thirty-first, aren't you?” asked the other.
“Yeah, first year.”
“Way to go, rookie. Looks like a righteous collar and shoot. You keep up the good work and you'll see promotion soon.”
“Just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
The clerk had returned through the other side door and he piped up, saying, “He saved my life, and he read these goons like a book; he knew they were going to rob the place before they ever got into the store, before they ever got out of their car out there.”
“Impound the vehicle, will you?” Stonecoat asked the two uniformed cops, who appeared to be unsure about what to do next.
The paramedics shouted for everyone to get out of their way as they hoisted Mickey from the ground on a stretcher and carried him from the store, one of them congratulating Stonecoat on saving the kid's life. “Good improvised dressing! Did the trick. His vitals aren't great, but they're better than they might have been.”
The two uniformed cops took Gerald toward their waiting squad car. Other police vehicles had arrived, strobe lights flashing. One patrol sergeant, who apparently knew the terrain well, huddled with the cops in the know, then he came into the store to find Lucas.
“I'm Brady, Jim Brady,” he told Stonecoat. “Watch commander for this area. Seems you're a little ways off from the Thirty-first, officer.
What's your name, officer?”
“Lucas, Lucas Stonecoat.”
“Rookie with the Thirty-first, my men tell me. Oh, yeah... think I've heard some talk about you.
Used to be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, didn't you?”
“Yeah, yeah... that's right, Sergeant,
but I don't see where that has anything to do with this occurrence here today.
“I sure hope not.” He sized up Lucas, circling him and talking the whole time. “IAD's on the way. Your captain's on his way, too.”
“It was a righteous shoot, sir,” replied Lucas, knowing the man wanted to hear him say the word sir.
EIGHT
Lucas had to admit that what had begun as a dismal, uneventful day had quickly transmogrified into an exciting, exhilarating and challenging day after all. He'd met a vivacious woman who was passionate about her work— perhaps too passionate about her work—had visited the animals in the zoo, had foiled a robbery attempt by two other animals, and what's more, he had been cheered to see his captain come straight to the Texaco station and back him one hundred percent. Lawrence had done all he could to shield his new recruit from the onslaught of Internal Affairs detectives, a breed of cop always anxious for a scandal. It appeared that Captain Lawrence wasn't half so bad as Dr. Sanger had made him out to be. Whatever personal and professional differences existed between Sanger and Lawrence, Lucas was sure of one thing: He didn't want to get in between a rock and a hard place.
Lucas now pulled into a parking spot at the rear of the Thirty-first, near a back door that would take him into the precinct without his having to pass either the sergeant's cage or the squad room. He wasn't anxious to face his big Irish sergeant just now, nor the detectives and officers who would want all the dope on what went down at the gas station. Word got around a precinct faster than a hairdresser's.
Lucas now scooped up his assorted newspapers and headed toward the building and back to the Cold Room, where he had a couple more hours to kill before going off duty. The newspaper stories on the Mootry case would keep him occupied till then, he was sure. Maybe he'd get through this day after all.
He quickly located the staircase that took him down into the bowels of the old structure and to the Cold Room, the stack of Houston Chronicles and Star-Standards under his arm.
Reopening the dank room, he found it a stone coffin. Looking around at his small kingdom, a dungeon in the belly of the Thirty-first Precinct, wondering if every goddamned precinct in the lousy city had a Cold Room, he mentally reconsidered Dr. Sanger's offer with a glacial, determined eye. On the one hand, he told himself, he had a great deal more to lose than did Dr. Sanger in sticking his neck out on a case he had no business on; on the other hand, what had he to lose? His dark little castle of moldy case files, the faceless, lost orphans of murder dating back to the turn of the century?
Still, it would require some quiet deliberation. He'd have to weigh all the facts, review the information on the Mootry case, see what if anything it had to do with the case files Dr. Sanger had mentioned. Still, he was no one's fool. He realized how crazy it'd be to team up with Meredyth Sanger. “What does she know about criminal investigation anyway?” he asked himself. Still, she could be his ticket out of here, if not for good, then at least during their investigation into this matter together. And what might that lead to? he wondered. There was no telling.
He suddenly slumped into the shocked and protesting chair, its piercing wail an ear-shattering banshee scream that could curdle the blood of the toughest cop in the precinct. He imagined it must be echoing through the heart of the old building and hurting everyone else's ears and teeth as much as his own. Christ, am / getting that heavy? He silently wondered.
As comfortable as he was going to get, he flicked on the swivel lamp and scanned the papers for all the news on Charles D. Mootry, Esquire, now deceased. After three-quarters of an hour spent scanning the various articles he'd collected, he decided aloud, “Not much more than what Meredyth had to say has gotten into the press.” This was true so far as he could determine from the articles read, but the case itself was rather an incredible one, something for Gary Larson's Far Side or Ripley's Believe It or Not.
It had all the earmarks of a Movie of the Week, too.
He next dug out the file that Dr. Sanger had carelessly tossed below his desk lamp early that morning. At first he just picked at the file the way he might a blemish on his skin, and he helplessly wondered how much of the file material she'd duplicated on the station Xerox. He finally, without enthusiasm, thumbed the file open and peered at the police reports and ghastly photos she had been playing with. Inside the innocent-looking, cream-colored manila folder, now yellow with age, an abhorrent world of black-and-white cri
me scene photos stared back, like grinning devils, displaying broken and irreparable lives; lives lost to the ultimate discontinuity: murder.
The older case file held a nightmare similar to the Mootry affair; in fact, it was shockingly similar to what had occurred in Bay town, where Mootry's body had been discovered, but this was a case in Sugar Land, and this one was—by police file standards—ancient, dated 1986. One of the ads clinging to the news clippings he found said that gasoline was eighty-seven cents a gallon. President Ronald Reagan was in office; the paper was filled with news of an armed U.S. strike against Libya, this after several terrorist bombings Libya was believed connected to. Ferris Bueller's Day Off was playing at the movies and Me and My Girl topped the musicals list. The largest U.S. corporation according to Fortune was General Motors, and a dispute was waged over AIDS virus research in which the Patent and Trademark office designated the Pasteur Institute of Paris as the senior party rather than the U.S. National Institutes of Health, in the matter of the first AIDS blood test. At stake were millions of royalty dollars to be earned by the use of the test.
Stonecoat could only recall that it was the year that the North American Soccer League went belly-up with great financial losses to all involved. This memory triggered his recollection of several more events in '86 that he had taken particular note of. It was the year the Chicago Bears defeated the New England Patriots to become world champions in Super Bowl XX. It was the year Ivan Boesky agreed to pay the government one hundred million dollars as a penalty for illegal insider trading, while Congress voted to make the rose the official U.S. flower, a choice debated off and on for a hundred years. Roger Clemens, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, started the season with thirteen straight wins—only the seventh man in history to do so; the World Series was lost by the Boston Red Sox, won by the New York Mets in a stunning upset. Len Bias, star forward for the University of Maryland, died of a heart attack reportedly brought on by the use of cocaine at a party celebrating his signing a contract with the Boston Celtics; the space shuttle Challenger exploded seventy-four seconds after liftoff at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including civilian Christa McAuliffe, thirty-seven, a Concord, New Hampshire, schoolteacher, the first private citizen chosen for a space shuttle flight. On August 20 the third worst murder spree in U.S. history took place in Edmond, Oklahoma, when Patrick Henry Sherrill shot and killed fourteen of his former coworkers, wounded six others, and then killed himself, after losing his post office job. In Leicestershire, England, Dr. Alec Jeffreys had discovered genetic fingerprinting, and the test for DNA evidence was put to work for the first time on a criminal case the following year. And the first American Indian to become a Roman Catholic bishop, the Reverend Donald E. Pelotte, forty-one, was ordained in Gallup, New Mexico.
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