Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted

by Robert J. Crane

“That’s one word for it,” Lauren said. “Busted.” She was still calm, determined not to throw a white trash scene here on the front lawn, a hissy fit of epic proportions. “‘Fucked’ would be another.”

  Molly’s sheet-white face reddened and changed into a sneer. “What?”

  “I said you’re fucked.” Lauren closed the car door gently as she heard the motor die. “Screwed. Nailed. Boned. I can go on, if you want, there’s really no shortage of euphemisms to cover how shafted you are, kid.”

  “It’s nice how they all tie right to the same act,” Molly said, and she folded her arms and looked away. Down the street and into the dark, like she was gonna run for it. Her body showed no sign of tension; just the opposite, in fact. She was braced for the tirade she seemed sure was coming.

  “It seemed appropriate, what with you sneaking back into your window at this hour,” Lauren said, meeting her with folded arms of her own. She was in scrubs, her running clothes a write-off with all the blood on them. It was like she could still smell it right now, though. “Or were you just somewhere innocent, whiling away the dull hours after curfew?”

  “I don’t technically have a curfew,” Molly said with a sideways, smug smile. “You probably should have set one, huh?”

  “It hadn’t really been necessary until now,” Lauren said, hearing her voice rise on that last point. “My honor roll student daughter was always responsible enough that I didn’t manage her life in the micro—”

  “Or the macro,” Molly said under her breath, stepping Lauren’s irritation to eleven.

  “I figured you were so good at doing what was expected of you that you didn’t need a warden,” Lauren said.

  “Who are you kidding? Grandma Vera was the warden,” Molly said. “You weren’t even on the parole board.”

  “I like how we went from a sex metaphor to prison ones,” Lauren said. “I’m pretty sure you can see where the natural progression is gonna take this next.”

  “Yeah, it’s an episode of Orange is the New Black around here,” Molly shot back. “Are we done yet?”

  “Oh, you’re done,” Lauren said. “You are. Done.”

  “Okay,” Molly said, uncaring. She snugged her arms tight around her. “Then I’m going to bed.” She started forward, eyes rolling automatically and giving Lauren a few feet of berth as she passed.

  “You’re grounded for a month,” Lauren said.

  “Fine,” Molly said, but her voice had changed. “Whatever.” She disappeared under the carport.

  “It amazes me how she can say ‘whatever’ in the same tone I use for ‘Bless your heart,’” Vera said, still leaning on the open door of her car.

  “And the same way the rest of us say ‘fuck you,’” Lauren replied, staring under the carport after her daughter.

  “Mmm,” her mother said. “It was a multipurpose expression from a gentler age.”

  Lauren just stood, staring straight ahead as she heard the door to the house slam. “Do you think this is gonna make any difference?”

  Her mother eased up by her side, a presence she could feel as the wind blew a little cooler. “Did it for you any of the times I did the same?”

  Lauren just stared. “No.”

  “Well, then probably not,” her mother said, and patted her on the arm reassuringly. “But bless your heart for trying.”

  Lauren felt the nasty frown take over as she watched her mother shuffle inside without a backward look. “Bless your heart, too,” she muttered, but it didn’t sound nearly as sweet when she said it.

  ***

  “Take I-75 south to Chattanooga,” Alison said from the back seat. “Then it’s I-59 into Alabama, I think.”

  “Oh, you think so?” Hendricks asked, a little mocking, into the town car’s warm air. He was a little jumpy in the front seat, holding the steering wheel. Duncan had waved him to the driver’s side and gotten in the passenger door, leaving Hendricks—the only one in the car without a valid driver’s license—to take the wheel. Alison had gone for the back seat like it just made sense. It did make an odd amount of sense to Hendricks, kind of a weird instinctual thing, but he could no more explain why it made sense than he could explain why a redheaded hooker seemed to know the answers to questions no living person should.

  “Yes,” Alison replied, but she wasn’t snippy about it. He caught a glimpse of her in the rearview, messing around with that honey blond hair she had hanging all about. She was still holding something back. He knew it and she knew he knew it, but she was just hanging onto it. Woman’s prerogative, he supposed, not quite sure how to approach it just yet.

  The car made the turn onto the interstate real smooth. It hadn’t been that long since Hendricks had driven, but he was a little rusty. The last time he’d driven on a regular basis, his vehicle of choice had been a Humvee. Before that, it had been a pickup truck back in Wisconsin. Every now and again, he wondered idly what had happened to that truck.

  “So we’re riding into danger,” Duncan said, “but we don’t know what kind.”

  “Sounds like a happy day, don’t it?” Hendricks asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

  “As joyous as any occasion can be,” Duncan replied, and Hendricks was not quite sure if he was being facetious. “What’s the deal with this town?” That question was directed to the back seat.

  “What makes you think I know anything about it?” Alison asked, almost innocent. Almost.

  Hendricks caught Duncan pointing a finger at him. “He suggested you did.”

  Hendricks kept his hands on the wheel, resisted the urge to throw them off to make a gesture to protest his innocence. “Starling suggested it, I’m just passing it along to the committee for consideration.”

  Alison stared down at her lap, Hendricks could see that much in the rearview. “I’ve been there before. The town’s wrecked, all right.”

  “Define ‘wrecked,’” Duncan said.

  “Burned,” Alison said. “Filled with creatures of the sort you deal with for your job.”

  “Ah ha!” Hendricks crowed. “You knew about demons before I even came to town!”

  “Of course I knew about demons before you came to town,” Alison said flatly. “I knew what they were when they came busting through the door of my apartment. I couldn’t believe they were there, but I knew what they were. Do you think it’s a normal reaction to follow your husband around with a big bore rifle when you think he’s just been attacked by psychopathic meth dealers?”

  “No.” Hendricks cast a weary eye into the mirror, receiving nothing in return. She was still looking down, and her voice was consequently muffled. “But I’m not sure it’s a normal reaction to tote a .50 around in response to demons, either.”

  “But a smart one,” Duncan said sagely.

  “You knew about these things, you got into the fight, and you were just gonna … what? Keep it quiet?” Hendricks asked. “Follow Arch around and provide covering fire as needed?”

  “Somethin’ like that,” Alison said, still muffled.

  “Why didn’t you tell him you knew?” Duncan asked.

  “Why is how I conduct my marriage any of your business?” Her voice was sharp.

  “Maybe let’s focus on what matters here,” Hendricks said. “What about Hobbs Green? What are we gonna find there?”

  “A burned-up town,” Alison said. The shrug was implied in her tone. “There was a survivor last time I was there, but this was years ago. Kinda doubt she’ll still be lurking around. Not exactly the friendly type, either.”

  “What was she doing there then?” Duncan asked.

  “Living life,” Alison said, “such as it was. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her. Got a good idea of what she had surrounding her—demons and such. Left before it got too messy.”

  “She have a nice standard of living?” Hendricks asked, sending a smirk at Duncan, who did not respond. “Parking her flag in a demon-torched town?”

  “Do you?” Alison sent right back at him. “Hoppi
ng from cheap motel to cheap motel?”

  Hendricks felt a little zing as that one grazed him. “Sometimes I upgrade to a flophouse.”

  “Here’s the question that’s been nettling me since we met, demon hunter,” Alison stopped focusing on her lap and leaned forward to place her hands on the back of the front seat. “Are you really in Midian to save the town? Or do you just want to kill demons?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Hendricks brushed it off, looking at Duncan with a “Can-you-believe-this-shit?” look.

  “Probably a serious one,” Duncan said.

  Hendricks felt that one scrape him harder than the comment about his living arrangements. “What the hell are you here for, Mr. Demon? To keep the status quo so as not to disrupt the market price for human meat?”

  “Wouldn’t want the price of hindquarter to go too high,” Duncan said. “Some poor huagh’tii in the Kentucky backwoods might not be able to afford to feed its litter.”

  “And you ask me if I’m here to save the town?” Hendricks asked, turning his head slightly to look at Alison.

  She just stared back, cool. “He’s a demon. I know what to expect from him, I think.”

  “I wonder if you do,” Hendricks said, guiding the car through the night. He could see Arch’s headlights behind him and hoped the deputy was enjoying his nice, quiet drive.

  13.

  Arch pulled into the hospital parking lot forty-five minutes later. He stopped the car and just sat there after he’d pulled the keys from the ignition, feeling the weight of the married key and fob between his fingers as he stared up at the lighted windows of the Red Cedar Medical Center. A hospital by any other name, he figured.

  The nurses all saw his uniform, and it activated that extra solicitousness that came with the vague and insubstantial threat of arrest. Or maybe it was just a desire to help those who protected society. Whatever the case, Arch was directed to Erin’s room with little trouble. He had figured she might be in surgery but she wasn’t; she’d been stuck in a private room off the ICU all by herself, with monitors adding their subtle beeps to indicate she was, indeed, still alive.

  The wheeze of the machine helping her breathe was as regular as the beeping, and she had tubes running every which way to and from her. It wasn’t hard to find the IV tree, nor replace the bag subtly and quickly; a simple snap of the plastic fasteners put the new one on and let him pull the old one off. It was easy, even for a layman like Arch. He stepped into the bathroom and drained the old bag by squeezing it into the toilet, then washed it off and wiped it down before dropping it into the trashcan and covering it with paper towels. Better safe than sorry.

  He heard movement outside, and the hammering in his ears made him worry for a split second about the danger of a heart attack. He was done, the job was finished, and all that was left was escape. He had felt surprisingly little emotion throughout the process, not equating the thing lying out there with tubes running in and out of it with Erin Harris, the bright, vivacious deputy who had thoughts and feelings and ambitions, and who had spent enough nights in Fast Freddie’s to qualify for a frequent flyer card, if they’d had such a thing.

  Looking in the bathroom mirror, Arch took a moment to compose himself. His face was drenched in sweat, whether from the hot, late summer night or the stress of the deception inherent in his mission, he couldn’t say. He wiped his dark brow with a paper towel and watched it fall into the metal trashcan, adding another shovelful to the grave of the old IV bag. He took a breath and heard it, a strangled moan from his own throat that made him sound like he’d exerted himself running a marathon or something.

  He pulled open the door to the room and saw Nicholas Reeve waiting for him there. His thudding heart became a booming one, and he hoped he controlled his reaction better than he felt like he had.

  “Arch,” Reeve said to him. The sheriff was turned away from him, giving him his left shoulder and only a half glance as he remained facing toward Erin’s bed.

  “Sheriff,” Arch said, a little formally, and with his voice a little high to his own ears. “You just checking in on her, too?”

  “Figured somebody ought to,” Reeve said. “Her momma and daddy are out of town, trying to catch a flight back from Sacramento or some such place. Of course, her brothers are all gone, too, away in various corners of the map. Sounds like they’ll be a while getting here, if at all.”

  “Huh,” Arch said in muted acknowledgment. If it’d been him in the bed instead of Erin, he imagined only his in-laws would be around for it. Them and Alison and Reeve.

  “How long you been here?” Reeve asked. His head was slightly bowed, like he was in prayer, and he did not look at Arch as he spoke.

  “Few minutes,” Arch said. “Not long at all. She going in to surgery?”

  “I guess they stitched up all they could stitch up,” Reeve said. “They did a …” Even without turning, Arch could see Reeve’s brow crumple as he tried to recall, “some sort of … well, they pumped fluid into her belly, and it came out not bloody, which is good. So now she’s just got a lot of exterior wounds and some broken bones and a head injury to beat the band.” The sheriff made a slight slurping noise as he licked his lips. “Even without the threat of internal injuries, I guess she’s running against the odds here.”

  Arch felt his eyes inadvertently creep toward the IV bag he’d just hung. “Doesn’t sound too promising.”

  “No,” Reeve said, “it doesn’t.”

  Arch waited for an accusation, for elaboration, for anything. It did not come. He shuffled away from the bathroom door, heading for the other side of Erin’s hospital bed. The main lights were off, only a dim incandescent overhead bulb was shining on the scene. He could see the shadows on her face, on Reeve’s face, from the solitary light. The sheriff’s brow, in particular, still looked lined like something had dug trenches across it, shadowed in a darkness so deep he could not see how far down they went. “About what happened—”

  “You don’t want to start swimming across that particular river at the moment, Arch,” the sheriff said, clipping him off.

  Arch waited, mouth slightly agape, his bottom teeth testing his lip. He fought off the urge to bite in nervousness. “Pardon me?”

  Reeve’s eyes lifted off the near-lifeless body on the bed and searched him. “Rule number one when you’re in a deep hole is stop digging your ass deeper and put down the shovel.”

  Arch swallowed, he hoped unnoticeably. “I don’t understand.”

  “You sure you want to take that tack?” Reeve asked. He still held himself amazingly still, almost inscrutable.

  “What tack?” Arch asked, holding back that ounce of defiance he felt surging through him at the challenge.

  “All right, then,” Reeve said, lowering his eyes and nodding like it was some inevitability. “If that’s the way you want to play it.”

  “Play what?” Arch felt himself grow warmer. The shadows in the room grew longer with every lie, creeping around him as the room seemed to contract in his view.

  “I put a lot of faith in you, Arch,” Reeve said, averting his gaze and letting it fall on the TV hanging off the wall at the foot of the bed. The screen was black.

  “I know that, sir.”

  “I’ve known you for a long time, son,” Reeve said, laying it on thick with the “son,” even though he wasn’t looking at Arch. “So here’s what I see. I’ve got a deputy I’ve backed to the hilt, one I thought was an honest man. Now every other thing he tells me is a lie.” Reeve’s eyes flashed and they found Arch, coming off the darkened TV screen like a boxer coming out of the corner at the dinging of the bell. “Don’t even try and argue it. You’re an awful goddamned liar, though I think with the practice you’re getting, you might just be proficient at it before too much longer.”

  “What exactly are you accusing me of?” Arch heard his own voice, level steady, dead inside.

  “I’m not gonna peel this particular onion just yet,” Reeve went on. “But I will t
ell you this—if she dies, I will dig so deep into this incident that you won’t be able to hide in China. I will come after you, Arch. With everything I have.” Reeve still stared at him, combative. “You better pray she lives.”

  “I already was,” Arch said, too stunned to be defiant. He felt the burgeoning desire to club the man, to hit him right in the jaw solidly, to let the wrath take over. To throw it in his face what was being done, what he’d done. But he held it all back, and heard his voice get quieter. “I don’t know what you think I did—”

  “I don’t know what you did or didn’t do,” Reeve said, and his eyes were once more nowhere near Arch. “Maybe this time it is exactly as you say. Maybe federal agents did drag you two into something deep, something that ended with my car and my deputy flying over a mountain cliff. If so, then this is incredibly tragic timing.” His eyes flashed. “But that don’t take away from the lies, Arch. A whole damned mountain of them by themselves, one you could just about fall down yourself at this point.”

  Arch just stared at him, a ringing in his ears telling him that it was time to flee, time to run, not time to fight. He put a foot ahead of the other and walked away from the bed with its occupant, scarcely paying attention to that slow beeping, that sound of the respirator wheezing its breaths into Erin Harris.

  “I’ve seen good cops go corrupt before, Arch,” Reeve said as Arch was nearly out the door. The fluorescent hallway was like an oasis of light, an escape from the shrouding, crippling darkness he felt was surrounding him. “You know what another word for corruption is?” Arch didn’t turn, but he heard the hard edge in Reeve’s voice. “Rot. And there’s a hell of a lot of rotten things going on Midian lately.”

  Arch did not look back. He shuffled into the light of the hallway, out of the dooming darkness, and felt no better as he made his way slowly back to his car.

  ***

  They stopped at a waffle place south of Chattanooga near daybreak. Near as Hendricks could tell, the main draw was that it was open twenty-four hours a day. The aged, yellow tables might have started out as white or they might have been meant to match the sign, but either way they were a product of an older restaurant, designed long ago and probably in need of an update.