Cage of Night

by Ed Gorman

  "Why do you think it was Myles?"

  "People seen him. Three eyewitnesses. He took the money and killed her right in front of them. I was just goin' down to the video arcade to tell all the kids." He gave me a half-wave and then turned back to the door.

  I sat there.

  At the moment, I couldn't think of anything else

  to do.

  Sometimes, things don't quite register in your brain, as if your brain just refuses to accept them.

  It was that way with what Fred Wyman had told me. I was ready to believe just about anything terrible about David Myles but I sure couldn't see him as a killer. Maybe in a fist fight; maybe accidentally like that. But robbing a convenience store and then killing the 60-year-old clerk in cold blood? For one thing, Myles came from a wealthy family. He didn't need to rob a convenience store. For another, even if he wanted to kill somebody with a gun, why would he do it with three witnesses?

  So I sat there.

  I was going to get Cindy back.

  That was a lousy thought to have with Nancy Tumbler, a poor, hard-working woman the whole town liked, lying dead on the cold gray tiles of the Stop 'n Shop.

  But that was the thought I had: that whatever hold Myles had had on Cindy was now gone.

  And she was going to come back to me.

  I got up and carried my tray over to the wastebasket, dumped everything and walked out.

  On the sidewalk, I looked west down Hawthorne.

  Two blocks away, I could see cop cars and an ambulance and a crowd of people. The emergency lights whipped through the November-bare trees.

  I wondered where Cindy was, what she was doing.

  I thought about calling her at home but decided that that wouldn't be a good thing.

  I'd called the Brasher house enough today.

  If I was going to win back Cindy, and I was sure I was, I'd need to have her folks on my side. Cindy thought a lot of her folks.

  I'd parked my car in the far, deserted corner of the lot. I'd read an article that said you could lose 300 calories a day just by parking at the extreme end of parking lots you were using. I'd put on four pounds since coming home from service.

  I peeked in the side window of my junker and saw something weird. The video tape I'd tossed on the back seat had been moved from the corner to the middle of the seat. Had somebody robbed me? Everything else looked all right.

  But then I thought that maybe I'd made a mistake. I didn't have the world's greatest memory. Maybe I'd only thought I'd put the video in the corner.

  As I was opening the car door, I heard something behind me, something I recognized vaguely as shoes scuffling across small rocks on concrete.

  I turned just in time to see David Myles running at me. He had a gun in his hand.

  "Get in," he said.

  I got in.

  He ran around and climbed in the shotgun seat.

  "Go," he said, slamming the door.

  "They're looking for you."

  "I know they're looking for me, asshole. That's why I want you to get the hell out of here. I tried hiding in the back seat but Garrett pulled in here and started sniffing around. So I hid behind the dumpsters over there."

  "You killed her."

  "Drive, you asshole," he said. "Drive."

  He had the gun pointed right at my chest.

  My bowels did cold and nasty things.

  My fingers were trembling so hard I couldn't even turn the ignition on at first.

  Was he going to kill me, too?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I did what he told me.

  He said to go out to the country and that's where we went.

  He didn't say much, just mostly stared out the window. There was a full moon painting all the fallen cornfields silver, and glazing the tops of the forest trees.

  We didn't see any traffic. The only evidence of human life was in the lighted windows of farmhouses. They looked snug, smug, as if they didn't want to know anything at all about a couple of hick kids riding around in the darkness.

  "Why'd you shoot her?"

  I had to say something. I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  "Just drive."

  Then: "You think it was my fucking idea? You think I'd fucking do something like that?"

  He was crying when he said this.

  "You mean you didn't shoot her?"

  He didn't look scary now, all the anger was gone from his face, now he just looked scared and sad, football hero sitting there smelling of after-shave and sweat, shaking like a junkie in a bad movie. He had on his letter jacket. It didn't seem to be giving him much solace right now. Being a football hero didn't count for much after you'd murdered somebody in cold blood.

  The gun was in his lap.

  He wasn't even holding it.

  "I need to see her."

  "Who?" But I knew who.

  "Go back to town."

  "Maybe you should turn yourself in."

  He glared at me. "Maybe you should keep your fucking mouth shut."

  "You sure? About town, I mean?"

  "I have to talk to her."

  "We get anywhere near town, the cops are going to see us."

  "Can't be helped."

  He was looking up at the full moon again, talking to himself.

  He started crying. It was hard for him, as if he didn't quite know how and needed some practice.

  I wanted to hate him but I couldn't. Not quite.

  "Myles?"

  "Yeah?" he said between sobs.

  "Let me take you to the police station."

  "They won't believe me."

  "About what?"

  He didn't say anything for a while.

  We drove back to town on a gravel road. Gravel dust plumed up behind us like a ghostly tail.

  "I did you a favor," he said, looking over at me.

  "You did?"

  "Yeah. I took her away from you."

  "Some favor."

  "You don't know about her, man. Believe me, you don't. That's why I said the cops wouldn't believe me. They wouldn't. You know that time they put her away?"

  "Yeah."

  "They thought she was making all that shit up, what she told them and everything. But she wasn't. It was true." He turned away from me, back to the moon.

  Town lights lined the horizon.

  He reached down and picked up the gun again.

  "I just need five minutes with her."

  "Maybe they'd let you see her after you turn yourself in."

  He reached over and grabbed my shoulder so violently that he pulled me up from the seat. "Knock off the shit about the cops. You're taking me to her place. You understand?"

  He was shouting at me.

  Gravel road became asphalt street, timberland became small bungalows, prairie darkness became street lights.

  Cindy lived on the far side of town.

  With all the cops looking for him, it was going to be a long drive.

  "I didn't mean to kill her."

  I just looked over at him.

  "I didn't want to."

  I looked back to the street.

  "It wasn't me—not really."

  He was on that again. If it hadn't been him, then who had it been?

  I wondered if he was insane. That was possible. People did that sometimes. Just went insane.

  I'm not sure just when Garrett saw me. Maybe he picked me up a couple blocks sooner than I realized.

  He was used to pulling me over and having a little talk and maybe that was what he originally had in mind.

  I didn't realize he was behind us until we'd reached the outskirts of the shopping area, where the lights got about ten times brighter.

  That's when he must have seen Myles silhouetted in the front seat.

  He hit his cherry and he hit his siren.

  Myles came up from a kind of stupor, jerked around for a look behind and then said, "Get me down to J Street and then let me out. I'll be better off on foot."

  Garr
ett rammed us then, doing to me what Myles had done to me a few weeks earlier.

  The police car hit us with such impact that I was knocked into the curb.

  "Don't stop!" Myles shouted, pushing the gun into my face. He looked lurid, sweat like silver blisters all over his face, dark eyes bulged and crazed, tears running from his eyes.

  We went up over the curb and crashed back down.

  "Step on the gas!" Myles shouted.

  Then we were doing 60 mph down a narrow town street. I just hoped nobody stepped out in front of us.

  Garrett rammed us again.

  This time he knocked us up and over the curb completely.

  We skidded across dew-wet grass, through a shrubbery, through a picket fence, and right up to the front door step of some elderly people who were just now peeking out their front window.

  When we stopped, I saw that Myles had struck his head against the dashboard. He looked dazed. The gun was on the seat next to him.

  I grabbed it, got the door open and crawled out of the car.

  Garrett was on the lawn now, gun drawn.

  "Get away from the car, Spence," he said, walking closer and closer to Myles' door.

  I hobbled away, my knee painful and bleeding from where I'd cut it on the underside of the dash.

  Garrett was at the door now.

  He approached cautiously and then said, "Come out of there, Myles. Right now."

  "He doesn't have a gun anymore, Garrett," I said.

  "Just shut up, Spence," he said. "This is police business."

  Sirens in the distance, rushing here.

  Dark lawn. Two scared oldsters peeking out the window. Garrett in Clint Eastwood stance, gun drawn.

  Myles inside the car.

  I heard him say: "I want to see her."

  "Shut the fuck up and get out of the car."

  "You hear me? I said I want to see her. She can explain all this."

  "You're never going to see her again, asshole. I can promise you that."

  Sirens. Closer.

  Garrett raising his Magnum.

  Me wanting to shout out that Myles didn't have his gun anymore.

  And then Myles saying: "I want to see her, man. That's all I'm asking you. I want to see her."

  That's when the two shots exploded in the night.

  Right through the open window, they went.

  Right into Myles' chest.

  I'd never heard a man die before. The sound was kind of funny, kind of a cry and kind of a grunt, and then a slumping forward, and then a long deep silence.

  The silence scared the shit out of me. Then Garrett walked over to the car and looked inside.

  "Oh, Jesus," he said. "Oh, Jesus Christ."

  Then there wasn't any silence at all, not for a long time, not with the cop cars and the ambulance and the coroner's van and all the fascinated onlookers and then the weeping family of David Myles.

  They took me down to the police station and I was there for six hours and when I got out there were a bunch of reporters there and then Josh had me by the arm and he was pushing me through the crowd and out into the chilly prairie night.

  Garrett hadn't merely shot David Myles. He'd executed him.

  That was the only thing I could think of all that night as I lay awake still shaking from everything that had happened.

  He'd known Myles didn't have a gun. He'd executed him.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  "I'm sure he didn't hear you."

  "I said it real loud."

  "Spence, put yourself in his position," Chief Stewart said.

  Paul Stewart had been the police chief in this town ever since I was in grade school. He was generally considered to be fair, open-minded, and not at all impressed with his badge, the way some cops get.

  But he was protective of his cops to the point of obstinacy.

  He sat on the edge of his desk and looked down on me in my chair.

  "It's dark," he went on. "You've just seen a car crash up through a fence. You approach it with your gun drawn. And then in the front seat, you see somebody who has just murdered somebody else in cold blood. You don't think you'd be a little scared?"

  "Sure, I'd be scared but—"

  "You don't think you might be totally focused on the killer in the car?"

  "Sure, I'd be focused on the guy in the car but—"

  "And if somebody said something to you, don't you think there's a possibility that you might not hear them?"

  "Sure, there's a possibility but—"

  "And that's what happened last night, Spence. He's a young cop and he wanted to be sure he handled the situation the proper way—and he was also scared. It was real easy for him to imagine that Myles had a gun in his hand and was bringing it up to shoot him."

  I didn't say anything for a time, just sat in his sunny office with the four filing cabinets and the big desk with framed photos of his grandkids all over it and a wall filled with awards and plaques and a few pictures of the Chief with minor celebrities. The one of him shaking hands with Hulk Hogan struck me as pretty funny.

  "That's what happened, Spence."

  "He thought that Myles had a gun?"

  "Right."

  "And when he approached the car, he thought he saw Myles bringing the gun up?"

  "Yes."

  "And so he shot him?"

  "Right."

  "Twice?"

  "As any good cop would."

  "Good cops shoot unarmed citizens?"

  He looked at me a long hard time. He was in his crisp dark uniform as usual and his hair was white and his face was old-man fleshy. But the blue eyes were young and smart. And now they were just a little bit mean. He was pure cop.

  "You trying to piss me off on this thing, Spence?"

  "No, sir."

  "Good. Because I like you and I want to keep on liking you."

  I stared out the window. Thanksgiving was three days away and the sky was June blue.

  "I just wanted to tell you what I was thinking, Chief," I said.

  "I appreciate that, Spence."

  "I really did yell over to him. You know, that Myles didn't have his gun anymore."

  "I believe you, Spence. I also believe that Garrett didn't hear you."

  "I guess that kind of wraps things up, doesn't it?"

  "Far as I'm concerned, it does." Then: "Spence?"

  "Yes?"

  "This is a small town. Rumors get started pretty fast."

  "I won't say anything to anybody."

  "I'd appreciate that."

  He stood up from his desk and put a beefy hand out, one that mine disappeared inside of.

  After we shook, he walked me to the door and clapped me on the back.

  "You miss the Army?"

  "Not really."

  He smiled. "I was the same way. Couldn't wait to get out of it. That was forty years ago, back when they still had a draft."

  He opened the door for me.

  "Spence?"

  "Yes."

  "I know you're not satisfied with our little talk this morning but I'm not trying to hide anything at all. Far as I'm concerned, Garrett was discharging his duties by the book. I would've done the same thing myself in those circumstances. And so would you."

  "Maybe I would have."

  "And anyway—" He hesitated a moment, as if not sure he wanted to say what he wanted to say. "Save a lot of heartache. In the community, I mean. Putting all of Nancy Tumbler's people through a trial—Hell, it wouldn't have been very easy for Myles' folks, either."

  "No, it wouldn't have been."

  "And we know he did it."

  "Yes, we do."

  "There were witnesses."

  "Yes, there were."

  "So in the scheme of things—"

  I guess I couldn't disagree with that part of it. Myles really had killed a woman in cold blood. And a trial would just make the whole town suffer even more.

  But there was one thing Chief Stewart wouldn't acknowledge
—that his officer had heard me tell him that Myles was unarmed, but had proceeded to execute him anyway.

  "You have yourself a good day, Spence."

  "You, too, Chief."

  This was Monday morning right after breakfast.

  When I finished at the police station, I walked over to the department store and went to work.

  By noon, just about everybody who worked in the store had come up to me and asked me if I'd been scared after Myles carjacked me. I didn't blame them. They worked hard at drab, empty jobs for very little money and no security. They needed some kind of excitement and management wouldn't let them watch TV during the day so I was the next best thing.

  On my lunch hour, I finally worked up the nerve to call Mrs. Brasher.

  "Well, Cindy's in school," she said, sounding surprised that I'd choose now to call.

  "It was you I wanted to talk to, Mrs. Brasher."

  "Me?" She sounded even more surprised.

  "I want to bring Cindy a present—something that'll help take her mind off things—and I was just wondering if you could mayhe give me an idea of what she'd like."

  Long pause. "I don't think Cindy wants to see you anymore, Spence. So I'm going to ask you not to try and contact her in any way."

  The queasiness was back in my stomach. "Why wouldn't she want to see me anymore?"

  Another pause. Then a sigh. "She thinks that she helped drive David to—you know, Saturday night—that if she hadn't started seeing you, maybe he wouldn't have gone insane."

  Right, I thought. He would have just kept on beating her.

  But then I thought of Myles' face in my car a few minutes before he died—the grief, the terror.

  "She's going to start seeing Dr. Granger again. She's—not doing very well at the moment." Granger was the town's one and only shrink. "She went to school but I wouldn't be surprised if she came home early."

  "I want to help her, Mrs. Brasher."

  "Then stay away from her, Spence. I don't mean to be harsh—but that would be best for everybody. And now I have to go."

  The rest of the day I kept tearing up and breaking into fits of trembling. I wanted to vomit but when I went back to the john, all I did was peer down into the toilet bowl.

  —I'm going to ask you not to try and contact her in any way.

  —Stay away from her, Spence. I really did want to puke.

  At first, I didn't recognize him.