Life or Death

by Michael Robotham

  Desiree calls up a map. Burnt Creek Reservoir is almost two miles from where the shooting took place. According to the timeline, the boy was found three days later. There’s nothing to link the two events except for Ryan Valdez … and Moss Webster’s phone call.

  Almost a week later a second story appeared in the Chronicle.

  LONESOME COWBOY MYSTERY

  State and Federal authorities have stepped up efforts to solve the mystery of a young boy wearing a cowboy hat found wandering near Burnt Creek Reservoir in Dreyfus County last Monday.

  The boy, aged about four, is described as being olive-skinned with brown eyes, dark hair, 35" tall, weighing 33lbs. He was found wearing blue elastic-waist jeans, a cotton shirt and a cowboy hat.

  Authorities are now utilizing the FBI’s NCIC system along with the National and Missing Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) in the hope of locating the boy’s parents or guardians.

  Deputy Sheriff Ryan Valdez is heading the investigation. ‘It’s been difficult because the boy hasn’t uttered a word. We figure he doesn’t speak English or he could be traumatized. For the moment we’re calling him Buster after the dog that found him.’

  Desiree puts in a call to the Department of Family and Protective Services in Dreyfus County. She has to explain herself three times before she’s put through to a caseworker who has been with the department since 2004.

  ‘Make it quick, I’m busy,’ the woman says, standing on a noisy street. ‘I got four police officers with me and we got to rescue a kid from crackhead central.’

  Desiree talks in shorthand. ‘January 2004 – a boy, aged about three or four, was found wandering alone near a reservoir in Dreyfus County. Whatever happened to him?’

  ‘You mean Buster?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She yells at someone to wait. ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. Odd case. Kid never said a word.’

  ‘Did you find kin?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He was fostered.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to give out details like that.’

  ‘I understand. I tell you what. I’ll put a proposition to you – if I’m wrong, you hang up. If I’m right, you stay on the line.’

  ‘I might hang up anyway.’

  ‘The boy was fostered by a deputy sheriff and his wife. I think they later adopted him.’

  There is a long pause. Desiree can hear her breathing.

  ‘I think that’s long enough,’ the woman says.

  ‘Thank you.’

  57

  The sun appears briefly from behind broken clouds, creating shadows on the water that look like prehistoric sea monsters moving beneath the surface. Audie and Max sit on the deck overlooking the beach, where gulls float against the breeze.

  ‘How did it feel to get shot?’

  ‘I don’t really remember.’

  ‘It must have been an accident,’ says Max. ‘They thought you were one of the gang.’

  Audie doesn’t answer.

  ‘My daddy wouldn’t have done it on purpose. It was a mistake,’ says Max. ‘And he didn’t take that money. If you talk to him he’ll help you.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ says Audie. ‘Too many people have too much to lose.’

  Max picks at the flaking paint on the armrest of his chair. ‘Why didn’t you say something sooner?’

  ‘I was in a coma for three months.’

  ‘But then you woke up – you could have talked to the police … or a lawyer.’

  Audie remembers waking up in the hospital, slowly becoming conscious of his surroundings. He would hear nurses talking to each other or feel their hands washing him, but it was like a scene snipped out of a drunken dream. When he opened his eyes for the first time, he could see only vague shapes and swirls of colour. The brightness was too much for him and he went to sleep. The periods of consciousness grew longer, unpunctuated stretches that shone like tunnels of light with dark shadows moving within the glare. Silhouettes. Angels.

  Audie opened his eyes again some time later and saw a neurologist standing beside the bed talking to a group of interns. One of the interns was asked to do an examination of the patient. A young man with curly hair bent over the bed and was about to pull open Audie’s eyelid.

  ‘He’s awake, Doctor.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the neurologist.

  Audie blinked and triggered a commotion.

  Unable to talk, he had a tube in his mouth and another in his nose, which felt like it was being dragged back and forth through his lungs. When he turned his head he could make out orange dials on a machine near the bed and a green blip of light sliding across a liquid crystal display window like one of those stereo systems with bouncing waves of coloured light.

  Beside his head was a chrome stand holding a plastic satchel of liquid that trailed through a pliable tube and disappeared under a wide strip of surgical tape wrapped around his left forearm.

  There was a mirror on the ceiling above the bed. He could see a man lying on a white sheet, pinned like an insect mounted on cardboard, his head swathed in bandages that covered his left eye. The image was so surreal that Audie thought he might already be dead and this was an out of body experience.

  Weeks passed like this. He learned to communicate by raising his bandaged hands or blinking his eyes. The neurologist visited him almost every day. He wore jeans and cowboy boots and called himself Hal, and would talk slowly, mouthing the words, as though Audie had the mental age of a five-year-old child.

  ‘Can you wiggle your toes?’

  Audie did as he was asked.

  ‘Follow my finger,’ said Hal, moving it from side to side. Audie moved his eyes.

  He scraped a hooked metal tool along Audie’s arms and the soles of his feet.

  ‘Can you feel that?’

  Audie nodded.

  By now they had removed the tubes from his mouth and nose but his vocal cords were bruised and he couldn’t speak. Hal pulled up a chair, sitting on it backward, draping his arms over the backrest.

  ‘I don’t know if you can understand me, Mr Palmer, but I’m going to explain what happened. You were shot. The bullet entered from the front and travelled the length of the left side of your brain before exiting through the back of your head. It could take months before we determine the extent of any permanent damage, but the fact that you’re still alive and communicating at all is a darn miracle. I don’t know if you’re a religious man, but somebody somewhere must have been praying for you.’

  Hal smiled reassuringly. ‘Like I said, the bullet passed through the left hemisphere of your brain, which is better than it going through both. A brain can sometimes tolerate losing one half – it’s like a twin-engine plane losing only one engine. In your case the slug missed the high-value real estate, so to speak, your brain stem and thalamus.

  ‘That left side of your brain controls language and speech, which is why it might take some time for those things to recover, or it could never happen. In a few days’ time, I’ll organise an MRI scan and we’ll start running some neurological tests to test how your brain is functioning.’

  Hal took hold of Audie’s hand. Audie squeezed his fingers.

  A few hours later, Audie woke in a darkened room with the only lights coming from the machines. There was a man sitting beside his bed. Audie couldn’t turn his head to see the face.

  The figure leaned forward and put his fist against the bandages around Audie’s head, pressing into the shattered bone. If felt like a grenade disassembling his skull.

  ‘Can you feel that?’ spoke the voice.

  Audie nodded.

  ‘You can understand me?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘I know who you are and where your family comes from, Mr Palmer.’

  The fist continued to twist against his head, grinding the broken bone and metal plates. Audie’s arms were waving in the air as though his motor control
s had been cut.

  ‘We have the boy. Do you understand? If you want him to live, you do as I tell you.’

  The pain was so great, Audie struggled to hear what was being said, but the message still made it through.

  ‘You keep your mouth shut. Understand? You plead guilty or the boy dies.’

  A heart monitor began beeping an alarm. Audie lost consciousness. He didn’t expect to wake up. He didn’t want to wake up. He told himself he wanted to die and he relived the accident, listening to Belita’s dying screams and seeing Miguel’s face. He woke every night to this same dream until he was too frightened to sleep and would instead stare at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling, his throat undulating softly, swallowing saliva.

  ‘Who was he?’ asks Max.

  ‘An FBI agent called Frank Senogles.’

  The teenager stares at Audie as though trying to decide if he’s exaggerating or making up answers as he goes along.

  ‘You’re telling me you went to prison because of me?’

  ‘You didn’t put me in prison.’

  ‘But you did it because they threatened me?’

  ‘I made a promise to your mother.’

  ‘You could have told the police.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You could have proved to them who you were.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They would have believed you.’

  ‘I couldn’t speak. And by the time I could the evidence had been twisted or lost or manufactured. I had no way of proving my innocence – and if I tried they were going to kill you.’

  Max gets to his feet, pacing angrily. ‘You’re wrong! This is fucked! My dad would never hurt me. He’d kill anyone who did. He’s gonna kill you when he finds you…’ Max squeezes his eyes shut, grinding his molars, his face twisted in fury and disgust. ‘My father won a bravery medal. He’s a goddamn hero.’

  ‘He’s not your father.’

  ‘You’re a fucking liar! You’re wrong! I was happy. I’m loved. You had no right to kidnap me.’

  Max storms into the house and slams the bedroom door. Audie doesn’t try to follow him. His entire relationship with the boy feels detached, like he’s holding a camera up to his eye, recording events but not taking part in them. He and Max are in the same place, but they’re not connected. The soft rope was cut a long while ago – in that moment when flames engulfed the Pontiac and Belita screamed his name.

  What did he expect the boy to do? What else could he have said?

  For eleven years people have wanted Audie to keep his mouth shut – to fade into the background, to disappear, to die … He might have granted their wish if they had left him alone. He could have succumbed to one of the many attempts made on his life or fallen victim to the endless reel of violence that played out every day in prison. However, he could not give up on the memory of Belita, who still hypnotised him and drew him like a sleepwalker toward the precipice. He had promised her.

  It’s not that Audie had been passive. First he punished himself, taking every beating and humiliation because the pain he suffered helped mask the pain that he truly felt. But there came a point when turning the other cheek became problematic because both sides of his face were bruised and both his eyes were closed. He knew he was doing the penance for somebody else’s sins. He was a rat thrown into a python’s cage, slowly being crushed by the weight of his grief and a promise he made.

  He couldn’t tell Max about being beaten, stabbed, burned and threatened. And he didn’t mention that a month before he was due to be released, the same man who had visited him in his hospital bed came to Three Rivers. He sat on the far side of a Perspex screen and motioned for Audie to pick up the phone. He brought it slowly to his ear. It was an odd feeling to hear that voice again and remember when they last spoke.

  The man scratched idly at his cheek with four fingers. ‘Do you remember me?’

  Audie nodded.

  ‘Are you afraid?’

  ‘Afraid?’

  ‘Of what’s waiting on the other side.’

  Audie didn’t answer. Light-headed, shaking, he seemed unable to keep the receiver to his ear, but he was pressing it so tightly it caused a bruise that he felt for weeks.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said the man. ‘If someone had told me that you’d still be alive after ten years inside, I’d have called him a goddamn retard. How did you survive?’ The man didn’t wait for an answer. ‘What’s the world coming to when you can’t find a competent fucking killer in a prison?’

  ‘The competent ones don’t get caught,’ said Audie, trying to sound fearless when his heart hammered against his ribs like a cat trapped in a trashcan.

  ‘We even tried to get you a new trial, but the US Attorney got cold feet.’ The man tapped his fingers against the screen. ‘So now you think you’re getting out of here. How long you think you’ll last? A day? A week?’

  Audie shook his head. ‘I just want to be left alone.’

  The man reached inside his jacket and took out a photograph, holding it up to the Perspex. ‘Recognise him?’

  Audie blinked at the image of a teenage boy in shorts and a T-shirt.

  ‘We still have him,’ said the man. ‘If you so much as breathe in our direction … understand?’

  Audie hung up the phone and hobbled back to his cell with his head bowed, wrists and ankles chained, desperate as a condemned man. That night he raged and his anger felt good, cleansing, excoriating, scouring away the scar tissue. For far too long he had been fighting ghosts, but now the ghosts had names.

  58

  Audie hears a car approaching, idling roughly as it rocks over the potholes. From the kitchen window, he spies an old Dodge pickup splashing through puddles left by the storm. It pulls up on the windward side of the house and reverses up to the door of the boatshed.

  An old man gets out. He’s wearing coveralls and work boots and a Houston Oilers cap, bleached of colour. The Oilers left Houston in 1996, but for some the memory will never dim. He unlocks the shed and takes the cover off an aluminium dinghy, folding the tarpaulin neatly before hooking the trailer onto the tow ball of his pickup.

  He’s a neighbour or friend, borrowing the boat. Maybe he won’t come up the stairs. He might not have a key. Where’s Max? He’s in the bedroom listening to music on his iPad.

  The old man carries an outboard motor from the back of the pickup to the dinghy, where he hooks it over the stern and tightens the bolts. Next comes a fuel tank and tackle box. When everything is stowed, he gets back behind the wheel, but then glances up and notices the open shutter. Scratching his head, he gets out of the Dodge and walks across the lawn.

  Audie picks up the shotgun and holds it against his side. It could still be OK. He’ll blame the storm for opening the shutter. As long as he doesn’t check the door … He’s at the top of the steps now. Wood creaks beneath his weight. He closes the shutter and checks the hinges. Nothing appears broken or bent. He moves along the deck to the door. Still four paces away, he sees the shattered square of glass.

  ‘Bloody kids,’ he mutters, reaching through the broken pane and slipping the bolt. ‘How much damage did you little bastards do?’

  Pushing open the door, he steps inside and looks into the twin black holes of a shotgun about an inch from his forehead. He staggers on rubbery legs, the colour draining from his face.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ says Audie.

  The old man tries to respond, but his mouth opens and closes like he’s talking in a language a goldfish might understand. At the same time his hand slaps against his chest above his heart, making a hollow thudding sound.

  Audie lowers the gun. ‘Are you OK?’

  The man shakes his head.

  ‘Your heart?’

  He nods.

  ‘Do you have pills?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pickup.’

  ‘Dashboard? Glovebox? Bag?’

  ‘Bag.’

  Max comes out
of the bedroom, still bashing the tambourine between his knees. He sees the old man and stops jangling.

  ‘He’s got a heart problem,’ says Audie. ‘There are pills in his pickup. I need you to get ’em right now.’

  Max doesn’t question the order. The tambourine bashes all the way down the stairs and across the lawn, before going quiet. Audie can’t see the pickup because the shutter has been closed.

  He gets a chair for the old man and makes him sit down. His face is sallow and wet with sweat and he’s staring at Audie like he’s looking at the ghost of Christmas Past.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Tony,’ he croaks.

  ‘Is it a heart attack?’

  ‘Angina.’

  Max opens the door of the pickup and searches until he finds an old sports bag. The keys are hanging in the ignition. This could be his chance. He could take the rig and be long gone before Audie got down the stairs. He could flag someone or find a phone. He could rescue himself and be a hero. Maybe Sophia Robbins would go out with him.

  He’s contemplating these things as he searches through the bag and his fingers close around a cell phone. Next to it is a plastic bottle of pills. Glancing back at the house, Max opens the phone and keys a text message to his father’s cell:

  This is Max. I’m OK. Beach house. East of Sargent, between Gulf and a canal. Blue house. Shingle roof. Deck. Boatshed.

  He turns the phone off and tucks it into the crotch of his underwear. He takes the pills and shuts the door, glancing along the beach. Half a mile west he can see a 4WD carving donuts in the sand.

  ‘Did you find the pills?’ yells Audie. He’s standing on the deck.

  ‘Yeah, I found them.’

  Max holds up the bottle, shaking it above his head.

  ‘Bring me the whole bag.’

  ‘OK.’

  Audie gets Tony a glass of water. He opens the bottle.

  ‘One or two?’

  Tony raises two fingers. Audie puts the pills in his palm and watches them being swallowed and washed down.