Downs looked at the small, frail woman. She had obviously tried, but the pancake make-up wasn’t covering the bruises, and her lip was swollen like an aging Hollywood starlet’s. Smith was staring at Downs smugly.
“I’ve heard the arguments of counsel. I don’t find a release on personal recognizance appropriate,” Downs began, seeing Albert’s face turn beet red, “and as I believe the defendant presents a real danger to members of the community, he will be held in lieu of fifty thousand cash. No contact with the alleged victim or the dog. Don’t be at the victim’s address—”
“That’s my house! That’s my dog! You can’t do that!”
“I can and I have,” Downs said. “Mr. Sharp, please get your client under control.”
“Yes, Judge.” Sharp put an arm around Albert’s large shoulders, and the man easily shrugged him off. Downs continued her recitation of the terms. When she had concluded, she ordered court security to have Albert taken back to his holding cell. After he had been removed, she looked over the remaining defendants. “Anyone else feeling froggy today?”
The high school’s small stadium was filled for the homecoming game with one of Custer’s bitter rivals, and the community was out in force. Sam hadn’t been to a high school football game since he last played in one twenty years prior. Sitting with Paul and Jeannie, he took it all in, taking occasional deep breaths to alleviate the anxiety caused by being in close quarters with hundreds of strangers. It was his favorite time of the year, but despite the apparently friendly confines, he mentally rehearsed the actions he would take on contact. He had an escape route selected and was studying the bulge in the waistband of a large man seated a couple of rows in front of them when Jeannie, who was sitting between him and Paul, put her hand on his arm. “I get so nervous watching the boys play,” she said.
Sam smiled. “I can’t believe that. When you used to come to my—uh, Paul’s and my—games, you spent most of your time soaking up rays and drinking beer from the cooler.”
She laughed, and he remembered how he loved to hear her laugh. “For the record, those were wine coolers. And this is my son.”
“And he is a good one,” Sam observed. As he watched Paul, Jr.—“P.J.”—play tailback, he couldn’t help but see Paul’s natural athleticism. He leaned around Jeannie and said, “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, Paul.”
“A little time in the weight room and he might have a shot,” Paul observed. “Ronnie worked harder, but he didn’t have the ability P.J. does.”
They watched as P.J. took a pitch-out from the quarterback on the right end. Sam stood with everyone else and heard Jeannie screaming for P.J. as he turned the corner on the helpless defensive end. The outside linebacker had been blocked, the cornerback was tied up with a receiver, and the safety took a bad angle. It was no contest, and fifty yards later P.J. flipped the ball to the referee in the end zone. Sam was exchanging high-fives with Paul and Jeannie when the Junior ROTC cadets fired the small cannon that Sam hadn’t seen. Instantly, Sam was down in the snow-covered bleachers between the seats, scouting for enemy fighters. “Get down! Incoming!”
“Sam! It’s okay! Sam!” someone was saying.
“Jeannie, get your head down!” Sam yelled, and grabbed her sleeve and tugged her down next to him. “We’ve got enemy in-bound!” he yelled, and peered over a bleacher. Oddly, the enemy fighters were on the run. They must have been conducting a raid, trying to disrupt operations but nothing more. The bleachers were emptying fast and he was deciding whether to conduct a pursuit when he felt something on his sleeve.
“Sam!” Jeannie was shaking his arm. “Sam!” She was now crouched in front of him in the bleachers. “Sam!”
Sam looked at Jeannie and saw the tears in her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“They fired the cannon and you. . . you thought you were back in combat,” she said.
Sam looked around and saw parents and children looking at them from afar. The referees were holding the ball, unsure of what had caused the disturbance. Off-duty police officers had put down their hot dogs and were scurrying toward him. “Oh, man,” he said. “Jeannie, I am so sorry.”
“No, Sam,” she said, taking his hands in hers. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
Paul had been talking to the crowd, attempting to calm them. “Sam, come on,” he said, putting his arm around Sam’s shoulders and leading him toward the parking lot. “Let me give you a ride.”
On the way to his house, Sam again tried to apologize, but Paul wouldn’t hear of it. “Sam, after what you’ve been through. . . I just wish I would have thought to warn you. And just so you know, I called Veronica. Thought maybe some company would be good. She’s out with some friends, but she said she’d be here soon.”
When they pulled into Sam’s driveway, Sam turned to Paul. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Need me to come in?”
“No. Just tell P.J. ‘great game’ for me, would you?” Sam said.
“You got it. Take it easy, buddy. I’ll see you Monday.”
When Veronica got to Sam’s house, he was slow to answer the door. She was just about to call him when the door opened a crack and she could see him peering out. “Sam, what is it?” she asked. She could smell the booze on his breath. He opened the door and she followed him into the small living room, noting a half-empty bottle of scotch and a glass on the floor next to the couch. “Paul called me. He said you had a . . . problem at the game.”
“I didn’t expect that cannon fire after that first touchdown. It, uh, it freaked me out. Having a little trouble catching my breath now.” He was holding his chest and pacing the room, covered in sweat. “I—I can’t breathe,” he managed to say.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she said. “You might be having a heart attack.”
“No!” he managed in a near-shout, and then, seeing the fear in her eyes, added, “I’m fine. I just need a minute. This happens sometimes.”
“It might be a heart attack,” she repeated. “Sam, you can’t continue on like this.”
“I’m okay. I just go to a . . . dark place, sometimes.”
“Sam, I don’t know what you’ve been through. I can’t even imagine it. I’ve never had to kill others to survive,” she said. “What can I possibly say? But it is hard being with you when you are like this.”
He was sitting heavily on his couch. “Something happens and it comes back: the smell of death and all the things that cause it, noises so loud you feel like an ant under a lawn mower.”
“Can you take some time off?” she asked. “Maybe talk with Paul and tell him you need time—”
“I don’t need time off! I just need to stay busy!” he said. Her reaction told him he’d been too loud. He couldn’t tell whether she was afraid of him or for him. “Look, I’m working on it, I promise. Just give me a minute.” He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.
She watched him until at last she heard his rhythmic breathing. She took his hand and brought it to her lips, kissed it, and covered him with a blanket. Then she left quietly, locking the door behind her.
Sam started the next day with a couple of aspirin and had stopped for a greasy fast-food breakfast burrito, but he was still feeling sick by the time of his first court hearing. His client was scheduled to plead to a charge of possession of a controlled substance in pill form. Addicted to opioids, she had been going from veterinarian to veterinarian, getting prescriptions for gabapentin and taking them herself. When she’d passed out at a family gathering on Labor Day, the EMTs had discovered her purse was full of pills and notified law enforcement.
Downs had reminded the woman of her rights and the possible repercussions of a guilty plea, and had taken her plea and sentenced the woman —who had no criminal history—to a suspended jail sentence, treatment, and a nominal fine. After Downs left, Sam accepted congratulations from the family for the light sentence, encouraged his client to follow up with treatment, and thanked Cathy Schmidt for the prosecution’s c
ooperation and consideration in reaching a deal. After Cathy left, Sam chugged an entire bottle of water, then put his file in his briefcase and was getting ready to walk back to the office when he heard a small voice behind him.
“Mr. Johnstone?”
“Yes?” he said, turning to face a small, frail woman. “Call me Sam.”
“I—I need a lawyer,” she said. “I read your name in the newspaper.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t have any money,” she said, removing a wisp of hair from her eye. He could see the green and orange under the makeup.
“Well, some things are more important than money.” He nodded at the chair next to him. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
“Thank you.” She sat down, then folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him. At some point, she was probably pretty. But years of bad decisions, and apparently beatings, had left her with deep lines from the pain and worry. “I need an order of protection,” she said at last. “My husband. He . . . beats me.”
“I haven’t done a lot of that kind of work,” Sam said. “There are experts in that area over at the women’s shelter. I think they keep an attorney on retainer.”
“I need someone who won’t be afraid of Albert,” she said. “He is very big, very angry, and everyone in town is afraid of him. They tell me you are a hero.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Sam said with a smile.
“I just know what I’m told. I need someone who will scare him,” she said.
“I don’t know,” Sam mused. “Guys like that, they don’t scare easy. And I’d be working as your lawyer, not your big brother.”
She smiled. “My big brother beat Albert up once, a long time ago.”
Sam nodded and watched her closely as she thought back to that time. “But then he got cancer and died,” she said. “Since then, well . . .” She looked at the desktop.
Sam thought about it for a moment. “Okay,” he said at last. “Here’s my card. Call Cassie, my secretary, and tell her I said to get you in as soon as possible. Is your husband in jail?”
“For right now.”
“Okay, I’ll get the petition filed as soon as I can. In the meantime, do you have somewhere to go?”
“I’m home. Someone’s gotta feed the dog.”
“Got any family you can stay with?”
“No. All gone.”
“Friends?”
She shook her head. “We don’t have any.”
“Okay.” He gathered his briefcase and stood. “I’ll get on this right away.”
“I can’t pay you much,” she said.
“We’ll figure something out, Ms., uh—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Raylene. Raylene Smith. My husband is Albert Smith.”
“Okay, Raylene. I’ll get on this right away, okay?”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, you stay safe,” he said, and extended his hand. She hesitated, then placed her bony hand in his. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnstone.”
“Call me Sam.”
“Thank you, Sam,” she said, and turned and walked out of the courtroom, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
6
Custer Police Department Chief of Detectives Kenneth “Punch” Polson was in his cubicle typing a report when Corporal Mike Jensen called him.
“Polson.”
“Boss, I’m out at the college,” Jensen began. “I’m taking a report on a missing person.”
“Kid miss class, or what?” Punch asked. The “e” on his keyboard kept sticking and it was making him irritable.
“This is a little more than that, boss.”
“Yeah? What’s going on?”
“Young man by the name of Kaiden Miles has been missing for a day or so.”
“So how did we get notified?”
“His roommate,” Jensen said. “Apparently, these guys are roomies and managers for the college men’s basketball team. The kid says they were at a party a couple of nights ago—Thursday, after the game—and he got tired and went back to the room. He said that the Miles kid never came home, but he didn’t worry about it. Figured he might’ve met someone. But when Miles didn’t attend any classes Friday, and when he didn’t see Miles at the dining facility, and when he missed practice and didn’t come home for a second night, he reported him missing to the campus police.”
“And he got ahold of us?”
“Yep.”
“So, the kid—Kaiden, was it?” Punch asked.
“Yeah. Kaiden Miles.”
“He can’t have been missing too long,” Punch said. “Shit!” He’d typed “receeeeeeipt” three times in a row.
“No, a little more than thirty-six, maybe forty-eight hours now.”
“Local kid?” Punch was looking at the word he had re-typed. It still didn’t look right.
“Born right here in Custer. Raised on his family’s cattle ranch outside of town,” Jensen explained. “I did a quick check—no criminal history except for a single minor in possession from when he was a senior in high school.”
“Have you spoken with anyone who knows him yet?”
“I’ve got a couple of officers going through the dorm now asking questions.”
“What’s his family say?” Punch asked. He re-typed the word. “It’s ‘I before E’—right?”
“What? Well, yeah, I think,” Jensen said. “Except after ‘C,’ maybe. They are worried. Say it ain’t like him. Great kid, yadda, yadda. Mom says something bad must’ve happened.”
“He ever disappear before?”
“Not that they are telling me,” Jensen said.
“Who’s the reporting party?”
“Ronnie Norquist.”
“Any relation to Paul?”
“Not sure. I got his number,” Jensen said. “You want to talk with him?”
“I will, yeah,” Punch said. “You on scene?”
“I’m at the campus security office. Kid was assigned to West Hall, if you want to meet me there.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later, Punch called Jensen from the dorm entryway. “Hey, how the hell do I get in?” The door was snowed in.
“Which door are you at?” Jensen asked.
“I don’t know. South, I think?”
“Just a minute,” Jensen said. Punch could hear him talking with someone. “They’re telling me someone stole the snow shovel at that end of the dorm. Can you walk around to the east side?”
“Who the hell would steal a snow shovel?”
“I dunno, boss,” Jensen said. “People steal anything. Come around.”
Punch did so, and minutes later he and Jensen were in the missing student’s dorm room on the Custer College campus. “How old is he?” Punch asked, looking through papers on the young man’s desk.
“Nineteen, according to the family,” Jensen replied. He was on his knees looking under the bed. Jeb Richter, Custer College’s head of campus security, was standing in the doorway of the small room, officiously watching the two of them.
“Jeb, how are you?” Punch asked.
“Fine, Punch.”
“Who saw him last?”
“Well, after he left the party, I think maybe a freshman girl coming back to the dorm, as far as we know right now,” Jensen said. “She’s a little quiet. I think she was doing the walk of shame.” Punch saw Richter smirk.
“Get her name?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll talk with her later if necessary,” Punch said. “Anything on the security cameras?”
“I wanted to talk with you about that, boss.” Jensen looked at Richter out of the corner of his eye.
“What is it?” Punch said.
“Jeb says the school president says we’re gonna need a warrant.”
“To look at common area video? Why?” Punch was looking around the room. It was a mess; property was strewn about the place. The two sides
of the room were almost identically slovenly; the biggest differences were the missing kid’s bed covers were blue while his roommate’s were red, and there was a watch cap on the missing teenager’s bed. He turned his attention to Richter. “Jeb, what’s going on?” Richter had been a Custer County sheriff’s deputy some years back. “Why do I need to get a warrant to look at common area footage?”
“President Beretta is a little uptight.” Richter shrugged. “What can I say? I got my orders.”
“Sonuvabitch.” Punch shook his head. “Okay, you stay here,” he said to Jensen. “Leave everything as is—I’ll want to see things as they were.” Turning to Richter, he continued, “Jeb, I’d like to have this room secured. No one in or out—can you do that?”
“What about the roommate? He’s got a right—”
“Hold him off, can you?” Punch asked. “And let’s get the crime scene photographers on standby; I’m gonna want pictures of this place.”
“Crime scene?” Richter asked.
“Just to be sure,” Punch said. “Look: just do this much, okay? When Jensen leaves, just lock the door and don’t let anyone else in, please. I’ll get you whatever you need to cover your ass.”
Two nights later, Punch and his wife Rhonda were just sitting down to dinner when his phone rang. Punch looked at the number, then at Rhonda, then at the beef roast. He quickly reached with his fork, and as Rhonda shook her head disapprovingly, stabbed a roasted potato and shoved it into his mouth, then picked up his phone.
“Kenneth, do you have to answer that?” Rhonda asked.
“I do, honey.” Punch swallowed the potato and wiped his mouth, then looked at her and smiled. She was mouthing the word “rude” at him. “Polson,” he answered, then covered the speaker and explained to her, “I’m on call. It’s a Cheyenne number. Might be important.”
“This Detective Polson?”
“Yes,” Punch said, putting a large helping of roast beef on his plate and spooning gravy over it. He gestured to her to ask if she wanted any. Rhonda shook her head.
One and Done (Sam Johnstone Book 2) Page 4
