Harlan Coben

by The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

  He glanced up at the plaster Jesus nailed to the crucifix hung above the altar. If you were half of who they claim, he thought, none of this would be needed. Which pretty much concluded all the praying he could manage.

  He rose from his knees, let the weariness rearrange itself in his body, then ambled on out, murmuring “Thank you” to his friend as he passed, smiling at the girls who glanced up at him in giggling puzzlement or mousy fear. Orphans, he guessed, remembering what Jolt had said about the killing, knowing there were thousands of kids like this in every border town, their parents out in the desert somewhere, long dead. Some of the girls were lovely, most trended toward plain, a few were decidedly nun material. One among that last group—he couldn’t help himself, just the darkening track of his thoughts—reminded him of the Mexican’s tramp girlfriend, La Monita.

  He was halfway down the block, thinking supper might be in order, when his cell rang. A San Antonio number. He flipped the phone open. “Geno?”

  A gunshot barked through the static on the line. A muffled keening sob—a gagged man screaming—then grunts, a gasp. Geno came on the line. “Please, Chester, it’s just a box.” The voice shaky, faint, a hiss. “Buy yourself a new one. P-p-please?” Chester could hear spittle pop against the mouthpiece. The fact that it was Geno meant Skillet was dead. You don’t put the weak one on the line to make a point with the strong one. You kill the strong one so the weak one understands.

  He slowly closed the phone.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  He wandered the street for half an hour, dazed one minute, lit up with fury the next, settling finally into a state of bloodthirsty calm. In a juke joint off East Paisano he scored a pistol from the bartender, a Sig Sauer 9mm, stolen from a cop, the man bragged. In a gun shop nearby he bought two extra magazines and a box of hollow points, loaded the clips right there in the store, hands trembling from adrenaline. Feo’s gonna walk the border, he told himself, and the best place to do that is downtown, Stanton Street bridge. That’s where I gotta be.

  He walked toward the port of entry, found himself a spot to sit, lifting a paper from the litter bin for camouflage, spreading it out in his lap, the gun hidden just beneath. An hour passed, half of another, night fell, the lights came on. He sat still as a bullfrog, watchful, eyeing every walker trudging south into Mexico. And as he did the sense of the thing fell together, like a puzzle assembling itself in midair right before his eyes. If only that helped, he thought.

  A little after eight his cell phone rang again. He considered letting it go but then he checked the display, recognized the rectory number.

  “Jolt,” he said.

  Silence. “No one calls me that anymore.”

  “I just did.”

  “I want you to come back to the church.”

  “Not happening.”

  “What you’re thinking of doing is wrong.”

  “All I want’s Lorena. There’s others want him dead on principle. That’s why he’s running.”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “I suspect that’s true.”

  “Suspect? I know. He’s been in touch.”

  Chester shot up straight. A vein fluttered in his neck. “Feo.”

  “He wants to work a trade.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “No, you don’t understand. He can’t … Not what he’s asking. I won’t.”

  “The girl.”

  Another silence.

  “Chester…”

  “The one I saw in the church today. One who looks just like Rosa Sánchez.”

  “It’s just an accordion, Chester.”

  The rage blindsided him, a surge in his midriff like coiling fire. “Not to me. Not to my granddad.”

  “You can’t trade a child for a thing.”

  A thing?“Is it still a sin to chew the wafer, Dec? You know, because it really isn’t bread anymore. Something’s happened.”

  “Don’t talk like a fool.”

  “Says the man who turns wine into blood.”

  “Her name is Analinda. The girl, I mean.”

  Of course, Chester thought, knowing what the priest was up to. Give her a name, she turns precious. She’s alive. Like Lorena. “She’s his daughter.”

  “She’s her daughter.”

  “Point is, the girl’s what he wants, has been all along. Why? I have no clue. Killers are vain, kids are for show. It’s an itch, the daddy thing, comes and goes, maybe he felt a sudden need to scratch. The mother gave her away, spare her all that. So he paid me to write her a song, impress her, get her to ease up, forgive him, introduce him to his daughter. Then I went and screwed the pooch on that front, so—”

  “He has no right.”

  “Who are you to say?”

  “He’ll sell her.”

  “So offer him a price.”

  “You said it yourself, he’s a killer.”

  “He’s not alone in that. My granddad was a killer. Killed for you. Killed for me.”

  “Chester…”

  “God’s a killer. Put some heat under that one.”

  The priest, incredulous: “You want to argue theodicy?”

  “Not really.” He felt strangely detached all of a sudden, preternaturally so, tracking the walkers bobbing past. It was no longer in his hands. “I’m just passing the time, Jolt.”

  “I want you to come back to the church.”

  “And what exactly does that mean—argue the odyssey?”

  “Not the odyssey. Theodicy.”

  “I know,” he said. ‘Just messing with you.”

  He spotted it then, the hardshell case he knew so well, nicked and battered from the Italian campaign, a long whitish crease like a scar across the felt, left by the bullet from a Mauser 98 at Gallicano. The man carrying it walked hurriedly, face obscured by the hood of his sweatshirt. Chester felt no doubt. He flipped his phone closed, rose to his feet, and let the newspaper flutter down, tucking the pistol beneath his shirt. You’ve taken what belongs to me, he thought, what belongs to my family, the most precious thing we’ve ever owned. Two good men are dead because of you, not to mention the woman, the one you crowed over, said you loved. You deserve what’s coming. Deserve worse. I’m doing your daughter a favor. I’m bringing Lorena home.

  He chose his angle of intercept and started walking, not so fast as to draw attention but quick enough to get there, easing through some of the other walkers. From across the street, a second man appeared. Chester recognized him too, the shoulders, the bulldog face, that distinctive jarhead fade.

  Let it happen, he told himself, and it did.

  Feo caught sight of the ex-Marine, began to run but the accordion slowed him down. Drop it, Chester wanted to shout, but the Mexican wouldn’t let go and then the gunman was on him and the pistol was raised and two quick pops, killshots to the skull. Feo crumpled, people scattered. The killer fled.

  Blinking, Chester tucked the Sig in his pants, pulled his shirt over, moving the whole time, slow at first, cautious, then a jog, breaking into a run, till he was there at the edge of the pooling blood, the Mexican, the poacher, the Ugly One, lying still, just nerve flutters in the hands, the legs. Strange justice, Chester thought. The sickness at the bottom of the mind.

  He pried the case from the dead man’s fingers, gripped the han dle, and began to run back toward downtown. Something wasn’t right. The weight was off-balance, wobbly, wrong. He stopped, knelt, tore at the clasps, lifted the lid. Staring back at him from a bed of sheet music, the eyes shiny like polished bone, was the severed head of Rosa Sánchez.

  Sometime later—hours? days?—he found himself propped on a cantina barstool, a shot of mescal in his fist, a dozen empties scattered before him, splashes of overfill dampening the bar’s pitted wood, a crowd of nameless men his newfound friends, all of them listening with that singular Mexican lust for heartbreak as he recited the tale of La Monita and Feo, told them of Geno and Skillet, confessed in a whisper his unholy love for Lorena. Time blurred into
nothingness, he felt himself blurring as well, just another teardrop in the river of dreams, and he wondered what strange genius had possessed him, guiding him to this place, over the bridge from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, the murder capital of the planet. Nor would he recall how or when he crossed that other bridge, the one between lonely and alone, but it would carry him farther than the other, days drifting into weeks, weeks dissolving into months, then years, more cantinas, more mezcal, till life as he’d known it became a whisper in the back of his mind and the man named Chester Richard drifted away like a tuneless song.

  The ghost in the mirror of the bus terminal washroom, rinsing out his armpits, brushing his teeth with a finger, hair wild as an outcrop of desert scrub, sooner or later shambled off to the next string of lights across a doorway, entered and plopped himself down, crooning his garbled tales of love and murder and music, then begging a drink, told to get out by the owner, indulged by the angry man’s wife, exiled to a corner with a glass of tejuino—no mezcal for a gorrón—and he’d wait for the musicians to appear, assembling themselves on the tiny bandstand like clowns in a skit, until once, in that endless maze of nights, a boy of ten shouldered on his accordion in the smoky dimness, and the nameless drunk criollo glanced up from his corner to see the seasoned mahogany dark as cane syrup, the pearl inlays, the purple heart accents, the buttons of polished bone, and with the first sigh of the kidskin bellows came that deep unmistakable throbbing tremolo, and he felt his heart crack open like an egg, knowing at last he was free.

  Ride-Along

  Brendan Dubois

  FROM Strand Magazine

  THE NIGHT I WENT to work, I gathered up my reporter’s notebook and heavy purse and then went to check on my husband, Peter. My sweetie-pie was sitting up in bed, his left leg in a cast. The bruises about his eyes were beginning to fade, though they still had a sickish green-yellow aura. The television was on and a cell phone was clasped in his right hand.

  “You doing okay?” I asked.

  He grinned, his teeth showing nicely through his puffy lips. “Like I’ve been saying, as well as could be expected.”

  I kissed his forehead. “You okay moving around by yourself?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” I said. “But you be careful. You go and break your other leg, that means you’re stuck in bed. And I don’t think this whole ‘in sickness and in health’ covers bedpan duty.”

  He moved up against the pillows, winced. “You could have warned me earlier.”

  “But you wouldn’t have listened.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because you’re madly, hopelessly, and dopily in love with me, that’s why.”

  As I headed out Peter said, “Erica? Be careful.”

  I hoisted my heavy purse on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I will.”

  And then his face darkened. “One more thing. Sorry I got dinged up.”

  I shook my head. “No time to talk about that.”

  I blew him a kiss, which he pretended to catch and slap against his heart with his free hand.

  My sweetie.

  Cooper, Massachusetts, is one of the largest and poorest communities in the commonwealth, and I drove this warm May evening to one of its three police precinct stations. In the station’s lobby the hard orange plastic chairs were filled with residents—most didn’t speak English, yet they were busily arguing with each other or with the suffering on-duty officer behind a thick glass window. When it was my turn I said, “Erica Kramer, I have an appointment to see Captain Miller.”

  The harried officer looked happy to confront an easy issue, and in a manner of minutes I was taken to the rear of the precinct station. Captain Terrence Miller sat me down at his desk and passed over a clipboard with a sheet of paper.

  “Look that over, sign at the bottom, and you’ll be on your way,” he said. Miller looked to be on the upside of fifty, with an old-fashioned buzz cut and a scarlet face.

  The paper was a release form stating that one ERICA KRAMER was going to accompany OFFICER ROLAND PIPER as part of a civilian ride-along program, and that by signing said release form, myself and my heirs promised never, ever to sue the city of Cooper if I was shot, knifed, killed, mutilated, or dismembered. I scrawled my signature on the bottom and passed it back.

  He checked the form and then he checked me. I knew the look. I had on black nylons, heels, a short denim skirt, and a one-size-too-tight yellow top. He seemed to consider what he was doing, and said, “Well, I guess I’ll bring you over to Roland.”

  “Thanks,” I said, grabbing my purse.

  Officer Roland Piper was even older than his captain, and in his crinkly eyes and worn face I saw a cop satisfied with being a cop, who didn’t want the burden of command and was happy with his own niche. In the tiny roll-call room Roland looked me up and down and said, “All right, then, come along.”

  We went out to the rear of the station, where a high fence surrounded the parking area for the police cruisers. I followed Roland, he carrying a soft leather carrying case in one hand and a metal clipboard in the other. He was whistling some tune I couldn’t recognize and he unlocked the trunk of a cruiser. There were flares in there, chains, a wooden box, and a fire extinguisher, and Roland dropped his leather case in and slammed the trunk down. Then he went to the near rear door, opened it up, and lifted the rear seat cushion, looking carefully in the space behind the seat. He pushed the seat cushion down and closed the door.

  He looked over at me. “If you’re ready, get aboard.”

  I went around to the side and got in.

  Roland ignored me as he opened up his clipboard and took some notes. Then he turned on the ignition, flipped on the headlights, tested the strobe bar over the roof of the cruiser—the lights reflecting on the rear brick wall of the police station—and flipped on the siren, cycling through four different siren sounds.

  “Everything looks good, sounds good,” he said, backing up the cruiser. “Thing is, you test this stuff every night. Don’t want to find out the sirens or lights don’t work when you need them.”

  I opened up my notebook, scribbled a few lines. “Why did you open up the rear seat?”

  He nudged the cruiser out into traffic. “Checking things over. Sometimes perps, they get arrested, even with their hands cuffed, they can dump stuff back there. I don’t like stuff dumped in my cruiser. Don’t like surprises.”

  We were now out in traffic. He picked up the radio mic, keyed it, brought it up to his mouth, and said, “Dispatch, Unit 19 out and available.”

  He looked over to me. “Got that? I don’t like surprises.”

  I made another note.

  “I got that,” I said.

  I looked at the dashboard clock. It was 8:02 P.M.

  We went through about a half-dozen blocks before he spoke up. “All right. Why me?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He made a right-hand turn, past a row of old three-decker homes—the last one on the end a burned-out shell. “You heard me. There’s about sixty or so cops in the department. Why me?”

  “Because you’ve been here the longest,” I said. “With a half dozen citations for bravery and excellent police work. I thought you’d be an interesting human feature story.”

  “You writing for the Cooper Chronicle, then?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m freelance. I’ve done articles before for other papers in the valley, but I thought maybe I could interest Boston magazine, or even the Sunday Globe, in your story.”

  “Hah,” he said. “That’ll be the day.”

  We went on for another couple of blocks. He said, “You want to know the deal?”

  “Sure,” I said. “What kind of deal is that?”

  “Deal is, I didn’t have to have you with me tonight. Captain couldn’t force me. And if he did, I could tell you nothing at all. But you see, the department’s getting a new allotment of cruisers next month. I made the deal with the captain. I put up with you and your dumb questions, I get the
best cruiser. No more riding along in this six-year-old deathtrap.”

  “I don’t do dumb questions,” I said, my hands clasping the notebook tight.

  “Huh? What’s that?”

  Now it was my turn. I said sweetly, “Officer, you heard me the first time. I don’t do dumb questions. You’re good at what you do, and I’m good at what I do.”

  He looked at me, scanned my legs, and offered me a thin smile. “All right. Point taken. Just so there’s no misunderstandings, there’s two rules.”

  “Go ahead.”

  We stopped at a traffic light. A group of kids in Red Sox jerseys were on the street corner. When they spotted the cruiser, they faded into the shadows.

  “Rule one: you don’t get in my way. You stay behind me, and if I tell you to stay in the cruiser, by God, you stay in the cruiser. Rule two: no questions about my personal life. I owe you and the taxpayers of Cooper eight hours a shift, forty hours a week. What I do on my own time, what hobbies I got, hell, who or what I like to date, none of your damn business. Got that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Got them both.”

  The light changed and we moved ahead. And he looked at my legs one more time and said, “You really thought dressing up like that was a good thing for a night like this?”

  I flipped a page of my notebook. “Here’s a rule for you, officer. No comments on how I’m dressed. You got that?”

  Another thin smile. “Gotten.”

  We rode around Cooper for a while, in an aimless pattern that I was sure was anything but. The radio crackled with different calls for other units, and I said, “Why have you always been a patrolman? Why not try for a promotion?”

  He waited a few seconds and said, “Why put up with the aggravation? Same streets, same crime. You’re a patrolman, you’re responsible for yourself. You become a sergeant or a detective, then you got to manage people. Ugh. I have enough problems keeping myself in line. Hate to think of doing that with other people.”