“You want me to park first?”
“Turn off the vehicle.” Cop’s hand dropped to his belt, and Ferret didn’t want any of that shit. He turned it off, left the key in the ignition. The cop was trying the door before Ferret could touch it. The locking peg was down. The cop made clumsy grabs for it in his gloves before Ferret hit the auto unlock and the cop stepped back, obviously resting his hand on a gun or tazer or something that would hurt. “Hands where I can see.”
One of the plainclothes was walking over, stopping to chat with the second cop, barely, before telling the first cop, “I’ve got it. It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
The door was half-open, but the detective curled his fingers over the bit of window sticking up, held it in place. Ferret remembered now—Little John Ford, a face he had hoped never to see again. But he knew that look on it.
“You found her.”
Little John cut his eyes to the side. Nodded.
“You found her?”
“Let’s get you out of here. You can go with me.”
“Jesus, you found her?”
“I’m sorry. You will be, too. Let’s go.”
*
A quiet ride to the morgue, Ferret sitting up front with Little John while a couple of different uniformed cops, one man, one woman, sat in the back. No cage between them. This was the least policey police car Ferret had ever seen. It was quiet, too, except when a radio squawk made the cops mumble about whatever it was that was said. Ferret was just getting the hang of figuring out how to interpret the radio when they pulled up. They told him to wait while they all got out. A full three minutes. Then the woman cop opened Ferret’s door and took him by the arm.
They had made sure to tell him earlier that he was not under arrest. He was being detained as a material witness. That was all. They treated him with cold respect. The cop’s hand on his arm wasn’t tight or rough, just there to guide. He looked up at the door to the hospital they were leading him through, a service entrance next to dumpsters. Once inside, the lights blinded him, kept him winking, squinting, losing track of the path. The smell of rubbing alcohol, sweat, dust being burned away by the heaters. People loitering in the hallways, leaning on walls, sitting on the floor, staring at phones, waiting for news of any kind. They pulled their legs out of the way for the cops and Ferret. They stared a few seconds before looking down at the phones again, thumbs scrolling, scrolling.
An elevator. Down button. Little John talked softly to someone on his phone. The cop still had her arm on Ferret’s. He shifted a bit and she let go, saying, “Sorry.”
Out of the elevator, into another hallway. While the cops and Little John spoke with a man in a white doctor’s jacket and scrubs, Ferret scrolled through faces in his head like they were on his phone. Pancrazio, Bad Russell, Good Russell, Glen “The Baptist” Ramsey, his father-in-law, Gene Handy, Slow Bear. Men. He’d been sinking in a sea of men for nearly a year now. Dee Dee was like a buoy in the middle of it all. He had clung to her for dear life. All the women here, buoys in a sea of men. Angry, tired, broke, flush with cash, working, looking for work, treated like animals, acting like animals. The women were the ones getting knocked around because of it, but they kept trying to rise above. Some couldn’t take the bashing anymore and sank to the bottom. Fewer and fewer buoys, more and more waves.
Then he was standing before her. No sheet over her head, just the one folded tight across her chest. They had defrosted her, cleaned her, washed and combed her hair. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. The discolored skin from the frostbite couldn’t be helped. Her eyes were closed, her head resting on a pad that pushed her chin against her breastbone. They had cleaned up her wounds but left them open. Like a bandage would help, right? Who had done this to her? Taken bites from her like she was a piece of fried chicken?
He had wondered about this moment a few times in his life. Would he touch her? Kiss her? Would he break down? Would he cry? Would he even recognize her?
“My wife,” he said. Mouth and throat dry. He kept having to clear his throat. He was too raw for crying.
He had hoped she would turn her head towards him, open her eyes, grin. He would tell her he was sorry it took so long. She would say, “That’s okay. Let’s go home.”
That didn’t happen. She was more still than still. Like she was ignoring him. The silent treatment.
“My wife.” He took a step forward and reached out, touched her hair. Wet, cold. Then her forehead, the tip of her nose. Her lips. That’s when he knew he wouldn’t kiss her. He pulled his hand back like electric shock. Dead was dead. Dead was it. His fingers knew it right away. What was left wasn’t kissable. He tried to remember their last kiss, but couldn’t. Many others, sure, but not the last one. “My wife.”
The cops were watching. What were they thinking? Was he not showing enough emotion? Too much, like an act? No, no, that’s...no, no that’s...
This wasn’t how he wanted to remember her, and now he could never forget this. Cold, dried out, manhandled.
Little John stepped up beside him.
Ferret grinned. “She wouldn’t want you to see her like this. Me, that’s okay. But not strangers.”
“I know.”
“I’ll have to...um...I’ll have to get this dress for her, she hardly ever wore it, but she looked so nice in it.”
“I know.”
“I think it’s in storage. I’ll have to go. And some pantyhose. There’s this lipstick color she liked. I’ll find it. She wouldn’t want it too bright. It’s almost brown.” Every word, imagining her pretty in her casket, but every word reminding him he probably wouldn’t be at the funeral. Lee wouldn’t allow it. She would have to fly back to Alabama alone, in the cargo hold. She deserved first class. He wondered if they would allow that, her casket in first class.
Ferret said, “I need to call Violet.”
“It’s already been done.”
“No, I need to. I need to be the one to tell her. I need to call Dee Dee’s mom.”
“It’s already been done. Finn, please.” Little John laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got to go. Okay? We’ve got to go now.”
Ferret nodded. He didn’t move. He didn’t want to remember her like this. He didn’t want to remember her like this. He didn’t want to remember her like this.
The cop slid her hand around his bicep, guided him away just like she had guided him inside. Ferret only then realized someone had cuffed his wrists together. Okay, for now. It was okay. One last look at Dee Dee, but she wasn’t there. It was just an off-white elevator door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Russell had gotten used to the heat in Pancrazio’s office before he left, but coming back, it was that sweat lodge thing all over again. He didn’t even bother to pretend this time. He took off his coat, sweater, and hell, even his jeans before sitting down. Just a V-necked T-shirt, tighty whiteys, and thick-ass socks.
Pancrazy said, “You’re not my type.”
“You’re a crazy old man, you know that?”
“Not so old. Not yet.”
“Okay, I’m here. What did you want?” He was prepared for some sort of pleading for him to stick with his old job. Maybe a raise, maybe a promotion. He must have heard that CHS had all but hired him to drive. Just waiting on the background check.
“Heard about Ferret today?”
Okay, that was a surprise. But, easy guess. “Did they find her?”
Pancrazy nodded. “Frozen solid out in a beet field. So now, they’ve got him at the station. I don’t know what that means.”
Russell couldn’t help but feel a cold shiver. “He’s under arrest?”
“I said I don’t know what it means, goddamnit, listen for once.”
“You think he’s going to talk.”
“I think he thinks I killed her. I think someone pointed him at me.”
“That’s ridiculous. That’s fucking stupid is what it is.”
Pancrazy nodded. “Damn right. That boy...that boy...I like that
boy. He was solid. Don’t you know, I was worried. Worried that something like this would happen. I told your friend, you know, to keep an eye on her. I just had that feeling. And still, look what happened. He couldn’t even get that right.”
Hunter had never told him. Why not? He had to know something, then. He had to. Why hadn’t he said anything? Now Russell was imagining the cops’ next moves—drop-ins, questions, search warrants, subpoenas, witnesses, more witnesses. Jesus.
“Here’s what we need to do,” Pancrazy said, sweat dripping from his mustache all down the front of his denim shirt, buttoned all the way up. “What I need you to do.”
*
Russell parked outside this new office building on the edge of downtown, which had replaced a Pizza Ranch after it moved to a bigger and better location. The office building was built nearly overnight. Ugly, pre-fab, functional. Five floors. It housed two law firms and a personal injury lawyer.
Where the multi-million dollar oil companies roam, attorneys are sure to follow, like a pack of hyenas waiting for the lions to finish up with the carcass. Any office space they could grab. Like this one. Inside, third-floor, stopped at the front desk. Pancrazio had given him a name, an appointment. All Russell had to do was deliver the check. Good money, washed clean. Signed in Pancrazio’s shit old man scrawl. The lawyer asked for a few details, wrote them down on a legal pad, and then they were done. Ferret had himself an honest-to-God lawyer.
That was all well and good for Ferret, but after the call from Gene Handy the night before, it was just the beginning of the end for Pancrazio.
Well, Pancrazio trusted Russell, right? Russell had to agree. So, let’s say Gene Handy wanted to talk to Pancrazio in private. Someplace inconspicuous. Whatever. That was the word Gene Handy had used. It didn’t seem like a very Gene Handy word to use.
“What if you’re wrong?”
A shrug. “It’s not like his nose is clean.”
So the plan was for Russell to go get Pancrazio tomorrow night, make up some bullshit reason for them to go meet Gene Handy. All he had to do was hold on until then—
The guy leaning on the truck, Russell had seen him around. Black-haired, young guy trying to look even younger with the hair in his eyes and all. Wore a cop’s coat unbuttoned over a T-shirt, some Indian on it over the word DISOBEY, plus jeans and boots. This guy, yeah, this one was the Rez cop Pancrazio had paid off. Yeah, of course he knew this guy.
So what the fuck was he doing leaning on Russell’s truck?
The sun had come out and was reflecting all over the place, off the snow, the ice, the windows. Russell cupped his hand over the brim of his cap. The cop was staring right at him. Nodded.
“How you doing?”
Russell snapped his fingers a few times, then pointed. “Isn’t your name, like, Lazy Cub or Fish or something?”
“Slow Bear. Slow Bear Cross.” He didn’t reach out a hand to shake. “Russell, right?”
“You following me, Officer?”
“Kind of.”
He didn’t need this shit. “This is out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it?”
“We need to talk. That’s all.”
What harm could a talk do? Hardly none at all, Russell figured.
*
They got into Russell’s truck, and the cop pointed them towards the beaner bar, Norte Revolucion. Russell had barely noticed it before. They parked on the curb out front, went inside. Pretty much empty except for a couple of job-seekers hunched up at the bar, staring into half-drunk beers. Killing time, Los Lobos loud on the house stereo, “Mas y Mas.” The bartender looked up, didn’t look thrilled to see Slow Bear. The cop pointed at the tap, Dos Equis, and held up two fingers. Then he led Russell to a table near the men’s room and the cigarette machine. Goddamn, an actual cigarette machine. It wasn’t lit up, and the prices were too cheap. The pool tables they had passed, though, brand-new.
They sat at the high-top, Russell with one foot on the ground ready to run. The job-seekers kept cutting glares. They knew he had a job. White boy in here, shoving it in their faces. One of them might get drunk enough to say it out loud to him later on. He shouldn’t have come.
“Cards on the table, Russell? You’re the good one, I hear.”
Shook his head. “It means good, like, good at it, not good like Superman good.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
A girl in sweatpants and North Dakota tank-top brought their beers over. Didn’t say a word as she sat them down. Then she was gone, back to her stool at the end of the bar, staring at her phone.
Slow Bear said, “She strips here two nights a week.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’m not saying you should come see her—”
“What are you saying? Why are we here?”
“So Pancrazy got Ferret a lawyer?”
Of course he knew that. Or was he fishing? How did this deal work? “What if he did?”
Slow Bear took a sip, nodded. “That’s good, that’s good. Happy to hear it.”
“Listen, man.” Where to go after that? “Listen.”
“You figured out who killed Ferret’s wife yet?”
Bowling ball, gut, cough. Russell started coughing. He stood, took a step back and pulled his collar away from his throat. Too tight, too tight. Really drawing all the attention from the spics now, the other Indian, the stripper. He took in a couple of raw breaths.
“No, no, it couldn’t have been. He’s got nothing to do with it, I swear.”
Stupid grin on the cop’s face. “Easy, man, easy.”
“I mean, what the fuck?” Russell cleared his throat, trying hard not to throw up. “I can vouch for him. Don’t do this.”
“I’m not talking about Bad Russell.”
“His name’s Hunter.”
“I know his name, I know his nickname, I know about the girl that’s been leading him around, and now I know what she knows.”
“Jesus.”
“All of us, Russell, have been fucked around like nobody’s business.” Slow Bear stood and clamped his hand on the back of Russell’s neck, pulled him closer. “You’ve got to get it together. Drink your beer, take some deep breaths.”
“I don’t...I don’t want any beer. I don’t.”
“It’s okay, it’s all okay. I talked to Hunter’s girl. You know why? Because he took her out of town, a long way out of town. Because when she got back, she never wanted to see him again. And she told me everything. Everything.”
Slow Bear let go and sat back on his stool. “Now I’m going to tell you everything.”
Russell cleared his throat again, his collar no longer choking him, and sat back on his stool, too.
Slow Bear told him everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The lawyer was good. Ferret read his card again. W. I. Sveback. He’d told Ferret, “Call me Bill.”
It had been a slow burn interrogation up until that guy walked into the room. Little John and his partner making sure Ferret had plenty of coffee, some snacks from the vending machine, no charge. He wasn’t stupid. He sipped on the coffee to keep warm. This interrogation room was way cold. Wood paneling, florescent lights, a padded table with fold-up legs, two older office chairs, a fold-up chair in the corner for when both detectives were in the room at the same time, which wasn’t too often. It had been a couple hours. So far, they had been really nice, mixing sympathy and questions about his needs—“Which dress did you say you needed to get for her? Can we have the key to the storage unit? Where is that lipstick?”—with tedious questions, coming back around every so often, trying to trip up his story.
What time did you leave that morning?
Are you sure no one saw you at the drill site? Absolutely sure?
If you hadn’t gone into her car like that, maybe we could’ve pulled some prints.
Your daughter? Would you like to talk to her? We’ll see what we can do.
Do you have any paperwork, any burial plans, something like that?<
br />
Did she have any life insurance?
Just tell me again. Slower, every moment of the day you can remember.
It wasn’t “Good Cop/Bad Cop.” It was “Sad Cop/Sadder Cop.”
Until the third hour. They were growing frustrated. Of course Ferret had killed her. Of course. You were fighting, weren’t you? She was tired all the time. She hated this town. And my God, all these men leering at her all the time, she must’ve enjoyed it a little bit, right? We can understand. We’ve all been there. Sure we have. You didn’t mean to. You didn’t know what you were doing. At least give yourself some peace of mind. How did she get out there in that field?
At first, Ferret had been sure he wasn’t going to break. Fuck no. He was innocent, and he would tell them a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million more times if that’s what it took.
Then he yawned. And then some more. And then he couldn’t stop. The cold made him sleepy. The stress made him sleepy. They kept waking him up. All the caffeine in the world wouldn’t work. All the sugar. All the fear. He just wanted to go to sleep and try to forget what Dee Dee looked like, mottled and thawed, even the spike into the roof of her mouth holding her jaw together couldn’t hide the fear of her final few breaths. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part, but, shit, no one imagines what death will really look like on their spouse.
Maybe that was the point. Death was fucking ugly. That was what it has to be to make you want to move on. Part, man, part!
Like that was easy. It so fucking wasn’t.
Ferret wanted to talk to Violet. He wanted to go to sleep. Maybe if he gave them something, anything, just a hint or two, they would let him talk to her and let him have a good long nap and then he could get back to saying he was innocent once he was rested.
He was sure no one would hold it against him.
And then Bill the Lawyer With the Funny Last Name strolled in and fancy-talked with the detectives, made a few phone calls, told Ferret to not say a single solitary word, and then left with Little John for a bit. In the meantime, the other detective never really “questioned” Ferret, but did say things like, “Once that lawyer gets things in motion, we can’t help you anymore. Just letting you know. Tell us now, okay, and he can still help you. We can make a good deal, and all this will be over. But you’ve got to hurry. You’ve got to make the choice. Be a pal, be a good husband. Don’t be a prick.”
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