Scott Free

by John Gilstrap

  More thought. “So, how do you know the bad guys aren’t out there right now? I mean, shouldn’t you be watching for them?”

  “It’s a five-hundred-thousand-dollar contract, not five million. I don’t worry a lot about them making an appearance in this weather. Not at night, anyway.”

  Scott let it go, his mind wandering to images of him getting caught in somebody’s crossfire.

  “Okay, Scott O’Toole,” Isaac said, startling him. “I’ve come clean, so now it’s your turn. Tell me about your family.”

  “Why?”

  Isaac shrugged. “Think of it as a sign of good faith. You get to know me, so I get to know you. I assume that your parents are divorced.”

  Scott nodded. How did he know that?

  “And that you live with your father, not your mother.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because of what you told me about your mother, and the fact that you only cared about getting word to your father that you’re alive. No concern about telling Mom anything. I presume that you and she don’t get along.”

  “Now there’s an understatement,” Scott snorted.

  “So, why did they divorce?”

  “I guess they stopped loving each other.”

  “They told you that?”

  “Actually, I caught my mom fucking a grad student when I was ten.”

  Isaac nearly choked on his Jack Daniel’s. “Excuse me?”

  It was Scott’s turn to laugh. “What can I say? Back in elementary school, we used to get off at, like, one in the afternoon on Mondays, and I guess she forgot about it. I came home and there they were.” He hadn’t thought about this in years. How could that be? How could he not have thought about it, yet have it all be so clear in his memory? He remembered the rhythmic thumping and his mother yelling, “Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus!” And then he remembered walking into the bedroom.

  “What did you do?” Isaac asked.

  Scott threw off a shrug of indifference. “They saw me and they stopped.” But the reality was far more complicated than that. Here in the cabin, staring at the fire, Scott saw himself jumping up on the bed, beating on the beard-and-sideburns geek with his fists while he scrambled to cover himself up. Scott had never been so angry, before or since.

  “So, you told your old man and they got a divorce.”

  Scott shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I never told him. Never. I was too ashamed.”

  “But he knows about it.”

  “Not from me, he doesn’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Fine. Neither does she.” How many times had she grilled him, over and over again? You told him, didn’t you?

  “Why would you keep a secret like that?”

  “Because I told her I would.”

  Isaac didn’t know quite what to make of that. “Why do you think she doesn’t believe you?”

  Scott genuinely didn’t like this line of questioning, and he squirmed. “I don’t know.”

  “Why do you think?” Isaac pressed. “You be the psychiatrist. Why wouldn’t your mother believe you when you say you never told your father about her…about the incident?”

  None of this was any of Isaac’s business. Scott didn’t like the way he was pushing and prodding to peek into areas of his private life. Still, it was an interesting question. Finally, he said, “I think it’s because this way, she gets to blame me for everything.” The room turned silent for a long time before Scott added, “Can we call it even now?”

  21

  BARRY WHITESTONE PICKED UP THE PHONE to call his wife. They hadn’t spoken all day. Eagle Feather being the kind of community that it was, he’d grown accustomed to having lunch with her more days than not, and today, between the storm, the president, the death down at the motel and the search for the plane crash kids, he’d barely had time to think, let alone eat lunch.

  He needed to talk to Janey, if only to touch base with the part of his life that was always happy. The Jamiesons had joined the O’Tooles here in town, and the whole thing was eating away at him. He’d seen plenty of grieving people in his time—parents, kids, brothers, sisters—but there was something about the intensity of Brandon O’Toole’s angst in particular that resonated with Barry. Maybe it was the fact the Brandon’s Scott and Barry’s Tyler seemed cut so nearly from the same cloth. Maybe it was merely the man’s limitless capacity for hope.

  He’d just finished dialing the number when Secret Service Special Agent Ed Sanders appeared in his doorway, clearly anxious to speak.

  Janey answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, honey, it’s me,” Barry said, indicating with a finger for Sanders to wait a minute.

  The agent walked into the office and helped himself to a seat.

  Janey teased, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  “Hang on a second.” Whitestone covered the mouthpiece with his palm and said to Sanders, “Give me a minute, would you?”

  “Take your time,” Sanders said, but he didn’t move.

  Back to Janey. “It’s been a wild day. I’ve got Secret Service crawling around like maggots on a dead skunk.”

  “Oh, now isn’t that a pleasant image,” Janey said.

  Whitestone glared at Sanders, whose face never moved from its humorless Secret Service scowl. “Never seen such an obnoxious group in my life. They think they own the world.”

  “Their boss does own the world, doesn’t he?”

  “Nah, he just has the power to blow it up at his will.”

  “You’ve got an agent sitting there in your office, don’t you?” Janey asked. Sometimes her powers of deduction amazed him.

  “I sure do.”

  “Barry, you should be ashamed.”

  Whitestone laughed. “I was just calling to check in. Everybody okay?”

  “Disturbing case, eh?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t hear from you all day, and then your first question is, ‘everybody okay?’. That means something’s eating at you.”

  “You’re good,” Barry said. “It’s the missing kids from the airplane. I just hate to see the families suffering the way they are.”

  “So, you’re still no closer?”

  “It’s like the earth swallowed them whole. Not a trace.”

  “That’s such a shame,” Janey said. “We’re all just fine. Well, I’m fine. Tyler is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to tell you about his D in algebra.” In the background, he heard his son shout, “Mom!”

  “Terrific. Do we need to talk to his teacher?”

  “You need to talk to the guy in your office, Chief Whitestone. Finish up there and come home.”

  Barry smiled. “Yes, dear. It’ll be a while yet.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Whitestone hung up the phone and looked at Sanders. “It doesn’t bother you to hear me call you a maggot?”

  “You didn’t call me a maggot,” Sanders corrected. “You compared me to one. There’s a difference.” His face twitched, in what might have been a derisive smile. “Can we get down to business now? Eagle will be moving about town tomorrow.”

  “Eagle’s the president, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Barry scowled as he leaned back in his chair. “You know, I’m not sure that I know him well enough to do the interspecies thing.”

  “That’s our code name for him,” Sanders said.

  Whitestone smiled. “Irony isn’t your long suit, is it, Sanders?” The vacant expression he got in return said it all. “It’s another name for humor. You might want to try it. I hear it’s good for the skin.”

  “Can we get back to the issue, please?”

  “Okay,” Whitestone said. “Vulture will be moving about town tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Eagle.”

  Jesus, he bites every time, Barry thought.

  “And I’m going to need every officer you’ve got to help with traffic and crowd control.”

&n
bsp; Barry shrugged. “Okay. Let’s see the plans.”

  Agent Sanders unfolded a map of Eagle Feather and laid it out on the chief’s desk. It was an amazingly detailed rendition of the town, clearly shot recently from overhead, presumably from a satellite. On it, he could see every building and every geographic highlight. He also saw that every street was marked with bold black lines.

  “These are the crowd control checkpoints,” Sanders explained, pointing to the black marks. There were over a dozen of them. “You’ll need to assign at least two of your men at each of these locations,” he explained. “And here, here and here…” he indicated points with his pen “…is where we expect the most pressure from the crowds, so I’ll need at least three of your people at each of those.”

  Barry scowled again. “How many people do you think I have?”

  “Thirty-two,” Sanders said, nailing the number on the head. “And I’ll need them all.”

  “You can’t have them all,” Barry countered.

  “Actually, I can. Shall we turn this into a pissing contest?”

  “Protecting Turtle Dove from harm is not my only priority.”

  “It’s Eagle. And you have one potential murder investigation and the search for two dead boys. The rest is routine crap than can be put off until anytime.”

  Suddenly, it all came back to Whitestone just how much he disliked this man. “Seems to me you’ve been working pretty hard at doing my job.”

  “Well, someone has to.” Sanders crossed his legs and folded his arms. “Does it really have to be a war, Chief? At the end of the day, we’re going to work together, so why don’t we make it as pleasant as possible?”

  Whitestone wanted to tell the agent to jam it, if only to obliterate that smirk, but fact was, the man had a point. Like it or not, the president of the United States was destined to be a repeat customer for at least the next two winters, so now was as good a time as any to get used to the inconvenience.

  Barry conceded the point with a perfunctory nod. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, they were done. The Secret Service would do most of the heavy lifting, with Barry’s troops mostly providing the impression of force. Sanders made it clear that he wanted firearms to be out and visible, in hopes of countering the notion that such a little burg would be a pushover.

  Whitestone summed it up: “So, the preparations kick off tomorrow, and Sparrow makes his big speech the day after.”

  “That’s it,” Sanders said, the tiny shadow of a smile invading his government-issue mask. “And it’s Eagle.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Whitestone grinned. “I keep forgetting that.”

  A knock drew both their heads around to Whitestone’s office door, where James Alexander stood, waiting to be recognized.

  “I’m not interrupting the part where you two shoot each other, am I?” James asked.

  “We checked our weapons at the door,” Sanders said.

  Whitestone checked his watch. “James, enter this in the station log. At precisely 7:03 on Friday, February 27, Special Agent in Charge Ed Sanders made a lighthearted comment.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t write it down where my boss can find it,” Sanders said. He stood. “I believe my work here is done. Good night, gentlemen.”

  James Alexander slid into Sanders’s chair. “I thought I’d catch you up on Maurice Hertzberger,” he said.

  “Still dead?”

  “Very. Turns out he died of a heart attack, just like we thought.”

  Barry smiled.

  “But I told the medical examiner to go over him one more time.”

  The chief raised an eyebrow.

  “The guy was a trucker,” James went on. “Last seen at a truck stop outside of Grand Junction, where he apparently hooked up with an overly talkative stranger. They left together.”

  “A queer thing?”

  James shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it was a favor thing. The stranger—who either called himself Teddy or Tommy, depending on who you talk to—needed a ride out this way, and he’d apparently been bumming off anyone who would listen to him. Maurice was the guy.”

  “What do we know about Tommy/Teddy?” Whitestone asked.

  “Only a description. He’s a heavyset guy—roly-poly, they said. Not obese like Hertzberger.”

  “Well, that certainly narrows it down.”

  “Let me finish.” James referred to his notes, to make sure he got the details right. “A waitress at the truck stop—Patricia—noticed that Mr. Chubby had thin hands.”

  “Thin hands?”

  “That’s what she said. Apparently, he wore a bulky sweater trying to hide it, but Patricia told me that his wrists looked bony, like a guy who worked out a lot. His face was thin, too, she said, but he wore a beard to cover it up.”

  “And because of this, you’ve sent the coroner back to work on a case he wanted to close?”

  James pondered the characterization for a moment, then nodded. “Look at it: you’ve got a guy in a disguise who hooks a ride on a snowy night—the very night that said driver wakes up dead. Sounds suspicious to me.”

  Whitestone considered that. “You know, James, sometimes I think you wish you were on a much larger police department.”

  “Nah, we’ve got cold and boredom. What more could a cop ask for? Anyway, I asked Doc Cooper if a heart attack could be stimulated with drugs, and he said yes. And then I asked him if he searched for any of those drugs in his blood and tissue tests and he said no.”

  “What about the moonshine?”

  “He hasn’t gotten to that yet. Not a detailed analysis, anyway.”

  Whitestone smiled. “With Doc Cooper, you never know. I wouldn’t put it past him to start with a sip test. When do you expect results?”

  “Couple of days.”

  “Good. So that means you have nothing better to do than help the Secret Service tomorrow.”

  James groaned. “Traffic detail?”

  “For everybody.”

  “What about the kids—O’Toole and Jamieson? You going to call the parents?”

  The mood in the room turned dark. “Not tonight. They don’t need to know tonight.”

  Day Five

  22

  SHERRY PEEKED THROUGH the curtain at the gathering crowd.

  “It’s huge!” Larry exclaimed, his voice an excited whisper. “My God, there must be nine hundred people out there. Standing room only.”

  “Half of them are media,” Sherry observed.

  “And this is a problem?”

  “They’re not here to listen to my seminar. They’re here to watch me fall apart in front of everybody. They’re waiting to see the lady with the reputation for strength come unzipped when the pressure is on.”

  “This lady would be you?” Larry asked, scowling. “Since when did you start referring to yourself in the third person?”

  “Not now, okay, Larry?”

  “It’s an opportunity to shine like you’ve never shone before. If you step out there and give your message of strength and independence, in spite of the week’s hardships, my God, you’ll be the poster child for grieving mothers everywhere.”

  Sherry nodded because it was the easiest way to get him to shut up. He wasn’t the one with it all on the line out there. He wasn’t the one who’d absorb the criticism, the public battery. He got to sit safely backstage while she was forced into performing despite the aching in her heart.

  To people on the outside—to her critics and her fans—it all looked so easy, so glamorous. They had no idea how hard she’d worked and how much pain she’d endured to become who she was. And now the bill had come due. She’d talked the talk all the way to fame and fortune. Now it was time to walk the walk and the pathway seemed impossibly narrow. And unspeakably lonely.

  Sherry was in a box. If she demurred from the stage in deference to Scotty’s missing status, she’d be pilloried for violating her own message of strength through all adversity. On the
other hand, if she went ahead on the adage that the show must always go on, then she’d be crucified as a coldhearted bitch. No matter what she did, the press and her fans would be watching every twitch of her mouth, every movement of her hands for some sign of her underlying motivations.

  God forbid that she cry. To cry was to show weakness. According to her own teachings, tears were the one frailty that no woman could afford. Something had happened over the course of the past generation; the roles had reversed. Nowadays, it seemed that men of power sought out opportunities to shed tears in the media, to show their softer, more human side. When a presidential candidate showed up on an afternoon talk show, for example—an audience of women—you could pretty much guarantee that his eyes would well up during some reference to his family. The tears would show that he was strong enough to show his feelings. For a woman to do the same thing merely perpetuated the stereotype of the weepy female.

  Such was the collateral damage of the women’s movement, she supposed.

  “Look at it this way,” Larry said, confusing her silence for indecision. “Canceling the engagement won’t do anything to find Scott sooner. Going ahead might even take your mind off your worry for a while.”

  “I’m not canceling anything, Larry,” Sherry said, not bothering to look at him. Let them think what they like. She had a job to do. “Go on out there and introduce me.”

  BRANDON HAD CHOSEN a seat that no one else wanted, in the back of the room, his view of the stage partially obstructed by a pillar. He’d paid full price to be here, but he still felt oddly like an intruder. Truth be told, he’d heard so much about his ex-wife’s seminars over the years that he was kind of curious what she had to say that was so inspiring. Maybe if he’d read one of her books he’d have a clearer understanding, but hell would freeze over first.

  The public address system popped and Brandon looked up to see Larry Chinn on the stage. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. He waited for people to settle into their chairs and quiet down. “Welcome to Your Hour of Towering Power, with Dr. Sherry Carrigan O’Toole.” The room erupted in applause, which Larry accepted with a blush and a little wave of his hand. “I’m Larry Chinn, Dr. Sherry’s personal assistant, and before we begin, I’d like to remind you of some of the ground rules, especially those of you in the back with the media.”