Rome kept on. “We intercepted the call she made to your dispatcher almost immediately, but we didn’t catch up to her until two days later.”
“She was okay? What happened?”
“We found her in a State Park. She’d slept in the car overnight. Guess no one noticed until morning, when we got word. She woke up surrounded. When she came out of the car, she had a shotgun. And she was ready to use it.”
“Bullshit. She was just a kid. No fucking way you could consider her dangerous.”
His eyes were telling me it was true, though. “Maybe you rubbed off on her. She wasn’t willing to go quietly.”
“No, she was innocent.”
“Then why was she on the run?”
“I did it.” Hearing myself say it was like a knife to the gut. “I didn’t want her mixed up with you. I didn’t want you to fuck with her mind, make her hate me.”
“I see,” he said. “Yeah, I can understand that. Because I told her you’d rolled on her. I thought if she was under the impression you had ratted her out, we would get past whatever charade you’d concocted with her.”
I was confused. Was it an act, or was he as bad as I suspected? He was a damn fine liar. Then I thought about the file.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“I figured it was the only way you’d believe me.”
Rome slid the file across the table. I didn’t let the dread hold me back. I flipped it open.
Drew. On the slab. Head shot. Eyes wide open. The next showed more of her, laid out indecently, horribly, while the photographer clicked away. Another, just her hands. Another, her feet.
“Fake. Could be fakes.” I didn’t believe they were. I was grasping for straws. “It’s a set-up.”
“Wish I could agree with that. Like I said, I’m sorry, Billy.”
“Sorry for what?”
Rome tilted his face towards the florescent tubes buzzing overhead, stared at them. “For being the one who took the shot.”
It was almost like I didn’t hear the words. Like that moment in time didn’t even exist for me, even though I knew it to be true.
Rome brought his eyes level with mine and said, “It was me.”
I swept the file off the table, let the photos hit the wall, fall to the floor. Rome was still as a dead man. I stood, planning to kill him—choke him with the shackles, kick his goddamn skull in. Paint the walls with his blood, Manson style. I started around the table.
But then he leapt up, gun already out. The real thing this time, not a stun gun. I stopped cold. I had hoped to get a couple of vicious shots regardless, adrenaline and rage keeping me alive just long enough to bite his throat out. If she was dead, I didn’t want to be alive, but I wanted to take Rome out with me.
I don’t think I really knew she was dead until I realized how scared he was.
“You think you’ll ever get another word out of me now? You think I’m ever going to think about anything besides seeing you dead?”
He calmed his breathing, sidestepped to the door. I could’ve grabbed the gun. I was that fearless, done with the world. I thought I was saving her by sending her away. Goddamn it, thought I could keep her off the radar. Chalk up another failure. Not much further to the edge of the cliff.
Then Rome had to press his luck. He banged on the interview room door, waited until one of his agents opened it for him. Then he passed the threshold, turned to me and said, “I told you I was sorry. It was all down to her. All she had to do was drop the shotgun.” A long pause as he stared down the hallway, at what I had no idea. “But before you get all righteous and turn to stone, don’t forget—we’ve still got an eye on your kids and ex-wife. Maybe we should question them, see what we can find out.”
I launched towards him. He barely got the door closed in time. I slammed into it with my shoulder. I swallowed the pain and kept slamming, pounding, screaming his name. Over and over, all the bloodlust seeping out word by word, blow by blow, until I slid down to the floor. Nose bled, blood vessel in my eye burst. I saw red. I sucked air through gritted teeth—I will not cry. I won’t let them see me cry—until my thoughts went silent. It was another two hours before someone was brave enough to open the door and move me to my cell.
TWENTY-NINE
It’s hard to kill yourself in a jail cell, especially if you don’t want to attract attention. Several scenarios considered, discarded—beating my head against the floor until I cracked my skull (but they’d hear and see it, since I was being monitored by cameras, plus I’d probably pass out before I did any real damage); find a sharp edge to slice my wrists (I tried, believe me. Nothing worked); smother myself (again, passing out short-circuits it). Nothing to hang myself with except the sheets, but again they would see that before I got far enough along.
I sat in my cell, trying to imagine worse punishments than this. If the man who expected me to trust him could gun down Drew, then use my kids to threaten me, well, the ball game was over. I started wishing I had committed treason. Execution would take a few seconds and then be done. Seemed like a blessing compared to Rome.
Maybe Ginny’s dad could call in a top notch lawyer to keep the Fed threats away. Otherwise, I’d just start making up shit, all sorts of crazy plots to keep the Feds running in circles for months. Once one story petered out, I’d give them another. No clue when they’d stop trusting me. Might be fun while it lasted, though.
I curled up on the thin mattress, trying to rest, but images of my house on fire kept breaking in. Drew and me on a beach watching my house burn while the Malaysians and Arabs marched towards us, knives drawn. We retreated into the water. They kept coming. We kept retreating, the surf splashing around our legs. Deeper. Our chests, our shoulders. Our feet couldn’t touch the bottom anymore. We were too heavy to swim. The terrorists marched on as if the water wasn’t an obstacle.
Dream Drew said to me, “I didn’t believe they would shoot me.”
“But why even try to draw down on Feds?”
“I figured that’s what you would’ve done.”
I was about to ask her more when something beneath the waves tugged at her feet, ripped her from my arms. Down down down into the dark. I shouted her name. I dove under. Dark and cold.
Then I woke up. Someone was at the cell door. I hugged my pillow, drew it across my forehead to wipe off the sweat. I was a mess, soaked to the bone and barely able to breathe. I couldn’t take another late night interrogation, no indeed. Not one more question. My stomach was churning like the tide during Katrina.
It was George Tordsen. He smiled, painfully, like an angel of mercy. I had crawled as close to the wall as I could. He eased over to my bunk, sat down. “He told you, right?”
I nodded. “Tell me it was another lie.”
He hung his head, frowned. “Afraid not. I found out shortly after you got here that he hadn’t told you. I don’t like that kind of thing.” A long sigh. “I guess. So…I hope you’ll forgive me for what’s happened, and how I let it go on too long.”
“Please, George. Don’t.”
Then the sad smile returned. “Okay. But the good news is that for you, everything’s going to be just fine.”
I blinked when I heard it. “Why are you here?”
“Come on,” Tordsen took my arm and eased me up. “Let’s get you out of here. I’m setting you free.”
*
Layla handed me some clean clothes. “My son’s old stuff.”
Jeans, a flannel shirt, a windbreaker. I changed in the men’s room. Washed my face, got my bearings. Looked at my face in the mirror, saw a ghost. A patchy beard. Not like me at all.
Out in the squad room, I sat at one of the empty desks, stared at a blank Fed computer screen, and waited to wake up from the dream.
“Someone going to explain this to me?”
Tordsen nodded. “You can thank Layla here. I was ready to believe you were the Devil, but she convinced me you’d never do the things they were accusing you of. But try telling that to Rome, h
e threatens your job, your family, goes a little crazy. So we made a few calls to his higher-ups and discovered that there had been witnesses to what happened at the hotel. About how you and Drew tried to save the sheriff after the bomber blew himself up. Until then, we’d thought you led him into a trap.”
“That’s what Rome was saying about me?”
Layla said, “He’d gone rogue. They didn’t know what he was doing, except that he’d apparently fabricated some documents, said it proved you had a hand in Graham’s death. George here got him shut down, so you’re almost free and clear for now.”
“For now?”
“Well,” the sheriff sat on the edge of my desk. “You went vigilante on us, were present when Sheriff Swoboda died, and have been blundering through with these people from the start. We can’t allow that to slide, but if you cooperate I’m guessing they’ll only give you a slap on the wrist. You’ll have to admit to a few things, maybe not illegal but certainly not smart. That’ll get you out from under the Feds. Then if you want to stick around, we’ll help you find a job. Maybe a security guard, something like that.”
I was way out of it and unable to process what they were saying. “You need to slow down.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to be all right. Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a guest room for you at my house until you get everything settled. I’m sorry about what happened to yours.”
I stood, turned to Layla. The look on her face reminded me of Ginny’s mom, how she’d always been so calm and collected with me when I called in a drunken fit. I understood now that there was more sympathy in her than I first believed. “Tell me about when Drew called you.”
Layla said, “We’d made a plan with her mom to get her out of here, down to her aunt’s house in Kansas City. So all she had to do was show up, I was ready. But she was so tired, stopped to sleep at Whitewater State Park.” She choked on those last words. Then, “I should’ve gone to pick her up. I had no idea…”
“No, no, please. It’s all my fault. Don’t.”
She made a noise like a horse, but it soon turned to tears. I reached out to her and she fell into me, crying for Graham, the dead college kids, and for no longer feeling safe at home. If not for me coming here, and then for Paul knowing I was here and what sort of person I’d once been, well…wherever else I might’ve gone, it would’ve been the same story.
Yeah, terrorists in the heartland, and it was all on me.
Soon Layla dried up, sniffled, and eased away.
Tordsen stepped over to us and said, “You can get some sleep. I waited until now to wake you so Rome wouldn’t try to interfere. His agents know what’s going on, though. That’s why they’re gone. Tomorrow I’ll drive you over to The Cities so we can start clearing this mess up. Need to get you a lawyer, too. If you want to think about pressing charges against Rome, well, there’s that, too.”
I shook my head. Fuck justice. I wanted to see Rome wrapped in tin foil and left in the middle of the desert. Then again, if I were in his shoes, I’d probably follow his methods exactly, even perpetrating worse things to get a confession out of a pig like myself. “I’m not pressing charges.”
“Sleep on it. It’ll look different tomorrow.” Then he noticed my expression, something I was doing unconsciously, I guessed. “Don’t let that idea in your head take root. Like I said, sleep on it and you’ll have a new perspective in the morning.”
I nodded. “I’ve had enough trouble for a while.”
Tordsen grunted. “I don’t think you know what ‘enough’ means.”
He was right. I was stunned by his generosity, but it wasn’t enough to settle my boiling blood. The trick was to look weak, defeated, relieved. And I think I pulled it off.
“Oh, by the way…” He looked at Layla. She dug a set of keys out of her purse. My keys.
I took them. “Really?”
She started for the door. “See for yourself.”
*
There it was, good as new in the front parking lot. Layla had gotten her husband to rescue it from my house, fix the damage and put on new tires. My big red truck.
I leaned against the truck’s grill, finally feeling relieved, but also anxious.
Layla said, “Don’t worry. Graham called me from the road, said maybe I should come pick it up, get my husband to knock it back into shape. No one searched it.”
“Much appreciated.” I grinned. “You think anyone’s going to miss me if I take a hunting trip instead of helping out?”
Layla raised her eyebrows. “Hunting for what?”
“They’re still out there, and all this time Rome’s had me locked up, God knows what they’re up to. I can bring them in, I know it.”
She laughed, patted my arm. “Oh, really? Suddenly you’re some kind of action hero? Honey, they’ve already caught up with your terrorists and are just waiting for the right moment to move in for the kill.”
“Wait. Rome said¾“
“Shit, Billy, he’d made it personal, all messed up in the head. He’d convinced his boss that you were some type of leader for those guys. Hey, we’re all out of this now. Not our problem anymore.”
I pounded my fist against the hood. “The fuckers burned my house down! You think I can just let that go? Goddamn it, it’s not fair.”
She said, “Is that what he told you? He told you it was the terrorists?”
“Well, yeah, it was the fucking terrorists, right? Killed my friends and then came back and torched my house.”
“Oh, honey, no. No no no. That wasn’t those guys. Dear God, no.”
“What was it, then? Lightning strike? Dry brush?”
“It was Doctor Hulka. Raving drunk. They caught him dancing around in your front yard while it was burning. Says you ruined his life the night you took him home from the casino.”
What the hell was going on? “Are you sure?”
“They caught him. He admitted it. Right there in your yard. I’m so sorry, hon. I had no idea. I need to tell George to add that to the list of Rome’s fuck-ups.”
Just when I thought the bastard couldn’t sink any lower. Unbelievable.
It got worse. Layla said, “I’ll bet he didn’t tell you that Drew’s shotgun wasn’t loaded either.”
That was all I needed. A couple of tears warmed my cheek. Layla’s eyes grew wide. It took every ounce of will I had to keep myself from jumping in the truck right then and there. But I had to play the nice guy, right? Had to fool them just a few minutes more.
Until, “Well, no. He didn’t.”
A long silence, the wind picking up, whistling between the cars in the lot. She reached over, rubbed my arm. “So sorry.”
I shrugged. “I think maybe filing charges would be a good idea after all.”
“Maybe so.”
I opened the door to my big red truck, got inside, slammed it shut, and eased down the window. “See you tomorrow, Ms. Layla.”
She hugged herself and stepped back. “Don’t you want to wait for the sheriff?”
“Just tell him I felt like sleeping under the stars tonight.”
I was gone.
THIRTY
Free. Unarmed. Angry. And I was pretty sure that Tordsen would realize his mistake soon enough and come after me. So I had to move fast.
I had a good idea where Rome was staying. When he moved here to work at the casino, a couple of other deputies and myself kept tabs for a week or so, just to see if he was involved with any dirty dealings we could profit from. He came up clean as a whistle. Still, that meant I’d spent a night or two a block down from the small ranch house he’d rented in Pale Falls, on a quiet street near the hardware store and post office. I was hoping he hadn’t abandoned it for the town’s only hotel now that his cover had been blown. He surely wanted a better bed than his agents.
This time I parked two blocks away, thinking he might have a couple of agents keeping an eye out, just in case. That was a long shot, though—as far as he knew, I was in jail and t
he wannabe Al Qaedas were under the gun a long way from here. The strange thing was that I knew what I needed to do in order to get into Rome’s house, but I had no idea what I would do once inside. I would have to improvise, make it look like an accident or suicide, make people believe that’s what it was, even if they knew good and Goddamn well it was really all thanks to me.
I took my time easing through backyards on my way to his rear door, the grass still slick with melting ice. I was lucky that Rome lived on a relatively dog-free street. No fences bordering yards here, everyone a big happy community. My former citizens, snug in their beds, no idea the Bastard Traitor Deputy was on his way to commit a real crime for a change.
Rome’s porch light was on, but otherwise the house was dark. It was a tiny thing, gray vinyl siding stripping away any charm. Just what you’d expect a Fed to fall in love with. It was indistinct in every way. His yard was bare except for an uncovered gas grill which, from the looks of the rust, he probably left out all winter. The porch was a concrete slab with a couple of cheap patio chairs on it, a stained Igloo cooler between them.
I slipped over to the door, my fingers on the knob, when it occurred to me—the guy had to have a security system, right? Especially him, always on the hunt for evildoers everywhere.
“Shit.” Through my teeth. Seething.
But I’d come so far. I mean, trying to imagine what tomorrow would be like, or the next day, or the next week, it just wouldn’t come. I had already started over once after Katrina, already lost too much, and wasn’t looking to do it again. Without Drew, without Graham, without a chance to reconcile with Ginny, might as well go out fighting.
I tried the knob. Locked, but simple to break. I wished I had rescued the picks from my cruiser when I had the chance, but no biggie. All I had to do was keep turning left, hard as I could, squeeze it until it felt like all the bones in my hand were about to break, then pop the door with my shoulder. I’d done it a thousand times before. And it worked this time just as easily.
Yellow Medicine Page 21
