Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I was glad one of us did. I was not looking forward to trying to explain what it felt like to have a conscience to someone who didn’t. I’d tried with Nicky back home. He was tied to me metaphysically and could feel my emotions, so he behaved like he had them, but he didn’t. He was a sociopath, and even feeling my emotions, he didn’t understand all of them. It was like explaining the color red to someone who had been color-blind all their life. Where do you begin?

  Frankie’s phone rang. It was Rico getting back to her on the deer hunt. Great. Maybe real police work would interfere with explaining feelings to sociopaths or hand-holding junior marshals.

  42

  I HEARD FRANKIE say, “Are you sure?” She made hmm sounds and then hit the button to end the phone call. Her face was serious, but I didn’t know her well enough to read that as positive or negative.

  “What did Rico say?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “The deer was in the tree where I left it, right?” Bobby asked from the cell.

  “No, Bobby. I’m sorry, but Rico couldn’t find a deer in the tree.”

  “Did he check the tree just outside my bedroom window? It’s got a limb that was always great for sneaking out.”

  “Rico says he checked all the trees near the house and didn’t find any dead animals in them.”

  “That’s not possible. I remember the hunt. I remember the deer’s heartbeat fading under my jaws. I can still feel it struggling under my claws, the sensation of the hair in my mouth. It was too real to be a dream.”

  Duke stepped back into sight. “Sometimes we remember things the way we want them to be, not the way they are, son. I’m sorry.”

  “What does that mean? What are you trying to tell me, Duke?” Bobby’s hands were starting to mottle where he gripped the bars.

  “Are you remembering a deer, Bobby, or something else under your claws and fangs?”

  Bobby raised his face up, his blue eyes large and nearly perfectly round like whatever he was seeing or remembering was something awful. He started shaking his head. “No, no, I would remember the difference between a deer and . . . Uncle Ray.”

  “If a memory is too terrible, we change it, edit it even in our own heads until the lie replaces the truth. You said so yourself,” Duke said to me.

  “I remember what I said.”

  “Do you edit your memories that way?” Olaf asked.

  “No, but a lot of people do.”

  “I do not,” Olaf said.

  Bobby kept shaking his head and backed away from the bars. “No, I finally started remembering again. I’ve never remembered the wrong thing before.”

  “Have you ever hurt anyone before?” Duke asked.

  Bobby shook his head. “No, my mentor, my sponsor, was with me from my first full moon.”

  “Why did you change form on the dark of the moon? Even a new Therianthrope would have been safe that far away from full,” I said.

  Maybe if I could get Bobby talking about something else useful, I could head off the emotions that were all over his face and body language. I’d seen other shapeshifters when they realized that they’d killed someone they loved by accident. The realization was never pleasant, and the shock looked just like this.

  Bobby blinked at me as if he was having trouble drawing himself back from whatever was in his head. “What?”

  Olaf tried, “Why did you change so far away from the full moon?”

  “She asked,” Bobby said, and then he stopped talking as if he hadn’t meant to answer.

  “Who asked?”

  Bobby just shook his head.

  “Who is she?” Olaf asked.

  Bobby shook his head again, lips held in a tight thin line as if he were literally holding his lips closed so he wouldn’t say more. He was protecting someone, and I didn’t think it was himself.

  “You’re remembering tearing Ray apart, Bobby,” Duke said.

  “No, it was a deer!”

  “You’re not sure of that, are you, Bobby?” Duke said.

  Bobby frowned. “I was.”

  “Stop it, Duke,” said Wagner in the other cell.

  “You’re on my shit list already, Troy. Don’t pile it higher.”

  “No, Duke, you could always do that with Bobby and me and some of the other boys. You could talk us up for a game or talk us down for something you thought we’d done wrong, but this isn’t who threw a ball through Miss Bunny’s window, Duke. This is Bobby’s life on the line. Don’t fuck him over.”

  “I should let the staties take you with them when they leave, Troy.”

  “What happens to Wagner is up to you, but this isn’t some regular crime, Sheriff. If you get Bobby to confess, he doesn’t get held over for trial. One of us takes him out and fucking kills him,” I said.

  “Win should have done that when we were still cleaning up Ray’s body.”

  I looked at Leduc, really looked into his brown eyes, gave him some serious eye contact. He met my look with a bored one of his own. I was betting that was his blank cop face; every officer had one if they stayed on the job any length of time. It was the face we used to hide anything we were thinking. Some looked bored, uninterested, distracted, even faintly amused, but we all had a version, like a mask we could hide behind. It was so suspects didn’t know what we were thinking or other cops didn’t read us when we were hiding things. Sometimes all we were hiding was that we were scared, or disgusted about the crime at hand, and to show it would be weak, but sometimes we were hiding things that made us bad cops, and we didn’t want the other cops to find out.

  I searched Leduc’s eyes and tried to figure out which reason had made him drop the cop look over his face like a mask. I wasn’t a suspect, but Bobby was, and Leduc had already shown all sorts of emotions in front of him and us marshals. It seemed a little late to be hiding his emotions behind the mask.

  Bobby sat down on the bunk in his cell, head in his hands. He was muttering something that I couldn’t understand.

  “Sorry, Bobby. I didn’t catch that,” I said.

  He looked up. “I remember the deer. It should be in the tree.”

  Frankie said, “Maybe Rico missed it?”

  Duke said, “I’ve gone deer hunting with Rico. He knows what a deer looks like, and he’s the best shot among all of you deputies.”

  “He’s the only one of us that can outscore you at the range, Duke,” Frankie said.

  “You’re nipping at our heels, Frankie. I’ll take you out for practice when this is all over.”

  “Thanks, Duke,” she said, smiling. She looked pleased in that dad-noticed-me-and-was-proud-of-me way. It wasn’t the look you gave someone who was just your boss. Maybe that was why Duke and his officers all called one another by their first names? It was more family than business. I’d seen it before on small forces, but never to this degree.

  “Who asked you to turn into your leopard?” Olaf asked. It surprised me that he was taking lead on the questioning when there were no threats involved. He didn’t usually enjoy interrogation without them.

  Bobby shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Bobby, just confess, and it’ll be all over,” Duke said.

  “We’re trying to get to the truth here, Sheriff, or don’t you care about who really killed Ray Marchand?” I asked.

  “We found him covered in blood at the scene of the crime, Blake. The only ones complicating this case are you and Win.”

  “If it was so open-and-shut, why didn’t you pull the trigger while Bobby was unconscious, Duke? If you were so certain that he killed his uncle, then you’d have been justified in shooting him at the scene. No one would have questioned it. You could have written the report up almost any way you wanted it to read. This is your town. Your deputies think of you as a father figure. If it was so simpl
e, why didn’t you just take the simplest solution, Duke?”

  He tried to meet my gaze with his bored-cop face, but he had to look away. Whatever he was thinking or feeling at that moment, he wasn’t sure he could hide it from me. That meant it was a strong emotion. The question was, which one?

  “Unconscious seems a lot more unsporting than shooting into a cell,” he said at last.

  “You couldn’t do it,” I said.

  “Not like that, no.” Duke raised his eyes and let me see the anger and confusion in them. It wasn’t just the two younger men who had history with their “coach.” It was Leduc’s history with them. God, it was like family. No matter how this ended, damage had been done to the relationships, if nothing else.

  Duke turned those angry eyes to the prisoner he’d known since he was in elementary school. “But if Bobby would man up and be the monster that tore Ray apart and spread his blood and guts all over that room, that I could shoot.”

  “I swear that all I remember was the deer,” Bobby said.

  “Your control should be better at the dark of the moon,” Olaf said.

  “It is.”

  “Then why change form?” Olaf had moved closer to the bars and was giving Bobby some of the most serious attention I’d seen him give anyone when they weren’t a target or a victim.

  “I . . . wanted to.”

  “Why?”

  “I . . . can’t say.” Bobby’s eyes flicked toward the sheriff.

  “Duke, I think we need less of an audience for this,” I said.

  “I already told Forrester that you don’t get to kick me out of my own jail, especially not when you’re questioning my prisoner.”

  There was movement in the doorway. Then Newman poked his head in and said, “But he’s not your prisoner, Duke. He’s mine. You’ve made it clear that he’s my problem to solve.”

  “He’s yours to execute, but he’s my prisoner as long as he’s in my jail.”

  “You’ve got an interrogation room here.”

  “Not one that will hold a shapeshifter.”

  “You let us guard him in the bathroom,” I said.

  “That was different. If you’re not going to kill him, then making him sit around covered in God knows what probably goes under cruel and unusual or something,” Duke said.

  “If he starts trying to change form and escape, I’ll shoot him, just like you want me to do,” Newman said.

  “And how many more people will be hurt or dead or contaminated before you shoot him?”

  It was interesting that Leduc listed death as preferable to catching lycanthropy. I’d almost died more than once and finally popped positive for lycanthropy. It wasn’t worse than dying.

  “I’m already contaminated, so don’t sweat my purity of blood,” I said.

  “I, too, am contaminated,” Olaf said.

  “If I was a betting man, Duke, I’d put my money on Marshal Jeffries if Bobby gets frisky,” Edward said, back in smiling-Ted mode. He pushed Newman ahead of him through the doorway so there really wasn’t room for all of us to be comfortable in the small hallway. He’d done it on purpose to make a point, I think.

  “Not betting on your girlfriend?” Leduc said.

  The smiling-Ted mask slipped a little through the eyes as Edward said, “If you mean Marshal Blake, then she and I always let Otto do the hand-to-hand with the other supernaturals first. He takes a lot of the fight out of them, and then Anita and I just come in and mop up.”

  “You never let me kill them with my bare hands,” Olaf said, and I swear he sounded pouty. He was playing along, because we’d never let him wrestle a suspect.

  “I know. We ruin all your fun,” Edward drawled, or maybe Ted drawled. Even I got a little confused after a while.

  “I’ve got three of the best preternatural marshals in the service as my backup, Duke. I think we can handle Bobby in the interrogation room,” Newman said.

  He hadn’t batted an eyelash at the talk of letting Olaf go hand-to-hand with Bobby. It made me think that Edward had done more than just give Newman a pep talk outside; they’d made a plan. Since I didn’t have a plan, I was just relieved that someone else did, especially if that someone was Edward.

  Leduc tried to protest a little more, but Newman stood firm. Edward got to hold a gun on Bobby while Newman and I put the new supernatural strength shackles on him, which meant metal around his wrists and ankles with a chain going between them all so movement was limited. Then we shuffled Bobby out of the cellblock, though that seemed to imply more than two cells, and led him to the door that I’d thought was a closet. The room wasn’t much bigger than one, but it was the only interrogation room we had, so we all squeezed in and shut the door. I was immediately claustrophobic. Yeah, it was that small.

  43

  THE TABLE IN the middle of the room took up most of the floor space. There were two chairs. We put Bobby in one, and then there was barely room to walk behind the chair. I could squeeze my hips between the chair back and the wall, but barely. Newman took the chair opposite Bobby, and that left the rest of us to figure out where to stand. There weren’t a lot of choices.

  Edward took up a corner behind Newman so he could watch Bobby’s face, and then Olaf and I had one of those comedic moments of both trying for the other corner that would let us watch Bobby. Under other circumstances I’d have accused him of trying to rub up against me, but we both genuinely wanted the same spot. Edward solved it like we were kids to his adult.

  “Anita gets shotgun,” he said, and that meant I was beside him. Olaf took it gracefully enough, but even he couldn’t ease behind Bobby’s chair gracefully. He managed it, but it was one of the most physically awkward things I’d ever seen Olaf do. He finally ended up in the corner closest to the door so that he and I mirrored each other.

  Newman smiled at Bobby like he meant it and said, “Bobby, I need to know everything that happened the night your uncle died.”

  “I told you before the other marshals got here, Win. I told you what I remembered.”

  “Bobby, you know that you’ve left things out.”

  “Do you think I did it?” Bobby’s voice had more emotion in it, not exactly anger but something.

  “No, but I think if you don’t tell us everything now, then it won’t matter in just a few hours. I only got an eight-hour extension on the warrant of execution. When the time is up, there will be no choice, Bobby. Do you understand that?”

  “I don’t think you’ll kill me, Win.”

  “Maybe I can’t, not like this, but I’ll be forced to give the warrant over to one of the other marshals. Even if I give up my badge, the warrant will just go to the next marshal. I can’t save your life by refusing to take it, Bobby, because if I don’t do it, one of the marshals in this room will.”

  Bobby looked up at Edward and me and then turned his head so he could see Olaf. He turned back to look at me. “I don’t think you’ll do it either, Anita.”

  “Maybe not, but Ted will, and Otto will, but honestly, Bobby, after I nearly got shot saving you once, I’ll be really pissed if that was for nothing because you won’t tell us the whole truth.”

  He looked startled. Maybe I’d sounded angrier than I’d meant to sound, but what I’d said was still true.

  “Why did you shapeshift at the dark of the moon?” Olaf asked.

  “I wanted to.” Bobby looked down at the tabletop.

  “Who was the woman that asked you to shapeshift?” Newman asked.

  Bobby shook his head.

  “Are you still trying to suicide by cop?” I asked.

  Bobby looked up then and again he was startled, or maybe it was confusion on his face. I didn’t know him well enough to be certain. “I didn’t—”

  “Bullshit. I nearly died protecting you when you decided to lose control and let us shoot you.”

  He l
ooked down again, but this time he murmured, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly then.”

  “Are you thinking clearly now, Bobby?” Newman asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then who is the she that you mentioned before?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Let us decide that.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone until we’re both ready.”

  “What did you promise not to tell?” Newman asked, voice soft.

  “I gave my word.”

  Olaf spoke from the corner. “Will you die to keep her secret?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Why did you change into your leopard form on one of the few nights that almost nothing could make you do it?” I asked.

  Bobby licked his lips and swallowed. I realized that I hadn’t seen him drink or eat anything since we’d been here. I guess I’d assumed that someone else had taken care of that, but I didn’t know that for certain. I just wasn’t used to having prisoners, and dead bodies didn’t need to be fed.

  Edward must have noticed, too, because he said, “Do you need a drink, pardner?”

  “That would be nice. Thank you,” Bobby said.

  It took some maneuvering past me, but Edward finally managed to get the door opened without hitting the table. He shut the door carefully behind him.

  Bobby was way too at ease. He should have been scared, and he wasn’t. I realized that he was a lot more relaxed outside the cell. Had it been a mistake to bring him out of it? We could always take him back and do it the other way, but we had to either get him relaxed enough to let his guard down, or we had to up the emotion and scare him into talking.

  Newman talked to Bobby but didn’t push too hard until Edward got back with a soda. We waited in silence while Bobby opened the can and took a few drinks. He actually laughed and said, “You’re all staring at me. I’m not doing anything that interesting.”

  “In seven hours . . .” I made a big deal out of looking at my watch. “Oh, wait, in six hours and forty minutes, you’re going to die, because you won’t tell us the whole truth about that night.”