Just One Bite

by Jack Heath

  The smell makes it hard to run. It feels like each breath I take is one-third air, one-third fungus, one-third plastic confetti.

  I’m exhausted by the time I turn a corner and find a clearing. The first thing I see is a car crusher—not switched on, not the source of the noise. The next thing I see is a chain-link fence, topped with cruel coils of razor wire. The fence has been knocked down and flattened against the patchwork mud. Huge tire tracks tell me that our suspect has stolen a tractor, or maybe a bulldozer. Those things have a top speed of about twenty-five miles per hour. We won’t catch him on foot.

  I’m about to yell out to Thistle when I see something else. The crusher looks like a giant sandwich press. A car is clamped between its mighty jaws, the roof caved in and the doors prolapsed out.

  The plates have been removed. But I’m sure it’s the blue Toyota Prius that once belonged to Kenneth Biggs.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lovers circle each other where guilt is found,

  freedom lost and rackets heard. Where am I?

  “It could be a coincidence,” Thistle says.

  “You think it is?”

  “No.” Thistle takes another sip from her banana milk shake. After ordering it she glared at me, as though daring me to criticize her for eating like a teenager.

  “It’s the same make, model and year as Biggs’s car,” she continues. “And it was found at the same dump where his phone was last switched on. We just need to remember that, legally, it’s not proof. Not until the VIN is confirmed, anyway.”

  We’re at a diner around the corner from the courthouse, a pink sunset out the window. This is the kind of place with harsh fluorescent lights, cloudy water bottles and cherry pie congealing in an unrefrigerated glass cabinet. Thistle didn’t have time to take me back to the FBI—she’s supposed to be on the witness stand in an hour, and she still has to change. Her blouse is stained with sweat, and we both smell like trash. The other customers keep glancing at us, and I can tell the staff want us to leave.

  “You said you pulled the dump apart looking for the phone yesterday,” I say. “How come you didn’t see the car then?”

  “Because it wasn’t there. I may not be a ‘genius’ like you, but when a trail goes cold at the dump and the vic’s car is missing, I’m smart enough to check the crusher.”

  Unlike me, Thistle is intelligent enough to hold down a proper job instead of eating the dead for organized crime. But she’s not fishing for a compliment, so I don’t give her one.

  “So the perp has been to the dump since then,” I say. “I saw cameras—are they real?”

  “Yeah, but useless. The insurance company mandates that there be cameras, but it doesn’t require them to be recording, so they weren’t. And no one saw anything suspect on the live feed.”

  “According to who? Edwards?”

  Thistle slurps up the last of her shake. “Right. Who I don’t trust at all.”

  The diner starts to disappear around me as I become more and more immersed in the puzzle. In my head, I’m still at the dump, looking around. “He’s hiding something, for sure,” I say. “But if the perp doesn’t work there, then someone would have noticed him trashing a car and two phones, right?”

  “Him?”

  “Even if the perp isn’t Luxford, Edwards or the guy who stole the tractor, I reckon we’re looking for a man.”

  “You mean statistically.”

  “Not just that. Ruthven is a big guy. Two hundred pounds. Not easy for a woman to overpower him.”

  “You might be surprised,” Thistle says. “I was on my high school wrestling team. Sometimes the weight doesn’t matter—you just gotta find the right angle.”

  “The point is that our perp either works at the dump or has teamed up with someone who does,” I say. “We’re getting close.”

  Thistle checks her watch. “I have to go. My lawyer will be shitting herself.”

  “Your lawyer? I thought you were just a witness.”

  Thistle ignores this. “How are you getting back to your car?”

  “The bus,” I say.

  “Okay. I’ll see you at the field office tomorrow.”

  “Let me give you my new cell number,” I say. “In case you find anything out before then.”

  Warner told me not to tell anyone about the phone, but I want to emphasize to Thistle that it’s a new phone. I want her to know that I didn’t lie to her before, when I said I didn’t have one.

  It’s stupid, because I’ve told her much bigger lies. My whole life is a fabrication. But I don’t like her thinking I’m dishonest.

  “Sure.” Thistle gets out her phone and types in the number I give her. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.” She leaves some cash on the table and walks out the door, not even staying long enough to get a receipt.

  I sit, sipping my salted, sweetened coffee for a minute. Thinking.

  I should go home. Keep working the case. Do something about the bodies in my freezer.

  Instead, I follow Thistle to the courthouse.

  * * *

  When I pictured the inside of Herbert W. Gee Municipal Courthouse, it always looked like a grand old hotel. Lots of wood paneling, marble floors, maybe even a chandelier. I figured there would be people in expensive suits—and me in chains.

  Instead, it looks more like the place where I used to collect my welfare checks. A line of cheaply dressed, dejected-looking people stand behind a nylon strap stretched between two silver poles, waiting for their turn at the counter, which is protected by shatterproof glass. A sign says Open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Too much crime in Houston to deal with in normal business hours.

  When I reach the front of the line, I explain my situation to a gaunt white lady. I’m a friend of Reese Thistle’s, here for moral support, but I’ve forgotten which room—

  “You want Bucetti versus Thistle,” the woman says, her voice muffled by the glass. “Court three.”

  Apparently this isn’t confidential. And it’s Bucetti, not the state of Texas—so, not a criminal matter, which makes sense. If it was, Thistle would be suspended from working cases.

  “Hey,” a man says, overhearing. “You here for the Bucetti trial too? Come on, I’ll show you the way.”

  He’s thirty-something, black and dressed like a lumberjack in a flannel shirt and jeans. His shoes—polished leather, pointed-toe, thin laces—give him away as someone with a desk job, though.

  “Which side you on?” he asks as we walk.

  “Thistle,” I say cautiously.

  “Aw, that’s too bad,” he says, smiling like we have opposing baseball teams. “How do you know her?”

  “We work together sometimes,” I say. “But I’ve been away awhile. I don’t even really know what the whole thing is about.”

  We walk through a metal detector, like at the airport. A guard with a vacant stare waves an explosive-residue wand over me before he lets us pass.

  “You didn’t hear about the shooting?” the lumberjack says.

  “Shooting?” I haven’t seen any sign that Thistle has been shot, which means she shot someone.

  “Oh, man.” The lumberjack shakes his head. “Sorry to be the one to tell you, but your girl, she fucked up.”

  I don’t know if he means she did fuck up, or she is fucked up. Either way I don’t believe him.

  “Big-time,” he continues. “She’s going down. How well do you know her?”

  I should act like a casual acquaintance, but I can’t help but stick up for Thistle. “Well enough to know she wouldn’t do anything wrong. If she shot Bucetti, I’m thinking he had it coming.”

  I expect the guy to be pissed off, but he just laughs. “Man, you got no idea. Your friend? She has a cold streak. You’ll see.”

  I could bite your face off, I think. But he walks into the courtroom before I come up with
something I can say out loud.

  It’s a wide room with a low ceiling over a tiled floor, maybe for ease of mopping up tears. There are pews rather than seats, mostly full. I take a seat in the back, so Thistle won’t notice me. The lumberjack, inexplicably, sits next to me. Boxing me in. Which is bad, potentially for both of us. Now that I’ve thought about eating him, it’s hard to stop.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What am I?

  “Please state your name for the court.”

  Thistle leans in close to the microphone. “Reese Catherine Thistle.”

  She’s changed into a suit that doesn’t fit her very well; it probably belongs to her lawyer—a tense-looking white woman with narrower shoulders and a lesser bust.

  Thistle doesn’t look nervous, but she’s highly alert. Aware that she’s under attack.

  Bucetti, whoever he is, hasn’t turned up. His lawyer is an old man in a brown suit—from here I can see only the top of his liver-spotted head. It seems strange that the lumberjack came along for moral support when his friend isn’t even here.

  After Thistle—who’s an atheist—swears on a Bible, the bald lawyer stands up. He’s taller than I expected, and his voice is louder.

  “Miss Thistle. Let’s pick up where we left off last week, shall we?”

  “Let’s,” Thistle says.

  “When you shot Anthony Iuculano, was that the first time you’d fired your service weapon?”

  “No,” Thistle says. “I go to the range every week.”

  “But it was the first time in the line of duty, correct?”

  Thistle’s lawyer is on her feet already. “Objection! Leading the witness.”

  The judge is a middle-aged black woman with sagging cheeks and a head which hangs low, as if weighed down by decades of bullshit. “Sustained,” she says wearily.

  The bald lawyer rephrases. “Miss Thistle, was this the first time you’d fired a gun at an actual suspect?”

  “Yes,” Thistle says.

  “It must have been hard,” the lawyer says. “Lining up a shot on an actual human being, putting your finger inside the trigger guard for the first time...”

  He lets the words hover in the air for a moment.

  “Was that a question?” Thistle asks.

  “Meanwhile, Iuculano was lining up a shot of his own. Taking aim at your partner, Agent Mario Bucetti.”

  “I’m still not hearing a question.”

  “Agent Thistle,” the judge warns. “I strongly discourage you from being flippant in my courtroom.”

  Thistle clenches her jaw. “Sorry, Your Honor.”

  I’m starting to understand why Thistle is here. Not because of who she shot, but who she didn’t.

  “Unlike you, Iuculano didn’t hesitate,” the lawyer continues. “He—”

  “No, but my aim was better,” Thistle says.

  “He shot Mario clean through the arm,” the lawyer says. “The bullet shredded his triceps and chipped the bone. My client nearly bled to death in that stairwell. According to this affidavit from Dr. Van Spreeuwel—” he waves a document in the air “—Mario may never regain the use of his right hand.”

  “Lucky he’s left-handed.”

  The mention of shredded triceps makes my stomach gurgle. It’s six p.m. I’m hungry again. The lumberjack gives me a funny look.

  The lawyer is humanizing Bucetti by using his first name. Making Thistle seem incompetent by always referring to her as “Miss” rather than “Agent.” He must be used to performing for juries rather than judges, who presumably don’t fall for those tricks.

  “If I hadn’t given him first aid, he’d be dead,” Thistle says.

  “That could very well be true,” the bald lawyer says. “But if you hadn’t hesitated, if you had fired earlier, what do you think—”

  “Objection,” Thistle’s lawyer snaps. “Calls for speculation.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher,” the judge says, “please let Mr. Simmons finish his questions before you decide whether to object to them.”

  All eyes are on the action up the front, including mine—until I realize someone is watching me. A young white man, no eyebrows, dressed in a dark blue tracksuit. He’s on the other side of the courtroom. He doesn’t look away when I spot him. Instead, he holds up a piece of paper, angled so I can read the scribbled words: COME WITH US.

  My heart is loud in my ears. I nod to the man in the tracksuit. Message received.

  “If you had fired sooner,” Simmons is saying, “then Iuculano wouldn’t have had the chance to shoot your partner.”

  There’s a pause. Someone sneezes in the front row, and Thistle flinches.

  “Mr. Simmons,” the judge says, “it’s late. Other cases are waiting to be heard. We’re all familiar with the basic facts of the case. Ask your question.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Miss Thistle, do you regret not taking the shot earlier?”

  The man in the tracksuit tucks his homemade sign into a satchel. Then he makes eye contact with another man—an Asian American guy with spiky hair and an ear stud. The lumberjack seems to notice none of this. I try to work out if he could be with them—whoever they are. It felt like an accident, him running into me outside the courtroom. But experienced con men are used to manufacturing accidents.

  No one gets up. I guess they want me to go with them after the court session has concluded.

  “That would have been irresponsible,” Thistle is saying. “I wasn’t sure the suspect had a gun. It could have been a phone or a wallet.”

  Simmons picks up a photograph from his desk. He shows it to the judge, then to Thistle. “Does this look like a phone, or a wallet?”

  “From a yard away in a well-lit courtroom?” Thistle says. “No.”

  “Especially since Iuculano had already used it to murder his wife.”

  “We’d heard reports that shots had been fired in the building,” Thistle said. “But at the point when we first saw Iuculano, we didn’t know who had done the shooting, or who had been shot.”

  Simmons places another document in front of her. “According to Mario and the neighbors, this is what you said before Iuculano opened fire. Read it for the court, please.”

  Fletcher stands up. “Your Honor, this was in my client’s official statement. The facts are not in dispute. Mr. Simmons is—”

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge says.

  Thistle clears her throat. “I said, ‘Drop the weapon. Do it now.’”

  “I take it you didn’t mean a phone or a wallet,” Simmons says.

  “It could also have been a knife or a Taser,” Thistle says. “It could have been anything. My hope was that he would drop it no matter what it was.”

  “Well, he didn’t. He shot your partner. A man who—”

  “At which point I determined that it was a gun,” Thistle says, “so I put him down with two shots to center mass.”

  “He shot your partner,” Simmons repeated, “a man who entrusted you with his safety.”

  “Hence the first aid,” Thistle says. “Instead of blaming me for Bucetti’s shooting, maybe you should blame the guy who shot him.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, Mr. Simmons,” the judge says. “Care to tell me why I shouldn’t throw this case out of court?”

  I can see Thistle holding her breath.

  “Iuculano may have caused the damage to Mario’s arm,” Simmons says, “but Miss Thistle is responsible for his emotional pain. He put his trust in her, and she failed to protect him.”

  “Do you have any evidence of that emotional pain?” the judge asks dubiously.

  “He’s been in therapy,” Simmons says.

  “Already paid for by the FBI, Your Honor,” Fletcher puts in eagerly. “Standard after a shooting.”

  “He do
esn’t feel like he can go back to work,” Simmons says.

  “Well, not after suing his partner,” Thistle says.

  The judge silences her with a sharp look. Then she says, “Even if there were adequate evidence of emotional harm, Agent Thistle wouldn’t necessarily be responsible for it. It sounds like she has fulfilled her duty of care, and I don’t want to set a precedent that encourages police to fire on potentially unarmed suspects, even to protect other officers. Case dismissed. The plaintiff will pay the defendant’s costs.”

  Thistle looks at her. She can’t believe it.

  “Your Honor—” Simmons begins.

  “I’ve made my ruling,” the judge says. “Case dismissed.”

  She bangs the gavel and starts the slow process of getting out of her chair.

  Thistle sags with relief. It’s only now that I realize how well she was hiding her anxiety. She’s not rich—losing this case might have ruined her. She gets up from the witness box, shaking. Her lawyer hugs her. I wish I could hug her, too.

  Then Thistle sees me.

  Her eyes narrow. She notices who I’m sitting with, and her annoyance turns to fury.

  I glance at the lumberjack. Does she know him?

  He turns to me. “Well,” he says, “that’s that.”

  “Like I said,” I tell him, “she’s a good cop.”

  “I’m sure she is.”

  “You’d like her if you got to know her.”

  For some reason this seems to make him mad. Teeth clenched, he says, “I never got your name.”

  My phone is buzzing angrily. It can only be Warner. The Asian guy and the tracksuit man watch as I stand up. Both are still hemmed in by other people, but they won’t be for long.

  “No,” I say. “You didn’t.”

  I walk out of the courtroom and turn the corner, breaking the line of sight between me and the two men.

  Then I run.

  The corridor is wide, with a gradual curve to the right and the last of the daylight coming through the big windows on my left. Nowhere to hide. No sign of a fire exit. I dart around other people, sprinting toward the front entrance.