Violation

by Sally Spencer

  If only I’d thought this thing through properly!

  I glance at my watch. 10.07. Over two hours since Ringman was here!

  “I want to see Bobbie,” I say.

  Taylor looks lost – he is a natural at it.

  “Well now, I’m not sure I can allow that,” he tells me. “Not supposed to see anybody that ain’t family without his lawyer being present.”

  “You said Tait had already left when Ringman visited him.”

  Taylor runs his finger along a line in the register and finds a check mark which seems to please him.

  “Lawyer wasn’t present, but he left written permission for Chief Ringman to talk to the prisoner. You got written permission?”

  “I don’t want to talk to him. I just want to see him.”

  “You just want to see him!”

  “Yes, damn it – and I want to see him now!”

  There is nothing in the regulations to cover this. Half of him wants to turn me down flat, but the other half is afraid of what I’m going to do if he does.

  Will I draw my gun on him? he asks himself.

  You bet I will, buster!

  “Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll take you to have a look at him – just a look, mind – but it’s gonna have to go down in my report. And if anything goes wrong …”

  If anything is going to go wrong, it will have gone wrong already.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  We leave the building, and take the covered walk-way which runs along the left-hand side of the U. I want to rush him, but I don’t do it because I am afraid that if I explain my urgency, he will panic and refuse to take any further action until one of his superiors has been called in.

  B Block is at the very bottom of the U’s arm.

  “So that the condemned men could be kept as far away as possible from the other prisoners,” Taylor explains.

  Thanks, but lessons in prison management and geography are the last thing I want right now.

  Taylor opens the door and we enter a small lobby with a barred gate in the far wall. In front of the gate is a desk, and sitting behind it is a solitary guard. His chair is tipped back, his feet are on the desk top, and he is reading a copy of People magazine.

  The Assistant Chief Officer coughs, and instead of jumping to his feet, the guard just lowers the magazine and says: “Yeah?”

  “We need to see the prisoner,” Taylor says.

  He speaks hesitantly, like he thinks the guard – his subordinate – is going to tell him to take a flying fuck. If I was planning for something to go wrong, I would leave a man like Taylor in charge.

  The guard reaches lazily over his shoulder and takes a bunch of keys off the hook. He hands them to the Assistant Chief Officer.

  “It’s the one in the middle,” he says.

  “The … uh … gate?” Taylor asks.

  “Sure,” the guard replies, like he’s really doing us a favor.

  He presses the button on his desk, and the barred gate which separates us from the cell-lined corridor starts to slide creakily open.

  “Where is he?” I demand.

  The guard looks startled. “The prisoner?”

  “Yes, the fucking prisoner!”

  “End cell on the left.”

  A whole empty block, and they put Bobbie in the end cell on the left – as far from the guard as it is possible to be.

  As I run down the corridor, it seems to me as if all my senses have suddenly been heightened. The bars of the empty cells stand out starkly as I flash past. The noise of my own feet – and of Caroline’s pumps clicking behind me – is as loud as a thousand hoof beats. And the smell – must, decay, neglect – seems overpowering.

  The block has not been used for years and there is only one reason – can be only one reason – why they should choose to put Bobbie here.

  As I get closer, I can detect another smell – the stink of excreta.

  But I may only be imagining it.

  I may only think I can smell it because I know what is waiting for me in the end cell on the left.

  It is the legs I see first. They have stopped swinging, so it must have been all over for a while. Even if the rain hadn’t slowed me down, even if Taylor had moved quicker, I would still have been too late.

  My eyes climb the trunk and come to rest on the head. The skin has darkened, the mouth is twisted. His tongue hangs out, and his eyes bulge as if they are about to burst.

  Caroline, gasping for breath, draws level with me.

  “Don’t look!” I tell her.

  But it’s too late.

  “Oh no!” she says.

  And now Taylor, who arrives last, sees it, too.

  “Jesus Christ!” he moans. “Oh sweet Jesus Christ!”

  I check to see that the Assistant Chief Officer still has the keys in his hand. He does.

  “Open the door,” I tell him.

  “Open the door?” he repeats, like he’s gone into a trance. “I can’t … We … Somebody has to be told.”

  He is coming to pieces right in front of me. I snatch the keys from him, unlock the door and step into the cell. The chair is lying on the floor, and, righted, it gives me the extra height I need.

  My face is level with Bobbie’s now. My angry, sorrowful eyes gaze into his blank bulging ones. Even as I lay my fingers against his throat to check for a pulse, I know I am wasting my time.

  I take a close look at the noose around Bobbie’s neck. The knot is neat and professional-looking, and I know – as surely as I have ever known anything – that the hand which tied it is not the one which so clumsily painted Bobbie’s room. Rather, it is the hand of the man who so carefully prised up one of the floorboards and planted little Annie Coughlin’s panties there for me to find.

  “They were so fucking sure of themselves that they didn’t even bother to fake it properly,” I say angrily.

  I step down from the chair.

  Carrie is staring down at the floor, like she wants to cry, but isn’t going to allow herself.

  Taylor looks like he doesn’t know whether he has decided to faint or start screaming.

  I just want to hit out at somebody – which I understand won’t do any good, but which I feel like, anyway.

  I grab Taylor by the lapels of his Fucking-Useless Assistant Chief Officer’s jacket and shake him.

  “How could you let this happen?” I demand.

  “It’s not my fault,” Taylor mumbles. “I … I only came on duty at eight.”

  I release him, and turn to look again at the hanging body of Bobbie Hopgood, a young man nature gave so little to, but who always tried to do his best.

  “What I am going to do?” Taylor moans.

  “Get him cut down,” I say, suddenly weary. “That’s all you can do now.”

  24

  We are climbing the steep, twisting road back up Barker’s Ridge. It is only raining lightly now, but the pools of water haven’t drained away, and going through them is still hazardous. I should be giving the driving my full attention, but I can’t – I can’t.

  “It’s not your fault,” Caroline says softly – and for maybe the tenth time.

  But I know it is my fault.

  “If I hadn’t stirred things up, they might just have settled for Bobbie going to prison,” I say.

  “They’d have killed him whatever you did. It wouldn’t have been safe to keep him around.”

  “Okay, they’d have killed him,” I agree. “But not yet. They’d have waited a while, till they could have staged an accident, or a fight in one of prison workshops. And that would have given us time to prove he didn’t do it.”

  “Who’s to say we would ever have found the proof?” Carrie argues.

  “As long as he was alive, there was hope,” I tell her. “But by pretending to be Pine and then persuading Craddock that Bobbie needed a new lawyer, I panicked them into action. I put that noose around his neck as much as if I’d tied the knot myself.”

  “You couldn’t kno
w—”

  “And I did it all deliberately. I set up the trap. Only I made the mistake of thinking I was the bait – not Bobbie – and I wasn’t there to protect him when he needed me.”

  “Take it easy,” Caroline tells me.

  I can’t take it easy.

  “I am responsible,” I say. “But I’m not the only one. There are a few more people out there who are going to have to take their share of the blame – and then they’re going to have to pay the price.”

  We are nearly at the top of the ridge. It has stopped raining and the windshield blades are groaning at the lack of lubrication. I switch them off and look across Caroline – a vague, dark shape in the seat next to me.

  “You got somewhere to go?” I ask.

  “Somewhere to go?”

  Either she doesn’t understand me or she’s putting on an act.

  “Relatives, friends? Preferably out of state.”

  “Why?”

  “Bobbie’s death should have tied it all up nicely, but here we are – a loose end. They’ll have heard by now that we went to the jail, and have figured out that we know more than we should. Pine’s in this too deep to back away, so he’s going to have to use Ringman to try and take us out.”

  “So you stay around as a target, and I get to run for cover?” my sergeant says. “Is that what you mean?”

  I shrug. “That’s just the way it has to be. I’ve got a score to settle here – and you haven’t.”

  The dark shape next to me tenses up.

  “Oh no, Kaleta,” she says angrily. “It doesn’t work like that. We’re partners – and we’re in this together.”

  “Caroline … Carrie …” I begin.

  But I don’t get any further – because suddenly things are starting to happen!

  We are approaching the picnic spot at the top of the ridge, and parked there, with their lights off, are two vehicles – a Cadillac Seville and a Pontiac Grand-Am. For a second, I think they might be passion wagons, but no teenager lovers – not even incredibly horny ones – would be up here on a filthy night like this.

  So what are the two cars doing, out in the middle of nowhere? I ask myself.

  And there can only be one answer to that question – which is that they are waiting for me!

  We are getting so close to the two cars now that I can discern the smoke their exhausts are pushing out – and as my lights sweep across the windshield, I can see the twisted smile on Chief Ringman’s face as he watches me from behind the wheel of the Seville.

  “It’s a trap!” Carrie shouts.

  Yes, it is – and we’ve just driven right into it.

  I step on the gas, and we are past the parked cars, going down the hill at maybe ten or fifteen miles an hour over the safe speed. I glance up the rear-view mirror. The Seville and Grand-Am are no longer on the pull-in. They are coming up behind us – and closing.

  Ringman has picked his spot well. It’s three miles before we reach flat ground, and between here and there the road twists and turns like a snake. The Chief doesn’t even have to drive us off the edge. He only has to stop us – and then he can take all the time he needs to stage the fatal accident.

  I pull into the next bend and brake. My tires screech and, for a second, the off-side wheels lose contact with the road. I’m getting all I possibly can out of the LeBaron, but the gap between us and the Grand-Am is still growing smaller and smaller.

  This is the most dangerous driving I have ever done in my life, and I should be giving it my total concentration, but I can’t afford to do that because though I am keeping half of my mind of the road, I need the other half free to assess the situation ahead – and to choose my own battlefield.

  Two cars – probably four men – against me and a hundred and thirty-five pound detective sergeant.

  Not good odds.

  But they may be the best we’ll get, because down there – on the flat – Ringman will have more men waiting for us.

  I can see the lights of Harrisburg through a gap in the trees. Then there is a jolt as the Grand-Am smashes into my rear fender, and the lights are all jumping up and down like demented fireflies.

  My head is filled with noises: the crash of metal against metal; a gasp from Caroline, as she is first thrown forward by the impact, and then pulled back again by her safety harness; the loud cry of ‘Jesus H Christ!’ – which may well have come from me.

  And suddenly, the lights of Harrisburg are no longer visible through my side window – they are straight ahead of us.

  I wrench on the steering wheel. The car shakes and rattles in protest, but it turns away from the edge – away from a long, dark plunge into oblivion.

  Caroline is winding down her window with one hand, and pulling her weapon out of her purse with the other. And as we take the next bend she releases her harness, twists so that her head and arm are outside the window, and fires.

  I look in the mirror. The Grand-Am is swerving, but the swerve is controlled. Caroline’s shot has missed the tires.

  We have covered nearly half a mile, and the situation is worsening. The longer we can avoid the Grand-Am, the closer we get to the ambush ahead. The jaws of Ringman’s trap are tightening on us.

  The back window explodes, glass rains in on us, and there is a dull thud as the bullet slices an exit hole through the roof.

  I can’t depend on Caroline getting in a lucky shot.

  I can’t be sure that the next bullet from the Grand-Am will be high.

  I have to do something more than just run – and I have to do it soon.

  I try to visualize the road ahead.

  There’s a bend to the right, a bend to the left, and then a straight stretch.

  And on the straight stretch there is a gap in the trees with the second picnic pull-in opposite.

  “Put your belt back on!” I shout as we come to the first bend.

  “You got a plan?” Caroline screams back, as she twists round and buckles herself in.

  “Yeah!” I say.

  I am not lying. I do have a plan – it’s just not a very good one.

  We are around the second bend and onto the straight. I can see the gap in the trees, I can see the pull-in. The lights of the Grand-Am shine dazzlingly in my rear-view mirror.

  The timing has to be exactly right, I tell myself – because if it’s out, by even a second, we’ll both be dead.

  I begin the countdown.

  Three … two … one …

  I wait until we are level with the pull-in, then twist the wheel to the right and stamp my foot down hard on the brake. The tires scream. The car rocks and shudders. But we have stopped just where I intended us to – across the road at an angle, the trunk pointing towards the edge, the hood towards the pull-in.

  There is no way the car behind can pass me, and the driver, realizing this, slams on his brakes.

  Too late!

  I feel the impact of the Grand-Am smashing against my back door at the same time as I hit the gas.

  My car struggles between opposing forces – the collision with the Grand-Am urging it down the road, the engine straining to go forward into the pull-in. The vehicle wobbles its ass like a Mambo dancer and we lurch into the picnic area.

  The Grand-Am, deflected to the left, is off the edge of the road – flying through space. For a second, it is hard to imagine it was ever there at all. Then there is a flash, more searing than the lightning which filled the sky earlier. And an explosion – far more terrible than the thunder.

  The Seville, Ringman at the wheel, is bearing down fast on us. I already have my weapon in my hand.

  “Come on, Ringman,” I croon. “Come on. This time I’m ready for you, you bastard.”

  The black shape draws closer. My finger begins to squeeze gently on the trigger of the .38.

  Two shots – one from me, one from Ringman. His bullet smashes the rear side window. I do not know what mine hits, because the Seville is gone off down the road, its red tail-lights already disappearing round
the bend.

  Caroline takes a deep breath. “Jesus!” she says. “You were amazing.”

  I would like to bask in the glow of her admiration, but there isn’t the time. I open the door, walk round to the back of the car, and inspect the damage. The trunk is smashed in, but by pulling at the side panel I manage to free the back wheel. The vehicle is drivable. But only just.

  I start the engine, put the car into reverse, and head back along the route we have just covered.

  “Where are we going?” Caroline asks.

  “Out of Ringman’s jurisdiction.”

  “We’re running?”

  “We’re taking defensive action. Ringman’s got a burnt-out car and two dead bodies – probably cops – to account for. He’s going to blame us, and since we’ll probably be shot resisting arrest, there’ll be nobody to argue with him.”

  “What’s to stop him putting out an APB to the County force?”

  “Nothing. That’s just what he will do. But he won’t do it yet – because first he’s got to check back with Pine and Tait.”

  “You got it all figured out, haven’t you, Mike?” Caroline says admiringly.

  I hate to burst her bubble, but I haven’t got it figured out at all.

  She was right the first time – all we’re doing is running like frightened jack rabbits. There isn’t much choice. I need to find us a hole to dive into, only then can I afford to turn my mind to what to do next – how exactly we go about defeating Pine when every policeman in the county will have us marked down as couple of cop killers.

  25

  As we cross the intersection of 14th Street and Broadway, I glance at my watch and see that it is six fifty-three in the morning. I have not slept for over twenty-four hours and my eyes prickle with tiredness. I am driving a stolen Toyota Corolla – which I hot-wired in Lynchburg – and by now there are probably nation-wide warrants out for the arrest of both Caroline and myself. Things have been better.

  “I’m not happy about going to see this Marty Johnson guy,” Caroline says, like she’s been turning it over and over in her mind. “How do we know we can trust him?”

  “Because when I worked Manhattan, he used to be my partner—”

  “Yeah, but that was over three years ago.”