فصل 02 - بخش 04

2

Ralph was sitting in a lawn chair with a beer in his hand and a Styrofoam cooler beside him. He glanced around when the kitchen’s screen door slammed, saw Samuels, and then returned his attention to a hackberry tree just beyond the back fence.

‘Yonder’s a nuthatch,’ he said, pointing. ‘Haven’t seen one of those in a dog’s age.’

There was no second chair, so Samuels lowered himself to the bench of the long picnic table. He had sat here several times before, under happier circumstances. He looked at the tree. ‘I don’t see it.’

‘There he goes,’ Ralph said, as a small bird took wing.

‘I think that’s a sparrow.’

‘Time to get your eyes checked.’ Ralph reached into the cooler and handed Samuels a Shiner.

‘Jeannie says you’re thinking about retiring.’

Ralph shrugged.

‘If it’s the psych eval you’re worried about, you’ll pass with flying colors. You did what you had to do.’

‘It’s not that. It’s not even the cameraman. You know about him? When the bullet hit his camera – the first one I fired – the pieces went everywhere. Including one into his eye.’

Samuels did know this, but kept quiet and sipped his beer, although he loathed Shiner.

‘He’s probably going to lose it,’ Ralph said. ‘The doctors at Dean McGee up in Okie City are trying to save it, but yeah, he’s probably going to lose it. You think a cameraman with one eye can still work? Probably, maybe, or no way?’

‘Ralph, someone slammed into you as you fired. And listen, if the guy hadn’t had the camera up to his face, he’d probably be dead now. That’s the upside.’

‘Yeah, and fuck a bunch of upside. I called his wife to apologize. She said, “We’re going to sue the Flint City PD for ten million dollars, and once we win that one, we’ll start on you.” Then she hung up.’

‘That will never fly. Peterson had a gun, and you were in performance of your duty.’

‘As that camera-jockey was in performance of his.’

‘Not the same. He had a choice.’

‘No, Bill.’ Ralph swung around in his chair. ‘He had a job. And that was a nuthatch, goddammit.’

‘Ralph, you need to listen to me now. Maitland killed Frank Peterson. Peterson’s brother killed Maitland. Most people see that as frontier justice, and why not? This state was the frontier not that long ago.’

‘Terry said he didn’t do it. That was his dying declaration.’

Samuels got to his feet and began to pace. ‘What else was he going to say with his wife kneeling right there beside him and crying her eyes out? Was he going to say, “Oh yes, right, I buggered the kid, and I bit him – not necessarily in that order – and then I ejaculated on him for good measure”?’

‘There’s a wealth of evidence to support what Terry said at the end.’

Samuels stalked back to Ralph and stood looking down at him. ‘It was his fucking DNA in the semen sample, and DNA trumps everything. Terry killed him. I don’t know how he set up the rest, but he did.’

‘Did you come here to convince me or yourself?’

‘I don’t need any convincing. I only came to tell you that we now know who originally stole that white Econoline van.’

‘At this point does it make any difference?’ Ralph asked, but Samuels at last detected a gleam of interest in the man’s eyes.

‘If you’re asking if it casts any light on this mess, no. But it’s fascinating. Do you want to hear or not?’

‘Sure.’

‘It was stolen by a twelve-year-old boy.’

‘Twelve? Are you kidding me?’

‘Nope, and he was on the road for months. Made it all the way to El Paso before a cop bagged him in a Walmart parking lot, sleeping in a stolen Buick. He stole four vehicles in all, but the van was the first. He drove it as far as Ohio before he ditched it and switched to another one. Left the ignition key in it, just the way we thought.’ He said this with some pride, and Ralph supposed he had a right; it was nice that at least one of their theories going in had proved correct.

‘But we still don’t know how it got down here, do we?’ Ralph asked. Something was nagging him, though. Some small detail.

‘No,’ Samuels said. ‘It’s just a loose thread that isn’t loose anymore. I thought you’d like to know.’

‘And now I do.’

Samuels drank a swallow of beer, then set the can on the picnic table. ‘I’m not running for re-election.’

‘No?’

‘No. Let that lazy asshole Richmond have the job, and see how people like him when he refuses to prosecute eighty per cent of the cases that land on his desk. I told your wife, and she didn’t exactly overwhelm me with sympathy.’

‘If you think I’ve been telling her this is all your fault, Bill, you’re wrong. I haven’t said a word against you. Why would I? Arresting him at that fucking ballgame was my idea, and when I talk to the IA shooflies on Friday, I’ll make that clear.’

‘I’d expect nothing less.’

‘But as I may have already mentioned, you didn’t exactly try to talk me out of it.’

‘We believed him guilty. I still believe him guilty, dying declaration or no dying declaration. We didn’t check for an alibi because he knows everyone in the goddam town and we were afraid of spooking him—’

‘Also we didn’t see the point, and boy, were we wrong about tha—’

‘Yes, okay, your fucking point is fucking taken. We also believed he was extremely dangerous, especially to young boys, and on last Saturday night he was surrounded by them.’

‘When we got to the courthouse, we should have taken him around back,’ Ralph said. ‘I should have insisted on it.’

Samuels shook his head vehemently enough to cause the cowlick to come loose and spring to attention. ‘Don’t take that on yourself. Transfer from county jail to the courthouse is the sheriff’s purview. Not the city’s.’

‘Doolin would’ve listened to me.’ Ralph dropped his empty can back into the cooler and looked directly at Samuels. ‘And he would have listened to you. I think you know that.’

‘Water over the dam. Or under the bridge. Or whatever the hell that saying is. We’re done. I guess the case might technically stay in the open file, but—’

‘The technical term is OBI, open but inactive. It will stay that way even if Marcy Maitland brings a civil suit against the department, claiming her husband was killed as a result of negligence. And that’s a suit she could win.’

‘Is she talking about doing that?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t scraped up enough nerve to speak to her yet. Howie might give you an idea of what she’s thinking.’

‘Maybe I’ll talk to him. Try to pour a little oil on troubled waters.’

‘You’re a fountain of wise sayings this evening, counselor.’

Samuels picked up his can of beer, then put it back with a small grimace. He saw Jeannie Anderson at the kitchen window, looking out at them. Just standing there, her face unreadable. ‘My mother used to subscribe to Fate.’

‘Me too,’ Ralph said moodily, ‘but after what happened to Terry, I’m not so sure. That Peterson kid came right out of nowhere. Nowhere.’

Samuels smiled a little. ‘I’m not talking about predestination, just a little digest-sized magazine full of stories about ghosts and crop circles and UFOs and God knows what else. Mom used to read me some of them when I was a kid. There was one in particular that fascinated me. “Footsteps in the Sand,” it was called. It was about a newly married couple that went on their honeymoon in the Mojave Desert. Camping, you know. Well, one night they pitched their little tent in a grove of cottonwoods, and when the young bride woke up the next morning, her husband was gone. She walked out of the grove to where the sand started, and saw his tracks. She called to him, but there was no answer.’

Ralph made a horror-movie sound: Ooooo-oooo.

‘She followed the tracks over the first dune, then over the second. The tracks kept getting fresher. She followed them over the third …’

‘And the fourth, and the fifth!’ Ralph said in an awed voice. ‘And she’s still walking to this day! Bill, I hate to cut your campfire story short, but I think I’m going to eat a piece of pie, take a shower, and go to bed.’

‘No, listen to me. The third dune was as far as she got. His tracks went halfway down the far side, then stopped. Just stopped, with nothing but acres of sand all around. She never saw him again.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘No, I’m sure it’s bullshit, but belief isn’t the point. It’s a metaphor.’ Samuels tried to soothe the cowlick down. The cowlick refused. ‘We followed Terry’s tracks, because that’s our job. Our duty, if you like that word better. We followed them until they stopped on Monday morning. Is there a mystery? Yes. Will there always be unanswered questions? Unless some new and amazing piece of information drops into our laps, there will be. Sometimes that happens. It’s why people continue to wonder what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. It’s why people keep trying to figure out what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste. It’s why people argue about whether or not Oswald acted alone when he shot JFK. Sometimes the tracks just stop, and we have to live with that.’

‘One big difference,’ Ralph said. ‘The woman in your story about the footsteps could believe her husband was still alive somewhere. She could go on believing that until she was an old woman instead of a young bride. But when Marcy got to the end of her husband’s tracks, Terry was right there, dead on the sidewalk. She’s burying him tomorrow, according to the obituary in today’s paper. I imagine it’ll just be her and her girls. Along with fifty news vultures outside the fence, that is, yelling questions and snapping pictures.’

Samuels sighed. ‘Enough. I’m going home. I told you about the kid – Merlin Cassidy’s his name, by the way – and I can see you don’t want to listen to anything else.’

‘No, wait, sit back down a minute,’ Ralph said. ‘You told me one, now I’m going to tell you one. Not out of a psychic magazine, though. This is personal experience. Every word true.’

Samuels lowered himself back to the bench.

‘When I was a kid,’ Ralph said, ‘ten or eleven – around Frank Peterson’s age – my mother sometimes used to bring home cantaloupes from the farmer’s market, if they were in season. Back then I loved cantaloupe. They’ve got this sweet, dense flavor watermelon can’t get close to. So one day she brought home three or four in a net bag, and I asked her if I could have a piece. “Sure,” she said. “Just remember to scrape the seeds into the sink.” She didn’t really have to tell me that, because I’d opened up my share of cantaloupes by then. You with me so far?’

‘Uh-huh. I suppose you cut yourself, right?’

‘No, but my mother thought I did, because I let out a screech they probably heard next door. She came on the run, and I just pointed at the cantaloupe, laying there on the counter, split in two. It was full of maggots and flies. I mean those bugs were squirming all over each other. My mother got the Raid and sprayed the ones on the counter. Then she got a dish towel, wrapped the pieces in it, and threw them in the swill bucket out back. Since that day I can’t bear to look at a slice of cantaloupe, let alone eat one. That’s my Terry Maitland metaphor, Bill. The cantaloupe looked fine. It wasn’t spongy. The skin was whole. There was no way those bugs could have gotten inside, but somehow they did.’

‘Fuck your cantaloupe,’ Samuels said, ‘and fuck your metaphor. I’m going home. Think before you quit the job, Ralph, okay? Your wife said I was getting out before Johnny Q. Public fired me, and she’s probably right, but you don’t have to face the voters. Just three retired cops that are this city’s excuse for Internal Affairs, and a shrink collecting some municipal shekels to supplement a private practice on life support. And there’s something else. If you quit, people will be even more sure that we screwed this thing up.’

Ralph stared at him, then began laughing. It was hearty, a series of guffaws that came all the way up from the belly. ‘But we did! Don’t you know that yet, Bill? We did. Royally. We bought a cantaloupe because it looked like a good cantaloupe, but when we cut it open in front of the whole town, it was full of maggots. No way for them to get in, but there they were.’

Samuels trudged toward the kitchen door. He opened the screen, then whirled around, his cowlick springing jauntily back and forth. He pointed at the hackberry tree. ‘That was a sparrow, goddammit!’