Badwater (15 page)

twenty

I
was eager to get back to my camp and Moriah, but instead I was drawn downward toward the jail. There might be a reason other than ineptitude or just plain contrariness in Luke and the sheriff dragging their feet about giving Bogey access to his client. It had already happened once, I knew, remembering Jonah hog-tied, beaten, and terrified on his bunk next to the big, bearded Smit. But I thought I’d taken care of that when I’d ordered Jonah to solitary confinement and warned Luke of the potential repercussions of allowing him to get beaten again. I felt negligent, though, for not having checked up on him again sooner. Hadn’t I promised him I’d look out for him? But that was before his rabid attorneys had shown up to defend him.

It was Russell Smit who first greeted me when I descended the concrete stairs into the corridor. He seemed to have been waiting for me—he stood just on the other side of the bars, as if he knew I’d be coming. I stopped on the landing and stared back at him.

Like the other night, he was wearing no shirt and only his orange jailhouse trousers. The exposed area was heavily muscled, hairy, and covered with bad tattoos. He’d plaited his beard into a long braid. His eyes showed that he still didn’t like me very much. While I watched, he stuck out his tongue to display for me the spidery black stitches around the missing tip.

“You gonna pay for wat, moffa-fucker,” he lisped.

“Well, I might consider paying for some speech therapy,” I told him.

He didn’t explode, and he didn’t respond. He just kept on staring, trying to break me with the intensity of his hate. I’ve always been pretty good in stare fights, and a few years ago we could have stood there on opposite sides of the bars for hours. But I liked to think I’d long since stopped caring about proving my machismo. So I broke the stare and headed down the hall.

I half expected something to be thrown after me, but no blow or splash hit me in the back. I looked into the rec room as I passed and received sullen but mildly interested stares from the other inmates. I smiled at the eyes I met and nodded. There appeared to be fewer inmates than there had been four nights ago, but then, in the excitement and the dark, everything had seemed much denser. Now, in the daylight that was coming through the windows high up on the walls, everything seemed relatively peaceful.

I didn’t see Jonah, though. Not in the rec room, and not visible in any of the cells on the other side. There were just the usual alcoholics, tweakers, wannabe bikers, and illegal farmworkers picked up for minor stuff like traffic violations.

Inside the control room were two deputies I didn’t recognize. The looks they gave me weren’t any friendlier than those of the inmates.

“Yeah?” one asked.

“Where’s Strasburg?”

The deputy jerked his thumb at the ceiling. “In one of the interview rooms. Seeing his punk-rock girlfriend.”

I got more of the stink eye but no more lisping threats when I passed Smit again and headed back up the stairs. He did flick his tongue and grin at me, though. On the ground level I found the entrance to the sheriff’s office, was buzzed in after a long wait, and found the blonde female deputy—from the swing shift four nights ago—standing in the hall outside the little room where I’d interviewed Jonah after his arrest.

“Hi, Sally,” I said. “Thanks for speaking up for me the other night.”

She scowled, but it turned into a small smile. “I kind of wish I hadn’t. My sergeant’s got me working double shifts all this week.”

“I didn’t mean to get you into trouble.”

“Well, I was pissed about it at first. But now it seems kind of funny. Anyway, that big bastard had it coming. He’s started thinking he owns the place, that he could say whatever he wanted to me. At least that lisp has shut him up some.”

I looked past her and through the little window set in the door. Mattie Freda was inside, talking intently to Jonah. I couldn’t see his face—his back was to me—but at least he was still walking and talking.

“I’m sorry I stirred things up,” I told her. “I just kind of freaked when I saw what he’d been doing to that kid in there. By the way, how’s he doing?”

Sally shrugged. “We keep him locked up at night, but let him into the rec room if he wants during the day. He usually comes out. Smit still gives him a hard time, but nothing like last week. Just pushes him around some. Knocked him down a few times. But that’s about it.”

I looked in the window again and saw that Mattie had noticed me. Jonah was turned around, too, and was looking back. His face was still puffy with old yellow-blue bruises, but there was a fresh one of dark black around one eye, which was swollen almost shut. And a long red scratch that ran all the way down his cheek.

I felt myself getting mad and tried to choke the anger down. If the deputies knew about him getting “pushed around” and “knocked down,” there was a damned good chance a lot more was happening.

“I thought the county attorney agreed that he should be kept in solitary.”

“Well, we can’t keep him in there all the time. It’s too much trouble. And, like I said, he wants to come out. He does it voluntarily.”

Her smile had faded. She could sense that I was getting irritated. So I made myself smile and said, “I guess it’s always rough on guys like him, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Skinny guy from out of town. Not to mention a child-killer. Half the guys in there have suddenly gotten morals or town loyalty or something and have decided they want to get a little payback for what he did to Cody Wallis.”

“It’s understandable,” I said. But I didn’t say that it was anything but understandable that the deputies would allow it.

“I heard you’ve been hanging around town. Want to grab a beer or something later?”

She definitely thought I was one of them. A cop who wasn’t above meting out a little justice for himself. She might even believe all the QuickDraw bullshit. Well, that was understandable, too—she’d seen me Tase a man who was just reclining on a bunk. But I wasn’t flattered by her offer.

“I can’t,” I told her. “Luke’s running me ragged on this investigation.”

She accepted my rejection by turning around and shoving open the door.

“Time’s up,” she announced to Mattie and Jonah in too loud a voice.

I waited while Jonah got to his feet and, with his hands cuffed behind him, came to the door. He was limping, something he hadn’t been doing in court three days earlier. Another injury, unseen somewhere under the baggy jumpsuit.

He didn’t look like a punk rocker anymore. Just a beat-up kid, probably scared out of his mind. Each minute in the jail, either alone in his cell or being stalked by Smit in the rec room, had to be sheer terror for him. I didn’t know how he could stand it. I didn’t know how long he would. Men manage to kill themselves in county jails all the time, and I could imagine Jonah hanging from a high bar. Mattie stared at me, and I could tell she still blamed me for all this. If the worst happened, she certainly always would. And I would, too.

“You doing all right?” I asked him softly when he came through the door.

He met my eyes for a minute.

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “I’m fine.”

I left the sheriff’s office without speaking to anyone. With clenched fists, I walked the two blocks to where I’d found some shade in which to leave Mungo and the Pig. I couldn’t complain to the sheriff, or to Luke, about how Jonah was being treated. It would make it look like I was siding with the defense. As McGee had reminded me, all it would take would be one call from him to the AG’s office and I would be history.

I couldn’t help Jonah anymore, but I thought I knew who could.

The Pig was where I’d left it—under a big cottonwood in an empty town park by the river. But someone had taken it upon themselves to touch up the truck’s mismatched paint job. On one side was spray-painted “Wolf-Lover.” On the other “Sheep-Fucker.”

Nice.

The windows were still rolled up except for the two inches of air space I’d left. Spittle and froth, though, decorated the rear passenger glass. A trickle of blood, too.

I threw the door open. Mungo was still inside, cowering between the crates in the far back. Her mouth was bloody, and her eyes were just yellow slits.

“Hey, girl. It’s okay.
Tranquilo,
” I murmured when she growled at me. “
Tranquilo, tranquilo.
”

I hesitated before petting her, worried for a second that she might be so traumatized by whatever had happened that she’d snap at me. But she didn’t, and soon I was stroking her head.

What had happened was pretty obvious. The broken stick on the backseat made it even more so. The Mann twins had fucked with my truck and my dog again. Mungo had probably gone crazy, raging all over the interior, but they’d just laughed and poked at her with the stick. Just like they’d done out at their ranch. It could have been worse, I told myself. They could have done a lot more damage. But that didn’t help the rage that was swelling my chest and my throat.

Cool it, Ant,
I told myself as I tried to comfort Mungo. She wouldn’t stop growling, though, even as I stroked her. I couldn’t stop either. But I had to stay cool. I couldn’t go after the Manns the way I wanted, not for something so petty. I had to stay cool. I had to do my job, be the good cop, and not let emotion carry me away.

So I got moving.

I trolled the streets around the courthouse looking for a banged-up Jetta with a mountain bike in the back, the one I’d seen at the river last night. When I didn’t find it on the streets, I cruised the tourist motels on the highway just outside of town. I finally found it at a place called the Outrider. I pulled up across the street.

I wasn’t sure how to approach her, or how to even make contact. If I started knocking on doors or went to the desk and asked which room she was in, Luke might somehow hear of it. I decided it would be better to try calling on my phone. The motel’s number was right there, on a big sign above the office.

I was starting to dial when she came out of one of the rooms. She was dressed in biking gear, like she had been at the river. Tight black riding shorts, a sleeveless jersey. This time she also wore a helmet and a pair of wraparound sunglasses. I tossed the phone onto the seat and put the truck into gear as she started trying to wrestle the bike from the back of her car.

Cutting across the street, I bumped over the curb into the parking lot.

“Walsh,” I called.

She straightened quickly, dropping a tire to the pavement. From behind the sunglasses she took in both me and the words now written so prominently on the side of my truck. “Wolf-Lover.”

“What do you want?”

“Where’s your professor?”

“He’s gone out to try and interview Randy and Trey Mann. They refused to speak with me,” she said accusingly. “If someone told them not to talk with us, then you can bet we’re going to be asking the judge for sanctions.”

“Go down to the jail and see your client. Even if he’s too stoic to tell you, you should know that they’re messing with him down there. Get him out. Get him transferred to another county for his own protection.”

“What?” she demanded.

“Just do it. And we never had this talk.”

I put the truck back in gear and bumped back over the curb. In the rearview mirror, I could see her staring after me. She could now see what was written on the other side of the truck. I wondered what she thought. I needed to find some primer to cover the graffiti on my truck, and some time for me and Mungo to lick our wounds.

And I still needed to cool down. To get back to being the good cop. I needed to stop swearing to myself, every time I looked at Mungo, that I’d make the Mann twins pay. I’d make them all pay.

twenty-one

T
hree days later there were only three reporters in the courtroom for the hearing. One from the Casper paper, one from Denver, and a florid woman in a big hat whom I suspected of being the local gadfly. This turnout was kind of funny because for the last two days Luke had been fielding calls from reporters across the country displaying interest in the case. They wanted to know if “anonymous” allegations that Jonah was being scapegoated, that he was being railroaded for political gain, were true. It was obvious Bogey had been out chumming the waters, but wasn’t having much success in catching a big shark. Once Luke explained that this was to be a simple bail hearing and that the defendant had
admitted
to practically throwing the child into a dangerous river, the big media sharks swam away.

Bogey had to be pissed off at being ignored like this. But he should have done his homework before making such idiotic allegations and trying to turn the case into an even bigger circus.

The rest of the spectators filling the benches in the small courtroom were locals. Cody’s parents were not present, but the combustible Manns were. The whole family, arranged in a grim-faced row at the front of the gallery, looked very determined to act as the parents’ proxies in the demand for vengeance. I felt the eyes of the older twins burning into the back of my neck. I wanted a little vengeance of my own.

The only outsider besides the three reporters was Mattie Freda. Undoubtedly she, too, was the focus of a lot of hostile stares. Maybe even some whispered threats. I was pleased that she ignored me just as I had ignored her at the funeral.

Jonah came in from the door at the rear of the court, shuffling in ankle chains but without handcuffs. His jumpsuit hung on his bony frame like a big orange sack. Even discounting the new and old bruises, he didn’t look good. He was paler than he’d been before and his skin seemed pulled tight on his face except for where it was darkly bagged under his eyes. I wondered if the harassment had continued. I didn’t feel guilty for not having checked on him, though. He had annoyingly combative attorneys to look after his interests now. Surely they’d be screaming to the judge if anyone in the jail so much as gave him a black look.

The clerk came in and called us to order. On her heels, the judge brusquely flew in with robes and thin white hair flapping, almost as if he were trying to take flight.

Within minutes, Luke and Bogey were showboating for the pews of interested spectators and the few reporters.

The only topic of substance was whether or not Jonah should be granted bail. Luke said no. He argued that Jonah had no property, no friends, no relatives, no ties to the state of Wyoming, and no reason to comply with the requirements of pretrial release. He argued that, with the defendant being an out-of-state musician with a high likelihood of being convicted, he was more likely to flee than hang around and get sent to prison. My former partner and friend did a nice job. I had to admit that he made a pretty good lawyer.

Bogey then argued that the charges were ridiculous, that the case would never make it past a preliminary hearing, and that the prosecutor was simply grandstanding before his grieving constituency for political gain. He was then gaveled down by the judge and reprimanded for grandstanding himself and making a personal attack on counsel.

I did my best to tune it all out. I pretty much agreed with Bogey—although I felt Jonah deserved some punishment—but had to be loyal to Luke for both personal and professional reasons. I tried not to think about it. Instead I thought about Moriah, and the way my raw shoulders were burning, and that numerous cuts seemed to be weeping onto one of my only dress shirts and sticking it to my skin.

Unpleasant as this was, these thoughts were really preferable to anything else I could have thought about. Rebecca was pissed I hadn’t come down to see my daughter—actually accused me of being chickenshit—plus my job was hanging by a thread, not to mention a handicapped junkie brother wanting my attention, meth labs all over the place, oil and gas rigs tearing up every corner of the state I loved, a war in Iraq, and a deficit that my daughter was going to catch the bill for.

So it was through a deep, dark gloom that I heard my name being called.

The judge had just asked if either party had any witnesses. No one ever testified at bail hearings. But then Luke had for some reason said “Special Agent Antonio Burns” and turned to look at me.

What the hell was he doing? I could see that—as usual over the last few days—his face was pink, his lips white, and his blue eyes all squinty.

“Come on,” he urged. “Get up there.”

Shit. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I hated more than testifying.

I pushed back my chair and headed for the little half-booth that was the witness stand.

I stated my name and job title into the microphone. A glance at the defense table showed the pair of lawyers there sharpening their knives. The shabby trio of reporters behind them, too. I knew at least Brandy had my number. Were they going to mention Cheyenne now? Or wait until trial? From the looks on their faces, it appeared Bogey was ready right now. But would the judge allow that kind of impeachment at a mere bail hearing?

The judge gave me reason to hope my public flaying would be delayed.

“I don’t want this case to be tried right here, right now,” the judge said. “You’ll keep your comments to the issue of bail and whether or not Mr. Strasburg is a flight risk.”

Luke nodded, folded his hands behind his back, and assumed his most lawyerly demeanor.

“Agent Burns, how did you first make contact with the defendant?”

“I arrested him. I also spoke to him twice—once before and once after I arrested him.”

“Did he indicate that he has any family or friends in this state?”

“No. He said he was traveling in the West while on vacation.”

“Did he indicate that he has any property in the state?”

“No. I believe the car he was traveling in belongs to a friend.”

“Does he own any property in
any
state?”

“I think he mentioned that he rents the apartment where he lives in New York.”

“Does he have family anywhere in the country?”

“I was told his parents emigrated to Israel a few years ago, and I’m not aware of any brothers or sisters.”

“Does he have a criminal record?”

“Yeah. He does.”

Bogey objected even as I spoke the words. A defendant’s prior bad acts are almost never introduced in a trial, but, as Luke now pointed out in response to Bogey’s objection, this was just a hearing—there was no jury yet present—and the issue was relevant to the purpose of the hearing.

Luke was being really clever. Usually, the prosecutor would love to shout out a defendant’s past crimes but was restricted from doing so. This time, however, Luke was just acknowledging that there were past crimes. He didn’t ask me for any of the details. Even if Bogey now tried to take the extraordinary step of revealing his client’s past crimes—and how ridiculously minor they were—Luke could object on the grounds that he feared the case being turned over on appeal. It was a nasty little conundrum for the defense.

“Did he show up for court as required when he was charged with those
prior crimes
?” Luke made the priors sound like they’d been sodomy and murder or worse.

“Uh, no. At least not on one occasion,” I said, remembering the FTA on the open-container charge. And feeling like shit for being a part of this.

Luke now paused. Preparing for his finale, he gave me a slight smile and a wink, then turned and looked at the room behind him, his eyes finally coming to rest on Jonah.

“Based on what you’ve just said, and taking into consideration the seriousness of the charges against the defendant, do you believe him to be a flight risk?”

“Objection!” Bogey almost yelled. “The question calls for an opinion, and Agent Burns is no trier of fact—”

Luke was prepared for this. “Agent Burns has had eight years of experience investigating and arresting people in this state. In those eight years he’s arrested people from all walks of life, and even had to rearrest them after they violated the conditions of their bail. If anyone’s qualified to have an opinion on the likelihood of—”

“Be quiet. Both of you,” the judge ordered. “I’ll hear what he has to say, but I won’t necessarily be swayed by it. Mr. Bogey, you’ll have your chance to cross-examine.”

Luke beamed at me, awaiting my condemnation of Jonah Strasburg. The Manns all seemed to be leaning forward in their seats, eager to hear me condemn the killer of their nephew and cousin. All I had to do was say yes, then hunker down and ignore whatever would be thrown at me during the cross-examination. That was my job, as Ross McGee so often liked to remind me.

Seeing me hesitate, Luke took the opportunity to repeat, “Based on his lack of familial ties and property, as well as his criminal record, do you consider the defendant to be a flight risk?”

I cleared my throat. Then spoke the truth.

“No. Not really.”

The enthusiasm left my old friend’s face, and the gleam faded from his eyes. For a moment, as he stared at me, he had no expression at all. The betrayal had apparently stunned him beyond words, beyond expression. He turned his back, murmured, “No further questions,” and sat down. He wouldn’t look at me.

Bogey bounced up, so eager to tear me apart that he looked like he might float out of his shoes, but now he hesitated, flummoxed. He looked at me, at Brandy, and then at the judge.

Finally he agreed with Luke.

“At this time, I have no questions for this witness.”

And I knew I was in deep, deep shit.