Gone ’Til November (18 page)

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. When I got down there I couldn’t find anything. I hunted around. I was sure I saw it, you know? But there was nothing. That’s when I started to panic.”

“You had the Taurus with you?”

“In a wheel well in the cruiser. I’d been carrying it for about a year, I guess. I’d heard it was what the old-timers used to do. Keep a throwdown handy, just in case.”

“Thirty years ago maybe. If the sheriff had found out about it, you would have been fired.”

“I know. I never thought I’d have to use it. I’d almost forgotten it was there.”

“What did you do then?”

“I could tell he was dead, or close to it. The Taurus was already wiped clean, and I’d taken the numbers off it a long time ago. I climbed back down there, fit his hand around it, got his prints on it. Then I went back up to the cruiser and called it in, found the keys and opened the trunk, saw the bag there. That’s when you came along.”

“You should have told me the truth. You owed it to me.”

“And if I had? Told you I’d used a throwdown, planted evidence? What would you have done?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kept it to yourself?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. You wouldn’t have. You’re too good a deputy for that. You would have told Elwood or the sheriff. If not that night, then the next day, when you thought about it some more. I know you, Sara. You would have, and you know it.”

“Maybe it would have been better off that way.”

“Better off? He was black, Sara, and I’m white. You think I would have gotten a fair hearing, shooting an unarmed black man? FDLE would have been involved, the state attorney, the governor before it was over. Every minister in Libertyville would have been screaming for my head.”

“You would have been cleared. They would have understood.”

“You’re dreaming. I would have been fired, at least. Criminal charges, more than likely. Maybe prison. And how do you think I’d make out there?”

“There had to be another way.”

“Burned that bridge, Sara. There’s no other way. Not now.”

She watched a semi rumble past, raising dust.

“How long have you known about the gun?” he said.

“Since yesterday.”

“You tell anyone about it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She looked at him. “Why do you think?”

He looked out the windshield.

“If you want all this to go away, you need to face some things,” she said. “You need to start telling the truth.”

“It has gone away. At least that’s what they’re telling me.” He looked at her. “The only one that can say different is you.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes, felt her anger, her momentum, slipping away. Somehow she’d lost the advantage, could feel it, knew he felt it, too.

“There were guns in the trunk, Sara. You saw them. He was no college kid.”

“He was unarmed.”

“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry you got involved in all this. Sorry you had to be there. I never meant for any of this to happen. You have to believe that.”

“I’m not sure what I believe anymore.”

“What’s that mean?”

She shook her head, watched cars go past.

“You know me better than anyone, Sara. What I had with you I never had with anyone else. Probably never will again.”

“Don’t.”

“It’s true. Whether you want to believe it or not.”

“That’s got nothing to do with this.”

“It doesn’t? I’ve told you everything, Sara. And only you. You want me in Raiford? Get out your phone, call the sheriff. I’ll be in custody before the hour’s over. Is that what you want?”

She didn’t answer.

“Or maybe you’re wearing a wire,” he said, “and that’s what this is all about.”

She started the engine.

“You should get back,” she said. “Lee-Anne will be waiting for you.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not good enough, Sara.”

“It’ll have to be.”

He looked at her. “I can imagine the way you feel,” he said. “The position I put you in.”

“Can you?”

“If I could go back and change what happened that night, I would. But I can’t bring him back. My going to prison won’t change that. I can’t undo what was done. No one can.”

“You’re right about that. Go on, get out.”

“What?”

“It’s only about a mile back. You can walk it.”

“I’m wearing sandals.”

“I know.” She looked at him. “Go on.”

He opened the door, met her eyes for a moment, then climbed down.

“Tell me something,” she said.

“What?”

“Have you ever told me the truth? Ever?”

“Don’t be like that.”

“About anything?”

They looked at each other for a moment. Then he shut the door.

“Billy.”

He turned to face her through the open window.

“If I ever see you around my house again,” she said. “If you come around me or Danny or anyone I know outside duty hours. . . .”

“You’ll shoot me?”

She looked at him.

“I would never hurt you, Sara. You know that. Never could, never will. Danny either. But I’m wondering if you feel the same way.”

After a moment, he turned and started for the highway. In the rearview she saw him standing on the shoulder, waiting for a break in traffic.

She took out her cell, opened it, scrolled to Sheriff Hammond’s home number. Her thumb lingered over the
SEND
button.

In the mirror, she saw Billy cross the highway to the opposite shoulder, start to walk along the grass there, heading home.

She closed the phone, tossed it on the passenger seat. Then she shifted into drive, pulled out of the lot.

For lunch, she made cold chicken sandwiches, reheated mashed potatoes. She took Danny’s temperature while he sat at the table. When the thermometer beeped, he took it from his mouth, held it out to her. Ninety-nine point two. She felt his forehead.

“You feel all right?” she said.

“I’m okay. Just tired.”

She gave him a baby Motrin to chew, poured him another glass of grape juice. After they ate, JoBeth cleared the table, and Sara went into the bathroom, closed the door, and ran the shower.

When the room filled with steam, she undressed and climbed into the too-hot stream, wincing at first. She closed her eyes, turned her face into the spray. Her hand was sore, the first two knuckles slightly swollen. She flexed her hand, eased some of the stiffness out, remembered what Billy has said.

I can’t undo what was done. No one can
.

They’d closed the case, made their findings public. Reopening it would mean trouble for everyone. Charges for Billy, prison likely. It would cost the sheriff his job, his pension. Maybe her job as well. Once the state was involved, it would be too late for damage control. It would be about scalps.

She sat in the tub, let the water wash over her and swirl down the drain, taking the morning with it. She pushed her hair back with both hands, closed her eyes.

If she did nothing, said nothing, it all ended right here. Right now. Their lives would go on.

All you have to do is nothing. What could be easier than that?

Morgan woke tangled in sodden sheets. Bright light was coming in around the curtain edges. The nightstand clock told him it was three. He’d slept almost eleven hours.

Pushing the sheets away, he sat naked on the edge of the bed. His joints ached and his throat was swollen, his forehead warm to the touch. He realized he was shaking.

When he had the energy, he made his way into the bathroom, stood under the hot shower until the trembling stopped. Then he toweled dry, put the toilet seat down and sat there, head in his hands.
You have to get up,
he thought.
You have to keep moving
.

After a while, he went back into the room and got dressed. He stripped the sheets from the bed and pushed them into a pillowcase, along with the clothes from last night. He’d take
them to the laundry room later, wash away the stale metallic smell that seemed to linger on everything he touched.

He opened the door, looked out. The sky was cloudless, the sun flashing off the Monte Carlo’s windshield. He’d left the Toyota beside a collapsed barn off a rural road two towns away, out of sight, then walked to where he’d parked his car and driven back.

Birds chattered in the trees, and he could hear the rush of the creek. Far above, a plane left a white contrail across the sky.

He wiped a wrist across his slick forehead. A band of pain circled his skull. He couldn’t afford to be sick, not now. Couldn’t afford to lose a day.

He went back in, closed the door, opened the top panels to let air in. In the bathroom, he swallowed a Vicodin half, then went to lie on the bare mattress, looking up at the water-stained ceiling. After a while, he took the Beretta from atop the nightstand. He set it in his lap, the metal cold in his grip.

If it ever got too bad, if the pain was too much, if the doctors couldn’t help him, this was what he would do. When his system began to shut down, when his skin turned ashen from the waste his kidneys couldn’t process, this was how he would end it. Vicodin and then the gun. The cold muzzle against the roof of his mouth, his finger on the trigger.

He was sleeping again when the knock came. Then another, hard on the door frame. He woke with a start, and the Beretta slid from his lap, thumped on the floor.

The fever was gone, but he felt drained, weak. He pushed
himself up, went to the curtains, looked out. A dark green Range Rover with tinted windows, New Jersey plates, was parked next to the Monte Carlo.

The knock came again, rattling the glass. He picked up the Beretta, held it at his side.

“Yo, man, open the door.”

With his free hand, Morgan undid the dead bolt. He stepped back, his finger sliding over the Beretta’s trigger.

“It’s open,” he said.

When Dante came into the room, Morgan shoved him hard toward the bed, swiveled and raised the Beretta. DeWayne stood framed in the doorway. When he saw the gun, he ducked fast to the right, out of sight.

Morgan kicked the door shut, turned to see Dante getting up off the floor. He grabbed the back of his basketball jersey, jerked him off balance again. As he fell into a sitting position, Morgan crouched behind him, left arm around his neck, put the muzzle of the Beretta to his temple.

“Hold on, man!” Dante said. “Hold the fuck on!”

“He comes through that door, you’re going first.”

“What the fuck you doing, man? Chill.”

“Who’s out there?”

“DeWayne.”

“Who else?”

“No one.”

Morgan tightened his grip. “Tell him to come in.”

“I ain’t telling him shit.”

Morgan thumbed the hammer back for effect. “Tell him.”

“Man, you don’t want to do this.”

Morgan screwed the muzzle into his skin.

Dante looked toward the door. “Yo, DeWayne,” he called out. His voice was flat. “Come on in, it’s cool.”

The door cracked open. DeWayne looked around it into the room, left hand hidden behind his leg.

“Come in,” Morgan said. “Slow.”

The door opened wider.

“Let him go,” DeWayne said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Whatever you’ve got back there, put it on the bed. Do it quick.”

DeWayne’s lazy eye twitched. He waited a long five count, then came into the room, tossed a chromed automatic onto the bare mattress.

“Shut the door,” Morgan said.

He did, stood with his back to it.

Morgan loosened his grip on Dante’s neck and got to his feet, his knees aching. He took a step back as Dante got his feet under him, adjusted his jersey. Morgan reached under the back of it, took out the small automatic he’d felt. He dropped it on the bed.

“Man, why you going off like this?” Dante said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why you think?”

“I told him I didn’t need anybody.”

“I don’t know what you told him. But he told
us
to come down here, hook up with you. So that’s what we did.”

Morgan decocked the Beretta. “You drive down?” he said.

“Just got here.”

“We here to do work,” DeWayne said. “Just like you.”

He should shoot them both now, Morgan knew, leave them where they lay and head out. But then he would lose the motel as his base, bring in the police.

“Man wondering,” DeWayne said. “Where you at with it.”

“He should have called, saved you both a trip.”

“He said for us to see for ourselves.”

Morgan felt the adrenaline rush fading. He needed to sit down.

“Should have told me you were coming.”

DeWayne raised his shoulders, let them fall.

Morgan nodded at the desk chair, said to Dante, “Sit down.”

“You don’t look so good,” DeWayne said. “You all sweaty and shit.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Morgan said, the words sounding weak and false. He went into the bathroom, put the Beretta on the toilet tank, ran the faucet and drank cold water from a cupped hand, splashed some on his face. He looked into the mirror. His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones showing through. The skull beneath his skin.

“Hotter than a motherfucker down here,” Dante said. “I ain’t used to this shit.”

Morgan dried off with a towel, picked up the Beretta, went back into the room.

“Three’s too many,” he said. “No good. Especially down here. We stick out.”

“Big Man said there’s three or four of them you watching,” Dante said. “That’s why he sent us. Divide up the work, you know?”

“Don’t need it.”

“You want to call him, tell him different, go ahead. He tell us to go back, that’s what we’ll do. Until then . . .”

“So where you at with it?” DeWayne said.

Morgan looked at him. “If Mikey wants to know, I’ll call him.”

“Anything you wanna tell him, you can tell us.”

“He say that?”

DeWayne nodded.

And how much did he promise you?
Morgan thought.
A third? More? Or are you just planning to take it all?

“These people you watching,” Dante said. “They the ones got the money?”