Let It Burn (31 page)

The minutes ticked by. At twelve fifteen, I heard the footsteps again. He had given up for the night. He wasn’t going to see his brother. I couldn’t help wondering, how long was he going to keep doing this before he gave up hope? A week? A month? That can be one of my first questions, I thought, because it’s just about showtime.

I waited for his feet to hit the gravel of the parking lot again.

Step. Step. Crunch.

That’s when I came around the Dumpster, turned on my flashlight, and pointed it in his face. He was a bigger man than I had been counting on. In the photo he looked soft, but now that he was here I could see he must have spent the last year or so getting himself into shape.

“Stop right there,” I said. “If you have a gun, drop it. Right now.”

He stepped back in surprise. Then he held up his hands to shield his eyes from the glare of the flashlight. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see me yet. For all he could tell, I had a bazooka slung over my shoulder, pointed right at his head.

“Right now,” I said. “You got a gun?”

“No! I don’t have no gun.”

Some handcuffs, I thought. That would have been a beautiful idea, about two hours ago when I was out shopping for the flashlight. Now I’ll just have to rely on my natural charm.

“My name is Alex McKnight,” I said. “I talked to you on the phone.”

He stood there, still shielding his eyes from the light.

“I’m working for your mother,” I said. “All I want to do is talk to you. Are we cool?”

“We’re cool. Please get that light out of my face.”

I pointed the beam at the ground.

“How did you know I’d be here?” he said.

“Brilliant detective work. Or maybe just a lot of luck and a little help from your mother.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s at home. Where else would she be?”

“I thought I told you to stay away from her.”

“She’s worried sick about you. You were only home for like five minutes. Then you disappeared.”

“I told you…” he said as he came closer to me. He’d figured out that I wasn’t armed. Either that or he didn’t care.

“Don’t do something stupid,” I said. “Neither of us needs that right now.”

He was already committed. I shined the light back in his face, but he was quicker on his feet than I ever would have thought. He blindly grabbed at me, and as he got a hand on my jacket I brought the flashlight down on his forearm. Not hard enough to break anything, which may have been a mistake because he started swinging with his other hand and caught me on the side of the head. The flashlight went dark as it hit the ground. I ducked under another wild swing, then I tackled him and drove my shoulder into his gut as we both went down.

I rolled off of him, scraping my knees on the gravel as I went for the flashlight. Operating or not, it was still the best weapon I had. He tried to grab me, but I threw an elbow back in his face. I knew I hit something vulnerable, because he let out a cry of pain as I finally found the flashlight and got to my feet.

“You’ve got two choices right now,” I said. “You either talk to me like a man, or so help me God I’ll beat you until your ears bleed.”

A shaft of moonlight fell over us. I could see that his nose was bleeding. He sat there in the gravel and looked up at me. My right shoulder hurt like hell. When you get shot in the shoulder three times, you’re not supposed to be wrestling with ex-cons in parking lots.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he said. “This is none of your goddamned business.”

“For your mother’s sake,” I said, “you’re going to talk to me. So tell me what you’re planning on doing when you find your brother.”

He shook his head. He was still holding his nose.

“Are you going to kill him?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you took the fall for him. You spent a lot of years in prison, just so he wouldn’t have to.”

“Says who?”

“Says the man who helped put you there. I know you didn’t kill Elana Paige.”

“Now there’s a thought that would have come in handy a number of years ago.”

“Look,” I said, “if you want me to apologize, I’ll apologize, but you confessed to the murder. That usually ends the whole conversation right there.”

“I was going down for it. No matter what I said.”

“No,
somebody
was going down for it. You just made sure it was you.”

“So what do you want me to say? Huh? What do you want from me?”

“I want you to come back to your mother’s house,” I said. “So we can all figure this out. I believed you when you told me you didn’t kill Detective Bateman. They have no proof you did, apart from the motive. and I know you’ve pretty much blown your parole, but if we can get a good lawyer, we’ll overturn the original conviction.”

“Says the white man from the suburbs. You think that’s the way it’s gonna work for me?”

“Your mother deserves a few years of her life with a son who isn’t in prison.”

He let out a bitter laugh at that one.

“Yeah, that was the whole idea,” he said. “Tremont was supposed to stick around and take care of her. He wasn’t supposed to hop on the next train and disappear.”

He had things to do, I thought. More people to kill but this is probably a topic I should approach carefully.

“He wasn’t supposed to turn into a serial killer, either.”

Or maybe not so carefully. Even in the near-dark, I could tell that one got to him.

“Now you’re talking nonsense,” he said.

“Am I? Let’s start with Elana Paige. Did your brother kill her?”

He looked away.

“I asked you a question,” I said. “It shouldn’t be that hard to answer. Did your brother stab Elana Paige to death in the train station?”

“I didn’t think so. Not at the time.”

“What about now?” I said, a little surprised by that answer.

“Tremont was always a stranger to me, okay? Even when we were sleeping in the same room. One thing prison teaches you is that people will do things you never thought they’d be capable of doing. Not in a million years.”

“So what are you saying? Is it really possible that you went down for your little brother? That instead of thanking you, he abandoned your mother and went off and kept killing people?”

“What?”

“If that’s true,” I said, “then not only did you spend all that time in prison for something you didn’t do … you also helped your brother do a lot more of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There were more murders,” I said. “Just like Elana Paige. All over the country.”

“No. That wasn’t Tremont. I don’t believe it.”

“You’re willing to believe he might have killed one woman, but not more? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

He was staring at me now. Burning a hole right through me, but he didn’t answer.

“So I’ll ask you my first question again,” I said. “What are you going to do when you find him?”

“I’m going to ask him if it’s true. Any of this. All of it.”

“And if it is?”

“Then I don’t know. I’ll do whatever comes next. Whatever I feel like I have to do.”

“Sounds like my kind of planning,” I said, “but I have to admit, I’m kind of curious myself now. You really think he’s going to show up here?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That little hut up there, by the tracks. That’s the breadbox.”

“There was a bakery that used to put their day-old bread by the back door. They did that instead of selling it half price, because I guess that’s the kind of people they were. Which explains why it’s not there anymore, but we’d go pick up the bread and eat it in the shed.”

“And watch the trains.”

“Tremont would. I didn’t care one way or another. Until one day, he said, ‘Watch this,’ and then he ran along the train that was coming by. He reached up and grabbed something and held on. It scared the crap out of me. I was sure I’d have to go back home and explain to Mama why my brother had been cut in half by some train wheels, but he kept riding, all the way down to the station. Then he jumped off. I didn’t see him again until that night. He acted like nothing had happened.”

He stopped talking. Like he realized that for one moment, he actually sounded like a man who was proud of something his little brother did. It was a sentiment he probably didn’t feel like he could afford anymore.

“So what are you going to do?” I said. “Keep hiding out all day, come back here every night?”

“That’s the plan, yes. Until I see my brother. Until I can talk to him.”

“What if I say I’m taking you to your mother’s house right now?”

“You’re not going to do that.”

“How about this?” I said. “I’ll come back here tomorrow,
with your mother.
She can take you by the ear and drag you all the way back herself.”

“You’re going to promise me you won’t do that,” he said. “Right now. Or I swear, I’ll kill you.”

“And here I was thinking you weren’t a murderer.”

“I already did my time for a murder I didn’t commit,” he said. “I figure they owe me one now.”

I almost laughed at that one. It was that strange a night.

“Look,” he said. “Give me a couple more nights. If Tremont doesn’t show up, we’ll talk about doing it another way.”

“I think you’re wasting your time, and meanwhile—”

“I’m not. There was a guy I knew in the joint. He rode the trains himself, for years, so he knows about this stuff. He said if you send a message, it’ll get there. It might as well be Western Union. When Tremont hears it, I know he’ll come here as soon as he can.”

I looked up at the moon. If I was expecting to see the answer written across its face, it wasn’t there.

“I’m going to leave now,” he said.

“I don’t think I can let you do that. Not alone.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“I’m pretty sure I can. If I have to.”

He was back on his feet now, facing me.

“I have an alternate plan,” I said. “I’ve got a motel room on Michigan Avenue. You come back with me. You have something to eat. You could probably use a drink about now, too. I know I could. We’ll sit down and figure this out.”

“You’ll just take me to the police.”

“I’m not a cop. I haven’t been for a long time. I won’t take you anywhere else, I promise.”

I could tell he was thinking it over. He’d probably been living in that car for too long now. Not much money left. Maybe none at all. Running out of gas. No food. If nothing else, I’d be able to keep him alive for a few more days, unless he really wanted to put on a mask and start holding up gas stations.

“My aunt’s car is here,” he finally said.

“I don’t think they’ll mind,” I said, looking around the empty lot. “Worst they can do is tow it. She’ll get it back eventually.”

“All right,” he said, “but I’m coming back here tomorrow.”

“Like I said, we’ll figure that out. Let’s go.”

I took a few steps down the street. He looked at the car he was leaving behind for a moment, then he shook his head and started to follow me. Nobody would have confused us for long-lost best buddies, but it was better than fighting again.

When we got back to the main street, I pointed in the direction of the auto parts store. “My truck’s over there.”

He nodded, didn’t say a word, but he kept following me. It occurred to me then that a suspicious person would have been a little more wary of this whole situation. He could have been playing along, planning out when he’d take my money, and maybe my truck, too. I had about three seconds to think that one over.

Then we both heard the train.

It was coming from the southwest, still picking up steam as it came out of the big turn from the station. It was going on twelve thirty at that point. A little late for the rendezvous, but Darryl King looked at that train, and it was obvious he had the same thought I had. He turned and ran back down the side street. Now it was my turn to follow, and once again to chase him, all these years later. Somehow he had gotten a lot faster than me.

Down the incline, past his car, to the bottom of the street where the two railroad bridges passed over. Then he stopped dead.

He was looking at that one spot, where the trail ran up to the breadbox.

Darkness. No movement.

Then something.

I was still a good thirty yards away when I saw the man step out from the trail. Even from where I was I could see that he was a twig of a man. He was a sliver. The two of them stood there looking at each other. I stopped running.

I waited to see what would happen. After all these years.

That’s when the vehicle came barreling down the side street. I looked back and was blinded by the headlights. Everything that came next happened before I could even think about how to react. I recognized that same green minivan, made the connection with Ryan Grayson. I heard the screech of the tires as the vehicle came to a sliding halt. The driver’s side door opening and Ryan Grayson himself practically falling out of the car. The dull thud of the gun hitting the road, then Grayson picking it up and waving it wildly at the two men on the sidewalk. Darryl King grabbing his brother by the shoulders and pushing him to the ground, as Grayson came closer and aimed the gun at both of them, at point-blank range now. Nothing could stop him at this point. Just one more little movement of one finger and it would be done.

But it didn’t happen.

Everything frozen in that one instant. Darryl and Tremont King on the concrete, waiting to see which one would get shot first. Ryan Grayson with the gun pointed and then the look on his face of a man about to pull the trigger. Then the bewilderment that it wasn’t happening. That a bullet wasn’t tearing into flesh.

I saw Tanner Paige through the passenger’s-side window. He was looking out at the whole scene with his hands on his head.

That’s when the second vehicle came. A sleek dark SUV. Then the third and the fourth and a few more that I stopped counting.

The agents came streaming out of their vehicles, all wearing black bulletproof vests with FBI on the back in white letters. They yelled at Grayson to drop the gun and to lie down on the street. They yelled at Paige to exit the vehicle with his hands on his head. They yelled at Darryl and Tremont King to stay exactly where they were, not moving a single muscle. Everyone complied.