Blackbird (35 page)

‘You’re going to tell me what happened to Kat and where she is, Johnny,’ I said. ‘I’ll do anything it takes to get that.’

A crooked smile from Johnny.

‘Anything?’ he said. ‘Even kneecap me?’

After a silence I said, ‘You really think I’d stop at that?’

Johnny gazed out the window, and in the slatted year-end light I could see the fine tracery of veins in the whites of his tired eyes, the radiating crow’s feet at their corners.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Any more than I would in your place.’ He stared blankly through the glass a while longer, then said, ‘On the field you and Daz worked together like a couple of wheels in a fucking watch, Bis. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was you and him that took us to State, pure and simple. But I don’t think you ever really understood him.’

I waited.

‘He was blind-jealous of you, buddy. Jealous of the girls you got, jealous of that place you lived on. Even jealous of your folks. You know what his were like. He figured you’d have gotten picked way ahead of him in the draft, and he knew you were smarter than him too. Hell, you were smarter than any of us. And didn’t even know it.’

‘Why are we talking about Daz, Johnny?’

Johnny rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, saying, ‘Why are we talking about Daz?’ He swivelled back to face me. ‘Because it was Daz who had the idea of grabbing Kat. I was there, but it was Daz who – ’ His voice failed him, and he swallowed dryly before continuing. ‘ – who strangled her.’

A long, unmeasurable moment passed, the earth grinding silently on its cold axis.

‘Were you jealous too, Johnny?’ I said.

‘Of you? Yeah, I guess so, Bis. I finally realised you really did think you were just an orphan with nothing of your own. But back then all I saw was that great family you had, the ranch and those horses, the way you could carry a football, the way nothing ever kept you down. The way the chicks came to you like moths to a candle. But Kat was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, Bis. I have to admit I wanted her as much as Daz did.’

‘Did he rape her?’

Johnny breathed for a while, his jaw tight, then nodded shortly. ‘Yeah, he raped her.’

‘And you?’

Johnny hung his head. ‘Have you ever done anything bad, Bis? I mean really, truly, go-to-hell bad?’

I didn’t speak.

‘It’s incredible what it does to you,’ Johnny said. ‘The way it closes in on you. It’s there every day, every minute, every second, the noose tightens a little at a time, and you know there’s absolutely no hope, no way of fixing anything. It doesn’t get better with time, it gets worse, and you know eternity could go by, and then a thousand more like it, and still nobody’s ever going to forgive you, not ever, not yourself, not even God, if there is such a thing. I got so I saw all of it every goddamn time I closed my eyes. Still do. I think that was the real reason Daz had his wreck – there was no way he could live with it any more.’ Johnny looked up at me. ‘I did my best to let ’em cap me over there, Bis, I really did, but I guess Delta taught me too damn well. The assholes would pop up with those ratty-ass AKs, I’d
react before I could stop myself – ’ He shook his head. ‘Then there we’d be, man, my goddamn heart still pumping away and theirs not.’

‘Where is she?’

He stared at the desk blotter for a few seconds, seeming fascinated by whatever he saw, like a biologist discovering some new form of life.

After a while he said, ‘By that big pond on your place out there. The one that’s way the hell and gone out in that wide valley where the old cabin was, with all the willows and cottonwoods around. West side, where the big rock is, about six yards back from the water. We took her out there in Daz’s jeep after she told us about the place. We said we were going to meet you there. It just drove Daz nuts thinking about you and her. He wanted to take her out there and fuck her. I guess he convinced himself she’d go for it once we were there. She trusted us because we were your friends – ’

His voice broke.

Taking a few seconds to get back on track, he said, ‘But she fought us like a goddamn tiger, man.’ He closed his eyes tight but opened them again almost instantly, as if what he was trying not to see had been even harder to look at behind his eyelids than in the light of day. ‘When it was over we buried her there and took off.’ He hung his head. ‘There’s no words to explain how bad it hurts, Bis.’

‘Don’t try.’

He looked at me, nodded once.

I said, ‘I want you to testify against the guys you used in the killings, Johnny.’

Another nod. ‘Already done,’ he said, holding up a red flashdrive. ‘It’s all here.’ He tossed it back on his desk and
looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. ‘I made love to Li twice last night, Bis. First time I’ve done that in fifteen years. I wonder if it told her something. You think it did?’

I watched him.

Johnny slid a cigarette from the pack on his desk, patted his shirt pocket, pawed around a little on his desktop, then reached into the pocket of his trousers and – still the magician he’d always been – produced a Walther .380.

‘Oops,’ he said, levelling the little pistol at my chest. ‘Thing is, I can’t take the needle, Bis. And I’m not doing life, either. Not saying I don’t deserve it.’

He brought out a lighter, lit the cigarette and took a long drag. He blew smoke out toward the ceiling and watched it mushroom. ‘I think what we need here is to clear the board.’

‘So let’s clear it,’ I said. ‘What would it be worth to you to sleep again?’

Johnny looked at me for a couple of seconds. ‘That was pretty good, Bis. You always did have a certain gift for the apt phrase. You’d have made a hell of a trial lawyer.’ Eyes on mine, he laid his cigarette in the small cut-glass ashtray, carefully laid the Walther down on the blotter, opened a side drawer and brought out a pint of Wild Turkey.

‘Little snort?’ he said.

I didn’t answer.

‘Hope you don’t mind if I do.’ He uncapped the bottle and took a long swig, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Custom o’ the country,’ he said. ‘I love you, Biscuit. Is it okay yet for a guy to say that?’ Eyes still locked with mine, he set the Wild Turkey on the blotter next to the .380.

I was thinking about the comparative clumsiness of my
own hands, and trying to remember exactly how my jacket had bunched on the right side when I sat down.

‘I really do love you, Bis. But – ’

He picked up the automatic, aimed it at the third button of my shirt and snapped the safety off.

The butt of the SIG was exactly where it needed to be, behind one fold of my jacket. In some mental zone that had nothing to do with thought or even conscious intention, I came out of the chair with the SIG up and bucking in my hand, the shots somehow sounding soft and far away, Johnny jolting back in his own chair with each round as the Walther slipped from his hand.

I stopped firing, hearing the last shell casing clatter against the baseboard across the room.

Johnny, his shirt already drenched red, whispered, ‘Bang.’ He bent slowly forward and laid his cheek on the blotter beside the bottle of whisky, the cigarette still burning in the ashtray, its blue ribbon of smoke rising smoothly until it began to ripple and fold on itself.

With Regina screaming behind me, I picked up the cigarette and stabbed it out in the ashtray, then reached across the desk for the weapon whose trigger Johnny had never pulled. As I picked it up carefully by the chequered grips, its weight told me it wasn’t loaded. I left it on the end of the desk away from Johnny’s dead hand.

Which was procedure, every bit as useful as the meat wagon that would respond to the 911 I was punching in.

FORTY-SIX

At trial Johnny’s confession, long, lawyerly and airtight, turned out to be damning for all three of the defendants, as if at the end Johnny – skilled litigator that he was – had done the only thing he could to clean up his mess by leaving out no detail of the crimes and closing every loophole any of his accomplices could possibly have slipped through.

Stonewall Jackson Merritt pleaded guilty to all three murders and turned on his co-defendants, admitting that he and the Jewells had killed Dr Gold for the late attorney John Trammel in return for twenty-five thousand dollars each, luring her to her office that evening with the promise of a huge fee for a custody-related court appearance the next morning. Frix, who’d known for years about Gold’s relationship with Johnny, had been murdered for another twenty-five thousand, divided three ways, after trying to blackmail Johnny. For killing Pendergrass, Merritt, acting alone this time, had doubled his price.

The court gave him consecutive life sentences for the murders of Deborah Gold, Benjamin Frix and Mark Pendergrass.

Bobby Wayne Jewell’s lawyer, gambling on a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, acknowledged
his client’s participation in the crime but argued that he was an honorably discharged combat veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder sustained in defence of his country, and that his criminal actions were a product of that disorder. He got the needle. He’d avoided my eyes during the trial, but when the sentence was read he looked at me and shrugged. At a press conference on the courthouse steps after the trial his attorney said something about ‘kangaroo justice by association’, but he mentioned no plans for an appeal.

Against all odds and everybody’s expectations, Rayford Dougliss Jewell hadn’t died of his head injuries after all, or at least hadn’t stayed dead. The EMTs had managed to jump-start his heart on the third try, bringing him back to the world of trouble he’d briefly left behind.

It had been Ridout who called me with the news about this particular Jewell.

‘He’s bad fucked up, Lou. But the docs say he’s probably gonna live, if you can call it that.’

Bone was tried in the Gold and Frix murders after a hot courtroom debate over his competency to stand trial. According to expert witnesses, the haemorrhaging in his brain caused by the impact of Jordan’s massive dictionary falling from the third-storey loft, and the resulting cardiac arrest and oxygen deprivation, had left the elder Jewell with intractable seizures and traumatic dementia. His attorney, moving for dismissal, argued that Bone couldn’t understand the charges against him or assist in his own defence.

‘He may not be as smart as he used to be, counsellor,’ said Judge Gaither, ‘but I’ve watched you down there asking him questions and listening to the answers ever since we went into session. Motion denied.’

Jewell was found guilty and given concurrent life sentences. He sat slumped in his wheelchair and gave no sign that he heard the verdict or the sentence.

Hearing about his condition, Jana had said, ‘Jesus! Not that he didn’t deserve it, but that’s horrible. I hope Jordan’s going to be all right about it.’

Jordan settled that question for me when she said, ‘I don’t know what he expected, going around capturing people with a gun that way.’

Casey only wrinkled her nose and said, ‘He smelled like roadkill.’

Without Dwight Hazen’s pressure, the case against me evaporated overnight and the council offered me my job back with a raise and a service commendation. I turned them down.

FORTY-SEVEN

I was off the job, but for me the story wasn’t over. Dwight Hazen was indicted on four counts of sexual contact with a minor and three of sexual assault based on information provided by three victims, all former patients of Dr Gold. They had come forward after Geoff Dean’s ‘Lateline Special Report’ and the publication of Cass Ciganeiro’s articles in the
Gazette
, all the coverage well salted with references to the fact that Hazen had been making blackmail payments to Gold. Heather Obenowsky didn’t want to testify unless absolutely necessary, but she agreed to be there in court with the other girls for moral support and to help Benny with a group for sexually abused girls.

By the time Hazen’s indictments came down he’d vanished like smoke. The cameras then turned to a series of public officials – not including OZ – who were eager to share their disappointment and outrage as well as their sorrow for the victims and the community, referring repeatedly to the huge personal, philosophical and political differences they’d always had with Hazen but hadn’t acted on, out of respect for both the sacred will of the people and the requirements of due process. It turned into a time of advisory panels, investigations and blue-ribbon committees,
and there was even some loose talk of a morality czar in Traverton.

Then came an anonymous tip to Dispatch, relayed to me by Mouncey, that I had a personal pickup waiting at Sylvan Park. Politely declining offers of police backup, a bomb squad sweep and secret surveillance by the FBI, I drove alone out to the cemetery in the cold, coppery late-afternoon sunlight. On the way I met the black rental Ford I’d seen in front of the Cutchell place. This time it was headed toward the airport, the driver now dressed in a tan western suit and bolo tie. His mirrored shades prevented me from seeing his eyes but he offered me a small nod and touched the brim of his white Stetson as he passed.

I had no idea what I’d find when I got to the cemetery, but I had a feeling it would relate to the Gold case. And it did.

Without thinking about it, I turned left as soon as I was through the gates, toward Joy Therone’s grave. From a distance it looked as if the monumental angel standing watch over her was holding out a big sack of garbage for inspection. As I got closer I saw it was Dwight Hazen, wearing a black bouffant wig and dressed as a pregnant woman, cuffed to the angel’s wrist and grimacing with the effort of standing on his tiptoes. Several thousand dollars in Mexican pesos and a street map of Ciudad Miguel Aleman were later found stashed in his girdle.

On later questioning he refused to say where he’d been and what he’d done between the release of the indictments and his arrival at Sylvan, and I resigned myself to the likelihood that I was never going to know all of what happened, including the whole story of how he ended up at the cemetery, in the angel’s custody.