Life or Death (39 page)

‘Don’t take this personally,’ the deputy said as he pulled the trigger.

Max remembers. Somewhere deep inside his head there are doors and windows opening. Papers blow off desks. Dust rises. Machines hum. Phones ring. Single frames are threaded together like film being spliced, rewound and replayed. Images of a woman in a floral dress, who smelled of vanilla and mangoes, who took him to a fairground where there were coloured lights. Fireworks.

Yet even as his mind opens, Max tries to close it down. He doesn’t want a different past. He wants the one he knows – the one he’s lived. Why are there no pictures of him as a newborn, he wonders. He had never really questioned it before but now he mentally studies the photo albums that Sandy keeps in a drawer of her dresser, turning the pages in his mind. There are no shots of him swaddled in a cotton blanket, or being nursed in a hospital bed.

His parents had never talked about his birth. Instead they used terms like ‘when you came along’ and ‘we waited a long time for you.’ They talked about having IVF. Miscarriages. He was loved. He was wanted.

This man is making up stories. He’s a killer! A liar! Yet there was something about how he told the story that Max knew was genuine. Audie spoke as if he had been there since the very beginning.

‘Are you all right?’ asks Audie.

Max doesn’t answer. Without a word, he goes to the bathroom and scoops water into his mouth, trying to take away the taste. He stares at his reflection in the mirror. He looks like his father. They have the same olive skin and brown eyes. Sandy is fairer, with blonde hair and freckles, but that doesn’t mean anything. They’re his parents. They raised him. They love him.

He closes the lid of the toilet and sits down, holding his head in his hands. Why did this man, this stranger, have to tell him? Why couldn’t he be left alone?

When he was young he wanted to be a cowboy. He had a silver gun that fired caps and a cowboy hat with a star on the hatband. He had a teddy bear with a purple bowtie. These things he knows to be true, yet he has become a different person in the past few hours.

He had been born in San Diego. He had travelled to Texas. He had seen his mother die.

56

Desiree walks across her office foyer, passing a woman who is about her age, well-dressed, pretty, busy. She is someone who probably has plans for the weekend. Perhaps she will see a movie with her boyfriend or have a drink with a girlfriend. Desiree has no such arrangements, which should depress her more than it does.

Somebody has taped a newspaper clipping on a whiteboard near the water cooler – a photograph taken outside Star City Inn. Desiree is visible, two feet shorter than the detective standing next to her, pointing at something on the second floor. The speech bubble says:
‘It’s de plane, boss! It’s de plane!’

Desiree doesn’t tear the cutting down. Let them have their fun. She’s not supposed to be in the office, but she knows that Senogles left an hour ago and she doubts anyone else cares whether she recuperates at home or at her desk.

Her phone is ringing.

‘Is that Special Agent Furness?’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘You probably don’t remember me.
We talked at Three Rivers prison. You wanted to know about Audie Palmer.’

Desiree frowns and looks at the caller ID number. ‘I remember you, Mr Webster. Do you have some information about Audie?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I think I do.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘No.’

‘What did you want to tell me?’

‘I think he might be innocent of that robbery they said he done.’

Desiree sighs internally. ‘And what has led you to this startling conclusion?’

‘That boy he kidnapped. I think he belonged to the woman who died in the robbery – the one they never identified.’

‘What?’

‘I think she had a kid with her. Don’t ask me why he wasn’t in the car when it got hit. Maybe he got thrown clear. He didn’t get found until a few days later.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I just talked to the man who found him.’

‘On the phone?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘He came to the prison?’

‘I’m not in prison any more.’

‘You had a life sentence!’

‘They let me go.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know their names. They said that if I found Audie Palmer, they’d get my sentence commuted, but I think they were lying to me. I think they’re going to kill Audie and they’re gonna kill me for talking to you.’

Desiree is still getting her head around the fact that Moss Webster isn’t in prison.

‘Wait! Wait! Go back!’

‘I’m gonna run out of spare change real soon,’
says Moss.
‘You gotta listen to me. The man I spoke to said a deputy told him to lie about where he found the boy. The police said it was miles away, but it was just near the shootings.’

‘Go back to the beginning – who let you out of prison?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you see these men?’

‘I had a hood over my head. They’re gonna say I escaped, ma’am, but I didn’t. They let me go.’

‘You got to come in, Moss. I can help you.’

Moss sounds on the verge of tears.
‘Audie is the one who needs help. He deserves it. I’m going back to prison regardless, if I live that long. I wish I’d never become friends with Audie. I wish I could help him now.’

There is a beeping sound on the line.

‘I’m outta change,’
says Moss.
‘Remember what I said about the boy.’

‘Moss? Give yourself up. Take down my cell phone.’ She yells the number but doesn’t know if he heard the last digits before they’re cut off and the line goes dead.

She contacts the switchboard and asks if the call can be traced. The operator comes back with a location: a payphone at a supermarket in Conroe. By then Desiree has managed to get Chief Warden Sparkes on the phone from Three Rivers prison.

‘Moss Webster was transferred out two days after Audie Palmer’s escape,’
he says.

‘Why?’

‘They don’t always tell us why. Prisoners are moved around all the time. Could be operational or on compassionate grounds.’

‘Somebody must have approved this,’ says Desiree.

‘You’ll have to talk to Washington.’

An hour later – having made a dozen calls – Desiree is still on the phone. ‘This is horseshit!’ she yells, berating a junior staffer at the Bureau of Federal Prisons, who must regret having returned her call. ‘Why was Moss Webster transferred from a high-security Federal Prison to a holiday camp in Brazoria County?’

‘With all due respect, Special Agent, the Darrington Unit is a prison farm, not a holiday camp.’

‘He is a convicted killer serving a life sentence.’

‘I can only tell you what I have in front of me.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Webster used a homemade knife to threaten and disarm a US marshal during a rest stop at a Dairy Queen in West Columbia. The marshal was unharmed in the escape. State police have been informed.’

‘Who authorised the transfer?’

‘I don’t have that information.’

‘Why wasn’t the FBI notified of his escape?’

‘It’s in the system.’

‘I want to see statements from the marshal and any other witnesses. I want to know
why
he was being transferred. I want to know who gave approval.’

‘I’ve made a note for the director. I’m sure he’ll look at it first thing Monday morning.’

Desiree can hear the sarcasm in the bureaucrat’s voice. She slams down the phone and considers hurling it across the room, but that’s something a man would do and she’s sick of men.

Instead she goes back over what Moss told her. Logging into her computer, she calls up information on missing children.

Do you have any idea, Mr Webster, how many children go missing every year in Texas?

She narrows the search to Dreyfus County in January 2004 and comes across a story in the
Houston Chronicle
:

BAREFOOT BOY FOUND WANDERING

A small boy dressed as a cowboy was found beside Burnt Creek Reservoir in Dreyfus County on Monday, showing signs of having spent all night in the wild, police say.

Aged between three and four, the child was discovered by Theo McAllister and his dog Buster on the eastern edge of the reservoir.

‘We were just walking along the track and Buster found this bundle of rags under a bush. I got closer and realized it was a little boy,’ Mr McAllister said. ‘He was a hungry little hero so I gave him some food. When I couldn’t find his mama, I called the police.’

The boy was taken to St Francis Hospital where doctors said he was dehydrated, cold and suffering scratches and bruises, indicating he had spent the night outdoors.

Deputy Ryan Valdez said: ‘The boy is clearly traumatized and hasn’t been able to talk to us yet. Our first priority is to find his mother and to provide whatever support she needs.’

Desiree calls up a map. Burnt Creek Reservoir is almost two miles from where the shooting took place. According to the timeline, the boy was found three days later. There’s nothing to link the two events except for Ryan Valdez … and Moss Webster’s phone call.

Almost a week later a second story appeared in the
Chronicle
.

LONESOME COWBOY MYSTERY

State and Federal authorities have stepped up efforts to solve the mystery of a young boy wearing a cowboy hat found wandering near Burnt Creek Reservoir in Dreyfus County last Monday.

The boy, aged about four, is described as being olive-skinned with brown eyes, dark hair, 35" tall, weighing 33lbs. He was found wearing blue elastic-waist jeans, a cotton shirt and a cowboy hat.

Authorities are now utilizing the FBI’s NCIC system along with the National and Missing Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) in the hope of locating the boy’s parents or guardians.

Deputy Sheriff Ryan Valdez is heading the investigation. ‘It’s been difficult because the boy hasn’t uttered a word. We figure he doesn’t speak English or he could be traumatized. For the moment we’re calling him Buster after the dog that found him.’

Desiree puts in a call to the Department of Family and Protective Services in Dreyfus County. She has to explain herself three times before she’s put through to a caseworker who has been with the department since 2004.

‘Make it quick, I’m busy,’ the woman says, standing on a noisy street. ‘I got four police officers with me and we got to rescue a kid from crackhead central.’

Desiree talks in shorthand. ‘January 2004 – a boy, aged about three or four, was found wandering alone near a reservoir in Dreyfus County. Whatever happened to him?’

‘You mean Buster?’

‘Yeah.’

She yells at someone to wait. ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. Odd case. Kid never said a word.’

‘Did you find kin?’

‘Nope.’

‘So what happened?’

‘He was fostered.’

‘By whom?’

‘I’m not supposed to give out details like that.’

‘I understand. I tell you what. I’ll put a proposition to you – if I’m wrong, you hang up. If I’m right, you stay on the line.’

‘I might hang up anyway.’

‘The boy was fostered by a deputy sheriff and his wife. I think they later adopted him.’

There is a long pause. Desiree can hear her breathing.

‘I think that’s long enough,’ the woman says.

‘Thank you.’

57

The sun appears briefly from behind broken clouds, creating shadows on the water that look like prehistoric sea monsters moving beneath the surface. Audie and Max sit on the deck overlooking the beach, where gulls float against the breeze.

‘How did it feel to get shot?’

‘I don’t really remember.’

‘It must have been an accident,’ says Max. ‘They thought you were one of the gang.’

Audie doesn’t answer.

‘My daddy wouldn’t have done it on purpose. It was a mistake,’ says Max. ‘And he didn’t take that money. If you talk to him he’ll help you.’

‘It’s too late for that,’ says Audie. ‘Too many people have too much to lose.’

Max picks at the flaking paint on the armrest of his chair. ‘Why didn’t you say something sooner?’

‘I was in a coma for three months.’

‘But then you woke up – you could have talked to the police … or a lawyer.’

Audie remembers waking up in the hospital, slowly becoming conscious of his surroundings. He would hear nurses talking to each other or feel their hands washing him, but it was like a scene snipped out of a drunken dream. When he opened his eyes for the first time, he could see only vague shapes and swirls of colour. The brightness was too much for him and he went to sleep. The periods of consciousness grew longer, unpunctuated stretches that shone like tunnels of light with dark shadows moving within the glare. Silhouettes. Angels.

Audie opened his eyes again some time later and saw a neurologist standing beside the bed talking to a group of interns. One of the interns was asked to do an examination of the patient. A young man with curly hair bent over the bed and was about to pull open Audie’s eyelid.

‘He’s awake, Doctor.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the neurologist.

Audie blinked and triggered a commotion.

Unable to talk, he had a tube in his mouth and another in his nose, which felt like it was being dragged back and forth through his lungs. When he turned his head he could make out orange dials on a machine near the bed and a green blip of light sliding across a liquid crystal display window like one of those stereo systems with bouncing waves of coloured light.