Point of Law (30 page)

“Put down the weapons! Put down the weapons!” my father is shouting. Even shouting, his voice still has that odd authoritative calm. The sound of it makes my hair stand on end.

I look over at Roberto. Burgermeister has let go of the knife and is rising off my brother’s back with his hands in the air. Roberto’s still pressed facedown in the dirt but his head is turned toward me. He’s looking at me, and I realize he’s grinning. I grin back.
Unbelievable. He came through
.

With a single motion that’s so quick it’s just a blur, Roberto rolls over onto his back, sits up, and keeps rolling forward. The long knife flashes before him. He thrusts it upward with both hands as he drives ahead. His back blocks my view but the grating sound of steel on bone is unmistakable. The giant screams.

Roberto, soaked with blood, whips the knife out and whirls to his feet as Burgermeister collapses like an enormous lodgepole pine. My brother bends down and spits in his face. “How’s it feel to be violated,
puta
?”

“’Berto! No!” my father shouts, way too late.

In front of me Fast drops his rifle. I think he drops it more in horror than from my father’s command. Deputy Timms moans on the grass, clutching his head and throat. My fingers had pulled the skin half off his face.

Kim has finally gotten the pistol out from her pants. She takes two steps forward and shoves the barrel into Fast’s open mouth. I hear teeth breaking. “On your knees,” she hisses at him.

My father comes forward. His gun is no longer on Fast but now points at Roberto. And his oldest son is smiling back with his eyes just bright slits in the dark. The blood that covers his face makes him look as dark as Dad.

“Step back, ’Berto. Put down the knife.” His voice is immeasurably sad. It’s as if he knows Roberto has crossed a line, that he’s stepped over the edge now and will never come back.

Roberto does as he’s told. But while my father watches, he licks some blood from his knuckles.

Life finally returns to my limbs. I get to my feet and put my hands on Kim’s shoulders. “It’s over,” I tell her. “You’re finally going to get to see him in court.” She’s shaking as hard as Sunny, who still lies curled and silently sobbing in the grass. I’d been tempted to let her kill him, but something tells me that’s not what she needs. She needs the Law to exact her Justice—it’s what she’s fought for all these years. For her, my brother’s type of justice would make those years seem empty.

I slide my hand down to her wrist and pull the gun out of Fast’s mouth. The asshole looks relieved. And he should be. My brother would gut him, too, if my father and his men weren’t here. I might have done it myself, with my bare hands, if the blow to my head hadn’t temporarily paralyzed my arms.

“Lie down,” I say softly to Fast after I kick the rifle into the deep grass. He does it, even putting his hands behind his head without me having to tell him to.

“Now who’s
fucked
?” Kim asks him.

FORTY-THREE

T
EN MILES DOWN
the bumpy Forest Service road, just a few miles from where it meets the highway, two Sheriff’s Department SUVs block the road. Beyond them I see a third truck with the same colors and insignia parked between some pines to one side. There are three men standing together talking in the clean morning light as we drive the black Suburban down toward them. I recognize Sheriff Munik in his Stetson with the two young deputies. They look up, see Fast’s truck, and wave. Roberto toots the horn as we approach. He’s driving because my right ankle’s so swollen and sore from Burgermeister’s blow that I can barely weight it.

Even though he’d washed his face in the creek, a fresh line of bright red blood runs down my brother’s face from the wound on top of his head.

The sheriff walks toward us when Roberto brakes to a stop. One of the deputies gets in an SUV to move it out of the way. As the darkly tinted driver’s window slides down, Munik is saying, “Boys were here all night and nobody tried . . .”

His voice dies away when he realizes that it’s Roberto, not David Fast, in the driver’s seat. And that I’m beside him.

“Tried what, asshole?” my brother asks.

The sheriff’s smile flexes into a grimace. His right hand slaps the leather holster under his sport coat and comes up with the huge revolver. He points it at my brother’s face.

“Hands in the air!” he screams through the open window at us.

Roberto and I comply, Roberto rather leisurely. The two deputies realize something’s very wrong and come running toward the Suburban with their own guns out.

“Sheriff, you’ve made some big mistakes—stupid mistakes,” I say evenly. “Don’t compound them. Look in the backseat.”

Gun extended, Munik steps to his left so that he can get a view behind Roberto’s seat. His eyes widen, then narrow, as he takes in the sight of Fast’s red face and the duct tape that’s wound around his mouth and head. And Kim, sitting beside him, touching a gun to Fast’s stomach.

“Sheriff!” one of the deputies says from behind Munik, as if the sheriff’s attention were not already riveted to the backseat.

“We’ve made a citizen’s arrest of David Fast for the kidnapping of Sunny Hansen and for the murder of Cal Watkins,” I say in my official voice, loud enough for them all to hear. “His accomplices are being brought down by other citizens in a pickup that will be following in a few minutes. The bodies of two others are up in the meadow.”

I’d asked my father to stay behind for a few minutes until I could get things straightened out at the police roadblock. He’s going to come down five minutes from now, in one of the construction pickups with Fast’s remaining men bound in the bed. Dad and the two parajumpers accompanying him had rounded up the men from the trailers beside the burnt-out lodge. Leaderless, Fast’s employees wisely decided not to put up a fight.

The sheriff is only half listening behind the revolver. “Put down the gun, missy,” he says to Kim.

“She’s not going to put down the gun. And you better not call her ‘missy’ again,” I say, unable to suppress a smile. “
You
put down
your
gun, Sheriff. Your men, too. If you’re thinking about trying to save your benefactor, forget it. There are U.S. soldiers—my father’s men, Special Forces—in the trees on both sides of the road. They have you in their rifle sights.” I’m exaggerating, but my smile makes the lie believable. I feel absolutely bulletproof right now. With my brother and Dad nearby, nothing can stop me.

While the deputies look around and lower their guns, Munik focuses on me with both his eyes and the long barrel of his revolver. I can almost see the wheels turning in his brain, trying to figure out if he can kill us and save Fast and make it plausible. Trying to figure out just how implicated he is already. Trying to figure out what kind of a cop he is. I decide to help him before he makes the wrong choice.

“We don’t have anything on you, Sheriff. Just that you’ve been a little too helpful to Mr. Fast in protecting what he mistakenly believes is his property. You’re going to lose some pride but that’s it. Now put down the gun before you get yourself killed.”

The wheels turn for a moment longer. Then he slowly nods. The gun lowers to his side until it’s pointing at the ground. He hitches it up into the holster at his belt as his men do the same.

“Now, what’s this kidnapping about?” he asks carefully.

Sheriff Munik argues to take custody of David Fast and his surviving employees, but I insist that we be the ones who will deliver them to the jail. I’m not going to risk Fast somehow “escaping.” Once the pickup comes up behind us, with Dad and Sunny in the front and two camouflaged soldiers in the back with their side arms pointed at Fast’s trussed men, we drive in a slow procession to the courthouse complex in the center of town. While we drive, Kim borrows Fast’s cell phone from the console between the front seats and calls reporter friends in both Tomichi and Denver. She wants to ensure that the sheriff and the DA don’t try to pull any tricks. The press will provide a little extra insurance.

She also calls the hospital, arranging for an ambulance to meet us in order to take Sunny for an examination and to submit to a rape kit. And she tries to get Roberto and me to agree to go with the girl. I’m convinced, though, that my ankle is just sprained, not broken. And I know from experience that nothing can be done for my ribs. Besides, I have too much still to do. Roberto refuses, too. He says his head’s too hard to break.

When we arrive at the courthouse, a television camera from the local station and a small crowd are already waiting for us. They shoot both video and still images as the town’s leading citizen, the son of a former United States senator, is led into the jail.

“Come on in, Agent Burns,” Roger Acosta, the Tomichi County district attorney, tells me, waving me into a pale blue chair opposite his desk in the office.

He’d been waiting in the jail when our small caravan pulled up. The sheriff must have alerted him to the situation on the radio. Fast glared at the man whose campaign he had funded when he was led past with his mouth still taped shut. The prosecutor shook his head sadly in response, causing Fast’s face to turn redder. He briefly struggled with the two uncertain deputies escorting him, who were obviously embarrassed to have a man of Fast’s prominence in their custody. I reached in and shoved Fast’s bulky shoulder, bouncing him off a wall, teaching him the new manners he would need to learn in prison. The DA intervened then by taking my arm and making quieting noises at Fast. Then he asked me to meet him upstairs, in his office, and I said I’d come after borrowing a crutch from the jail infirmary and seeing David Fast put in a cell.

I try to keep my face neutral as I hobble into the comfortable office. A variety of emotions are stirring inside me and I’m too exhausted to be able to judge which of them I should display. I slouch in the big chair, laying the crutch on the floor beside me. I’m unconcerned that the dirt and blood caked on my clothes must be staining the chair beneath me.

“Well,” the DA says, “I’m assuming you’ve got some evidence to back up these citizen’s arrests you’ve made?”

“I do.”

“Can you summarize it for me, Agent?”

I explain that Fast and Burgermeister had killed Cal while trying to learn the location of the Indian ruin he’d found, which could foul up the land exchange, and to retaliate for the burning of Fast’s lodge. Sunny will identify him and his now deceased employee, Alf “Rent-a-Riot” Burgermeister, as well as testify to her kidnapping from the lake and subsequent rape. My father, his two men, my brother, Kim, and I will all testify that Fast, Burgermeister, and Timms then tried to murder us all at the foot of the red cliff. Roberto stabbed Burgermeister in self-defense, I tell him, knowing the others will back me up. While I talk, the DA leans forward on his desk, propping himself upright with his elbows and resting his chin on his clasped hands.

He doesn’t say anything when I finish. His eyes have drifted to the wall behind me. I guess he’s considering the evidence, wondering how it will sound in court and perhaps trying to figure out how he’ll be implicated in all this.

“You should know the sheriff had a role in all of it,” I say. “He ignored evidence that Fast was Cal’s killer. He arrested my brother based just on his criminal history.” I don’t mention that the DA was a part of that, too. “He didn’t try very hard to find Sunny, the only witness to the murder. He ignored me when I tried to get his help in rescuing her. Then he blocked the road up into the valley for Fast.”

“Can you prove anything against him?”

“Probably not. Just ignorance and stupidity.”

The DA nods, unable to keep from looking a little relieved. If the sheriff’s safe, then he probably is as well.

“You say this girl Sunny can ID everyone? She can identify the killers of that boy in the valley?”

“Yes.”

“Can all of you give statements this morning?”

“Yes, all of us except Sunny, who’s at the hospital right now. But we need some food and coffee first.”

“All right then,” he says with an unconvincing sigh. “Let’s get it over with.” He starts to stand behind his desk.

I don’t move. “I want the charges against my brother dismissed now. And his bond released.”

“All in good time, Agent Burns. All in good time.”

I lean forward, ignoring the pain in my stomach and ribs. “Do you want me to go down there and tell those reporters that David Fast was your number one campaign contributor? About how you are as culpable as the sheriff in at the very least turning a blind eye to all the evidence pointing at Fast instead of my brother?”

The DA sits back down in his chair. He shakes his head sadly. “That’s unnecessary, Agent. All that will come out anyway when a special prosecutor is appointed. You can trust me to do the right thing.”

“I’d rather you just do it.”

He shakes his head again but turns to the computer. He taps at the keyboard, prints out a piece of paper, and fills in some blanks on it. He signs it and passes it to me. It’s a Motion to Dismiss case number 97CF2343,
The People v. Roberto Burns.
“You can take it down to the judge for her signature while we start interviewing your family and friends. I’ll call the clerk and tell them to expect you.”

The rest of the morning passes in an exhausted daze.

With the exception of Sunny, who remains at the hospital undergoing the indignity and new violation of a rape kit, the rest of us crowd into the sealed-off lobby of the District Attorney’s Office. One by one we’re called in to give videotaped interviews. True to his word, the DA has called in a prosecutor from another county to act as an impartial witness and later, when appointed by the court, a special prosecutor in the case against David Fast.

Kim commandeers the receptionist’s phone. She dials and speaks fervently but I’m too tired to pay much attention to what’s being said. The two PJs who’d flown across the country and then jumped into the meadow with my father sleep on the floor with practiced ease. They’d been embarrassed by my profuse thanks earlier. They shrugged it off, making my throat swell by saying they would follow my father anywhere. Even into a court-martial. I never say thank you to my dad, but he knows how I feel. Saying it out loud would just cheapen the emotion. He nods back at me whenever I look into his hard blue eyes.

I overhear him being berated by some general in Washington. The voice over the big satellite phone is loud and clear. Dad in all likelihood will be court-martialed. Perhaps even charged criminally for leaving his post and disobeying orders. But he absorbs the abuse without expression or comment. He knew what the consequences would be when he talked a friendly Air Force pilot into flying him across the country and making the parachute drop into the valley. The only defense he strives to present is for the two men who’d volunteered to come with him. Dad makes it clear that he alone is responsible. Both his sons and his men would expect nothing less. The voice on the other end in turn makes it clear that my father’s career is officially over.

At one point Dad and Roberto step out into the hall for a private talk.

It’s a long, long time before they return. The whole time, I’d been listening for the sound of yelling, but it never comes. When they come back, Roberto is smiling sheepishly. His mad eyes are still lit up with something—I can’t tell if it’s that he’d found his hidden stash in the woods or if it’s from the blow to his head or if it’s the stupor of a blood lust satisfied. Whatever it is, it seems to have put him in a gentle trance.

He sits on the couch next to me. “I guess I’m coming to visit you for a while in Wyoming,” he says. “Where the men are men and the sheep are scared.”

I laugh at the old joke. “What the hell, bro?” but I realize now what his strange look means.

He knows Dad had ultimately been willing to sacrifice everything for us. Those old lectures about family loyalty—they were true in the long run. Now it is Roberto’s turn to make a sacrifice. He’s agreed to come back with me to Wyoming, to attend that rehab center near Jackson Hole that Dad had mentioned a week ago. I’ll need to arrange it with the parole office in Durango, but that should be easy. Suddenly everything feels easy.

Roberto shakes his head. “
Che,
” he says softly, “I can’t fucking
believe
the old man came through.”

Kim comes out of her interview with the prosecutors positively glowing. Her filthy hair is covered with the blue bandana again except for the tendrils she’s pulled free to cover her eye patch. Her face and clothes are smudged with streaks of dried mud, but she’s never looked more beautiful. She’s never looked younger or stronger.

“This is it,” she tells me. “They’re going to arraign him in two hours.”

The excitement has overridden her exhaustion. Her single brown eye is shining with the thrill of vindication. This is when Fast starts paying for what he did to her all those years ago, paying in the way she always intended—with the law as the instrument of justice that will bring him to his knees. I don’t want to tell her how from my perspective, a cop’s perspective, the law seldom results in justice. A bit of the euphoria I’d felt on learning of Roberto’s promise drains away.