Throwdown Read online

  “You mean with Wheelock?”

  Frank had always had reservations about Wheelock but he didn’t want to fuel them anywhere else. He was hearing one side of the story here.

  “Forget about Wheelock for a minute. This is a ‘what if’. You see a cop doing something wrong and you don’t call him on it. Nothing happens. Time goes by. Then days or weeks or months later the same cop screws up again, only worse. If you’d called him on it the first time it might not have happened the second. That makes you partly responsible.”

  She didn’t like that either.

  “So you think I should tell Brent.”

  “You asked me the question, Kelly.”

  They spent a couple of awkward minutes not saying anything. When they’d found the body of the girl a few months ago, Kelly had been the only one who’d shown more than a strictly professional concern for what had happened. Frank had used that to make her a firebreak between himself and the several sets of distraught parents who’d made pilgrimages to Strothwood, hoping on one hand to get ‘closure’ – a term Frank hated – and on the other hand hoping their pilgrimages would have to continue, hoping that the Jane Doe found out by that damned lake wouldn’t be their own, that their last unreasoning fragment of hope would last a while longer. Frank knew that passing them on to Kelly had been an unfair and cynical thing for him to do, and Kelly had finally challenged him on it.

  There was something else. In spite of the fact that she’d asked him for advice, it was inappropriate for him to ask her something in return – but if he didn’t ask the opportunity would be gone. There was no one else on the force he could bring it up with.

  “I’ve got a question about Jimmy Nesbitt,” he said finally.

  She looked up, surprised. It took her a moment to retrieve the name.

  “What about him?”

  “We still off the record, Kelly?”

  She looked at him warily, then nodded. This is out of line, he thought. He took the plunge anyway.

  “The Nesbitts don’t think the department’s doing enough about Jimmy.”

  “No parents would. I know – I’ve seen enough of them.”

  She turned her head away, checked the front of the restaurant. An older couple was coming in, the wife fussing about which table they were going to sit at. Like everybody else in Strothwood they looked vaguely familiar. She watched them long enough to make sure they settled down out of earshot, then turned back to Frank.

  “I don’t know, Chief – I don’t think I’m in much of a position to talk to Brent.”

  “I’m not asking you to talk to Brent, Kelly. Look, Jimmy Nesbitt was seeing Emily Simmonds when he went missing.”

  “That isn’t exactly a news flash. Everyone knows that.”

  “I know – but as far as I can tell nobody followed up on it. ”

  “We tried. Brent went to see her, took me with him – you know, to have a female officer present. She couldn’t remember anything. Complete blackout. I mean, she remembered who she was, her name, all the long term stuff. But the time around what happened with Wellner – nothing.”

  “And that’s what you and Brent were asking about – what happened with Wellner. Maybe the Nesbitt kid told Emily something before all that happened. She might have remembered that. Did she say anything at all?”

  From the look on her face Kelly was making a genuine effort to remember, but finally she shook her head.

  “No, she didn’t. We didn’t push it, Chief – I mean, you should have seen her, it would break your heart,” suddenly Randall looked embarrassed, “like you said, we were there to talk to her about Wellner, not Jimmy Nesbitt. Her mother didn’t give us a lot of time with her. Brent tried to follow up but her mother practically took his head off, told him Emily was still the same, maybe worse, and that she still couldn’t remember anything. She was all worked up about Emily being ‘interrogated’ even though she was the victim. I think she ended up calling the mayor and threatening a lawsuit or something.”

  And that would be the end of that, Frank thought. The town couldn’t afford a lawsuit or bad publicity – more specifically, Ed Cunningham couldn’t afford it. Ed would cave in just at the threat, and Brent Williams wouldn’t push it. He was acting chief at Ed’s pleasure, and if he wanted to keep the job he’d do what Cunningham wanted.

  “How’s Emily doing now?” Kelly asked, “I heard she was still in a coma, but that was a week ago.”

  “No change,” Frank told her. He didn’t want to get into it, didn’t want to admit that he’d just been there, even though he knew Kelly’s interest was genuine. He glanced at the door. It was only a matter of time until somebody else came in, maybe even a cop. It wouldn’t do Kelly any good if they were seen together.

  “We should wrap this up,” Frank said.

  “I guess you’re right, Chief,” she gave him a wry smile, “do you want to leave first or should I?”

  “You go ahead. And stop calling me Chief.”

  “Force of habit,” she smiled.

  She still hadn’t stood up, looked like she wanted to say something else.

  “What?”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  “You can ask.”

  “Are you all right? I know you’ve been through a lot.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She stood up, stung by his dismissive tone. Frank felt badly for that. He smiled, tried to lighten things up.

  “You think I’m lying to you, Kelly?”

  “Maybe. You’re a cop, aren’t you? We’re the best liars in the world.”

  • • •

  Frank gave Kelly a few minutes of separation, then put some money on the table and left the diner. Dawn was busy with the older couple so he was spared eye contact with her on the way out. He wasn’t sure why that mattered to him.

  The winter was going out slowly and hard, and there were already fat snowflakes drifting down by the time he got to the truck. It was full dark now, early as it was, and he felt suddenly tired. It came to him that he’d done more in this one day than he had since he’d gotten out of the hospital. There’d been something manic about his sudden bout of activity and now he wondered what had set it off. By accident or unconscious design he’d managed to touch base with most of the players in his life, as if he’d followed the stations of his particular cross. After months of holing up in his house and living inside his own head all of the unaccustomed movement had exhausted him.

  He unlocked the truck, felt suddenly lightheaded as he climbed in behind the wheel. He sat still for a moment to let the feeling pass. It occurred to him that he couldn’t have been in the diner as long as he thought – the windows of the truck hadn’t had time to frost over and he wouldn’t have to climb back out and scrape them off. He didn’t feel as if he had even that much energy left in him.

  He started the truck, wincing as he reached for the console shift. A movement like that still hurt like hell – but he wasn’t going to complain about a miracle. Wellner had only gotten off one shot, and the bullet had taken him just above the right hip, about the only place in his midsection that it could have gone without completely destroying something vital. Even so it had been a near thing. Somehow he’d fought through the blood loss and shock long enough to finish Wellner. If he hadn’t fought that hard, if he’d given in, he had no doubt at all that Wellner would have killed all three of them. He had no memory after that until a couple of days later in the hospital.

  Maybe there’d been something to Emily Simmonds’ condition after all.

  21

  Elway felt like going back the way he came, but he’d spent most of his money on the damn ticket. Nothing back there anyway. Langdon had gone to the trouble of tracking him down and that meant Langdon had something going, maybe enough to start over.

  The trip had taken a long time, an overnight stopover spent wide awake in a truck stop waiting for the transfer to the next bus. On the second leg he’d finally slept, his thin denim jack
et bundled up against the cold window, his legs jammed crosswise under the aisle seat ahead of him. The few other people on the bus had given him a wide berth so he’d at least had room to do that.

  He could hear the engine note drop, feel the bus slowing down and then turning onto an off ramp. It was a sharp turn and the bus leaned away from it, the motion pulling him away from the window. Elway gave up on trying to sleep, tried to see outside. The bus rolled almost to a stop and then turned right again onto a narrow road. People were stirring in their seats, frigging around with purses and backpacks. Maybe they were finally there. If they were it didn’t look like much. All he could see were scattered snowbanks and pools of darkness. He leaned his head into the aisle, tried to see something through the bus’s windshield. There were lights up ahead, looked like the usual lineup of fast food joints and a mall.

  Elway didn’t have a watch, didn’t have a clue what time it was. He fished Langdon’s crumpled letter out of his pocket, found the phone number.

  • • •

  Less than an hour later Elway was pleasantly buzzed, warm, and a lot better off than he’d been around twenty-four hours before. He and Langdon hadn’t had much of a chance to catch up – the car ride had been too short and then the bar was too noisy. Elway was tired but going to a place, any place, where there were women around was just fine with him.

  As far as he could tell the bar matched what little he’d seen of the town. There was an L shaped bar just a few feet from the entrance, and beyond that was a small dance floor with pool tables at the back and the far wall. Tables and chairs were haphazardly placed wherever there was room for them.

  The place was crowded and loud. Elway was going through something like sensory overload after a few years of featureless walls and steel. He wasn’t much of a talker anyway, and after a few minutes of awkward conversation Langdon bought Elway another beer and then got up from his stool, said he was going to talk to his girlfriend, tell her that Elway would be staying with them.

  Elway watched as Langdon went over to the best looking girl in the room. She was wearing a tight black top, her breasts swelling out of its scooped neckline, and a short checkered skirt that went halfway up tanned, smooth thighs. Elway wasn’t surprised that she was Langdon’s and he knew he should be looking somewhere else. He couldn’t figure out why Kenny would want him anywhere near her. He kept looking anyway, watched them argue with each other . It was noisy and he couldn’t hear what they were saying but the subject was plain enough. Him.

  • • •

  Sherry didn’t like it when Kenny took her for granted. By the time she and Saunders did up the cash tonight and closed the place down she’d be exhausted, something Kenny couldn’t relate to. He’d never worked a day in his life.

  Now this guy had shown up out of nowhere and all of a sudden Kenny had just announced he was going to put him up at his place. Never mind that she already had a bag packed behind the bar, that they already had planned to spend the night out there, that she’d been looking forward to it.

  She still had her own dingy little apartment in town but stayed there less and less frequently. When they were at the farmhouse she could tell herself she was steering him toward domesticity, at least when they were alone and Kenny wasn’t holding court with his entourage of scumbags. He was different then.

  If she gave in tonight, let Kenny drag this guy back with him, she knew she’d be awake all night listening to some kind of drunken bullshit session.

  “I don’t want him staying with us. Tell him to get a motel room.”

  “He doesn’t have any money.”

  “You’re the big shot, you pay for it. He came all the way out here for you, didn’t he? I bet you told him you had some kind of big deal going on – you want to look like some kind of bullshitter?”

  For a moment Sherry thought she had him. Then Kenny’s expression changed and he fished in a pocket, threw some money on her tray.

  “Don’t get all bent out of shape–you said it yourself,” he said, “he came here because I asked him to.”

  Sherry knew that she’d lost. For one reckless moment she felt like telling him to go pound sand, that she’d just stay home tonight. She started to say that, then decided not to push it that far. She knew what Kenny was capable of. If she held her ground that would just give him an excuse to turn it into a party night, and she was too busy to keep an eye on him. In spite of herself she glanced around the bar, saw the last person she wanted to see watching them, a wry half-smile on her face. Her name was Janine, and she’d been getting way too familiar with Kenny lately, either because they had a history from before or she wanted to start one. She was one of the regulars in the bar, and Sherry had seen her talking to Kenny a few times, always making a point of getting close. Sherry knew she wasn’t serious competition but that wouldn’t stop Kenny from fucking her if he had the chance. She was wearing tight stonewashed jeans that clung to thin legs and a checkered shirt that buttoned up just below the cleft of surprisingly full breasts. Sherry could predict what would happen if she let the argument turn into a fight. She looked back at Kenny and it was like he’d read her mind.

  “It’ll be fine,” he told her. They both knew he’d won, “give him another beer. He won’t be any trouble.”

  Sherry looked over at the big man sitting at the bar. He looked like trouble to her.

  22

  Gary Wheelock didn’t mind the night shift too much, except for the toll it took on his love life. He was still in his twenties, still unattached and content to stay that way. Didn’t mean he wanted to be celibate, though, and as one of the few single people on the force he still drew a disproportionate number of night shifts and holidays. The veterans had assured him that was just part of paying his dues, that they’d all had to do it in their single days. Usually a self-satisfied smirk went along with that observation.

  This time was different, though – Brent had changed things up in the middle of the rotation, had him switch with Raycroft. Raycroft was only too happy to oblige – he was older, had a wife and two teenagers, liked normal hours whenever he could get them. Wheelock figured it was Brent’s idea of punishment for the incident with the Masters kid, and for once he’d had enough sense not to protest. If a couple of extra night shifts was all he got he’d count himself lucky. It also got him away from Kelly for a couple of days. The way she’d been looking at him lately it was probably just as well.

  He felt his eyelids getting heavy. One officer in a patrol car meant it was just too easy to nod off at two in the morning. The veterans told him that back in the old days you could have gotten away with it, although they all stopped short of admitting they might have done it themselves. In the anecdotes it was always somebody else.

  Now it was far too risky, not because of any increased threat level – this was Strothwood, not Chicago or someplace – but because everybody and his dog carried some kind of camera. Too easy for some smartass college kid or concerned citizen to take a picture of some poor bastard dozing off in a patrol car and then post it on Facebook or something. Not a hanging offence, but it wouldn’t do your career any good and a suspension would cost you money. He was on thin ice as it was.

  Wheelock rolled the window down, took a deep breath. It was cold for late March, below freezing, and a dark sheen of ice coated the pavement. He was parked in an alley, facing out onto what passed for Strothwood’s main street. There was absolutely no traffic, either motorized or pedestrian, and Wheelock decided if he wanted to avoid dozing off he’d better move, preferably in the direction of some hot coffee.

  Maybe she’d be working tonight. They rotated shifts at the diner, and she might be on or she might not be. The name tag on the pale blue uniform she wore said Hayley or Halley, something like that, and he’d never been sure which. To make sure he would have had to squint at the name tag pinned only an inch or so above her right breast and she might get the wrong idea about just what he was squinting at.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t mind,
he thought, and at least this time he wouldn’t have Randall cramping his style. He supposed that maybe tonight he’d just take a deep breath and ask her out. A young, single cop was a pretty big deal in a town like Strothwood – steady job, a future, a pension, a glamorous little tinge of danger – all of that worked pretty well for a guy like Wheelock. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to settle down, but the girls didn’t have to know that. That was it, he decided. If she was working tonight he’d ask her out.

  That plan went all to hell as soon as he put the cruiser in gear. He heard the fire call on the radio, cranked the wheel in the other direction and headed for Saunders’ place.

  It took an absurdly short time for both Wheelock and the first of the fire trucks to arrive. What the city fathers liked to refer to as the ‘downtown core’ was only a few square blocks, and Saunders’ place was practically in the fire department’s backyard. Wheelock took a quick look and swung the patrol car around, t-boning the street to block traffic – not that there would be much at this hour. Then he called in and told Lori they’d need a car to cover the street from the other direction. He left the lights on and the engine running, then got out to take a look.

  There didn’t seem to be much to it, other than some dark, billowing smoke coming from the back of the old building. Even though it was well past closing time there were still a few cars scattered around the parking lot, abandoned by owners who didn’t want to play breathalyzer roulette. The parking lot was big enough that the first fire truck had no trouble getting close.

  He couldn’t see much from where he was standing, but a second truck was already pulling in and its lights swept over the side of the building, enough that he could see old man Saunders standing near the entrance and gesturing at the trucks. One of the waitresses was standing beside him. It looked like the babe who went out with Kenny Langdon but she was bundled up against the cold and Wheelock couldn’t be sure.

  • • •

  Saunders looked up the street, saw the police car pulled across the road. He thought of going over, actually started to walk in that direction until he recognized the Wheelock kid posing by the car. He thought he knew what the fire meant but he also knew he couldn’t prove a damned thing.