“Letting them horses loose is a serious crime,” he said to me. “You could do time for that.”
“No, I couldn’t, because I didn’t let the horses loose. The perpetrator might be charged with malicious mischief, which is a misdemeanor. There would be a fine and maybe community service. It’s nothing compared to, say, illegally carrying a concealed weapon,” I said, looking at the scowling Bud.
“I thought you said you were through talking,” he said.
I smoothed my wet hair back with my hands and stood up as a car door slammed outside the trailer. The deputy came in looking like he’d been awakened from a sound sleep to answer the call.
“What’s up, Marsh? Somebody let some nags loose? This her?”
“She was in the vicinity,” Bullfrog said. “She may have information about the crime.”
The deputy looked at me, unimpressed. “Do you, ma’am?”
“I’ll speak directly to Detective Landry,” I said.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
I moved past him, going to the door, checking out his name tag as I passed. “We’ll talk in the car, Deputy Saunders. Let’s get going.”
He looked at Bullfrog, who shook his head and said, “Good luck with that, son. She’s a pistol.”
9
You got me out of bed for this?”
Landry looked from Deputy Saunders to me with the kind of disgust usually reserved for spoiled food.
“She won’t talk to anyone else,” Saunders said.
We walked down the hall toward the squad room, Landry muttering, “Aren’t I the lucky one. I don’t see what any of us are doing here. You could have handled this in the field in half an hour. Jesus.”
“I was assaulted,” I said. “I think that warrants a detective.”
“Then you take whoever is up. You know that.”
“But I’ve already established a relationship with you regarding this case.”
“No, you haven’t, because there isn’t any case. What you talked to me about yesterday isn’t a case.”
We went into the division offices through reception. Landry handed his badge and his weapon to the security officer through the drawer beneath the bulletproof glass. Saunders followed suit. I pulled the Glock out of the back of my jeans, put it and my car keys in the tray. Landry stared at me.
I shrugged. “I’ve got a license.”
He turned to Saunders. “You fucking idiot. She could have blown your empty head off in the car.”
“Now, Detective,” I cooed, slipping past him as the security officer buzzed the door open. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Get out of here, Saunders,” he snapped. “You’re about as useful as a limp dick.”
We left Saunders looking forlorn in the outer office. Landry stalked past me, the muscles in his jaw working. We went past his desk to an interview room. He pushed the door back.
“In here.”
I went in and gingerly took a seat. The pain in my back wouldn’t let me draw a full breath. I had begun to wonder if maybe I really should go to an ER.
Landry slammed the door. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That’s rather a broad question, so I’m just going to take my pick of moments,” I said. “I went to the equestrian center to look for some hint of what might have happened to Erin Seabright.”
“But you weren’t in the barn where she worked, right? She worked for some guy named Jade. So how is it you were in this other barn?”
“Michael Berne is an enemy of Don Jade. This morning I witnessed Berne threaten Jade.”
“Threaten him how?”
“In that if-I-find-out-you-killed-that-horse-I’ll-ruin-you kind of way.”
“So this Jade sneaks in and turns the guy’s horses loose. Big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to the man whose livelihood depends on the soundness of those horses. It’s a big deal to the trainer who has to explain to owners how a horse worth a quarter of a million or a half a million dollars came to break a leg running around loose in the dead of night.”
Landry heaved a sigh and turned his head at an odd angle, as if to pop a vertebra in his neck. “And you’d drag me out of bed for this?”
“No. I did that just for fun.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Estes. Not like you haven’t been told that before.”
“That and worse. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t have a very high opinion of myself either,” I said. “I suppose you think I’m being flip, and that’s all right. I don’t care what you think of me. I want you to be aware there are bad things going on that all seem to center on Don Jade. Don Jade is the man Erin Seabright was working for. Erin Seabright is missing. Do you see the connection here?”
He shook his head. “So I’m told you’re caught standing there in this other guy’s barn. How do I know you didn’t let these nags loose just to get attention? You want people looking at Jade, so you orchestrate this little opera—”
“Nice turn of phrase. And did I beat myself with a pitchfork handle too? I can assure you, I’m not that flexible.”
“You’re walking around. You don’t look any worse for wear to me.”
I slipped my jacket off and stood up. “All right. I don’t usually do this on the first interrogation, but if you promise not to call me a slut . . .”
I turned my back to him and pulled my sweater up to my neck. “If those marks look anywhere near as bad as they feel—”
“Jesus.”
He spoke the word softly, without anger, without energy, the wind knocked out of his sails. I knew it probably didn’t have as much to do with the marks my assailant had left on me as it did with the patchwork of skin grafts I’d worn for the past two years.
That wasn’t what I had wanted. Not at all. I had lived with those scars a long time now. They were a part of me. I had kept them to myself because I kept to myself. I didn’t dwell on them. I didn’t look at them. In a strange way, the damage that had been done to my body was unimportant to me, because I had become unimportant to myself.
Suddenly the damage was very important. I felt naked emotionally. Vulnerable.
I pulled the sweater down and picked up my jacket, my back still to Landry.
“Forget it,” I said, embarrassed and angry with myself. “I’m going home.”
“You want to press charges?”
“Against whom?” I asked, turning to face him. “The asshole you’re not going to bother to look for, let alone question, because nothing that goes on with that horse crowd is of any interest to you? Unless, of course, someone turns up murdered.”
He couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
The corner of my mouth moved in what passed for a bitter smile. “Imagine that: You at least have the humanity to feel sheepish. Good for you, Landry.”
I stepped past him, going to the door. “How do you like my odds that Saunders is sitting in the parking lot catching twenty? Pretty good, I think. See you around, Landry. I’ll call you when I find a body.”
“Estes. Wait.” He didn’t want to meet my eyes when I turned again and looked at him. “You should go to an ER. I’ll take you. You might have busted a rib or something.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re a hardhead.”
“I don’t want your pity,” I said. “I don’t want your sympathy. I don’t want you to like me or care what happens to me. I don’t want anything from you but for you to do your job. And apparently, that’s too much to ask.
“I’ll show myself out. I know the way.”
He followed me back to reception. Neither of us spoke as we retrieved our weapons. I pretended he had ceased to exist as we walked down the hall and down the stairs.
“I’m good at what I do,” he said as the front doors came into view.
“Really? What’s that? You have a second career as a professional asshole?”
“You’re a piece of work.”
“I’m what I have to be.”
“No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re rude and you’re a bitch, and that somehow makes you feel superior to the rest of us.”
The rain was still coming down. It looked white as it passed through the beams of the security lights in the parking lot. Saunders and his radio car were gone.
“Great,” I said. “I guess I have to take you up on that ride, after all.”
Landry looked at me sideways as he flipped up the collar of his jacket. “Fuck you. Call a cab.”
I watched him get into his car, and stood there in the rain until he’d backed up and driven away. Then I went back inside to use the phone.
I couldn’t say I hadn’t asked for it.
When the cabbie finally showed, he wanted to chat, curious about why I needed a ride from the Sheriff’s Office at 3:45 in the morning. I told him my boyfriend was wanted for murder. He didn’t ask any more questions after that.
I propped myself up in the back of the cab and spent the ride home wondering how Erin Seabright was spending the night.
ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
FADE IN:
INTERIOR: OLD TRAILER HOUSE
Night. A single lightbulb in a lamp with no shade. No curtains at the filthy window. A rusty old iron bed frame. Stained mattress with no sheets.
Erin sits on the bed, huddled against the headboard, frightened, naked. She is chained to the bed by one wrist. Her hair is a mess. Mascara rings her eyes. Her lower lip is split and bloody.
She is very aware of the camera and the director of the scene. She tries to cover as much of herself as she can. She is crying softly, trying to hide her face.
DIRECTOR
Look at the camera, bitch. Say your line.
She shakes her head, still hiding.
DIRECTOR
Say it! You want me to make you?
She shakes her head and looks at the camera.
ERIN
Help me.
FADE OUT
10
Landry didn’t sleep for shit,
and it was Estes’ fault. Her fault he’d been dragged out of bed in the first place. Her fault he couldn’t get back to sleep once he’d finally gotten back home. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her back, crisscrossed with lines where new flesh had been stitched into old. The bruises just coming to the surface from her run-in at the equestrian center were insignificant, pale shadows beneath the old damage.
Damage. He thought of Estes and what he knew about her. Their paths hadn’t crossed when she was on the job. Narcs ran their own way. They spent too much time undercover, as far as he was concerned. It made them edgy and unpredictable. An opinion borne out in the incident that had ended her career, and ended the life of Hector Ramirez. What he knew about that incident was what everybody knew: Estes had jumped the gun, gone against orders to make the bust herself, and all hell had broken loose.
He had never given any thought to Estes, beyond thinking she’d gotten what she deserved, losing her job. He knew she’d been wounded, hospitalized, was suing the SO for her disability pay—which seemed pretty damned nervy, considering—but it had nothing to do with him, and he didn’t give a shit about her. She was trouble. He had figured it, and now he knew it for a fact.
Pushy bitch. Telling him how to do his job.
He wondered about what had happened to her at the equestrian center, wondered if it really did have anything to do with this girl she said was missing . . .
If the girl was missing, why would a twelve-year-old child be the only one to report it? Why not her parents? Why not her employer?
Her parents who maybe wanted to be rid of her.
Her boss who maybe had a major scam going, and maybe beat Estes across the back with a broom handle.
He saw her back, a patchwork of mismatched flesh stretched taut over bone.
At five-thirty he got out of bed, pulled on a pair of running shorts, stretched, did a hundred sit-ups and a hundred push-ups, and started his day. Again.
I
stand at the side of the Golam brothers’ trailer. I’ve been told to stay put, to wait, but I know that’s not the right decision. If I go in first, if I go in now, I’ve got the brothers dead-bang. They think they know me. I’ve worked this case three months. I know what I’m doing. I know I’m right. I know the Golam brothers are already twitching. I know I want this bust and deserve it. I know Lieutenant Sikes is here for the show, to put a feather in his cap. He wants to look good when the news vans arrive. He wants to make the public think they should vote for him in the next election for sheriff.
He’s stuck me on the side of the trailer and told me to wait. He doesn’t know his ass. He didn’t listen to me when I told him the side door is the door the brothers use most. While Sikes and Ramirez are watching the front, the brothers are dumping their money into duffel bags and getting ready to bolt out the side. Billy Golam’s four-by-four is parked ten feet away, covered in mud. If they run, they’ll take the truck, not the Corvette parked in front. The truck can go off-road.
Sikes is wasting precious time. The Golam brothers have two girls in the trailer with them. This could easily turn into a hostage situation. But if I go in now . . . They think they know me.
I key the button on my radio. “This is stupid. They’re going to break for the truck. I’m going in.”
“Goddammit, Estes—”
I drop the radio into the weeds growing beside the trailer. It’s my case. It’s my bust. I know what I’m doing.
I draw my weapon and hold it behind my back. I go to the side door and knock the way all the Golam brothers’ customers knock: two knocks, one knock, two knocks. “Hey, Billy, it’s Elle! I need some.”
Billy Golam jerks open the door, wild-eyed, high on his own home cooking—crystal meth. He’s breathing hard. He’s got a gun in his hand.
Shit.
The front door explodes inward.
One of the girls screams.
Buddy Golam shouts: “Cops!”
Billy Golam swings the .357 up in my face. I suck in my last breath.
He turns abruptly and fires. The sound is deafening. The bullet hits Hector Ramirez in the face and blows out the back of his head, blood and brain matter spraying Sikes behind him.
I go for my weapon as Billy bolts out the door and knocks me off the stoop.
He’s running for the truck as I scramble to get my feet under me.
The engine roars to life.
“Billy!” I scream, running for the truck.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The cords in his neck stand out as he screams. He throws the truck into reverse and hits the gas.
I throw myself at the driver’s door, grab hold of the side mirror and the window frame, and get one foot on the running board. I don’t think what I’m doing. I just act.
I’m screaming. He’s screaming.
He brings the gun up and points it in my face.
I hit the gun, hit his face.
He cranks the wheel around as the truck runs backward. One of my feet slips off the running board. He throws the truck into drive and gravel spews out behind it.
I struggle to keep from falling. I try to grab the wheel.
The truck catches hold of pavement. Golam cranks the wheel hard left. His face is a contorted mask, mouth wide, eyes wild. I try to grab for him. He shoves the door open as the truck spins around in the road.
I’m hanging in space.
I’m falling.
The road slams against my back.
My left cheekbone shatters like an egg.
Then the black shadow of Billy Golam’s four-by-four sweeps over me, and I die.
And I wake.
Five-thirty
A
.
M
. After two hours of fitful dozing, waiting for a rib fragment to deflate one or both of my lungs, I oozed over the side of my bed and forced myself to attempt stretching.
I went into the bathroom, stood naked in front of the mirror, and looked at my body. Too thin. Rectangular marks on both thighs where the skin grafts were taken. Gouges into the meat of the left leg.
I turned and tried to look over my shoulder at my back in the mirror. I looked at what I had shown Landry, and called myself stupid.
The one useful thing my father had ever taught me: never show a weakness, never appear vulnerable.
The bruises from my beating were dark maroon stripes. It hurt when I breathed.
At 6:15—after I’d fed the horses—I drove myself to the ER. The X rays showed no broken bones. A bleary-eyed resident, who’d had even less sleep than I, questioned me, clearly not believing my story of having fallen down a flight of stairs. All the staff looked at me askance with jaded eyes. Twice I was asked if I wanted to talk to a cop. I thanked them and declined. No one forced the issue, which led me to wonder how many battered women were allowed to simply walk out of the place and back into their own private hell.
The resident vomited up a big load of medical terms, trying to intimidate me with his expensive education.
I looked at him, unimpressed, and said, “I have bruised ribs.”
“You have bruised ribs. I’ll give you a prescription for painkillers. Go home and rest. No significant physical activity for forty-eight hours.”
“Yeah, right.”
He gave me a scrip for Vicodin. I laughed when I looked at it. I stuffed it in the pocket of my windbreaker as I left the building. My arms worked, my legs worked, no bones were protruding, I wasn’t bleeding. I was ambulatory, I was fine. As long as I knew I wouldn’t die of it, I had places to go, people to see.
My first call was to Michael Berne, or rather, to Michael Berne’s assistant—the phone number on the stall doors. Michael was a busy man.
“Ask him if he’s too busy to speak to a potential client,” I said. “I can always take my business to Don Jade, if that’s the case.”
Miraculously, Michael’s time suddenly freed up and the assistant handed off the phone.
“This is Michael. How can I help you?”
“By dishing some dirt on your friend, Mr. Jade,” I said quietly. “I’m a private investigator.”