The River Burns (43 page)

“Yeah?”

“I got the makings for Molotov cocktails back here. Gasoline. Bottles and rags. I got six sticks of dynamite. I got serious firepower here, sir. Rifles. Pistols.”

“What?” Jake Withers asked. He was squirming against the car, driving his forehead into the roofline again.

Ryan changed his tone. “What is this? Who are you? Are you a fucking terrorist or something? You planning a mass murder, something like that?”

“You're crazy. There's nothing there. You're yanking my chain.”

“So you say there's nothing there?”

“Marijuana, maybe.”

“Oh sure, cop to the dope, not to the weapons and hard stuff. Is this your car, sir?” When the young man didn't answer right away Ryan bore his fist more intensely into the young man's spine as if it were a drill. “This your car or not?”

“Yes! It's my car, fuck.”

“Did I catch you driving it or not?”

“What? Don't I got a right to drive my own car?”

“Then let's take a look at what's inside it, shall we?” Ryan suggested, and pulling the other fellow back by his shirt collar he shoved him towards the rear of the vehicle.

They both looked into the stuffed trunk, at the prize cache.

“I've got incendiary devices,” Henri said.

“That's bullshit!” Jake yelled, not comprehending what even his eyes did plainly see.

Ryan pulled him back by his hair, speaking directly into his ear. “You been firebombing trucks, Mr. Withers? Have you now?”

The man didn't answer. He gasped from the hair pulling. Ryan didn't slacken his grip.

“Henri?” Ryan asked, quizzically, as though the notion only struck him that moment. “Tell me something. Weren't you the first person at the bridge the night it burned?”

Henri was hesitant. “The first cop,” he answered. “The second person.”

“Right. Didn't you say somebody was there before you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A redhead?” Henri didn't volunteer anything more, looking at Ryan in an odd way. Ryan inquired outright, “Is this him?”

Ryan let go of Jake's hair so that the young guy could look the officer straight on. Henri nodded. He put his thumbs inside his gun belt and made an emphatic motion with his chin. “Oh yeah. He's him. Definitely.”

■   ■   ■

Attached to the fire hall,
the police station stands as proudly contemporary, even spiffy, the finest modern building in town aside from the luxurious funeral parlour. The architectural plans originally designated three rooms for interrogations. Ryan nixed the idea, suggesting that the region would have to undergo a crime wave of epic proportions for the department to require the use of three rooms at once. Two would be fine, “because sometimes two guys get into a fight and we need to interview them separately. Same thing with domestic disputes. If we need more than two the perpetrators will just have to cool their jets until we're ready for them.” And so the third room was transformed into an officer's lounge, with a coffeemaker, a sofa, a small fridge, and a table which ordinarily, no matter the time of day, had the sports section spread across it. Ryan brought Jake Withers, and eventually his lawyer, into that space, as other officers processing an altercation that ensued from a minor traffic accident occupied both rooms designated for the purpose.

He didn't want them, as it turned out, to cool their jets.

“Coffee?” Ryan offered the lawyer. Jake already had a cup going, his third.

“Coffee,” the man said, sounding as though, rather than accept a cup at face value, he was granting it careful consideration. He hung his overcoat—warm for the day so he carried it across his forearm—over the back of a chair. “Sure,” he decided, and upon further reflection added, “Thanks.”

“We called up your client's former employer,” Ryan mentioned while he poured.

“Former?”

He waited for the lawyer, wanting the process to be on the up-and-up. Jake Withers contacted the firm in the Gatineau Yellow Pages with the largest advertisement, but the man they sent looked straight out of law school with a nervous expression and a tentative demeanour. On first encounter, the man's striking features were his diminutive size and a perpetually moist upper lip. Height should not be a consideration, Ryan wanted to remind his prisoner, as the man's physical bearing clearly disappointed Jake Withers.

“Your client claimed that he came to this part of the world to sell asphalt, counsellor. Apparently, he doesn't work for that particular firm anymore—the Rathbone Paving Company—although for some strange reason he tried to convince me that he did. According to company records, they set him loose in the field and have never heard from him since. Not even to say, ‘I quit.' They're asking for their catalogue and samples back, by the way.”

“Fuck 'em,” Jake Withers commented.

“Asphalt,” the lawyer said. Ryan was beginning to wonder if he could speak in full sentences. So far, he'd restricted himself to single words only, although he did appreciate the man's brevity.

“He was supposed to sell people on the idea of paving their driveways.”

“Driveways?” the lawyer asked his client.

“People around here,” Jake railed. Then he stopped talking and looked at Ryan O'Farrell.

“Go for it,” the policeman invited. “Tell us about people around here.”

He clammed up. He chose to say no more.

“Evidence?” the lawyer, whose name was Réal Desjardins, asked him.

“His fingerprints match those taken from a shard of glass, a remnant of a Molotov cocktail used to firebomb a logging truck. Molotov cocktail materials in the back of his car are consistent with glass bottles used in the truck attacks. Dynamite. Weapons. A few with their numbers filed off. Kilos of weed, some hashish, a bag of crack, and a considerable fortune in cocaine were found in the vehicle he was driving. Which is registered to him. We don't know where to start with so many charges. The drug amounts are too significant for personal use only, so qualify for the charge of trafficking. Several types of illegal drugs, so several counts. And with respect to quantities, the same”—he slowed down to make sure the lawyer got this part—“holds true . . . for the heroin . . . we found.”

“Heroin?” the lawyer asked, but he was looking at his client.

“Yep,” Ryan answered when the mute Jake Withers did not. “H carries a sentence, hey? In this part of the world especially. On city streets, sometimes a gram gets a pass. Out here? In bulk? Uncut? No, sir. If we have nothing more than the marijuana rap he might get a suspended sentence at worst. But H? Serious stuff, Jake. Serious time. You and your lawyer should talk that one over. While you're at it, I've got another meeting. There may be a further count. Running down the evidence on that as we speak. Tell him about it, Mr. Withers. While I'm gone, tell him what you've been up to lately. I'll be back in a jiff.”

He departed the makeshift interrogation room bound for the men's locker, where he scrubbed his hands for no reason. He combed his hair. Then he went back to join the other two.

“Here's the thing,” Ryan said. He sat down. “A bridge got burned—”

“How many times do I—? I didn't burn that goddamned bridge!” Jake reiterated, his voice dry, as though he was rapidly losing interest.

“I know, just like you don't have heroin in your trunk and you don't firebomb logging trucks.”

Quietly, he maintained, “I didn't say that.”

Ryan ignored him and spoke to the lawyer. “We've got your client on the drugs and the firebombing. That's open and shut. The bridge burning is trickier. So I want to propose a trade, if your guy is interested.”

“Trade,” the lawyer mused, as though the concept was new to him.

“If he cops to the bridge burning—”

“I didn't burn the fucking bridge!”

Ryan looked between the two men. “Please advise your client to stop saying that. It's pissing me off. He can cop to the arson, in which case I'll just not bother to press the other charges. For the arson he gets, what, first offence, three to five years? Maybe a few more? I'll encourage something to his benefit with the prosecutors. Tell them he's helped on other crimes. Not that he has. Or, he can maintain that he never burned the bridge and go down for the drug offences, and the firebombing, do ten to fifteen, minimum, and pray to God the judge lets the sentences run concurrently.”

“The prosecutor,” Desjardins said. Two words. Positively loquacious.

“She doesn't need to hear about drug charges. They'll vanish. But we have a problem in this town. People are upset about the bridge. Your client did it. We have a witness, a police officer actually, which makes him highly credible, who puts him on the bridge at the time of the fire. The only person in sight, in fact. We have Mr. Withers's history of firebombing, which we can now prove. We have witnesses who will testify that he rode a raft down the river after the bridge was burned, so he has motive. He wanted to get rid of the bridge for his own yachting purposes and blame it on the loggers. But do this quickly, counsellor. I have SQ detectives in my office and the prosecuting attorney is on her way.” He spoke directly to Jake Withers then. “So you can do fifteen years, twelve, maybe even nine, if your lawyer has game, with good behaviour, or you can start with three to five, probably a few more, if you cop to the bridge, then get it knocked down to eighteen to forty-two months if you behave yourself. You're much more likely to get early parole if all you are is a bridge burner. Your choice.”

Jake mulled it over while his lawyer and the policeman waited. “You want me to go to jail for something I didn't do.”

“Have it your way. If you prefer, we'll send you to jail for what we know you did do. Only for a much longer time. Mr. Withers, your lawyer will set you straight on this. Bad guys count themselves lucky when the more serious counts get knocked down and they get to cop to the lesser charges. You're getting one hell of a break here.”

Jake was clinging to a final hope. “I didn't put that shit in my car. But I can tell you who did. I can testify about who really pushes drugs in this town, in the towns around here.”

“You mean Skootch?” Ryan asked, and smiled, which crushed the young man's spirit. “No secrets there. Thanks but no thanks. We need him where he is for a while. But I'll let him know about your request.”

Despair hit home. Jake chewed on his scant choices. When he consulted his lawyer, the man nodded his chin, then Jake did that also, agreeing.

“Okay. Now let's hope I can make this happen. Hang on. In your case, Jake, you're not going anywhere. Both of you, help yourself to the fruit and the cookies. I'm going to send an officer in to take your written statement, your confession to burning the bridge. Are you okay with that?”

“Guarantees?” his lawyer asked.

“I'll write that letter myself.”

They were in agreement.

He departed the room.

Only the lawyer chose to munch on an apple.

Jake Withers slumped on the sofa and placed a hand over his eyes, waiting to confess.

■   ■   ■

Denny O'Farrell could cry. Man
enough, he would. The twin lamps in the room were turned low, and he was glad of that, preferring that his teariness go unseen. Val moved in closer to him on their living room sofa, and placed an arm around his lower back as Denny slumped forward. She rubbed the muscle of his near biceps with her opposite hand. Whispered, “You can do this, Denny.”

He could. His personal darkness gave way to a beam of light and now good fortune shone upon him. He doubted that he deserved it, which tempered his elation. Nonetheless, he was not going to reject this chance, this turn in the road. Denny nodded with conviction. “Yeah. I can do it. I will do it. Sure.”

Alex sat in the big armchair opposite them.

“It'll take some sacrifice,” he cautioned his son. He found the scope of this, the ramifications, more than daunting. Here he was, a man sliding into an older age, and this might become the exceptional undertaking of his life.

No one bothered to mention the obvious, that the sacrifice stood as minimal compared to extended jail time.

“Hell,” Denny said, “it's a challenge, right? So it'll take some balls. Big deal. I've got a pair.”

Alex wanted to make sure that he understood, that in the euphoria of the moment his son did not underestimate the matter, nor take the enterprise lightly. “You will meet some resistance. Be prepared for that.”

First he looked at his dad, then at Val, and rested a hand on her thigh.

“Bring it on,” he said, but gently, with a quiet resolve. “Look, I brought this on myself. And on both of you. If I can undo that, then I'm prepared for whatever it takes. The sacrifice is mine, okay. But I'm not going to use that word. What I'm going to do is keep my family together. That's not a sacrifice.”

“As I see it,” Alex considered, “we need everyone to pitch in. The whole town. But you have to do more than your part. It's on your shoulders. I know you get that much. You have to convince some people, maybe inspire others, maybe fight with a few, keep things going when folks feel like quitting, when things don't go right. That you can do. But. Also. You've got to be patient, Denny—not your best attribute,
impatience
got you into trouble in the first place. Hell, if you waited five or ten years—”

“We don't have five or ten years, Dad.”

“See what I mean?”

Already he was shown to be deficient for the task at hand, and Denny took a breath. He nodded, admitting that he had his shortcomings.

“You're smart, you just don't always choose to be.”

“Yeah, I know, Dad, but—”

“—and this is the hard part, Denny—” Alex stopped, and gazed at his son awhile, interrupted in his thinking by another voice, other words, distinctly his deceased wife's, and while he might have been tougher on him if left to his own devices, that separate notion altered his tone. Alex went quiet, while feeling himself sagging under the breadth of this, the weight. “Denny, you're going to have to be wise for a change. We know you're a good guy, and I love you to death, but
goddammit
if you aren't half kid and three-eighths crazy.”