“All right, listen up,” Everett said, and they grew still. The overhead light cast deep shadows beneath his eyes and turned his skin sallow. “Now, we have to take care of some procedural matters here.”
This was it.
Jess tried to catch Lindy’s eye to smile at her, to send a message that she would help her and be on her side, but the girl clung to her father’s hand and didn’t take her eyes from him.
Everett continued. “What we’re going to do is ask you, Ray, if you’ll consent to letting us fingerprint both you and Lindy back at the station. That way we follow procedure and make my commanding officer happy that you’re who you say you are.”
The sergeant was lying. Jess sighed, but she knew he was trying to make the situation safer before separating them. He had the authority to let them go, even now, but he had no intention of letting that happen. Could Ray tell? She looked at him, but he appeared calm. He touched Lindy’s shoulder, as if to assure her.
Everett ushered the two into the sterile plastic backseat of Jenkins’s squad car and closed the car door, then walked back over to the others. Once the father and daughter were inside behind the car’s closed door, the officers breathed a little easier.
Jenkins had driven Takei in one cruiser, and Jess had brought the sergeant in another. She was surprised Everett didn’t put the Wiggses in her car so he could ride back with them.
“All righty, then, Officers,” Everett said, clapping his hands together, “good job tonight. You’re relieved of duty. Greiner and Z, you can go on back to South. Jenkins and I will take these folks into North and print them. Takei and Villareal, clock out early when you get back to the station and go home. Don’t worry. You’ll be paid for a full shift.”
Jess looked at Jenkins, who shrugged. Why did he get to stick with the case, she wondered, and not her?
“And don’t go talking about this, not to anyone. Keep it on the q.t. for now. Let’s not make it a circus for these folks. We’re going to try to let them get back on with their lives as best they can.”
“I’d like to complete my shift and help with the girl, Sarge,” Jess said, feeling the jut of her chin. Her brothers had always called it her tough-chick face, the face she wore to get them to stop teasing her or tormenting her with slugs. The face she now wore whenever things started to go south and it felt that only she could fix it. She didn’t know what was happening, exactly, but she had a feeling Lindy might need her.
Everett cocked his head at Jess. “I said you’re relieved, Officer. Go on. Skedaddle.”
His tone was dismissive. Sarcastic. Her hands trembled; she balled them into fists. “Sir, I’d like to see this through. I have a good rapport with the girl, and I think she trusts me.”
He studied her for a moment, then lowered his voice. “You’re on board, then?”
Jess jerked her head in what she hoped he’d interpret as a nod.
“Fine. You can take her to foster care after we’ve checked out their prints.” He turned toward the cars.
She knew Ray and Lindy couldn’t hear him from where they sat in the closed squad car, but still she cringed, hearing him say it out loud. “Sarge?”
“What?” he snapped without looking at her.
“Did Takei vote to let her go? Is that why you were sending us home?”
“Gee-yawd, Villareal, this is why I do not enjoy the company of females, other than my daughter. Just go to the station.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and headed toward her car. At the sound of his car door opening, she stopped. “And by the way, Sergeant, I won’t turn you in for sexual discrimination. I’m sure you’re just tired and didn’t mean to say that.”
His car door slammed as she dropped into the driver’s seat next to Takei. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“That wasn’t too bright,” Takei said, head turned away. “I thought you were smarter than that, Officer.”
“Oh, bite me, Steven,” she said, fumbling her seat belt buckle into place. “He’s trying to get rid of us because we voted against reporting her to DHS. Just what other ramifications do you think our honesty might have on our careers? I mean, why ask if you’re going to use the answers against us?”
“How do you know how I voted?” he asked, turning to look at her now. The other cars pulled away, red taillights disappearing into the dark. Jess rotated the key in the ignition.
“Call it a wild-ass guess,” she said, and put the car in drive.
It took only twelve minutes to drive back to the station house. Jess pulled in behind Jenkins’s car and switched off the ignition. The others had already gone inside. Darryl the car wrangler walked over and leaned down. She lowered her window as Takei got out of the other side. “Hey, Darryl,” she said, “how’s your night going?”
“Not so good. Had a puker tonight, and a bleeder. I hope your car’s clean.”
“Pristine,” she said as he opened the door for her. She started to climb out and felt every muscle she’d overtaxed in the woods. “Damn,” she said. “No wonder Maddy hates to hike.” In the short ride back, she’d stiffened up like a corpse.
“You guys had a rough one, I hear,” he said. “That’s why I like my job, other than cleaning up puke and blood and shit. I just polish up these babies, feed ’em some oil, rotate the tires, and my day is done.”
“Yeah,” Jess said, shouldering the shotgun on her good side. “That would be nice. I envy you, Darryl.” She smiled and limped after Takei toward the employee entrance.
After quick stops to stow her shotgun, use the restroom, and wash the grime from her face and hands, Jess headed up to check in with the lab on the prints.
She passed Jenkins in the hall. “What’s up?” she asked. “Where’re you going?”
“Home,” he said, smiling. “Sarge said I could clock out early. Thank you for volunteering to stay. I’m going to have me a nice long shower, a big old beer, then hit the hay.”
Jess smiled. “Say hi to Maggie for me.”
Jenkins clopped down the steps. “I will do more than say hi to my wife, thank you very much. I might just get lucky. Hell, it’s only . . . Damn, it’s past midnight. I gotta hurry!”
“You go, Ellis,” Jess said, wishing she’d have someone waiting for her at home, a warm body to nuzzle up to at the end of this long, long day. But she’d been going home to an empty house for so long, she wondered if she even could sleep with someone else in her bed anymore.
Jess passed the conference room on her way to the lab, and saw Lindy busily writing in the notebook she’d given her, Ray sitting and staring at nothing. Maybe she could find him a newspaper or something to read, at least.
Inside the lab, the bored tech glanced up from her computer. “Still running,” she said, so Jess ducked into Sergeant Everett’s office. He was on the phone but nodded toward a chair. Jess sat, her quadriceps aching as she did. Everett doodled on his desk pad, listening intently to whoever was at the other end.
“Duly noted,” he said, “but I’m still not making any comment.” He hung up and looked at her. “That was fucking KCMB-TV. Goddamn fucking son of a bitch.”
“Who blabbed?” she asked, but she knew.
“Guess,” he said.
She shook her head. “That was fast. What now?” This was not good news for anyone. Not Ray and Lindy, not the department. The public scrutiny of everyone involved began now.
“We gotta do everything on the up-and-up, no favors, no emotional decisions. We should probably just go ahead and book Ray for child endangerment. It’ll be overturned. This is goddamn Oregon. Then they get on with their lives and forget this ever happened.”
“Sarge, with all due respect, you know that’s not going to happen. The system will grind them into mincemeat. I mean, the media alone—”
“Goddamn it, Villareal, you don’t think I know that? What the hell am I supposed to do about it now? Jesus H. Christ.”
She took a breath. “What do you need me to do?”
“Sit tight. I’m waiting for a couple of guys from graveyard so we have some more muscle around here. Just in case. I still have to talk with the chief, who will love that I’m waking him up at this hour with such good news. I’ll page you. We’ll meet here, then talk to them in the conference room.”
“What if—”
“What if we do this my way, Officer? I’ve had enough of your great ideas for one day.”
Jess felt her mouth drop open and tried to close it quickly. “Yes, sir,” she said. “If this has anything to do with what I said—”
“I didn’t hear anything you said, Villareal. I have calls to make, if you’ll excuse me.”
Jess stood. Everett picked up the phone to dial. She hoped he was calling David Greiner’s CO to tell him to reprimand him, to do something to the jerk. Just because he wanted to feel important—and, Jess suspected, because he’d felt bullied by Everett—he’d messed with two people’s lives in ways no one could yet comprehend.
She found Ray and Lindy in the conference room, waiting for results. Ray studied his ink-stained fingertips while Lindy lay sleeping across two seats, her head on his thigh.
“Hey,” Jess said softly. Ray looked up. “Believe it or not, all of this will be over eventually, and you’ll be able to get back on with your life.”
“What kind of life?” he asked. “At least I didn’t have to worry about drug dealers and child molesters, living up in the woods, but your sergeant will make sure that’s no longer an option. I already know all about social services, how much they help people like me. We’ll be living on the streets.”
They looked at each other in silence until Ray looked away.
She could pull strings at City Lights, the one shelter in Columbia that took families. A whole slew of low-income apartments had just been built along the edge of the industrial district, and there were the older projects in the city center, but essentially, Ray was right. Lindy had been safer in the woods than she would be in the city. Shelters and public-assisted housing projects were often crime factories, and with Ray’s issues with authority, Lindy and he might not last very long in any kind of governmental setting.
“Listen, we’ll do . . . I’ll do everything I can to help.” Jess shifted from one leg to the other, looked behind her. “If we can get through all of this, this crap we have to put you through, I promise I will do everything I can to get you two back to the kind of life you want.”
He looked at her coolly for a moment, eyes intractable, then stroked Lindy’s dark hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Because I’m a mom. I have a daughter, and . . .” She faltered, her pulse quickening, her eyes welling. She stopped to take a breath, to get her emotions under control, and looked around again. “I don’t know. I . . . I just want to help.” She shrugged, embarrassed. “Please don’t run off or do anything...” She paused. “Just try to trust me.”
He went back to studying his fingers. How did you tell someone—a father, a survivalist, a war vet for god’s sake—not to freak out when someone was threatening his family? She didn’t know what she was promising him, not really, but she wanted to do everything she was capable of to make this situation turn out the way it should.
Ten minutes later, Jess was sitting in the break room nursing a Diet Pepsi when the lab tech tracked her down and told her that Ray’s and Lindy’s fingerprints had come back clean. Jess hoped Sergeant Everett would change his mind now. They could give them a voucher for a room at the Best Western, a cab ride there. Or she could take them on her way home.
Everett’s static growl came through her radio. “Villareal, Madison, report to my office.” Jess pushed herself from her chair, her thighs and glutes in agony.
Maddy and two large uniformed sides of beef were already waiting in Everett’s office. They all nodded, introduced themselves, but Jess immediately forgot the two guys’ names. The rate at which new officers rotated through the North Station House made it useless to try.
Everett looked grim. He was going to go through with it. He was going to split them up for no good reason. “We’ll take the girl to the foster home in Wood Dock,” he said, “but we’re letting Mr. Wiggs go if he doesn’t get crazy on us. Take it easy on him, on both of them. They’ve been through a lot tonight. We all have.”
He made brief eye contact with Jess. She averted her eyes. She should be thankful that he wasn’t going to arrest Ray, but who knew how the guy was going to react? She tried not to think of how betrayed Lindy would feel. If all went well, there’d be no need for force, but all Jess could think of was the way Ray and Lindy had clung to each other, had screamed at the officers even with all of their weapons drawn. They lived in survival mode; when something threatened them, their instincts were unpredictable.
Jess looked at Maddy; Maddy pursed her lips and gave a slight shake of her head. Jess nodded back. Her head tingled; her vision grew blurry until she took a deep breath. She had to focus. She had to stay aware of every motion, every sound. She had to do her job and make this go well, at least as well as it could.
Everett broke them down along gender lines; the bruisers would take care of Ray; Maddy and Villareal would handle the girl.
The two male officers lurked outside the conference room door as Everett strode in and went straight to Ray and sleeping Lindy, followed by Jess and Maddy. He cleared his throat, and Ray shook Lindy gently awake. She opened her eyes and, seeing them all standing around her, sat up quickly, wide-eyed and blinking.
“Well, son,” Everett said, “the good news is we’re not going to issue you a ticket for camping illegally, and your prints check out, so we’d like to get you two somewhere safe and warm for the night. We’ve found a bed for you at the Y, but they, uh, don’t take children.”
Ray’s eyes went dark. Jess looked from him to the sergeant. She couldn’t believe he was screwing this up, separating them without even explaining why.
“Not to worry, not to worry,” the sergeant said quickly, as if he were calming someone over a bag of burned popcorn. “Officer Villareal will take your daughter up to Wood Dock, where we have a real nice foster family who helps us out like this, and they’ll have a warm bed for her, a shower, a hot meal in the morning.”