4 Malice in Christmas River (16 page)

I had a feeling that I’d know why by the end of the story.

Daniel shook his head.  

“You know, trouble, out there on those streets, Cin…” he said. “It just has a way of finding you. No matter how you try to avoid it.”

Sometimes I forgot what a long ways Christmas River was from Daniel’s old life in Fresno.  

“But after a couple of years working with Tex, I stopped hating him so much. I guess I was maturing, or Tex was having a good influence on me. And I saw that all that time he’d been hard on me, he’d just been doing it so I wouldn’t stray, you know? So I wouldn’t lose myself out on the streets, the way some cops did.”

He leaned back, lacing his fingers across his face. He let out a long-winded sigh.

“It was like that for a while. Sunday barbecues, after-work beers, department baseball games.”

He paused, looking back at me, like he was trying to figure out how to tell me the next part. He searched my face, as if he was afraid of what my reaction would be.

“Then Tex’s wife got sick,” he said, blurting it out quickly. “They diagnosed her with lymphoma. And he took it pretty hard. He took a long leave of absence for her chemo therapy treatments. She’d go through periods where it looked like she was improving, and then it would look bad again. A couple years passed like that, and it took its toll on him. His hair turned white in just a few months, and he walked around like a ghost. I mean, he was really messed up over it.

“So while Tex was on leave, me and this new partner by the name of Morton get assigned to this robbery case. This perp robbed three banks in the area, all in the same way. He comes in with this green shirt wrapped around his head with eye holes cut out of it, holds the clerk up, and gets them to get the bank manager. After stealing the money, he knocks the bank manager out cold. Witnesses said all it took was one hit from this guy, and the manager would be off in dreamland. They said after he knocked them out, the perp would look at the rest of them, put a finger up to his lip, and say ‘Shhh.’

“Around the department, we started calling this robber
The Sandman
.”

My breath caught a little in my throat, and I felt my stomach seize.

“Did you catch him?” I asked in a low voice.

Daniel nodded and a dark look came across his face.

“He robbed two more banks. We talked to witnesses and pieced together what we could of a description. I thought his choice of disguise was strange and had to mean something. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it had to...”

He trailed off.

“One day…” he stopped, his voice getting a little shaky.

He swallowed hard and started up again.

“One day, Tex has me and a few guys over to his house for a Sunday barbecue. Molly’s there and she’s looking well. Tex said they’d gone to the doctor the week before and they’d told them the cancer was in remission. Tex said he was planning to return to work in the next month. So we’re all there, enjoying the day. I’m talking to Tex at the grill when he says, ‘Hey, Danny, get us some beers from the fridge, would ya?’ So I go into the garage where they keep the beers. And I pull them out. But I don’t have a bottle opener. So I start looking in drawers nearby, and I still can’t find one. I finally go for his toolbox that’s stashed in one of the cabinets, thinking I’ll use something in there. I pull it out, open up the box, and then…”

Daniel took in a deep and ragged breath.

“There’s something green sticking out from the bottom of the tool box. And I just knew it before I even got a good look at it. I
knew
, Cin. It was the same green fabric the perp used to cover his head during the robberies. And when I looked at it closer, I noticed it was the kind of fabric they use in hospital scrubs.”

I could feel my eyes grow wide.

“It was him, Cin. Tex was the guy we’d been after the whole time. He was The Sandman.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

The story was like something you’d see on those true crime shows they played late at night.
48 Hours
or
Dateline
. Bizarre stories that seemed like they couldn’t possibly happen.

But they did.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he continued. “I mean, this guy had been my mentor. I looked up to him. He was like…

Daniel’s eyes were growing glassy.

“He was more of a father to me than my own dad ever was.”

He rubbed his face, closing his eyes for a moment. Trying to stop the tears before they came out.

Except for the few times when he’d talked about his brother’s death, I’d never seen Daniel so emotional before.

It hurt to see him that way. But at the same time, I felt a deep sense of relief. Relief that he trusted me enough to tell me these things, even if it took a lot for them to come out.  

He continued on.    

“I was devastated,” he said. “I confronted him about it the next day at work. He didn’t even try to lie to me. He confessed to the whole thing. He said the hospital bills had been eating them alive and that the only way he could see them getting through it financially would be if they had some sort of windfall. I asked him why he didn’t just come to his friends for help. He said to me ‘Sometimes, a man’s just got to take care of his own.’”

Daniel stared hard into the wall. Silence took over the room for a few moments.

He took in another sharp breath, and started again.

“But I think there was more to it. You see, The Sandman wasn’t this meek, harmless robber. I watched the security footage. I could tell… he enjoyed robbing those banks. He liked doing what he did. He was getting a kick out of it.

“I think robbing those banks gave Tex a feeling a power. He talked a lot back then about how helpless Molly’s cancer made him feel. I don’t think it was about the money for him. I think it was about getting that feeling of power back. Something the cancer took away from him.”

He paused, clearing his throat.

My stomach twisted into a knot. I felt as though I was watching a horror movie – I was afraid of what lay around the corner.  

“I told him I’d have to tell our chief,” he continued. “That I had no choice. And that’s when it all came out. He just started crying. Like these uncontrollable sobs. I almost started crying myself. He was a good man, Cin, you know? He’d done some bad things, but he was still a good man.”

He paused again, and I couldn’t take anymore breaks in the story.

“What happened next?” I said, barely above a whisper.

He looked dead into my eyes. There was a startling iciness in them that turned my blood cold. The look of justice at all costs.   

“They came and arrested him at his house,” Daniel said. “In front of Molly. He went to trial. He got 20 years. The cancer came back, and Molly died a couple weeks after the sentencing.”

I shuddered.

It was a horrible story.

I sat there silently for a few minutes, just processing it. Trying to make sense of it.

Trying to make sense of what Daniel did.   

It had been a bad situation. All around. Tex had crossed the line. A line which nobody, not even a policeman, could cross and expect everything to be okay. He stole money, he hurt people, he broke the very thing he vowed to uphold.

It wasn’t for me to judge Daniel. What do you do when neither option is good?

But I couldn’t help my immediate gut reaction to the story. A small part of me couldn’t help thinking that given Tex’s reasons for robbing the banks, maybe Daniel could have…

Maybe it could have ended differently somehow. Maybe he didn’t have to go to the chief. Maybe…

It just felt cruel. Just. But cruel.

Daniel seemed to be reading my mind.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

I bit my lip.

“I don’t think you do,” I bluffed.  

“Yes, yes I do. I know,” he continued. “Because Tex thought the same thing. But I didn’t do it, Cin. I didn’t turn him in. I tried. I made an appointment with the chief and everything. But when it came down to it, I just…”

He trailed off.

“I knew it was wrong not to turn him it. But it felt more wrong to snitch on my own partner.”

He sighed.

“Doesn’t make me much of a cop, does it?”

He forced a half-smile that faded away quickly, like a flower wilting in a fall frost.

“It makes you a good person,” I said, squeezing his hand. “But if you didn’t turn him in, then who did?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The chief kept it under wraps. Called it an anonymous source that tipped him off. But, you see, Tex has always thought it was me who turned him in. He hates me for it. Even though, on some level, I think he knows he was wrong. But he thinks I stole his last days with his wife away from him. He sent me a letter after she died, threatening me. Said he’d come and find m…”

My heart started beating quickly as the pieces all started to fall in place.

This story wasn’t just something of the past, an ugly memory filed away forever.  

“Where’s Tex now?” I said, my voice cracking.

He didn’t answer for a moment.

“Daniel?”  

He looked out the window, letting out a long and ragged breath.   

“Tex got out a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “Five years early. For good behavior.”

I felt the room start to spin.

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots, from Tex’s release to Daniel’s “accident.”

And the scariest part about it all, the thing that had my heart beating faster than a rabbit running from a coyote, was that Tex,
The Sandman
, was still out there.

He could hurt Daniel again… only this time it’d be more than a concussion and a broken leg.

“No, Cin,” he said, as if he was reading my mind again. “That’s not what happened. I don’t think Tex would’ve done something like that.

Not after all these years…”

He said the words, but there was doubt in his voice.  

Chapter 40

“I appreciate you being worried, Ms. Peters,” Trumbow said after I’d finished telling him about Tex. “But I gotta tell ya. Me and the boys took a real thorough look at the scene where the accident happened. There wasn’t anything to suspect foul play. Just negligence on the part of Bill Bryerson.”

I was pacing outside the hospital entrance, regretting ever making this call to Trumbow. A bead of sweat dribbled down the side of my face. The sun was strong and hot, and the skies were once again faded and smoky. It was over 90. Something practically unheard of in a Christmas River September.

I was so tired of this weather.

“But look,” I said, continuing to fight an uphill battle. “Daniel’s old partner gets out of prison a week before Daniel gets hurt. And you don’t think that’s worth looking into?”

He cleared his throat.

“Young lady, I know it’s hard when something like this happens,” he said. “You want to assign blame, when the plain truth is, Bill Bryerson got drunk and didn’t lock up the trailer. There was nothing else to it, sweetheart. Just the wrong place at the—.”

“
Wrong time
,” I said, snidely, finishing his sentence. “You told me that already.”   

I didn’t like being called
sweetheart
or
young lady
, like I was a little girl.

Trumbow had a way of getting under my skin with those little terms of endearment.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “But would you just entertain the possibility that this might not have been an accident? I know you talked to Bill. And I’m sure he told you that he locked that trailer up tight that night.”

“How do you know that?” Trumbow said. “You’ve been talking to him? You know, I’m not any lawyer, but it seems to me that you’d do well to not speak to Bryerson at this point if you’re planning to sue.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t going to tell him it was Erik Andersen who told me.

“I just want justice to be done. And you might be right, Trumbow. It might have just been an accident…”

I trailed off.

“But maybe it wasn’t. And maybe the evidence is right there. You just have to do a little work on your part to find it.”

Trumbow was silent. Since we were on the phone, I couldn’t tell if steam was coming out of his ears, or if he was actually considering what I was saying.

“Trumbow?” I finally said.

“I’ll be there when they release Daniel tomorrow,” he said.

The phone clicked, and I realized that he’d hung up on me.

It was all I could do to start shouting ugly names at the dead tone.

I wasn’t sure about much when it came to Daniel’s accident. The only thing I
was
sure of was that Trumbow wasn’t going to do a damn thing about it.

Chapter 41

I called Erik. I reminded him before I said anything that again, he couldn’t use anything I said on the record. He agreed, if somewhat reluctantly.

I told him about Tex Stevens, but kept out the details about him being Daniel’s former partner. I only told him he was a crazy cop on the Fresno Police Department who was put away for robbing banks, and that he was released the week before. Erik said he’d look into Tex, and if he found any recent photos, he’d send them to me.

After the phone calls, I went back inside the hospital to the cafeteria to meet Kara. Warren was upstairs with Daniel, talking his ear off again. I was amazed at the old man’s energy and enthusiasm. I would have expected him to be jet lagged, but he just kept talking and talking and talking.   

I was glad to see Kara. Even if I’d just seen her the day before, spending days and nights at the hospital had a way of warping time. It moved differently between these walls.

I gave her a big hug. She was looking a little pale herself, but I knew that she’d been busy at the shop.

I got a latte and Kara got a tea, and we grabbed one of the empty tables.

I told her everything About Daniel’s accident possibly not being an accident.

She listened, wide-eyed.

“That’s so scary, Cin,” she finally said when I finished. “To think that he’s still out there. I mean… he could still be here in Christmas River.”