Angels Burning (30 page)

I turn back to the board and stare at the word “motive” again.

“Why after all these years? Why do it in front of a witness?” I ask them.

“Crime of passion?” Dewey suggests.

“It's not a bad theory,” I tell them.

They look even more pleased than when I arrived.

“Speaking of collateral damage, I'm going to visit Tug at Broadview tomorrow. We'll see if I get anything useful out of him.”

I head for my office looking for some alone time to help me sort this all out. I find a stack of mail waiting for me on my desk. I pick up a manila envelope with no return address. The postmark is a town near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. I shake it and something jostles around inside it.

There's a note. I can't say that I recognize my brother's handwriting but I recognize what can only be his words.

I put on my reading glasses and my vision swims into focus.

He used to put a birthday candle on top of a cupcake. When he was done, he'd let me blow out the candle and eat the cupcake. I still see those flames in my sleep. I know they're never going to go out.

I numbly turn the envelope upside down. Dozens of melted candles topple out onto my desk. Dainty things in pretty party colors. Their wicks singed black. I stop counting at twenty-two.

I HAD A TERRIBLE NIGHT.
What little sleep I got was plagued by nightmares; fortunately they were the kind I couldn't remember, but they've left me with a queasy stomach full of dread.

I stand in front of my bathroom mirror with a bad case of MOF and the first thought I have is of Champ. Did that envelope contain his suicide note? Or was he telling me something he'd never been able to reveal before and maybe it made him feel better? Or was it his way of saying he can't cope with the pressures of raising a child anymore and he won't be coming back for his?

I want to discuss this with Neely but I also don't. I'd be doing it only so I'd have someone to share my worry. There's nothing she can do.

I texted Nolan the name of the town on the postmark last night. I didn't hear back from him until very late and then it was only to tell me about Eddie Truly. Despite the evidence against him, he wasn't talking. Nolan hadn't been able to get a confession, and he wasn't very happy about it.

I put off thinking about my face and go to my closet to pick out an outfit. I settle on my celery green seersucker suit. It's a lot more attractive than it sounds. The skirt hits above the knee. It's definitely not a mini, and I still have the legs for it, but I question its appropriateness for work now that I'm fifty. I don't know what it is about this number. I
wouldn't have thought twice about this ensemble a few months ago when I was forty-nine.

Downstairs I find Mason and his Trapper Keeper in front of the TV already dressed, his neon orange toes sticking out of the ends of his sandals. I found a dozen pairs of the same socks in his duffel bag. When I asked him the significance of them he gave me the same answer he did before: “
Orange goes with everything.
”

“Would you like to join me in a bowl of non-fake Cinnamon Toast Crunch?” I ask him.

“Sure,” he says, and follows me into the kitchen.

“I've got something I have to do this morning and Aunt Neely is coming along, too,” I say as I pour him a bowl of cereal. “Would you be okay hanging out at the police station for a little while, then she can pick you up when we're done and take you back to her place?”

“I'm nine,” he states flatly.

“I know.”

“I can stay here by myself. I've stayed alone plenty of times.”

I consider his position.

“Okay, but not for the whole day. I'm still going to have Aunt Neely come get you.”

“What about Great-grandma?” he asks.

He pops a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and starts crunching.

“Great-grandma lives in a retirement home and she's also too old to babysit.”

“When do I get to meet her?”

“Soon.”

“Dad told me all about her,” he goes on, his words coming out between crunches. “He said even after your mom married that rich guy and you had a housekeeper, your grandma still came over and cleaned for you because she liked cleaning so much and didn't trust anyone else to do it right. And she had her own room where she stayed over on the nights she drank too much of the fizzy wine your mom liked. And she took Dad to Pirates games and made puppets with him.”

“Lysol, Mateus, Willie Stargell, a pack of tube socks and some
stick-on googly eyes,” I say with a sigh. “That pretty much sums up the great loves of her life.”

I notice the time on my microwave.

“I have to get going. Don't turn on the stove, don't take a bath, don't touch any knives, don't go near any electrical outlets, don't open the door for anyone or answer the phone.”

He throws up his hands and collapses on top of the table like he's been struck dead by exasperation.

He raises his head.

“I'm nine,” he states again.

“Okay, I'm sorry. I don't know much about kids.”

“Don't worry about it,” he says, returning to his breakfast. “I don't know much about ladies.”

ON MY WAY TO BROADVIEW
to see Tug I stop by the salon where Camio and her friends had their nails done. My intention is to talk to her manicurist and see if she can embellish further on the argument the girls had last time they were in. It turns out she has no useful information, but she does manage to talk me into getting my own nails done as a sort of tribute to Camio. She even talks me into getting exactly the same ones.

I can't stop looking at them the entire time I'm driving. I can't decide if they're amazing or awful or if they make my hands look older or younger.

The Broadview juvenile detention center is brand-spanking-new. People around here were delighted while it was being built and staffed because it provided jobs. None of them stopped to think
why
it was being built. None of them noticed the irony, either, that the day it opened for business and dozens of hopeless kids in matching orange jumpsuits and handcuffs were bused and shuffled in from other overcrowded facilities was the same day our public library lost its state funding.

Fortunately for the coal and gas industries, our region is not only rich with natural resources but tons of shortsightedness.

This is my first time here since the grand opening, an event with an
inappropriate amount of hoopla attached to it, including a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Mayor Sawyer, who stopped short at wearing a top hat and settled for an English tweed motoring cap.

As chief of police I was obligated to attend and expected to eagerly start filling it with unfortunate children who I couldn't help thinking might not need this facility at all if they had spent more time in the library that was currently being dismantled.

Then as now I marveled at the size of it and the absurd, sadistic design team who decided to distinguish the four different dormitories with structures that look like gigantic LEGO blocks in bright primary colors stacked on the roof. It would be a great idea for an elementary school.

Neely is waiting for me in the parking lot. Smoke is riding shotgun in her truck.

She's in a pair of skinny jeans, a lilac-colored T-shirt, and sandals. Her hair is down, and she's ditched the ball cap. If asked, I'd say she was at least ten years younger than her forty-eight.

We start walking to the entrance. She notices my nails right away.

“Are you kidding me?” she asks.

I hold up my hands and wiggle my fingers at her.

“Are you going through a midlife crisis?”

“I think they're pretty,” I tell her.

“Sandra's inside,” she quickly changes the subject. “She told me the good news. Do you know?”

I shake my head.

“Zane's regained consciousness. It looks like he's going to be okay.”

My relief is so great and instantaneous, my knees almost buckle.

“That's fantastic news.”

I've been trying not to think about Zane clinging to life these past few days, but the feel of his blood oozing through my hands while I held him on his living room floor and the sight of his family's haggard faces at the hospital continually pushed their way into my consciousness.

“It's good news for Tug, too,” Neely says.

“You realize this doesn't change much,” I point out to her. “He committed a serious crime. He's not going to get away with a slap on the wrist.”

“We'll see what Sandra can pull off.”

“How are you paying her?”

“I have a secret money source I only allow myself to access in case of emergencies. Maybe someday I'll tell you about it.”

I stop short at the doors before going inside.

“Before I forget again, I meant to tell you this the other day. Lucky went to see Grandma.”

“That piece of slime,” she says, squinting her eyes in disgust. “Bothering an old lady.”

“He told her he's going to make our lives miserable. I don't know what that means exactly, but I wanted to make you aware.”

“Consider me aware.”

“Do you ever feel like it might have been wrong?” I ask her. “What we did to him?”

She gives me a look of reproof.

“If Lucky had been a swell guy instead of a creep, when the opportunity came to hang a crime on him he wouldn't have been the likely candidate. It would've never crossed our minds and no one would've believed it.”

She reaches for the door.

“I concede he was an asshole,” I say. “He was a good-for-nothing liar and cheat scamming his way through life living off some women and beating up others. But should he have spent his whole life in jail for that?”

“Maybe he should've paid more attention to whose path he crossed.”

I follow her inside to the reception area where we check in. I hand over my gun, and Neely begins to be searched by a correctional officer.

“Even so, he would've never known to stay out of our way,” I say to her in a confidential tone, continuing our conversation. “We seemed completely normal on the outside.”

“We still do,” she says back, and raises her arms to be frisked.

We join Sandra and Tug at a table in the visitation room. The space has the feel of a high school cafeteria given over on Saturdays to kids with detention. No one is smiling or saying much. We're in the blue section, boys between the ages of eight and fourteen. I can't bear to think of a child the age of Derk or Mason locked away from their family and friends, although during my career I've been privy to many of the homes these kids come from and life here may be an improvement for some.

Fortunately, the few inmates here along with Tug look to be in their early teens. They sit with women of varying ages and sizes who are doing most of the talking and trying valiantly to appear upbeat. There's a complete absence of men except for the two guards who stand unarmed at opposite ends of the room with a seeming lack of alertness only to be rivaled by a night-shift security guard at a petting zoo. They're dressed in dark-wash denim and blue shirts in an effort by the private company that owns Broadview to make them seem more accessible to the underage inmates if they have a problem. That would've been an entertaining meeting to attend: a bunch of old white guys in suits hypothesizing that juvenile delinquents would behave better and put more trust in men wearing jeans. Then later deciding the boys should be dressed like caution signs in crocs.

I wonder who's been here to see Tug besides Neely. Has his father crawled out of a bottle long enough to visit the little acorn to his oak? Shawna told me she's been here once. I doubt more than twenty words were passed between the two of them. Probably Jessy toting Goldie with her. She was at the station the night he was arrested and by all accounts was very distraught.

Sandra is explaining something to him when we arrive at their table. I'm relieved to see he doesn't look bad aside from the purple smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes and redness on his earlobes where he's tugged them raw. It's not possible for him to get any thinner.

I don't see any signs that he's been in a fight. His crime is one that combined brutality and integrity. He tried to blow off someone's head,
but he did it because he believed the guy murdered his sister. The hard-asses are probably going to avoid him and those with any principles left will admire him.

I'm also relieved to discover I'm not afraid of him.

“This is entirely off-the-record,” Sandra announces before we can even greet the boy and take our seats. “Nothing he says here can be used in the investigation.”

“There's not much of an investigation going on,” I tell her. “He was apprehended in the act.”

“You know what I mean,” she replies, and levels the same kind of steely look at me I want her to use if anyone in the town council raises any questions about my competence.

“I suppose you've heard the news about Zane Massey. He's going to be fine.”

“Yes. I just heard. How do you feel about that, Tug?”

“I'm glad,” he says. “I didn't want him to die.”

“It was an accident,” Sandra assures us.

Neely nods her agreement.

“An accident?” I look skyward but stop short of actually rolling my eyes. “He accidentally ended up in the Masseys' living room with a rifle pointed at Zane's head?”

“He wasn't thinking straight,” Sandra argues, already trying out her courtroom schtick. “He was overcome by grief and rage.”

“Which describes ninety percent of people who kill other people.”

“Chief Carnahan, you promised to behave.”

“Counselor, I'm not a dog. Don't tell me to behave.”

Neely and Tug glance at each other. Something like amusement passes between them.