BAD TRIP SOUTH (3 page)

Crow stepped over close to Daddy, pulling me along with him, his fingers digging like claws into my shoulder. He opened his leather bag enough so Daddy could see his hand on the gun in there.

"Get in the front seat of the car,” Crow said. "Just do what I say."

That's how it started.

#

FRANK Hawkins let the little girl go to the bathroom. While she was out of the interrogation room, he thought about the story she’d told him. He thought about Jay and how he might have let the family get kidnapped.

Although Frank knew more about Jay Anderson than just about anyone, he thought maybe Jay’s daughter knew him from the heart out. Jay had been coming to Frank for six months prior to the vacation that ended in abduction and death. Problem at home, problem with his wife. Once the sessions got into it, Frank discovered it wasn’t a wife problem, it was purely a Jay Anderson problem. It was like other cases Frank had seen and dealt with before in his years as a psychologist on the force. Jay--just as the girl said--turned bad. He took the violence from the street home with him. It altered his relationship with his wife to the point there was no love left, only recrimination, sadness, loneliness, and, ultimately, danger.

Jay had said in an early session, “I don’t know why the sheriff’s sent me to you. I got to drive all the way down here to Charlotte for this? It’s crazy. It’s wasting your time and mine. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“
You don’t think you’re out of control?” Frank had asked.

“
Hell no!” With that outburst, Jay bit his lip and looked down where he rubbed together the knuckles of his hands in nervousness. “I don’t know,” he amended. “Maybe I am.”

It grew apparent the more Frank saw of Jay that the man was in trouble, double-digit, inflationary trouble. Not only was he using his badge of authority to manhandle some of his arrested suspects, but also he took all his frustration out on his family when he went home.

Frank did not altogether dislike his patient. Yes, he was a wife beater and, yes, he probably should resign from police work, but he really was struggling to come to terms with what he had become. After denials and a few rants, Jay hung his head in shame, admitting he was abusive. He was angry. He might explode and really do great harm if Frank didn’t help him. “I don’t want to do that,” he’d said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did something...permanent.”

It was the first step to redemption. And it was as far as they’d gotten after six months before Jay announced he was going on a two-week vacation with his family.

Frank advised against it. Stopping in the middle of therapy wasn’t a good idea. Too many parts of Jay’s personality were unresolved. Couldn’t he put off the vacation for another time?

Jay was adamant. He was going. He and his wife were about to break up and the vacation might cool things off. He needed the time away from work. He was having trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping. If he didn’t take this time, not only would he lose his marriage, but he also might make some serious mistakes at work and then where would he be? They’d pick up where they left off the therapy when he got back, he said.

Frank okayed it with Jay’s superior despite his better judgment. What could he do, handcuff the man in his office, force therapy on him?

Yet whenever Frank thought about Jay during the two-week lapse between sessions, he wished he’d held against the idea. The thought of Jay on the road with his wife and child, his life dribbling by in unstructured hours, put Frank into an agitated, anxious state. How was it going? Was the wife all right? Was Jay, not ever a patient man, losing it out there in some motel or roadside inn?

That was why when Jay didn’t return for his scheduled visit after his vacation, Frank started investigating why. Jay was a potential bomb walking around loose. And where was he? Where was his family?

Frank started looking into it. He knew immediately something was terribly wrong. He just had no idea where to start looking. It wasn’t until several days after the family had already been in the clutches of the violent pair known as Crow and Heddy that Frank got a break.

Emily returned from the bathroom, opening the door to the interrogation office slowly, peeking shyly around the door at him. She came forward slowly and took the chair opposite the desk.

She was such a great kid. She wasn’t pretty or anything, but there was an intelligence in her eyes that made you want to hunker down and have a little conversation with her. She wore her hair short and straight, with brown bangs that came below her eyebrows and from which she glanced up through when she had her head down talking about things that might even make an adult embarrassed to discuss. Her voice was soft and steady, rarely breaking, and she didn’t cry. He knew when this little girl was grown, she was going to be someone exceptional and she might even do great things in the world. Though she claimed she could read minds, he tried not to scoff or let on the whole notion was too bizarre for words. She believed it and that’s what counted.

Besides, though he didn’t believe in such matters, he was open to proof, if there was verification. If she continued the story of the abduction and could show she really knew what people thought, well…well, he didn’t know what he’d think about it then.

There were a great many mysteries in the world and humans were the most mysterious creatures ever to live. In his capacity as a police psychologist, he had come across a great many more unbelievable claims than telepathy. One officer in therapy had sworn on his mother’s life that he saw ghosts. All the time. Especially down in one section of Charlotte near the graveyard when he drove past in his patrol car. They swarmed the street and climbed over his car, he said. They shook their heads, moaning, and pointing and he did not know what in the world they wanted with him. It was to the point he couldn’t drive that route anymore. If he had to make a call, he made a wide circuit, avoiding the streets surrounding the cemetery, even if it meant taking longer to get to his destination. No amount of rational therapy he was given could convince him otherwise. There were ghosts; he saw them; that was the end of it.

Frank looked at Emily and smiled to put her at ease again. She was the only one with all the pieces to the Anderson puzzle. He wondered if she could read
his
mind. If so she’d know his thoughts about how lucky she was to have come through the joyride alive.

#

CROW waited until Heddy had the keys and was behind the wheel. He waited until the man was in the front tan-leather bucketseat beside her, with the mother and kid in the back seat. Then he got in the back next to the kid. He pulled out the gun then and let them see it. "I got nothing to lose,” he said. "Anyone interfere with Heddy's driving and the kid says good-bye, world, adios, muchacho."

"Tell us what's going on,” the man said.

"What's your name?" Crow leaned up toward the front seat and looked at him hard while Heddy got the car started. She pulled away from the parking lot onto the road leading away from the Long Horn Caverns.

"Jay Anderson."

"What kind of name is that, Jay? That's a fag name, it’s a woman’s name. Jay, Jayne, Joyce. You’re not a Jason, are you? I knew a Jason once, hated the fuck."

“
Not a Jason. Just Jay.”

Crow sat back, turned to the woman. "And what's your name and the kid's name?"

"I'm Carrie. This is Emily."

He liked how her voice wavered. She looked scared enough to piss her pants.

"One big happy family,” Heddy said from the driver's seat. "God, this is a beautiful car."

"I'm called Crow and this here's Heddy. You just do what we say and it's all going to be all right."

"If you want the car, why don't you...?"

Crow leaned forward again to the man and lashed him on the cheek with the gun barrel. The man screeched and blood started running down from the cut on the cheekbone. The woman screamed and the little girl jumped like a live wire had been plugged into her ears.

Heddy said, "Take it easy, Crow. I'm driving here."

Jay got the pocket compartment open and that's when Crow saw the gun. He was halfway over the seat then, reaching out. Heddy started hitting the brakes, pulling to the side of the road, the car swerving in loose gravel before it came to a shuddering stop. Crow stuck his own gun into the man's neck, grinding it in. "Gimme that!"

Jay carefully withdrew the service revolver and handed it over.

"Bad move, man. I coulda blown your brains out. That what you want, me to blow out your brains right in front of your kid and ole lady?"

Jay put his hand to his face where it was swelling now and turning blue. His hand came away red and sticky. “Can I get some napkins from the console here?”

"I'm talking to you! I'm asking you a question!"

"No,” Jay said between clenched teeth. "I do not want you to blow my brains out."

"That's smart thinking. You happen to have any other guns stashed in here?"

"No."

Crow turned the gun over in his palm, scrutinizing it. "Looks like a cop's gun. Regulation issue, Smith and Wesson. You a cop?"

"No."

Crow turned to the woman, Carrie. "He's a cop, ain't he? He's got the look. He’s got the haircut. He even smells like a stinking cop. I look around, I’m gonna find a badge, right?"

The woman was crying into her hands. She started to shake her head when the kid piped up, "My Daddy'll put you in jail. You can't hit my Daddy like that."

Crow grinned. He slipped the revolver in his satchel. "Only the kid knows how to tell the truth. I'm gonna remember that."

"Oh shit,” Heddy said, looking out the side window.

"No big deal,” Crow said. "He don't scare me. You think you scare me, cop?"

"The fucking luck,” Heddy said. "We have to pick up a cop’s family."

"Get the car back on the road, the excitement's over,” Crow said. "And don't worry about Jay. He's gonna play nice, aren't you, Jaybird, old boy? Cause I have your gun. And I have your kid back here. And you're not making no more dumb moves, right?"

"Right."

Heddy let up on the brake and eased back onto the road. "The fucking luck,” she repeated. "We must be under a bad moon."

#

I’VE seen bad moons. They're always the full ones. The big fat yellow ones that drive people crazy. Daddy says when there's a full moon the loonies come out. He never seemed to notice he went loony too when the moon turned full. He'd come home with mad on his face and his eyes all narrow, talking about how many bills he had to pay, and how he wasn't ever going to be more than a patrol officer in our dumpy town, he’d never make detective. How he was sick of the scum, the gangs starting up in town, the whining business owners who wanted him to patrol their properties like he had nothing better to do, like he was a
security officer
instead of a cop. How he should have learned some other job, he hated this job; this job was for common idiots.

Mama would stay clear of him and try to sit quietly at the kitchen table, grading papers from school, but he wanted her to say something. Agree with him, that's what he wanted.

He'd stand right behind her, talking loud. He'd send me to my room, like he couldn't stand looking at me. I think he did that because he knew I knew he was being bad again. Sometimes he was sorry later and I'd hear him begging Mama to forgive him, but he never really meant it. She knew that. So did I. Still, he never stopped doing it.

He'd put ice in a towel and put it on Mama's bruises so they wouldn't swell and he'd say, almost crying, "I don't know what gets in me, Carrie. I’m a lousy son of a bitch, I know I am. When I think about what I do to you, I want to stuff my gun in my mouth."

Then Mama would say, “Don’t talk that way, Jay. You can’t help it. Things just get inside you and hurt.”

I'd look outside from the window seat in my room where I'd be all scrunched up, holding my knees, and I'd see the bad moon high in the sky above our little town and I'd know he was one of those loonies he said made mischief. And he didn't even know. Mama must have known, even when she made excuses for him. But Daddy just had no idea.

Anyway, this was daytime when Heddy said what she did and she couldn't know if there was a bad moon out or not. She just meant it was bad luck, getting in a cop's car, and hitting him with a gun. I was hoping it would be
real bad luck
for them.