Darkness the Color of Snow (4 page)

They spent most of the night searching for the source of the blood. It was, almost surely, a Mexican who had come across to steal supplies from the base. Nails. They found the blood trail and followed it through the hole in the fence. But they found no one. Whether he, the wounded man, had made it back to the river and up into Ciudad Juarez, or had moved east into El Paso, or had died somewhere they could not find, no one knew.

Gordy has dreamed about it for years. There was a lot of blood. But it was reasonable to believe that the man had survived. Still, he didn't know. He pulled a tour in Vietnam, again in the MPs, moving up the ranks. He never fired another shot at anyone, not as an MP, not as a cop back in the States. ­People ask occasionally if he ever killed anyone. He doesn't know. He only knows that the dreams will start up again.

He wants Ronny Forbert to have some certainty, some clarity. Ronny was involved in a death, but he did not cause the death. Once Ronny has that clearly embedded in his mind, he will be all right. It will also take a long time.

S
AMMY
C
OLVINGTON IS
having breakfast. Mostly he's swirling Cheerios through milk, mashing the occasional one with a spoon against the side of the bowl. It's a strange thing. He's hungry but he doesn't want to eat. He takes a spoonful of cereal and puts it in his mouth. He chews a ­couple of times, then forces himself to swallow. He reaches for the sugar bowl and spoons more sugar into the cereal.

“You all right?” his father asks.

He shrugs. “Guess so.”

“Hungover?”

“Not really,” he lies.

“You thinking about what happened last night?”

“Yeah,” he lies again. Mostly he's trying hard not to think about last night.

“You better think about it. You need to get your story straight. I talked to Martin Glendenning this morning. He's concerned. He wants you to get your story straight. He needs you to tell our side.”

What's “our side,” he thinks. He saw a guy die last night. His friend. He saw his friend die. Where are the sides to that? For his father and Martin Glendenning, it's all about sides. There are always two sides to any story. Where do they get this shit?

He's sick of his father, and he's sick of Martin Glendenning. Half the kids at school think he's a stuck-­up rich kid because his father is on the town council. The other half think he's a complete asshole for the same reason. Fuck them both.

But Sammy keeps running it through his head. It's like a dream. He can't shake it, but he can't quite hold on to it, either. The more his father keeps at him to remember the details, exactly what happened, the less sure he becomes about it. He isn't sure he saw exactly what happened. It was all very sudden and he was drunk. He remembers the lights, the way the headlights of the car suddenly lit the whole scene, Matt trying to scramble up, having trouble getting his feet under him, then the amazing sight of Matt flying through the air and the horrible thump at the end as he hit the Jeep.

Had he seen the fight between Matt and Forbert? Some of it. He knows they were struggling. He remembers their arms tangling and untangling. But the car hid much of what went on. He saw Matt go out onto the highway, and he saw the lights suddenly appear over the hump in the road. He has lots of pictures in his head. One-­ or two-­second film clips. But he can't put them together in the right way. His father keeps assuring him that he will be able to, but he was drunk last night. Very drunk. It was all messed up. Messed up bad.

“Matt's dead,” he says.

“Matt was a piece of shit, and he got killed by an even bigger piece of shit. You remember that.”

Maybe Matt was a piece of shit. Maybe he's a piece of shit, too. But Matt Laferiere and the others were the only ones who didn't treat him like a piece of shit. Even though he was the “virgie,” Matt and the others treated him right. Like he was someone. This is so fucking messed up.

R
ONNY DOES WHAT
Pete told him to do. He leaves the station, feeling the emptiness on his right hip where he keeps his weapon. As he climbs into his truck he suddenly feels a great weariness. He parked the truck here a little over twelve hours ago, but it seems he hasn't been in it for weeks.

His truck is his favorite possession, certainly his largest and most expensive. It's a Dodge 1500 four-by-four. He bought it the day after he graduated from the academy, the day before he was hired on full-­time as a Lydell cop. He struggles to make the payments, but he won't consider giving it up for something cheaper. It is the first nice, new thing he has ever owned.

His apartment is cold. Usually coming off the night shift, it takes a ­couple of hours for him to settle down enough for sleep, so he keeps the heat low, only turning it up when he gets home. It's a small apartment, the upper floor of a two-­story garage that belongs to Nathan Greene, the pharmacist, who lives in the house in front of the garage. The furnishings are sparse. Most came with the apartment. The only thing that's his is a forty-­inch flat-­screen TV that sits on the stand they threw in to sweeten the deal.

He thinks about having the TV attached to the wall, but he likes knowing he can just pick it up and take it with no hassle. He could, if he wanted, be completely out of the apartment in two hours.

He kicks up the heat and makes a pot of coffee, though he is not particularly fond of it. It's Starbucks Sumatra, Vanessa's choice, pre-­ground in deference to him and her only contribution to the apartment, though she stays over at least once a week. He stays at her place about the same, maybe more, especially if he has the weekend off. He prefers his place because it's closer to the station, and he wants to be ready to respond in a hurry if there is an emergency, but hers is nicer. The only emergency they've had in the months he's been on the force was last night, and he was right in the middle of it.

He calls Nessa while the coffee brews. At just two rings he gets voice mail. “Hi. There was a bad accident last night,” he says. “I was involved in it. I'm OK. I spent the night in the hospital, but I'm OK. Call me.” He clicks the call screen off, relieved that he didn't have to tell Vanessa he had killed her old boyfriend, but still dreading the conversation.

He goes into the bedroom to shower and change his clothes. He tries to keep the bandages on his leg and forearm dry, but it's impossible. He'll have to go to the drugstore later and get gauze and tape, but for now he pats them dry and hopes they'll stay on to keep the wounds from bleeding into his pants and shirt.

Both his pants and shirt are ripped. That looks like another hundred or so dollars. Maybe the dry cleaner's can mend them, but he's afraid they'll never look right again. He puts on a T-­shirt and his other pair of tactical pants, then a sweatshirt. He takes out his dress shoes, which are shined to a high luster, and wears them, though they look ridiculous with the pants. He checks his boots to see how much damage they took last night. They're badly scuffed, but he's sure he can salvage them.

He goes back to the kitchen, pours a cup of coffee, and carefully wipes up the drops that spill and the bits of grounds around the pot. Then he takes a paper towel and rubs the surface of the coffeemaker, removing a ­couple of smudges. He takes the coffee into the living room and turns on the TV. ESPN
SportsCenter
. He's not a big sports fan, of any kind. But he lives in a world where it seems everyone is a sports fan. So he watches ESPN and tries to remember things. The Steelers are the most important. They're going to make the play-­offs. And the Patriots, too. The Jets and the Giants don't have a chance. He can use that when he finally gets back to the office.

There's a stack of
Law and Order
magazines on the coffee table. He studies these, too. It's a continuation of his AA in criminal justice. He sorts them by date, then restacks them on the coffee table, newest issues on top.

When his coffee cup is empty, he takes it back to the kitchen, rinses it, washes and dries it, and puts it back in the cupboard. There are four mugs there, in different but complementing colors. He keeps them in a line, each handle just touching the mug to its right. Then he pushes the coffeemaker back on the counter and aligns it with the toaster. He reaches into the cabinet under the sink and takes a bottle of 409 and a sponge and washes the counter and the sink, working on the faucets and handles. Because they are old and scratched, he pays particular attention, bringing up a shine where there is still chrome plating left. Then he takes the 409 and heads into the bathroom and goes to work on the shower, sink, and toilet. Later he will sweep and mop the floors. He does this every day. It will take him two hours, which means he will be done by eleven. It is going to be a long five days.

When he comes back into the bedroom, he sees the boots he had set aside. He gets his polishing kit from the closet, carries it and the boots into the kitchen, where he unlaces the boots. He pours a bowl of water from the faucet, takes a rag, wets it, and begins wiping the shoes to get off the dust and mud. Then he takes another rag, coats it with saddle soap, and scrubs each boot to get the grit and salt off. When that's done, he opens a can of polish, sets a match to it, and lets it burn for a few seconds before he puts the lid back on and douses the flame. Then he takes a cloth, dips it in the now liquid polish, and begins rubbing it into the leather. That done, he buffs the boots, then starts the process over again. He does this until he has five coats of polish buffed to a high shine. He washes the bootlaces in the sink and drapes them over the kitchen faucet to dry. He has used up forty-­eight minutes.

He checks his phone. Two calls from Nessa, one from his father. He swipes the screen and turns the phone off, puts it in his back pocket, then pulls it out again and dials Nessa's number. He wants and dreads to talk with her. It rings twice and goes to voice mail. She's in class. “Hi,” he says. “It's me. I'm home. I have the day off. Give me a call. I guess you heard what happened. I'm OK. Give me a call.”

He's trying to repair his pants, but he has no skill with a needle and thread. He will have to take them to the dry cleaner's, who will send them to a tailor in Warrentown. Or buy a new pair. The shirt has to go to the cleaner's as well. Buying a new uniform will take more money than he should be spending right now. He lays out the torn uniform for the dry cleaner's.

When the phone rings he answers it immediately, expecting Nessa. He's surprised when he hears his father's voice.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I'm fine. A little road rash, nothing more.”

“That's good. I was worried when I got your call. I had heard there was an accident, but I didn't hear any details.”

Ronny is relieved to hear his father sounding sober. “Matt Laferiere got killed last night.”

“Yeah. I just heard that. I know he was your friend. I'm sorry.”

“Not so much anymore. Friend, I mean. We didn't have much in common.”

“Still. It must be hard. But you're OK. What happened?”

“I was trying to arrest him. Drunk and disorderly. We fought. He ended up in the road and got hit by a hit-­and-­run driver. Dead at the scene.”

“Well, glad to hear you're OK. I have to get back to work. Big remodel north of Warrentown. Don't know where ­people get the money, but glad they do.”

His father is a finish carpenter and master cabinetmaker. He had wanted Ronny to join him in the business, but Ronny couldn't take the idea of a life of sawdust and cutoff fingers for almost no money at all. Just living from one bottle to the next.

T
HE
L
AFERIERES LIVE
on Twisted Root Road, a dirt road that was once a wagon trail. There was contention about whether it was an actual town road, but the town has been plowing it for as long as Gordy can remember, so he guesses it is. There are only two houses and the ruins of a nineteenth-­century spring factory on the road. The Laferieres live just beyond the ruins.

It's a rambling mess of a place that sprawls over two acres. The center of it is a double-­wide trailer that has been added on to three or four times. The additions jut out at odd angles. Roger Laferiere is a decent builder, but a terrible architect. There are three outbuildings, two of which seem to be chicken coops and the other a tack room or shop. There are junked cars, trucks, and tractors scattered about and old farm implements rusting into the ground. There has been an epidemic of thefts of farm equipment, but this stuff is far too old to be part of that.

Gordy parks the cruiser next to the house, or whatever it is, and walks to the front door and knocks. It's a chore he's performed many times before. There's no answer. He knocks again, waits a bit, and turns toward the cruiser. There is a beaten but intact Ford F150 between the house and the chicken shacks, so he assumes that at least one of the Laferieres is home. He walks between the cruiser and the truck, toward the shack, calling, “Hello.”

“Chief.”

He turns to see Roger Laferiere walking from the direction of the shop building. Roger's dressed just as Gordy had last seen him, and as he always sees him—­jeans and boots, a barn coat covered in grease and torn at both sleeves (in summer this is replaced by a cotton long-­sleeved shirt). He always wears a battered, billed plaid cap.

“Good morning, Roger.”

“Not a goddamned thing good about it.” Roger puts a cigarette to his lips and lights it. Out of habit, Gordy guesses, Roger extends the pack toward Gordy, who waves it off.

“Well, no. Of course not. I'm so sorry, Roger.”

Roger nods and tilts his head waiting to hear more from Gordy.

“Mostly, I'm here to offer my condolences, something I should have done more of last night. I'm terribly, terribly sorry for your loss.”

Roger nods, starts to say something, then stops.

“I also have some information for you. The autopsy is being performed this morning, and they should release Matt's body to you by late this afternoon.”