Good Day to Die (5 page)

I think she was expecting a response, but I had no intention of changing the subject.

“All right,” she said, “here’s the deal. Win, lose, or draw, I guarantee that you’ll return to regular duties. Maybe it won’t be homicide, where you were before the … the incident. But you
will
be on the street again. Is that what you want to hear?”

“That’s it.”

“There are some conditions, though. Or, actually, one big condition.”

She paused dramatically and I leaned forward, a half-smile on my lips. Just as if I didn’t know what she was going to say.

“We work together, Means. You don’t do
anything
without my personal okay. Nothing. You don’t breathe until you clear it with me. You don’t
fart
until you clear it with me. Understand?”

I nodded wisely. “Sure, no problem, Captain.”

“It’s not a joke, Means. You fuck up here, you’ll never see the streets again. Never.”

“Damn, you’d think I was a criminal.” It was my turn to pause and her turn to exhibit the great stone face. “Captain, you said we were going to work together. Does that mean on the street, too?”

“It means everything and everywhere. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

“Sounds like you’re ready to move in with me.”

“I’ll be knocking on your door in the middle of the night. You can count on it.”

“Bed checks? Are we in summer camp?” I tried to smile, but the truth was that I was pissed off again. If I wanted out of the lab, I was going to have to kiss her butt until she got bored and went back to her desk. Well, maybe I could wake her up a little bit. Show her how the other half—the street half—lives. Even if it wasn’t exactly in my own best interest.

“No, Means,” she said without blinking, “it isn’t summer camp. It’s parole with intense supervision. I’d put an electronic bracelet on your wrist if I could get my hands on one.”

“You afraid I’ll go out and knife somebody?”

She took a deep breath and shook her head. “You still don’t get it?”

“Oh, I get it, all right. You want to fail. Which doesn’t exactly surprise me, being as you’re a typical department bureaucrat.”

“You bastard …”

That got her. She stood up, fists clenched. For a moment, I thought she was going to take her best shot. Not that I planned to leave my face in front of her knuckles.

“If you wanted somebody to conduct a textbook investigation,” I said as calmly as possible, “you could have chosen any one of a hundred detectives. You came to me because you thought I could get results in a hurry. My problem is that I don’t think you’re willing to do what’s necessary to get those results. What you
ought
to do is back off and let me operate, but you’re too scared to do that, either. All of which adds up to a guarantee of failure. Face it, Captain. You can’t have it both ways. You
can’t
say, ‘Excuse me, Mister Pimp, I’m conducting a murder investigation and I need your cooperation.’ If you want Thong, you’re gonna have to take some risks. Those gold bars on your shoulder might be enough to impress other cops, but they don’t mean shit on the street.”

She turned and walked out of the room without another word. I listened to her footsteps for a moment, then heard a door slam. Then, nothing.

It didn’t take me long to begin reminding myself that of all the assholes I’d met in the course of my life, I was far and away the biggest, the most stupid, the smelliest. It’d taken all my self-discipline to show up at the lab every day. To give it my best effort without the consolations offered by the street. I’d gone home and stayed home every night. Whenever the tension got to me, I’d contented myself with beating the hell out of a heavy bag chained to a steel beam in my loft. Instead of the criminal psychopaths I preferred.

Compared to the life I’d enjoyed on the streets of Manhattan, working in the lab and going home at night was worse than dying. It was death with your eyes open. The only thing that kept me sane was the hope that eventually I’d be freed. That an angel would appear with a magic wand and open the prison doors.

So, why had I dumped on that angel? Why did I have to be as compulsive as the criminals I liked to hunt? Everything was going perfectly. I could (and should) have gone out with Vanessa Bouton and conducted a textbook investigation. The results would have been entirely negative, but that, too, would have been to my advantage. Captain Bouton wouldn’t have lasted more than a few weeks. What was that compared to the ten months I’d already spent in ballistics? Or the ten years I’d
be
spending?

My self-incriminations were interrupted by footsteps. Vanessa Bouton’s footsteps as she made her way down the hall. I struggled to compose myself, to keep every trace of triumph or exaltation off my face.

“Here’s what I want you to do, Means.” She stood in the doorway, shoulders squared, hands at her sides. “I want you to go directly to 655 Jane Street and report to Sergeant Pucinski. He’s in charge of accumulated evidence for the task force. Spend all night, if you have to. By tomorrow, I want you familiar with the evidence. Is that a problem?”

“No problem, Captain.”

“I’ll be at your place at ten o’clock in the morning. I want to get started as soon as possible.”

I couldn’t suppress a smile. “Captain, the people we have to find don’t operate during the day. Ten o’clock at
night
would be a much better time to begin.”

Her face softened for a moment. “Okay, Means. It really doesn’t make sense for me to hire an expert, then disregard his advice. I’ll come by your place around two. By that time, I’m sure you’ll be ready to name the perpetrator. Just don’t do anything on your own. Risks are one thing. Stepping off a cliff is something else entirely.”

L
ORRAINE CHO GENTLY TOUCHED
the sheet of aluminum covering the room’s only window. Wondering if she’d made it through another night. The metal was cool to the touch, but that only meant the sun wasn’t shining. It might be morning; it might be cloudy; it might be …

What was the point? Why this need to mark each passing night?

Because she knew she was never getting out of there. Because the only thing she could hope for was some hunter stumbling across the cabin (even though hunting season was six months away) before Becky and her husband (she still didn’t know his real name) did what Becky claimed they’d already done to twenty-three other women. Twenty-three women and seven men.

“Now, the men … well, Lorraine, the men simply do not count. Daddy said we had to kill those men, but we did not enjoy it one bit. No sireee. I swear on the Lord’s Book, Lorraine, it gave me the creeps just being
near
those homosexuals. I surely do hope I don’t get the AIDS. Course, we were careful about the blood and Daddy insisted that I wear rubber gloves. But, still, those boys were
homosexuals.
”

Lorraine shuddered, pulling the blanket a little tighter. They’d taken her clothing, though she couldn’t understand why.

“Daddy says we took your clothes so you would not run away from us, Lorraine. You’re like the baby we couldn’t have because Daddy can’t have babies. Oh, I have wanted a little girl for so long and now you
are
my little girl.”

“But there’s no place to run to, Becky. Clothed or naked.”

How many hours had she spent with an ear pressed to the window? Listening for any human sound—for voices in conversation, a distant factory whistle, the whine of tires on pavement, the lowing of cattle in a meadow, the call of a rooster at daybreak.

At another time, in another place, the forest sounds would have delighted her. The birds sang out with a hundred voices, while the sigh and hiss and howl of the wind changed from second to second. A nearby stream (her bathtub) babbled over a rocky bed, forming a base for the darting hum of bees and flies, the persistent whine of mosquitoes. Squirrels and chipmunks quarreled from first light until sunset, their tiny claws scratching over the bare earth as they competed with cooing doves and bawling jays for the cracked corn Becky thoughtfully spread on the ground.

But there were no
human
sounds. None at all. And the only human odors were the stink of the outhouse and the sharply acid smell of the bucket in the corner.

They’d driven for hours and hours before dumping her in the cabin. Fucking her, the two of them, as they traveled the inter-states. Taking turns; one driving while the other played.

The man had been rough, twisting her body with powerful hands. The woman had been gentle, chattering away as if she were sitting down to a church supper.

“Don’t you fret, Lorraine. If Daddy says you’re a keeper, then, by the Good Lord above, you
are
a keeper and we will not hurt you. Not one darn bit.”

Lorraine wondered how Becky defined “hurting.” Because Lorraine had never been in more pain. Those weeks in the hospital were nothing compared to this; now she was afraid most of the time, and the terror was absolutely physical. The fear shook her with the intensity of a dog shaking the body of a dying rat.

It hurt so much there was no point in thinking about the pain. No point in thinking about a problem without a solution. Sure, she could get out of the cabin; she could pry the tin sheet off the window in a matter of minutes. But what would she do then? Trudge blindly into the forest? Pick a direction and hope for the best?

When she wasn’t afraid, Lorraine was numb, her emotions deadened as if by anesthetic. She sat in the room’s only chair for hours, not thinking, not feeling.

The hopelessness, she realized, only made her hopeless; despair producing despair. Still, there was nothing she could do about it. She was dealing with a world so foreign to anything she’d ever known it left her no point of entry, no grasp of its underlying principles. She knew she couldn’t manipulate this world, couldn’t change or mold its perfect madness.

Becky came every day, unlocking the cabin door, calling a cheerful, “Well how are we doing today, Miss Lorraine?” Bringing the food Lorraine wolfed down, taking Lorraine to the outhouse, bathing her in the stream. As if she were tending a show dog in a kennel.

Lorraine heard the first birdsong and knew morning was at hand. She wondered if the singing bird was a robin, the traditional “early bird” out for its morning worm. The song, a trill followed by a sharp staccato burst, was picked up by another bird, this one farther away. Then another and another.

Within minutes, a dozen songs, each with the distinct voice of its author, hung in the air. Lorraine listened intently, recognizing only the coarse, distant scolding of the crows. She imagined the birds engaged in some kind of impossible aesthetic. Imagined them celebrating the glory of the infinite cosmos. Moved to song by the beauty around them.

You have to do something.

The words came unbidden. Came at odd moments, echoing internally, a command without a commander. Blotting out the birds’ celebration, the greater glory, the impossible aesthetic. Everything.

You have to do something.

She searched back through her life for pertinent data. Some relevant experience from which to draw a plan of action. She found nothing, of course. She had never been face-to-face with …

The word that came to mind was
evil.
She knew the word was useless, even though it fit Becky and her Daddy-husband perfectly. What could you do against evil? Pray to God for relief? There was no priest to perform an exorcism. To drive the evil back into the eternal fires of Hell. This was not a movie, no matter how unreal it seemed.

“I could make Becky love me.”

Lorraine was so taken aback by the sound of her own voice that for a moment she failed to consider the significance of the words. But then, little by little, she came to understand that Becky was her only way out. Unless she decided to die.

She knew she could choose death. Even though she didn’t have the courage to perform the physical act of suicide, she could simply wander into the forest until she was completely lost. Until she became trapped in mud or tumbled down the side of a mountain or fell into a frigid lake. It would amount to the same thing.

I don’t want to die in the forest.

Another unbidden thought. Followed quickly by a surge of emotion that left her hands trembling. Outside, rain began to fall, spattering on the leaves, the roof, the bare, packed earth surrounding the cabin. Lorraine felt she had an obligation to name the emotion that’d left her shaking, but her mind wandered to the trees outside her prison cell. Each morning, she passed beneath their branches when Becky led her to the outhouse. She couldn’t see them, of course, but the passage from sun to shade to sun was apparent enough. Now, she wondered if the trees were grateful for the rain that washed their leaves? If their roots shivered in anticipation? If they knew their own needs?

But what’s the point of knowing your own needs if you can’t do anything to satisfy them? Of being a thirsty tree when you can’t move the twenty feet to a rushing stream?

“I’ve
got
to pull it together.”

Once again, she spoke aloud; once again the sound of her own voice startled her. But this time she didn’t allow herself to become distracted, resolving instead to begin by denying her helplessness. And her fear.

There
is
a way out of here, she decided, and I’m going to find it.

Her mind jumped to her kidnappers, to Becky and Becky’s Daddy. Apart from his frenzied attacks on that first night, she knew nothing about Daddy. Each morning, Becky arrived alone. She seemed in no hurry, staying for several hours, chattering happily even when Lorraine failed to respond.

The implication that Daddy had complete faith in his ability to control Becky was obvious. But Lorraine had to wonder if Becky was really the automaton she appeared to be. Or if Daddy’s faith sprang from a bloated ego.

Becky showed no remorse for the things she’d done, yet she claimed to be doing them only for Daddy.

“Daddy has needs, Lorraine, and, well, I am not one of those man-women who try to keep their husbands down. I was raised to serve my man. To love, honor, and
obey.
That may not be popular up here in New York, but it is dearly held in Atherton, Mississippi. If there’s one thing we Johnny-rebs are not, it’s quitters.”