Life or Death (33 page)

Why tell her that now? Why not reveal it eleven years ago when it could have done him some good? Yet something about Audie’s frankness and lack of guile made her
want
to believe him.

She recalls the moment she stepped into the motel room. There was something about the scene – aside from the senseless violence – that struck a dissonant chord. Why would Audie kill Cassie and Scarlett? Perhaps he blamed Cassie for calling the police, but why shoot her at that moment – just as Valdez knocked on the door and announced his presence?

According to the sheriff’s account, Audie squeezed off three shots, killing two people, then broke down the adjoining door, fled through the next room, along the breezeway, down the stairs and across the parking lot, fully clothed, leaving no personal possessions behind in the motel room where he’d spent the previous two nights. All this in the time it took the sheriff to knock on the door, announce himself and use the entry card. It defies logic. It mocks common sense. No wonder she can’t shake her doubts.

Sheriff Valdez has an office on the fourth floor with a view over a nondescript factory with no sign on the gate or indication of what it might store or manufacture. Valdez doesn’t look up when Desiree knocks and enters. He’s talking on the telephone and hoops his hand in the air, motioning Desiree to take a seat.

The call ends. The sheriff leans back in his chair.

‘I hope I haven’t caught you at a busy time,’ she says.

‘It’s hard to be busy when you’re suspended. Any officer who discharges a weapon must be stood down pending the completion of the investigation.’

‘They’re the rules.’

‘I know it.’

Desiree has taken a seat. She rests her handbag on her knees, clutching the top with both hands. It embarrasses her a little because it makes her feel like Miss Marple bringing her knitting along to the interview. She puts the bag on the floor between her feet.

The sheriff laces his fingers behind his head and studies her. ‘You don’t particularly like me, do you, Special Agent?’

‘I don’t trust you, there’s a difference.’

Valdez nods as though his trustworthiness were only a matter of semantics. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I wanted to apologise. Aparently you took offence at my line of questioning the other day.’

‘You were out of line.’

‘I was just doing my job.’

‘It’s not right that you talk to people the way you do, especially a fellow law enforcement officer. You treated me like human refuse … like a criminal.’

‘The sight of that young woman and her daughter, lying dead, I guess I lost my sense of perspective.’

‘Yes you did.’

Desiree has rehearsed what she’s going to say to Valdez, but the words keep getting caught in her throat like she’s trying to swallow unbuttered bread.

‘I’m not very experienced at seeing death so close up,’ she says. ‘You’re obviously accustomed to it.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The armoured truck robbery was a bloodbath by all accounts. What did it feel like to shoot those boys?’

‘I was doing my job.’

‘Talk me through the robbery again.’

‘You’ve read the files.’

‘You gave a statement about an SUV parked next to the armoured truck, but the original radio dispatch doesn’t mention any SUV.’

‘It was parked on the far side of the armoured truck. We didn’t see it at first.’

‘That sounds plausible,’ says Desiree.

‘Plausible? It’s the goddamn truth!’

Desiree hides any inkling of pleasure she obtains in getting under the sheriff’s skin. ‘I was hoping to speak to Lewis and Fenway.’

‘They no longer work for the county.’

‘I would appreciate your help in providing phone numbers or contact addresses.’

There is a heartbeat of silence. Desiree glances out the window where dust and smoke from a distant fire has smudged the light and turned it golden.

‘I can give you an address for Lewis. You got a pen and paper?’ says Valdez.

‘I do.’

‘Magnolia Cemetery, Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas.’

‘What?’

‘He died in a light plane crash.’

‘When?’

‘Six, maybe seven years ago.’

‘What about Fenway?’

‘Last I heard he opened a dive bar in the Florida Keys.’

‘Address?’

‘Nope.’

‘How about a name?’

‘I think he called it the Dive Bar.’

His sarcasm ignites something in Desiree. ‘Whatever happened to the dashboard footage?’

Valdez hesitates but recovers, flexing his lower jaw. ‘Footage?’

‘The crime-scene photographs show a camera on the dashboard of your cruiser. I couldn’t find any reference to there being footage.’

‘The camera wasn’t working.’

‘Why?’

‘One of the many bullets that were being fired in our direction must have disabled it.’

‘Is that the official explanation?’

Valdez seems to chew hard on a ball of anger, rolling it around like a loogie in his cheek. He forces a smile. ‘I don’t know about the official explanation. I didn’t pay much attention. I guess I must have been too busy dodging bullets fired by men who wanted to kill me. Have you ever been shot at, Special Agent?’ He doesn’t wait for her to answer. ‘No, I don’t expect so. People like you live in privileged seclusion in your ivory towers, separated from the facts and practicalities of the real world. You carry a gun and a badge and you chase white-collar criminals and tax cheats and federal fugitives, but you don’t know what it’s like to face down a meth addict swinging a machete or a drug dealer with a semi-automatic. You’ve never worked on the front line. You’ve never dealt with the dregs. You’ve never put your life on the line for a colleague, or a buddy. When you’ve done any of those things you can come back and question my actions and my motives. Until then you can get the fuck out of my office.’

Valdez is on his feet. The muscles in his neck are bulging hotly and sweat is beading his forehead.

The phone on his desk is ringing. He snatches it out of the cradle.

‘What do you mean? … I didn’t call them … And the school let him go?’ He glances at Desiree. ‘OK, OK, calm down … talk me through it again … where did you last have your phone? … which means it was probably stolen … Stay calm, we’ll find him … I know … It’s going to be fine … I’m going to call the school. Where are you now? … I’ll send a cruiser to pick you up.’

He lowers the phone, cupping the mouthpiece.

‘Somebody phoned my son’s high school pretending to be me.’

‘When?’

‘Forty-five minutes ago.’

‘Where is your son now?’

‘They don’t know.’

46

Audie takes the South Freeway through the outskirts of Houston into Brazoria County. At Lake Jackson he turns west on the 614 toward East Columbia. A rusted pickup in front has a bumper sticker across the back window:
Secede or Die: Texas Patriot
. The driver tosses away a cigarette, which bounces and sparks across the blacktop.

Most of the farms look neat and prosperous. The fields are full of sunflowers, cotton and the broken stalks of harvested corn. They pass silos and windmills and barns and tractors; people going about their daily lives, oblivious to an ordinary-looking Camry carrying a man and a teenage boy.

Once or twice Audie sneaks a glance at Max, seeing the buds of spittle in the corners of his mouth and the red rims around his eyes. The teenager is frightened. He doesn’t understand. How could he? Children normally grow up believing the world is a certain way. They hear fairytales and watch feel-good movies where every orphan finds a family and every stray dog finds a home. There is a moral to these stories. Good things happen to good people and love always finds a way, but for a lot of kids reality is less glossy and wholesome because they learn about life via a swinging belt or a swishing cane or a cocked fist.

Audie had an uncle on his mother’s side, who used to enjoy dragging Audie onto his lap at family gatherings. He’d tickle him with one hand, while jamming his other thumb into Audie’s ribs until the boy thought he might faint with the pain.

‘Listen to him,’ his uncle would say, ‘he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

Audie had never understood why his uncle chose to hurt him; what pleasure he could have taken in torturing a young boy. Now he glances across at Max and hopes he avoided sadistic uncles and school bullies and others who prey on the vulnerable.

Two hours after leaving Conroe, they reach Sargent – which is little more than a collection of buildings spread out along Caney Creek, which meanders for miles in wide looping turns until it reaches the Gulf coast. By road the journey is almost dead straight until the bitumen crosses a swing bridge and stops abruptly at Sargent Beach.

Reaching the T-junction, Audie turns east along Canal Drive, following the single-lane that is spider-webbed with heat cracks and crumbling in places. The road continues for another three miles along the beachfront. Slowly the houses begin to thin out. Most of them are holiday places built on stilts because of the king tides and storm swells that bring seawater sloshing almost as high as the floorboards. They are shuttered up for the winter; the flagpoles bare and deck furniture stored inside or tied down, while boats are garaged in sheds or anchored in front yards.

Flanking the road to the left is a large canal that carries dredging barges and pleasure cruisers along the Intracoastal Waterway. Further inland are marshes and mile upon mile of treeless prairie and wetland dotted with shallow ponds and narrow watercourses. In the strange twilight, Audie can see ducks moving in a V-formation across the sky, as though forming an arrow that points to a distant shore.

On the opposite side of the road the long flat beach is dotted with clumps of seaweed and ribbed by tyre tracks. Audie gets out of the car and scans the empty beach. The light is fading the air the colour of dirty water. He walks to the passenger side and opens the door.

‘Why have we stopped?’ asks Max.

‘I’m going to find us somewhere to sleep tonight.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘You’re gonna be fine. This’ll be like a sleepover.’

‘What am I – nine?’

Audie ties the teenager’s hands with a roll of masking tape. Then he nudges him forward, pointing toward the beach.

They approach a darkened house that is shielded by sand dunes and low scrubby trees. Crouching in a hollow above the tideline, Audie watches for ten minutes, looking for any sign of activity.

‘You have to promise that you’ll stay here and be quiet. Don’t try to run. Otherwise I’ll take you back and lock you in the trunk.’

‘I don’t want to go in the trunk.’

‘OK, I won’t be long.’

Max loses sight of Audie in the gloom and expects to feel relieved, but the opposite is true. He doesn’t like the dark. He doesn’t like how it amplifies the sound of the insects or his own breathing or the waves against the shore. Looking across the beach, he can see lights out to sea that could be a ship or an oil platform, something moving slowly or not moving at all.

Why isn’t he more frightened of this man? Once or twice he has snuck a glance at Audie, secretly studying his face, trying to work out what makes a killer, as though he might see it in his eyes or written on his forehead. It should be obvious – the hatred, the blood lust, the thirst for revenge.

All through the drive, Max has been making mental notes of the signs and landmarks, plotting their location in case he gets a chance to call the police. They headed south out of Houston and then turned west through Old Ocean and Sugar Valley to Bay City.

Audie had tried to make conversation, asking about his parents.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m interested. Do you get on with your daddy?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘Do you do stuff together?’

‘Sometimes.’

Not much. Not any more.

Now crouching in the dark, listening to the waves, Max tries to remember a time when he and his daddy were close. It might have been different if Max had played Little League or basketball or liked dirt biking. He wasn’t even very good at skateboarding – not compared with Dean Aubyn or Pat Krein, boys in his class at junior high. Max didn’t have much in common with his daddy, but that wasn’t the main reason they’d drifted apart. It was the arguments he hated most. Not his own, but those that he listened to at night, lying motionless in bed.

You should have seen yourself! Really! You were flirting with him. I know what I saw. Jealous? Me? Never. Why would I be jealous of a barren cold bitch like you?

These fights ended with thrown objects or slammed doors and sometimes with tears. To Max it seemed like his father believed that his wife and son were unappreciative and ungrateful, perhaps even unworthy, but the arguments rarely lasted until the morning. Breakfast would see normal service resumed, his mother packing his daddy’s lunch and kissing him goodbye.

Max misses them both and wants his daddy to come. He imagines a convoy of police cruisers with flashing lights and screaming sirens, hurtling down the road toward him, while the blades of a chopper thump the air and a team of Navy SEALs comes roaring onto the beach in inflatables. He cocks his ear for a moment, but doesn’t hear any sirens or helicopters or boats. Cautiously, he begins moving along the path, looking over his shoulder, wondering if Audie is watching. He reaches the car and pauses for a moment, sipping the darkness. The road is another hundred yards away. He can flag down a car. He can raise the alarm.

Running now, he has a gait almost like a gallop because his wrists are bound together and his arms can’t swing freely. Suddenly he trips over something and tumbles face first into the sand.

‘Now that was a proper face-plant,’ says Audie, stepping from behind a fence, resting the shotgun on his shoulder. Max spits sand from his mouth.

‘You said you wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘I said I didn’t want to.’

Audie helps him stand and brushes him down. Max angrily pushes the hands away, not wanting Audie to touch him. They turn back along the path, approaching the house from the beach side, climbing the steps to a rear deck that overlooks the ocean. The railings and banisters have been stripped of paint and varnish by a combination of salt, wind and sunlight.