R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 02 - L O S T (6 page)

JAX TALKED to the County Attorney and he agreed to allow me an interview with Spence Grant. I was nervous about confronting the man who had murdered his own wife and daughter. I did not understand such heinous disregard for the things that are important in this life. We only get one pass through—when we are lucky enough to be given a wife who loves us, and a pair of beautiful daughters who adore us, it befalls us not to screw it up.

Still, I would be lying if I said Spence Grant did not intrigue me. First, even a homicide detective is capable of feeling awe toward a specimen like that. Second—and this one is hard for me to admit—the man was engaging, confident, and even strangely witty. It wasn’t that I liked or admired him; those feelings would have been impossible. But I found that I also did not hate him. I really wanted to detest the man—his crimes went beyond unthinkable or unconscionable. Yet he elicited in me a false sense of camaraderie. And it angered me. Consequently I think I was too hard on him. The deputy who pulled me off Grant and then arrested me certainly agreed.

“Who are you?” he said when I entered the interview room.

He wasn’t rude. His tone was that of a child asking the same question: pure, innocent curiosity.

“Detective Robert Macaulay.”

“Jax’s brother from Denver,” he said. “I love that city. Gloria and I used to ski Winter Park every other year, before the girls were born. We’d stay at the Brown Palace on our first and last night in the city. Magnificent landmark hotel.”

“Gloria. That was your wife.”

“She’s still my wife.”

“That’s a funny way to look at it,” I said. “I think you put an end to the nuptials, Mr. Grant. With punctuation.”

“Call me Spence. That’s only because you are short-sighted, Mac.”

“Detective, if you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not. No offense intended.”

“Tell me a little more about you murdering your family.”

“See, now you’re trying to get a rise out of me.”

“You seem surprised.”

“I just don’t understand why. I’ve already confessed.”

“There’s the matter of your missing daughter.”

“Melissa’s fine.”

“Then you know where she is?”

“So do you. Not to be obtuse, Mac…er, Detective.”

“On second thought, call me Mac.”

“She’s in the Coeur d’Alene wilderness, Mac.”

“Did the man who took her tell you that?”

“Annir,” Grant said. “He’s no man. Not any longer.”

“You told my brother—Chief Macaulay—that he was the Devil.”

“Originally I thought he was. Not a nice soul.”

“Yet you seem oddly at ease with her abduction.”

“Again, not to be picky, but she wasn’t abducted. Not really.

“Because you’re okay with it?”

“Because I agreed to it, yes.”

“Seems to me you might have been under some duress.”

“Duress?”

“Annir sounds like someone accustomed to having his requests granted.”

“That he is.”

“Maybe you’ve had second thoughts since then.”

“I’m fine with my decision. As parents, we are tasked with making the hard choices. Particularly ones a father makes for his little girls. When you have a daughter, you’ll understand.”

“How do you know I don’t have a daughter?”

“Your brother told me you have one son.”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“
Was
true, you mean.”

“What does that mean?” I said.

“You have a daughter now. Growing inside your girlfriend.”

“How the fuck…”

“I’m sorry, Mac. The voice told me.”

He couldn’t possibly know anything about the pregnancy. I hadn’t even told Jax. And Amanda didn’t know anyone here.

“How did you…?”

“I wish I could tell you how it works. Sorry to be so cryptic, but the voice, it doesn’t have a name. I used to think it was just my conscience, but clearly that’s not the case. I’ve never been clairvoyant.”

“So the voice told you about my baby?”

“Your
daughter
,” he said. “She’s just the size of a peanut right now.”

There wasn’t so much as a flicker of surprise in Spence Grant’s eyes when I came across the table and took him to the floor.

It was fortunate for me—and for Grant—that the interview was being monitored. Though I had no way of knowing, Jax had stepped out of the observation room and asked one of his deputies to take the witness role in his absence. Thank God the man was quick to react. I only had a few moments with the murderer beneath my fists, but it was enough time to do a lot of damage.

“DETECTIVE,” Deputy Bill Severs shouted as he burst into the room and yanked me off the defenseless prisoner, who was then bleeding heavily from his lip, right ear, and broken nose.

Severs put me face down on the floor, cuffed me, and read me my rights.

Spence Grant never made a sound.

~ ~ ~

“What the HELL were you thinking,” Jax asked me in his office, me still in plastic tie cuffs.

“Can you take me out of these?” I said.

“No, Bobby, I can’t. The County Attorney is on his way over here. Bad news
flies
in this town. How the fuck do I even remotely explain this? Grant’s attorney is going to be shooting at fish in a barrel on this one. He may even get his client released, do you realize that?”

“That’s a crock. The man’s a multiple murderer with victim number three still out there somewhere.”

“This isn’t the big city. Charges of brutality are taken seriously here in Smalltown, U.S.A.”

“I get it. Do you think I spend my time in Denver kicking the shit out of my prisoners?”

“I honestly don’t know. You had less than an hour with mine and couldn’t keep your hands off him.”

The County Attorney, Saul Xavier, came thundering into the precinct.

“Is this him?” he bellowed. “Is this the dipshit who just assaulted a prisoner in my custody?”

“He’s in
my
custody, Saul. Sit down,” Jax said, a lot calmer than he’d been just a moment ago. He walked around to me, motioned to give him access to my backside, and clipped the cuffs. I rubbed my sore wrists as Xavier went mad again.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing, Chief? Cuff that prisoner before I arrest you, too.”

“You don’t arrest people either. And if you don’t pipe down, I’m going to have my deputies come in here and remove you forcibly. You won’t like that at all, I promise.”

Jax looked at me.

“Now why don’t you start from the beginning, for Mr. Xavier’s benefit?”

I shared the entire interview, which had also been taped. Afterward, Xavier wanted to view the twenty-two and a half minutes for himself.

“There’s no way he could have known about the pregnancy,” the attorney asked me later, after making a few calls.

“None,” I said.

“I didn’t even know,” said Jax.

“Then how…” Xavier began. “Never mind. After we watched the tape, I called Springer Lewis, Grant’s attorney. He wasn’t even aware of the incident, which is pretty shocking because Grant was taken to the emergency room for stitches and a resetting of his nose. Afterward he was given a phone call.”

“Who did he call?” Jax said.

“Ewing’s Auto Repair. To see when his wife’s car would be ready. It was dropped off a few days before the murder. Merle Ewing said Grant just wanted to make sure the bill was paid on time and that no additional storage charges accrued.”

“Jesus. He has no concept of what’s happening all around him,” Jax said.

“He knows,” I said. “He’s just pleased as frog shit that it’s all going according to plan.”

“Well, he’s not pressing charges,” Xavier said. “Springer is mad as hell because he can’t talk his client into it. Grant’s exact words were
I’d have beaten the tar out of me, too
. End quote.”

I’VE FELT the Scotsman in my veins since bagpipes first beckoned to the ear of my soul. Paddy used to put me on his knee and we would listen to records on the old turntable, those once-outlawed pipes haunting me with songs of the old country.

I’ve never been able to fully explain it. I was born and spent my whole life in the United States—as American as they come—but there has always been a palpability to the feeling of Scottish heritage in my soul. I had yet to visit my homeland, but in the year after losing my partner and my girlfriend, I considered it more than any other time in my life. I wanted to see Scotland one day. I needed to climb to the top of the rolling mountains, as did William Wallace, whom my ancestors hid from British soldiers and fought next to as Scotland won her freedom.

The bulk of Father Terence Macaulay’s journal—my
grandfather’s
journal—had been stored away inside my head. I read much of it directly after Calypso was killed and my son healed. Father Macaulay was a complicated man. I never considered myself very complex, but I suppose he didn’t either—or any complicated man, for that matter.

There was a particular passage that moved me; one that reached so far into my soul I knew I would never forget the words:

We don’t choose our heritage, nor does it choose us. It simply IS. What we can do is respect it; we can carry on the traditions of our ancestors. We owe them as much. The Clan MacAulay is one of vital importance, and this dedication to duty—indeed the very genetic need to protect this world—has been passed to us as the torch is passed to the next sentry, ready to give his life for the rest of the land.

This genetic need to protect and to serve my fellow mankind has been with me since I can remember. It’s not something taught but rather something passed to me in the MacAulay blood. There is no other way to explain it. I don’t always love my brothers and sisters; in fact my Jack Russells, Tina and Sketch, have brought me more joy and earned more trust from me than many people I’ve met.

But that does not mean I am not there to protect them—each of them; every man, woman, and child who sleeps under my watch. It is akin to disagreeing with someone’s opinion but being willing to die in order to defend their right to have and voice it.

I discovered a book a few months back—one written by Sean McCulloch. McCulloch had done extensive research into the major clans of Scotland. My own clan publicly died out in the early 18
^th
century, however, the Book of Ossian clearly documents that this official removal of recognition of the MacAulay Clan was staged, in part, to divert attention from the covert actions of the clan to draw together a stronger force to wage a guerilla battle against the enemies of Ardincaple, Scotland, and the world at large.