Winter and Night (42 page)

"Just trying to brighten your day, boss. Okay, got it." He pressed a button. We heard, "Gardino," echo through the van.

"It's McFall, Vince," said the chief, taking the receiver the guy in the Hawaiian shirt held out to him. "We're ready. You know how to put us through to six?"

"Sure." A hand waved from the motel office's window.

I heard tires hiss as two cars with spinning lights, a Warrenstown car and a Plaindale one, barrelled down the street toward us. At each end of the block I could see other patrol cars, setting the perimeter. Beyond them, a fire engine and an ambulance. Reporters, camera and sound people clambered out of the first TV vans to arrive, ran through the barricades on foot. At McFall's command two cops charged over to meet them, corralled them onto the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

Lydia said to me, "The Plaindale police. They do this as though they've done it before."

McFall caught that. He looked at us. "Training," he said. "Littleton PD was unprepared."

A sharpshooter jumped from the newly arrived Plaindale car, took off in a crouching run for the motel office. A young Warrenstown cop climbed from behind the wheel of the other car, Chief Letourneau from the shotgun seat. And from the back, my brother-in-law, and Al Macpherson.

"Chief," McFall greeted Letourneau. "Who the hell's all this?"

"The Russell kid's father." Letourneau pointed to Scott. He shrugged and said, "And Al Macpherson. Important man in our town."

McFall narrowed his eyes. Macpherson glowered but a glance from Letourneau kept him silent. Scott demanded, "What the hell shit is this? Where the hell's my boy?"

"Your boy's in there," McFall said. "Stay behind that car and out of the way until I tell you."

"Hey, don't you—"

"Scott," said Letourneau, and Scott clamped his jaw shut. His face was slick with rain and red with fury. He looked around then and he spotted me.

"What the fuck is he—"

"Scott." Letourneau spoke again. "Shut up."

I met Scott's eyes, held them. I saw, as I had seen yesterday, the burning in them, felt the heat surge inside myself in answer. I turned away from him, stared through the cold rain at the window across the lot, at the room where his son was.

"We just got the phone hookup." McFall filled Letourneau in, then said, "You want to try it?"

Sullivan said, "Me, I think. They know me."

Letourneau nodded, Sullivan took the receiver. We all heard the phone ring, and ring. McFall leaned into his car, brought out a bullhorn. Sullivan took it, said calmly, "Paul. Gary." His words bounced off the buildings and the street, backed by the steady beat of the rain. "It's Detective Sullivan. Answer the phone." He stood, waited; the phone kept ringing. "Gary's father's here, and his uncle. Answer the phone."

The rain thinned; the phone rang. Sullivan lifted the bullhorn again. "Premador," he said. "If you won't talk to us, we're going to have to come in."

The curtain next to door number six moved, dropped back into place. Sullivan, McFall, and Letourneau exchanged a look. McFall turned to the sergeant, but before he spoke, the phone's ringing stopped. Everyone turned to the van except Sullivan, who picked up the receiver, faced the room, didn't move. A young voice filled the van. "It's Paul. Paul Niebuhr." As though, even in a situation like this, he was afraid of not being known. "I want to go to Mexico."

Sullivan, with no change in stance or expression, spoke. "Come out, Paul, we'll talk about it."

"No! Now! A helicopter to the airport and a plane to go there."

"We can talk about it, Paul."

"Talk! Bullshit! You think I'm stupid? You think I don't see you all hiding behind your stupid cars? You want me to come out so you can blow me away."

"No, so we can talk to you."

"You're so full of shit, Sullivan! You and everybody else. I want to go to Mexico."

"What does Gary want?"

"Gary?" A pause. The wind shifted, the rain began to pound again. "Who the fuck cares? Guys like him always get what they want. Guys like me have to have guns first. But I do now, Sullivan. Did you know that? I do."

"I know, Paul."

A mocking voice. " 'I know, Paul.' Fuck you, Sullivan!"

The whine of a bullet and the bright shattering of glass ripped through the rain. We dropped to the ground. Cops raised their guns but McFall's bullhorn boomed, "Hold your fire!"

For a moment, nothing but the rain. Crouching there behind the Plaindale car, my eyes met Lydia's; briefly, her hand covered mine. Cops checked with each other; the shot from the room had gone wild, hit no one. Jagged shards of glass reflected pink neon around the edge of the window where the drape had moved. Then Paul's voice again. "See? See what I mean? Now get me a fucking plane, Sullivan!"

Sullivan stood again, faced the room, as he had. "I want to talk to Gary," he said.

"I'll shoot Gary."

Wind blew the curtain back from the shattered window. I was frozen, unable to move.

"I hope not, Paul," Sullivan said calmly. "No one's been hurt yet. We can still work this out."

"No one's been hurt? What about Tory?" Paul's voice got faster, higher. "Or doesn't she count? She wasn't in the jock crowd, she wasn't pretty, so she doesn't count."

"She counts, Paul."

"She doesn't fucking count! You don't fucking give a shit. Except you think I killed her. That's fucking right, isn't it?"

"No one thinks that, Paul."

"You're a lying shit, Sullivan. Like that kid Jared, everyone said he raped that girl, and he kept saying he didn't, but no one believed him so he killed himself. And you think I killed Tory. I knew you would. I knew you'd think that."

"No one thinks that," Sullivan said again.

"Yes, you do! But I don't give a shit! Except I'm not going to kill myself, asshole. I'm going to kill Gary; then I'm going to kill you all!"

"Paul, nobody's going to kill anybody. Nobody killed Tory, she OD'ed by herself."

A pause, a silence filled only by the rain. Then, "Bullshit! That's bullshit and you think I'll believe it! You really think I'm that dumb!" A laugh burst from the speaker in the van, chilling my blood as a scream would have. "You lying dickheads—"

"No, it's true," Sullivan said. "Paul, you don't want to come out, all right, that's all right. I'll come in, we can talk there."

"No fucking way! You—" Paul's voice stopped abruptly. We heard rapid words, an argument inside the room, nothing we could make out. Then quiet: Maybe they were still talking, maybe not, but outside, with the pounding rain, the wind, we heard nothing.

Then Paul's voice, tight as a wire: "Gary's uncle. Bill Smith. You said he was there?"

"He's here."

"He can come in."

"Gary's dad is here."

Scott moved toward Sullivan, reached for the phone, but Paul said, "Fuck, no! His uncle."

Sullivan lowered the receiver, looked at me.

I nodded.

McFall said, "No. Only a cop."

"Forget it," I said. I took a step forward. McFall reached for me. Lydia moved smoothly between us, cutting him off. If it had been Sullivan blocking him, McFall would have shoved him out of the way, punched him if he had to, but it was a small Chinese woman and McFall was flustered just long enough for me to make it around the car and out of his reach. I turned, looked back at him. He could have come after me. But I knew my eyes said I was ready for that, willing to risk what that might set off. He pressed his lips into a thin line and stayed where he was. I started across the lot.

"And you better not have a gun!" came from the speaker in the van behind me. "Don't think you can pull any bullshit on me! Don't try any shit!"

I stopped where I was, unzipped my jacket. Rain splattered my shirt. With my left hand I held my jacket wide so he could see what I was doing; with my right I very slowly lifted my .38 from my shoulder rig, laid it on the ground. I took off my jacket, so he could see I carried nothing else. I dropped that too. The cold rain drenched me as, hands away from my sides, I headed toward the room with the jagged glass in the window.

The door swung open when I got to it. It was Gary who opened it, Gary who was briefly visible to the cops behind the cars, to the sharpshooter on the office roof. I stepped inside, blinking in the dimness: No lights were on. The cold wind blowing through the broken window couldn't chase the smells of mold and McDonald's from the damp air.

Gary shut the door behind me. Only then did Paul Niebuhr rise from cover, a thin young boy in ragged-cuffed cargo pants and a filthy black tee shirt. He trained a rifle on me as he stepped from the other side of an upturned mattress.

"Paul," I said.

"It's cool, Paul," said Gary. He looked like hell, his skin gray under dirt and sweat, his eyes rimmed with the black of exhaustion. He was still wearing the shirt and jeans I'd given him four days ago. "This is my uncle Bill," he said. "He'll help."

"Yeah, just like you." Paul's voice was acid with contempt and he did not lower the gun.

"I wanted to. I'm sorry."

"You're fucking right you're sorry. I'm sorry I ever called you. Jock asshole. I should have let you play the fucking game and fucking blown you away like everyone else." Paul's eyes were red, his lips cracked and dry. He held the gun up, but its aim wasn't steady, and he couldn't keep his feet still.

Gary looked at me. His eyes were the eyes of a child alone and far from home.

"Paul," I said, "I don't know what this is about. But you haven't done anything yet that can't be undone. Put down the gun."

"That's it? That's your help? I thought you were going to get me to Mexico! Get the fuck out!"

"You found Tory after the party, didn't you?" I spoke matter-of-factly, careful to keep out of my tone any sympathy, any softness that might be heard as patronizing. "You sat outside in your car and watched because you were afraid for her. Of what might happen when the jocks found out she didn't have the drugs they wanted. When you found her like that you were sure one of them had killed her."

"She didn't get it." Paul's voice cracked, his feet danced. "She thought they liked her because they bought her fucking acid! No one ever locked her in a locker or shoved her face in a toilet and now they were all her friends. She was so fucking sure her friends would never do that shit to her."

"Paul," I said, "they didn't. The coroner's report just came in. Tory was snorting crystal meth and she died of a stroke."

"A stroke? A fucking stroke? My fucking grandfather died of a stroke! How dumb do you think I am?"

"I don't think you're dumb at all. You've avoided a two-state dragnet for days, you're armed, you made a plan and you've carried it out well so far." I spoke calmly, slowly, as Sullivan had, trying to give Paul a rhythm to counter his wild syncopation, a coolness to counter his heat. "But tell me something, about Tory and that night. Tell me where she was getting the ecstasy."

The wind shifted, blew rain hard against the shuddering curtain hanging in the window, forced the curtain back so it could splash water into the room, soak it into the shabby carpet. Paul's eyes flew there. He bit his lip, then burst out, "She didn't! That's the whole point, asshole, she couldn't get it!"

"I know. But where did she think she'd get it?"

He looked from me to Gary, licked his lips. Don't move, Gary, I thought, don't say anything, don't blink. Gary, maybe following my lead, maybe his own instincts, stood absolutely still. Finally, Paul said, "You'll say I'm a fucking liar."

I asked, "From Coach Ryder?"

His eyes flew wide. "You know? You fucking know?"

"We just found out about the steroids." Gary opened his mouth in protest; I glanced at him, and he stayed silent. I looked back to Paul. "How did she know? Tory, about the steroids?"

"Asshole here," said Paul, and I could see the pain in Gary's eyes. "Jock asshole. He told her. He was upset," Paul's voice became sarcastic, mocking, "he was upset, he needed someone to talk to. Poor baby jock asshole!"

"Upset about what?"

"Who the fuck knows?"

I turned to Gary.

"I… Coach wanted me to take steroids, Uncle Bill. He was kind of… leaning on me. In preseason practice. I needed to talk to someone about it."

"Your folks?"

He shook his head. "Coach could've— I mean, you can get fired for stuff like that, can't you?"

I looked at Gary a moment longer, then said to Paul, "And the ecstasy?"

"She was so dumb!" Paul wailed. "She thought all she had to do was tell him she knew."

"Blackmail?"

Paul swallowed, nodded. "She said she wouldn't tell about what he did if he got her ecstasy for the party. The guy she bought her acid from, he couldn't get ecstasy, but she thought the coach'd be better connected."

What did Tory Wesley have? I thought. "What did she say to him, Paul? Do you know exactly what she said?"

"Oh, she was all, like, mysterious! She said, people who have guilty consciences, you just tell them you know, you don't say what you know, so you can make them more nervous. She told Coach Ryder this jock she was dating, he told her what he did. And she expected him to give a shit. Like Coach Ryder's really going to care what some geeky girl says."

But he did care, I thought. "Paul," I said carefully, "I think there are some things Coach Ryder can get in serious trouble for, if you can tell this story. Come with me now, and I'll help you. I promise."

For a moment, I thought that that might work. Paul's feet stopped shuffling, his eyes met mine and seemed to believe what he found in them. He looked at Gary. Then his eyes changed again, and his face darkened as though he'd suddenly remembered something. "Premador!" he screamed, swinging the rifle to point at Gary. "How the fuck do they know about Premador? You fucking told them, didn't you? My friend! My friend, Gary!"

"No," I said. Paul's eyes snapped back to me, but the gun didn't move. "Gary didn't tell anyone," I said. "Gary never mentioned your name. When Gary disappeared I started to look for him. I sent a hacker into his computer." And into yours, I thought, but didn't say that to Paul. "My guy found the name, knew what it meant. I went to your house and saw your room."