The Blue Religion

Winning by Alafair Burke

Let me tell him for you, Jenny. You stay here and rest. I’ll bring Greg in after – when he’s thought it over a bit.”

Jenny didn’t have the energy to tell her partner, Officer Wayne Harvey, that there was nothing restful about lying in a hospital bed ten minutes after the completion of a rape kit. Thirty minutes after ingesting the morning-after pill and an HIV postexposure prophylaxis. Sixty minutes since the arrest. Three hours since the rape. That was her best guess – three hours, since it started, at least.

Talking to Greg would help her stop feeling this way that she didn’t want to feel anymore. Weak. Embarrassed. Broken. She was ready to feel like herself again. Until the DA needed her testimony, she was finished with her duties as a crime victim. If she talked to Greg, she might feel more like Jenny. She would be the arresting police officer, delivering the news as gently as possible to the victim’s family. She would also be his wife.

“No, Wayne. Go on home to Marcy. Just tell the nurse to get Greg for me.”

Through the open slats of the drawn blinds in her room, she saw Greg talking to a young woman with bright-pink scrubs and a blond ponytail. She knew both this process and her husband well enough that she thought she could actually make out some of the words. Your wife is ready for visitors now, Mr. Sutton. Greg looking worried still. Asking her something. Something like What happened? Was there an accident? The nurse looking down at her hands, wishing there was a chart or a clipboard – some prop there to employ as a distraction. Your wife needs you now. There’s nothing more I can say.

Greg opened the door and closed it gently behind him.

“You okay, baby? They won’t tell me what’s going on. Something happened on the sting?”

Jenny was one of two female patrol officers under the age of thirty-five working for the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department. Tonight she was the one tapped to work as a prostitution decoy at the truck stops along I-90. She loved the job but not this assignment. Half-naked in the bitter wind, the cold, dry air freezing the insides of her nostrils while an unwashed trucker eyed her over so she could negotiate an agreement of sex for money. But once the nasty part was over, it was easy. It was supposed to be easy. Drive around back, hon, and I’ll meet you there. Then the supporting officers would take him down. That’s the way it was supposed to go.

She patted the edge of the sterile blanket covering the bed, and Greg sat next to her. She held his hand. “I’m okay. A hundred percent. You understand?”

Her husband nodded, and some of the tension fell from his face.

“A dark-green Bronco pulled in, not a truck-driving kind of truck, you know, but a regular Bronco, so he could maneuver better in the lot. Wayne was watching me just fine, but I wound up at the passenger side instead of the driver’s. I made the deal.”

“What’s up, sweet thang?” Just looking for a date. “How much will that run me?” Twenty for a suck. Forty for straight sex. Fifty gets you half-and-half. I’m worth every penny. “Well, all right, then. That last one should get us started.” Just pull around back and I’ll meet you; sometimes the cops watch from the road.

“So I told him to drive around back. It happened fast, but he pulled me into the car. He took me to a house out by Nine Mile Road, not far from the highway. He… he assaulted me, Greg, but I got away. I arrested him. Wayne came out and made sure the guy got processed just right. No technicalities for the courts.”

“What do you mean, he assaulted you? You mean he – ”

She looked him straight in the eye. Not one tear. Not even a quiver. “It was a sexual assault.” He raped me, Greg. And despite that look on your face, it was far worse than what you’re imagining. So bad, I got to figure out a way for you never to know the details.

Greg stood, leaving Jenny on her own in the bed. “I don’t understand. How could they let this happen to you? How’d he get you out of that parking lot?”

“He sped right on out to the road. By the time Wayne got to his car, I guess a truck pulled in. The other guys were around back. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It happened real fast, Greg.” No, it didn’t. “I’m all right.”

“Where was your gun?”

“I can’t carry when I’m a decoy.” Underneath the tight outfits she wore undercover, the bulge of Jenny’s Glock was as prominent as a road sign. “I guess we’ll have to rethink the clothing in the future.”

“You think that’s funny?”

“I’ll take humor anywhere I can find it right now.”

“You couldn’t fight him off? You’re a cop. I’ve seen how strong you are.”

“He was the one with the gun. I was lucky to get it away from him when I did, but the point was to come out alive.” I got my chance when he reached for the Vaseline on his dresser. He told me he needed it to get his fist where it would hurt me most. He kept his left hand on me while he reached with his gun hand. That’s how he lost his balance. “All I was focused on was getting out alive and getting back to you.”

Greg’s face was angry and injured at once. He worked his hands into claws while he paced the small room. “Baby, I’m sorry this happened to you. I can work more hours at the mill – ”

“You work plenty.” Jenny took her husband’s hand and smiled up at him, hoping he’d see her face past the bruises that were starting to color. “How many times have you heard me say I’d keep working even if we hit the lotto?”

Greg helped Jenny change into the fresh clothes he’d been told to bring to the hospital. He even thought to take along his fleece-lined corduroy rancher’s jacket for her, the one she loved to wear. When the nurse insisted she be wheeled to the exit, he did the honors. He even kept her mind busy in the truck on the way home to Lolo, making the antics down at the pulp mill sound like slapstick, the way he always did.

In their bed at home, though, with the lights off and with his back to her, he asked the question she knew he’d been thinking all along: “Why didn’t you kill him, Jenny? When you got the gun from him, why didn’t you do it?”

She gave him the answer she’d been working on since the hospital. “It wouldn’t have been right. And I would’ve known it. And so I wouldn’t have been the same person ever again. All the rest of it, I can get past.”

Greg didn’t speak to her again that night. If he ever turned to face her, Jenny didn’t notice. Instead, she slept clenching Sushi, the stuffed purple goldfish that Greg won for her throwing rings at their first county fair together, the summer before they got married. I told you I’d never let you down. That’s what he said when he won Sushi for her.

THE NEXT DAY, Greg called in sick so he could stay with Jenny. Everything might have been different if he’d gone to the mill. The phone rang around three in the afternoon. Jenny answered. It was Anne Lawson, one of the deputy county prosecutors. Jenny knew her pretty well from testifying in a few of her cases. She was tough but fair and always treated people with respect, even the defendants she imprisoned.

“You feeling a little better today, Jenny?”

“A hundred percent. Thanks.” Greg walked past her and patted her arm. It was the first time she’d felt his skin against hers since he helped her from the truck last night.

“You did real good getting out of there alive. And it’s a good case. We’re gonna get him. No plea bargaining either. I’ll carry the file myself through to trial.”

“Thanks, Anne.”

“Hey, you got a second?”

“Sure.”

“We had the arraignment this morning in front of Judge Parker. And the bail hearing.”

“Oh, yeah?” Greg was watching her now, concerned. She shouldn’t have let the tone of her voice say so much.

“Yeah. He’s got Rick Deaver representing him.” Jenny knew him too. He was a decent public defender, a straight shooter as far as those guys went. “Anyway, we went for a no-bail hold. We thought we had a good shot.”

“Did Judge Parker know it was me?” Jenny testified in his courtroom last year against a man who locked his wife in a closet for two days after she forgot to buy barbecue potato chips at the market. Parker said she did a good job getting the wife to cooperate with the Sheriff’s Department. Jenny found out later that Parker told the prosecuting attorney the woman should have killed the SOB and called it a day.

“He said afterward to tell you he’s sorry about what happened. But he also said there was more threat of witness intimidation with civilians. I pushed really hard, Jenny. I said your being a cop obviously didn’t stop him from-”

“What’d it get set at?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“Does he own that place out near Nine Mile?”

“He inherited it from his aunt about eight years ago. It’s not much to look at, but with all that land, and the way prices have gone up – ”

“How long’s something like that take? If he puts up the house?”

“He doesn’t even have to use a bank. A bail bondsman will have him out in a few hours. I’m real sorry, Jenny.”

“Not your fault. I appreciate the call.”

The sound of glass shattering against the kitchen tile broke the silence that filled Jenny’s head as she hung up the phone. She looked up to see Greg’s juice glass scattered on the floor across the room, red V8 oozing into the grouted cracks.

“Am I supposed to clean that up?”

“Of course not.” Greg began plucking at the shards of glass.

“Be careful with that.” Jenny kneeled to help, but Greg pushed her hand away. “What exactly did I do wrong here? Why are you so angry at me?”

“I’m not angry at you,” Greg insisted. “I’m angry at him. I’m angry at everything else. I’m angry because I’m a human being. What I can’t figure out is you. How can you be so damn calm about all this?”

“You think I’m calm inside? You think my mind is peaceful today? You have no idea. It’s because of what’s inside me that I don’t have the energy for outbursts. I don’t have the luxury of a temper tantrum. What you’re going through is natural, but it’s not about me.”

“Damn it, Jenny. Don’t you see what’s going on here? He’s getting away with it. He did this to you, and nothing’s happening. He’s winning.”

Jenny sat cross-legged on the floor beside her husband as he sopped up the remaining spill with a towel. “You and me, we’ve got different ideas about winning. You think the only way to walk out of a fight a winner is to beat the other man down. That’s how men talk about fighting, right? Only a loser runs away. It’s not like that for us. We win by getting away. We win by staying alive. This happened to me, Greg, and it’s my right to say I won. I got away, and he didn’t.”

“I’m not stupid. I know why Anne called. He’s getting bail.”

“You know what? B… F… D. He buys himself a couple of months of freedom, but soon enough he’ll be pulling a dime at Deer Lodge, and we’re still us. In the meantime, you can bet that Wayne and the other boys will make sure that if he so much as jaywalks, his bail will get pulled.”

She smiled at him, but Greg shook his head and walked to the sink. He wrung the towel beneath the faucet, watching a pink stream of water circle the drain. “It’s not enough.”

ONE WEEK LATER, Greg went back to the pulp mill. Jenny was still on leave and used the day to prepare Greg’s favorite supper, grilled steak and fettuccine alfredo. Three hours after Greg’s shift ended, the steaks were dry, black bricks in the oven, and the noodles were glued together in a clump. An hour after that, the phone rang. Jenny answered and heard her husband’s heavy breaths in her ear.

“Greg? Greg, what happened?”

“Oh, Jesus. I… I don’t know what to do. I… there’s blood everywhere. It’s all over my clothes. If I get in the truck – ”

Jenny was already in the bedroom, opening the top drawer of her dresser. “My gun. My service weapon? The ballistics are on file. What did you do? What did you do?”

“I’m so sorry.”

Jenny held the top of her head with her free hand, like that might literally help her collect her thoughts. “Are you cut? Did he touch you?”

“No. I didn’t let him near me.”

“So the blood’s all his?”

“There’s a lot of it. It sprayed or something.”

“Have you stepped in it? Are there footprints?”

The pause felt like an eternity. “No. Some got on the tops of the boots, not the bottoms.”

“All right. Keep it that way. Don’t step in any blood. Your clothes. There’s an attached garage there, Greg. And a tarp. I saw a blue tarp on the ground for painting.” Jenny peered through the bedroom curtains. It was still snowing. That was good. “Stand on the tarp and strip off anything that’s got blood. Put the gun in there too. Wrap it all up, and be careful. Wipe down anything you might have touched. Doorknobs, door frames, stairwells – ”

“I wore gloves. I’ve still got gloves on.”

“Okay. Good. How’d you get in the house?”

“I knocked. I told him I was an investigator with the PD’s office, sent there by Rick Deaver. He opened the door for me.”

“Good. Just make sure he didn’t lock the door behind him.” Jenny moved through the house, collecting the things she’d need. A spray bottle of bleach. A book of matches. “Leave it unlocked, you hear? And open the windows. Are you listening to me?”

“Why – ”

“Just do it. Whatever room his body’s in. Open all the windows so it gets good and cold. Do you know how many times you shot him?”

“Twice.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

She took two cartridges from the top drawer. “What phone are you calling on?”

“Um… oh, my God.”

“It’s all right. We’ll deal with it. Just don’t get anything from his house or his body in your truck. Okay?” What else? One of the quick-burn logs near the fireplace. Lighter fluid too. She checked the mudroom. Greg’s corduroy coat was missing from its hook. That was good. She began feeding the uneaten dinner to the garbage disposal. “It’s isolated out there, so you’ve got enough time to be careful. Don’t miss anything. Wrap the tarp up tight and put it in the back of the truck. And don’t forget the gun. And drive perfect. Don’t get yourself pulled over in your boxer shorts.”

BY THE TIME Greg pulled onto their road, Jenny had everything ready. She pulled her shivering husband inside and washed his shaking hands under hot water in the kitchen sink. If they analyzed for gunshot residue, Greg would not be the one to test positive.

She checked him over for any blood he might have missed on his shorts and T-shirt, on his skin, in his hair. She poured him three fingers of Bushmills, made sure he downed it, then poured him another. She undressed him and tucked him into their bed, resting the whiskey bottle on the nightstand beside him. He’d wake from nightmares and reach for it. She stroked his cold, damp hair until his breathing was steady. She picked up Sushi from her side of the bed and tucked the little fish beneath one arm of her husband’s resting body, kissed his cheek, and told him she was going to be gone for a little while to get rid of the tarp of clothing. To be safe, she grabbed his T-shirt, boxers, and socks, along with the kit she’d put together. She didn’t wear a coat.

She used the quick-burn log to start a fire at a campsite along I-90 near the Clark Fork River. She burned his clothes – everything but the coat – using the lighter fluid to make sure the flames consumed it all. As a precaution, she poured half the bottle of bleach on the pile of charred wood and ashes. She turned the coat inside out, rolled it into a ball, and placed it gently on her passenger seat. She sprayed the empty tarp with bleach, then folded it and tucked it into her trunk. Finally, she held her familiar pistol and added two cartridges to fill the magazine. She fired two shots into a nearby tree and tucked the gun snugly into her waistband at the small of her back.

The drive to Nine Mile wasn’t easy. The snow was sticking heavily, and she made a point of taking her Escort instead of the truck that Greg drove to work. The bad memories of the last time up this road didn’t help. Neither did the current situation. By the time she neared the house she never wanted to see again, whatever tracks had been made by her husband’s tires had been smoothed over by a perfect layer of white. She parked her car in the driveway, took a deep breath, ran through the plan one more time, and exhaled. She was ready. She retrieved the corduroy coat and blue tarp and walked through the unlocked front door.

The house was cold from the opened windows, like Jenny wanted it. The man’s body was splayed on his living room floor. Two shots, just like Greg said. One near the bottom of his gut. One in the neck. The neck shot must have hit an artery. That’s what caused the splatter. The gut shot probably took him down all mangled on his side like that. Jenny was grateful her husband wasn’t a better shot. With a cool head and a well-formed intention to kill, Jenny could easily plug a man squarely in the middle of the brain and heart from this range. These wayward shots would allow a different narrative.

She tiptoed over the body to pull the windows shut, making certain not to traipse through any of the blood. Within a few minutes, she could feel the room temperature rising from the wood-burning stove in the corner. Then she stepped near the body again, this time placing her boots firmly in the puddle that had formed beneath the man’s torso. She took a quick look. The chill had kept the body fresh enough. Time of death wouldn’t pose a problem. She walked to the phone and dialed a cell phone number she knew by heart.

“Wayne Harvey.”

“Wayne, it’s Jenny. I need your help.”

“Anything. You know that.”

Then she told Wayne the story. The man called the house during dinner. He said vile things about what he’d done to her. He said he’d tell everyone in prison. Montana is small. Her days in law enforcement would be over. Greg started drinking. She was at the Nine Mile house now and needed his help. She needed Anne Lawson from the County Attorney’s Office to come out too.

Jenny hung up the phone and walked to the back of the house. It felt smaller now. Used. Threadbare. Diminished in ways that she could not quite explain to herself. She sat on the man’s bed and looked into the mirror above the dresser. She remembered turning her head away from that mirror a week ago so she would not have to see her reflection. Now she did not have to look away. She touched a smear of lipstick on her mouth. It made her think of blood. For just a moment, only a moment, she felt her heart quicken with a strange sense of pleasure.