Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

TWENTY

I FINALLY DRIFTED INTO an unforgiving sleep around four in the morning and when I woke up Melissa was standing over me with tears in her eyes. I expected her to say, “The police are here.”

Instead, she said, “It’s Thanksgiving Day, Jack. I forgot. Can you believe that?”

“I can,” I said, rubbing sleep from my eyes, “because I forgot, too.”

“How can a person forget it’s Thanksgiving?” she said, and burst out crying.

I stood and held her. She seemed to dissolve into my arms, and I could feel her hot tears on my shoulder. I knew she wasn’t truly crying about forgetting Thanksgiving.

IT WAS COLD and overcast. The mountains had no tops, and milky tendrils extended down into the valleys like cold fingers. Winter had won again and was reclaiming lost territory, I thought. It was snowing hard in the high country. I thought of Cody having to drive up there somewhere, and hoped he’d made it back okay. I blew in my hands as I walked across the street to the sheriff’s department black-and-white. Billy Sanders was back. His motor was running so he’d have heat. This time, he didn’t caution me to keep my distance.

He lowered his window, and I bent over into it. I could feel a breath of warm air come out as well as the fake-cheese smell of Doritos. The bag was on his lap, and I could see several crumpled soft-drink cans on the floor. The morning Denver Post was beside him on the passenger seat. The headline shouted MASSACRE IN NORTH DENVER.

Man, oh man.

“Are you okay?” Sanders asked me. “You don’t look so good.” He closed one eye in puzzlement. “My replacement said you weren’t out all that late.”

“I wasn’t,” I said, and changed the subject. “So you have to work on a holiday, huh?”

Sanders nodded. There was a line of orange powder from the Doritos on his upper lip, and his fingertips were orange. “Yeah, kind of a bummer but that’s part of the deal.”

“I’m going to King Soopers to get groceries,” I said. “My wife suggested we invite you in for a Thanksgiving meal. We won’t have turkey and all the trimmings because we both forgot what day it was, but we’ll have plenty of something else. I was thinking I’d bring back some roasted chickens and I need to know how many will be at the table. What do you say?”

He looked at me with suspicion for a moment. “Your wife really wants to invite me in?”

“She sent me out here to ask.”

Melissa had surprised me with the suggestion. She’d said, “Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving unless we can share it with others. Since all our family is out-of-state, well, let’s invite our watchers.”

Sanders said, “What about Morales?”

“Melissa is out back talking to him now.”

He shook his head and looked genuinely touched. “Man, that would be great. I was thinking I’d be sitting here all day feeling sorry for myself, and I guess technically we’d still be on the job since we’ll be keeping an eye on you. Maybe we can even forget about those rules about drinking on duty just this once. Can we pitch in on dinner?”

“Sure, if you want. Why don’t you call Morales, and the three of us can go to the store together?”

He laughed and reached for his mike. After talking to his partner, he called dispatch and asked for another car to watch our house while he and Morales “followed the suspect.” After receiving a confirmation, he looked up at me, and said, “Sorry; we can’t risk your wife taking off on us with that little girl while we’re gone.”

THE TWO DEPUTIES and I cruised the aisles of the grocery store like giddy teenage boys planning a camping trip. I pushed the cart, and they dropped items in it-canned cranberries, sweet potatoes, packaged mashed potatoes, jars of cream and brown gravy, a jar of CheezWhiz (Sanders!), two six-packs of beer, a couple more six-packs of beer. The aisles were empty except for a few desperate shoppers getting last-minute items. But no one was as desperate as the three of us because none of us had planned or shopped for a last-minute Thanksgiving meal before. There were four roasted chickens in the deli section. I didn’t ask when they’d been roasted, and I bought them all.

“Better to get too much than not enough,” I said.

“This is great.” Billy Sanders laughed. “What about these dinner rolls? They look pretty good.”

“Throw ’em in,” I said.

“You are really nice people,” Morales said, as we rung up. “I’ve never had my surveillance targets invite me in for dinner before.”

I thought, We used to be good, too.

THE DEPUTIES WERE AS inept in the kitchen as I was, so the three of us let Melissa shoo us out so we could drink beer and watch football. “Just one,” Morales said, and so did Sanders. Just one turned into a lot more. Melissa didn’t seem to mind doing everything herself. I heard her as she cooked and hummed happily. The smells coming from the kitchen were delicious. Angelina crawled between the three of us, offering up toys that we’d take and pretend to hide. She was once again a charmer and had both deputies giggling and mugging for her.

As I sat and watched them, the events of the evening before came rushing back, and I tried hard to steer them away. I jumped when my cell phone rang. Cody.

“Excuse me,” I said to the deputies, who paid no attention to me. I took the phone into the kitchen and surprised Melissa, who quickly shoved something behind the microwave.

“Hey,” I said into the phone.

His voice was grim. “Are you all right?”

“As much as I can be,” I said.

“I mean now. I’m just down the street, and I can see two cruisers at your house.”

“Oh that,” I said. “We invited the deputies in for Thanks-giving. Why don’t you come, too?”

I knew Cody had no place to go except his cop bar, where they put on a spread for single, divorced, and on-duty officers.

“Are you kidding?” he said.

“No. Come on-we’ve got plenty of food.” I looked to Melissa, mouthed “Cody,” and she nodded emphatically. She seemed to be enjoying this. She took a long drink from a glass of what looked like orange juice.

“Can I bring somebody?” Cody asked sheepishly.

“Of course you can. Who is she?”

“If only,” he said. “I’m supposed to meet Torkleson. Can I bring him along? I guess his wife and daughter are in California.”

“The more the merrier,” I said. “Melissa loves cooking for a herd of cops, don’t you, honey?”

“Oh yes,” she said loudly enough Cody would hear.

Cody said, “Give me a half an hour.”

I closed the phone and walked over to the stove to look inside some of the pots. “Smells good,” I said to Melissa.

“Considering the eclectic mix of stuff you guys brought home, it’s the best we can do,” she said.

I reached behind the micro wave and pulled out a half-full bottle of vodka.

“Since when do we keep this on hand?” I asked. Melissa had always been a “glass of wine with dinner” kind of woman. The last time I’d seen her with a drink was back in college, and even then she didn’t appear to really like it.

She looked stricken that I’d found the bottle.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just a little surprised you felt the need to hide it.”

“You must be joking,” she said. “I wouldn’t leave it out in the open. What would everybody think?”

“They’d think we’ve had a really wicked month,” I said.

“When you go to bed I sometimes come down here in the kitchen,” she said. “I have a drink or two and try to figure out what we did to deserve this. Sometimes I take my drink upstairs and just sit by Angelina’s crib and look at her and cry. Sometimes I come in and look at you, too. The only thing I can come up with is that we’re cursed.”

“No,” I said, “we’re being tested.”

“Then I guess I’m flunking the test.”

“Not at all,” I said, brushing her cheek with the back of my fingers.

She asked me, “Are we disintegrating?”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

I PAUSED for a moment before going back into the family room and looked through the angled slats on the kitchen door at Sanders and Morales. Both had their backs to me and were preoccupied with Angelina and the football game.

I thought: I could knock them out from behind, and we could gather up our daughter and get in the Jeep and go.

The kitchen was filled with heavy objects I could use- cast-iron skillets and pots, a rolling pin somewhere, that damned big mixer. For a few seconds my heart raced as I envisioned the scenario. I’d hit Sanders first because he was the closest, then go after Morales before he could stand and draw his gun. But knocking them out? I winced. That only happened on television and in the movies. What if the blows just opened up gashes, and one or both cops remained conscious?

No, I thought, the only way to ensure our escape would be to take them out. I glanced over my shoulder at the block of knives. That Santoku knife was sharp, substantial, and seven inches long. I could slit Sanders’s throat and go for Morales’s neck to cut it open or, if necessary, plunge the blade into his temple or heart. That might be possible, I thought. But could I do it in front of Angelina? Would she scream and be forever scarred?

That’s when Sanders gathered Angelina up and sat her on his lap. And Melissa said, “Jack, could you go get the leaf for the table?”

CODY SHOWED UP with Torkleson, a baked ham, and a case of beer.

In the kitchen I whispered to Melissa, “What safer place for an accessory to a qua druple homicide to be than at a dining table surrounded by policemen?”

She said, “I don’t find that funny.”

MELISSA THREW HERSELF INTO preparing the meal. The glass of vodka and orange juice that always seemed to be full explained at least a measure of her vivacity. She clucked at me again for our odd choices of canned food and the fact that we had enough beer to serve a battalion. Cody and Torkleson seemed to get along well with the two deputies, and the four of them talked shop, their voices getting louder as they drank more and more beer. I felt ashamed for my murderous thoughts, and for a while had trouble looking Sanders and Morales in the eye.

Finally, Melissa announced to all of us that dinner was ready, and we shambled in and took our places at the table. Melissa said a prayer, and I glanced up to see all four men with their heads bowed.

As for me, I wasn’t on very good terms with God just then.

THE TALK AT THE table turned inevitably toward the multiple homicides at the Appaloosa Club last night. I could feel my heart start to beat harder, but I feigned uninformed interest and kept my head down. The one time I looked up, Cody and I exchanged a fleeting glance.

Torkleson said, “If I hadn’t traded shifts with McCoy and Scruggs, it would have been my case. Those poor guys. The mayor is all over us because of the Eastman murder, and now this. Man, the heat those guys are under.”

“Any ideas who did it?” Morales asked.

Torkleson shrugged. “Some blond chick says she was there. She told the Scruggs it was a single shooter-a huge hairy guy with a beard and a long coat.”

Meaning Garrett Moreland had not talked to the police, just like before. Either he was scared, or he had something serious to hide. I recalled how calmly he had sat there at the table cradling the mug in his hands when Jeter approached him and called out his name.

“Bullshit,” Sanders said, then acknowledged Angelina in her high chair. “Sorry,” he said to Melissa.

Torkleson agreed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. One guy doing all that? It’s hard to believe. I don’t know if the blonde is credible at all. She says the big hairy guy just pulled a shotgun out of his coat and started blasting.”

Morales said, “She says this big hairy guy just let her leave? Her and nobody else? Come on…”

Torkleson said, “She claims she thought her friend was right behind her out the door, but it turns out her friend was one of the victims. Shot three times in the chest.”

“A big hairy guy?” Sanders said. “Sounds like she’s been watching too many movies. This thing has ‘gang’ written all over it.”

Cody nodded. “You’ve got that right.”

Torkleson said, “That’s what we’re thinking, too. Two of the victims were local leaders of Sur-13. It’s like somebody was trying to cut the head off that beast, probably the 32 Crips or Varios. Maybe the Crenshaw Mafia, who are gangster Bloods-we’ve heard they’re moving in from Southern California. No way this was random. It was a power play. And get this: One of the shooters used a ten-gauge shotgun. That’s serious hardware. I thought those guys stuck to nines and the occasional AK-47.”

But they didn’t get Garrett, I thought. I wondered just how deep Garrett was involved with the gangsters. Then I thought: He could be a leader, too. It could have been a meeting. That made me think differently about Garrett.

“A ten-gauge. Jeez,” Morales said. “I bet that made a mess.”

Torkleson said, “From the photos I saw, well…” He glanced over at Melissa, who was rapt but very pale. I’d not told her any of the details of what had happened in the Appaloosa Club, only that things had gone horribly wrong, and Garrett got away. She looked at me, trying to read me.

“…Let’s just say there was a lot of blood,” Torkleson continued.

“I’m sorry,” Sanders said, “but I can’t get all weepy about hearing that some big boys from Sureños 13 got hit.”

Morales agreed.

“Two of the victims were bystanders, though,” Torkleson said. “The friend of the blonde had a couple of priors, but nothing of note. The bartender was an ex-con and probably a member of Sur-13, but I’m sure he wasn’t a prime target- he was just there.”

“Nobody saw or heard anything?” Cody asked innocently.

Torkleson shook his head. “Nobody but the blond girl so far. You know the neighborhood-it’s deserted at night, and not a lot of cops go by there even though they’re supposed to. And from what I understand, gunshots at night aren’t at all rare in that neighborhood.”

“So who called it in?” Cody asked.

“A citizen,” Torkleson said. “Some guy said he went to the bar for a drink, but the place looked closed, which was unusual. He looked in a window and saw the bodies.”

“Anything else?” Cody bored in. I hoped he wasn’t being too obvious, but I recognized the fact that he was just being Cody the relentless cop.

“One thing, and it’s not much,” Torkleson said. “A ware-house delivery driver called in and said he sometimes uses that street to get to his shop. He said he saw a light-colored Jeep parked in front of the place at about the time we figure it all went down, but that’s all we’ve got.”

“Hey,” Morales said, gesturing toward me with a spoon, “Mr. McGuane here’s got a light-colored Jeep. He was gone last night for a few hours.”

“That’s right,” Sanders said.

I felt my insides clutch up. Melissa was dabbing at some sweet potatoes on Angelina’s face, and I saw her freeze.

Sanders said, “Maybe on the way to the bar, you stopped at the Appaloosa Club and shot four people.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Looks like we’ve solved the case,” Morales said, digging into the mashed potatoes.

Sanders said, “Now we can get a commendation and a raise and be on TV standing next to the mayor. Excuse me, can you pass me the ham?”

I began to breathe again. When I looked over at Cody, he winked at me.

Melissa stood up unsteadily, but I assumed I was the only one who noticed. “Who wants dessert?” she asked. I could tell she wanted to top off her glass again when she went over to the counter.

WE WERE IN THE LIVING ROOM, and it had gotten dark outside. Tiny little hard balls of snow pinpricked the west windows and melted on impact and slimed down the glass, leaving snail tracks. The second Thanksgiving Day game was in the first minutes of the fourth quarter, with Dallas ahead by twenty and John Madden extolling the virtues of Turducken and eight-legged turkeys. I was frankly surprised the deputies and Torkleson had stayed so long. And they seemed in no hurry to leave. There was still plenty of beer, and Cody had cracked open the Jim Beam Black. I wondered if they’d stay until the end of the game or until the alcohol ran out, and I was pretty sure it would be the alcohol. Angelina was charged up by the company although she was starting to get wild since she’d refused to take her nap. Why nap when there were four men doting on her? Melissa was in the kitchen cleaning up and, I assumed, working a little on the bottle of vodka. I couldn’t get the image of her sitting bedside with her glass, watching our daughter and me while we slept, out of my mind.

I loved Melissa, and now I knew the depths of her feelings were unfathomable. When-if-we turned Angelina over, I couldn’t imagine Melissa not melting down, and me with her. She said we were disintegrating, and the loss of our daughter would no doubt push her over the edge. I wasn’t even sure I’d know her anymore, just as I was starting to wonder what would happen to me, what I’d become with the loss. I could think of no scenario that wasn’t terrifying.

I’d read where the loss of a child was the most devastating thing that could possibly happen to parents. I believed that. But presumably the loss in question was due to death or accident. No one had studied what it was like to hand over a child because of a legal anomaly. And to hand the child over to people who might just be monsters.

“THAT English PERVERT,” Torkleson said to Cody and the deputies. “Did you hear the latest about him?”

Of course that pulled me out of my reverie.

“What was that asshole’s name?” Torkleson asked. “You know, the one who was going to move here? He was on 9 News.”

“Malcolm Harris,” I said.

Torkleson was obviously drunk. His words slurred, and he was talking too loudly. As were Sanders and Morales. They’d been practically shouting at each other for a half hour, telling cop stories, comparing cop notes. Cops, like ranchers and outfitters of my youth, were generally suspicious and taciturn men, except when they were around their own. Then the yapping began, and it was endless. I had only half listened, spending most of my time worrying about my wife and trying to keep Angelina from acting out. I was hoping Melissa would be done soon in the kitchen so she could take our daughter upstairs and calm her down and get her to bed. But when Malcolm Harris’s name came up, I leaned forward in my chair.

“What about him?” Cody asked. Strangely, Cody seemed to be the most sober of them all. I’d noted that although he was drinking, he wasn’t pounding them down like usual- or like the others were. I could only attribute his restraint to the “good days” he’d been having. Cody only drank when he was bored, which was most of the time. When he was wrapped up in a case or a project, he restrained himself.

“Who is he talking about?” Sanders asked Morales.

“That guy,” Morales said. “Don’t you watch the news or read the memos?”

“Fuck no,” Sanders said before noting Angelina in my lap, and saying, “Sorry again.”

I was thankful that at that moment Melissa came into the family room and scooped up Angelina. She said good night to everyone and was lavished with “thank-yous” and overdone praise. Her eyes misted as they thanked her-she cried so easily and quickly now-and she took our daughter to bed. I was grateful she didn’t seem wobbly or lit up, and I made a note to check the level of the vodka bottle behind the micro wave.

“You know that guy,” Morales said. “The English guy. He was on his way here to move his company or something. I got a call to go to the airport just in case he was on the plane. If he landed, we were supposed to arrest him, but they got him before he boarded, I guess. He was some big-time pervert pedophile.”

Sanders shook his head. “I never heard of him.”

“Anyway,” Torkleson said, as tired as I was of the deputy interplay, “it turns out he had a connection to somebody here.”

That got Cody’s attention, and mine.

“Aubrey Coates,” Torkleson said. “Coates’s e-mail address and phone number were all over his records. Scotland Yard thinks our man was part of this pervert’s child porn and trafficking network. Can you believe that?”

“I wish he would have made it here,” Sanders said, “so somebody could shoot the bastard. I hate those scumbags.”

“I woulda shot him,” Morales said, and I believed him.

“Hold it,” I said, my head spinning. “Malcolm Harris had a connection to Aubrey Coates?”

I recalled Harris and the conversation:

My friends in Colorado say that compared to what I’m used to, I’ll be bulletproof! That’s the term they use, bulletproof. I love that.

Really? Who says that? I asked.

Oh no, he said coyly, I won’t reveal my sources.

So his source was Aubrey Coates? What was Coates talking about? How was Coates bulletproof?

I looked to Cody for some kind of clarification, but Cody looked as mystified as I was.

Torkleson said, “But I heard the fucking U.S. Attorney won’t go after Coates again. Not after Coates beat the rap the first time…” Torkleson lurched to a stop, realizing what he was saying and who he was saying it to. He looked over at Cody. “Sorry, man.”

Cody glared at him with murderous eyes.

“What?” Sanders said. “What the fuck?”

Morales leaned back on the couch and beheld Cody and Torkleson. “Let’s be cool, men,” he said.

“What?” Sanders said again, completely confused.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Torkleson said to Cody. “My mouth was running away with me.”

Cody said, “It sure fucking was.”

“Be cool, brothers,” Morales, the peacemaker said, standing up so he was between them. “Everything’s cool here. We got women and babies in the house.”

Sanders stomped a foot. “Would somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

Morales spun on his partner, said, “What’s going on is Thanksgiving dinner is over. Our replacements will be here in twenty minutes, and it’s time to go.”

Melissa-thank God for Melissa-broke the tension by bringing Angelina down the stairs. Our daughter was in her footie pajamas, and despite the fact that she was exhausted, she beamed at the cops, who were on the verge of going after each other.

“Angelina wants to say good night,” Melissa said.

Sanders, Torkleson, and Morales stood up. They thanked Melissa once again and shook Angelina’s chubby little hand. She rewarded them with a squeal each, which made them laugh.

“She’s so tired, she’s goofy,” Melissa said. “So are you guys.”

“What a darling,” Morales said.

I kissed my daughter good night, but she was preoccupied with the men in the room whom she’d charmed to death.

“See you in a few minutes,” I said to Melissa.

As she carried Angelina up the stairs, our daughter squirmed her way up over Melissa’s shoulders so she could wave and laugh at the cops in the family room. Morales was smitten, as were Torkleson and Sanders.

Sanders, aware of why they were assigned to watching our house, said, “It just ain’t right what’s happening.”

Morales shook his head, said, “No it isn’t.”

Torkleson quickly shook hands with me and thanked me for dinner, and was out the door into the snowstorm. Cody bored holes into Torkleson’s back the whole way.

Sanders and Morales followed him. All I could think of was what in the hell Coates had told Harris-and why.

“THAT ASSHOLE,” Cody said, seething, “showing me up like that.”

“He wasn’t thinking,” I said, “he was just talking.”

“Which is the problem with the whole fucking department. They don’t think.”

“Do you want a nightcap?” I asked.

Cody shook his head. “I’m done.”

“The connection between Malcolm Harris and Aubrey Coates,” I said. “There’s something going on here I can’t figure out. Something big and awful.”

“Sometimes,” Cody said, looking over my head, “I wish I had a license to just kill people. I’d kill a lot of them and make the world a better place. I’d start with Aubrey Coates and Malcolm Harris, and move to Garrett and John Moreland. There’s about fifty others on the list I can think of.”

“Cody…”

“Don’t ‘Cody’ me,” he said.

“Brian’s funeral is tomorrow,” I said. “Do you want to go with us?”

“It’s tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. I still can’t believe he’s gone. It hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“I know what you mean.”

He looked at me. “No, I won’t be there.”

That troubled me.

“It has nothing to do with Brian,” Cody said. He lifted his hand and pinched his thumb and index finger together. “I’m this close to cracking this thing.”

I inadvertently took a step back. “You’re kidding.”

Cody’s eyes blazed. “Nope. I think I’ve got it. I just needed to have the time to go through those call logs and do the police work. I think I’ve just about cracked it.”

“Tell me,” I said.

He smiled. His smile resembled-unfortunately-his Uncle Jeter’s. “I’ll tell you when I’ve got it,” he said. “I can’t put you two through any more false hopes or bad plans.”

Cody grabbed his coat from where it was thrown over the couch. He gestured upstairs. “That Sanders guy is a doofus. But he’s right when he says this ain’t right, and it ain’t.”

He paused at the front door. Snow shot in. “Coates is a dead man walking, he just doesn’t know it yet. But yes, I agree with you that there’s more to it than what we know. This Malcolm Harris thing throws me for a loop, but somehow I think it all connects. I just don’t know how yet.”

“When will I see you?” I asked. “There’s only three more days.”

“Not soon,” he said. “I’m going to New Mexico.”

“Why?”

“Later,” he said, waving me off. “Keep Melissa off the booze,” he said. “I’m worried about her.”