Thicker Than Blood - Crouch Blake - Страница 138

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"You ready to go do it?" I asked, finishing the last sip, but he shook his head. "We're here, in Choteau. What do you wanna fuck around this town all day? Aren't you in a hurry to be infamous and all that other bullshit you told me yesterday?"

"Yes. But it's at the price of my freedom. That's a difficult thing to just hand away."

"I know," I said.

"You know…" Orson laughed spitefully. "You know shit."

My eyes narrowed. "Wasn't I held against my will in a fuckin' cabin all summer? You know what you made me do," I whispered. "That's worse than losing your freedom."

"I helped you," Orson said. "I did you the favor of your life, and you will thank me."

I pushed my cup towards the center of the table and looked again out the window. A car drove by on what I presumed to be the main drag through town. Further down, buildings threaded the street. I saw a homely feed store and a cinema showing movies two months after they'd premiered in real cities. The sidewalks were narrow and empty. My eyes moved again to the Lewis Range. Were it not for those towering, icy pinnacles, this dead town would be unbearable.

# # #

At a quarter to noon, I pulled into a visitor’s parking space at the Choteau Police Department. Orson opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement, a manila envelope under his left arm.

We walked quickly along the sidewalk, strewn with dead leaves from two aspens on the building’s front lawn. Across the street, a dirt road climbed into a thicket of pines, blanketing a modest hill. We were as close to those snowy mountains now as we'd been all day, but the surrounding foothills blocked them from view. I couldn’t even see the downtown, only the narrow country road running beneath the blue sky and this police station, isolated from the minimal bustle of Choteau. It seemed out of place here among the foothills of the Lewis Range.

The police department was a meager, brick building. It was small, resembling a miniature version of a decrepit public school, only in place of yellow buses, there were police cars. We ascended the concrete steps, and Orson stopped me in front of the glass double doors.

"I’m the only one who talks in there," he said. Then he grabbed me suddenly and pulled me into him, crushing my chest in an awkward embrace. He opened the door and I followed him inside, walking straight through the lobby, littered with cheap furniture on brown carpet. The walls inside were a darker brick, and they gave the interior the musty feel of a wine cellar.

There was a desk at the end of the room and behind it, a hallway, perpendicular to the lobby. On the brick between the two corridors, Choteau Police Department, was spelled out in bold, brass letters. A secretary was talking on the phone when Orson walked up to the desk. He snatched the phone from her hands and hung it up.

"I need to speak to a detective," he said as she stared incredulously into his eyes.

Clearing her throat, she glanced warily behind her at the corridor. She was pretty, I thought, plain but pretty in her long, plaid dress. "What is it regarding?" she asked.

"Are you a detective?"

"No, I’m a…"

"Then quit asking me fucking questions. Get me a detective right now."

"Just a moment," she said. She picked up the phone and dialed an extension. "Roger, are you busy?…  Okay…  There’s a man here who wants to speak with you…  I don’t know…  He’s being rude…  I don’t know…  I’m fine." She hung up the phone. "He’ll be right with you," she said. "You can wait over there." She spun around quickly in her swivel chair and began typing at a computer. Orson stood by the desk, tapping impatiently on the wood.

Less than a minute had passed when a tall, thin man in a dark blue suit emerged from the corridor. He stopped behind the desk and nodded to Orson and me.

"You asked for a detective?" he said, and Orson nodded. "Come with me," he said, and we walked past the desk down the hallway on the right. The brick walls were drab and undecorated. I followed behind Orson, watching his feet pound softly against the thin, hard carpet.

"I’m Detective Hartness," the man said without turning around. "Why were you rude to Jennifer?" He glanced at Orson, fire in his bleak, white face. His brown hair hung just above his eyebrows, and his ears were large and grotesque, like an old man’s.

"It doesn’t really matter," Orson said. "You’re about to become famous."

If Hartness heard him, he didn’t show it. He kept walking, into a large, bright room full of desks and computers, where several men typed furiously, filling the room with a nervous, staccato pattering like raindrops hitting a hot microphone. We proceeded through the dark corridor on the other side of the workroom, and I could see the end now. There were three vending machines for coffee, soft drinks, and snacks lined up against the brick at the terminus of the corridor. But we stopped long before the end when Hartness turned suddenly and opened a plain, black door on the left wall. He held it open for us while we filed inside.

A boring little room with bare brick walls, a table stood in the center with four chairs slid underneath it. I thought it strange that a single, unshielded light bulb burned brightly overhead. We pulled out the chairs and sat down, Orson and me on one side, facing Hartness. The detective was removing his jacket when Orson broke the tense silence.

"Get a tape recorder," he said. "I’m only doing this once."

Hartness hung his jacket on the back of a chair and began unbuttoning his cuffs. He was already sweating as he rolled up his shirt sleeves. "We’ll get to that," he said. “Why don’t…"

"Get the tape recorder or I say nothing," Orson said, rage buried in his voice.

Hartness sighed and slid back in his chair. He got up and left the room.

"Orson…"

"Not a word, Andy."

We sat in silence, and I drummed on the table until Orson glared at me. I wondered if there was really a dead police officer in the trunk of our car. After two minutes, the detective returned carrying a large tape recorder under his arm. He set it down on the table and plugged the long, black cord into a socket in the wall. Sitting down, he lit a cigarette and pressed a red button.

"Your name?" Hartness asked.

"Orson Thomas."

"Well, Mr. Thomas, what do you wanna tell me?"

Orson had been leaning forward with his elbows on the table. Now he leaned back and removed his blood-stained fleece jacket. He threw it into a corner and smiled at the detective. Then he tossed the manila envelope onto the table.

"Have a look," Orson said, his voice cold and emotionless.

The detective lifted the envelope and tore it open. Withdrawing a quarter-inch stack of photographs and newspaper clippings, he gazed down at the photographs, and his skeptical face turned immediately into shock. He laid a picture on the table and stared down at it, taking a long draw from his cigarette.

I managed to see the picture upside down--a five by seven, color photo of a woman lying naked on the ground, a gaping hole in her chest and a bloody mass in the palm of her hand. It could’ve been Shirley. It could’ve been any of them.

Hartness spread a dozen similar photographs across the table, and I could see him fighting to retain composure. He blinked more than usual and swallowed hard several times. I watched Orson watching the detective. There was a sick gleam in my brother’s eyes, as if he'd waited for this moment his entire life. The detective looked back up at Orson when he'd finished thumbing through the newspaper clippings.

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