Snap.
I worried, for a moment, that I’d killed him. His body went limp and slid off the hood and into the grass. I immediately called for an ambulance, and was relieved to find, before it arrived, that he was still breathing. But it was a couple of days before he regained consciousness. I’d given him one hell of a concussion.
The guy recalled nothing. He didn’t remember mowing down and killing two people. He didn’t remember the flashing lights in his rearview mirror. He didn’t remember feeling my hand on the back of his skull, or seeing the hood of his car coming up to meet him with incredible swiftness. It would have been easy to say the man had fallen while resisting arrest, that he had tripped and hit his head on the hood. There were, after all, no witnesses. That was, in fact, the version of events I put down in my report.
But I didn’t get away with it. Not entirely.
My car had a dash cam — a camera mounted in the front windshield that caught the whole thing. Just in the right side of the frame. I should have known better. I didn’t think my car was at the right angle to capture the scene. My chief brought me into his office and we watched the video together. Several times. No popcorn.
“I’m going to find a way to make this disappear,” he said. “And in return, you’re going to do the same.”
My excuse for public consumption: I’d decided to go private. It was something I’d often thought about, but it’s unlikely I’d actually have done it. I was lulled by a steady paycheck, a benefits plan. But now those were gone, and I didn’t have much choice but to get started on another career.
I was ashamed. I’d let my department and myself down, but worse, I’d let Donna down and I’d let Scott down, eight years old at the time. It was, up till then, the worst thing we’d been through, but we found the strength to get past it. Donna was the one who deserved the credit. She had every reason to be furious, to blame me for our predicament. It’s not as though she was pleased with what I’d done, but it had happened, and we had to deal with it.
At one point, she said she wished there were a way to tell the family of that dead mother and child what I’d done. “I think they’d want to thank you,” she said. It might have provided more satisfaction than the twelve-year sentence the guy got.
We decided to leave Promise Falls. Donna’s brother — at that time, he was a deputy chief — told her there was an opening in the administrative offices of the Griffon department. I was in the process of acquiring my New York State private investigator’s license, and it would serve me just as well in the Buffalo area as it would north of Albany.
So I really didn’t have anyone else to blame for being here, today, in Augustus Perry’s office.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Augie asked as he closed the door. His office had the feel of the proverbial woodshed.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. That was pride talking, and I knew it. If my brother-in-law hadn’t stuck his nose into my business, I’d have been headed for a great deal of unpleasantness.
“Really?” he said, pointing a finger. “You think you could have gotten out of that one? You think you could have stayed out of jail? Let alone hang on to your license?”
I mumbled something unintelligible. When I eat crow I like to chew with my mouth closed.
“Sorry. I didn’t catch that. So let me ask you again, what the hell were you thinking? And don’t say this was some kind of bogus accusation, that you’re an innocent man. Don’t insult me, okay? We’ve both been around long enough to know bullshit when we step in it. We understand each other?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good. So, tell me.”
“I lost my head,” I said, pacing the room, steering clear of Augie.
“Excellent. Great defense.”
“There’s some truth to it,” I said.
“To what?”
“That I lost my head.” I stopped, rested my butt on the edge of his desk.
“Get your ass off my desk,” Augie said.
I did, but I didn’t jump. “Scott’s death... has driven me a little crazy.”
Augie’s hard eyes softened. “Go on.”
“You know I’ve been asking around, trying to find out who sold him that stuff.”
“I don’t know whether you’re aware, but that’s our job.”
“And how’re you coming along with it?” I asked.
“These things can take time,” Augie said. “You can do all the active investigation you want, then you stumble onto something. Eighty percent of solving crimes is luck, and you know it.”
“I’m not interested in waiting to find things out by accident. When I got a name, a good prospect, someone who might be dealing, I paid them a visit, arranged a meeting.”
“Like you did with this Tapscott kid.”
“Yeah.”
“That was, uh, that was pretty fucking dumb, Cal.”
“Any of the other kids, they’ve been too scared to do anything about it. They know they’re dirty and they don’t want to draw attention to themselves.”
“How many others?”
“Four, total,” I admitted.
He nodded thoughtfully, went around his desk and sat down and told me to do the same because it hurt his neck to talk up to me. “It’s not that I don’t admire your tactics, Cal. It’s just, when you’re a civilian, you run a few more risks employing them. But a couple of cops using your sophisticated interrogation techniques would have each other’s back. Like what I did for you.”
I managed to get the word out, but I nearly choked on it. “Thanks.”
He glared at me.
“I don’t think you made a friend out of Hank Brindle in there,” I said.
“He’s a big boy. He’ll get over it.”
“Brindle’s a bad cop,” I said. “He’s a bully.”
Augie shook his head. “He’s okay. Cut him some slack. He’s had a rough few months. His dad’s been sick. He’s had to take a few days off, help his mom look after him. And don’t let Haines fool you. He’s quieter, but he’s bent out of shape these days, too.”
“What’s his problem?”
“Girl he was seeing dumped him a few weeks back, packed up and moved back in with her family in Erie. They’re a pair. But you know something, Cal? This little meeting we’re having isn’t about them. It’s about you. It’s about you, and your attitude problem.”
I slumped in my chair.
“Why’d you do it, Augie?” I asked.
“Why’d I do what?”
“Why’d you save my ass? I was facing some serious charges in there.”
He struggled for an answer. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“You’re my brother-in-law.” He said it with more than a little shame.
“Seriously.”
“Don’t, for a minute, think I was doing it for you. I was doing it for Donna.”
That much I believed. But I remained puzzled. “Tell me this, then, Augie. If you’re actually looking out for me, then why the hell did you seize my car?”
“Why’d I what?”
“My Honda. You’ve still got it. I just hope it’s not in a million pieces.”
Augie’s mouth hung open for several seconds. “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. Who seized your car?”
“Haines and Brindle. They got the word from Marvin Quinn, who said he got the order from you.”
Augie leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers together atop his stomach.
“Well,” he said, “isn’t that a kick in the head with a frozen boot?”
Thirty-eight
“You didn’t tell Quinn to have my car taken in?”
Augie shook his head. “I did not. You’re a lot of things, Cal. Dickhead, asshole, a conceited fuck if I ever met one. And the stupidest son of a bitch I know at the moment, trying to scare these kids the way you did. But you didn’t kill that girl.”