Outside, the city police car pulled up to the pump. Kevin Heibein got out and started pumping gas, his narrow shoulders hunched against the cold. Ennis walked out to greet him.
“Hey,” the young cop said, flashing a smile. “Busy night, huh? How you make out on that Westy’s thing? Man, a homicide. Wish I could have helped.”
“Yeah, me too,” Ennis said. “What was the deal on the hit-and-run?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a hit-and-run. Mae Begley was the driver, she made the call on her cell phone, stayed right there. She was pretty shook up. Wasn’t her fault, though.”
“Who got hit?”
“Kid on a bike. He’ll live. Broken leg and a concussion. Scared the shit out of me, he was unconscious in the ditch when I got there. Thought he was dead.” Heibein replaced the nozzle in the gas pump, the fuel cap on the old Crown Vic cruiser. He was shivering and drew his sleeve across his nose. “I didn’t know him, but Keith, one of the EMTs, did. Richie Winnett, I guess his folks live up there about a mile. Dressed all in black, riding his damned mountain bike in the middle of the road...”
Heibein caught Ennis’s look. “What? You know him, too?”
The weedy ditch was bathed in the lights of Ennis’s cruiser; Heibein had parked his car at the curve with the flashers going.
“Right here, huh?”
Heibein swept a flashlight beam over a place in the barrow pit where the high weeds had been tramped down. A few bits of broken reflector gleamed in the gravel.
“See that rock? Kid lands one foot to the right and he’s a vegetable. Little shit is lucky to be alive. You should see the bike.”
Ennis produced his own flashlight and walked to the spot, playing the beam over the flattened weeds. He stopped, then moved forward slowly, studying the ground.
Heibein cleared his throat. “What you looking for? I’m pretty sure we got everything, the bike is back at the station...”
Ennis said nothing. He swept the beam carefully from side to side, advancing a half-step at a time. He was about to give up when he spied a dark shape and leaned forward.
Something about the fat checkered grips, the way they curled in the tall grass, brought to mind a rattlesnake. Ennis jerked his hand back, then leaned forward again, hoping Heibein hadn’t noticed. He parted the weeds. It was a big revolver, dirt and grass on the hammer where it had fallen: Colt Anaconda, 44 caliber. Roy Winnett’s other handgun, Ennis guessed. He was willing to bet this one had been fired a few hours earlier.
Worland only had two stoplights, and both were flashing yellow now, swaying in the north wind sweeping down from Canada. Ennis got out of the car and gazed up the street into the darkness beyond. The air smelled of wood smoke and frost; it wouldn’t be long now until the first snow. The town was unusually empty, even for this late. Normally on karaoke night there might still be a car or two cruising Main, kids waiting in vain for something to happen, or a couple of mismatched refugees from the bars looking to parlay an evening’s alcohol abuse into a night’s romance. They had all gone home. Maybe word of the homicide had finally cast a pall over things. Maybe there was hope for the town after all.
He had just returned from another trip to the Winnett residence. It seemed Heibein had not gotten around to informing Alana about the injuries to her son — being new, he assumed somebody else had. At the doorway to her son’s room, she had begun weeping uncontrollably at the sight of the empty bed. The darkened room was bitterly cold from the open window.
It was a short bike ride from the Winnett place to town, an even shorter distance north to Westy’s Tavern. Had Richie Winnett set out meaning to kill his mother’s lover, or had he just meant to threaten him? Hard to say: When loaded guns came out, sometimes motives and meanings went by the wayside. Ennis remembered what Ray Esposito had said about someone laughing, just before the shots. He had a hunch that wouldn’t have been the boy. He could picture the shivering teenager in the gravel parking lot, his family unraveling and his father’s pistol tucked into his jeans. Probably he would not have seen much humor in the situation. Dean, according to Alana, laughed at everything. Ennis had to wonder: What would have happened if Dean Jackman hadn’t laughed?
Well, he’d know more if the boy was able to talk tomorrow. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid: waking up to a dozen different kinds of pain and a life forever changed. Not to mention his father. Ennis tried to remember the worst hangover he’d ever had, thought how much worse would be the one Roy Winnett had in store this morning. He thought of the damaged wives and the daughters, and finally thought of Dean Jackman himself, a man old enough to know better, getting up in front of a crowd and singing “Dancing in the Dark.”
How did the song go? “Can’t start a fire without a spark.” True enough, Ennis thought. But when you did start that fire, there was no telling how much it would burn.
Copyright © 2006 David Knadler
False Light
by Margaret Murphy
Margaret Murphy’s first novel, Goodnight, My Angel, was shortlisted for Britain’s “First Blood” award for best debut crime novel. Her latest book, The Dispossessed (New English Library), was called “an eye-opening shocker of a novel” by the Times Literary Supplement.
From her viewpoint high above street level Carol can see St. George’s Hall. Undergoing renovation, it is swathed in plastic, a colonnaded monument in bubble-wrap. To her right, the sun sinks low and golden over the Mersey tunnel entrance. She loves the broad sweep of steps down from the Greco-Roman facade of the museum. She walks slowly, taking her time, head up, shoulders back; it makes her feel grand, like a movie star. She wears a trouser suit — a good linen mix in pale green. Her hair, ice-blond and fine as spun silk, lifts in a faint breeze and she enjoys a moment of blessed coolness.
Carol has been working late on a new coleopteran exhibition. Her favourites are the iridescent types; they shimmer with false light — purple and green and electric blue — oil on water, prisms in sunlight. She checks her watch. Eight-thirty. Not too late to chance crossing the cobbled street into St. John’s Gardens.
The borders are planted with blue violas and pink biennial dianthus; warmed by the sun and enclosed within the walls of the old churchyard of St. John’s, the scent of violets and cloves is almost hypnotic. Laughter carries from one of the lawns to her right and she glances without turning her head. A group of students, talking, flirting, testing their knowledge of their current reading on their friends. Harmless.
She passes them unnoticed. She has learned the art of invisibility: Walk confidently but without show; look like you know where you’re headed; stare straight through a crowd, as though you can see your goal unimpeded by the crush — as though they are invisible. Never meet the eye of a stranger.
Traffic is heavy, belching hot exhaust fumes into the already hot and exhausted air. Too early for the clubs, but too hot to wait indoors for dark, the streets are already thronged with youths in white shirts, eager for the rut, eyeing the tanned girls who flaunt their toned midriffs and thighs. Liverpool city centre swelters in a brown heat haze, the crowds irascible and uncomfortable in their own skins: The heat has taken the fun out of the game.
Central station is empty. She walks invisible past the guard at the ticket barrier. She hears voices raised, laughter; it echoes, reminding her of swimming baths, caves. Cave men. The constant scream of a faulty escalator handrail, rubber on metal, sets her teeth on edge, but it is cooler underground, and she is grateful for this.