I could have pulled on him then, taking control of the situation. But I didn’t. I waited instead.
“I got nothin’ to say about no boy,” he said at last.
“I don’t need a confession, Ox. Carl Novak already gave you up, chapter and verse. But you can still do yourself some good. Did you do the killing alone? Or did you have help?”
He thought about saying nothing. Or go screw yourself. Same answer, really. But we were past that now. And we both knew it. He edged sideways a half-step. Casually, like he was relaxing. But it moved him a foot closer to the rifle on the porch.
“I didn’t need no help,” he spat in contempt. “The kid was mud people.”
“Mud people?”
“Brown people, or black. One of them low races. Not like us.”
Low races? This snaggle-toothed Neanderthal, butchering a buck like a freaking caveman, actually thought he was superior — I took a breath.
“Okay, you took him alone. How’d you manage it?”
“Easy. I pulled up next to his car, asked him for directions. Clocked him with a sap. Not hard really, but he was already bandaged up. Sap put him down, all the way. Never moved once on the run out to the woods.” Ox edged sideways, another step nearer to the gun. Maybe two yards to go. A single stride for a guy his size. I let him do it, more interested in getting the absolute truth now. Keeping him talking.
“Where did you dump the body?”
“On state land, near the highway. Lot of coyotes around there. I zipped him open. Scavengers will shy away from the scent of people, but if you slit the belly open, spill the guts out on the ground? They don’t smell like people no more. Just guts. Coyotes freak out, fight each other to rip it up. They’ll eat anything if you open it up first. Even mud people.”
He said this last inching over the final half-step, watching my eyes. When I didn’t react, he nodded. He knew then that I wasn’t going to.
“Last question,” I said. “This one’s important, Ox. When you zipped that kid open and left him for the coyotes? Was he dead? Or just unconscious?”
Sorsa grinned at that, shaking his head. Almost ready now. Not caring that I knew it.
“To be honest, LaCrosse? I can’t really say for sure. What’s the difference?”
“It matters. To me.”
“Nah, it don’t,” he said, shaking his shoulders, loosening up. “All that matters now is, I ain’t goin’ back to prison.”
“No,” I agreed. “Probably not.” But I kept my hands at my sides. Made no move for my weapon.
Making it his call. Either way.
The wind was picking up, swirling snow devils across the yard, twisting the gutted buck slowly at the end of its rope, dark blood oozing down from its body cavity, pooling beneath it. I felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the wind. Only the emptiness in Sorsa’s eyes—
He glanced toward his truck — but it was a feint. Flipping the bloody knife at my head with more force than I thought possible, he lunged for the rifle.
Instinctively I ducked away from the flashing blade. Too late! It banged off my forehead, slashing it open, stunning me. Dropping to one knee, I clawed for my weapon, pulling it just as Ox rolled to the rifle on the porch.
He threw the Winchester to his shoulder just as my gun came up, both of us cutting loose in the same split second, our shots nearly simultaneous. I couldn’t tell who fired first.
His rifle slug burned past my cheek, so close I felt the heat of the muzzle blast. My first round flew high and wide, blowing a chunk out of the doorframe.
He was jacking in a fresh round when my second shot nailed him dead center. So did the next three.
Pete DeNoux wasn’t the only one raised on the rules. When you shoot something, you damn well put it down.
I spent three days on suspension while the state police conducted an independent investigation, then I had to face a shooting board, in a conference room at Hauser Center. Three command officers from Lansing and me. I was entitled to have an attorney present. Didn’t ask for one. Maybe I should have.
Some officers serve their entire careers without drawing a weapon. I’m guessing the bureau chief who chaired the review was one of them.
He kept rephrasing the same pointed questions. Why had I sought out a violent felon, a suspected murderer, alone? Why had I attempted an arrest without calling for backup?
Had I ever met the decedent? Had any previous dealings with him? Did I bear him a grudge?
“I knew who Ox was,” I admitted. “In high school, I spent my summers working in the woods, swinging a chainsaw. You hear about guys who are okay, guys to avoid. I thought Sorsa would be more likely to come in peacefully with someone he could relate to.”
“But you couldn’t convince him?” the captain pressed. “How hard did you try?”
“Not very,” I admitted, tired of the dance. “When I suggested it, he threw a skinning knife at my head and went for his rifle.”
He waited for me to expand on that. I didn’t.
“I’d say you misjudged the situation pretty badly.”
I didn’t rise to that either. He was certain I’d gone after Ox alone for reasons of my own.
He was right.
Sorsa had taken blood money to murder a boy he didn’t know. There’s no redemption for a crime like that, no way back. But there was no grudge involved. If he’d surrendered peacefully, I would have brought him in alive.
He didn’t.
So I kept my answers brief, my tone neutral. And in the end, the board decided the case on the facts. Sorsa was an enforcer for the Aryan Militia, a convicted felon in illegal possession of a firearm, and the sole suspect in a homicide. He died with a loaded rifle in his hands and I had a gash in my forehead that took eight stitches to close. The board conferred for twenty minutes. Then ruled the shooting as self-defense.
Justified.
I’d won, I suppose. It didn’t feel like it.
After the hearing, I headed back to my office at the House. I needed time alone, to think things through. But Todd Girard was there, waiting for me. It was just as well. It saved me the trouble of tracking him down.
He was in the visitor’s chair beside my desk. I dropped into my swivel chair, facing him. Neither of us offered to shake hands.
“You roughed up Harvey Bemis,” Todd said.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “It should have been you.”
“Me?”
“You served in the sandbox, right?”
“Helmand, eight months,” he said. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Ever sit in on a tribal council?”
“No. Look, Dylan—”
“Bear with me. Tribal councils are pretty straightforward. No judges, no lawyers. Just clan chiefs and their bodyguards, an imam for a referee. Everybody comes strapped, nobody pretends to be neutral. They all push for their own interests. Like we did at the Jury’s Inn.”
“What’s your point?”
“Avery was protecting the Champlins,” I continued. “The Champlins were protecting their boy, all of us were looking out for the college. Everybody had a voice. Except the one who mattered most. The snow angel. Julie Novak. That was your job, Todd. To speak for the victim. Instead you gallantly stepped aside, to avoid a conflict of interest. And you handed the case off to Bemis. Only he didn’t speak for the victim. Didn’t even pretend to. He thinks his job is keeping you happy. And he did that, by protecting your friends.”
“I never asked him to.”
“You didn’t have to ask! You knew how he’d play it. So did the rest of us. But we let it pass. Because it gave us the outcome we wanted. A closed case, a four-year school, serious cash for the Novaks. A good outcome, till it went off the rails. I’m not laying the blame on you, Todd, we all own a piece of it. All we can do now is try to set it right.”