OWARD AND MRS. REID grudgingly came into the station. They’d talk, but only on one condition: If they’d help convict the person responsible for setting up Howard, the department would help pay for the damages to their house. Barker led them to the interview room to discuss the case. Mr. Weeks, the county investigator, joined them. “You both understand that you’re here without counsel?”asked Barker. They both nodded. “I’m recording our conversation, so please speak loudly. Let’s begin with your full names.” The Reids nervously leaned forward over the recorder and stated their names.
“We believe some of the evidence used to arrest you was tampered with. We also believe you may have been lying to us in our previous interviews. I would like to interview each of you separately. Mrs. Reid, would you please wait out in the hall?”
With an approving grunt, she complied.
“Mr. Reid—” Barker began.
“I want it on tape,” Howard broke in, “that you’re gonna pay for
our door and window.” Staring Barker down, he coolly folded his arms. “Oh, and I also want you to cover the doctor bills on my arm.” He lifted up the burly arm like it was a fragile flower.
Barker turned to Weeks. The man nodded in confirmation, whereupon Howard cleared his throat. “I was out of whiskey. I came down here’n cut the lock off to get my two bottles. I was dyin’ for a drink, and the old lady didn’t have no money. That’s all. ‘Cept Captain Bingham mighta’ seen me walkin’ home.”
“Where did your wife get the black eye?”
“I don’t know, ‘les I hit her when I was drunk.”
“You don’t know where the clothes or the gun came from?” “Na, I ain’t had a gun in 20 years. Pawned it for some cash.” “That’s all. Step out, and ask your wife to come in.” The big man stood, lumbered over to the door and gestured for
“Mrs. Reid,” began Barker, “where did you get the black eye and cut lip the night before we arrested your husband?”
Her eyes shifted back and forth between Barker and Mr. Weeks, her lips drawn into a tight slit across her plump cheeks. “Can’t say.”
“Why can’t you say? Are you afraid of someone?”
“If I talk to you, you talk to them, then they come and see me again.”
Mr. Weeks spoke up. “Who are they?” Mrs. Reid staunchly shook her head. “You know, we can protect you from whoever it is you’re afraid of.”
“Don’t think so. You can’t even catch one of ‘em—and the other’s got too much power.” She watched their faces and suddenly sensed she’d already said too much.
“Are you talking about one of our officers?” Mr. Weeks continued.
“The one with the dog. He’s in it with the other one,” she muttered, perhaps in the belief that if she gave up Stacey, Bingham would go easy on her.
“We can make sure Officer Stacey, the one with the dog, doesn’t find out about our conversation, if you can tell us who the other one is,” Barker assured the woman.
Mrs. Reid anxiously glanced from one man’s face to the other; she was in over her head. “How do I know I can trust you?” she whined.
Barker let out a sigh. “Well, Mrs. Reid, I guess you’ll have to decide that on your own.” Then, looking over at Weeks, he added, “I think we represent the law the best we can.”
“If I tell, can you promise us protection?”
“We’ll protect you the best we can,” Barker replied.
Lowering her head and picking at the little fuzzy balls sticking to the surface of her polyester slacks, she barreled ahead. “Captain Bingham’s the one that hit me. I was walking home from work...that’s when I saw him kneeling down on our back porch. I always go in the back door. I guess I kinda’ spooked him or something. He got up and smacked me. Said it was an accident. He was looking for two bottles of whiskey Howard stole out of the car. He made me go in and look for ‘em. I found Howard passed out on the couch. Sure ‘nuff, he had a couple of bottles that weren’t there before I left for work. Howard wanted money before I left, but I didn’t have none. I said he’d have to wait ’til morning after I got my check cashed.”
“Where did Officer Stacey come in?”
“He came back the next Saturday to make sure I did what the captain said to do.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted to be sure I told about Howard takin’ the whiskey.”
Barker screwed up his face in thought. “Did he talk about the captain?”
“Said the captain sent him.”
The two men finished up and excused the Reids. Then they went to the conference room to discuss what they’d learned. Now Barker was really confused. Why would Stacey say Bingham had sent him unless he was in on something?
“I need to report back to Mr. White,” Weeks said. “He’ll shuffle through all the facts and know what to do with them.”
Don lit out in the direction of Kate’s house. In bad need of a shower and a shave, not to mention a change of clothes, and passing just a few blocks away from the apartment, he decided to stop there first. He assumed Melvin would still be in jail, so he wouldn’t have to worry about losing it again. “Castration would be too good for him,” Don muttered to himself.
Melvin’s car sat in the drive. Don unlocked the basement door and went inside.
Upstairs, Melvin, hearing the sound, made for the inside door and started down the stairway to investigate.
In the meantime, Don had stripped off his shirt and had come out of the bathroom to retrieve a towel, when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He sprang out of sight, crouching directly behind the door. The door opened slowly and Melvin stuck his head through. Don immediately lunged at the door, slamming it on Melvin’s neck and pinning his head in the apartment. “Well, what have we here?” Don cooed evenly, as if he’d just caught a rat in a trap.
Melvin struggled for his footing and sputtered to explain what he was doing. Don reached through the opening of the door and, seizing Melvin by the collar, pulled him in and slammed him up against the wall, his feet suspended in midair. Don drew back; Melvin tensed, bracing himself for the blow.
Pausing, his teeth clenched, his adrenaline pumping, Don struggled for self-control. Finally, he lowered his arm. Use your head before you act, his dad had said. The warning flashed through his brain. He’d have to deal with Melvin some other way.
Castration, he remembered. Don packed Melvin into the kitchen. “I’m going to castrate you, you little pervert,” he growled.
Melvin began to squirm. Don picked him off the ground and slammed him down on the table like a slab of meat. The man didn’t utter a sound. He just lay there, belly-up, his eyes wide with terror. Don took out his pocketknife and leaned his body weight down onto Melvin’s chest while he opened the blade. The table groaned under the load. “I’ve never done it before,” he snarled, squinting into the horrified man’s eyes, “but I saw my friend’s dad do it to some sheep once. Didn’t look so hard. Made the sheep squirm a little, though.” That said, he jammed the blade through Melvin’s pants at the knee and slit the fabric to the crotch.
“I didn’t hurt her,” Melvin mewled.
Don, intent on teaching a most unforgettable lesson, wasn’t listening. He raised the blade and drove it down with a thud–right into
the table top between Melvin’s legs. “Nah, I think I’ll wait until next
time,” he muttered in disgust, dragging the shaken landlord off the
table. Melvin, hunched and red-faced, stole a glance at the knife, its
handle still wobbling, its blade buried at least a half inch into the
tabletop. “Now get out of my apartment,” Don warned menacingly,
his pointed scowl boring through the landlord’s chest. “I still have a
year on my contract.”
Melvin turned, scuttled for the stairs and scampered up to the
safety of his own apartment.
Don felt good. He’d literally scared the pants off the little weasel,
all without striking a blow. But why was Melvin out of jail? What
had happened while he was in Boise? Don propped a chair under
both doorknobs to make sure he’d have no more visitors. Then he
took his shower.
Amber slouched in the back seat of the car next to her mother. Her father had applied the silent treatment the whole way home. Now she was convinced that she’d made a terrible mistake.
Arriving home, Amber hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, but her father called her back down to the kitchen. “We need to talk,” he said under his breath, attempting to control his temper. Her mother sat down next to her, semi-protectively, while her father sat across the table in a distinct “tell-me-the-truth-or-else” posture. “I want to know what you were thinking, young lady.”
Before she knew it, Amber had spilled the whole story. She’d hoped that by pulling the fire alarm she could let her brother know she needed to contact him. Then he’d meet her at midnight in the room over the garage as they’d agreed. At the time, at least, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Afterwards, Amber could hear her father in the other room, speaking quietly on the phone. “Jay, Richard Stacey. I think there might be a way we can talk to him....I know he is. I need your word that you’ll come alone to hear his side of it. I’ll call you if I can make the arrangements.”
A few miles away, Melvin made a log and recorded the phone call. He’d been a busy man.Seated on the fire hydrant at the edge of the playground, Don waited for the bell to ring. Soon a torrent of noisy children, carrying backpacks and lunch boxes, flooded the schoolyard. One of the mothers Don recognized was organizing children for the walk home. Christina and one of her friends, both chattering intently, joined the group. Don looked on as Christina took something from her pocket and gave it to Ashley.
“You’ve got to get this to Amber. It’s the key to our apartment. And here’s the address.” She handed over the note and key. “Her brother can hide there until we have enough evidence to put Melvin back in jail.” Don paused for them to start from the playground before he stood. Christina saw him. “Hey, Dad!”
He took her in his arms and gave her a squeeze. “Hi, ‘Tina. I missed you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“How’s Grandpa?”
Don’s face turned somber. “I don’t expect he’ll live through the night. They took all the tubes out but the morphine drip, the one that controls the pain.”
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.” The two of them walked hand-in-hand down the street, Christina doing her best to bring him up to speed on everything that had transpired the last two days. She told him how scared she was in the woods and how she slid down the rope by herself. They stopped at a bus stop bench to chat.
“Did you know Melvin’s out?” Don asked.
“Yeah. I didn’t say anything ‘cause I was afraid you’d get mad.”
“I didn’t know until he stuck his head in the apartment about an hour ago.” Christina started to panic. She could imagine the scene: Melvin, lying dead on the floor and the police coming to arrest her dad. “Don’t worry, I think I figured out how to handle him.” He struggled to maintain a straight face as he told her what happened— sparing the offensive details. The two of them laughed as they started off again for the Jensen home.
“Have you really seen it done before?”
“No, but he didn’t know that.”
Now it was Christina who turned serious. “Dad, I need to ask you a favor. And you have to promise not to tell anyone what I’m going to tell you.” Don agreed. Christina recounted the story told by Amber, explaining why her friend had pulled the fire alarm and that Officer Stacey probably needed a place to stay. She added that the police didn’t have enough evidence to keep Melvin in jail and if Officer Stacey was in their house he could help get all the proof they needed. Don listened, fascinated by his daughter’s imagination.
“So, can he come to our place and stay, Daddy?” she pleaded.
Don didn’t want to dash her hopes, so he simply said that Officer Stacey was welcome anytime. “Thank you Daddy!”
Don knew better; a cop on the run would never trust his life to three grade-school girls.
Chief Anderson was once again answering phones from Deek’s desk. Anderson, an independent businessman, claimed he’d made his fortune in stocks. Rumor had it he’d actually bought the election five years earlier, trouncing the three-term incumbent. With time on his hands, he spent more hours in the city building than all the other council members combined, mostly listening to angry citizens’ complaints. He was active in the community and had been instrumental in blocking commercial developers from building a massive waste incinerator on the edge of town. On the heels of that victory, he’d had no trouble winning a second term. Now he even entertained thoughts of running for mayor when the revered Mayor Jenkins retired.
Barker and Weeks sat nearby, discussing the evidence they’d gathered. Barker’s man had finally broken into Stacey’s damaged hard drive, recovering invaluable data. “Okay,” he began, going over the case one more time, “we’ve got a clerk who saw a man matching Bingham’s description in Levan, and a possible homicide in the precinct where he may have lived. Howard knew Bingham; he’d seen him walking away with the whiskey. The lab confirmed as a match the fabric taped to the captain’s window—and we found where it had been cut from the seat in his car. Let’s ask for a warrant.” Barker picked up the phone.
“With all the other crap going on, you’d better be right,” Weeks prodded. “I think we’ve got plenty, but Demick will hit the roof if we’re wrong.”
Chief Anderson, eavesdropping, excused himself and went into his office.Smoke hovered above the tables in the restaurant’s smoking section. Bingham puffed on his Camel Light, the fumes billowing from his nostrils giving him the appearance of an angry bull. Across the table two men listened closely to his instructions. “My contact has a shaky lead. He may be hiding where the river dumps into the lake. It’s at mile marker 265. I saw him take a bullet last night. He’s probably hurting. Even if he was wearing a vest, he’ll still be in trouble.” Bingham spoke from experience. He took another drag on his cigarette. “I want him alive. I’ll take care of the details. And don’t mess up my coat—it already has one hole too many in it.”
Without a word, the men stood and sauntered out the door. Bingham’s mobile phone rang. “I understand. Tonight or in the morning?...Tell her to leave without me. I’ll meet her in Barbados next week.”
The Department of Transportation workers finished repairing the fence. Not a single cow had been hit—though the entire mile-long section of asphalt was a sticky mess. Cow dung, now flattened and strewn about by the restored flow of slow-moving vehicles, peppered the highway.
The repair crew finished their work and loaded their tools in the truck. A dark Suburban pulled to a stop nearby. Two men climbed out, eased themselves through the barbed wire fence and traipsed across the field. The cattle, only mildly disturbed, parted to let them pass.
At the opposite end of the field, Stacey repeatedly tried to pull himself to his feet. A swig of warm orange juice made him even more nauseous. His mind reeled; nothing mattered anymore.
Sig trotted over. Stacey rewarded him with the rest of the pizza. Racked with hunger, the shepherd didn’t notice the two figures plodding in the direction of where his master lay.
Don shared his story around the supper table, choosing his words carefully so as not to offend anyone. Alan, fully absorbed in the story, laughed hysterically; tears coursed down his face and his body shook uncontrollably. Finally gaining his composure, he explained why he’d found the tale so funny.
It seems he’d grown up around sheep. In the spring, every day he’d go out with his grandfather to dock the newborn lambs’ tails— and to castrate the young rams. He was open and free with the terms. As he spoke, Alan occasionally broke into fits of laughter. The picture of Melvin stretched out on a table, squirming like an un-cut ram, did him in. Once more gaining control, he began to formulate new ideas on how to drive Melvin crazy. The family joined in.
Kate took the younger children to bed. She wanted no part of such a scheme.