Atonement (11 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Clifton
was sitting on a chair in the small visitors’ waiting room situated forty feet along the corridor that led to the intensive care unit that Ray was in.

Nursing a cup of now lukewarm coffee, Clifton had nothing to keep him company but his thoughts, and they were all bad ones.  He was in a position that he had absolutely no control over.  His son was in a critical condition, and all he could do was sit and wait and pray to a god that had already taken his wife from him for no good reason that he could imagine.  Janice had been forty, slim, athletic, and loved life.  And back on a fine April morning six years ago, had dropped dead as she stepped out of the shower.  The only grain of solace was that the massive cerebral hemorrhage she had suffered cut out the probability that she had even realized that it had happened. 
So if you’re listening, God, give me a break here
, Clifton thought. 
I need for my son to come through this, and would appreciate a helping hand.

An intern entered the room, and Clifton felt a level of dread that was more debilitating than anything he had ever experienced in his life to date.  The sensation of slime-coated live eels squirming in his stomach made him nauseous.

“Your son is…”

Clifton didn’t pass out, but his senses reeled.  He saw the young man’s mouth moving, but the voice had faded away, as if his brain was denying the news by preventing him from physically hearing it.

The intern’s hand on his shoulder brought him out of the near stupor he had slipped into.  “Your son is stabilized, Mr. Marshall.  And the test results look good.  There is no apparent brain damage.”

Clifton gripped the intern’s hand and began to cry with relief and joy, not the grief he had not thought he would be able to bear.

Moments like this made Jared Colby forget the long shifts and bad shit that were all part of his day-to-day life as an intern at Memorial Hospital.  Caring for sick people and saving lives was not a job of work to him, it was a vocation.

“Can I get you anything,”  Jared asked Clifton.

Clifton smiled through his tears.  “Maybe a container to put how I’m feeling at this second in to, to keep for use in emergency.”

Jared laughed.  “Will a fresh cup of coffee do for the time being?”

“Please,”  Clifton said.  “When can I see Ray?”

“He’s asleep now.  It’ll be a few hours.  If you need to get some shuteye there’s a room with a bed in it next door.”

“Thanks, but I’m wide awake now,”  Clifton said.  “I think I’ll stretch my legs.  Would you point me in the direction of the cafeteria?”

It was late, but Clifton phoned Carol Taylor at home.  She lived a couple of hundred yards up from the Pinetop and cleaned the motel rooms and sometimes ran the office if he needed to be away on business.

“Kaz?”

“Yeah, Clifton, what happened?  I heard that there was an ambulance at your place.”

“Ray had a…an accident, but he’s going to be fine.  I’m phoning from Colorado Springs.  Sorry it’s so late, but I won’t be back tonight and―”

“I’ll see to the motel, Clifton.  Take your time, and let me know what’s happening when you can.”

“Thanks, Kaz.”

“No problem.  Bye for now.”

Clifton closed his phone and realized that he was hungry.  Picked up a tray at the end of the counter and made his way along it in the wake of other visitors and hospital staff.  He was soon settled at a corner table, tucking into meatloaf with baked potato and green beans. Ray’s survival had washed away the bulk of the despair and left him ravenous.  And yet halfway through the meal he pushed the tray back as the realization of his son’s state of mind hit home.  What if Ray still felt the same and attempted to end his life again?

Lyle parked his Dodge Charger at the curb outside Kate’s house and walked up the path to the front door, followed by Denny Matthews who’d driven out in a battered Crown Victoria.  They both had their hands on the butts of their handguns, not entirely sure what awaited them.

Kate opened the door slowly and stood back to let them in.

Logan was leant against the doorframe to the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand.  He nodded at Lyle and his deputy.

“Jesus!”  Lyle said at the sight of the tall black man lying on the floor with a bloody dime-sized hole in his forehead.

“Did you do this, Logan?”  Lyle said.

Logan nodded.  “There’s another guy in the bathroom,”  he said.  “He’s still breathing.”

Lyle went up to the bathroom and took a look at the guy in the tub.  His nose and mouth were bleeding profusely but he seemed alert.  He was bound up, so wasn’t going anywhere.

“Give me the short version, Kate,”  Lyle said as he came back into the kitchen.

“Two guys broke in.  They were going to kill me.  Logan appeared and took care of them.  He disarmed one guy and had to shoot the other to save me from having my throat cut.”

“Who are they?”  Lyle asked.

“I’ve never seen them before in my life,”  Kate said.

Lyle looked at Logan.

“Me neither,”  Logan said.

Lyle turned to Denny.  “Phone the Staties,”  he said.  “They can use the resources they’ve got in town.  Tell them we need a medical examiner and a forensic team out here.”

“Am I free to leave?”  Logan said.

“You’re shittin’ me, right?”  Lyle said.

“Kate has told you what happened.  I defended both of us against these armed intruders.”

“I need full statements from both of you, back at my office.  Denny will drive you, and I’ll be along as soon as I can.  Any problem with that?”

Kate and Logan shook their heads.

It was the middle of the night when Lyle opened the door to the interview room that Kate was in.

“Sorry to keep you waiting for so long, Kate,”  Lyle said.  “But Logan and you left quite a mess for us to clear up.”

“I’d appreciate getting this over with soonest, Lyle.  I’m tired and pissed.”

“I’ll take an initial statement, and then you should be free to leave.  But not to go home.  Your house is a crime scene.”

“So ask your questions, Lyle.”

They ran through it three times.  Kate and Logan had discussed what had gone down before Lyle had turned up, so had the story set.

“Last time, Lyle,”  Kate said, “And then I’m walking out of here.  I was dozing in front of the TV, and woke up when the guy that was shot hit me across the face.  He put a knife to my eye, and the other guy drew a gun and fitted a silencer onto it.  I was about to be raped, murdered or both when Logan showed up.  The small guy attempted to shoot Logan, but he disarmed him and aimed the gun at his partner.  Told him to put the knife down, but he attempted to use it on me, so Logan fired, once, purely in defense of my life.”

“Why was the surviving intruder bound up in the bathtub?”

“Logan thought that he presented a threat.  I made coffee while he talked to the man.”

“What was said?”

“I don’t know, Lyle.  I stayed downstairs and called you.”

Lyle sighed.  “Okay, Kate, you’re free to go now, but I’ll need to take an official statement.  We can do that later in the day.  I want you back in my office at three p.m.”

“I’ll hang around, Lyle, until you release Logan.  I don’t think he should need my services, but should you decide he has anything to answer to, I’ll be here to represent him.”

“Whatever,”  Lyle said.  “Feel free to wait in my office, and I’d be obliged if you made a fresh pot of coffee.  I’m parched, and I need a caffeine fix.”

Logan appeared to be asleep when Lyle entered the other interview room and pulled up a chair.  The big man had his feet up on the table and his head was hung forward, chin on chest.

Logan
had
been asleep, but came awake instantly at the sound of the door opening.  He brought his head up to face Lyle, yawned and stretched his arms before taking his feet off the tabletop.

“Hi, Sheriff,”  Logan said.  “How’s it going?”

“I’ve had better days and nights, Logan,”  Lyle said.

“I can imagine.  Have you finished up with Kate?”

“For the time being.”

“And now it’s my turn?”

“Right.  You seem a little unconcerned, Logan.  You just shot a man to death, doesn’t that bother you?”

“He made a choice.  I did what needed to be done to save Kate’s life.  And no, it doesn’t bother me.”

“What about the body we found in the burned-out car?”

“Meaning?”

“Where were you when that happened?”

“When exactly did it happen, Sheriff?”

Lyle had no exact or even approximate time for when the corpse that had all but been destroyed by fire had wound up that way.  There was still forensics to come in.  What he did know was that the victim had been murdered before being torched.  There had been evidence from the autopsy of a knife wound; the blade had entered the head underneath the jaw and forged passage up into the brain. So at least the guy had not been burned alive, which was some consolation for him, Lyle supposed.

“You own a knife?”  Lyle asked Logan.

“Nope.  I travel light.”

“You left town.  Where did you go?”

“Not relevant to what happened at Ms. Donner’s house.”

“I’ll decide what is and isn’t relevant, Logan.”

Logan smiled.  “Can we concentrate on the reason for me being here?  I’d like to get a few hours’ sleep.  It’s been a long day.”

“Talk me through how you happened to be at Kate’s place when this went down, Logan.”

“Providence, Lyle.  I’d been on the phone with Clifton Marshall earlier in the day.  He told me that Kate had been trying to reach me.  I thought I’d call in for coffee.  The back door was open and I heard voices.  I went in and found a situation that needed to be dealt with.”

“The guy in the tub had a broken nose and a knife wound to his mouth.”

“He came out of it alive, so I’d say he was a lucky man.  As for the knife wound; he pulled a box cutter on me.  His mouth got widened in the ensuing struggle.”

“Bullshit, Logan.  I think you knew exactly who they were.  I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d followed them to Kate’s.”

“I don’t have a vehicle, Lyle.  I’ve borrowed Clifton’s pickup a couple times, but not today, or yesterday.  I hitched back to town and arrived at Kate’s on foot.  And like I said, I’d never seen those two creeps in my life.”

Lyle shook his head.  Logan had been a cop for two decades and wasn’t going to say a word that would incriminate him.  “I’ll go get us some coffee,”  he said.  “And then you can give me a statement and get the hell out of here.”

“Obliged, Lyle.  Anything new on the girl’s murder yet.  Did you get that list of single males together?”

“You’re a civilian, Logan.  I’m not prepared to tell you shit.  Although I will tell you that the Marshall boy attempted to hang himself.”

“Attempted?”

“Yeah.  Clifton found him, hopefully in time.  He’s in intensive care at the moment.  I don’t know whether he’ll make it or not.”

Logan closed his eyes and thought everything through while Lyle went for coffee.  One of the sheriff’s deputies was a killer, had contacted Wade McCall in Denver, and had been ultimately responsible for everything that had followed.  But knowing it was a far cry from proving it.  Larry Horton was like Teflon, nothing would stick, because there was no evidence to back up what Logan knew.

It was another hour before Lyle told Logan he could go, but that he was not to leave town.

Kate was still there.  They left together and talked as they walked out of the Creek to the Pinetop, having declined a lift from Lyle.

“Did you hear about Ray?”  Logan said.

“No.  What?”  Kate said.

“Lyle said he strung himself up, but that Clifton found him before it was too late.  He’s in hospital.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know.  I hope so.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes.  The exercise warmed them against the predawn chill.  Kate’s thigh muscles began to ache as she attempted to keep pace with Logan.  His long legs seemed to glide along the highway.

“Slow down,”  Kate said.  “I’m not used to this much walking, and I’m not wearing the right footwear for it.”

Logan realized that he had been powering along, consumed by thoughts of how best to resolve the situation in relation to Larry Horton.  “Sorry,”  he said, slowing to an amble.

“That’s better,”  Kate said.  “What was the rush?”

“No rush.  That’s my usual speed.  I spend a lot of time tramping the length and breadth of this great country.”

“Are you being facetious?”

“No.  For all its many faults I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.”

“Like I said, you’re a strange man, Logan.”

“Why?”

“You seem so together, relaxed and in control, and yet you have an unwholesome propensity for violence.”

“Violence is just a tool, Kate; like you would use a hammer to knock a nail into a piece of wood, or an ax or saw to cut it, or a knife to carve and shape it―”

“That’s just a metaphor.  You shot that man dead with no visible sign of concern, and seemed totally indifferent about it afterward.  And I know that you harmed the other guy after he was unarmed and of no further threat to either of us.”

“If he had dropped the knife he would in all probability still be alive, Kate.  I was not going to take the risk of you being harmed.  I don’t plan to harm or kill anyone.  I stopped off in the Creek to just chill and enjoy some down time, not to become involved with murder and mayhem.”

Kate stopped walking, and so did Logan.  They were illuminated by an almost full moon that silvered the asphalt of the road and the forest that rose up at either side of it.

“You saved my life, Logan,”  Kate said.  “And I’m almost blaming you for doing it.  I’m sorry.”

“No sweat, Kate.  I do what I need to.  Now you know why I avoid relationships, I―”

Kate moved up against him, put her arms around his waist and said, “Shut up and kiss me, Logan.”

He held her gently and kissed her tenderly on the lips.  He was immediately aroused.  Sex was not something that he gave a lot of thought to, and did not seek out, but was happy to let happen with a beautiful woman.