Debts (4 page)

The man doesn’t speak. Now that Emmett is standing, he looks away and eyes the shop lazily. Emmett’s heart pounds with adrenaline and he scans the man for weapons. As if reading his thoughts, the man looks back at Emmett, a small smile playing on his generous lips. He slowly unhooks his thumbs from his belt, and Emmett tenses, ready to leap forward, but the man’s hands remain at his side as those colorless eyes flick up and down, taking their measure,
that little mocking smile widening a hair.

All kinds of strange people walk into the tattoo shop, and normally, no matter how belligerent someone appears, Emmett would be asking how he could help by now. But he stays silent. He’s unsure why his instincts are screaming—there’s nothing about the man that is actually aggressive—but he’s learned to listen to his gut. He hasn’t felt in this much danger since his tour in Afghanistan.

Obeying those screaming instincts, Emmett steps in front of his customer in an unconscious reflex to protect her, standing between a noncombatant and incoming fire. He rolls his shoulder in, his biceps flexing under his shirt until the sleeves grow taut. His hands in their black latex gloves curl into fists. Still silent, he shakes his head no. As in: No, there’s nothing here for you. No, I won’t help you. No, you’re not welcome here.

The man’s smile grows wider as his eyes grow hotter. For a moment, Emmett swears they flash red, and the unassuming mask slips to reveal something hideous and full of fury. But like a flickering reception, it’s only for a split second and, in the next moment, the man looks only mildly amused at the lack of service.

“Excuse me,” the woman in the chair says indignantly, “we’re in the middle of my tattoo, if you don’t mind.” She’s annoyed with Emmett, totally oblivious to the malevolent presence of the man in the shop.

The man tilts his head as he considers her. For some reason, Emmett’s heart constricts with dread.
She shouldn’t have done that
, he thinks.
She shouldn’t have drawn his attention
.

The man gives her a small nod, as if deciding,
Yes, she’ll do
, and smiles. She smiles back, suddenly shy, ducking her head.

“I might come by later, when you aren’t so … busy,” he says to Emmett, his voice
surprisingly high and smooth. Then he shifts his gaze to the woman in the chair, her shirt raised over her right side where the tattoo is taking shape on her ribs. “That tattoo is going to look amazing on you.” His voice deepens slightly, the words smooth and caressing.

She turns pink with pleasure and bobs her head in thanks. As the man steps out without a backward glance, she stares after him.

The interview is supposed to take place at Bender’s chambers in the county courthouse, but half an hour before the scheduled meeting, Bender’s secretary calls to say he’s at his home and expecting Miriam there. The change in venue makes Miriam uneasy and she’s doubly glad Craig’s coming along.

Bender’s house is a sterile-looking new construction in gray stucco on an old street of redbrick colonials. Miriam knocks on a large wooden door painted such a glossy black that it still looks wet. The heavy brass door knocker is shaped like a gavel. Miriam and Craig exchange glances and she rolls her eyes. Craig grins back. He has an expressive face. Miriam hopes he can keep it blank during the next twenty minutes, because it’s almost certain that Bender will be rude.

Bender opens the door dressed in slacks and a pale peach shirt that brings out the sunburn on his nose and cheeks. His gut presses against the thin pima cotton. He smiles in welcome at Miriam, but the smile freezes into a grimace when he catches sight of Craig.

“This is Craig Lang,” Miriam introduces. “He’s interning at the paper.” Craig is three years younger than Miriam and stands nearly a foot taller. Bender eyes him sourly. It does look a little like she’s brought along a bodyguard. Craig stands relaxed, arms by his side, smiling politely at the judge, bland game face on.

“I wasn’t informed,” Bender huffs importantly. “This is a private conversation.”

“This is an interview,” Miriam corrects. “If you say anything off the record, Craig understands that it’s confidential.”

Bender considers her for a moment, his rat eyes flicking from her face to her chest to her notepad to Craig. Miriam holds a firm, no-nonsense gaze as her skin crawls. In another thirty seconds, she might call the interview off.

Bender senses something of her determination. After another pursed-lip glance at Craig, he sucks on his teeth loudly and steps back to let them through. They follow him down a long, sterile hallway lined with black-and-white photos of skeletal trees. It’s cold inside and the photos make the place feel colder. Miriam wonders why a confirmed bachelor in his fifties needs such a massive home.

There are several closed doors leading off the hallway. He opens one and ushers them in. After the modern façade of the house and the stark hallway, Miriam expects a room with lots of glass and chrome, but his office is surprisingly traditional: sizeable Oriental rug, mahogany desk, walls lined with bookshelves full of legal texts. It’s curiously warm in the office after the chill of the hallway. Too warm. There’s a large window, but the view is hidden behind a fussy striped curtain of gold and burgundy, drawn shut. It’s dim in the room without natural light and Bender flicks on a small lamp that only accentuates how stuffy and gloomy the office is, considering the bright sunshine outside.

Craig and Miriam settle on a small brown couch and Bender eases into a wingback chair upholstered in the same ugly fabric as the curtain. There’s a space heater next to the chair, which explains the heat in the room, but not why Bender would blast AC in the house and run a space heater in the office.

Eager to finish this awful interview, Miriam flips open her notebook, ready to begin. But Craig, who’s been unabashedly studying the place, suddenly sits up with an exclamation of alarm. Miriam follows his appalled gaze. There’s a massive terrarium flanked by two potted
ficus that takes up half the wall in the corner of the office. She walked right by it as she entered the room, so distracted by the hideous drapes that she never noticed it. At first there are only brown coils in the mottled colors of a muddy topographical map. They’re so thick and tangled it takes her mind a while to work out that not only is it a snake, it is a very large snake. Each coil is almost as thick as her thigh.

“Oh my God!” she exclaims. “How big is that snake?”

Bender smiles benignly and Miriam is annoyed that she gave him the exact response he clearly wants from guests to his office.

“Reticulated pythons can grow to be as much as thirty feet long. Genghis is a twenty-two-footer, a rescue,” he explains. “He was about to be euthanized after strangling a toddler.”

Miriam and Craig exchange horrified looks. The story rings a bell to Miriam. It made national news a few years back. The family awoke in the morning to find its pet python had slithered out of its cage, down the hall, up into the crib and around the small, sleeping girl. It hadn’t eaten her when the father discovered them, but the little girl’s head was covered in rows of bite marks where the snake had bitten her with its numerous small teeth to keep her in place while it constricted her.

“Not the snake’s fault, of course,” Bender says, looking fondly at the massive python. “It wasn’t bred to be vicious, just following its nature. To kill it for that seemed like a sin.” He looks like he expects to be lauded for this act of mercy. Miriam pictures this beast gliding through the house in the middle of the night, peering into the various bedrooms before choosing the small crib and the child sleeping there. She eyes the gleaming muscular coils and tries to imagine what twenty-two feet of snake looks like coming into your bed.

“Didn’t it happen in Florida?” Miriam asks, feeling nauseated. “How did you end up with
it?”

“It did take place in Florida.” He nods, pleased that she’d heard of the story. “I happen to be good friends with the judge in the hearing. I asked him what would happen to the snake. The state wildlife and game commission were planning to put it down after the trial. Didn’t seem right to me. The father was an unfit parent, he’d lost a child, but there was no need for another life to end.”

It’s so wrong, so twisted, to keep the snake as a pet even if Bender is right and the snake isn’t vicious. Her gaze keeps sliding off Bender to rest on the snake, which revolts and fascinates her at the same time.

With a steadying breath, she turns to her prepared questions. She expects it will take some time before they relax enough in each other’s presence for a good conversation. But Bender seems unfazed by her reaction to the snake, the stiflingly warm office (can’t have an uncomfortable snake), or Craig’s presence. She hardly needs to prompt him. Some interviewees are like that.

“I moved here back in 1982,” he begins easily when she asks how long he’s lived in Hamilton. “Different time then, different place altogether. There were untouched woods down Route 31—none of these endless shopping malls and fancy stores. It was good Christian folks living a good wholesome life.” Bender sits back in his chair, ankle on knee. “I made it my mission in life to protect this community. Are you getting this down?”

Miriam nods, pen racing on her notepad.

“I’ve seen some awful things from the bench; the worst dregs of humanity come before me, begging for mercy.” He looks at Craig. “I have no mercy for the wicked.”

“Tell me about your ties to the community,” Miriam quickly says. “I understand that
you’re deeply involved with many civic organizations.”

Annoyed at the interruption, Bender uncrosses his legs and leans forward, both feet on the ground, with his gut resting in the space between his spread legs. “I have been a member in good standing of the Kiwanis Club for over twenty years. During that time, we have participated in many worthy projects. My dear friend, Bob Morth, he’s now the mayor of this fine town, he began his Kiwanis membership the same time as I did.”

The closer Bender leans forward, the farther into the couch Miriam presses herself, lifting her pad like a small shield. He tells her about his deep friendship with the mayor and the chief of police, his pride in Hamilton and his hopes for its continued prosperity. She quickly writes his quotes in shorthand, nodding to keep him going.

Emmett had told her about the ordinance violation from a few weeks ago and this morning she saw on the daily blotter that he recently received a second one. With Bender droning on about the deep friendship he shares with Morth and his high ambition to protect the morality of Hamilton, Miriam suddenly makes a connection. Could Bender be the one behind the campaign to re-designate city ordinances and the harassing violations Emmett is charged with? Morth never seemed like he had the destructive sneakiness to engineer the plan he was pushing. She scribbles a note to herself in the margin of her pad to look into whether any email exchanges between the mayor and the judge qualify as public record.

Craig sits quietly by her side, listening to the interview. From time to time, he glances over to study her pad and the notes she’s taking. Miriam doesn’t mind; one of the hardest things for a journalist is writing down a subject’s quotes during an interview. It’s a skill to know which key words will re-create the quote once back at the office. Craig reads the note she jotted in the corner and looks visibly surprised. He slides a glance over at the judge and the atmosphere in the
room abruptly changes.

Bender, with the instincts of a brawler, immediately picks up on Craig’s surprise while reading the note. It’s obvious from Craig’s expression that Miriam has written something unfavorable about Bender. He narrows his piggy eyes threateningly at Craig and turns them on Miriam. Busy jotting the latest quote, she’s oblivious to the exchange, so she jumps when Bender’s large, fleshy hand pats her leg familiarly. The pen leaves a worried squiggle as her hand jerks.

“You know, I saw the booking sheet from your arrest,” Bender mentions, squeezing her leg like a vise. “I can’t begin to tell you how something like that hurts a reporter’s credibility, their trustworthiness.” Miriam feels the blood drain from her face. “People count on a reporter being unbiased. When it seems like someone’s got an agenda, it compromises things. Don’t you agree?”

She glances at Craig, who’s carefully looking down at the floor. Beads of sweat have formed on her upper lip in the warm office and her back tickles where moisture runs down between her shoulder blades. “There’s no official record of the arrest,” she says. Her pad lies on her lap and she feels oddly vulnerable without the mad scribbles to hide behind.

“You’d be surprised what stays in the system.” Bender smirks. “A person like you, new to the community … It’s a terrible way to make a first impression.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Miriam says. “The community knows that.” Miriam was arrested while trying to stop the previous intern, Jason, from bringing several guns to Warfield Prep, the school he attended so miserably. In the confusion of the police raid on his place, she was accused as his accessory but was cleared when the editor of the paper explained she’d been working on a story. No one has mentioned her arrest to her since, and she assumed there were no
records of the police error.

Bender shrugs, his hand slides an inch up her leg. “All I’m saying is I’ve been here more than thirty years. I’m a known quantity, so to speak. What do you think you are?”

“Honest,” she says, removing his hand, fed up with the veiled threats.

Bender’s face grows pinker as he sits back. “You be careful, young lady. People don’t appreciate having their pillars knocked. It makes them feel …” He looks at her with an unfriendly, flat gaze. “Unsafe.”

Swallowing, Miriam closes her notebook. “Thank you for the interview, Judge, I’m sure you’re busy and we won’t take up any more of your time.” Unable to bring herself to shake hands with him, her hands clench around the notebook instead. Bender’s eyes narrow at the obvious slight.

“Your editor Frank Hale and I go way back,” he says. “I’ll be watching for that story, now, you hear?”