Deep Winter (15 page)

C
arl looked over at Sokowski in the driver's seat of the truck. He hated the motherfucker. He knew that Sokowski thought he was stupid. Always treated him like some kind of moron or something, ever since high school. But over the years whatever Sokowski wanted him to do, Carl would end up doing it. Carl didn't know why exactly. Maybe it was because he was tired of being a wallflower. Or maybe it was because he was short and fat and didn't really fit in, and Sokowski let him into his circle of friends. That's all Carl really ever wanted, he guessed. To fit in, no matter the cost or humiliation.

He'd jumped his dirt bike over Sokowski's Chevy truck in the tenth grade. They had built a makeshift ramp out of flimsy plywood and milk crates. Sokowski had invited over a bunch of the FFA guys—wearing their blue corduroy Future Farmers of America jackets that they never seemed to take off, even in the summertime when it was eighty degrees out. They bought a half keg with Carl's
money, and got good and drunk so that they could watch Carl make an ass out of himself. Carl got good and drunk himself and played right along. On his first and last jump, his back tire clipped the hood of Sokowski's truck and flipped him up and over the handlebars. Carl broke three ribs, fractured his left wrist, and tore most of the skin off his legs, stomach, and face. To make matters worse, he had been wearing only tighty whities, because Sokowski thought that would be even funnier to watch. As Carl sat in a pool of his own blood, Sokowski and the other burnouts laughed their asses off.

Carl always soaked up the attention that his stunts brought him. He did stupid shit at the drop of a hat, because it was the only way that the other guys would give him the time of day.

And he did a
bunch
of stupid shit. Usually at the expense of others. Mainly girls. Girls were easy targets. They fell for almost anything and couldn't kick Carl's ass. The meanest joke he ever played on a girl still bothered him to this day. Years of guilt ate him up inside. Sokowski had put him up to banging the fattest, ugliest chick in their class. Susan Ross. Carl's cruel joke earned her the name “Sexy Sue.”

Sue was an outcast who never spoke to the other kids, ate by herself in the cafeteria, and didn't participate in any gym classes because she didn't want to change her clothes in the girls' locker room. She was the unfortunate wallflower that Carl used to be and was both fat and poor to boot. Because of that she had a big red target on her back.

The senior class was having a party down at the river toward the end of the school year, and kids like the band freaks and bookworms knew better than to go to that kind of party—it would be nothing but trouble for them. But Sue fell victim to false hope. At Sokowski's
prompting, Carl invited her to the party to have a few beers and hang out. Sue was exactly like Carl—she just wanted to fit in.

Sue showed up that night wearing the same tight-fitting clothes she always wore, clothes that showed all her rolls of fat in all the wrong places. Long, greasy hair hung over her eyes, and she smelled like her father's barn, where she worked every day before and after school. With Sokowski and the other guys looking on, Carl fed her cup after cup of punch spiked with Everclear. She wasn't used to drinking and got buzzed pretty quickly. Carl gave her attention that she never received before. Asked her questions and made her laugh a few times. Sue never had anyone hit on her before.

It didn't take long to get her in the back of Carl's truck. She told him that she had never been with a boy before, and Carl just nodded at the confession. Carl had her clothes off quickly and took her from behind. He didn't want to see her face. He couldn't bear having her look him in the eyes while he performed his act. She was on all fours, and Sue's fat cheeks pressed into the vinyl seats as Carl grunted and thrust into her. The sound of sweaty skin slapping sweaty skin could be heard over the perky lyrics of Brian Hyland's “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” blasting from the car stereo. At the time Carl found it funny that he was having sex to this song. He knew that Sokowski and the guys would find it hilarious as well.

It was over pretty fast. Carl was drunk, but not drunk enough to come inside her. He pulled out and ejaculated onto her massive ass. She rolled over so that she could look at Carl, but he turned away and quickly threw his clothes back on. He told her he had to take a piss. As planned, he grabbed her large cotton panties on the way out.

Carl went and joined the boys. They drank and laughed and slapped Carl on the back like he was some kind of hero. They all
watched and waited for Sue to get out of the truck. The fun wasn't over. Not by a long shot. It had to be at least fifteen minutes before Sue got up the courage to get out of Carl's truck when it was clear he wasn't returning.

Finally she stumbled out of the cab. Her hair was messed up more than it usually was, and her shirt was twisted and untucked. By this time everyone at the party was in on the joke. They were waiting for her grand exit from the truck.

A roar of laughter erupted as she spotted her audience of classmates. A couple dozen kids stood around the bonfire, bent over laughing and pointing at her. A chant arose, initiated by Sokowski. Sue's head buzzed from the punch, but it only took a moment for her to understand what everybody was saying.

“Sexy Sue! Sexy Sue! Ain't no virgin and smells like poo!”

As the kids chanted, they all looked up at a tree beside the bonfire and howled even louder. Sue peered at what they were pointing at and laughing about. Someone had hoisted her extra-large panties into the air, and they hung like a soiled flag from a tree limb.

“Sexy Sue! Sexy Sue! Ain't no virgin and smells like poo!”

Everybody was drunk, and they cackled and chanted over and over again for so long that it seemed surreal. But Sue stood paralyzed, unable to move her fat legs. She took in the mocking faces of her classmates, most of whom she had known since kindergarten. And it wasn't just the boys who were laughing at her expense—girls were laughing at her, too.

Unable to contain herself anymore, she burst into tears and ran from the bonfire. Still drunk and uncoordinated, she tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground. She rolled in the dirt, which only made things worse. A new wave of laughter erupted around the party.

Carl stood in the middle of the delighted crowd beside Sokowski and remembered that Sokowski even had his arm around his shoulders. When Carl saw Sue on all fours on the ground, covered with dirt and grass, her face stained with tears, his smile faded a little.

A few weeks later, on graduation day, word spread around school about Sue's suicide. That morning she had hanged herself in her father's cattle barn. Carl knew why she did it. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out. She didn't want to face her classmates on graduation night. It was just too much.

Carl and Sokowski never spoke about Sue or the suicide. Life went on.

Now Carl looked over at Sokowski again. Sokowski gripped the steering wheel and squinted to focus his drunken eyes on the road. They pulled in to Doc Pete's driveway and parked the truck. Sokowski grabbed two rifles from the gun rack and handed one to Carl. Sokowski's lousy grin was back.

Carl looked down at the rifle and said nothing. The same shit was happening again. People were dying because of them.

S
cott was born three minutes before his brother, and he never let Skeeter forget who was older. Besides having a few minutes between them, the brothers had pretty similar personalities. They were both quiet men who didn't have a whole lot to say. Always had been. They both liked to fish and hunt and work with their hands. That's why they ended up opening their own auto-repair business. Cars and trucks didn't talk, didn't gossip about who was sleeping with who, didn't nag them about what they were wearing, didn't say boo. A good day was working under the hood of a Ford Mustang and fixing what needed to be fixed.

They were identical twins, and most folks around town had a hard time telling them apart, especially back in high school when they both wore blue jeans and red flannel shirts. Both stood an inch over six feet. Both weighed exactly one hundred and ninety-five pounds. Full heads of black hair, parted down the middle and
feathered off to the sides, hadn't turned gray yet. Neither one of them smiled much, looking like they were perpetually pissed off about something. Seemed like the only time you could catch them smiling was when they were off by themselves and feeling the easy comfort of being in each other's company. Partly because they got tired of being mistaken for each other, Scott grew a mustache that had a hint of red in it, especially out in the sun. Skeeter opted for the full beard and kept it trimmed nice and short, using a pair of clippers every other day or so.

Neither one of them took to drinking either. They could thank their old man for that. Son of a bitch was a lousy drunk and a lousy father. When their mother told them what had happened out at Mindy's trailer, they both knew he probably had it coming. He would have killed the sheriff and then turned the gun on the state trooper. Scott and Skeeter didn't have to discuss this fact. They knew that's what the other one was thinking. Twins were that way.

Mindy, on the other hand, didn't deserve what she got. Sure, she was a bit too wild and too old to not be married and settled down, and she ran around with the wrong kind of men and partied a little more than she should. Pretty harmless stuff, but if she did what a sensible young woman was supposed to, she'd be taking care of a home and raising kids, not living alone in a shitty trailer. Neither one of them much cared for the deputy—he was bad news. Always had an edge to him. He was the kind of guy who would screw around on his wife. They thought Mindy could do better than him and told her as much, but for some reason she was drawn to the man and probably would have ended up marrying him. But Sokowski didn't turn out to be the problem—that turned out to be Danny Bedford.

Scott pulled his truck up in front of the Wash 'N Dry and left the
motor running. They got out and walked up to the front door, their stride and body language exactly the same. Both of them wore green work coveralls stained with car and truck grease, oval name patches above the breast that specified who was Scott and who was Skeeter.

“Think it's open?” Skeeter said out loud.

Scott didn't answer. He pushed on the glass door, and it swung open. They looked down Main Street to see if anybody else was around. It was a little before seven, and none of the businesses were open yet. Just a handful of cars were parked on the street, but it was all pretty quiet.

They stepped into the laundromat and moved toward the steps in the back that led upstairs. Neither one of them had ever been inside the laundromat before, but everybody knew that Danny lived upstairs. They took the steps two at a time, Scott taking the lead, and pushed open the door to Danny's room. The bed was unmade, and the room was pretty sparse and depressing.

Skeeter looked around the room at all of Danny's stuff. He noticed all the wooden figurines on the dresser and picked one up. A green turtle with a little smiley face. It looked like a collection of kids' knickknacks. Being in here was tougher than he thought it would be. Seeing where his sister's killer had lived and slept and planned her murder made him feel like throwing up his breakfast. Skeeter's hands trembled as he turned the wooden turtle over in his palm.

Son of a bitch. Mindy was the only one around here who was nice to you, and you go and kill her.

“Don't mess with that crap. We ain't here for that.” Scott avoided looking at Skeeter but knew that his brother was close to tears. He wanted to stay focused. There would be time for tears later. Not right now.

Skeeter nodded and returned the turtle to Danny's dresser, then opened up the drawers one at a time. A couple pair of mismatched socks, a pair of undershorts, and that was about it. He checked the closet next. A few shirts hung off hangers. He gazed over at his brother and shook his head.

“All his shit looks washed and clean. Ain't gonna help us none.”

Scott fiddled with his mustache for a second as he glanced around the room until he found what he was looking for. He walked over to Danny's bed and picked up a pillow. He shook out the pillow and held on to the stained and threadbare pillowcase. He clutched it in his fist and looked to Skeeter.

“This'll do. Let's get the dogs,” Scott said quietly.

Skeeter nodded. He took one final glance at the green turtle on the dresser, then followed his brother out of the room.

T
aggart rarely spent time in the woods—out in the middle of nowhere. He didn't get the attraction. If it wasn't hotter than hell, with the gnats and mosquitoes going after your face, sweat rolling in your eyes, pollen, and God knows what else being sucked into your lungs, it was cold and too damn quiet. Quiet was the worst. Nothing to block out the constant tug-of-war between guilt and cravings that waged in his head every single day. Noise and chaos helped keep it at bay.

Taggart was a city guy. Maybe Towanda wasn't exactly a big city like Philly, but it was big enough, and Binghamton was only an hour away and had more going on. Give him the traffic, the aggressive drivers, the steady drone of horns and music, and people screaming any day of the week. The call of ambulance sirens and helicopters was white noise to him and made him sleep like a baby. He'd gone camping with his father when he was ten and hated every second of
it. Cooking hot dogs over the fire and sleeping in a tent didn't hold any charm for him. The incessant call of the katydids filling his ears was memorable, as was the sound of his father snoring a few inches away from his sleeping bag that smelled like a raccoon had taken a crap in it. Taggart had never been in such close physical proximity to his father for so long before. His father's breath stank of beer and cheap hot dogs. It was awful. And those memories were what now represented the great outdoors for him—nothing great about it. That was the last time he was deep in the woods. He had hoped it would be his last.

But now, here again, surrounded by nothing except trees and snow up to his ass, Taggart was reminded of the horrible silence. A few birds were singing, but even they didn't sound all that happy to be there. God, he really hated the quiet.

If I weren't drunk, I wouldn't have pulled the trigger. I would have confronted the man. Looked him in the eye to see if he was a real threat.

Taggart glanced to his right and caught a glimpse of the sheriff working his way through the trees fifty yards off. The sheriff had instructed him to make sure to maintain visual contact. If they got separated, the sheriff said that he would have to send out another search party just to find Taggart. He imagined the sheriff got a little thrill out of demonstrating his prowess in all things woods.

He and the sheriff had driven a few miles out of town to a spot where the sheriff thought they might find the suspect. The sheriff had
said
it was only a few miles away, but it took them twenty minutes of riding in uncomfortable silence up and down so many rambling dirt roads that Taggart had no clue where in the hell they were.

Taggart checked his watch again. It was a little after seven and they had only been out here for an hour, but it felt like it had been at
least eight. He had sweated out a lot of the alcohol from his system and was feeling slightly more clearheaded.

You killed him, Bill. His daughter was murdered, and you made the poor man's wife a widow.

Sobriety was letting the raw truth filter in more, and Taggart could hardly stand it. The truth about his entire fucked-up life started seeping out of his brain that he had worked so hard to numb and silence. He hadn't felt anything in a long time except self-loathing. And there was plenty of that nowadays. He was a piece of shit, exactly like his old man told him he was.

Okay. Just take a breath, Bill. It's going to be okay. This mess will sort itself out somehow.

He wiped a thin layer of sticky sweat from his forehead and rubbed it between his fingers. He felt like hell and wanted to crawl out of his skin.

You stupid idiot. You stupid goddamn idiot. You're never going to change. You're going to keep screwing it up and bring Shannon and the girls down with you.

He couldn't take it anymore. Being in between drunk and sober was the worst. He couldn't shut off his inner voice. It came in loud and clear and bared the naked truth that was just too brutal to handle.

Screw it.

He reached into his pocket and grabbed both of the flasks he knew he would eventually be going for. Starsky and Hutch. What a team they made. Starsky felt about half full. Hutch was running low to empty. A little bit swished around inside. That should do the trick for now. Starsky would be for later. Should be plenty to get him out of this day.

Taggart looked back toward the sheriff and saw the old man moving through the trees at a pretty good clip. Taggart ducked behind a large tree, uncapped the flask, and took a hard pull. The instant burn in his stomach was a welcome friend.

He took another pull.

Okay. Just stabilize. You'll get through this.

And another pull.

Think about it. The sheriff said so himself. You did the right thing. You saw a situation with an officer in jeopardy and you reacted. That is what you were trained to do.

His stomach glowed, and his brain anxiously waited its turn.

Stay the course here. Track down this son of a bitch and get the hell out of this cow pasture of a town.

Taggart found himself smiling a little. His buzz was coming back.

There we go. One more nip for good measure.

He drank a little more and screwed the cap back onto the flask. He stepped out from behind the tree and took a deep inhale of the country air.

Not so bad after all. Let's do this thing.

He looked to his right but didn't see the sheriff. The forest was both still and quiet.

A moment of fear crept up from his stomach.

Shit.

He could feel his buzz intensify. He had a good one coming on. He looked to where he thought the sheriff was last walking.

Screw it.

He started walking. Not knowing where the sheriff was or whether he himself was going in the right direction. And not really
caring. He felt something growing deep inside him. A growing anger, a growing rage toward Danny Bedford. It was all because of this Danny Bedford that he was in hot water. Danny Bedford was responsible for this—not him. Rage was burning. Rage he could deal with. He fed off it, in fact. Taggart was going to make the guy pay for the shit he was causing. He was going to make him pay in full.