Helmet Head (13 page)
CHAPTER 29
Angela
Rayburn in Duke County, Nebraska, was a fast-growing community about eighty miles southwest of Lincoln. Flush with ethanol money, Duke County was eager to expand in the face of anticipated growth. In addition to tax revenues, the department had received a $900,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to beef up their force and equipment, including the purchase of a unique armored police vehicle from Carbon Motors.
Terrorists could conceivably target the Drake-Hayburn ethanol refinery.
The Sheriff’s department went from three deputies to ten. Fagan was one of the new hires. Fresh off his stint with the military police at Camp Pendleton he was a poster boy for law enforcement recruitment. He had a BS from Nebraska State in criminology and was working on his Masters. He was the fifth new deputy hired. He started in May and by June he’d talked the department into buying him a Harley police bike which he used to enhance fattened county coffers. The Board of Selectmen singled him out for praise.
Weekend in June he caught a bad one. A biker lost control at a tight curve on County Trunk AA, left the road and hit one of the support wires for a power line, decapitating himself. Ten riders, five old ladies. The Mongrels: scrofulous, nasty and mad. The area was popular among bikers because of the Blue River Breaks. It was the only hilly country for hundreds of miles. Fagan was on the scene in six minutes, but by then numerous bikers and drivers had stopped to rubberneck and the road was a nightmare.
When a kid in Joe Rocket duds got off his crotch rocket and approached the corpse with a camera a Nomad shoved him savagely causing him to fall and strike his head on a rock. Fortunately, he was wearing a full-face Shoei helmet sparing him serious injury.
Fagan entered this scenario as the only law enforcement officer. The bike helped. He got off and went up to the hulking hirsute Nomad who’d shoved the squid. His name was “Ice Pick.”
“I’m Officer Fagan. Is that your brother?”
Ice Pick was near tears, his huge ruddy face twisted in pain, beard bristling. “Yeah! Sorry Sam got outside on the turn and hit some gravel! Been riding with him for fourteen years, man! That motherfucker tried to take some fuckin’ ghoul pictures!”
“All right, Ice Pick, it looks like he’s okay. But we’ve got to make room for the ambulance and avoid other accidents. Could you and your brothers calmly and politely encourage these people to move on? And flag down any oncoming traffic?”
Ice Pick stared at him and reset his jaw. “Yeah. We can do that.”
Fagan stuck out his gloved hand. They shook. “Calmly and politely, Ice Pick.”
“Got it.”
Fagan went over to the corpse sprawled chest down at the edge of a cornfield. The cut was nasty. White spinal bone poked out of red meat. Fagan looked around for the head, found it twenty feet into the corn.
After that he was the gang expert.
One day in early July Fagan sought refuge from the heat at Carl’s Cafe, an old-fashioned diner out on Highway 78 near the fairgrounds surrounded by corn. Corn for the ethanol factory. Every motorhead and biker who ever lived hated ethanol with a passion reserved for the utter depths of bureaucratic stupidity. Ethanol could kill your engine. The higher the percentage, the more corrosion it caused. It drove up the price of food and did nothing to bring down the price of fuel. It was a crooked crony deal between the government and Drake-Hayburn.
The sun hammered mercilessly. Fagan pulled the heavy police bike around to the side and parked it in the shade of the building, gazing across the knee-high cornfield to the silver grain elevators in the distance, on the edge of town. He took off his helmet and placed it on the seat. He scratched his scalp furiously. He entered the air-conditioned diner, nodding to the other patrons, two old farmers and a traveling salesman.
Taking off his Psycho shades he sat on the red Naugahyde stool at the chrome and linoleum counter. He wore a tan, short-sleeved shirt with epaulets and khaki trou. His nine rode high on his hip. The fresh-faced brunette squared up in front of him like a pitcher.
“Hi! You must be one of the new cops.”
“Pete Fagan, ma’am.”
She pointed to the patch on her blouse. “I’m Angela. What can I get for you, officer?”
“Got any iced tea?”
“You betcha! Want a slice of pie with that?”
“No thank you, ma’am.”
“Angela!”
She twirled, tossing her ponytail like a filly and drew an iced tea with unlikely flair. A couple of tourists stumbled in and took a booth at the window. Angela left to take their order. She was like a ruby-throated hummingbird, flitting from pistil to pot leaving a trail of light. Fagan caught one of the old-timers out of a corner of his eye winking at him.
Fagan pulled out his notepad and reviewed his notes from the morning meeting. Anthony Tuckett, who farmed corn and alfalfa on sixty-five acres north of town, had complained that kids on motocross bikes were ripping through his fields. There was a report of vandalized highway signs on 78 not far away. That would be his next loop. The interstate wasn’t his problem. He left that to the NHP. He had jurisdiction over all the county and city roads. Kids had been using Grange Road to drag-race since before Fagan was born and it had only gotten worse over time with the addition of the Fast and Furious crowd.
In the seventies and eighties they raced souped-up hot rods. Ford, Chevy, Dodge with drag slicks, blowers and traction bars. That began to change in the nineties with the influx of hot tuner imports. In Fagan’s experience you were more likely to rip your head off in a Subaru than in a Ford. The auto manufacturers sold rigs like the Subaru WRX STI, the Honda Civic Si, and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR.
The week before two kids got their Subaru up to 120 mph and hit an oak tree, tearing the car literally in half and killing both occupants instantly. Fagan’s third assignment for the rest of the afternoon was to visit Rod’s Tuners, a hop-up shop on 78 where the Fast and Furious met to modify their rides, bullshit and smoke dope. He wanted to meet the players, talk a little sense, ask for favors. Kids loved it when cops asked them for favors. Made them feel special and maybe, just maybe, a little more inclined to obey the law.
Angela brought the check.
It included her phone number.
The following week he stopped in again and asked if she was doing anything Saturday night.
“No I’m not,” she said batting her eyes at him.
“Would you like to cruise Main, maybe see a movie?”
“I’d love to!”
“I have a car and a motorcycle. Which do you prefer?”
“Let’s take the bike!”
She clung to him on the back of his Kawasaki like a lamprey. They watched
Spider-Man
and ended up in bed back at her place, an apartment building yclept Rolling Meadows. There was a lot of rolling but it wasn’t in the meadows.
She had a bluebird tat on her left bicep and a rose on her rump. She was lush in shape and padding, the type of woman who tends to put on weight in later years. But right then she was perfect.
Like Fagan, Angela was older than she looked. She was thirty. She started putting out hooks in the third week.
“We should look for a place together.”
In the aftermath of lovemaking Fagan said nothing. Angela felt the chill.
“What? Why not?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Come on, Pete. You didn’t have to. I could feel you pulling away. Do you have other girlfriends?”
“Of course not.”
“You like me, I like you. This way we’ll be able to find each other at night!”
How did he explain to her his insane fear of commitment? He was thirty-two. He wasn’t getting any younger. But hooking up with all that that entails? Fagan thought he knew women. He knew what it would entail.
When are we going to get married?
Let’s have a baby!
Fagan’s childhood alienation had psychologically damaged him. Much as the Rabbi and Esther tried to love him, he resisted and never felt he was part of the family. Always felt like he was a changeling dropped in their house by mistake. Like Harry Potter.
He didn’t want kids! He’d seen them having meltdowns in the local IHOP. He’d picked them up for loitering, vandalism and worse. He’d seen one dysfunctional family after another which only reinforced his opinion that kids were too much work.
Kids were just nature’s imperative to continue the species. They were not necessarily part of a rational life. Biology didn’t care about love and faith. Biology only cared about getting on with the species.
They said becoming a parent changed a man but he was not eager to find out.
He never saw the happy families because they didn’t phone the police.
It wasn’t that he never wanted to get married. He just didn’t want to get married in the foreseeable future.
“I think you should leave.”
***
CHAPTER 30
Terry
A week later Fagan was horny and called Angela up. They had a tacit agreement. She’d refrain from putting out the hooks and he would treat her as his girlfriend. This redounded to her favor in late September when she ran her Chevy Cobalt into a mail box after a night out with her gal pals drinking and dishing at the Crystal.
She called Fagan. “Pete, I ran into a fucking mail box.”
It was on Winston Street not far from her apartment complex. The mailbox, belonging to Walt and Dotty Wilson’s blond brick ranch house, was totaled. Walt stood in the doorway wearing a terry-cloth robe. It was eleven p.m.
The Cobalt had a minor scrape on the bumper. Angela remained behind the wheel, an open bottle of Coors on the seat next to her.
Fagan leaned in. “Are you all right?”
“Where’s the fucking airbag?!”
Fagan made her get out of the car and checked her over. She seemed to be intact with a minor scrape on her forehead where it hit the steering wheel. She had not been wearing her seatbelt, a $99 fine.
Fagan reached in from the street side, pinched the beer bottle, and set it discreetly on the curb. He sat Angela down on the curb.
“Don’t move.”
He went up the flagstone path to talk to Wilson, who owned the local hardware store. Wilson was in his mid-fifties, roundish, with round glasses and a white comb-over that was better than Donald Trump’s.
Everyone in town knew Fagan and Angela were an item.
Wilson came out on his front stoop. “Hello, Pete.”
“Mr. Wilson. Very sorry about this. We’ll get that mailbox repaired right away.”
“Don’t worry about it, Pete. I’m not going to press charges. It gave us quite a start, though. Dorothy and I were watching Leno when we heard a big bang. How’s Miss Baxter?”
“She’s fine, sir.”
“I’ll fix that mail box myself.”
“At least let me pay for it.”
“Don’t worry about it, Pete. The town thinks you’re doing a great job. You stopped those kids from using my walls as a canvas. I appreciate that.”
Leaving his Crown Vic on the street Fagan drove Angela home in her Cobalt, depositing the empty beer bottle in a dumpster on the way into her building. He had intended to simply put her in bed and return for his cruiser but he ended staying a bit longer than he planned. It was twelve-thirty by the time he checked out for the day and headed home on his Kawasaki.
The next day the temperature fell twenty degrees and the rains came. Although Fagan had only been on the job five months, they teamed him with a newcomer named Terry Evans, a big farm boy from Des Moines who’d wrestled varsity for Iowa State.
Terry wanted to be a cop the first time he saw
NCIS: Miami
and
Law and Order
. He began hanging around cops in high school, joined the local Police Youth League, helped organize softball games and charity events and was generally looked at as a promising mascot.
He studied criminology while working nights as a security watchman for the Loomis Corporation, which put him through a basic training class covering everything from dealing with the public to the use of deadly force.
He did not carry a gun until he became a Duke County deputy. Fagan thought of Terry as a big, friendly Newfoundland. They worked together five days on, three days off through October. They put another officer on the bike. Fagan might have been a little zealous with the speeding tickets. He was disappointed but pleased he’d been tasked with showing Terry the ropes.
First couple of weeks piece of cake. Some fender benders, a deer collision, a couple of DUIs. Terry had a bluff and friendly manner backed up by a linebacker’s body. The couple of times he had to assert himself he did so with finesse and restraint. He was Fagan’s kind of cop.
The evening of November 15 was frigid and overcast with snow threatening. At nine thirty-five Fagan and Evans received a complaint about a domestic disturbance at 229 Fox Ave. in Browntown. That’s what they called the southeast side where the Mexicans lived. And the Dominicans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans. But mostly Mexicans, who worked for Drake-Hayburn or the meat-packing plant.
Cops understood that some of these workers were undocumented or had overstayed their green cards, but most of the visitors were good Christian families, worked hard and stayed out of trouble. There had been no previous calls to 229 Fox Ave.
There had been no complaints.
The neighbors said it sounded like a war in there.
Snow started to fall in earnest as Fagan and Terry pulled up in front of 229 in their Crown Vic. The house was a shotgun shack, one of eight per block put up by Drake-Hayburn in the fifties to house migrant workers. The houses were uniformly shabby with listing steps and tilting shutters.
A couple teenagers stood in the street hovering over their BMX bikes as sounds of anger and destruction issued periodically from the house. Neighbors stood on their porches on either side. Fagan and Terry got out of the car. Fagan went up to a gangly boy underdressed in droopy pants with a pork-pie hat.
“You know who lives there?”
“Manny Galindez,” the kid said.
“You know who all is in there?”
“Manny and his wife—I don’t know her name, two kids, like five and six.”
“Any guns in the house?”
The kid shook his head. “Never seen any but I don’t hang with ’em.”
Fagan thanked the kid and joined Terry on the narrow porch. He pounded on the door.
“Police! Please open the door!”
The caterwauling stopped. For a few seconds silence reigned. Fagan pounded and repeated his demand. They heard heavy footsteps approaching the door. It opened six inches. There was no chain. A mesomorphic Mexican peered out, blue Bible verse crawling up his neck in Spanish.
“Mr. Galindez, I’m Officer Fagan and this is Officer Evans. We have reports of a disturbance. Can we come in?”
The big man’s tiny eyes looked fearfully from one to the other. “Is no disturbance. Nothing wrong here.”
A woman moaned behind him. Terry went through the door followed by Fagan. Galindez’ wife, if she was his wife, lay on the floor in the combo living/dining room with puffy eyes and purple bruises on her cheek and arm. The only decoration was a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe built around a garish plaster statue. It was surrounded by votary candles, coins, badges and bells not dissimilar to those favored by bikers, baseball cards, play money, a rosary. There were too many talismans to count. During the scuffle someone had knocked a pile of them across the threadbare carpet. A spray pattern of cards and junk. The ace of spades lay face up. None of the candles were burning or the house would have been in flames.
Terry turned Galindez around and cuffed him.
Fagan helped the woman to her feet. She was slight and dark with a Mayan nose and long glossy black hair. “Do you speak English, ma’am?”
“A little,” she said.
“Let’s go in the kitchen and you can tell me what happened.”
Fagan led her by the elbow into the tiny kitchen and sat her down in one of the three mismatched chairs which looked like they’d been salvaged from the dump. Fagan remained standing. Everybody seemed to be cooperating so he didn’t call for back-up. He took out his spiral pad and pen.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Juanita Galindez.”
“You’re Mrs. Galindez?”
“Yes. What about my children?”
“What children?”
“Esteban y Maria. They ran out the back when he hit me.”
“Has he hit you before?”
Mrs. Galindez stared at the floor. “Please find my children. They must be all right.” She fell to her knees and clutched his pants. “Please!” she sobbed.
Protocol demanded that neither party be left alone during a domestic dispute. There were good reasons for this but Fagan made a judgment call. Juanita seemed like a defeated woman, only her love for her children keeping her alive.
“You stay right here, understand?”
She nodded gratefully with a hint of a smile.
Fagan left the kitchen, glanced in the living room where Terry had Galindez seated on the sofa and was talking into his collar phone. Fagan went down the hall—there were two tiny bedrooms and a tiny bathroom. Neither child was in any of the rooms. Fagan went straight out the back porch, now covered with a half inch of freshly fallen snow. He looked around the shabby yard. There was a pit bull in a wire enclosure. He made a mental note to send animal control.
Child-sized footprints led away at an angle, partially obscured by the falling snow.
The scream cut the night like a razor. Two screams—a man’s bellow of abject pain and a woman’s soprano ululating madness from a vision no human can endure. Fagan rushed back into the house drawing his gun.
He stopped at the entrance to the front room. Juanita sat next to her man, still sullen, still cuffed, consoling him and weeping.
Terry Evans lay on the floor face down with an enormous butcher knife sticking out of his back.
***
