Last Ragged Breath (23 page)

Hume and a lushly tattooed young man in a T-shirt and skinny jeans were staring at each other across the front counter, fists cocked at their hips, lower lips thrust out.

“What's the trouble, Lee?” Fogelsong said.

“This guy says I gave him a five instead of a ten,” Hume said. “He's supposed to get ten back in change—and I gave him a ten.” Hume was an overgrown, puffy-looking man, with black glasses and a round hedge of Chia-Pet hair. Broken blood vessels covered his nose like a net. He was fifty-seven years old, which Fogelsong knew because he'd seen his personnel file; other people might have guessed younger. Hume played the age float. It was a matter of dignity. At twenty-five, even thirty, you could shrug off working the front counter at the Highway Haven as a temporary gig until your fortunes improved; at fifty-seven, it was a career.

“You're a fucking liar,” the kid said with a snarl. “You gave me a five, asshole.”

Hume turned to Fogelsong, his voice high-pitched and petulant. “Hear how he talked to me? You hear that?”

“Yes. I do.” Fogelsong motioned to Sissy Lewis, who was just coming out of the ladies' bathroom with a mop and a plastic bucket. Somebody had stopped up one of the toilets again. It had happened about a half an hour ago, and when she called Nick to tell him where she was, he'd said,
What'd they stop it up with this time?
she had replied,
Trust me, Mr. Fogelsong—you don't want to know
.

“Hey, Sissy,” he said. “Take over the cash register, will you? I need to speak with Lee and this gentleman.” She said, “Sure.” She was a middle-aged mother of four, divorced, obese, and always cheerful, and she worked harder than anyone Nick had ever seen.

He moved to a corner of the store with Hume and the young man. The other customers had been intrigued by the little drama, but now that the line was moving again, ignored it.

“Okay,” Fogelsong said. “Here's what we're going to do.” He turned to the kid. The kid was so young that his pimples looked first-generation. “We're going to give you the five bucks. The five bucks you say we owe you. Is that okay?”

The kid's surprised grin was wide. He smirked at Hume. “Shit, yeah, it's okay,” he said.

Hume started to argue. Fogelsong held up a hand. “Just a minute, Lee. I'm not finished talking.” He gave the kid a studious stare. “Here's how it works—just in case you're thinking of trying this again. We've got your picture from our security camera, okay? And from now on, when you come in here and you get change from your purchase, whoever's working the register is going to take the change and lay it out on the counter and you're both going to agree—before you take it—that it's the correct change. Okay?”

The kid's grin slid off his face like something slick from a griddle. Clearly he'd anticipated a repeat performance of his easy-money scheme in the near future.

“Don't matter,” he muttered. “Never coming back to this shithole.”

“Breaks my heart,” Nick replied. Hume snickered, which made the kid even madder. He slunk away, and the chains that hung from his belt sloshed back and forth, jingling and rattling. When he reached the front door he punched it open.

“Thanks, Mr. Fogelsong,” Hume said. “Best part is, the fucker forget to take what he really did pay for—those two-liter Mountain Dews over yonder. Stupid punk.”

“Get back to work, Lee.”

*   *   *

A couple of hours later, Fogelsong decided to give up and head home. He'd finished a slew of paperwork—which was not why he'd stuck around so late, but he was glad it was done. Late nights in the office were a great time to tackle paperwork. That was one way—maybe the only way—this job was like his sheriff's job. You had no interruptions in the middle of the night. You could focus. Productivity jumped.

He took a last look at his cell before he shoved it into his coat pocket and turned off the office light. The only calls he'd had tonight were from Mary Sue, wondering when he'd be coming home.
Soon,
he told her.
Soon, honey. Go on to bed. Don't wait up
.

Staring at his cell, knowing for certain now that Bell wasn't going to call, he thought about what he would have said to her, if she had. At first he wanted it to be,
Screw you—shutting me out like this. How dare you? How fucking dare you?
But that lasted only seconds. The anger drained away. And he realized that what he really wanted to say to her, and what he hoped like hell she somehow sensed from him, no matter where she was right now, awake or asleep, was this:

Good luck, Belfa. I know how much your work means to you and I hope the trial goes your way.

Then he shut off the light, buttoned his coat, and headed out to the front part of the store. Darkness crouched against the windows. The crowd had cleared out now. Highway Haven was down to just a smattering of customers, typical for the scraped-off plain that stretched out between 2 and 6
A.M
. A truck driver filled up two jumbo thermoses over at the coffee urns. A woman stood in front of the beer cooler, puzzling over her selection. Hume looked half-asleep behind the counter, an arm propped against the register.

Fogelsong didn't bother to wave. He went out the front door. A blast of cold air met him there, the tricky cold of March, tricky because you half-expected winter to be gone by now and it never was—but you still anticipated that it might be. Hope beat experience every damned time. Fogelsong winced, pulling up the collar of his coat.
Glad I've got a close parking spot,
he thought, a thought immediately superseded by,
Good Lord, I'm getting soft. Next thing you know, I'll be riding one of those little scooters from my car into the building
.

A glint caught his eye. It came from across the lot, near the first row of pumps on the truckers' side.

He looked closer. The lights above the pumps reflected off the chrome. A truck was parked there, a big silver rig, eighteen-wheeler. The driver stood next to it. A short, burly man in a baseball cap with a Peterbilt logo. His green plaid coat was wool, and it looked as if it had last fit him maybe a decade ago. Coat and face were vaguely familiar. Nick knew most of the drivers by sight if not by name, and Green Plaid was a regular.
A regular pain in the ass,
Fogelsong corrected himself. After filling up his truck, Green Plaid made a habit out of hanging around, fussing pointlessly with his vehicle, walking back and forth across the lot or clogging up an aisle in the store. Nick didn't like it, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Not if the man had made a purchase.

Nick decided to go over and say hello. He liked to remind the drivers with his presence that there always might be somebody watching them, day and night. Security cameras, yes—but human beings, too. Not just dumb machines. Never hurt to let them know.

The sound of his steps rang out against the concrete. Green Plaid's head jerked in his direction. He looked surprised, and then he looked afraid.

“Evening,” Fogelsong said. “Once you've filled up, you might want to come inside. We've got some mighty good coffee. Tell 'em I sent you. It'll be on the house. Just tell 'em you ran into the head of security and he gave the okay.”

At the word “security,” the man's head jerked again. He was looking past Fogelsong, toward the north side of the store, where the empty propane containers were stacked for refilling. It was dark there. The lights covered most of the lot and the front of the store, but there were a few areas—slivers, really, no more than that—that fell in between, out of the reach of the lights and, more significantly, out of the reach of the video surveillance equipment.

“Okay,” Green Plaid said hurriedly, still looking past Fogelsong. “Will do.”

“Well, this is interesting,” Fogelsong said, his voice deliberately affable, easygoing. Keeping things on a nice even keel. He had taken a few steps around the truck cab, where he had a better view of the pumps. “You don't seem to be getting yourself any gas right now, mister. Which makes me wonder why you stopped by here tonight in the first place.”

Fogelsong's heartbeat was accelerating. Cold as it was, he was aware of the moisture on his palms. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Green Plaid, more than likely, was here to pick up a drug shipment. He'd been coming regularly to the Highway Haven so that he could figure out the security layout. Tonight, he'd pulled up to the pumps because that's what trucks were supposed to do. If he hadn't, if he'd parked his truck in the shadows, that would have looked suspicious on the security cameras, catching somebody's attention. The person he was here to meet was probably over by the side of the building, waiting for the signal, whereupon that second man would slither out and make the exchange with Green Plaid, keeping to the side of the truck where the cameras didn't reach.

Of course, I might be wrong,
Fogelsong cautioned himself. He had to act carefully and decisively, but not do anything provocative. A small voice in the back of his head told him he ought to just call 911 and get a state trooper out here and be done with it. Let them get to the bottom of things. But he knew what he was doing.

Hell,
he thought.
I was a sheriff for more than thirty years. I think I can handle this fat-assed bastard and his pal.
And there was also a part of him—he wouldn't have admitted this out loud, but it was true, all the same—that looked forward to Bell's reaction when word got back to her that it was him, Nick Fogelsong, who had busted up a drug transaction. Maybe a big one. Maybe one related to that new gang. He hadn't put himself so far out to pasture that he couldn't do the job anymore.

“Tell you what, mister,” Fogelsong said. “Why don't you and I take a little stroll? How would that be? Bet you'd like to stretch your legs, after being cooped up in that rig of yours for so danged long. Let's just walk over there to the side of the store—the place you've been looking at so hard, ever since I approached you—and we'll see what's what. Okay?”

Fogelsong turned to face the store, so that he could point to the shadowy space alongside it. To the place where the accomplice surely waited. Now he reached out to procure Green Plaid's puffy arm.

“Come on, now,” Fogelsong said. “Nobody wants any trouble here tonight.”

At that moment, Fogelsong felt a sharp, hot sunburst of pain in his chest, a pummeling force that knocked him backward, and he heard the crisp zing of a bullet. He slammed hard against the door of the truck cab, arms spread out, mouth open. He slid in a heavy heap to the concrete. The concrete was cold, but he was in no shape to notice.

 

Chapter Twenty-three

The night before the beginning of a major trial always brought a certain anxiety to Bell Elkins. No matter how meticulous she and her assistants had been in their preparation, she was never sure she was ready. Granted, not much happened on the first day of a trial—but still. It set the tone. If either side was lackluster, tentative, feeling their way, it showed.

The hour was late. Her head was bent over a stack of notebooks on her desk. She was going over the story she would be telling in her opening statement later in the week. Jury selection would take up most of the first few days, along with the back-and-forth motions between her and the defense that were necessary but that still induced exasperated sighs from everyone in the courtroom, including the lawyers who had filed them. A trial without a blizzard of motions just didn't feel right to anybody, Bell had decided long ago; it would be like a hospital without that odd smell. You wouldn't know what to do if it suddenly smelled good. You certainly wouldn't trust it.

At 11:48
P.M
., she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and turned off the lamp on her desk.

She wished she had Nick Fogelsong to help her think this through. The night before a trial, he'd always been an excellent confidante. Good with strategy—and good with wisdom, too, wisdom being a solid arch over mere strategy, like an ancient bridge over the shifting, sliding river. She wondered what he was up to tonight. They hadn't seen each other since the day he'd ambushed her in JP's. A day when she'd been rude to him, cold and withholding. Miffed at his assumption that he could just walk right back into her life as if he were still sheriff.

Late as it was, he'd be home from work by now. Gone to bed, most likely. Reading by the light of the lamp on the bedside table, with Mary Sue beside him.

Lord,
she thought.
If only this was a simple, good guy–bad guy trial
. A lot of her major cases these days involved drug trafficking, and with those, it was easy to argue the county's case. The defendants were scumbags. Prosecution was a breeze. But Royce Dillard was different. She had an inkling of what he'd been through in his life: the loss of his parents at a tragically young age, an inability to adjust to the world, the constant rubbing worry brought on by poverty. She knew he was guilty—the evidence was what it was—and she would make sure he was punished for what he'd done. Still, she entertained a fragile hope that he would, at some point in the trial, decide to tell them why he'd killed Hackel. If he told the story, and if he then changed his plea to guilty, she could agree to a sentence that took into account the provocation for his crime. He would serve time, but he would not die in prison. That scenario, however, required him to be forthcoming with them.

An idea occurred to her.
I can't convince him,
Bell thought.
And Serena can't, either. But maybe he can convince himself.

She opened her desk drawer.

*   *   *

Chess Rader was on duty tonight. With so few deputies, the county had to rely on civilian employees to take the overnight shifts at the jail. Rader was a young man with whom Bell had dealt three years ago, when his grandfather was murdered in a case of mistaken identity. He was a good kid. A little cocky, but she didn't mind that. She could come across as a little cocky herself.