Darkness the Color of Snow (3 page)

“I said, ‘No Breathalyzer.' ”

“Sam, you don't want to do this. If you refuse the Breathalyzer, he gets charged. We draw blood. He goes to court. I promise you I'll do everything I can to keep the results under wraps. But if you refuse, I can't do that. I'll have to take him in, and it will be on the public record.”

“Are you drunk?” Colvington asks Sammy. Sammy waves his hand back and forth. Maybe, maybe not.

“That sounds right to me,” Gordy says.

“If this gets out, it will be your job,” Colvington says. “I can make your life miserable.”

“Like I said, I have no intention of bringing charges. I can't promise that won't happen as the investigation moves forward, but right now, I don't see it. That's all I can tell you.”

Colvington turns away in obvious disgust. Gordy takes that as assent.

“Pete, get John on the Breathalyzers.”

“John's gone to get the Laferieres. But Steve's here. I'll get him on it.”

“Good. Then search the vehicle. You guys,” he says to the three waiting on the ground. “You're going to have to blow into the Breathalyzer. Then we'll release you to your parents or someone else who can take you home. We're pretty much done with you.”

I
T'S ANOTHER HALF
an hour before John pulls his cruiser back into the accident scene. He gets out and opens the back doors. Gordy watches Roger Laferiere get out, followed by his wife, Gayle. Roger is a tall rangy man, dressed in jeans and canvas coat, cap pulled down tight on his head. Gordy has never seen him without a cap on. He walks with a pronounced limp, the product of an industrial accident some years earlier. Gayle is also thin, nearly gaunt. She's wearing jeans and a Giants sweatshirt. Gordy hopes she's got plenty on underneath it. There's still a chance of snow tonight.

“Roger, Gayle. Sorry to be seeing you under these circumstances.”

“Where's my boy?” Gayle asks.

“On his way to the hospital.”

“He's hurt?”

Gordy looks over at John, who looks down and shrugs apologetically. Gordy is nonplussed. How did John not tell them? How did they not ask? “I'm afraid it's worse than that.”

“Dead?” Roger asks.

“There was an accident. A hit and run. I'm afraid Matthew didn't survive. It was instantaneous. I don't think he suffered at all.” Gordy grimaces at the inadequacy. But what is there to say that's not inadequate? He's delivered hundreds of these messages, all inadequate. “I'm very, very sorry for your loss.” The Laferieres exchange looks of incomprehension.

“You said he was at the hospital,” Gayle says.

“He is, but I'm afraid he didn't make it. He'll be examined and pronounced dead, then sent to the morgue.”

“The morgue?” Gayle repeats as though she has not heard that Matt is dead.

“Yes. I'm afraid so. There will be an examination, and then they will turn the body over to you. I hope that won't be very long.”

“Can we see him?” Gayle asks. Her voice is the calm, steady voice of someone who is not going to accept this yet.

“I wouldn't advise it. It was a terrible accident.”

“They're not going to cut him up.”

“There'll be an autopsy. It's the law.”

“No. No. You can't do that.”

“I'm afraid we have no choice. This was a hit and run. It's a criminal case. He was hit by a hit-­and-­run driver. There's going to be a trial.”

“You have the one that hit him?”

“Not yet. We will. There will be a trial, and the person who hit him will go to jail. That's pretty much certain. But an autopsy is part of that. The law.”

“When can we see him?”

“Again. I don't advise you to see him. He was very badly hurt. I don't think you want to see him that way.”

“When can we see him?”

Gordy nods sadly. “Tomorrow, maybe. But think about it.”

Roger glares at Gordy, then turns and walks to the Jeep. There is still blood, hair, and tissue on the Jeep. Gordy isn't sure what other matter has been left behind.

“Chief,” Steve Holt says. “Can I see you for a minute?”

Gordy excuses himself and walks over to Steve.

“Thought you might want to see the Breathalyzer results.” He hands Gordy a sheet of paper—­Cabella .11, Colvington .14, Stablein .093. “What do you want to do with these guys?”

“Let Colvington go home with his father. Keep the others. If no one shows up to take them home, take them back to the station. Don't charge them yet.”

And then Roger Laferiere is in front of Gordy, again. “He says that Ronny Forbert was in on this.”

“Who says?”

Laferiere points to John North, who has been shepherding the Laferieres around the scene.

“Officer Forbert was making the arrest when the accident occurred.”

“They was friends.”

“Yes, I believe that's true.”

“Nothing worse than friends that go bad on each other.”

Gordy starts to say something, then stops. That's pretty much the truth. Affection often stirs violence into the stew of disagreement. Gordy nods. “John, take the Laferieres home, please.”

“We'll stay.”

“No. There's no reason. We're just going to collect some evidence and get this cleaned up. I'm sorry, but there's nothing you can do here. John, take the Laferieres home.”

“I'll drive the Jeep,” Roger says.

“No. Can't let you do that. It's evidence. When we're done with it, I'll have it delivered to you. You go on with John.” He watches them go to John's cruiser, Gayle in the lead, striding hard, fast, angry, and straight ahead. Roger follows, limping slowly behind, shoulders down. Farther to the east he can see the amber lights of the wrecker coming for the Jeep.

“Chief,” Pete says. He's carrying a bundle wrapped in cloth. “You need to see this.” He unwraps the bundle. There are two handguns—­a Colt 1911, .45 automatic, and a .357 Magnum. There's ammo, too. “Under the seat, driver's side.”

“God,” Gordy says. “When you think it can't get any worse, you find out it could have been. Bag those.”

“Y
OU'RE SURE YOU'RE
all right?” Sam Colvington asks him.

“Yeah, I'm OK,” Sammy says.

“That Forbert lay hands on you?”

“No. He told me what to do and I did it.”

Sam, sometimes “Big Sam,” considers this as he drives them back into Lydell city limits. Then he shoots out his right hand fast enough that his son has no chance to duck or block the blow that catches him on the cheek and nose, making him see sparks in the darkness. “You dumb shit,” his father says.

Sammy puts his hand up to gingerly touch his face, the burn of the blow just starting to spread across it. He turns his head toward the car window so that his face will be protected if his father sends another shot his way. He can just make out the outlines of bare trees flashing past the car window.

“You're riding around in the middle of the night with that bunch of punks, drinking beer and smoking grass. You're lucky you're not dead. You're lucky I don't kill you.”

Punks. For a second Sammy sees an image of Matt, Paul, and Bobby, in leather and torn denim. Bright Mohawks and lots of piercings. “Matt's dead.”

“Yeah. Good riddance. That guy is a piece of shit. Always was. What the hell are you doing riding around with a bunch of guys who are older than you?”

Being cool, Sammy thinks. Being not your son. Being anyone but Sam Colvington Jr. “Just hanging out,” he says.

“Hanging out. Shit. I ought to stop this car and beat the crap out of you. Then you can hang out. See how you like it. You know what you've done to me tonight? You've damned near ruined me. You've lowered me in the eyes of the community. I'm a community leader. I'm on the town council. When Martin runs for state office, I'll be the next president. At least, I was going to be. But all anyone thinks now is that I can't even control my own kid.”

“Sorry,” Sammy says. Then he thinks, You can't control your own kid. You'll never be able to control your kid, because I'm not a kid anymore.

“You know what those guys are? You know?”

“Punks,” Sammy says.

“Bums. They're fucking bums. They don't have real jobs. They just ‘hang out,' drinking beer and smoking grass and riding around town being bums. Is that what you want? You want to be a bum?”

Yeah, Sammy thinks. I want to be a bum. I want to hang out with guys who get me, who aren't saps to the system. Guys who don't walk around with their noses up Martin Glendenning's ass. You're goddamned, fucking right I want to be a bum. He says, “I don't know. Matt's dead.”

“Get over it,” his father says. “It's no loss.”

 

CHAPTER 3

(DAY ONE)

R
ONNY
F
ORBERT SITS
in the waiting room of Warrentown Hospital, drinking a Coke and picking at the leg of his trousers, working at the flap of fabric where they tore. A nurse has given him a ­couple of safety pins to keep the torn fabric from flopping around, but his fingers keep going to it, maybe after the scabbed, scraped skin under the bandage. On his arm, he has more safety pins, more bandages, and more scraped skin. He has a headache, and he feels like he had exactly the fight he was in last night.

He finishes the Coke and goes back to the small snack bar, buys another and a banana that has a little too much brown on it. He keeps looking at the entrance door to the emergency wing, the way everyone else does, waiting for someone to take them out of here.

He slept in the emergency ward last night. Or, rather, he didn't sleep in the ward last night. Either someone kept coming in to ask the same questions over and over, or he was listening to the screaming of an obese man who kept demanding dinner because he knew his rights and he had been there for more than four hours. When someone brought him a sandwich, he became enraged and threatened to sue the hospital because he was entitled to a hot meal.

Just shut the fuck up, he thought, listening to the ranting, his jaw clenching and teeth grinding as he lay behind the curtained enclosure, then caught himself. He had watched someone die just a few hours ago. That's where anger led, to violence and destruction. He wanted no more of it.

E
VERY TIME THE
door to the outside opens, every head turns to it. Then all but one turn back to what they had been doing, or not doing. Finally, it is Ronny's turn to rise as Pete Mancuso makes his way through the door. Ronny sets down his Coke can and rises to meet Pete.

“How you all doing this morning?” Pete asks.

“Good. A little sore and tired, but OK.”

“Good. Let's get out of here. I hate hospitals. I was worried I was going to have to wait until you got checked out.”

“No. That happened about an hour ago. They try to push them through the door as fast as they can.”

“That's fine by me. You eat yet?”

“I had a Coke and some sweet rolls and a banana.”

“What? Are you on the Gordy Hawkins diet?”

“I could use a ­couple more pounds.”

“Too bad Gordy can't give you some of his.”

“You're not skinny, Sarge.”

“That's Pete, not ‘Sarge.' And I was a defensive lineman at a major college. This is what I'm supposed to look like. It's my natural state.”

“LSU Tigers.”

“You been studyin'. Let's get something to eat, then head back to the office. I think you've got kind of a busy day. You up for that?”

“Yeah. I'm fine. Just some road rash.”

“That's not the ‘fine' I'm worried about. You watched someone die last night.”

“Yeah. I'm good.”

R
ONNY WAITS UNTIL
the waitress has filled their coffees and taken their orders. “Can we stop at Dunkin' Donuts for some good coffee?”

“Dunkin' Donuts don't have good coffee. We have to go to Starbucks for that. Besides, I've lived my life not conforming to clichés. No Dunkin' Donuts.”

“Pete, how did you come to be named Mancuso?” It was not the question he had wanted to ask. He couldn't make himself ask the real question yet.

“The usual way. The way you got to be named Forbert. It was my daddy's name. What you want to know is how did a black man come to be a Mancuso. My daddy, a good Eastern Italian, went to Louisiana in the seventies to find work on the oil rigs. His name was Pete Mancuso, too. While he was down there, he met a genuine Creole queen who weaved a spell he would never be able to break. When the jobs ran out there, he brought the whole family back up here. And that's how you got a fine ebony Mancuso in Lydell.”

“Did your grandparents object? I mean, interracial marriage and all?”

“Hell, yes. But probably not the way you're thinking. My mother was Creole, and Creole is special. Creole's got long bloodlines and regal history. My grandfather, my momma's daddy, was furious that she took up with some white Eyetalian Yankee polluting our fine gene pool. He turned his back on her and wouldn't even talk to her when she announced she was getting married to Pete Mancuso.”

“Did he ever talk to her?”

“One night, she and Daddy was sleeping. I was there then, too, but I don't remember it, only the hearing of it. The doorbell rang and my daddy went downstairs, and then he came back up to bed holding a yellow envelope. A Western Union telegram for my momma. You can bet she opened that envelope with trembling hands.”

“Why?”

“Back then, a telegram in the night could only mean bad news. Now it means that someone's gone your bail. Anyway, my momma opened the telegram and read it. It said, ‘So, Lavinia [stop] Just how cold IS a well digger's ass? [stop] Love Dad.' ”

“You ever meet your grandfather?”

“A ­couple times. He died before I turned ten.”

“Am I going to get fired?”

“Probably not. Gordy and I haven't discussed it, but I would guess you won't. The only thing we can figure that you did wrong was failing to call for backup, and I know that I take some of the blame for that. The one time you did, I went two feet up your ass, which was my mistake. I think you'll be getting some time off.”

“A suspension?”

“Likely. A week, maybe. But maybe not. I don't know. That's entirely up to Gordy. He'll discuss it with me, but he will do what he thinks is right. I would probably go to the long end of that, just to keep it in your memory, but Gordy won't ask me. He'll tell me.”

“I really fucked up.”

“You fucked up. That's enough.”

“When someone gets killed, you really fucked up. I really fucked up.”

“Let me go back and clarify myself here,” Pete says. “You made a mistake. Matt Laferiere and the driver of the hit-­and-­run car, they fucked up. Not you.”

Ronny lets out a long exhalation. “I killed Matt Laferiere.”

“No. The hit-­and-­run driver killed Matt Laferiere. You were an agent in a complicated accident. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That's probably the worst thing you can do right now. Take your medicine when Gordy gives it to you and pull yourself back together and be ready to come back to work when Gordy says you can.

“And more. Call your father and that fine girlfriend of yours. Set their minds at ease. Lydell is a small town. About now, everyone in town is aware of what happened last night. Don't let your loved ones spend more time than they need to worrying about you.”

E
VERYONE JUST LOOKS
up when Ronny and Pete enter the door. Expressionless, no one says a thing until Pete says, “The prodigal has returned. Bandaged.” Then there are smiles and “how are you feelings” enough that for several seconds he is just repeating, “Fine, fine, fine.” Sue, the day dispatcher, comes out of her closet-­sized cubicle and gives him a hug, then the men shake his hand and pat his shoulder. He is welcomed back into the world.

Gordy stays at his desk in his office, watching the scene from his open door, smiling, and when the other expressions of welcome are finished, he motions Ronny to come in. “Close the door,” he says when Ronny is inside.

“I'm OK,” Ronny says.

“Good. That's good. I'm glad to hear it. Sit down.”

“I fucked up. I know it.”

“It was a serious breach of procedure. Make no mistake about that. But don't take too much responsibility for what happened. It was an accident. There were lots of factors involved—­alcohol, drugs, bad weather, a speeding driver on a road with terrible sight lines. But as soon as you saw you had four potentially unruly drunks on your hands, you should have called for backup. Immediately. But your mistake was a part, not the whole. And frankly, there's no guarantee that calling for backup would have made any difference. Probably not. Things happen, and they happen fast. Nevertheless, you made a mistake. There are consequences from that.”

“I know. Pete told me.”

Gordy says nothing for a moment. “Five-­day suspension, without pay.”

“Pete thought I might not get suspended.”

“Pete was wrong. It's a stiff penalty for failure to call for backup, but there was a fatality involved.” Gordy puts up his hand to stop Ronny from responding. “I know. I just said it probably had little or nothing to do with the accident. But we live in two worlds. One world is a world of cause and effect. Excessive speed on a bad road leads to bad consequences. But what we do afterward can lead to bad perceptions in the political world.

“I don't have to run for election, or campaign, but I'm still part of the political world in Lydell. I serve at the pleasure of the town council, as you do. The town council also appropriates all of the funds for the department—­your salary, Pete's, mine. All of it.” He picks up a pencil. “We have to ask the council for pencils, for Christ's sake. So the town keeps a close eye on us. In large part, we are the government of Lydell. I can't risk the perception that we let things slide here. So I'm suspending you, because that's the punishment for failing to follow procedure, and I'm suspending you for five days to let everyone, including you and the council, know that I'm serious about following procedure.”

“All right.”

Gordy regards him for a moment with the look of a parent disappointed in his child. “I'll need your weapon, too.”

“Why?”

“Because you're on suspension. You're still a cop, but you're not. You have no need to carry a weapon.” He holds out his hand, waiting for Ronny give it up.

When he does, Gordy extracts the magazine, checks the chamber for a live round, then holds the gun up and squints at it. He turns it in his hand a ­couple of times.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Trying to read the serial number.”

“I can read it for you.”

Gordy paws at his desk for his glasses. When he finds them under some papers, he puts them on and turns on the desk lamp. He studies the numbers then writes them down. When he is done, he picks up the form he has been writing on, tears off a copy, and hands it to Ronny. “Your receipt,” he says.

“Why do I have to give up my gun?”

“I told you. For the next five days, you're not a working cop. You're a cop, but not a working one. You're not authorized to carry a weapon. Also for your own safety.”

“My safety?”

“Standard in cases where the officer is involved in a fatal.”

“You think I'm going to kill myself?”

“No. But we try to deal with all possible events, not just the likely ones. It's procedure, Ronny. Procedure.”

“Any other procedures?”

“You're going to have to fill out a report. You can wait until tomorrow, but no longer than that. OK? Let me know when you're ready.”

“I'll do it now.”

“Are you sure? You don't want a little time to think about it, to get it all straight in your head?”

“It's straight in my head.”

“All right. Remember, this is the official version of what happened. If you make a mistake, it could come back to haunt you. I'm going to advise you to wait, to think it through a ­couple of times. Come back and do it tomorrow. Write it out, then let it rest a few hours before you read it over. A suggestion, not an order.”

“But it's what you want me to do?”

“Yes. It's my suggestion to you.”

“Tomorrow then?”

“Yes, tomorrow. Things will be better tomorrow. Take today and pull yourself together. Talk to your loved ones. Reassure them that you're all right. Reassure yourself. Get your thoughts in order and come back tomorrow.”

Ronny nods as if Gordy has just given him a lecture on quantum physics. He turns and goes back into the main office. He can feel the absence of his weapon on his right hip. He feels off balance.

G
ORDY FEELS SORRY
for the kid. He really does. He doesn't want to make more of this than it is, to make Ronny feel worse than he does. He doesn't want to freeze him up with the enormity of what has happened. This is going to be with Ronny the rest of his life.

It was 1963, Fort Bliss, Texas. Gordy was a private first class in the MPs. He liked the job. It seemed like something important, even when his primary job was pulling drunk soldiers out of bars in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, though, officially, they never crossed the border. It was also often an interesting job, with changes of scenery and assignment. Usually. Not this night.

Gordy was in a patrol on watch over a convoy that had rolled in from the east. The cargo was top secret, which meant that it was more than likely nuclear. They were in an especially tense part of the Cold War, just months past the Cuban missile crisis. Everyone was moving nuclear weapons around, searching for the strategic upper hand.

That was the thinking. All Gordy had been told was that no one, no one, was to go near the convoy. They were authorized to shoot on sight. Gordy was walking the southern perimeter, a good assignment considering it was cold in that southern Texas way when the clear sky made for a sharp and brittle night. Walking was far better than taking up a stationary position.

He saw the shape moving in front of him, heading south toward the fence. He immediately ordered whoever it was to halt and identify. Instead the shape lurched forward, doing an awkward run as it carried something in its arms. He again ordered it to halt. It did not, and Gordy fired.

There was not enough light to see exactly what happened. The shape went down, and Gordy moved cautiously forward, M1 at the ready. He came to the spot where the shape had gone down and found no one. He headed south, flashlighting the ground, occasionally illuminating spots of blood. He found the hole cut in the fence, and found blood on the fence as well. He went back to where he had seen the person fall. There were two other MPs there now, standing over nothing but a box of nails spattered with blood.