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O
h, man,” Fish groaned.
“Like, this is, like, torture or something, dude,” Nald whimpered.
They were in a little room at the Sawyer County sheriff’s office. The air conditioning was out. The walls were blank. There
wasn’t anything in the room except a table and four folding chairs and them. They wore el stupido orange jumpsuits. Somebody
had said their clothes had been burned after they’d stripped, but that had to be a joke. A really sick joke. And he and Fish
had on, like, chains. Like, dungeon chains. Chains from one ankle to the other so they had to shuffle if they walked, and
chains that tied their hands to a belt-chain at their waists. Totally medieval. They clinked when they moved.
Obviously, the Sawyer County cops considered them very dangerous dudes.
But that wasn’t what had made Nald whimper. Nope, what was really the icing on the long-john donut, so to speak, was a guy
who’d just walked in the door carrying a big paper grocery bag. The guy was in a dark suit and he had some kind of gel in
his hair, so he was probably a certified fruitcake, but right now, Nald could not’ve cared less.
The guy had food. He could smell it.
The guy set the bag down on the table and began unpacking it. First came some sandwiches with the bread sort of squished so
you could tell it was the good kind. Then he took out a big bag of Lay’s BBQ potato chips and some cans of Yoo-hoo. Nald held
his breath when the guy stuck his hand in the bag again. The hand came back out with a long white box. Could it be?
Nald was so excited he closed his eyes and prayed.
Pleeeeeeeaase!
He peeked with one eye. It was! He opened both eyes to gaze reverently at a big box of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes—those funny-shaped
cakes with the hard white icing and black stripes. Nald stared in awe at the fruitcake guy. He had perfect taste in food.
He was amazing.
For a fruitcake.
The man sat down in a chair behind the table and glanced at them. Now that he was no longer unloading food from the bag, he
looked a little mean. He’d pushed back his suit jacket and there was a big black gun under his arm. Nald shifted from one
butt cheek to the other in his chair. The man took out an itsy-bitsy tape recorder and set it on the table. He pressed a red
button.
“My name is Dante Torelli,” the man said without showing any embarrassment for having such a goofy name. In fact, his lips
hardly moved. Which if you thought about it, was a weird way to talk. “I’m an FBI special agent.”
Nald licked his lips and tried to figure out if he was supposed to be scared at this news. Maybe the FBI guy was going to
beat them up with a rubber hose or something. Although why they would use a rubber hose when a tire wrench was a whole lot
harder was a good question.
But Fish had an inquiring mind. “Why’re you special?”
The guy blinked. “That’s what we’re called. Special agents.”
“Why?” Nald asked.
“Because. That’s what an FBI agent is called.”
“So you’re not any different than other FBI guys?” Fish clarified.
“No.”
“Then why did you say you were special if—” Nald started.
The guy slammed both his palms down on the desk. Fish jumped. Nald gulped. The guy blew out his breath. Then he smiled. You
could tell he was trying to make his smile friendly, but it wasn’t. It was more like scary. Nald smiled back just to let him
know the smile was a nice try, even if it wasn’t really working. Maybe if the guy liked him, he’d give Nald a Little Debbie
Zebra Cake.
“So, gentlemen,” Mr. FBI man said. His smile slipped, and he forgot to put it back on again. “I want to ask you a few questions
about the bank robbery.”
Fish stiffened. “Nuh-uh. We’re not gonna talk without a lawyer present. Think we’ve never seen a cop show before?” Fish snorted
loudly to show how unlikely
that
was.
“Yeah,” Nald nodded righteously. “I’ve watched every episode of
Reno 911!
”
“First thing you do, you get a lawyer,” Fish said.
“Yup.”
“Otherwise it’s a no-go. We clam up.” He sat back and stared at the FBI dude.
Nald tried to fold his arms, realized he couldn’t, and settled for sitting back in his chair, as well. He hoped his stare
was as tough as Fish’s.
A tiny muscle popped out on the FBI guy’s jaw as if he were pissed at them. Then he reached over and snagged the bag of BBQ
potato chips. He tore open the top, stretched it wide, and took out one—just one—potato chip, confirming for Nald that the
man was indeed a fruitcake. What real man eats chips one at a time?
“Well, that’s just too bad,” Mr. FBI Fruitcake said, sort of waving the chip.
Nald would’ve sworn he could smell BBQ and grease across the table. His stomach rumbled.
“Uh,” said Fish. He looked less smart now, because drool was running down his chin.
“Looks like . . .” the FBI dude ate the chip and rustled around in the bag for another, “I’ve got at least an hour to kill.
Sure you don’t want to talk?” He asked that last bit through a full mouth of potato chips.
“Uh,” Fish said again. Maybe his brain had, like, fried from the smell of chips.
The FBI agent ate another chip slowly, and Nald followed the guy’s hand to his mouth. He could almost taste that chip, salty
and crisp and all mashed up in his mouth. Nald whimpered.
The agent looked up, like an idea had just occurred to him. “Would you like one?”
“Uh!” Fish said and made a grab for the bag. But his hands were chained to his waist and he could only move them the length
of his elbows. The potato chip bag was out of his reach.
The FBI guy made a tut-tut sound, like an old grandma when you’d tracked through the house in muddy shoes. “You know there’s
things I’d like to discuss, Mr. Fish. I’d be more than happy to share my lunch with you while we talk.”
“Aww,” Fish kind of moaned, and his chin quivered. You could see that giving up those chips was costing him, but he’d always
said there was a code of honor among thieves.
Nald swallowed. He was pretty unsure about the code of honor. If thieves were so honorable, then what were they doing robbing
people?
The FBI guy picked up one of the sandwiches and popped the plastic triangle thingy it was in. He took out a sandwich half
and sort of waved it, too. Right in front of their noses. A pale pink sliver of bologna showed where the sandwich had been
sliced. It glistened in the fluorescent light.
Nald lunged for it.
The FBI guy jerked back the sandwich real quick and raised one eyebrow like he was the Duke of Dork. “Do you have something
you’d like to say, Mr., ah, Mr. Nald?”
“Yeah, I’ll spill.” Nald wriggled his fingers. He could almost feel that sandwich in them.
“Wha—” Fish started, but the FBI dude handed over the sandwich half.
Nald hunkered down because his arms could reach only to chest height, and bit into the soft white bread. It was the best thing
he’d ever tasted.
“You’re going to rat me out for half a bologna sandwich?” Fish yelled.
“It’s got Miracle Whip,” Nald defended himself, mouth full of mushed-up bread and bologna.
“Turd!”
“Douchebag!”
“After all we’ve been through—”
“Yeah, like that swamp!” Nald laughed, but then some bits of bologna flew through the air and landed on the desk and made
him look less cool, so he stopped.
“Give me some of that!” Fish yelled at the FBI guy.
“You’ll need to—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you everything, too,” Fish muttered. He got the other half of the bologna sandwich. Nald was already
eyeing up the rest of the sandwiches. One looked like chicken salad. Lots of Miracle Whip in that.
FBI guy took out a pen and a yellow pad of paper. He clicked the end of the pen and held it over the paper. “So, who planned
the robbery?”
Fish got a crafty look on his face. “How about some Yoo-hoo?”
“Talk first, Yoo-hoo second.”
Fish pouted.
“Well, it was a guy called us up—” Nald started.
“Might’ve been a girl,” Fish reminded him.
“Ooo, right. Like that Trinity chick.” Nald nodded.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Fish had finished his half of the sandwich and was drooling again.
“Sooo,” the FBI agent said real slow. Nald noticed that he hadn’t written anything down on his notepad. “You’re saying that
Trinity from
The Matrix
planned your robbery.”
Nald squinted. Was this guy dumb or what? “No. No. The voice was all Tron-like. You know, disguised. It could’ve been a chick
like the Matrix chick—”
“Or a dude,” Fish put in.
Nald nodded. “Or a dude.”
The FBI guy put one elbow on the table and rubbed his forehead with his hand like he had a headache. Probably they were talking
too fast for him.
“It. Was. A. Dude,” Nald said real slow.
“Or. A—” Fish started.
“Chick. Yeah, I know.” The FBI dude waved a hand and sighed. “Okay, how did this person contact you two?”
“Nope.” Fish sat back.
The FBI guy looked up. “What do you mean,
nope?
”
“We already told you one thing,” Fish said. “I want a Little Debbie.”
“A Little Debbie cake,” the Fruitcake said slowly, like they were the ones having a problem following the conversation. “You
want a Little Debbie cake for telling me a man or possibly a woman called you, but you don’t know which.”
They nodded so fast that their chains clinked.
He took out one potato chip and held it up. “This is what that piece of information is worth.”
“Aw, but—” Nald started.
Mr. Fruitcake broke the chip in half and gave them each one half.
Fish stared down at his half a chip. “Man, that’s cold.”
But he ate his chip and so did Nald.
“C’mon.” The FBI agent wiggled his fingers at them like he was a spaz. “Give me something I can use.”
“Well.” Fish looked at Nald. “We got this phone call one day.”
“Yeah! We were watching
South Park
in the basement of your uncle’s house. It was that episode when Kenny got killed.”
“Doofus!” Fish yelled. “Kenny gets killed in every episode!”
“I know that, bonehead. But this was the juicy one—”
“Oh, yeah!” Fish was excited. “With spit—”
They both doubled over laughing so hard Nald’s gut ached. When he looked up again, tears were running out of his eyes and
the FBI dude was tapping a finger slowly on the table.
“Enlightening as that little exchange was, gentlemen,” he said. “I still don’t know what was said during the phone call. I
want you to tell me every word.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Fish frowned real hard, thinking. “Okay, the phone rings and I pick it up and I say
hey.
”
“No, you didn’t.” Nald shook his head.
“Did, too!”
“Did not.”
“Did, too. I always say
hey
when I answer the phone.”
“Not this time. You were pissed, remember, because you couldn’t get the bag of cheese doodles open. So you said
what
instead of
hey.
”
“Oh, yeah—”
“Gentlemen,” the FBI dude interrupted. “I’m getting older even as we sit here. What did the caller say?”
“Um. He—”
“Or she,” Nald reminded Fish.
“Yeah, he or
she
said,
what.
”
“No, that’s what you said,” Nald pointed out.
“What.”
“Yeah, but he—or she—said
what,
too. And then I said
what
and it was
What? What? What?
”
Nald shook his head. “Should’ve hung up on them.”
“Gentlemen!” the FBI dude said loudly. Nald sort of flinched. For a fruitcake he was kind of scary. And he was fingering the
gun under his arm. “What did the caller say after the whats?”
“Um . . .” Fish thought carefully. “Would we like to get a lot of money?”
They both looked at the FBI guy.
He stared back. “And?”
Maybe the guy was a retard.
“We said yes,” Nald told him.
“Duh!” Fish pointed out. “Of course we’d like a lot of money!”
“Who wouldn’t?” Nald nodded.
“I mean, only a real doofus wouldn’t want a lot of money.”
“And we are not doofuses.”
Mr. FBI closed his eyes. “Did he—”
“Or she,” Nald reminded him.
“
Or she,
” he repeated through his teeth. “Say anything else? When the robbery was going to happen? What weapons to use? How to do
it? Anything?”
Fish screwed up his face in thought. “He—or she—said we could come get the shotguns at the quarry. We got directions, ’cause
we hadn’t been out there in a while.”
“And we were s’posed to do it on Saturday,” Nald reminded him.
“Yeah, that caller person was a real butthead about Saturday.”
“We said, why not Monday?” Nald put in.
“We’re more awake on Mondays,” Fish explained. “But nooo.”
“Had to be that Saturday,” Nald finished. A thought occurred to him. “Hey, is that a clue? Like a Scooby-Doo clue?”
“We deserve a Scooby-Doo treat!” Fish yelled. He opened his mouth like Scooby-Doo and begged.
Nald laughed and did a Scooby, too.
The FBI dude must not watch Scooby-Doo. He was staring at them, the muscle under his eye jerking. Then he suddenly got up
and walked out of the room without even saying good-bye. But that was okay, because he left the Little Debbie cakes behind.
J
ohn awoke Friday morning to the worst smell he’d ever encountered in his life. He opened his eyes and saw Squeaky, ears up,
tongue out, panting by his side of the bed. Man, what had the beast eaten? His breath smelled like carrion. The dog must’ve
seen he was awake. He backed up two steps, whined, and lunged forward again, hot doggy breath washing over John’s face.
“Okay,” John muttered. He sat up, and the dog barked.
“What is it?” Turner mumbled beside him.
“Your dog.” John looked at her.
She lay on his usual side of the bed, taking up both pillows. Her face was flushed with sleep, and she had an adorable cowlick
on the side of her head. The sheets were around her waist, exposing soft, pale breasts with relaxed nipples. He already had
a morning erection, but the sight of her hardened him further.
He leaned down to kiss the nearest nipple. “Good morning.”
She smiled at him sleepily, just as Squeaky began barking in earnest. John swore.
Turner frowned. “I think he has to go out.”
“Yeah, I guessed that.”
He sighed and sat up again, looking for his trousers. Then he remembered: he’d left them on the floor of the bathroom the
night before, soaking wet. Fine. He got out of the bed and crossed to his dresser, found a pair of sweatpants, and put them
on. By this time, Squeaky was nearly bounding around the room.
John put on his athletic shoes and looked at the dog. “Shit. We still don’t have a leash for him, do we?”
Squeaky sat and swept the beige carpet with his whip-thin tail.
“Sorry,” Turner said from the bed. “Do you have a clothesline?”
He looked at her. “A clothesline?”
“Okay. How about a belt?”
“That I do have.” He got out a worn leather belt and looped it through Squeaky’s collar. It left him only about a two-foot
lead, but it’d have to do. He pointed at Turner. “Stay there.”
She smiled as Squeaky hauled him away. But ten minutes later, when he got back to the apartment, he found her in the kitchen.
She was already dressed in one of his T-shirts and the baggy jeans dress from yesterday and looking in his fridge.
He muttered to Squeaky as he unhooked him, “You’re cramping my style, pal.”
The dog ran over and stuck his head in the fridge to take a look. Turner pushed him away absently. “Do you have any anchovies?”
“Uh, no.” John went to the sink to fill a cooking pot with water. Mental note: stock up on fish of all kinds. He put the pot
on the floor, and Squeaky began to drink from it in big slurping gulps that splashed water everywhere.
Turner gave a little sigh. “How about an omelet?”
An omelet? John tamped down panic. Seventeen years with the agency and he had no idea how to cook an omelet. He cleared his
throat. “I can do scrambled eggs.”
It was her turn to give him a look. “No. I meant I could cook an omelet. Do you want one?”
He grinned. “If you’re making it, sure.”
She flickered a smile at him and took out his carton of eggs. Briefly, he tried to calculate how old the carton was but then
decided that life was too short. If the eggs were bad, he’d know soon enough. He got out coffee beans and ground them, watching
her from the corner of his eye as he prepared the coffee. She looked better this morning. Yesterday afternoon in the car there
had been a fragile edge to her that had scared him. She’d seemed ready to fracture at the slightest touch. This morning her
face still had a drawn look about it, but she was more serene. He’d like to think the improvement was from his lovemaking
the night before, but it was probably the long hours of sleep that had done the most good. That and the catharsis of crying
in the shower. He had the feeling she didn’t often allow herself the luxury of crying.
Turner opened a cupboard, found a skillet, and frowned at it. The pan looked fine to him, but it probably had something wrong
about it that only a female could identify. He added new skillet—Turner’s pick—to his mental list of things to buy. She evidently
decided to use the pan anyway. She set it on his stove and switched the appliance on. John turned to the sink to fill the
coffeemaker carafe and nearly tripped over Squeaky, who’d opted to lie down smack in the middle of his galley kitchen.
He toed the dog. “Move.”
Squeaky shot him a mournful look, got to his feet slowly, and slunk into the breakfast nook, where he could still keep an
eye on them. The dog slumped into a heap and groaned. Turner, fortunately, was ignoring the animal. She’d found a bowl and
was scrambling the eggs with a fork. On the corner of the counter next to her was his phone and answering-machine setup. John
noticed the light was blinking on his answering machine. He hit the button before it occurred to him that it might not be
a good idea.
A series of hang-ups made him relax until the fourth message. There was audible breathing, then a sigh. “John, I need to talk
to you. Please call me.” A hesitation, then, “This is your daughter.” Click.
The answering machine informed them that the call was from Monday afternoon. Rachel must’ve called here first and, when he
hadn’t returned her message, tried his cell. The only other message was from the Madison police department, letting him know
that Victoria Weidner was out of surgery and expected to recover without any problem.
“That’s good to know.” John got out a loaf of bread from the fridge and started lobbing slices at Squeaky.
“Yes.” Turner didn’t look up, but her back had stiffened during the message. “I thought you didn’t talk to Rachel?”
He noticed that she’d remembered his daughter’s name. That pleased him, but he still fought to keep the defensiveness out
of his voice. “Yeah, well, she called me a couple of times in the last few days.” He really, really didn’t want to talk about
his dysfunctional relationship with his daughter right now.
“Does she usually refer to you as John?” she asked in a neutral voice.
“Yup. I think she’s doing it to irritate me.” The coffee was half-dripped. To hell with it. He needed caffeine for this conversation.
He pulled the carafe out and poured himself a cup while the machine hissed at him. “It’s working. I’m irritated.”
“Ah.” She’d poured the eggs into the hot pan, and now she hovered over it, holding a spatula. As far as he could see, an omelet
was scrambled eggs cooked like a pancake. “What does she say when she calls you?”
Christ. If it were anyone else, he’d blow them off for getting too personal. But this was Turner—he wanted her to get personal.
Even if he didn’t like the results.
He sighed. “She wants to know why her mother and I broke up.”
“Doesn’t she know?”
“She knows the official version.”
“Which is?”
“I was busy, spent too much time away from home, we grew apart. Yada yada yada.” He took the milk out of his fridge, sniffed
it, and decided to take his coffee black. Better add half-and-half to his list.
“And the unofficial reason?”
“She was fucking another guy.”
She looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Sorry.” He took a sip of his coffee. It tasted better with milk, but at least it was hot. And caffeinated. “It really wasn’t
as one-sided as that. We had grown apart. We hardly talked, in fact. When I came back from an assignment and saw this guy’s
razor on my sink, I kind of figured she’d made her choice. And she had. She’d decided to find somebody that was around more,
listened better. She ended up marrying the guy. His name is Dennis, and he adopted Rachel.” John shrugged. “I was a rotten
husband.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She folded the omelet in thirds and slid it onto a plate.
“Do you? It’s true. I was a lot younger then. I think . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’d do better now, both as a husband
and a father.”
Her hand paused for a second, but she didn’t comment. He’d take that as a good sign, at least for now. Turner smoothly divided
the omelet in half and slid the second half onto another plate. John snagged the loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter,
and they went into the breakfast nook. Squeaky immediately perked up at the sight of food, even though he’d just been fed.
“So,” Turner said as she sat down. “Why can’t you tell Rachel what you’ve told me? Leaving out the profanity, of course.”
“I don’t think it’s any of her business.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Her mother’s sex life? Do you really think that’s an appropriate thing to talk about with a sixteen-year-old girl?”
“She’s asking, isn’t she? She obviously feels that there’s more to the story than what she’s been told. Besides, as the story
stands, you’re the villain of the piece. That isn’t right.”
“It’s a small price to pay to keep her happy.”
“But is she happy?”
John forked up some of the omelet while he thought about that. The omelet was pretty good. He could get used to this.
“She isn’t, is she?” Turner must’ve figured that he wasn’t going to answer. “Or she wouldn’t be calling you.”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t see how crushing her illusions about her mom is going to solve anything.”
“But—”
“I’m a big guy. I can take being the scapegoat for the marriage falling apart.”
She frowned and opened her mouth again. He could tell she wasn’t going to let it go. He interjected a change of topic before
she could start again. “How’re you doing after yesterday?”
Turner’s mouth closed, and she looked at him out of narrowed cat eyes, clearly debating whether or not to let him change the
conversational flow.
Finally, she sighed and looked down at her plate. “Okay, I guess. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel.”
He nodded and flipped a bite of omelet at Squeaky. The dog had been watching. He caught the piece deftly and returned his
gaze to John’s plate.
“It can take a while to assimilate a shooting,” John said. “That’s why a lot of police departments have in-house therapists
to talk to cops who’ve been involved with a shooting.”
“That makes sense.” She hesitated, pushing at the egg on her plate with a fork.
“But?”
She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I feel awful about Victoria . . .”
He looked at her, but she was staring at her plate.
“It’s the other stuff,” she whispered.
He ate some more omelet while he waited for her to gather her thoughts.
She suddenly pushed away from the table and walked to the window, looking out. His apartment backed up on another building.
He had a nice view of an industrial-sized air conditioner.
She stared at the air conditioner. “It’s just that I’ve spent so long on Calvin and the bank embezzling. It’s taken up all
my life for years and now it’s just . . . gone. I feel kind of set adrift.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But it’s also almost a relief.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
She threw up her arms. “There’s no evidence. I’ve looked and looked, but there just isn’t any. And now Victoria’s out of the
picture. I’ve lost. Honorably.” She lowered her arms slowly and repeated the phrase. “I’ve lost.”
John finished his omelet and sat back with the coffee mug in his hand while he debated. She needed to get over this revenge
thing, and as she’d said, this was an honorable out. She’d done her best, truly tried every route. Maybe he should be grateful
she was willing to let it go. Finally. But would the whole thing come back to haunt her in a few months or years? Right now,
she was still in shock. Even the most hardened warrior found it difficult to rejoin the battle after a defeat. And Turner
was a warrior of her own sort. Would she regret not bringing Hyman down? Was her loss Hyman’s victory?
She came back to sit at the table. “I don’t know what to do next. Maybe there isn’t anything to do. I just don’t know.”
He stared into his mug. The black coffee had a sheen of oil on the top.
She folded her arms across her chest. “I was so sure that there must be some evidence. I just never really considered the
possibility that there wasn’t any for me to find.”
“It’s a logical assumption that there’d be something.”
“I’ve wasted four years of my life.” She bit her lip, blinking her eyes as if holding back tears. “Is that stupid or what?”
“It wasn’t a waste,” John said softly. “You wanted justice for an uncle you loved.”
She grimaced ruefully. “A lot of good it did me.” She swiped the heel of her hand across her eyes.
John sat forward. “Tell me where you’ve looked.”
She glanced up at him as if surprised. “You already know. The safe deposit box. His house. The cabin. Everywhere.”
“You didn’t have a lot of time at the cabin, though.”
“You searched it, too.”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “There must be somewhere else.”
“John—”
He looked at her.
“I don’t know if I want to get on that train again.” She sat forward, as well, and rested her elbows on the table. “Spend
another four years of my life searching for something that’s not there.”
“What if it is there?”
She shook her head.
“Can you just give up?” He looked in her cat eyes, so sorrowful and confused. “What if there’s still some place you haven’t
searched?”
She was silent a minute. He placed his hand over hers and held it. Her hand felt small and delicate beneath his, but he knew
her strength.
“I wondered once if he kept discs in his car,” she finally said slowly. “That big Cadillac he drives around.”
John shook his head. “Then why send a hit man after you?”
She smiled for the first time that day. “Maybe he’s pissed at me?”
“Definitely.” He grinned back. “But it’s more than that. The evidence—whether discs or a computer—must be somewhere he hasn’t
been able to get to easily.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s been trying to keep you from finding it.” John tapped the back of her hand with his forefinger. “If he had it in his
car or house, he’d simply destroy it. Problem solved.”
“So, maybe it’s at the cabin?”
“Or somewhere else we haven’t thought of yet.”