Sendoff for a Snitch (3 page)

Turning my head, I watched.

Benji hugged himself and shook his head. “I’m too big for a teddy bear.”

I licked my lips and said, “Benji, you’re never too big for a teddy bear.” My tongue was thick and the words were slurred. “Go ahead and take it.”

As soon as I spoke, the grip on my arms tightened. The sergeant turned toward me. “What were you doing with this kid?”

I shrugged. “He came over my place ’cause his brother left him in the truck. I was just trying to help him get it off the tracks.”

“And then what were you going to do?”

“See if I could find someplace for him to go.”

“Like Social Services?”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but they were the right people to find Benji’s mother, in Las Vegas or wherever. And take care of him until she got back. “I guess,” I said.

Still looking uncertain, Benji took the teddy bear. Hugging it tight to his chest, he buried his face in it.

Richards steered him back to her car, out of the rain.

The sergeant took out a notepad and a pen. “So,” he said. “We’re gonna call Social Services for the kid. And a tow for the truck.” He glanced at me. “You okay with that?”

It certainly wasn’t up to me. “Sure,” I said.

“And do we have this guy on any charges?” he asked, looking at the assembled cops.

“Stolen vehicle,” Cunningham said.

The sergeant shook his head. “Maybe unauthorized use. But we don’t even know that for sure now.”

“Kidnapping,” Richards suggested.

“Maybe interference with custody. But again, we don’t know that for sure.” The sergeant’s pen poised over his notepad.

Cunningham tried again. “Driving without a license?”

The sergeant nodded. “Technically, I suppose. Did you see him driving?”

“Just a few yards. He pulled over and parked before I got my lights turned on.”

“No resisting arrest, assault of an officer, giving false information?”

“Not really. Except he gave the wrong name of the person who owned the truck.”

“How’s that?”

“He said this guy Aaron something owned it,” Cunningham said.

“Where’s this Aaron?”

“I dunno. The kid says that’s his brother, who was supposed to taking care of him.”

“So the person the truck is registered to is Aaron’s mother, as well as the kid’s mother?” The sergeant scribbled on his notepad. “So the kid and this Aaron are brothers? But this guy isn’t related to them?”

Cunningham shrugged.

“So.” The sergeant brought the tip of the pen to his lip. “It seems to me it could be a logical error, if the truck in fact is registered to the mother of the person he thought owned it.”

The cop raised his eyebrows. “I guess.”

The sergeant turned to me. “Your face is bleeding. Do you need medical attention?”

“No, sir.” If they got me medical attention, they’d have to write reports. And if they wrote reports, they’d have to justify the injury. I’d be much better off if the whole incident could be forgotten.

“So if we take off the cuffs and cut you loose, what would you do?”

Letting me go without charges was the best possible outcome I could think of, and more than I’d dared to hope for. “Go home.”

“And stay there?”

“Until my appointment with my parole officer this afternoon.”

“Who’s your PO?”

“Mr. Ramirez.”

“And are you going to tell him about this little incident this morning?”

I debated. It was always better for a PO to hear about things from a parolee than from a cop, or anyone else, but I wasn’t sure that’s the answer the sergeant wanted. I finally said, “If you think I should, I will.”

The sergeant nodded. “I think you should. There’ll be a report.”

“Okay.”

“Turn around, and let’s get those cuffs off.”

I turned around and stood still while the cuffs were unlocked and removed. My wrists tingled. I resisted the urge to rub them and restore the circulation.

“But Sarge—” Cunningham started to say.

The sergeant looked at him. “You at roll call this morning?”

“Of course.”

They had turned away and were ignoring me, like I wasn’t there. I looked at the ground, but I was listening closely.

“Then you remember what they told us about detention center?”

Cunningham took his handcuffs and snapped them back on his belt. “Yeah. It’s overcrowded as it is, and they’re worried about it if this storm gets as bad as they say it might.”

“Right. They’re trying to get the population down where they can.”

“So we’re not going to bring in somebody we don’t have a very good reason to hold.”

The sergeant turned to me. “You still here?”

“My wallet and keychain.”

Someone handed me my wallet and keychain. And a wad of tissues.

I held the tissues up to my mouth and nose.

“You can go now,” the sergeant said, “if you’re sure you don’t need medical attention.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I glanced back at the car where Benji sat. He had the teddy bear pressed up against the side of his face, but he lifted a hand and waved to me. I waved back and turned to leave.

The shortest way home was back the way I’d come, but a patrol car and cops blocked the sidewalk. I didn’t really feel like winding my way through them. Instead, I turned down the road beside the tracks, which ran down through the underpass. There was no sidewalk there, and I’d have to go a few extra blocks before I could cross back and head for home, but I’d much rather do that.

Not quite believing that they weren’t holding me, I walked away as quickly as I dared, careful to keep my hands in full sight. I had to fight the urge to break into a run. I kept expecting any second for someone to shout an order for me to stop, or worse, to grab me. The rain was beginning to pelt down.

The underpass was dark and dingy, lit only by the red and blue flashers on the patrol cars. There were lights set in the concrete supports, but they were broken out. Probably knocked out by the cheap hookers who took an occasional john down there for a five dollar quickie. I shivered and kept going. Water ran down the pavement and rushed toward the storm drains at the bottom of the underpass, puddling around the grates.

The cascade was too heavy for the storm drains to handle. That wasn’t a good sign. It had rained most of the night, and it was picking up again, but if everybody was right, the storm was just starting. This was a low-lying area, possibly the lowest in the city, aside from the actual river banks. If the drains were overwhelmed already, we might be in for some serious flooding.

As the road rose on the other side, I glanced back and could no longer see the cops, although the eerie flashing lights still shone in the shiny wet dimness of the underpass. I pulled the tissues away from my face and looked at them. They were a soggy, bloody lump. I debated about tossing them into the street, but in the end, I put them in my pocket, flipped up the hood of my jacket, and shoved my hands deep in my pockets.

They’d make sure Benji made out all right. Probably call Social Services. I doubted anyone would concern themselves with Aaron’s whereabouts. He had only been gone for a few hours, and he was a junkie, known to be unreliable. Somebody—maybe his mother—would have to report him as missing before they’d even consider looking for him. If an emergency was declared because of the rain and the flooding, and it looked like we were headed in that direction, police priorities would change to ensuring public safety. A missing druggie would be way down on the priority list.

Benji was probably headed for an emergency foster home until his mother showed up. I’d been in a number of them when I was a kid. Usually, they weren’t too bad. The social workers would go for the cheapest solution, but even if Aaron surfaced, no caseworker in his right mind would hand Benji over to him. Not after he’d abandoned the kid in a truck at night. Until his mother showed up, Benji would be physically well cared for. But there wasn’t much anyone could do for the hollow ache I was sure was growing in his gut.

Sloshing back to my place, I realized I wouldn’t have time for a nap after all. I could fit in the shave and shower, though. Just as well. I could feel my muscles stiffening up, and a couple hours sleep might make it worse. I did need to wash the blood off my face and out of my hair, though, before I met with Mr. Ramirez. Even if I stuck pretty much to the truth, the story I was going to tell him would be pretty hard to swallow. POs are suspicious by nature. With my face bruised up, I must look like I’d been in a fight. No need to look and smell like I hadn’t bothered to clean myself up in recent memory.

Chapter 3

T
he waiting room to the parole office was in the basement of a building in the county complex, with the main police station and the county lockup upstairs. The courthouse was right next door. Made it convenient if they decided to lock one of us criminals up for a parole violation.

The room was crowded. I preferred morning appointments, when not so many people would be ahead of me, but then, nobody ever asked what I preferred. The radiators on the walls hissed and steamed, throwing off excessive heat, and condensation dripped down the grimy glass of the windows set high in the walls. An overwhelming odor of unwashed bodies and urine filled the air. A woman in a ragged overcoat held a dirty rag to her mouth and coughed unceasingly.

I signed in on the clipboard left on a ledge by the window to the receptionist’s desk, which was unoccupied. Then I looked over the uneasy crowd. The only empty seats were in the middle of the room. After all the years in prison, I would feel too exposed and vulnerable in them, so I took a place standing against a wall, keeping as far away from the radiators as I could. Stripping off my jacket and folding it over my arm, I settled in to wait.

Every once in a while, a stocky woman with big red fingernails and bigger, redder hair appeared from within the depths of the inner offices, checked the clipboard, snapped her gum, and then called out a name. She would then open the door and let the person she’d called precede her down the hallway.

More people entered the waiting room, signed in, sized up the seating, and either chose a seat or leaned against the wall. No one spoke.

Anyone done with their appointment left the back offices, fled through the cramped waiting room, and dashed out the door, avoiding all eye contact. Their faces showed their relief. Without counting or paying really close attention, there was no way to tell if anyone had been whisked away up the interior stairs to a holding cell in the police station above.

Eventually, the woman picked up the clipboard, ran her sharp red nail down the list, and looked up. “Jesse Damon?” she called.

I stepped up to the window. “Yes, ma’am.”

She ran her gaze over me disdainfully, as if wondering if another, more suitable Jesse Damon could be found if only she looked further. Finally, she opened the door and stood back, her gum cracking. “You know where you’re going?”

“I know where Mr. Ramirez’s office is, if that’s where I’m supposed to be going.”

“Where else do you think you’d be going?”

No point answering that. I stepped up to his open office door.

Mr. Ramirez’s head, topped with a dark thatch of curly hair, was bent over the paperwork on his desk. His beefy forearm moved as he made notes on a form. I stood, waiting for him to invite me in. From her post by the door, the lady glared at me like it was my fault I was still in the hallway.

He looked up and frowned. “Come in and sit down.”

I eased into the office and lowered myself into the worn wooden chair in front of his desk.

He leaned back in his desk chair and eyed me. “You been fighting again?”

Not a good start. “No, sir.”

“How come every time you come in here, you look like you’ve gotten the worse end of a fight?”

I touched my swollen lip. “Not every time,” I protested.

“Often enough.” He sat up straighter. “And somehow, I get the impression you really don’t get the worst of it in most of your fights.” Shaking his head, he said, “You gonna tell me about how you ended up with a busted lip this time?”

I’d tried to figure out how to tell him about this morning, but I hadn’t come up with a way to say it that didn’t sound like I was whining. I said, “I got stopped.”

He shook his head again. “By the cops, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Doing what?”

No matter how I said this, it was going to strain credibility. “I was moving this pickup truck off the railroad tracks.”

“I didn’t know you had a driver’s license.”

“I don’t.”

“So is that what you got stopped for?”

“Sort of.” It occurred to me that I probably sounded just about as evasive as Benji had. If I’d found that annoying, I could just imagine how Mr. Ramirez felt. But I was struggling with how to explain it.

“What the hell do you mean by ‘sort of?’”

“Well, there was this truck, see, and it was caught on the railroad tracks.”

Mr. Ramirez closed his eyes and sighed. “And how did it get caught on the railroad tracks?”

“This kid—he’s maybe ten or so—he was trying to get home. When he tried to drive across the tracks, the tires got stuck between the ties and the edge of the road.”

“I suppose this kid couldn’t have had a license, either?”

One thing at least I could say that was believable. “No, sir.”

“So what was he doing driving a pickup truck?”

“His brother had left him in it. Told him he’d be right back.”

“How do you come into this?”

“Well, the kid, Benji’s his name, came to my apartment, looking for help.”

“And this Benji knows you how?”

“He don’t, really. But I work with his brother.”

“The brother who told him to wait in the truck?”

“Yes, sir.”

The desk chair squeaked as Mr. Ramirez stirred his impressive bulk. “Even if I took all that as gospel—which I don’t necessarily, by the way—how did it end up with you getting all beaten up?”

“Not really beaten up. Just hitting the ground hard.”

“When you were stopped by the police?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you resist or something?”

“No. They’d run my ID.” I didn’t think it needed much more explanation than that.

“So they handled it as a felony traffic stop?”

“Seems like it.”

“And you didn’t get down on the ground when they told you to?”

“They didn’t say to. They just took me down.”

He nodded. “But they didn’t hold you.”

“No, sir.”

“You get a ticket for driving without a license?”

“Nope.”

“Where’s the truck?”

“I dunno. I left it parked by the side of the street.”

“What happened to the kid?”

I shrugged. “They kept him.”

Mr. Ramirez grinned. “Didn’t think you were a good candidate for custody of a kid, huh?”

“I guess not.”

“I can’t imagine why.” He pushed his chair back from his desk and stood up. “There gonna be a report filed?”

I remained in the chair. At just about six feet, I would tower over Mr. Ramirez’s five foot one or two inches. But he still outweighed me by fifty pounds. I said, “The sergeant said there would be.”

“Then I’ll request a copy. For the file.” He shuffled some papers on his desk. “Did you give your fee to the receptionist when you came in?”

“There was nobody at the desk.”

“You got the money?”

“Yes, sir.”

The expenses of parole ate into my income fairly considerably. Thank goodness I’d landed a pretty good job. Quality Steel Fabrications participated in a program that gave them tax breaks for hiring convicts about to be paroled. They’d hired me right out of prison, and I was determined not to blow this one chance I had at a decent job. I’d started as a laborer and machine operator, and now I drove a forklift. Kind of a funny job for someone who didn’t have a driver’s license, but the company provided its own industrial truck certification training program.

He escorted me to the front desk, which was now occupied by the woman with big hair and nails. I peeled off a few bills and handed them over to her. She snapped her gum and punched something in on her keyboard. A printer whirred to life.

She leaned back and, ignoring me, smiled up at Mr. Ramirez. “You set for the wet weather?”

He nodded. “The road might flood, but my house is up on a hill. Should be okay. We got enough food and water to last for a few days if we lose power and can’t get out. The road does flood sometimes, but ever since the Army Corps of Engineers did that flood control project on the river—what was it, twenty-five years ago?—it hasn’t been bad.”

She snapped her gum. “Wouldn’t surprise me if we did lose power for a while. The electric companies haven’t been very good about fixing things when the lines go down lately.”

“They certainly haven’t. Even in the big cities, D.C. and Baltimore, they’ve had outages that lasted days. Weeks, sometimes.”

“I hope they get their act together better than that. But it does sound like we’re in for some flooding. There’s a lot of snowpack up in the mountains, and if we get all the rain we’re supposed to, it’ll melt a lot of that. On top of the rain.”

They weren’t talking to me, but I listened. If the power went out, I wouldn’t be working. I couldn’t afford that. Like I had any control over it.

The woman handed me my receipt.

“You can go,” Mr. Ramirez said to me. “Next week. Same time.”

“Yes, sir.” Clutching my receipt, I slipped into my jacket and waited for Mr. Ramirez to open the door so I could leave.

He did so, and I slunk through the waiting room, avoiding looking at anyone, out the door, and up onto the street.

Rain, harder than ever, soaked through the shoulders of my jacket in minutes.

Maybe I’d better check the weather forecast for the next few days. I didn’t have a TV or radio at home. A TV was probably out of the question until I had a lot more money, but one day soon, I’d buy a radio. Meanwhile, I headed for the public library, where I could read the newspapers and, if I could figure out how to use it, check one of the computers for the latest weather news.

I used the public library a lot. Mrs. Coleman, who had been my foster mother for a couple of years in my early teens, had introduced me to it. “It’s taxpayer supported. Which means it doesn’t cost you anything to use it. And it’s for everybody who lives in the area. All they ask is that you follow the rules and take care of the materials you use so they can be available for the next person.”

Except for the computers and such, it hadn’t changed all that much in the years I was locked away.

The prison library had been a real lifeline for me over the twenty years I was locked up. I signed up for it every week and got the three books I was allowed. I worked most days in the prison laundry for the princely sum of a dollar a day and the privilege of getting out of my cell for those hours, then came back to the housing unit, locked in, and read. I couldn’t afford a TV then either, and the one in the dayroom was a constant source of argument over what to watch. Unless there was a sporting event most of the guys wanted to watch, cartoons usually won out. I wasn’t particularly interested.

When I was released, I was on home detention with a black plastic monitoring box strapped to my ankle. I was allowed out for work and a very limited time to run errands. I made it a point to squeeze in a visit to the public library as soon as I could.

I’d been a bit afraid they’d refuse to issue me a card. The circulation clerk, Mandy Radman, had unquestioningly accepted my prison ID for identification and my month-to-month lease for proof of residency. For that, I was eternally grateful to her.

Taking the steps up to the front door two at a time, I stopped in the entry to take off my jacket and hat. They were soaked. I shivered. Both of them were wool, and while wet wool did retain heat, it wasn’t exactly cozy or comfortable.

Mandy was at the front desk, sorting through a stack of books. She and I had struck up a strange kind of casual friendship. When she’d realized that her marriage had turned sour—actually, it had not been a good idea from the get-go since her husband liked her inherited money, not her—she’d started off the deep end, but I’d been able to get her to see her lawyer for a divorce instead of taking more drastic measures. Like asking me to kill her husband.

I stopped by the front desk to say hello.

“Looking for something to read, in case the power goes out and you can’t watch TV or anything?” she asked.

I just shook my head. “Here to read newspapers.”

She probably couldn’t get her mind around somebody who couldn’t afford a TV, and I wasn’t about to tell her that. She’d feel sorry for me. She might even offer me an old cast-off TV. I didn’t want that.

She lived in a big old house in the old part of town. A mansion, really. Her parents had died in an accident when she was in college, and as an only child, everything they’d owned was left to her.

I was pretty sure she worked at the library for many of the same reasons I’d worked at the prison laundry all those years. It gave structure to her life and got her out on a regular basis. Although I was sure it paid a hell of a lot more than a dollar a day, I knew she didn’t need the money.

Someone came up to check out some books, so I headed for the reading room. Careful to put my wet jacket over the back of a non-upholstered chair, I slid into a seat and grabbed the latest edition of the
Rothsburg Register
, the local paper.

The front page had a big weather map and a few articles about the storm. I found it hard to sort out the hype from the factual reporting, but it did emphasize that we were in for a lot of weather in the next few days.

As if we didn’t usually have weather of some sort.

I didn’t know how much rain we’d be getting, but I kept reading. If it was bad enough that the staff at the parole office was concerned, it had to be a lot.

A late winter storm was swirling in from the Atlantic, carrying a lot of moisture. It was poised to meet a cold weather pattern, also carrying moisture, that was surging over the mountains. They should be encountering each other any time now, and whether we got socked with rain or snow or a mix would be dependent upon the temperature. People should be prepared for whatever came, from several feet of ice and snow, to heavy rains and flooding.

The reports didn’t really tell me anything I couldn’t have figured on my own. We had bad weather and more was coming. So what else was new? With a sigh, I folded the newspaper, put it back on the table, and got to my feet.

Mandy smiled at me as I went past the desk. I smiled back and stopped.

She was the first person after I was released who’d treated me with normal social courtesies. As a prison inmate, most of my interaction with other people over the last twenty years had been me obeying barked orders given by correctional officers, or trying to keep to myself to avoid trouble from other inmates. I think we were both a little socially awkward. And lonesome. I had a pretty good idea about why I was like that, but except for being shy and uncertain of herself, I saw no reason why she would feel that way.

She frowned as she looked at the wet jacket in my hands. “If you’re going to be out walking in that—” she nodded to the streams of water cascading down the window “—shouldn’t you be wearing a raincoat?”

It would be nice, I thought, but I said, “All I got’s the jacket. No raincoat.”

Raising her eyebrows, she said, “You need a raincoat.”

I shrugged. She might be right, but that didn’t get me a raincoat.

“Wait,” she said, reaching under the counter. She pulled up a roll of black plastic trash bags.

“I know it’s not elegant,” she said as she pulled one off the roll and reached for a pair of scissors, “but it should help.” She cut down the back seam of the bag, then cut a hole in each side near the bottom. “If you put this over your shirt, but under the jacket, it’ll keep the water off your shirt and help keep the warmth in.”