Taking Liberty (3 page)

“When you’re going through hell, keep going …”

___________________________

The Tennessee sky was the color of a Memphis Tigers jersey. Spotless, with superheated humidity blowing in from the Gulf. It was the kind of sticky summer’s day that lacquers the skin in a perpetual sheen of sweat, and forms long, restless lines at water fountains.

We were in Overton Park, at the zoo; Hope, the kids and me, plus about a million other people – or so it seemed – all with the same smart idea of getting bored children out of the house and from under their momma’s feet in the middle of the school vacations. No better remedy than a day trip to the Memphis Zoo, right? Doing all those patience-peeling things that happy families do on a busy weekend in the height of the season, namely: to squabble about where to eat and what to eat, to complain about long lines and waiting times, and to exist in a continual state of indecision about which exhibit to see and in what order.

Otherwise, pure bliss.

Until disaster had struck.

We were killing time at the Endangered Species Carousel. Hope and Gracie were standing by, girl-talking and giggling behind the safety barrier and a pair of melting ice cream cones. George was on the carousel, with me. Going round and round and hating it. My fault; I’d pressured him into riding the carved tiger – another great idea at the time – while I stood guard, grinning like a proud pop and feeling nauseous for it. George had pressed his mouth into a hard line and resisted my harebrained idea with a scowl. I’d had none of it.

Parenting is all about doing the stuff with ours kids that our parents never did with us.

Then, about halfway through the ride, a commotion had caught my eye. People yelling and feet falling. A youth had snatched a woman’s purse and was making off with it in the direction of Primate Canyon. Instinct had kicked in and I’d given chase. No days off for this cop. Running ran in my blood. I’d caught up with the guy and wrestled him to the ground, then handed him over to the puffing zoo security when they arrived moments later.

When I’d returned to the carousel, feeling pretty good about myself, I’d found it stationary and a crowd gathered. I’d pushed my way through. Hope was at the center, kneeling over George, who was unconscious, hair matted with blood, eyes rolled back in their sockets. More of the red sticky stuff on his face and on his shirt. My elation had crashed in flames. In my absence, George had fallen head-first from the ride and cracked his skull on the walkway.

All my fault.

The kind of fright in his mother’s eyes that makes a father do deals with the devil.

Heart-racing, I’d rushed George to the First Aid point. A frantic Hope and a sobbing Gracie bringing up the rear. Hot blood leaking from George’s scalp and lacerated cheek, dripping through my fingers and running up my arms.

No way to describe the panic burning through my gut.

Luckily, the visible damage had been superficial. Head cuts hemorrhage like burst pipes. No permanent damage on George’s scan. But he had suffered a bad knock and his brain had shut down. He’d been sent home the day after with a mouthful of candy and a war wound to charm the girls in later life. But the invisible damage had cut much deeper than the surface scarring, lasted much longer. No salve to ease the pain of the emotional wound that had festered away over time and never properly healed.

There was blood on my hands.

And someone was barking my name.

I materialized back into the present as if teleported, disorientated, dislocated. But it wasn’t my son’s blood oozing through my fingers. Couldn’t for the life of me work out whose it was.

Then recognition sucked the air from my lungs.

Nothing is ever what it seems.

Trenton Fillmore was a fake.

___________________________

According to his tax records, Trenton Fillmore was a cutting-edge company accountant, but you would never figure so by looking him over. Fillmore had the mincemeat face and gangly physique of a middle-aged bare-knuckles fighter: two hundred pounds of gristly muscle, gnarly knuckles and one of those flattened noses that is about as prominent as a manhole cover on a city street. No hairline rapidly receding into a perspiring pate. No wire-rimmed eyeglasses with milk bottle lenses.

According to his sob story, Fillmore had boxed in his youth. Had gotten pretty good at it, too. Won a bunch of bouts and lost a truckload of teeth. Then something had popped in his head. A weak link. Just like that. And his fighting days were numbered. Luckily for Fillmore, he’d had a head for figures and had switched to a life of cooking books instead of throwing hooks.

Over recent weeks, I’d developed a kind of kinship for Trenton Fillmore. Not because he was a splash of color on drab concrete, but because we had something in common.

But now all that had changed.

I had his blood on my hands, dribbling from the knuckles and smeared across the front of what had been, seconds earlier, a snow-white undershirt fresh from the laundry. Worse than that, there was a bloodied shank in my fist and Fillmore was curled on the floor at my feet.

In any light, it didn’t look good.

“Drop the weapon. Last chance. I won’t ask again.”

There were four of us crammed into the tiny cell room of the Mental Health Unit located in the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri: two inmates outfitted in khakis and whites; a dour-faced unit officer blocking the doorway; and a very worried-looking case manager with crumbs still lining his lips from his interrupted lunch.

 “Drop the weapon,” Frank Bridges, the perspiring case manager, repeated for maybe the third or fourth time. He was hovering halfway into the cell, a few steps in front of the duty officer, arms flung wide with palms turned upward. Classic non-aggressive body language. But the tremor in his voice was full of unspoken expletives. “What we got here is a recoverable situation. Let’s all do our best to keep it that way. We don’t want to hurt you, Quinn. But if we have to, we will.”

It was cool in the cell but Bridges was sweating like a whore in church.

In a small way – and I mean in a small way – I felt sorry for Bridges, and not simply because he suffered from small man syndrome. He was doing his best to tap into an old training session, conjure up suitable statements to mitigate the crisis situation. Trouble was, he’d probably spent the whole training session helping himself to the free buffet instead of paying attention.

“Back off, Bridges,” I breathed, for maybe the third or fourth time. “You got this all wrong. This isn’t how it looks.”

My head was reeling.

How did I think it looked? I was standing over the bleeding body of my best buddy, with a
guilty as charged
neon sign flashing above my head. I wanted to drop the homemade shank, but the combination of gummy blood, shock and body heat had welded it to my hand.

“You heard Mr. Bridges.” Jefferson, the unit officer, leaned in a little and made a
you know what I mean?
face.

Jefferson was a tall and chunky black guy with an eight ball afro. Normally, the kind of softly-spoken and unflappable guy who could talk mold off a wall. I’d never had any trouble from Jefferson – probably because I’d never given him any – but I suspected he could snap my neck without breaking a sweat if he had to.

“This is heading south real fast,” he said. “Dugan’s on his way with the Taser. And man that thing hurts like hell. You need to wrap this mess up peacefully, now, before things spiral out of control. Be the smart move listening to Mr. Bridges.”

Hot blood trickled from the shank and splashed into the puddle forming on the floor. Fillmore wasn’t moving. I could hear his breath bubbling. Only a matter of time before he exsanguinated.

Ordinarily, I’d take charge of the situation. Call the shots, the paramedics and maybe the Crime Lab techies to unplug the neon sign. But in here I was just another number. A nobody whose say-so held less water than a bucket with hole in it.

Bridges was holding out a meaty hand. Three big gold rings on the middle fingers. A single letter engraved on each, forming the word GOD when lined up together. He jangled them, like sleigh bells. “Drop the weapon. Last chance to end this the easy way. I won’t ask again.”

And that’s when Dugan pushed past Jefferson and fired fifteen-hundred volts of spiteful electricity into the soft tissue under my chin.

It was as if a heavyweight boxer had gone for the knockout punch. My head snapped back, teeth clashed and I went down for the count.

___________________________

The worst part about the knock-down isn’t hitting the canvas, it’s the coming round.

Everything had a woolly feel to it. Insipid colors. I’d asked for aspirin, or even a cool sip of water to soften up my esophagus. No one had obliged.

I was seated in Warden Burke’s office, handcuffed. Dried blood on my hands. Gums still fizzing from the electrocution.

Over in the corner, a disheveled Christmas tree leaned against the wall, dressed like a hooker.

Burke was studying me through thatched fingers, dismissing my claims of innocence with a curl of his lips. I’d dealt with people like Burke all my life. One of those white collar bureaucrats who follow their job description as if it were scripture.

 “You got this turned around,” I was insisting. “Fillmore was on the floor when I got there. Do the math, Burke. While you’re wasting time here trying to pin the tail on the donkey, Fillmore’s real attacker is walking free.”

The warden was wearing a
whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not buying
face. He hadn’t liked my being here from the get-go. Saw it as an imposition and a means for the federal government to eavesdrop on his operation. He rocked back in his padded leather chair and eyed me over knitted fingers. “What doesn’t add up is how you came to be covered in Fillmore’s blood, with the weapon in your hand.”

I let him see my exasperation. I’d been over it a dozen times – how I’d found Fillmore already on the floor, how I’d thought he was screwing me, how I’d flipped him over.

“And that’s when the knife popped out of his belly and conveniently landed in your hand.”

Not exactly how it had happened, but close enough to cement my guilt. Jefferson had entered the cell moments behind me, to see me kneeling over Fillmore, covered in blood. No other inmate in the immediate vicinity. How did I think it looked?

I sat forward a little.

“Look, Burke, this is horse crap and you know it. I have no reason to harm Fillmore. He’s fought my corner. The only friend I have in here. Why would I try and kill him?”

“I don’t know, Quinn. You tell me. Perhaps he came by your true identity and the two of you had a falling out.”

I felt the air leave my lungs.

There it was: the motive.

Burke’s crossfire had sunk me with one torpedo.

I leaned back and fingered the salt-and-pepper Van Dyke beard I’d grown since coming to the Fed Med. It wasn’t the world’s best disguise – no better than Clark Kent’s glasses – but when coupled with my falsified credentials, it blurred reality just enough to obscure the truth about who I was.

Burke raised his hands like a preacher about to absolve me of my alleged crime. “Besides, I’ll be honest with you, Quinn. Fillmore voiced concerns about his welfare. This morning, in fact. In that very chair you’re sitting in right now. He felt you and he would come to blows. He seemed genuinely fearful for his life.”

“That’s ridiculous. You and I both know Fillmore could knock me down with one finger.”

“I’m just saying it like it is, Quinn.”

The phone rang on the his desk.

“Don’t answer it,” I said through gritted teeth. “Prioritize. For once in your life, Burke, be flexible. Let’s you and I go down to the infirmary and speak with Fillmore, right now. Clear this mess up.”

The warden’s lip curled like road-kill on a midsummer’s day. I’d rubbed against his grain since day one. He didn’t like my tone and he certainly wasn’t comfortable taking orders from an inmate.

He sniffed and picked up.

I saw him nod once, twice. Heard him mumble something into the receiver. Then he placed the handset back in its cradle and let out a tremulous breath.

“That was Doctor O’Dell. Unfortunately, Fillmore didn’t make it. Apparently, the blade severed his abdominal aorta. He bled to death before they could operate.”