Third Degree (37 page)

“I need to know if Auster is dead or alive,” Biegler added.

He’s dead as a hammer,
Danny thought. “Understood.”

“Just get the little girl out of there,” Sheriff Ellis said. “We don’t want her in the line of fire if we have to assault the house.”

“I think I’ve got the gist,” Danny said. “Let’s get to it.”

“Dialing now,” said Trace.

Danny put on the headset and waited. After three rings, he heard a click. Then Warren Shields, sounding not at all like himself, said, “Dr. Shields.”

“Warren?” Danny said, feeling more than a little awkward. “This is Danny McDavitt.”

“Finally,” Shields said, with obvious relief. “It’s good to hear your voice, Major.”

“Yours, too.” Danny wasn’t sure how to begin, so he just went with his gut. “Doc, we’ve got a lot of confusion out here today. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

Shields sighed heavily. “Laurel betrayed me, Danny. She’s been having an affair with somebody. Worse than that…she’s in love with him.”

He doesn’t know it’s me,
Danny realized. Elation almost lifted him out of his chair. “That doesn’t sound like your wife to me. How do you know?”

“I found a letter from the guy.”

God. He must have found a handwritten letter. If he’d gotten into her e-mail account, he’d know everything.
Danny had always signed his handwritten letters “Me,” just in case someone saw them. “That’s what all this is about?” he asked. “An affair?”

“Afraid so. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

“Not really. That’s a big blow, finding out a person isn’t who you thought they were. That the world isn’t the way you thought it was.”

“You got it, Major. That’s exactly it. You’re living your life under certain assumptions, and then you find out they’re all wrong. You thought you were walking on firm ground, but you’re really walking through a swamp of shit.”

Danny wrote
Depressed/Wronged man
in Carl’s logbook. He’d known plenty of guys who got Dear John letters while serving overseas. A few had shown their letters to Danny in the hope that he could read something between the lines that they couldn’t. He’d never found a way to lessen the pain for any of them.

“You must be pretty angry,” Danny said. “I know I would be. The thing is, though, I don’t get what you’re trying to do in there. You’re talking about a man-and-wife kind of problem. But you’ve got a lot of trouble stirred up out here. A lot of firepower. Can you help me out on your thinking?”

“It’s simple, really,” Shields said, as if it really might be.

“Is it?”

“Absolutely. I just need to know who the guy is.”

Danny’s gut clenched. “The guy she’s having an affair with?”

“Yep. That’s it in a nutshell.”

“And Laurel won’t tell you?”

“Nope. She’s protecting the guy. I mean, the asshole dumped her—it’s right there in the letter—but she’s still protecting him. Do you believe that?”

Danny had forgotten to turn toward the wall. He did so now and tried to block out all the eyes staring at the back of his head. “Maybe she figures it could only make things worse, since it’s over. You know?”

“How could things be worse than they are now?”

Danny realized that both their voices had the cavernous sound created by cheap speakerphones. He wondered if Laurel was hearing his voice as he spoke. “Maybe she figures that if you have a face to put to your negative thoughts, it’s going to hurt a lot worse. Which could be true, you know?”

“No way. It’s
not
having a face that’s so bad. If I knew who the guy was, I’d probably laugh. I’d probably think he’s a total loser.”

Maybe he is,
Danny thought wretchedly.

“I thought for a while that it was Kyle. My partner. But it wasn’t.”

As Danny wrote
PAST TENSE
in the logbook, he realized that someone had turned up the speakers in the trailer.

“I hear an echo,” Warren said suspiciously. “Who else is listening to this?”

Danny gestured angrily for Trace to turn down the speakers. “Nobody. They’ve got me on some kind of headset. Sheriff Ellis wanted to eavesdrop, but I told him I wouldn’t talk to you unless it was just the two of us.”

“Good man. Good old Danny.”

Someone grabbed the pencil out of his hand and wrote
AUSTER?!
in Carl’s logbook. It was Biegler. Danny snatched the pencil back and waved him away. He knew Auster was dead, but he had to play out the charade to protect his link with Laurel.

“About your partner,” he said. “I should tell you that you’ve got a lot of people worried about him out here.”

Warren laughed softly. “That’s kind of hard to believe.”

“I wouldn’t kid you, Doc. The folks out here would feel a whole lot better if Dr. Auster would come to the phone and say a few words. Just a quick hello would be enough.”

“I
told
Ray Breen,” Shields said with obvious irritation. “Kyle’s busy going over our tax documents. There’s a Medicaid investigator in town trying to put us in jail.”

“Is that right?” Danny glanced back at Biegler.

“I’m surprised he’s not out there with Ellis.”

“I haven’t seen him. Just a whole bunch of deputies and cops.”

“City cops outside the city limits?”

“They’re part of the local SWAT team. You’ve caused quite a commotion out here, my friend.”

“I guess it would. Look, Major, can you tell me anything about Vida Roberts? We heard she was hurt in a fire at our office.”

Danny wrote,
Concerned about future/at least for others. Used “we.”
People scrambled to read what he’d written. “She’s in the ICU, that’s all I know. I can check on her if you like.”

“Please.”

“One more thing,” Danny said. “Your daughter.”

“Beth?”

“Right. How would you feel about sending her out here to me? Just while you and Laurel get this thing worked out?”

“Beth’s fine, Danny. She’s in no danger. I hope nobody out there thinks I’d hurt my own child.”

“No, no. Not under normal circumstances, that is. But Grant was pretty rattled when he came out of there earlier.”

“Grant didn’t understand what I was trying to tell him. He doesn’t like having to grow up. He’d love to stay a kid forever. But no one can do that, can they, Danny?”

“That’s a fact.”

“I knew you’d understand.”

Danny grimaced, then plunged ahead. “Well, I do and I don’t, Warren.”

“What’s that?” Shields asked, his voice cracking with what sounded like fatigue.

“I said I don’t really understand what you’re doing. I’ve only known you a couple of years, but one thing I do know is that you’re a man of honor.”

Shields didn’t reply for a while. Then he said, “Thank you, Major. That means a lot coming from you.”

“I’m glad. But, Warren, the things you’ve done today…scaring your kids, putting their lives at risk, holding your wife prisoner…those are not honorable things.”

Danny felt someone yank his shoulder. He turned and saw Biegler shaking his head and mouthing,
Stop!
Danny put out a hand and shoved him backward. Biegler looked ready to attack him, but Sheriff Ellis wrapped a bearlike forearm around the government agent’s chest and held him back.

Danny kept waiting for Shields to reply, but the doctor said nothing.

“I can see how you might
feel
justified,” Danny went on. “In an angry state of mind, I mean. But you can’t justify those things, Warren. Not in my eyes. Some of the fathers we coached against might do this kind of thing, but not you. You’re too good for this. And you know that things as important as your marriage need to be considered in a calm state of mind. You’ve got to put a cold eye on them, as my old commanding officer used to say. Then you can see what’s really there. What’s really happened.”

There was a long, staticky silence. Just as Danny thought the connection might have been lost, he heard Warren say, “I’m feeling pretty alone in here, Major. Like I’ve lost my bearings. You know?”

Danny felt the first glimmer of hope. “That’s why I’m here, buddy. I’m going to help bring you back down to earth.”

Warren laughed strangely. “I’m not sure there’s any way back from where I am now. I’m not even sure how I got here. It’s like there’s another directional vector besides north, south, east, and west. And I’m stuck on it. Does that sound crazy?”

“Not to a man who’s been there himself. Sometimes life gets out of whack like that. I almost flew into the Arabian Sea one time, because my head was all turned around from personal stuff.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Believe it.” Danny hadn’t smoked a cigarette in twenty years, but he wanted one now. “How long has it been since you slept, Doc?”

“A while now.”

“How many hours?”

“Ahh…close to forty.”

Danny scrawled
40hr deficit
in the logbook. No wonder the guy was on the ragged edge. “Forty hours without sleep. Would you go out to the airport and fly in the state you’re in now?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Because I sure wouldn’t fly with you. So, here’s my question. If you wouldn’t fly in this state, why would you make decisions that could cost you everything you have?”

This time the silence stretched for more than a minute. Then Shields said, “I’ve already lost everything, Danny. And now my wife’s gone, too. That’s all I was clinging to…doing right by her and the kids. I feel like I’ve been in a raging river, clinging to a branch on the bank. But now that branch has been yanked away. There’s nothing to hold on to anymore, and nothing at the end of the river but black water. A bottomless hole. Ah, forget it. You don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

Danny started to say he did, but then he remembered Biegler’s warning. “Hold on, Doc, I’m having trouble hearing you. Let me call you right back.”

He smothered the headset mike in his fist and motioned for Trace to break the connection, which, to Danny’s relief, he did almost instantly.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Biegler asked.

Danny turned to Sheriff Ellis. “I need to talk to him about the health issue.”

“His cancer?”

“He’s already there himself. You heard him.”

“That’s an unacceptable risk,” said Biegler. “You might send him into an emotional tailspin.”

Danny felt the same exasperation he’d felt when serving under incompetent officers. “You think the guy doesn’t know he has a brain tumor?”

“I’m saying what’s the point of reminding him? If he’s not focused on it, let’s not go there.”

“He’s there
now.
Look, I know this guy. He’s a physician and a realist. He’d rather hear the truth than a load of bullshit. That’s why he asked for me in the first place.”

Biegler looked at the sheriff.

“I’m with Major McDavitt on this one,” Ellis said. “Dr. Shields is upset because he can’t get a straight answer from his wife. Let’s don’t make things worse by lying to him ourselves. Let’s talk straight to the man.”

Danny nodded thankfully and picked up the headset.

“You guys had better be right,” Biegler said.

Danny closed the mike in his fist again. “Biegler, you remind me of every REMF I ever met in a combat zone. You want a guaranteed result with zero risk, and your ass covered if the shit hits the fan. But that’s not how it works in the real world. So please shut the fuck up and let me work here.”

Biegler reddened and started to reply, but Trace Breen preempted him with “What’s a REMF?”

“Rear echelon motherfucker,” answered his brother.

Trace grinned. “Damn straight.”

Ellis glared at his comm officer, then motioned for him to call Dr. Shields back.

Laurel lay motionless on the great room sofa, listening to Christy scratch at the pet door Warren had installed during the winter. Now that it was spring, the young corgi spent her days running the creek bed, only returning in the evenings for food. Surprised to find her little door latched, the hungry dog scratched relentlessly at it, wondering why she was being shut out of her family abode.

Warren seemed not to hear Christy. He had put Danny on the speakerphone so that he could keep working at his computer (which probably meant monitoring the Merlin’s Magic program in its digital war against her Hotmail account). It was surreal listening to Danny’s voice floating out of the study. She felt that if she could only saw the duct tape from her legs and wrists, she could run right out the back door and into Danny’s arms. But of course she couldn’t. First she’d have to pick up Beth—who still lay supine in Benadryl-induced sleep—and then trust Warren not to shoot as she fled, something she wasn’t nearly so confident about as she’d once been. The pessimism he had revealed to Danny had stunned her. Yes, the situation was bad, but Warren was talking like a man resigned to death, not to jail or legal fines.

The phone rang again, and Warren pressed the speaker button. “Danny? Can you hear me now?”

“Five by five, Doc.”

“Five by five,” Warren repeated, with longing in his voice. “I wish we were flying over the river right now.”

“Let’s go, buddy. I’ve got the chopper waiting outside. You always said you wanted to try it.”

Warren laughed softly. “They’d never let us go now.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got some pull with the sheriff.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Danny. I saw them spray-paint my cameras.”

Laurel’s stomach tightened. Had they spray-painted the cameras in preparation for an attack?

“I won’t lie to you,” Danny said. “You know that. I think it’s time we get down to cases. What do you say?”

“I’m listening.”

“The thing is, these boys out here have got a manual for situations like this. That’s what they go by, and they don’t make exceptions. They’re trying to be professional, that’s all. You can understand that.”

“Sure.”

“So we don’t have time for small talk. I want you to know something, Warren. I know you had a tough blow about a year ago. Tougher than this thing with your wife.”

Laurel raised her head from the couch.

“What are you talking about?” Warren asked warily.

“I’m talking about your cancer.”

Laurel’s face grew hot, and her heart beat hard against her sternum. Cancer? What was Danny talking about?