Inheritance: A Novel Part 15

Paul felt his mouth go dry. He could sense what was happening, and he didn't want to be here, but it was like he couldn't stop it. He said he didn't mind making a statement.

And besides, if you do say you don't want to give a statement, you sound guilty. You can't afford that. You got a charge to keep, remember?

Anderson put the recorder down on the dashboard between them. "Good," he said. "So just take it from the top. Pretend I don't know anything about what happened. Tell me what it looked like for you."

Paul did just that. He started from the alley, where he and Mike had watched as the three heroin dealers made a sale, and progressed all the way through the story, telling it all in a tired, almost bored tone, as one reciting lines of memorized poetry that no longer have any meaning. It wasn't until he described rounding the corner and seeing the goat that his tone and pace changed. After that, he spoke slowly, choosing his words like they were steps through a mine field. He started to feel light-headed.

When he was done, he put his hands in his lap and sat there, staring at the digital recorder on the dashboard, waiting.

"And that's it?" Anderson said.

"Yes, sir. That's it."

"You didn't hear anything?"

"No, sir."

"No screaming?"

"I didn't hear anything, sir."

"Hmm. That's odd."

Paul waited in silence.

Anderson said, "I think it's odd because you were just a few feet away from where a kid was being ripped open. A goat, too, for that matter. Don't you think that's odd?"

"I didn't hear anything, sir."

Anderson nodded.

He stroked his chin and seemed to stare at his dashboard. Paul followed his gaze and saw an old, yellowed photograph covering the speedometer. It showed a boy with long, wavy dark hair and clothes that looked to be from the mid-nineties, sort of grungy.

They waited each other out in silence.

Finally, Anderson said, "You don't talk much, do you?"

"No, sir," Paul said. "I guess not."

"Well, that's okay. You don't have to, really. You see, whether you know it or not, you're actually telling me an awful lot."

Paul c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "How's that, sir?"

"Earlier, when I asked you if you heard any screaming, you crossed your arms across your chest. Up to this point, you've been looking at your hands in your lap. You know what that little motion tells me, crossing your hands like that?"

"No, sir."

"It tells me you're getting defensive. It tells me you're hiding something. Maybe you did hear something. Who knows? Maybe you heard the kid cry out, but you didn't go to him because you were scared. Is that it? Were you scared, Paul? It makes sense you know. Being in a gunfight situation isn't like a walk in the park. It's terrifying as h.e.l.l. I know. I've been there."

Anderson looked at Paul and waited for him to say something, anything.

The silence went on and on.

Anderson said, "Paul, you mind if I tell you a story?"

Paul looked up at him and shook his head.

"This was in August, 1991. I was working the warehouses around Pop Gunn Drive. You know that area?"

"No, sir."

"Run down, nasty place. Nothing but warehouses. The south side at its worst. Well, anyway, they'd been having a string of burglaries in the area, and my sergeant ordered me to drive the area all night, you know, seeing what I could see. Well, I hear this disturbance come out on the radio, shots fired in a house about two miles or so from where I am. I figure, I'll stay in the area, listen for what happens. Well, the officers get there, and the next thing you know, the emergency tone's going off. The officers are calling in shots fired, two people hit. Turns out, a husband lost his mind and took it out on his wife and youngest son."

Anderson glanced at the picture covering his speedometer, and Paul thought he saw a dark cloud pa.s.s over the detective's face.

"So of course the guy manages to get into his truck and flees the scene," Anderson said. "The officers put out his description and I start looking for the truck. You can guess what happened next, right? There I am, driving around with my thumb up my b.u.t.t, and sure as h.e.l.l, guess who comes tearing around the corner right in front of me?"

"The guy from the shooting?"

"Right. So I go after him. We have this little car chase around the warehouses, and the next thing you know, the guy crashes. He jumps out of the truck, and I follow him in my car. Well he stops and turns and points a gun at me, and I lock up the brakes. He runs off around a corner of a building, and I go after him on foot. I go around the corner, and I hear this loud boom, right? It's the guy's gun. I think, Oh s.h.i.+t, he's shooting at me. So I jump back behind the corner and I stand there, breathing so hard I can barely talk on the radio. I stand there for a real long time, you know? Just me, listening to the wind blowing through the eaves of this building above me. When my cover got there, they asked me what was going on. I couldn't tell them, I was so scared. Finally, they moved in, and you know what they found?"

"What?" Paul asked.

"They found the guy behind a pile of lumber, dead. The shot I'd heard, that was him, popping himself off."

Anderson stopped there and looked at Paul.

"Tell me, Paul, is that what happened to you? Did you hear that kid screaming out? Did you get scared and freeze? There's no shame if that's what happened. The public may think we're nothing but a bunch of baton happy racists, just living for the chance to beat the s.h.i.+t out of some hapless minority, but you and I know the truth. It isn't that way. Believe me, I know."

Paul didn't say anything. His mind was playing the same loop over and over again. Slowing to a stunned walk as he saw the slaughtered goat. Turning and looking at the figure of his father crouched over the dead kid. His father talking to him.

You've got a charge to keep, boy.

"Is that what happened, Paul?"

Nothing.

"Paul?"

"I didn't see nothing, sir. I didn't hear nothing, either. I looked into the boxcar, and the kid was dead."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, sir. Just like that."

Anderson nodded to himself again. He smacked his lips and said, "Okay."

"Okay?" Paul said. "You mean...I'm okay to just go?"

"Yep."

Paul waited, but when it was obvious that Anderson wasn't going to say anything else, he opened his car door and made a move to step out.

"Hey, Paul?"

Paul stopped, half in, half out of the car. "Yeah? I mean, yes sir?"

"We're not going to be charging you with anything. Just so you know."

"Okay, sir. Thanks for saying so."

"No problem." He paused. "Oh. There is one other thing."

"Yes sir?"

"How long have you been on, son?"

"I graduated in March, sir. This is my second night off my FTO rides."

"Your second night? You're kidding?"

"No, sir."

Anderson laughed. "Lord, son. Hold on to your hat, because you're gonna have a wild ride of a career."

Paul regarded him for a moment, then walked away without saying another word.

Paul and Mike were in the car now, headed downtown to the Homicide Office, where the two of them would be spending the next four or five hours, at least, writing their reports. Mike was driving-calmly, for once-strumming the top of the steering wheel like it was a guitar to the song on the radio. Paul wouldn't have known it was Alice Cooper they were listening to if Mike hadn't told him. To Paul, it just sounded like noise, and if there were chords in there somewhere, he couldn't hear them.

"But this is a guy singing?" Paul said.

"Yeah."

"So...his name is Alice?"

Mike stopped strumming the steering wheel and looked at Paul in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? Alice Cooper? Paul, you remember when you gawked at me when I told you I didn't like Willie Nelson? Well, I'm having one of those moments right now. You've never heard of Alice Cooper? Really?"

"Sorry."

"You know what your problem is, Paul?"

I got a lot of problems, Paul thought. But all he said was, "What?"

"Your taste in music sucks a.s.s. I'm serious, Paul. All that country music is gonna rot your brain. They've done studies on that, I think. Next thing you know you'll be marrying your cousin."

Paul didn't even bother to smile. He sank down into the pa.s.senger seat and tried to think. Outside the car, the sky was turning the dark purple of bruised fruit, a glow of crimson spreading across the horizon. They drove by dark, weather-beaten houses that were crammed together so densely they reminded him of a hive. Paul watched it all go by without really seeing it. His thoughts kept coming back to the image of his father's back curled over his b.l.o.o.d.y work, his hands submerged into the kid's chest.

You have a charge to keep, boy.

"Can you unlock my window?" Paul said to Mike. "I gotta get some air."

"Sure thing," Mike said. "You feel sick? I can stop if you want."

"I'll be all right. Just open the window."

Mike nodded, then went back to driving. He slowed to a stop at a red light and, to Paul's surprise, actually waited it out, rather than merely checking if the coast was clear and going on through the intersection.

After a while, Mike said, "That better?"

"A little," Paul said.

"Good."

The light turned green and Mike slowly pulled away from the stop line. "You're gonna get through this," Mike said. "It looks weird right now, I know. Believe me, I know. But you're gonna come through this smelling like a rose. Trust me."

"Sure," Paul said, though he was still looking out the window at the darkened houses slipping by, thinking that he wanted to be any place else in the world but in his own shoes right now.

Anderson found Levy at the boxcar, kneeling over the dead goat, its chest ripped open, same as the boy inside the car, same as Ram and Herrera at the Morgan Rollins Iron Works.

"I just don't get it," Levy said. "What's with the goats?"

"It's an Angora," said Anderson. "Apparently, you can shear these things three, even four times a year. And, according to Officer Henninger at least, they're good eatin' goats, too."

"They're what?"

Levy looked up at him then, and under different circ.u.mstances, Anderson might have laughed at the confounded look on his face.

"I talked to Henninger, got his statement. He tells me he grew up on a farm out near Smithson Valley High School. He said they used to raise these same kinds of goats out there."

"Really?"

"That's exactly what I said."

"That's a mighty handy coincidence, don't you think?"

"Maybe not," Anderson said. "According to Henninger, these things are raised all over the country."

Levy looked down at the carca.s.s.

"Doesn't look like any kind of goat I've ever seen."

"Me either," Anderson admitted. "Of course, neither one of us are goat farmers."