David Levien - Where the dead lay

This time Cottrell made sure his eyes remained still and cold. There was nothing more he should tell Behr, and nothing more Behr had the right to ask, but Behr couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Did they take out those P.I. s? You hear anything about that?” he asked.

“Man, if they told anyone about it, how the fuck would it be me?” Cottrell said. Since his silence wouldn’t put Behr off, he hoped maybe some angry words would. In all the years he’d known Frank Behr, the guy had never come on all hard-core John Law like this, except that first time when Behr had busted him long ago. But it was like a flashback to that time now. Cottrell felt Behr there with his demand for truth, an immovable object in his path.

“Goddamn it, man, gimme something,” Behr breathed, sick with himself. He knew his actions were crossing someone off a very short list in Cottrell, and he regretted it, but Cottrell’s claim rang like bullshit to him.

“Or what, you gonna put a beat-down on me?” Cottrell spat back. He turned to get to his car, but Behr stepped in his way.

“Is it just the cops? What else is there?” he demanded.

“Fuck you, coming down here asking, get out my grill-”

“No.”

Only the car engines sounded between them for a moment. It sounded like Cottrell’s engine was missing every few seconds. They glared into each other’s eyes.

“A’ight,” Cottrell finally said. “I give you this, you keep it, or else a good dude gets his ass greenlit…” Cottrell flashed on Marcus, full of holes, dumped in a ditch somewhere.

Behr just nodded.

“Way I hear it is they got help from up north.”

“Chicago or Detroit?”

“Don’t know, but peep’s saying they brought in some outta-state boys.”

That was it. Behr had it, and had been right about pushing for it, but still he felt ashamed and put a hand on Cottrell’s shoulder. Cottrell knocked it off.

“Next time we meet, we talk about the Colts or movies or whatever, and that’s it,” Behr said.

“Hope it ain’t soon,” Cottrell responded. Behr understood. The whole thing had rattled his friend, and Cottrell was not someone who rattled easy, and he sure as hell didn’t like it. The night was still for a moment, the only movement the night bugs scrambling between the headlights. Finally Behr turned and moved back toward his car.

“You watch that dome of yours,” Cottrell said quietly. But Behr was already in his car and backing down the dirt track on his way out.

Morning had come like an executioner’s call. Dean, unable to sleep, had spent a good part of the night sweating and flopping about in a spinning bed. They’d drunk, the bunch of them, as if it would change all the bad shit that was swirling around them, until it was almost light. And maybe it had, for a minute, but now he had a tub full of Jameson sloshing around in his gut and his head felt like a thunderstorm. Putting a foot on the floor hadn’t helped at all, and despite the patty melt he’d scarfed down at the kitchen table in order to soak up the whiskey, he half felt like he was going to puke out the whole works. He thought about that last hour they’d all spent the night before. They’d doused their concerns for a moment and decided they felt strong. Dad always made them feel that way, especially when he leaned in and whispered that nothing had changed, they were still on track, and Uncle Larry could keep shit locked down on his end. They’d kicked everyone out of the bar at closing time and played poker and kept on drinking. And when they’d gotten home they’d made so much noise, the four of them, that Mom had come out of the bedroom. At first she’d been pissed they’d woken her, but then Dad had started singing “Dixie Chicken” and dancing her around the kitchen until she’d started laughing. Finally, she’d pulled out the frying pan and had started cooking, and they told stories and ate until they all went to pass out. It was like old times, when they were kids, but with whiskey, and for a while their troubles seemed far away.

Now Dean rose and staggered through the silent house to the kitchen, where he drank from the tap and belched and drank some more. The water momentarily diluted the poison inside him and he wiped a layer of clammy sweat from his face with a dish-towel. Then he turned and saw the greasy frying pan, and the plates scattered across the table, dirty with chunks of meat and sodden bread and smeared with ketchup. He went to the front door, for some fresh air and the morning paper.

“Bodies Found in Near Northside House ID’d as Father and Son,” screamed the Star’s headline. It was the address of the last pea shake they’d taken down. Dean’s stomach elevator-dropped. He was awash in dread as he read the account of the discovery of the dead boy. A child. It rang in Dean’s head. His hands began to shake and his blood turned to ice. A low moan escaped his belly as the enormity of what they’d done settled on him. He’d killed a kid. Then, from an even deeper place, came a spasm, and a roiling wave of vomit splattered down on the front step from where he’d just picked up the paper.

He stood along the riverbank and listened to the black water rush by below his feet. The better part of a bottle of Maker’s Mark rolled to its own current within him. His life was over-at least life as he knew it-killed by a pain he could not even estimate. He reached to his belt and felt the gun there, hard and unyielding. Its existence mocked him. He gripped its cold handle and lightly touched the trigger, where that precious small finger had somehow found its way. With a brusque fury he yanked the gun free and hurled it into the night with a force that tore things deep in his shoulder. He couldn’t hear the splash for the howl that erupted from within him.

Darkness lifted like smoke from the water as Behr came back to the present. He had trudged along the muddy bank of the White River for several miles, scanning the shallows with his light, which he now clicked off as dawn had arrived. He hadn’t been this close to the White in years, since that night when it was finally all over for his boy and he’d driven out to fling the 9mm Tim had died by into its waters. Behr had never wanted to see that weapon again, same as the face that stared back at him when he looked in the mirror. He did his best to shake off the memory and continued on.

Wherever there is money, there is violence. It was a truth. In business the violence is in the boardroom, in illegal business the violence is in the street. Despite the fact that he was hard tired and the left side of his head felt like it had a railroad spike lodged in it, Behr knew he had a long night ahead of him. After leaving Cottrell, he went home and worked quickly. He needed a piece of information and some supplies. The information didn’t take him long to obtain now that he knew what he was looking for.

He found it in the state marriage license database and was able to back it up with an old announcement in a local news archive, and then tax and school records. Bustamante, Victoria, and Bustamante, Lawrence, the police lieutenant, were not married, they were brother and sister. Twenty-three years earlier Victoria had married Terrence Schlegel in a ceremony at Garden of Gethsemane Church in Speedway. They had three sons, Charles, Dean, and Kenneth, twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen years of age, who had attended area schools. Terry Schlegel, the father, was listed by the Alcoholic Beverage Commission as the permittee of the Tip-Over Tap Room. Behr selected “Print” and jotted further notes while the machine whirred to life. Then he’d begun putting together the supplies he needed-a map, flashlight, boots, and a thermos bottle full of coffee. The threat that the man he now knew was Dean Schlegel had made to Ezra was not idle, nor abstract, Behr believed. He marked the map with a highlighter, starting at the southernmost likely point in the area, where railroad tracks touched or intersected the White River. He steeled himself and drove out to the first spot, an area near West Troy Avenue that was fairly industrial in character, and then he started in.