David Levien - Where the dead lay

“So I can write it?” Ratay asked, jotting his final notes.

“Give me a day to think it through clearly,” Behr said, “but yeah, you can write it.”

• • •

After that he took Susan home. They didn’t talk along the way. Something he couldn’t name wouldn’t let him speak. All Behr could do was glance over at her every half block or so and replay the events of the past week in his head. None of it made much sense to him, and the part that made the least was why he’d felt the same sensation when he learned Susan was pregnant as he had when he’d faced Terry Schlegel’s gun: cold, chest-squeezing blackness. He could dress it up and tell himself he’d felt disloyal, that he’d been concerned that a new life would wipe away his memories of Tim, and even Linda, and those memories were all he had left of his son-they were all he had at all for a long while-but now he knew the truth. He was afraid, plain and simple. Because what she had given him with those words in his car that night was hope-hope, and a chance at joy, and a future. But it is a fearful thing to love what death can touch. And the prospect of losing it all again was more than he could face.

Too quickly they reached her house, and the thing that wouldn’t let him speak kept on and she climbed out of the car. She looked at him for a long, disbelieving moment, then turned for her place.

The strapping young man got the first Whopper of the day when the breakfast menu switched over to lunch, backed it up with a chicken sandwich, and despite his pronouncement that he “never eats this shit,” wolfed them with a monster Pepsi. Then he walked down Scatterfield Road and entered the United States Marines recruiting station there.

Sergeant Fred Kilgen’s eyes got big when the kid walked in. It had been a slow day, hell, a slow time altogether with the latest press the war was getting, but now he felt like a buyer at auction sizing up a prime Angus beef calf.

“I want to join,” the kid said. He was salty as hell, that was for sure, from the spiky hair right on down to the wiseass T-shirt that read “Jesus Didn’t Tap.” They were gonna love him in basic.

“Sure,” Sergeant Kilgen said, getting out his sheet to start writing down the particulars and trying to look cool about it. “Where do you live?”

“I stayed at the Motel Six last night. That’s where I’ll be until this is done.” The kid didn’t mention the cell phone and car he’d dumped after his half hour drive to Anderson.

“How fast you want this to happen?”

“I don’t even want to go home.”

“Well, okay,” Kilgen said. This was the kind of signing that would help him “make his mission,” as they said at the productivity briefings. “We’ll contract you here. Then you’ll head down to the MEPS in Indy for processing. It’s a two-day thing-don’t worry, we’ll cover your room and board. You’ll do your medicals, your ASVAB-that’s your vocational exam. There’ll be an Initial Strength Test, which, to tell by looking at you will be a layup, and you’ll be a shipper.”

“Head off to boot camp?”

“That’s right. Next stop Parris Island,” Kilgen said.

The kid just bounced his head along to the information. He didn’t have any of the usual questions: How long? How much money will I make? Do you pay for college? Do I get to fight? Will I have to fight?

“Now, you got your high school diploma or GED?” Sergeant Kilgen continued, bracing for the usual hurdles.

“I can get a copy,” the kid said. The sergeant didn’t know it, but the kid figured he’d work one up on a computer at a Kinko’s or use his brother’s.

“Couple of standard questions. Ever do drugs?”

“No.”

“Ever been sick?”

“No.”

“Are you gonna change any of your answers for the doctor?”

“No.”

“Outstanding. Welcome aboard.” Sergeant Kilgen threw a laugh that sickened him a bit over the last part, and he had a strong stomach. “So you sure you don’t want thirty days? Go say good-bye to the folks?”

“I’ll send ’em a fucking postcard from Afghanistan or wherever the hell else you put me.”

The recruiter nodded. “Good idea. And you’re gonna want to check that language, son.”

“Got it.” The kid nodded.

“Name?” the sergeant asked, his pen poised to write.

“Kenneth Schlegel,” was the answer.

Behr stepped out of the station house on King Street where he’d just confirmed his statement, and he could feel the end of summer in the slight evening breeze. The two-day wait had been worth it. He’d gotten what he needed. He moved toward his car, adjusting his gun, which had been returned to him. When he reached the parking lot, he saw that someone awaited him there. It was Pomeroy, alone this time, and in full uniform. Gone were his captain’s bars, in their place the oak clusters of a major.

“A farmer’s combine turned up the rest of Bigby and Schmidt in a cornfield,” Pomeroy said.

Behr bowed his head at the inevitability. “You knew that their murders and Santos and the Schlegel crew were connected,” Behr said.

Pomeroy shrugged.

“How?”

“Flavia Inez was a person of interest. We had her working in one of their houses. Then we lost her, until you turned her up. We had Santos as a player.”

“That wasn’t in the file I got.”

“I said I’d give you the file, I didn’t say I’d give you the file.”

“Dominic told you I was at Santos’s academy that morning. That I was personally connected,” Behr said, unnecessarily.

An imperceptible nod came from Pomeroy. “I knew you’d push, and keep on pushing, and that’s what I… that’s what the department needed.”

Behr absorbed the words in silence.

“This is for you,” Pomeroy said, and handed him an unsealed envelope. Behr glanced inside. It was a money order, in the amount of $9,990. “That’s from the Caro Group.” A higher amount would have triggered bank reporting to the IRS or other paperwork that opened everyone up to scrutiny, Behr supposed. Or perhaps that was how much they figured he was worth.

“Karl Potempa wants to offer you a job with them,” Pomeroy said.

The big firms all liked having a “radioactive” guy around, Behr knew, someone who would go into the gray areas and beyond. Case management meetings were held without this guy, and no one wanted to hear a rundown on what he’d been doing on a file. It was fake smiles around the water cooler and thanks for the results, but no invites to the bar later, and a fall guy if things went badly. The fact was, most big firms would go under without their radioactive guy, but like someone who’d been exposed in a nuclear plant accident, no one really wanted to get close.

“I don’t like wearing suits,” Behr said, thinking of what he really wanted.

Pomeroy shrugged and produced a small black velvet box from his pocket. “This is also for you,” he said, and handed it to Behr, who noticed right away that it was too small to hold a badge. He opened the box, and what was inside sparkled. It was a gold ring, with “IMPD” written in diamonds atop the band. Behr looked at it, then up at Pomeroy.

“What’s this?” Behr asked.

“What you did means a lot, Frank,” Pomeroy said.

Behr nodded, his eyes falling to the ring again.

“Go ahead, put it on,” Pomeroy urged.

Behr took it out of the box and slipped on the ring.

“They don’t generally make ’em that big. Had to be done up custom. Your size was still on file.”

Behr flexed his fingers, unused to the weight.

“You’re a friend to the department is what that signifies,” Pomeroy said, meeting his eyes. “You know what that means?”