David Wiltse - Bone Deep

The sun flashed off the reservoir like a wild, leaping silver fish that came straight at Tee, blinding him. He sat upon their rock, holding Mrs. Leigh at the only time when she would let him embrace her completely, her face buried in his chest. He touched the tears on her cheek with the tip of his tongue, closing his eyes against the sun. He yearned to tell her that he loved her, at least now, but he knew how she would react. She would squirm away from him and start talking again in her stern, elusive way, half belle, half termagant, talking about anything other than what he had said. She would not tell him she loved him too, he knew that, and her body would transform from soft and yielding to all angles and sharp edges once more.

Instead of speaking he held her just a little tighter, as if he could cling to the moment as well as her body. She was so frail, really. It was only her energy, her restless, nervous energy that made her seem so hard. He could crush her like an eggshell if he wanted to, he told himself. Or he could enfold her with his strength and protect her from everything.

She stiffened in his arms.

"Not yet," he said, thinking she was going to leave him.

"Did you hear that?" and cheep of the forest. "What?"

She pushed away from him. go, " she said, suddenly angry, her voice a hoarse whisper. She was on her feet tugging at her clothes. "Someone coming." She jerked her finger down the hill as if Tee were slow-witted and she were running out of patience.

He listened again, trying to ignore the sounds she made pulling the spandex across her skin. He heard it this time, a footfall, then another. Someone sneaking up on them.

Mrs. Leigh ran deeper into the woods, following the path away from her home, still holding one shoe in her hand. Tee got to his feet, fumbling at his pants, wondering if he should try to scramble down the hill, risk himself at speed on the rocks. The steps came closer, faster, no longer trying to conceal themselves, and suddenly McNeil crested the hill, stepped from around a tree that sheltered the last few feet of the path, smirking, not at all surprised to see the chief of police.

Hey there, Chief." 'What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Just a lucky guess, I guess." So pleased with himself, but sly, like a weasel, like he knew more than you did, all the time, every time. "You must have forgotten and turned your radio off."

Tee made a dumb show of finding the radio on his belt, pretended surprise that it was off, feeling foolish in the attempt to play McNeil's game.

"What do you want?" Tee asked.

McNeil sidled closer, his face twisted in a lopsided grin' For a moment Tee thought of grabbing the man by the neck and hurling him off the edge of the cliff. Rid himself of embarrassment and suspicions all at once.

Tee listened, heard nothing beyond the constant murmur "Can't really make it out myself," McNeil said. "Metzger's found something and he's all hot to get ahold of YOU."

"Found what?"

"A car, I — think."

"Where-?"

"He wouldn't say, not on the radio. He says he has to talk to you first. You boys got secrets, do you?" McNeil smirked again.

"Let's go then." Tee started to move but McNeil was blocking his path.

The smaller man stood his ground, short and wide, like a pit bull, one hand raised before him. Suddenly Tee felt very vulnerable, standing with his back to the edge, his feet a step or two from empty space.

McNeil reached forward abruptly, his hand shooting toward Tee's chest.

Tee stepped back involuntarily, realized he had overstepped, and flailed his arms to keep his balance.

McNeil grabbed him by the belt and pulled him back to equilibrium on the rock. He arched a brow mockingly.

"Careful there, Chief. You're on dangerous ground."

With exaggerated care and precision, he formed his fingers into pincers and tweezed a long black hair from Tee's shirt. He held it up as if examining it, making sure that Tee saw it too, then blew it away.

I'll kill him, thought Tee. If he threatens me in any way, if he tries to take advantage of this, if he even hints at jeopardizing the rest of my life, I'll kill him. He thought of life without Marge, or the inconceivable pain of losing his daughter, Ginny, through a divorce.

I'll kill him and put his bones in a bag and bury him under a tree, Tee thought. And be applauded if I'm ever caught.

When he reached his car, he realized that not once when he was envisioning the horror his life would be if McNeil betrayed him did he think about Mrs. Leigh.

"A C L and P worker found it and called it in first thing this morning,"

Metzger said, referring to the power company. Kiwasee's car sat where he had left it, wedged between larger trees, hidden from the road. His path up the clear-cut and into the underbrush was easy to follow, a trail of crushed grass, broken saplings.

"Did you check out the license plate?" Tee asked.

"It's stolen from Bridgeport. Taken around noon yesterday," Metzger said. "I made a preliminary recon in the woods here, thought maybe the driver was still around."

"Doing what?" McNeil asked. "Taking a piss? Taking a nap under a tree?"

"Well…" Metzger shrugged weakly. "I just thought…"

"What did you find?" Tee asked.

"I'll show you." Metzger led them into the woods.

"I spend more time in the woods these days…" McNeil said sourly. "How come all our cops like the woods so damned much?"

"You live pretty close to here, don't you, McNeil?" Tee asked.

"Not too far. You didn't forget where I lived, did you, Chief?" Another smirk, implying just what, Tee could not say. He didn't think McNeil could possibly know that he had been rummaging through his garage two days earlier, but McNeil's attitude implied that he knew everything, always. "Did you want to come over to my place, have a cup of tea" Or were you asking if you could use it one of those rainy days. The wife and I work during the day, you know."

"Use it for what?" Tee asked in a chilly tone.

"Hey, whatever."

"Over here," said Metzger, uncertain what he was interr-upting.

Tee turned very slowly from McNeil, eyeing him dis trustfully before exposing his back, as if the policeman were a snake.

"Blood, I think," said Metzger, pointing to a splotch the color of old rust on a tree trunk.

Tee squatted by the tree. The blood was in the shape of a partial handprint that blurred and vanished at the bottom. As if someone had grabbed the trunk to pull himself up, then slid back to the ground.

There was more blood on the ground, amongst the leaf litter. Tee took a few tentative steps and saw more blood splattered along the ground. The more he looked, the more appeared, until it seemed he stood in the middle of a shower of blood.

"Call Becker," he said to Metzger. "Right now. Ask him if he can come immediately."

"What do we need Becker for?" McNeil said. "Why don't we handle it, this ain't a federal case."

"Do you know what this is already?"

"No, but shit…"

"No, exactly. I want to find out what it is, that's why I'm sending for Becker."

"It's a stolen car, big deal, we can handle that."

"Get the outline tape from the car too, Metzger. We want to seal off the area immediately."

"Christ, Chief, at least let's look around on our own, first," McNeil said. "Some of us are cops too, you know. Becker isn't the only one who knows something about site investigation, even if he is in the FBI. He's supposed to be good at killing people, that doesn't mean we need to call him for every stolen car we find-"

"Shut up."

"What?"

"You heard me. Shut up about Becker. And you'd better hope he doesn't hear you talking about him."

"I'm not afraid of Becker."

"Then you're stupid along with everything else."