C Box - Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

“A criminal-defense attorney and a gang kingpin,” Brian said. “That’s a deadly combination.”

“Can we prove this?” I asked.

Melissa said, “In a court of law? Like in front of a judge if we could get a custody hearing to keep Angelina?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling hopeful for the first time.

“There have to be quite a few students in that high school who would say the same things the counselor told me,” she said.

Brian nodded, excited. “With the right bulldog lawyer and a parade of kids and teachers who know Garrett, I could see a judge ruling that you should keep Angelina for her own well-being and safety.”

I wanted to believe him.

“Think about it, Jack,” Brian said. “You’ve got a man whose parents and first wife died mysteriously and a son who comes across like Little Scarface. What court would rule they should get a baby girl because of a ridiculous technicality?”

“And maybe it doesn’t even have to go that far,” Melissa said. “Maybe we talk with Judge Moreland and tell him what we know. I’m sure he doesn’t want this all aired in a courtroom. It might be enough to make him go away.”

WE STAYED UP LATE after Angelina was put to bed and Brian kept us optimistic and hopeful. He was able to get Melissa to laugh at his jokes, and it was a wonderful sound to hear. It was as if days and nights of built-up terrors and fears were being released.

BRIAN WAS PULLING ON his coat to leave when there was a knock on the door. Melissa and Brian froze and looked at me. I glanced at the clock: 1:20.

A combination of fear and rage not far under the surface revealed itself. Were the boys back? If so, this time I wouldn’t be humiliated. I ran upstairs and got the.45.

“Jack!” Melissa said, seeing the weapon in my fist.

“They may have paintball guns,” I said, “but I have the real thing.”

“Oooh,” Brian said, shaking his head, “I don’t know…”

But I’d already thrown open the front door, ready and willing to level the Colt at Garrett’s or Luis’s face.

Cody slumped against the threshold, his face flushed, his eyes watery. There was snow on his shoulders and head.

“Go ahead,” he slurred, “shoot me.”

I put the gun aside, and Brian and I helped him in. He could barely walk, and we steered him toward the couch. The smell of bourbon on him was strong. He sat down in a heap.

Melissa said, “Cody, you’re covered in blood. Are you hurt?”

I hadn’t even noticed, but now I saw it: dark floral patterns of blood on his pant legs and down the front of his coat. His knuckles were bloody, the skin peeled back.

“I’m just fucking dandy,” Cody said, “but that kid out there in the Hummer with the paintball gun isn’t doing so hot.”

LIKE SPRING SNOWSTORMS IN the Rockies, late-fall snowstorms often had a particular kind of all-encompassing intensity and volume that could make you slip out of your everyday life, look around, and say, “Do we have enough groceries in the house?”

But that night, when Cody showed up at our house drunk and bloody, the snow didn’t divert attention from where we were but steered it back from our brief little respite of hope, and made everything more focused and harder-edged.

BRIAN WAS IN THE PASSENGER SEAT of my Jeep as we slowly circled the block looking for the kid or vehicle Cody described. The snow was falling in white-capped vertical waves of poker chip-sized flakes. The volume of snow muted outside sound and haloed the streetlights. It wasn’t cold enough yet that the snow wouldn’t melt, but it was falling so hard and so fast that it didn’t get the chance. Cottony balls of it bunched on the hood of the car and rested on the tops of the blades of the wipers.

A few lights were on behind closed curtains in our neighbors’ homes, and three or four porch lights. Falling snow, like fat summer miller moths, swirled in the glow one second and vanished the next as the neighborhood went black.

“Uh-oh,” Brian said. “What happened?”

“Power’s out,” I said. “Maybe the storm took a line down.”

“Wonderful. The hits just keep on coming.”

“Jesus,” I said. “What did Cody say before he passed out?”

“Something about nearly rear-ending a car that was coming down the street with its lights off,” Brian said. “Then he saw who was inside and followed them.”

“Did he say where?” I asked, my voice pinched with desperation. There weren’t any unfamiliar cars on the curbs or in the driveways of my neighbors. Those that were there had at least six inches of snow on them, making the models hard to pick out in the dark.

“He was hard to understand,” Brian said. “Bombed out of his mind. What I heard was that he pulled the car over and the boys in it tried to run away but he caught one of them. He’s so out of it, though, that I can’t even be sure he wasn’t hallucinating.”

“That blood on him wasn’t a hallucination,” I said.

“But we don’t know if it happened here, is what I’m saying,” Brian said. “I still think we should have called the cops, let them look for the boy and the car.”

“And get Cody arrested,” I said.

“Maybe he needs to be arrested.”

“You heard Melissa.”

Brian sighed. “By not calling them have we already broken the law?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“But we know we should, right?”

“I guess so.”

“But we aren’t going to, are we?”

“No.”

I CRAWLED THE JEEP down the length of my subdivision street and took a left at the next block, passing under a darkened streetlight. In the dark and in the snow, my own neighborhood seemed unfamiliar. It was the same odd feeling I’d had on Sunday when Judge Moreland showed up at my home and somehow turned it into a place I didn’t know or feel very comfortable in.

“There,” Brian said, pointing through the windshield.

Halfway up the next block, Garrett’s H3 Hummer was parked with a front tire on the sidewalk and the back end angled out toward the street. The headlights of my Jeep washed across the length of the vehicle, revealing no one inside. I slowly drove on.

“I didn’t see anyone inside,” Brian said. “Where did they go?”

“Cody said one took off. But where’s the other one?”

I didn’t want to stop in the street and train my headlights on the Hummer in case any of my neighbors were looking out. In the dark, I wouldn’t be able to see them, and they might recognize me or my Jeep. I wondered if anyone had noticed the H3-it was not exactly a model that would melt into the scenery-or called the police. For sure, I thought, someone had contacted the power company by now.

At the end of the block I flipped a U and cruised back.

“Not too fast,” Brian said, “I’m looking.”

“There he is,” I said, pointing.

“Where?”

“ There …”

The heap of clothing was about ten feet from the sidewalk on the lawn of an unfamiliar house. The pile of clothing was dark but substantial and flecked with snow. There was just a glimpse as we passed by, but I thought I saw a bloody face with the wisp of a mustache. A snow-covered FOR SALE sign with a local realtor name was planted in the grass. Even though there was no power, the house looked absolutely still, and there was a good likelihood, I thought, that no one was inside.

“Luis,” I said. “Not Garrett. Luis.”

“Oh man, oh man,” Brian said, grabbing my arm. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Is he dead? If he isn’t, he’ll freeze soon enough.”

“I know.”

“And where’s Garrett?”

I looked around, shaking my head. “Let me find a place to park. I’ve got to think.”