C Box - Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

THE COLD SLAPPED ME right in the face. When I breathed in, I could feel ice crystals form in my nose. The snow squeaked beneath my boots. That sound made me grit my teeth, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I’d forgotten gloves, and the metal of the door handle of my Jeep stung my fingers.

“Where do you think you’re going, Jack?”

I froze. Cody.

I turned stiffly. He was walking across my lawn. His car was parked in front of the house, and I hadn’t even noticed it.

“I’m going to kill Judge Moreland.”

“So it’s over? They took her?”

“Where were you? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

“I broke my stupid phone on a guy’s head.”

“I need to go.”

“He probably does need killing,” Cody said. “But not now. Not by you.”

“Stay out of my way, Cody.”

He reached out and grabbed my coat sleeve. I wanted nothing to do with him, had no desire to hear his words. He wasn’t there when we needed him, and I had to do this myself.

Cody said, “What I’m saying is that you don’t need to go over there right now. You won’t get close anyway-the sheriff’s got cars in front of Moreland’s house just in case you thought of trying something like this. All this will do is land you in jail.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should,” said Cody. “Because I’ve fucking cracked this thing. We’re going to be able to get that son of a bitch Moreland and get your daughter back.”

I blinked.

“That’s right,” he said.

“How?”

“I’ve got somebody with me you’ll want to meet.”

I looked at Cody’s car again. There was no one in it. But I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. The car was trembling a bit, rocking slightly side to side.

“He’s in the trunk,” Cody said. “Let’s go get him and have a little talk inside.”

INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO MR. MCGUANE,” Cody said to the disheveled little man he shoved roughly through my front door.

He mumbled something in a tight-lipped way that sounded like “My-wott.”

“Where’s Melissa?” Cody asked me.

I chinned upstairs. “Sedated.”

Cody shook his head. “Bastards. Is she okay?”

“How could she be?”

“ Bastards. ”

“They came this morning. The sheriff and three deputies. The judge and Garrett stayed out in their car and didn’t even come in.”

My-wott stood there, watching us go back and forth as if he were observing a tennis match. By his blank expression I could tell he had no idea what we were talking about.

“Sit,” Cody said to My-wott, indicating the couch. The little man shuffled over to it stiff-legged and sat down. I could see now why he couldn’t talk and could barely move: He was freezing. His skin was sallow. His teeth were chattering so hard it sounded like popcorn popping. My-wott was thin, stooped, mousy. I guessed his build at five-four, 130. He had badly cut brown hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses, no chin but a prominent Adam’s apple, and his face was a moonscape of old acne scars. He had furtive, darting eyes and a manner to him that was weak and annoying. I felt sorry for him but wanted to hit him at the same time. He wore a red-checked plaid shirt, baggy jeans, and Crocs shoes. His arms shot out when he sat down, and I noted a massive gold Rolex on his wrist that just didn’t go with the rest of him. It looked like it weighed two pounds.

My-wott had a nasty-looking bruise right in the middle of a small bald spot on the back of his head. Cody saw me looking at it, and said, “That’s how I broke my damn phone.”

Cody dragged two chairs from the kitchen and placed them in front of him. He spun his around and straddled it, placing his arms on the top of the backrest. His eyes were gleaming, and his mouth was set in a sarcastic snarl. “I said, introduce yourself to Mr. McGuane.” To me: “Jack, have a seat.”

The little man looked down at his Crocs. His legs shook violently.

“Speak the fuck up,” Cody said, and slapped him sharply on his face. I glared at Cody, who ignored me.

“Wyatt,” the man said.

“Wyatt what?” Cody barked.

“Wyatt Henkel.”

“And where are you from, Wyatt Henkel?”

“You mean now, or where I was born?”

Cody slapped him again.

“Jesus, Cody,” I said.

Cody looked at me. “When you hear what he’s going to say, you’re going to want to do more than slap him.”

“Still,” I said.

“I was born in Greeley, Colorado,” Henkel said, forcing the words out through his chattering teeth. “I live now in Las Cruces, New Mexico.”

“Good,” Cody said. “Now tell Mr. McGuane why you’re here. Why your telephone number was on Brian Eastman’s call log from his cell phone.”

Henkel looked away from Cody and stared at our gas fireplace, which I’d turned off a few minutes before as I left the house.

“I’m freezing to death,” Henkel said, turning to me. “I’ve been in that trunk for eight hours.”

“Seven hours, tops,” Cody said. “Quit whining.”

I got up and walked over to the fireplace to turn it on.

Cody said, “No-keep it off.”

“Look at him,” I said.

“Fuck him,” Cody said. “We’ll turn on the fireplace once he starts talking.” To Henkel, Cody said, “ Fuck you. Got that?”

Henkel avoided meeting his eyes.

To me, Cody said, “I noticed some weight in your coat pockets. Are you carrying?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Get that gun out of your pocket. This is your grandpa’s Colt.45 Peacemaker, right?”

I drew it out. It was heavy and cold, and it looked like a blunt instrument in my hand.

Cody said, “Cock it and put the muzzle against Wyatt Henkel’s forehead. If he tells a lie, I’ll ask you to pull the trigger. Don’t worry about his brains splashing all over the wall because I don’t think he has any. And don’t worry about the body afterward, either. I’ll just take it up to where I buried Uncle Jeter. It’s a perfect place nobody will ever look. Maybe the coyotes will dig up their bones in 2025, but by then who gives a shit?”

Cody defused my look of horror with a barely perceptible wink that Henkel couldn’t see because his head was still down. Okay, I nodded. Now I get it.

Henkel’s head came up slowly. He was terrified.

I cocked the hammer and the cylinder rotated and I put the muzzle above his eyebrow.

Cody shifted in his chair and pulled his departmental.40 Glock semiauto. He held it loosely in his hand. “In case he misses,” Cody said to Henkel.

“Let’s start again,” Cody said to Henkel. “State your occupation.”

Henkel’s voice was high and reedy. “I’m a janitor at Las Cruces High School.”

“A janitor, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, I like that. Call me ‘sir.’ And call Mr. McGuane here ‘sir’ as well. Now tell me how long you’ve had your job.”

“Seven years.”

“What is your salary?”

“I make $26,000. It’s considered part-time.”

“Interesting,” Cody said. “You pull down 26K, but you live on five acres and you have two new vehicles. Is that correct?”

Henkel tried to swallow, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Yes,” he said.

“And you have that big piece of gold on your wrist. Is it a fake? One of those Taiwanese knockoffs?”

“It’s real,” he said.

“And that Escalade you drive-was it stolen?”

“No, sir.”

“You live well for a part-time janitor, don’t you, Wyatt?”

“Not as well as some, but I do all right.” His voice had gained some confidence. He was warming up both literally and figuratively. Which angered Cody.