John Hart - The Last Child

Barfield held up his hands, fingers spread. “No reason we can’t do this quietly. Discreetly.”

“Why don’t you discreet my ass?” Yoakum said. “I’m not going anywhere until somebody tells me what’s going on.”

The Chief said, “These questions need to be asked by someone not affiliated with this department. I’ve invited the SBI to assist.”

“Spin control,” Hunt said in disgust.

The Chief shook his head. Barfield laid a hand on Yoakum’s shoulder. It was not a threatening move, not aggressive. Yoakum shrugged it off. “Don’t touch me.”

“Nobody’s arresting you.”

“Arresting me! What the-”

“Settle down, John.”

“Fuck you, Clyde. What questions?”

Barfield reached out with the same hand, stopped short of touching anything. He tilted his body, indicating the door. Yoakum knocked his hand away. “Not until I know what these questions are about.”

Barfield dropped his arm. “Your off-duty weapon is a Colt.45.” It was not a question.

“What of it?”

“Where is that weapon now?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Detective Hunt recovered a.45 shell casing from the wreckage of David Wilson’s car.”

“So?”

Hunt risked a glance at the Chief. At the sight of his face, a hollow place opened in his stomach.

Barfield’s face showed no emotion. “It has your print on it. We’d like to talk to you about that.” Again Barfield raised an arm, indicating that Yoakum should precede him through the door. “We can keep this quiet.” But Yoakum swatted the hand away, a loud stinging blow; and suddenly, all was motion. “That’s it,” Barfield said. He and Oliver moved in unison. They seized Yoakum and forced him across the desk, facedown, right arm jack-hammered behind his back. Hunt stepped forward, hands up and reaching for the fabric of Oliver’s jacket. It was instinct, pure and simple.

“Stay out of it, Hunt.” Loud. Commanding.

Hunt looked at the Chief and froze, felt the rage in his face. Barfield was twisting the arm, cuffs out. Oliver had his full weight on Yoakum’s shoulder blades. Barfield slapped a cuff onto Yoakum’s wrist, and Yoakum fought it, a smear of blood on his top lip.

“Chief.”

“Shut up, Hunt.” Then to the SBI agents, “Is this really necessary?”

“He assaulted a state policeman.”

Cuffs on, they hauled Yoakum to his feet. Hunt stepped between them and the door. “Whatever’s going on, there’s an explanation. Don’t take him out like this. Those are his colleagues out there. Press all over the street.”

“Stand aside, Detective.” Barfield was red-faced. Oliver was the picture of dispassion. “We’re just doing our jobs. Your own Chief asked us here.”

Yoakum stood between the SBI agents. His shirt had pulled from beneath his belt. One button was sprung and his fury was a tangible thing. “Get your fucking hands off me,” he said.

Hunt looked for the Chief. “You’re going to let them haul him out in cuffs?”

“You arrested Ken Holloway for less.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” The Chief was not going to help.

“We have room for two,” Oliver said, and the threat was implicit.

Yoakum said, “This is bullshit, Clyde.”

“Stand aside, Detective. I won’t ask you again.”

“Chief. Damn it.”

“They have a job to do, same as us.”

Hunt stood firm. “I will not allow this.”

“Stand aside, Hunt,” the Chief said. “Or I swear to God, I’ll have them arrest you, too.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Get out of the fucking way.”

Hunt looked at his friend, who tossed his hair and spit pink saliva on the Chief’s floor. “Don’t sweat it, Clyde.” Hunt refused to move. “Go on and step aside.”

“John-”

“Pretty day for a drive,” Yoakum said, and Hunt felt himself step left. The door opened and they hauled his partner out in cuffs.

Through the bullpen.

Out the front door.

Johnny watched the sun rise from the loft door. His legs dangled over a dark drop that smelled of mud and bruised grass. He was thirsty and his body hurt all over. Nobody else was awake, the fire long dead. The sun appeared first as a line of pink, then as an edge of yellow that lifted above the trees. Johnny leaned far out and stared down.

“Don’t jump.” It was Jack, behind him.

Johnny turned. “Ha-ha.”

Jack crossed the loft, sat down next to his friend. Hay hung in his hair. His heels drummed wood, then he leaned out, too. “I saved your life. You owe me.”

“Owe you that.” Johnny punched him on the shoulder.

“Dick.” Jack looked across the field of weeds beaten flat. The forest was still black beneath the leaves. Swamp sounds rose on a sudden breeze. “I’m hungry.”

“Starving.”

“We should go home.”

Johnny glanced at the ladder, the trapdoor that led down. “Still think he’s talking to God?”

“I think he’s dying.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

Johnny rose, dusted his hands on his jeans. “I should talk to him.”

Jack stood, too. “It stinks down there.”

He was right. Freemantle was lying on his side, knees drawn up. He smelled like death. His bad arm was stretched out in the dirt, and when Johnny touched his skin, it felt like hot, dry paper. Johnny looked from the wound in his side to the swollen hand. The skin on the finger had split from the pressure. “All I did was bite him.”

“The human mouth is a gross place.”

“You kissed what’s-her-face.”

“That’s different. Besides, you bit him to the bone, and it’s been days. He’s been carrying a body, in the woods. And he put animal medicine on it. That was just stupid.”

“I don’t think he’s stupid.”

“No?”

“It’s not the right word.”

Jack pushed out a breath. “We need to get out of here, like now, before this guy wakes up and kills us.”

And it was as if Freemantle heard him.

His eyes snapped open, wide, dark, and wild. One hand stabbed out and caught Jack by the neck. His voice was a croak and he pulled Jack close. “God knows.” Johnny felt the force of the words and grabbed his arm, but Freemantle’s skin burned fever hot, his fingers driving into the soft parts of Jack’s neck. “God knows,” he said again as his fingers fell open and Jack scrambled back.

“Keep him away,” Jack yelled. “Jesus Christ. Keep that crazy motherfucker off me.”

Johnny was frozen. He stared until the madness left Freemantle’s face. “What happened?” Freemantle looked confused, eyes now shocked and scared, chest pumping. He raised his ruined hand and stared at it as if he’d never seen it before. He lowered it into his lap, and rolled back onto his side. He ignored the boys, pulled his knees to his chest. “Where am I?”

When Johnny turned, he found Jack all the way across the barn, back jammed against the wall, small hand at his throat, good one making the sign of the cross. His lips were bled of color, eyes bright.

“We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go now.”

“Are you okay, Jack?”

But Jack was washed out and blinking, the words dead in his throat. He opened his mouth, closed it and both boys stared at Freemantle, whose eyes were squeezed to tears as he shook on the cold stone. His lips moved without sense, and a spare, dry sound passed between them.

Jack crossed himself again.

Red finger marks showed on his throat.

When Hunt came back into the Chief’s office, he was shaking with a rage so raw he was not sure he could contain it. He still saw the reporters’ frenzy and how Yoakum had refused to blink or bow his head as they swarmed him. Hunt shoved the door, heard it drop into the frame, but the Chief had little patience for his anger. He slumped into his seat, reached back for Hunt’s service weapon and put it on the desk. He pushed it forward. “That could have gone better.”