Timothy Johnston - The Current

And heard the deputy say, “You tell me.”

Mr. Wabash shaking his head, then looking at the deputy and saying, “You look like you had a pretty rough night all around, Ed.”

“How’s that?”

“Looks like somebody took a hammer to your ear there, for one thing.”

The deputy touched his ear. “That was a goddam drunk. Sucker punched me.”

Mr. Wabash shook his head again. “When it rains it pours, I guess.”

“Can you do it?”

“Let me call up Tony, see if he has it.”

“He does. I stopped and picked it up from him. Just need you to put it in.”

Mr. Wabash nodded. “How come you don’t do it down there?”

The deputy turned to look at him. “If you don’t want to do it, Dave, just say so.”

“Not sayin that, Ed. Heck, we can get her done if you don’t mind waiting.”

The deputy looked past Mr. Wabash and said, “I see your loaner’s out.”

“Yeah, Gordon Burke’s got her.”

The deputy nodded. “Well,” he said, “how long, you think?”

“Twenty minutes, half hour tops.”

“All right. I’ll walk on down to Irene’s and get a cup.”

Mr. Wabash looked toward the garage then and saw Marky standing there. They both saw him.

“What’s up, Marky?” said Mr. Wabash.

Keep your eyes on Mr. Wabash don’t look at the deputy, don’t look at his eyes looking at you.

“I can do it Mister Wabash.”

“You can do what.”

“I can fix the headlight.”

Mr. Wabash kept looking at him. Then he turned to the deputy and said, “That work for you, Ed?”

“What?”

“Letting the boy fix the headlight.”

“Can he do it?”

“Course he can do it. Do it in his sleep.”

The deputy’s ear stuck out big and purple and there was crusty blood on it. He was looking at Marky and he was a bad man, anyone could see it, it was in his eyes, but you have to look at him now, you have to look at him so he knows you can do it, so look at him and don’t look away.

“Hell,” said the deputy, “I don’t care who does it, just so they hop to it.”

“He’ll hop to it,” said Mr. Wabash. “Let me drop you at Irene’s. I’m goin out on a call anyways.”

Jeff pulled the deputy’s Escape into the other bay and Marky lowered the bay door and the two of them stood looking at the shot-out headlight.

“What the hell’s he doing up here anyway?” Jeff said. “Ain’t his goddam jurisdiction no more.”

“I don’t know Jeff maybe it’s because of that girl.”

“What girl?”

“That girl Audrey who went into the river down there.”

“Audrey?” said Jeff. “Oh, that girl. The sheriff’s daughter. The old sheriff,” he said, bending closer to the headlight and touching the broken glass with his fingertips. “Who do you reckon would shoot out that gomer’s headlight up here?”

“I don’t know Jeff.”

Jeff stood straight again and then just stood there, staring at the headlight.

“There’s a deer rifle in the back seat,” he said. “Not locked up or anything.” He looked at Marky. “Pretty goddam careless for a sheriff, wouldn’t you say?”

“I better get started on this Jeff.”

“All right. You need a hand?”

“No thanks Jeff.”

“All right. You holler if you do.”

“OK Jeff thanks.”

HER HEART BEAT, it pumped, urging her to go faster, get moving, but her body did not want to do it—begging her to stop this, get out of these clothes, go back to the sofa, go to your bed, fill a tub with hot water and lie in it until you sleep and when you wake it will all be just a dream, I promise you… and all the while her head, or the voices in her head, told her what a bad idea it was—the scene of the crime. The biggest mistake you could make.

But which crime? Whose crime? Self-defense, all right, but how do you prove it? If he’s alive he denies it and if he’s dead there’s no other witness but you. Just get the damn car, Audrey. The car is yours so just go get it and you can think about the rest later… and in this manner she got dressed—old clothes, old winter jacket and old winter boots she’d last worn when she was in high school—and she got herself out the door, and slowly down the porchsteps, slowly down the drive and slowly along the sidewalk, all the way to the corner where the cul-de-sac began and there she stopped and shut her eyes, the world so bright even with the sunglasses, and drew the cold air into her lungs.

Not too late to call the cab guy. If you had a phone. Her father’s was still on the front seat of the car. Or it wasn’t.

The only thing was to keep moving, just take it one block, one street at a time, and already she felt a little better, movement itself working the pain from her body, the morning traffic such as it was rushing by and no one paying any attention to a young woman just walking along normally, just going from here to there, and she’d gone four blocks and was well into her fifth when the cruiser pulled up alongside her.

She kept walking. She would not look over. Her heart banging. She took hold of the .38 in her jacket pocket and kept walking. The SUV crawling along, matching her speed and she would not look, until finally she did. Nothing to see but her own reflection in the passenger window, the aviators on her face, and below that, on the door, the Minnesota sheriff’s emblem.

Not Moran, at least. Not that bug-eyed goon, back from the dead.

She let go the gun and took her hand from her pocket as the passenger window slid down. Sheriff Halsey behind the wheel, watching her from behind his own aviators. Watching and saying nothing.

She stopped, and he stopped, and she walked up to the open window. No one honked. Traffic flowing calmly around him.

“Where you headed?” he said.

“Just walking.” Her voice sounded strange. Her throat still raw. “To the market.”

“You’re gonna freeze before you get there. You hurt yourself?”

“No, sir. I’m all right.”

He watched her. “Hop in,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift.”

“That’s OK.”

“Get on in here.”

She opened the door and got in. The window rose. She drew the seatbelt and, latching it, felt the shape of the gun in her pocket. Halsey signaled and pulled into traffic and got the cruiser up to speed.

“I was on my way to see you when I saw you,” he said.

She sat with her hands in her lap, her fingers laced. Watching the road.

“I imagine you’re curious to know why,” he said.

“Social visit?”

“Not hardly. I know what you’ve been up to.”

She did not look over at him. The world she saw through the windshield was nothing she recognized. Buildings and cars and snow.

“I haven’t been up to anything, Sheriff.”

“Yes, you have. You’ve been up to Rochester.”

Now she looked at him. “Rochester—?”

He gave her a look. “She told me herself you were there.”

Her mind doubled back—found an entire new branch of thinking and went stumbling down it.

“Katie Goss—?” she said.

“Didn’t I ask you to stay out of matters that don’t concern you? Matters that are matters of law enforcement?”

She unlaced her fingers to scratch at the skin under the cast—damp and cold under there. “Did she call you?” she said.

“No, she didn’t call me. I went up there myself.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you go up there if she didn’t call you?”

Halsey looked at her. “What part of mind your own business did you not understand?” He looked away again and she watched him, his face in profile. He drove one-handed, checking his mirrors, studying the other cars. Watchful. His sheriff’s hat lay in the space between them.