“And if I don’t?”
He turns to adjust something on his oxygen tank. There’s a faded sticker on it. Only two words I can make out are Property of. His left arm hangs without much purpose. Looking at Father Frank, I thought only half of him was there. Looking at Haggerty, it’s like the stroke took away a third of him. Time has made these men smaller. He leans back into the position he was in earlier, only now his left arm is hanging and his right hand is on the butt of his gun. The stroke wasn’t kind to him, but strokes aren’t known for decency.
“That’s not something you want to find out, son.”
“Only thing I want to find is Alyssa,” I tell him.
He pushes himself off from his car. It’s takes more effort than it should. “Like I told you, there’s no case here. I’m giving you an hour’s grace here, son, and that’s only because of our history. You’re still here in an hour, then I can’t stop what’s coming your way.”
“And what’s that?”
He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, tosses it onto the ground, and grinds it out with the heel of his boot. He looks at me for a bit, and then climbs into his car, dragging his oxygen tank with him. We watch him pull away.
The dust from his car hangs in the air, then starts to settle on my damp clothes and skin. There’s no wind to shift it.
“He’s just trying to throw his weight around,” Maggie says. “It’s not like he’s actually going to come after you to drag you out of town. He has no authority here. Still, I knew he’d be mad, but I didn’t realize he’d still be that mad.”
I tortured his son. Then I shot him, and tortured him some more. It’s not something you stop being mad about. “He’s taking me being here better than I thought. What do you think he meant when he said there was no case here?”
“Doesn’t matter what he meant,” she says. “He’s not investigating it. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“He might be retired, but I don’t doubt he knows what’s going on.”
“So now what? You’re not going to let him run you off, are you?”
“No,” I say. “Of course not. He’s an old man,” I say, “trying to throw his weight around like you said.”
“One with a gun,” she says.
“And an oxygen tank,” I say. “The wheels on that tank are so old I’ll hear them squeaking a mile away. I doubt he can even shoot straight. You saw the way his arm was hanging.”
“He’s right-handed,” she says. “The stroke affected his left. Don’t forget his son has a grudge too.”
“They don’t scare me.”
“They scared you enough twelve years ago,” she says.
“Twelve years ago was a different story. Back then it wasn’t about being scared, it was about being sensible.” I turn to look at her. “You must have known before you called me this was going to happen.”
She nods. “You’re right. But Frank . . . he was insistent.”
“These two cars,” I say, nodding toward the two other cars parked here. “One of them belong to Father Frank?”
“The Toyota,” she says. The beaten-up Toyota looks like it should be buried in the graveyard out back. It reminds me of my car. “Keys should be in the ignition.”
I look at my watch. Haggerty said he’d give me an hour. “I’ll go talk to Drew, see what he says.”
“Should I come with you?”
“No. There’s no reason to make trouble for you with Haggerty.”
“Okay,” she says. She gets into her car. “You’ll call me soon?”
“Of course. Despite everything, it’s good seeing you again, Maggie. I’ve missed you.”
She blushes. She’s unsure what to say, and I don’t need her to say anything. She drives off, putting more gravel dust into the air. I check out the Toyota. It’s old and well used and looks like it would double in value if I hosed it down. Keys are inside it, like Maggie said. Could be because nobody would steal a car from a priest. Or because nobody would steal this car from anybody. The steering wheel is hot. The engine complains when I try to start it, and for a while it could go either way, life or death. It chooses life. For now. There’s a grinding sound when I try to wind the windows down, and none of them budge. When I try again I can’t even get the grinding sound. I turn the air conditioning on. The air is warm and stale. I turn it back off.
I drive out of the parking lot with fifty minutes of freedom left.
Twelve
I feel like I’m in a Bruce Springsteen song as I drive the streets where I grew up. Fragments of different memories play out like a parade. I can see the last time I drove out of here, my splinted fingers making it painful to drive. I can see myself heading inside The Big Bar at my mom’s behest to tell my dad it was time to come home. It was a dark sticky-floored sports bar with pool tables and dart boards and TVs showing horse racing or football, and people drinking at the bar looking like they slept there too. I can see us with a Christmas tree strapped to the roof of the car, my dad braking quickly for a dog and the tree snapping its bindings and hitting the pavement, and us leaving it in the street and never getting another one again. I see myself walking the streets as a kid, walking them with Maggie, walking them as a cop. Some buildings have seemingly been put into a time capsule the day I left to be brought back out on my return. Some of the faded shop fronts haven’t faded any more, or maybe they were replaced and faded all over again. The cars are more modern, clothes are more modern, people are on cellphones that twelve years ago nobody would have thought possible.
Father Frank’s car chugs along, the engine hiccupping every now and then, and something from the front clicks loudly when I make left-hand turns. I pass by a couple of bars unsure which one has Conrad Haggerty working in it. I pass The Big Bar, its name now up in neon. I pass a shop where I bought my first and only suit. I pass the barber my dad always took me to. I drive through my history, pangs of regret for having to leave coming from everywhere I look.
I reach the police station. It’s a flat building with brownstone walls stained by small-town life, exhaust fumes and bird crap and dirt swept in from forest and quarry. The front has floor-to-ceiling windows with closed blinds on the other side, big letters painted in gold across them saying Acacia Pines Sheriff Office. Maggie was right — it is bigger than it used to be, the front closer to the road, the right-hand side extending further into the parking lot. There are seven patrol cars out front, fairly new models. Back in the day there only ever used to be four.
If driving into Acacia Pines was like coming home, then walking into the sheriff’s office is like coming to work. There are notice boards with messages and photographs and wanted signs, large filing cabinets scattered around the walls, maps of the town, of the forest, of the country, ring binders and lamps and computers covering the desks, people sitting behind them tapping on keyboards, or talking on phones. Some people I recognize, some I don’t. The air conditioning is working overtime.
Drew, or Sheriff Drew Brooks as he’s now officially known, is pouring himself a coffee from the same machine we were looking at replacing all those years ago. He’s aged better than I have. He’s lost weight and gained muscle and those two things make him look taller and younger. He looks thirty instead of forty. He’s grown a horseshoe mustache to match the one his predecessor had. He glances at me, looks back at the coffee, then glances back at me again. He straightens up and has a look about him of a man who thinks he might be dreaming.
I offer him my hand. He looks at it