The Edge of Justice (8 page)

“What do you think for the Knapp brothers? Life or death?” I ask.

“It's a foregone conclusion, my friend. Those suckers are gonna die. And fast, with that new expedited appeals process. I give 'em three years and they're toast. I'm not feeling too sad about it. Crime's been way down in this town since we've had those two locked up.”

“You get the feeling there's anything strange about the case Willis and Karge put together?”

Jones won't answer that. He just says, “Wasn't my case, bro.”

So I drop it for now and ask, “You still want to get together? How about me teaching you to climb tomorrow? I've got to go out to Vedauwoo on this Danning thing.”

Jones laughs. “Oh yeah, my wife would love that. I was thinking more along the lines of getting a few beers.” Then he looks thoughtful for a minute, and says, “But I guess it would beat lifting weights in the gym with those redneck peckerheads. You serious?”

“I am.”

“Okay then, I'll give it a shot. If you break any of my precious bones, she'll rip your head off. And both the sheriff and the judge will run you out of town if I can't do the security for the sentencing.”

I arrange to meet him up at Vedauwoo late the next morning after I've climbed with Lynn and her friends.

NINE

O
UTSIDE NEAR THE
courthouse's large glass doors, Kristi, the DCI secretary, is waiting for me. She carries an oversize purse on a strap across one shoulder. From the top of it pokes a manila envelope that I assume contains the printouts I'd requested. She wears a short navy skirt without stockings, and a man's white shirt. Her blonde hair, curly and piled high, does not quite match her skin. Her tan is too dark. It's the deep bronze of someone who spends her weekends oiled by the pool instead of on the granite. When I worked out of the Cheyenne office her breasts had been the subject of intense scrutiny and much speculation. Real or fake, everyone wondered. I know that if I'm not careful I'll find out.

She sees me and bounces up the steps. Her eyes crinkle when she smiles as she pecks me on the cheek. Her hug includes the warm press of her hips. From these things I have no doubt she's more than willing to stay the night. She probably carries a change of underwear in her purse.

“Hi, Anton,” she breathes against my neck.

When I manage to politely disengage myself I say hello.

“We all heard about what happened today. What a terrible thing! Are you all right?”

I nod uneasily. “It wasn't that big a deal. Did you bring the printouts?”

“Ha! You won't get them that easy. Making me drive them over is going to cost you at least a dinner.” She says it with a wink and a twist of her hips.

I don't mention that she volunteered to bring them, and don't ask what “at least dinner” means. I'm simply glad McGee isn't here to poke fun. I wonder if right now he's ruining Karge's moment of glory by telling him about our conversation with the coroner.

Kristi drives me to the hotel and on the way I have to fill her in on every detail of what happened in court. In my room, she sits on the bed rubbing Oso's flanks while the big dog groans with pleasure. “A girl doesn't get to make a guy feel this good very often,” she comments.

I pour water for us both into the plastic bottles I use when I climb. I mistrust hotel glasses in general—I've never noticed clean ones on the maids' carts and suspect they simply wipe them off using the same rag they swab on the toilets and sinks.

Picking up the phone, I dial an endless series of numbers: credit card, access code, etc., to check the messages at my small office-of-exile in Cody. The first two are from local police officers wanting my assistance. Then there is one from the County Attorney up there requesting my presence at an evidentiary hearing. The fourth is from a potential snitch I'm courting. The fifth is from the lawyer, Clayton Wells, who is representing me in the civil suit. He wants to talk to me before next week's hearing for summary judgment. He wants to talk about settling, he says. I suppress a grimace and erase that one as quickly as I'd saved the others.

I almost drop my bottle of water when I recognize the voice of the sixth caller.

“Hey, bro,” it says. “Bet you're surprised to hear from me. I want you to come down and see me. I guess you know where I'm at, and I'm not going anywhere at the moment. Can't tell you how to get here though—I came by bus.” He chuckles. “Don't bother to RSVP, you're on the visitors' list.
Hasta luego,
Ant.”

The message ends but I don't hang up. This is the first time I've heard from him since he went to prison two years ago. He's refused my calls, refused my visits, refused to even talk with our parents. Roberto doesn't want us to see him locked in a cage. After a moment the mechanized voice that manages the messaging system is threatening to disconnect me if I don't press a button. I let her hang up on me.

To avoid having to explain the shock that is probably evident on my face, I dial one of the numbers Kristi brought me. It's the direct line of Heller's probation officer for his possession conviction in Teton County. I smiled when I first saw the number among the papers she gave me, and that she also had put down the PO's home number. Kristi is known as being very resourceful, among other things.

I don't expect to get a live voice, as POs are notorious for screening their calls. I'm not sure if this is due to being overworked or if they simply come to dread meeting with the criminals whose lives they are supposed to manage. So I'm surprised that a real voice answers, but predictably it sounds harried. I look at my watch and realize that the PO is probably getting ready to leave for the night.

“Jim Deagle. What do you need?”

I introduce myself quickly, slurring over my name, and ask about Billy Heller.

“That guy,” Deagle says. He sighs and sounds irritated. “His case was transferred to me three months ago. And I haven't seen him yet except for in the climbing magazines. He's something of a rock-climbing star, and I do a little of that too.”

I'm not at all disappointed that the PO didn't pick up on my name. My brief fame in the climbing community was years ago and never very large. I'm worn out from my long day and don't feel like a discussion about climbing. And I'm even happier he doesn't seem to recognize my name from the Cheyenne shooting.

“Is that why you filed a revo on him? No-shows?”

“That too, but mainly because he picked up a new charge. It's irrelevant now—I filed to withdraw the petition today.”

“Why?”

“Our now-famous County Attorney down in Laramie left me a voicemail saying he's dismissed the distribution charge. And we let our guys get away with five no-shows before we nail 'em.”

“How come you let them get away with not showing up so many times?”

“It's procedure, Agent. We're understaffed and underfunded here, just like everywhere else. We can't go to court every time someone doesn't show or drops a hot UA,” he says, meaning a drug-tainted urine analysis.

“Can you tell me anything about this guy?”

“Well, his file shows a bunch of charges and some convictions for assault. But he's never done any real time, just overnighters. I got a copy of the police report for the most recent charge—the one that was dumped—and it says he was caught driving around with a couple of cases of Sudafed. Guy must've had a bad cold! Anyway, they charged him for attempt to manufacture meth, but Karge let it slide just the other day. Most of what I know about him is from reading those climbing magazines my wife got me a subscription to last Christmas. He's getting on in years, but is still a great athlete. To tell you the truth, Billy Heller's sort of a hero of mine, except for the brawling and druggy stuff, of course.”

I take Kristi to a Mexican restaurant called Café Ole that's just a few blocks from the Holiday Inn, on the other side of the interstate. All the reporters must be busy writing their stories or commenting in front of their cameras, as the restaurant is nearly empty when we enter. We sit at a small table in the center of a large room crowded with linoleum tables. A waitress brings us both Coronas with wedges of lime shoved down through their necks. Kristi giggles when the young waitress asks me for my ID, and then laughs outright when she's asked for hers. After we place an order and drink a second beer she has a question for me.

“People are saying you might be leaving DCI. Maybe police work altogether. Is there any truth in that?”

“Who's saying that?” It really is an impressive conjecture, I think. I hadn't discussed my plans with anyone.

“Pretty much everyone. They're saying that the shooting and lawsuit last year really screwed you up.”

Made to smile by her directness, I ask, “Is this conversation just between us or will it be added to the rumor mill?”

“Just us. Cross my heart.” She traces with her fingertips from chin to stomach, then across her breasts.

I take a long pull on the Corona while looking at her. “I guess you could say that I'm a little disillusioned.”

“With carrying a badge and gun, honey?”

“Yeah. And all the legal, political bullshit.”

When I started I just wanted to go after the bad guys. Especially the drug dealers, the greedy, careless men who hooked my brother like a hungry trout. I wanted to catch them and help the prosecutors punish them. But in my six years as a state cop I've learned it isn't quite that simple. Catching them is fun; it's the easy part. But once you do, they don't follow the rules. They pull guns and shoot at you. And even when you finally take them down, a fast-talking lawyer, a friend of the judge, springs them on a low bond within hours. They're back to selling it the next night, threatening the witnesses against them. And months later, when they finally come to court, if they come to court at all, the lawyers scream about how you had no reasonable suspicion to investigate. No probable cause to make the arrest. That you never read them their rights. Even when everyone in the courtroom knows it's a lie. When I discovered early on that law enforcement is just a game with rules more complex than cricket, I studied the game and learned to play like an all-star. But it doesn't do any good.

The law says that when someone is guilty of selling meth, it's a four-to-ten-year sentence in prison. But I've learned that the game is one-sided; the rules are enforced against the police but not against the accused. I've yet to see someone get four-to-ten for the crime. The cases are pleaded to lesser charges with short sentences and useless probation. Or the prosecutor is scared or lazy and just lets it slip away. Or, the times I've bullied the deputy county attorneys into taking a case to trial, even when the conviction enters, the judge will simply reduce the sentence on his own. And even if they eventually go to prison, they're paroled to a halfway house after serving a quarter of their sentence. It's really a lousy game. It shouldn't be a game at all. And I'm tired of playing.

But more recently I've also seen it from the other side, when I was so close to being charged with three counts of murder myself. I was truly lucky that McGee had blustered the office into withholding the charges and waiting to see how the civil suit shakes out. But I wonder, my own self-interest aside, is that justice?

An evening crowd is flowing into the restaurant. They are the same reporters and commentators I saw earlier lounging by the pool. Many of them stare at me quite frankly. I guess that word has gotten around about who I am and what I did. The attention makes me feel uncomfortable. And I'm feeling both wired and stressed from the day's events.

Kristi folds her hands under her chin with her elbows on the table and doesn't say anything for a while. Her eyes probe mine, then I see them cut along the scar that runs down to my lips.

“I know about your brother,” she suddenly tells me.

I say nothing, just stare at her.

“He called the office yesterday, wanting your number. Uh-oh, I shouldn't have mentioned him. I can see it on your face. Now you're mad. Listen, I was just curious about you, so I borrowed your file. I didn't mean anything by it. I just know he's in jail, for manslaughter.”

I keep on staring, so she shuts up. Just as my brother wants no one to see him in a cage, I can't stand the thought of him being there. It's something that I don't speak about, that I don't think about. He has always had enough energy for ten ordinary mortals. When he was climbing, it took the biggest faces in the mountains to dissipate it and make his energy safe. When he was using drugs, it took enormous quantities to satisfy and calm him. The thought of all that explosive energy contained in a small steel cell makes me feel both claustrophobic and sick. But the cop in me knows that a cell is exactly where my brother belongs.

After a few minutes of silence, I wave the waitress over to ask for the bill and a take-home box for Oso.

It's just a short drive back to the Holiday Inn, but it's made long by the silence. In the lot I turn off my engine next to her car.

When I start to open my door, she says, “I'm sorry, Anton. I shouldn't have brought that up. I'm really sorry!”

“Are you okay to drive back to Cheyenne?”

“I think so. I only had two beers.”

For a moment longer we remain in the Land Cruiser, each of us with a hand on the door releases. Her other hand plays with the hem of her skirt a few inches above her knees. Between us hangs Oso's massive head. He is gazing down at the Styrofoam box on the seat between the secretary and me, drooling. She looks at him, the box, then out the windshield, and says, “But I wouldn't mind staying either.”

I take a deep breath and with my elbow push Oso's head back into the rear seat. “I think you're a kind and beautiful woman, Kristi. And probably just what I need tonight. But it may not be what I need tomorrow, because I really don't know what I'm doing right now.”

She kisses my cheek. Then she kisses the dog's and pulls on the door handle.

After she drives away, I remember that I'd never picked up the dog food. So when I start the engine again, Oso is concerned. He's ready to get at what's in the box. He doesn't have the foresight to see that he'll be hungry again come morning and I'm unable to explain. Driving north on Third Street, I stop at an all-night convenience store. There's a patrol car in the lot. I consider driving away and finding another store, but through the window I see that it isn't Bender chatting with the girl at the counter above the racks of cigarettes and candy. So I park and go in.

I lift a twenty-pound bag of lamb and rice kibble to my shoulder and walk to the counter. The young officer there politely steps aside while I pay. The officer gives me a closer look when he catches the flash of the badge in my wallet, and I turn to acknowledge him with a smile before leaving. Then I see the name Knight stenciled on the silver plate pinned to the patrolman's chest.

“Deputy Knight. Hi, I'm Antonio Burns, Special Agent with DCI. We spoke earlier today.”

The rookie seems startled to see me. I guess that Knight has heard all about what happened earlier in the day. Maybe he was even one of the officers there outside the pet store—I hadn't been paying attention. After a moment we shake hands.

“Call me Dave,” he says.

“Actually, Dave, I thought of another question or two. Do you mind talking for a minute?”

Knight looks like he doesn't want to, but says, “Sure, but just for a minute. I'm supposed to be on duty right now.” To the girl behind the counter he says, “Be right back.”