Читать книгу Whatever it takes - Paul Cleave - Страница 9

Five

Downstairs the surgeons are operating on Conrad and I’m told by a doctor they’re confident he’ll be okay. She tells me the bullet hit bone but missed vital arteries and I act like that was the point. Victoria x-rays my hands and tells me I have a couple of fractures in my right they can’t do much about, other than taping my fingers together with a splint.

“Ice and painkillers are your friends for the next few days,” she says.

“They’ll heal up okay?”

“They will. For now, just think of them as spoils of war. How mad is Maggie?”

“About as mad as anybody can get.”

“She’ll be okay,” she says.

“I don’t think she will. How’s Alyssa?”

“Banged up, but doing okay. She’s a tough kid.”

“They run a rape kit?” I ask, and my stomach tightens in anticipation of the answer.

She nods. “He didn’t touch her. Whatever he was planning on doing, he didn’t get to do it.”

Her answer makes me feel better about the way tonight has played out. She leaves to get me some painkillers. I stare at the doorway wondering who will come in next, and that turns out to be Father Frank Davidson. He comes into the room looking taller than when I saw him earlier today, the good news of getting his niece back alive not only lifting him emotionally, but physically too. He hasn’t shaved in days and his dark hair is going in all directions. He comes in with a big smile and his hand extended. I figure this guy more than anybody must be truly committed to his faith, especially after what he’s just gone through. Then again, he probably thinks God is why his niece came back to him in one piece, but I’m not sure how he’d equate that with her being taken in the first place. His hand crushes mine and I bite down on the pain and he doesn’t notice the splint. Until yesterday the last time I spoke with him was to tell him a logging truck had rolled onto his sister’s car.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I couldn’t have lost her,” he says. “Not as well.”

“I know.”

He lets go my hand. “And you? How about you, Noah? Are you going to be okay? I heard what you did.”

“I think you’ll need to do some praying on my behalf, Father.”

“What you did — that kind of thing weighs heavily on good men. It might not feel like it right now, but you’ll question what you’ve done. I’m thankful you got my little girl back, I truly am. I just . . .” But whatever it is he wants to say he doesn’t have the words. He fiddles with his clerical collar, trying to get it sitting right. He keeps looking at me and I keep looking at him, and then he shrugs. “I’ll be here for you, Noah. Whatever happens.”

He asks me to come and see him tomorrow. I smile and tell him I’m not in a place where I can make plans. He pats me on the shoulder, nods solemnly, and thanks me again for getting Alyssa back. He gets to the door at the same time Victoria is coming back through. She hands me a small plastic container full of painkillers.

“Only take them when you need them, and don’t take them when you don’t.”

It’s good advice, especially since we’ve both seen what can happen when people misuse them. I take two now.

“And Maggie, she’ll come around,” she says. “I know she’s mad now, she just needs some time.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Sheriff Haggerty told me to let you know he’s waiting out in the parking lot.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I say.

“You want me to come with you? Mightn’t hurt to have some witnesses in case he decides to shoot you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “Maybe have the surgeons on standby, just in case?”

I slip the pills into my pocket and head out. Doctors and nurses turn to watch me as I go. It makes me feel like a condemned man walking the final piece of real estate between jail cell and noose. The main doors slide open and the night outside is just how I left it, warm and glowing from the parking lot lights and buzzing with energy. Sheriff Haggerty is leaning against his car with his arms folded and his big shoulders bursting at his shirt. I have no idea where Drew is. He’s either been fired or sent home or both.

“Noah,” he says, nodding in my direction, then his eyes flick to the hospital behind me, faces are pressed to the windows. Hopefully that means he won’t shoot me.

“Sheriff.”

“You shot my son.”

“I did.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Your son shouldn’t have kidnapped Alyssa Stone,” I say. “Your son shouldn’t have chained her to a basement wall to do whatever it was he was going to do.”

He shakes his head. “According to him he overheard those two guys in the bar and he gave you their location.”

“And you believe him?”

“He’s my son.”

It’s what I expected. Everything I did felt justified while I was doing it, and feels twice as justified right now. If I’d brought Conrad in for questioning, we’d never have gotten a word out of him. Alyssa would have died out there.

“There were no two guys in the bar,” I say, “and if there had been, he might have done himself a favor by coming to you earlier.”

He unfolds his arms and hitches his thumbs over his belt. “You know as well as I do Conrad doesn’t think much outside of himself. His neighbor’s house could burn down and he wouldn’t pull himself away from the TV to give a damn. I’m not saying it’s right, him not helping that girl when he overheard those boys, I’m saying that’s how he is. The thing that grates on my nerves the most, son, is that you know that’s the way he is.”

“He took her,” I tell him. “If he hadn’t, he’d have told me when I first questioned him about his story.”

“You mean when you started torturing him.”

“Look, let’s pretend for one second he was telling me the truth. If so, then his sitting there taking everything I did to him makes him the dumbest guy in the world. He would have told me right away what he’d overheard. He wouldn’t have waited till I shot him.”

“He ain’t dumb,” Sheriff Haggerty says, “but he ain’t bright either,” he says, but surely he can’t believe what he’s trying to sell me. He knows anybody in their right mind would have given up those two search and rescue guys the moment I showed up.

“We found her bag in his truck.”

“He says somebody else put it there.”

“And his fingerprints are on her headband,” I say.

“There’s a thousand ways that could have happened.”

“That’s what he said.”

He says nothing. I say nothing. We stare at each other for a few moments. Then I break the silence. “Come on, Sheriff, you know it didn’t take a beating to fire up Conrad’s memory.”

“You should have brought him in.”

“You wouldn’t have been objective.”

I see it coming, and he knows I see it coming, this big lumbering right hook that he winds into, but I don’t try to avoid it. It catches me in the jaw and makes my teeth ring and numbs my entire face, and I drop to the ground.

“Don’t get up,” he says, and I don’t. He stands over me, a light creating a halo effect around his head as he looks down. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You hurt my son and you shouldn’t have. You crossed the line so goddamn far there’s no coming back for you. I’ve always liked you, son. Back when I was throwing your dad into the drunk tank every second day, I was happy to help you out because you were a good kid who didn’t deserve the father he got. I was proud of you when you entered law enforcement. Hell, you’ve been more like a son to me over the years than my own son. We have history, you and me, and right now that history is the only thing keeping me from throwing your ass in jail. You’re going to hand me your badge and your gun and the keys to the car, then you’re going to get the hell out of Dodge and you ain’t ever going to come back. If I see your face in this town again, I swear to God I’m going to lock you up and leave you to rot.”