Stagger Bay Page 6

  The Chief nodded at the cowboy-cop’s input, and then returned his attention to me: “Why did you involve yourself, Markus?” Jansen asked, studying my face closely as he leaned forward. “You must have realized it was a hopeless situation. Why did you take them?”

  “How did you see it panning out?” Chief Jansen asked slowly, smoothly, gently. “What was going through your head?”

  “Here’s where I’ve got to balk, Chief,” I said. “I’m sharing the physicality of what happened as legally required; I’m giving you most of it. But my state of mind? That’s only supposed to be important during sentencing, and you said no charges were to be filed. What happened inside my head belongs to me.”

  “Please relax, Markus,” Officer Hoffman said. “You’re among friends with us.”

  I looked at him in disbelief. But then I took a good gander at the law enforcement crowding the room, many like they were bellying up to some kind of banquet and they were all famished. Most of these badges, most of these cop faces pointed at me, were beaming approval.

  For the first time in my life I was surrounded by law dogs who weren’t projecting animosity at me. I might even be able to convince myself they liked me.

  I felt like with one tweak of the dial I could be accepted. Like I had an opportunity to truly let go of my past forever, slip back into the American consensus without a ripple.

  Then I noticed the cop in the corner, the one who had a poor opinion of the Gardens, didn’t seem to share his brother officers’ bonhomie: He looked daggers at me from under the brim of his Stetson as our gazes met. Several of the other veterans didn’t look like they really wanted to be drinking buddies either.

  That kind of brought me right down off my fluffy cloud and back to familiarity. These weren’t my intimates and the badge would always separate me from them, even if they were all as human as I.

  Should I tell them how I’d done my best to channel Sun Tzu and Musashi at the school? Or how comfortable it would be to pretend Gracian and Machiavelli were whispering advice in my ear at this very moment? No: that would be TMI.

  “All right,” I said, deciding on what was the least amount of truth I could expose and make them feel satisfied enough they’d go away and leave me the fuck alone. “You wanted my take on how it would all pan out? You want what went on in my brain? Cool. You asked for it, you got it.

  “The way they laughed after they shot her, it’s like I got this psychic flash off them or something. It’s like I got to know them all in that instant, inside and out, like the sound of that laugh told me everything that was going to happen, everything they were gonna do.

  “They were going to massacre anyone in their clutches at the end, I just knew it, it don’t matter you believe me or not. Those kids’ chances were slim to none.

  “Most of those kids were going to die, hard, no matter what I did.” I smiled defiance at all those surrounding badges. “And then of course, the families of all the kids who died would blame me for antagonizing the killers instead of waiting on you, the wonderful wonderful cops, and they’d curse my name forever as being responsible for their babies’ deaths.”

  Nobody said anything for a while – the stenographer stared straight ahead with her languid fingers poised idle above the keys of her livelihood. The internal mechanism of the camcorder whirred as it continued recording my deposition for posterity.

  “I couldn’t let them die alone, could I?” I blurted out to the friendlier looking cops, surprising even myself at that failure in self control. “I had to make them think someone was coming to save them, maybe make them a little less scared even if they were all doomed, right?”

  The Chief nodded after a few seconds and then stood. “Perhaps it is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, it does not even matter – but I know the Beardsley kill by heart, and I know you did not do it. And now the wonderful science of DNA has brought you back to us.”

  He smiled at me. “Welcome home Markus. I know I speak for everyone here.”

  “What was her name?” I asked the Chief, as he shook my hand preparatory to leaving with his entourage of media recorders. “The woman officer they shot at the school, I mean. The one driving.”

  “Her name was Kendra Tubbs.”

  Most of the force stood in line after that to shake my hand as well. I figured I could probably jaywalk with impunity in Stagger Bay for a little while.

  Not all the cops stopped to pay homage however. Some left without even looking my way, apparently having more important business to attend to than pressing flesh with the likes of me.

  My scowling friend in the corner waited until everyone else had left the room and we were alone before coming over to stand next to my bed, mad-dogging down at me with baleful eyes. He’d been drinking and the smell of cheap beer wafted off him. Seeing his face without the Stetson pulled down to conceal it, I saw he’d forgotten to shave for a day or three; his lower lip stuck out from the load of dip he had parked there.

  This guy was a rough cob, the kind of thick-skulled hard-knuckled redneck I’d always given full respect and attention to when I’d had to bump chests with them back in the day. He was a dirty fighter born and bred, a man who would have you spitting plenty teeth if you weren’t careful.

  “You’ve sure got all those rookies from out of town fooled, but I’ve got your number,” he said. “You’re right in my sights, bub.

  “So you didn’t kill the Beardsleys? So you saved those kids? Point of fact, you’re just as bad as those animals you killed at the school – you were just fighting on the right side for the first and only time.”

  “Does this mean you don’t want my autograph?” I asked.

  A sudden expression of agony writhed across his face for an instant before disappearing, but not in reaction to my feeble wisecrack. “Why’d she have to die, and not you?” he asked, even as his sneer returned.

  He spat again but his accuracy was curiously inexpert, as the brown juice completely missed his can and instead stained my blanket in a widening pool of brown. Strangely, I felt no urge to comfort him. As he left, I didn’t beg him to stay.

  Hoffman stuck his head around the corner, aiming that submissive smile at the floor until he gave me a semi-direct glance and saw the expression on my face. He squinted back down the hall in the direction my newfound buddy had gone, then nodded to himself before coming in.

  “Markus, I like you just fine, please believe that. I understand you. But not everyone in this town appreciates you as much as I do; they don’t know you at all.”

  “So who the hell is he?” I asked Hoffman. “And what’s his beef with me?”

  “His name’s Reese. And the female officer who died behind the wheel, the one you watched shot? That was his fiancée. They were going to be married next week.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, his feelings for her are certainly understandable, but I think you’re probably right – he and I ain’t going to be very close.”

  Chapter 15

  “Excuse me, Markus?” A man stood by my hospital room door. He looked to be Chinese, with an expensive haircut, an Armani suit, and a watch the price of which could have fed a third world village for a decade. “I’m here to do you the biggest favor of your life. May I speak to you for a moment?”

  “My card, Markus,” he said, handing me an elegantly embossed rectangle of bone-white pasteboard.

  He took a step back away from my space. His coat was unbuttoned and open; his hands were at his sides with empty palms facing me, fingers spread. His face was blandly polite but he was reading me like human radar, receptive and open to my every mood – this guy was slick as snot.

  The card read ‘Alden Wong,’ followed by contact info: cellie, fax, and email – no more. I gave him a questioning look and he smiled:

  “I’m a PR man, Markus, an agent. I negotiate and make deals: sell, promote, maximize distribution, whatever makes money for my client. I’m the best there is at what I do,” he said.

  He leaned towar
d me, clasping his hands together in front of him. “Have you given any thought on how to take advantage of your current situation?”

  “I just want to be left in peace and left alone,” I said. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  “I know you didn’t, Markus. But you’re a bona fide national hero – and Lord knows America is starved for heroes these days. Like it or not you’re part of something bigger now, and they figure you belong to them,” Alden said, nodding toward the outside world.

  “Cameras are going to follow you, Markus. Microphones are going to be stuck in your face wherever you go. The media will hound you; the public will want to see you, to know who you are.

  “You’ll have interview requests from newspapers, from television networks. It’s going to happen – your only choice is in how you use it, how you consume this energy. Are you ready for that kind of attention?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Okay, so my face and name are bouncing around right now. But it’ll be a flash in the pan – I’ll endure my fifteen minutes of fame, and then they’ll all lose interest.”

  Alden stepped closer and looked at me with eyes wide and brows lifted. “That’s my point. We have to strike while the iron is hot, and that’s what I do best: I’ll make a better fifteen minutes of fame for you, with a fatter financial reward for your actions.”

  “I’ll have you on daytime, primetime, and late night. I’ll get you on syndicated and satellite radio,” he said. “I’ll get you book contracts and movie deals, athletic gear and men’s cologne sponsorships; I’ll put you on the lecture circuit and have you do mall openings. You’ll have lunch at the White House and maybe even throw the opening pitch at the World Series – hell, I’ll have you giving seminars on close combat tactics at Quantico, and at Coronado for the Teams. The possibilities are endless, if you’re interested.”

  “I’m sure you mean well,” I said. “But can’t you see I hate this kind of attention?”

  Alden pursed his lips and shifted gears. “That was a noble thing you did that day, Markus. I’m here to tell you, you deserve to get paid – and I’m going to make you a lot of money. You’ve got it coming – I know you’ve been through a lot, the false imprisonment thing and all.”

  “That’s the past,” I said. “It’s not even worth talking about.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Alden said. “Seems to me a man with a background like yours has a lot to talk about: the kind of childhood you must have had, and being an innocent man in prison like so many others. About doing what you did in a situation where you had no chance at all, and pulling it out of your hat like that. If you do this with me, you’ll have the biggest soap box in the world to speak your piece from.”

  “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  Alden grinned, his perfect array of teeth resembling a shark’s. “Oh, I think when the time comes, once you get used to it, you’ll have a lot to tell us. I’d venture to say we won’t be able to shut you up; you’ll get hooked on it like everybody else does. We’ll make a camera whore of you yet.”

  “What are you doing with my patient?” Nurse Dorcas asked from the doorway. As she watched Alden bid me farewell and leave, she was visibly upset. “These media people. They’ve been awful, Markus, just awful.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She looked at me, thought for a moment with her chin cupped in one plump hand, and then turned on the TV. The sound was off, muted. On the screen a woman newscaster stood in front of yellow crime scene tape at the school, yakking away soundlessly.

  Behind her on the screen, through the open double doors where I’d first made my stand, CSI technicians poked around in the relative dimness of the ruined stretch of hallway where Wayne met his end. Even on the TV’s grainy screen I could clearly see the dark stain on the vestibule wall where I’d been shot.

  Inset in the upper left corner of the screen, above the silently gesticulating newswoman, they had one of my old mug shots on display. I’m not particularly photogenic, and they hadn’t gotten my pretty side.

  “Jeez Louise,” I said.

  The station cut from the newscaster to close-up footage of me lying on my hospital bed with the left side of my face bandaged, talking away. Chief Jansen was prominent, flanked by uniformed cops crowding the walls of the room – the same room I was in right now. Someone in the Stagger Bay Police Department had sold my deposition video to the networks.

  As Dorcas turned up the volume, the scene cut again and the newscaster did a voiceover: “A neighbor with a camcorder was eye witness to some of this, and we’re fortunate enough to have footage of what happened outside the school at least. We give fair warning here – the following images are shocking and intense, and we recommend a parental advisory.”

  I saw the school entrance again. I stood there onscreen with my stiffened back toward the camera as I shouted like an irate baboon; next to me, the mortally wounded principal sat pawing my leg. It was amateur footage – the shaking camera lurched over to pan on the shattered cop car for an instant, then jerked back to zoom in on my back as the door crashed open, and Slash and Wayne rolled out leering like clockwork monsters.

  I watched the grainy film of Slash raising his pistol, heard a muted bang from the TV as I watched parts of me splash onto the wall next to that poor one-eyed schmuck trapped forever inside the video loop. My doppelganger turned to look at what dripped down.

  I shut my eye as even more noises emitted from the TV’s speakers. “Turn it off please, Dorcas.”

  She did so, and when I opened my eye she was blinking back tears. She went to the window and opened the drapes. Sunlight flooded the room, and I squinted as I rose up on one elbow to peer outside.

  Stagger Bay Hospital was built in the shape of a big square C, and I was on the second floor of one of the arms. I could see the main entrance to the hospital, as well as the parking lot with its medevac Flight of Life helipad off to the side.

  It was a three ring media circus out there. The parking lot was crammed with dozens of news vans, almost all with satellite antenna masts and dishes deployed like electronic trees. Most had major network logos plastered on them; some of the news service names were in foreign languages and alphabets.

  Newscasters made antic gesticulations for their camera crews, or were being made up in preparation to do so. Hundreds of non-local people, most of them well dressed, milled around talking to one another. Every person who entered or exited the hospital, whether civilian visitor or medical staff, ran a gauntlet of microphones.

  Paparazzi were stationed in ambush at the main door of the hospital, but they didn’t click away at everyone entering or exiting. They were saving their film for bigger fish. Maybe for a one-eyed old ex-con.

  “Jeez Louise,” I said again.

  Dorcas nodded with her pale lips crimped together. “I’m sorry, Markus. They’ve been trying to get up here this whole time, but we’ve managed to hold them off so far. None of us want this for you. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, lying back to stare at the ceiling as Dorcas closed the curtains and left to continue her busy rounds. “It’s all good.”

  Chapter 16

  Dorcas went off shift and the night crew took over. I didn’t know them, having been unconscious during their previous ministrations. I closed my eye and pretended to be asleep when any of them came into my room.

  As if I hadn’t felt trapped enough by my injuries and the cops’ attentions, now the media folk made me understand how any mouse felt with a hungry cat licking its dainty chops outside that rodent’s hole. I couldn’t stay at this hospital; I had to get away. Technically it was the medical equivalent of dining and dashing, but I was sure the hospital administrators would be warmly sympathetic to my plight.

  I waited ‘til after midnight to make my move, when things had quieted down. It took some effort to wrestle myself vertical, but I finally managed to sit upright on the edge of the bed.

  I pulled the IV catheter
out my arm and stood, tottering. The linoleum floor felt arctic against the soles of my bare feet.

  I shambled like a reanimated corpse to the closet, looking for something to wear, and was surprised to find my prison release clothes, still stained and tattered from the school. By all rights they should have been disposed of as biohazard, or put in the SBPD evidence locker.

  But Stagger Bay was a small town – I counted my blessings and put them on. The dried blood made them stiff.

  I peeked out the door: No one in sight. From the right came the murmuring unhurried activity typical of any nursing station in the wee hours.

  I headed left. At the end of the corridor was a lit exit sign and I clung to it like a beacon, aiming my body at it in a slow decrepit stroll, leaning my shoulder against the wall and sliding along.

  Every second I expected hospital staff to call out ‘stop;’ every room I passed, I expected paparazzi to leap out with cameras blazing. But I reached the exit door without event and pushed it open to see a flight of stairs wending downward.

  It would have been entertaining for a second party to watch my progress down to the first floor, but for me it wasn’t quite so amusing. I got a death grip on the railing and leaned my forehead against it with my eye closed. It was a drunken, slow-motion scramble, often head first, with only my sliding grip on the rail preventing a total nose dive down the stairwell.

  I was proud of how neatly I negotiated the reverse at the landing; felt like I was doing some complicated gymnastics move. I followed the next rail to the bottom, then straightened up, opened my eye, and reeled across to the exit.

  I opened the door a crack. I was at the corner of one arm of the hospital. The parking lot was to my right, well lit despite the hour; to my left was a barrier of blackberry thickets.