Page 18

On Friday afternoon Danny is using a longneck mop to clean the tops of the hanging fluorescents in the main office when a dark blue sedan pulls into the faculty parking lot.

A woman in a white shirt and blue slacks gets out from behind the wheel.

She hangs a satchel-sized purse over one shoulder.

A man in a black sportcoat and saggy-ass dad jeans gets out from the passenger side.

Danny takes one look at them as they walk toward the high school’s front doors and thinks, I’m caught.

He leans the mop in the corner and goes to meet them.

The only thing that surprises him about this arrival is his lack of surprise.

It’s as if he was expecting it.

He can hear faint rock music playing through the speakers in the gym.

Jesse and Pat are down there, cleaning up the crap that always appears when the bleachers are rolled back and collapsed against the walls.

The plan is to revarnish the hardwood next week, a job that always gives Danny a headache.

Now he wonders if he’ll even be here next week.

Telling himself that’s ridiculous, telling himself that he’s done nothing wrong, doesn’t help much.

The catchphrase from some old sitcom comes to him: You got some ’splainin to do.

The woman opens the outside door and holds it for the man.

Danny leaves the office and walks down the front hall.

The newcomers are in the lobby, standing by the trophy case with the blue and gold WILDCAT PRIDE banner above it.

The woman looks to be in her thirties, dark hair pulled back in a tight bun.

She’s got a pistol on the left side of her belt, the butt turned outward.

On the right side is a badge.

It’s blue and yellow with the letters KBI in the middle.

She’s good-looking in a severe way, but it’s the man who draws Danny’s attention, although he can’t initially say why.

Later it will occur to him that you instinctively recognize a nemesis when one appears in your life.

He’ll try to dismiss the idea as bullshit, but he’s clear on what went through his mind, even as he approached them: Watch out for this guy.

The male half of the team is older than the woman, but how much is a question.

Danny is usually good at guessing ages within a few years one way or the other, but he can’t get a handle on this guy.

He could be forty-five.

He could be pushing retirement.

He could be sick, or just tired.

A peninsula of coarse, wavy hair in which red and gray are equally mixed comes down almost to the top line on his forehead.

It’s combed back into what looks to Danny like a jumbo widow’s peak.

His skull gleams creamy unblemished white on either side of it.

His eyes are dark and deepset with bags beneath.

The black sportcoat is fading at the elbows, like it’s been dry-cleaned dozens of times.

He also has a KBI badge on his belt, but isn’t carrying a gun.

If he were, Danny thinks the weight of it might pull those dad jeans right down to his ankles, exposing a pair of billowy old-fella boxers.

He has no belly in front, no hips on the sides, and if he turned around, Danny thinks those jeans would sag on a no-ass that is the particular property of so many skinny-built white men from the Midwest.

All he’s lacking is a Skoal pouch pushing out his lower lip.

The cop steps forward, holding out his hand.

“Daniel Coughlin? I’m Inspector Franklin Jalbert, Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

This is my partner, Inspector Ella Davis.”

Jalbert’s hand is hard and his grip is hot, almost as if he’s running a fever.

Danny gives it a token shake and lets go.

The woman doesn’t offer her hand, just gives him an assessing stare.

It’s as if she can already see him doing that sad dance known as the perp walk, but this doesn’t bother Danny the way Jalbert’s gaze does.

There’s something dusty about it, as if he’s seen versions of Danny a thousand times before.

“Do you know why we’re here?” Ella Davis asks.

Danny recognizes the sort of question—like asking a guy if he’s still beating his wife—to which there’s no right answer.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

Before either of them can reply, the door at the end of the old wing screeks open and booms shut.

It’s Jesse.

“We finished sweeping where the bleachers were, Danny.

You should have seen all the—” He sees the man in the fading black sportcoat and the woman in the blue pants and stops.

“Jesse, why don’t you—”

The door screeks and booms again before Danny can finish.

This time it’s Pat, jeans low-riding, hat turned around backward, totally down widdit.

He stands just behind Jesse, looking at Danny’s company with his head cocked to one side.

He sees the woman’s gun, he clocks the badges, and a slight smile starts to form.

Danny tries again.

“Why don’t you two get an early start on the weekend? I’ll punch you out at four.”

“For reals?” Pat asks.

Jesse asks if he’s sure.

Pat gives him a don’t fuck this up thump on the shoulder.

He’s still smiling, and not because the weekend’s starting an hour early.

He likes the idea that his boss might be in trouble with the po-po.

“I’m sure.

If you left any of your stuff in the supply room, pick it up on your way out.”

They leave.

Jesse throws a quick look over his shoulder, and Danny is touched by the concern he sees in it.

When the door booms shut, he turns back to Jalbert and Davis and repeats his question.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

Davis skirts that.

“We just have a few questions for you, Mr.

Coughlin.

Why don’t you take a little ride with us? The Manitou PD has kindly set aside their break room for us.

We can be there in twenty.”

Danny shakes his head.

“I promised those young men I’d punch them out at four.

Let’s talk in the library.”

Ella Davis shoots a quick look at Jalbert, who shrugs and gives a smile that momentarily exposes teeth that are white—so no Skoal, Danny thinks—but so small they’re no more than pegs.

He grinds them, Danny thinks.

That’s what does that.

“I think the library sounds just about fine,” Jalbert says.

“It’s this way.”

Danny sets off down the hall, but not leading them; Jalbert is on his left side, Davis on his right.

When they’re seated at one of the library tables, Davis asks if Danny minds having their little talk recorded.

Danny says he doesn’t mind.

She dips into her purse, brings out her phone, and sets it on the table in front of Danny.

“Just so you know,” she says, “you don’t have to talk to us.

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say—”

Jalbert flips two fingers up from the table and she stops at once.

“I don’t think we have to give Mr.

Coughlin… say, can I call you Danny?”

Danny shrugs.

“Either way.”

“I don’t think we have to give him the Miranda as of now.

He’s heard it before, haven’t you, Danny?”

“I have.” He wants to add the charge was dismissed, Margie agreed, by then I’d quit drinking and hassling her.

But he thinks Jalbert already knows that.

He thinks these two may have known who made that tip call for awhile.

Long enough to dig into his past, long enough to know about Margie taking out a restraining order on him.

They are waiting for him to say more.

When Danny doesn’t, Davis rummages in her almost-a-satchel and brings out her electronic tablet.

She shows him a photograph.

It’s of a Tracfone in a plastic bag, which has been tagged with the date it was discovered and the name of the officer—G.S.

Laing, KBI Forensics—who found it.

“Did you buy this phone at a Dollar General store on the Byfield Road in the town of Thompson?” Davis asks.

There is no point in lying.

This pair will have shown the Dollar General clerk his mug shot from when he was arrested for violating the restraining order.

He sighs.

“Yes.

I guess I should have taken out that card thing from the back.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Jalbert says.

He’s not looking at Danny.

He’s looking out the window at Jesse and at Pat, who is laughing his ass off.

He gives Jesse a whack on the shoulder and heads for his car.

“The officer who took your call had the phone’s number on her screen, and the cell tower it pinged on.”

“Ah.

I didn’t think it through, did I?”

“No, Danny, you really didn’t.” Davis gives him an earnest look, not smiling but letting him know she could smile, if he gives her more.

“Almost like you wanted to be found out.

Is that what you wanted?”

Danny considers the question and decides it’s idiotic.

“Nope.

Just didn’t think it through.”

“But you admit you made the call, right? The one about the location of Yvonne Wicker? That was her name.

The dead woman.”

“Yes.”

He’s in for it now and knows it.

He doesn’t believe they can arrest him for the murder, the idea is absurd, the worst thing he ever did in his life was to stand outside his soon-to-be ex-wife’s house and yell at her until she called Wichita PD.

The first two times they just made him leave.

The third time—this was after she’d taken out the restraining order—they arrested him and he spent a night in County.

They are waiting for him to go on.

Danny crosses his arms and says nothing.

He’ll have to do some ’splainin, no doubt about it, but dreads it.

“So you were at the Texaco in Gunnel?” Jalbert asks.

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

Twice, Danny thinks.

Once when I was asleep and once when I was awake.

“Once.”

“Did you put a trash barrel over that poor girl’s remains to protect it from animal depredation?” Jalbert’s voice is low and gentle, inviting confidences.

Danny doesn’t know the word depredation, but the context is clear.

“Yes.

There was a dog.

Do you know what happened to it?”

“It was destroyed,” Ella Davis says.

“The responding officers couldn’t discourage it, and they didn’t want to wait for Animal Control from Belleville, so—”

Jalbert puts a hand on her arm, a gentle hand, and she stills at once, even coloring a little.

You don’t give information to a suspect, Danny thinks.

He knows that even if she doesn’t.

And he thinks again, watch out for this guy.

Davis swipes her tablet, presumably to another photo.

“Do you own a white 2010 Toyota Tundra pickup truck?”

“It’s a 2011.

I park around back by the school buses.” Where they haven’t seen it, but they know the make and model.

And he knows what the picture will show even before she shows it to him.

It’s his truck, in the lot of the Dollar General where he bought the phone.

The license plate is clear.

“Security camera?”

“Yes.

I have others with you in them.

Want to see?”

Danny shakes his head.

“Okay, but here’s one that might interest you.” This time it’s a high-rez black-and-white photo of tire tracks on the cracked tarmac of the Texaco.

“When we compare these to the tires on your truck, will they match?”

“I guess they will.” He never thought he might’ve left tracks, but should have.

Because beyond the tarvy, County Road F is dirt.

It occurs to him that you can be damn careless about covering your tracks—literally—if you haven’t committed a crime.

Davis nods.

“Also, a farmer named Delroy Ferguson saw a white truck parked in front of that gas station.

Same day you made that call from Thompson.

He called the Highway Patrol, said he thought it might be someone scavenging.

Or a dope meet.”

Danny sighs.

He could have sworn that farmer never took his eyes off the road as he hauled his trailer of barnboards north along the otherwise deserted county road.

He thinks again, I’m caught.

“It was my truck, I was there, I bought the phone, I made the call.

So why don’t we cut through the bullshit? Ask me why I was there.

I’ll tell you.” He thinks about adding you won’t believe it, but wouldn’t that be stating the obvious?

He thinks Davis is going to ask just that, but the man in the black coat cuts in.

“Funny thing about that phone.

It was wiped clean of fingerprints.”

“Yes, I did that.

Although from what you’re telling me, you would have found it anyway.”

“Yup, yup.

On the other hand, you paid cash for it,” Jalbert says, as if just passing the time.

“That was smart.

Without the security camera video, we might have taken quite awhile to find you.

Might not have found you at all.”

“I didn’t think it through.

I told you that.” The library is cool, but he’s starting to sweat.

Color is rising in his cheeks.

He feels like a fool.

No good deed goes unpunished is exactly right.

Jalbert watches Pat Grady pull out, engine blatting and bad-valve oil shooting from the tailpipe.

Then he trains his somehow dusty gaze on Danny.

“You wanted to be caught, am I right?”

“No,” Danny says, although in his heart he wonders.

Jalbert’s gaze is powerful.

I know what I know, it says.

I’ve been doing this a long time, Sunny Jim, and I know what I know.

“I just didn’t want to explain how I knew that woman was there.

I didn’t think anyone would believe me.

If I had it to do over again, I would have written an anonymous letter.”

He pauses, looking down at his hands and biting his lip.

Then he looks up again and says the truth.

“No.

I’d do it the same.

Because of the dog.

It got at her.

It would have gotten at her some more.

And maybe other dogs would have come, once it had the hand and arm out of the ground.

They would have scented the…”

He stops.

Jalbert helps him.

“The body.

Poor Miss Yvonne’s body.”

“I didn’t want that to happen.” He is still getting used to her name.

Yvonne.

Pretty name.

Ella Davis is looking at him like he has a disease, but Jalbert’s somehow dusty eyes never change.

He says, “So tell us.

You knew it was there how?”

So then Danny tells them about the dream.

About the sign defaced to read CUNT ROAD FUCK, the moon, the tinka-tinka-tinka of the price signs tapping on their pole.

He tells them about how his legs carried him forward of their own accord.

He tells them about the hand, the charm bracelet, the dog.

He tells them everything, but he can’t convey the clarity of the dream, how it felt like reality.

“I thought it would just fade away like most dreams do after you wake up.

But it didn’t.

So finally I went out there because I wanted to see for myself that it was just some crazy movie in my own head.

Only… she was there.

The dog was there.

So I made the call.”

They are silent, looking at him.

Considering him.

Ella Davis doesn’t say Do you really expect us to swallow that? She doesn’t have to.

Her face says it for her.

The silence spins out.

Danny knows he’s supposed to break it, supposed to try and convince them by giving more details.

He’s supposed to stumble over his words, start to babble.

He keeps silent.

It’s an effort.

Jalbert smiles.

It’s startling, because it’s a good one.

Warm.

Except for the eyes.

They stay the same.

Like a man uttering a great truth, he says, “You’re a psychic! Like Miss Cleo!”

Davis rolls her eyes.

Danny shakes his head.

“I’m not.”

“Yes! Yes, you are! By God! Three! I bet you have helped the police in other investigations, like that Nancy Weber or Peter Hurkos.

You might even know what people are thinking!” He taps one sunken temple, where a snarl of little blue veins pulse.

Danny smiles and points at Ella Davis.

“I don’t know Nancy Weber or Peter Hurkos from a hole in the ground, but I know what she’s thinking.

That I’m full of shit.”

Davis smiles back without humor.

“Got that right.”

Danny turns to Jalbert.

“I haven’t ever helped the police.

Before this, I mean.”

“No?”

“I never had a dream like that before, either.”

“No psychic flashes at all? Maybe telling a friend there’s stuff on the cellar stairs so watch out or someone’s going to take a header?”

“No.”

“For gosh sakes don’t leave the house on the th of May? Twelve?”

“No.”

“The missing ring is on top of the bathroom medicine cabinet?”

“No.”

“Just this one time!” Jalbert is trying to sound amazed.

His eyes aren’t amazed.

They crawl back and forth across Danny’s face.

They almost have weight. “One!”

“Yes.”

Jalbert shakes his head—more amazement—and looks to his partner.

“What are we going to do with this guy?”

“How about arresting him for the murder of Yvonne Wicker, does that sound like a plan?”

“Oh, come on! I told you guys where the body was.

If I killed her, why would I do that?”

“Publicity?” She almost spits the word.

“How about that? Arsonists do it all the time.

Set the fire, report the fire, fight the fire, get their pictures in the paper.”

Jalbert suddenly leans forward and grasps Danny’s hand.

His touch is unpleasant—so dry and so hot.

Danny tries to pull away, but Jalbert’s grip is strong.

“Do you swear?” he asks in a confidential whisper.

“Do you swear, swear, swear—three times, one and two more—that you didn’t kill Miss Yvonne Wicker?”

“Yes!” Danny yanks his hand back.

He was embarrassed and scared to start with; now he’s freaked out.

It crosses his mind that Franklin Jalbert might be mental.

It’s probably an act, but what if it’s not? “I dreamed where her body was, and that’s all!”

“Tell you what,” Ella Davis says, “I’ve heard some terrible alibis in my time, but this one takes the prize.

It’s way better than the dog ate my homework.”

Jalbert, meanwhile, is shaking his head and looking sorrowful… but the eyes don’t change.

They keep crawling over Danny’s face.

Back and forth they go.

“Ella, I think we need to clear this man.”

“But he knew where the body was!”

They’re working off a script, Danny thinks.

Damned if they’re not.

Jalbert continues to shake his head.

“No… no… we need to clear him.

We need to clear this one-time-only psychic janitor.”

“I’m a custodian!” Danny says, and immediately feels foolish.

“I’m sorry, this one-time-only psychic custodian.

We can do that because the man who raped Miss Yvonne didn’t wear a prophylactic, and that left a goldmine of DNA.

Would you mind giving us a swab, Danny? So we can eliminate you from our investigation? No strain, no pain, just a Q-tip inside your cheek.

Does that sound all right?”

Danny doesn’t realize how ramrod straight he’s been sitting until he settles in his seat.

“Yes! Do it!”

Davis immediately dips into her bag again.

She’s a good Girl Scout who comes prepared.

She brings out a packet of swabs.

Danny is looking at Jalbert, and what he sees—maybe—is the briefest flicker of disappointment.

Danny’s not positive, but he thinks Jalbert was bluffing, that the rapist-killer actually did wear a rubber.

“Open wide, Mr.

Psychic Custodian,” Davis says.

Danny opens wide and Davis swabs the inside of his cheek.

She looks approvingly at the Q-tip before popping it into the container.

“Cells tell,” she says.

“They always do.”

“Carrier’s here,” Jalbert says.

Danny looks out the window and sees a flatbed pulling into the parking lot.

Ella Davis is looking at Jalbert.

He gives her a nod and she delves into her bag again.

She comes out with two thin bundles of paper held together with paper clips.

“Search warrants.

One for your truck and one for your home at…” She consults one of them.

“919 Oak Drive.

Would you care to read them over?”

Danny shakes his head.

What else should he have expected?

Jalbert says, “Go out and tell them his pickup’s around back.

Video them putting the truck on the flatbed so our custodian can’t claim later that we planted anything.”

She takes her phone and stands up but looks doubtful.

Jalbert gives her a smile, showing those tiny pegs that serve him as teeth, and flaps a hand at the door.

“We’ll be fine, won’t we, Danny?”

“If you say so.”

“Keys?” she asks.

“Under the seat.” He flicks the keyring hanging on his belt loop.

“I’ve got enough keys for this place, I don’t need to add more.

Truck’s not locked.” And for once he has his phone with him.

She nods and goes out.

When the door closes, Jalbert says, “That flatbed is going to take your pickup to Great Bend, where it will be gone over from bumper to tailpipe.

Will we find anything belonging to Miss Yvonne?”

“Not unless you plant it.”

“One of her hairs? One single blond hair?”

“Not unless—”

“Not unless we plant it, yes.

Danny, we’ll be taking a ride after all, but not to the Manitou PD.

To your place.

Just out of curiosity, are there any oaks in Oak Grove Trailer Park? Four or five? Maybe only three?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.

There will be some cops and a forensic unit there.

Is your housekey on the ring with the keys to your truck?”

“Yes, but the door is unlocked.”

Jalbert raises eyebrows that are the same red mixed with gray as his jumbo widow’s peak.

“Aren’t you the trusting soul?”

“I lock up at night.

In the daytime…” Danny shrugs.

“I’ve got nothing worth stealing.”

“Travel light, do you? Not just psychic but an acolyte of Thoreau!”

Danny doesn’t know who that is any more than he knows what Tinder is.

He guesses Jalbert knows that.

His eyes crawl and crawl.

Danny realizes why he felt the man’s gaze was dusty.

His eyes have no shine, no sparkle, just a certain avidity.

He’s like room tone, he thinks.

Odd idea, but it’s right somehow.

He wonders if Jalbert dreams.

“I’ve got a question for you, Danny, one I’ve already asked and you’ve answered, but this time I’ll give you your rights first.

You have the right to remain silent.

If you choose to speak to me—you don’t have to, but if you do—anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.

You have a right to have an attorney present.

If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.” He pauses.

The small white pegs make an appearance.

“I’m sure that has a familiar ring.”

“It does.” What Danny’s thinking is that when he and Jalbert arrive at his trailer, there will be cops there already.

Those residents not at work will see and pass it on—police were searching Danny Coughlin’s trailer.

By dark the news will be all over Oak Grove.

“You understand your rights?”

“I do.

But you’re not recording.

She took her phone.”

“Doesn’t matter.

This is just between us.” Jalbert stands and leans forward, his fingers tented on the library table, his eyes searching Danny’s face.

“So, one more time.

Did you kill Yvonne Wicker?”

“No.”

For the first time Jalbert’s smile looks real.

In a low, almost caressing voice, he says, “I think you did.

I know you did.

Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Danny looks at his watch.

“What I want is to clock out those two kids.

And myself.”