Third Rail (7 page)

“That's strange.”

“Not as weird as some of the shit we see in here, Eddy. Preppie girls with infected cuts up and down their legs. Lawyers with eggplants stuck in their butts. Bankers overdosed on animal tranquilizers from their daughters' horses. The other day some guy tried to poison his wife with antifreeze in her skinny-girl mojito. This town seems all normal but it's not, Eddy.”

***

“Who loves him some Bambi?” the Sweathog says, smiling.

Harkness slips by Sergeant Dabilis but the sergeant follows him across the Pit.

“Couldn't even shoot a deer, could you?”

Harkness says nothing, fills the coffeemaker with water. The other cops look up, sensing a new episode of Harvard Cop versus the Sweathog.

“You're not supposed to shoot a deer,” Officer Watt says. “I looked it up. Harkness had it right. You wait for Animal Control. Too dangerous to fire off a shot with people around.”

Harkness likes Watt, a slow-talking rookie, a little more now.

“Well, I'd have shot the fucker,” the Sweathog says. “Public menace. You can use deadly force if it's endangering people.”

“The deer was down with two broken legs,” Watt says.

“Still ought to have shot the fucker, instead of letting some jack-off citizen do your dirty work with a fucking hammer.”

Harkness says nothing.

“If you're not going to use that gun, maybe we should just take it away from you,” Sergeant Dabilis says.

Harkness freezes.

“I don't think those parking meters pose much of a threat.”

Harkness grabs Sergeant Dabilis by the shoulders, lifts him off his feet, and slams him against a row of filing cabinets—all so fast neither of them has time to think. Harkness holds Dabilis pressed against the wall like an insect specimen, then forces himself to let the Sweathog slide down, his coffee spilling on the floor. Harkness walks away, arms vibrating, mind spinning.

“Hey, I'm reporting that!”

The normal cops tell the Sweathog to cut it out, that he was asking for it. They like Harkness. And cops are superstitious. Someday they might make a tough call and end up on perpetual meter duty.

The captain steps out of his office and frowns. “Get back to work, people. Dabilis, clean up that coffee and get back to your desk. Watt, I want you in your patrol car in ten seconds. Harkness, I need to see you in my office. Now.”

 

The captain leafs through papers on his desk with a brutal efficiency, not even looking up when Harkness walks in. He knows there's only one explanation for the captain's coldness; his gun turned up, its serial number traced. He's played out the inevitable ending, where he sets his badge on the desk as the captain looks away in disappointment.

“The town manager's been on the phone with me about a dozen times already,” the captain shouts, finally. When he's pissed, the captain's Scottish accent comes out, his cheeks redden, and he loses some of his cool. “The historical commission's got its collective tit in a wringer. I've been fielding calls all day.”

Harkness nods. Small-town politics, he can deal with today.

“Some people want to tear the rest of the monument down because it glorifies war. The rest want to rebuild it immediately because it ‘honors the sacrifice of our nation's heroes
.
' Do you know how much it's going to cost to fix?”

Harkness shrugs.

“
Almost a million dollars.” The captain shakes his head. He's a Scot by birth and a Yankee for twenty years, giving him a double dose of thrift.

“Ouch.”

“No one knows how to do stonework like that anymore. Have to quarry new granite in New Hampshire and make it look old. And bring in a repair team from Italy. That drunk asshole, excuse my language, intoxicated citizen, triggered a colonial clusterfuck. What did you find out at the hospital?”

“Hammond was definitely drunk at the time of the accident, blowing .23.”

“Impressive. Sounds like a pro.”

“Now he's a mess.”

“Did he say anything about his motivation? Trying to kill himself?”

“He was out cold, sir. He's dying. Won't be long.”

“Shit.”

“I'm heading back to the hospital. Want to see if his daughter shows up.”

“Excellent. Get her to sign this.” He hands Harkness a piece of paper.

“What is it?”

“Official acceptance of responsibility for the damage. He can sign if he ever wakes up. Or his daughter can, if she's authorized.”

Harkness folds the piece of paper and puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“And Harkness?”

He pauses at the door. “Yes, sir?”

“You were right to hold your fire. With the deer, I mean.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“This is a quiet town. We don't need patrolmen blasting away on our streets.”

Harkness keeps the truth to himself.
Couldn't blast away even if I wanted to.

B
ACK IN HIGH SCHOOL
, you turned me on to all the coolest old bands—Mission of Burma, SS Decontrol, Flipper, Misfits, Avengers. You were like a punk historian.
Straight Ed
. Coolest straight guy at Nagog High.” Candace Hammond reaches over to peer down at her baby, nestled in the car seat next to her. “Used to see you running all those wild all-ages shows. Now you're a cop. Amazing.”

“Not really,” Harkness says.

“I guess being a cop is kind of hardcore, when you think about it.” Her silver bracelets jangle and her baby makes a snuffling sound. “I can't believe you're still around here,” she says. “Thought you'd go to New York for sure.”

Harkness shrugs. Everyone always expects something else.

“Anyway, I'm glad to see you again.” She looks around the hospital cafeteria, quiet in a midafternoon lull. “Even if it's when my dad's about to check out.” Candace blinks her coffee-colored eyes. “No. Not going to cry. He's not dead.” She shakes her head, as if it might wake her from this bad dream set in a hospital basement smelling of French fries and hand sanitizer.

Tendrils of black hair streaked platinum frame Candace's delicate, pale face. She's as street tough as a Nagog girl can be—bright red lipstick, dark mascara, and a tiny silver nose ring. But her frightened eyes, gleaming and red rimmed, tell another story.

“This really isn't the right time,” he says. “But I have to ask you a few questions.”

She gives him a hard stare. “I can't talk about Dad.”

“Look, I know this is hard.”

“You have no idea.”

Harkness says nothing, the oldest tactic in the world. It takes about ten seconds to work.

“Here's all you need to know about dear old Dad.” Candace counts off her father's salient qualities on her ringed fingers. “He's a big shot who is, in fact, up to his eyeballs in debt. He's fat as a whale. He drinks all the time. And he's a major asshole. Kicked me out of the family McMansion five years ago. I'm doing double shifts at the Nagog Bakery just to pay rent.”

“I like that place.”

“If you want a cup of coffee and an almond croissant, yes. If you want to make a living, no.”

“When was the last time you saw your father?”

“A couple of weeks ago, when we took the baby over for a visit.”

“We?”

“Me and Declan, May's father.”

“How'd your dad seem to be doing?”

“No idea. We were there for about ten minutes. Dad can't stand Dex.”

“Why not?”

“Says he's wasting his time doing carpentry when he ought to be doing something smarter—and that pays better, of course. Dad's all about the bottom line.”

“You two married?”

Candace looks like she's caught a whiff of death. “No, of course not. We're living out at the Old Nagog Tavern. Dex and his friends are fixing it up so we can sell it.”

“A project, then.” A vague memory of breaking into the abandoned tavern with friends flickers through Harkness's mind.

“Right. You could call it that. Or a dump.”

Harkness tries to get back on track. “So has your father been acting differently?”

“You mean, like, depressed?”

“Yes, like that.”

“Sure. Maybe a little worse than usual. He's got business problems. Something about meeting with the regulators. I don't know anything about that kind of stuff.”

Harkness does. When the regulators show up, it's never good news. “Does he ever talk about killing himself?”

Candace stares.

“Sorry to be so direct.”

“He doesn't talk about it.”

“I see.”

“He just does it,” she says. “Like, every day for the last ten years. Every steak. Every trip to the cheese store. Every bottle of wine. Every case of wine. Sure, he's trying to kill himself.” Candace closes her eyes and this time it doesn't stop the tears.

She reaches into her purse for a tissue, and her other hand stays on the thigh of her black jeans. Harkness notices that its fingers are stiff and ringless.

Candace catches him staring, reaches into her sleeve, and tosses something at him. “Catch.”

Harkness slides back in his chair as Candace's hand lands in his lap then bounces to the cafeteria floor. He leans down to pick up the smudged pink plastic hand, its fingernails painted black. Sharks drawn in ballpoint circle the wrist and its shiny metal nub.

“It's fake, Eddy,” she says. “That hand sucks. I've got a better one at home but I left in a hurry.”

“How'd that happen?”

“Paper cut.”

Harkness stares at her.

“Really bad one.”

“Back in high school you were . . .”

“Whole?” she said. “Bi-handed?”

“Yes.”

“Happened later, after you left town. An accident.”

Harkness holds the hand out to her by its stiff fingers. It's like shaking hands with a mannequin.

“It's a long story. I'll tell you about it sometime. But not now. Dealing with one accident is enough.” Candace tucks the metal nub into the sleeve of her leather jacket and gives it a deft twist. She gives Harkness a frozen smile and a queenly wave with her plastic hand.

“I'm sorry. Really sorry.”

Candace shrugs. “I'm used to it. Adaptation—the great and terrible quality of us humans. We get used to just about anything.”

“Still, it must be . . .”

“Being a one-handed waitress is better than being dead. I tell myself that pretty much every day. And you know what, Eddy? Most of the time it's true.” Candace leans toward her baby to tuck in the edge of a white blanket.

“Look, I know you have to get back to the ICU. But I have to ask about this.” Harkness takes an evidence bag from his pocket and drops it on the table between them.

“Where the fuck did you get that shit?” Candace stares at the amber vial like it's about to explode.

“On the floor of your dad's car along with the Grey Goose bottles.”

“Shit. Shit.
Shit.
” She slams her fake hand down on the cafeteria table.

“What?”

Candace pauses. “Forget it, Eddy. Just forget it. All I can say is this is news to me. And not good news.”

The baby cries and Candace lifts her gently from the carrier, unbuttons her blouse to cup her breast, and deftly maneuvers her dark pink nipple into May's mouth. The feeding calms the baby and seems to do the same for Candace.

Harkness stares, transfixed by the skein of fine blue veins just beneath the pale skin of her full breast. When he looks up their eyes connect.

“You can watch if you want,” Candace says softly. “I don't care. Just don't arrest me or anything.”

“I won't.” Harkness looks across the cafeteria.

After the baby finishes, Candace buttons her blouse and raises May to her shoulder.

“When he crashed into the monument, your father thought he was in a plane wreck,” Harkness says. “Is that the other accident you were talking about?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Family tragedy. I got over it. But he didn't. That's the thing. Dad blamed himself because he was the pilot. But it wasn't his fault. He rented a crappy Cessna. Carbon monoxide leaked into the cabin. We all passed out and the plane crashed. I woke up in a snowy cornfield all cut to pieces. My sister didn't . . . she didn't wake up. Her name was May.”

In Candace's glimmering dark eyes, Harkness sees the sadness and strength beneath the jokes and shit talk, the leather jacket and pawnshop jewelry.

Candace bends down to whisper in her daughter's tiny ear. “No one's going to ever hurt you, are they, May?”

 

They swagger down the long green hallway. The taller one leads the way, his long blond hair swinging in stringy clumps. Harkness figures the other two have to be brothers; they're the same kind of ugly—grimy and short, with ironic beards that make them look like they just stepped off of a Civil War battlefield. The three dudes stop to peer in the holding rooms, making each other laugh, not even trying to be quiet. One of the hairy brothers takes an empty IV pole and pulls it behind him like a toy. The taller one yanks the pole away and gives his hairy friend a practiced shove like he's a misbehaving kid he's tired of herding around.

Candace looks up from her iPad, thick with stickers like a skateboard. “Here's Dex,” she says with a palpable lack of enthusiasm. “And his fucktard friends.”

They walk into the waiting room. Dex's friends see something amusing on the ceiling-mounted TV and stare at it, transfixed by cartoons. Harkness notices that Dex pauses at the door before he walks through, a moment of threshold anxiety—could be a quirk or a sign that he's stranger than he looks.

Dex floats over to Candace and bends down to kiss her on the forehead. He has a soft, almost feminine face but his cheeks are stubbled, and his hair, dyed Cobain yellow, hangs in front of his flecked green eyes, which he keeps locked on the floor, rarely glancing up. He could be an organic farmer or a musician.