Bells of Heaven Chapter 6
Art steps in... this is as far as I've got, but more is one the way soon, if anyone is reading this.
Dally Gutterson had four articles of faith that he passed on to his children.
It was a given fact that the moon landing was a hoax.
You never flushed pills down the sink or the toilet because they made the fish grow into mutants.
Scramble soda was the best soda in the Unites States, bar none.
And the more a man like Thurgood Galby said he’d done in the war, the less action you knew he’d actually seen.
Tim hadn’t said a word in the office about Afghanistan until today. He stood by the window and listened as Rachel extracted an address list for Daphne Overington’s warehouses full of confiscated goods, his eyes following the silent battery of snow as it hit the pavement and the people and the cars six storeys below, and wondered if his reticence came from a sense of honor or if he was simply holding onto the last of his old man’s dictates to be abandoned. The thought was a sour one.
Daphne Overington was apologetic, red-eyed with repressed tears, as the devastation wrought by her husband’s crooked business deals was visited upon her.
“We don’t need you to be present, ma’am,” Rachel said, only the barest trace of sympathy in her voice. But Tim knew her eyes would be kinder; just enough that the humiliation was still present but lessened, gentled by a touch of humanity. Too much kindness and they would be dealing with a breakdown; too little and they’d leave feeling like thugs. “If you give us the addresses, the Marshals will go to the warehouses and record and remove the contents.”
“Of course. Thank you.” Daphne stopped, gave an awful little laugh. “Should I be thanking you? You’re taking everything. How will you know what is - what is illegal, and what is legitimate?”
“Ma’am,” and Rachel gentled her voice further, “the court has decided that none of it is legitimate, since Jeffrey used laundered money to purchase and run the business in the first place.”
“Yes, of course, of course, I knew that. I... none of it?”
“Everything your husband did in his business was tainted by its provenance. I believe the house is in your name? We won’t be touching that.”
“It’s just - my children, I can’t bear the thought of them paying for Jeff’s sins, you know? They’re innocents in this.”
“Your husband ruined more than a few people along the way, Mrs. Overington. I’m sure many of them had children, too.”
“Deputy Gunnarson, was it?” She was trying another approach, looking for a crack in their collective wall. He stayed by the window, giving her a quick glance and nothing more, keeping his watch on the white world below, wrangling his headache. “Will you be going to the warehouses?”
He gave a slight shrug. “Probably.”
“Perhaps you could let me come with you? There might be personal items at the warehouses that I could make sure weren’t taken by those - by the Marshals.” He was sure she was going to say something uncomplimentary there and pulled back at the last second. It was a ploy to render her vulnerable in his eyes, so transparent it was almost cute.
“’Fraid not, ma’am,” he murmured to the window, watching the snow twist and fly back upon itself, full of play and spite. Papers rustled behind him, and he heard Rachel get to her feet.
“Thank you, ma’am. Deputy Gutterson?” She was annoyed with him, thought he’d been unhelpful, unprofessional. Her voice cracked like a whip. “Deputy? Are you ready to go?”
“Ma’am,” and he turned to see Daphne Overington’s quick flush of relief that they were leaving, hastily hidden as she dropped her gaze to the blotter-pad on her desk. “You mind telling me what’s in those boxes being carried to the car out back?”
“Boxes?” She worked a wisp of hair behind her ear, unconsciously flirting as her mind raced. “I don’t know. Just trash, I expect.”
“You won’t mind if I check that trash, will you? Can you tell me the name of the employee loadin’ that car?”
With obvious reluctance, Daphne joined him at the window.
“Why, I can’t be sure. Probably some intern. We get so many...”
Tim nodded at Rachel.
“Whyn’t you stay here while I go have a word?” And Rachel gave him a wry little grin before resuming the mask, her acknowledgement that she’d misjudged him.
The employee was a man named Bernie Wagstaff, and he had worked for Overington Industries for 28 years. Tim resisted the urge to shuffle in the snow as Bernie waved his arms to make his point, the least intern-like man he’d ever seen.
“Twenty-eight goddamned years I work for that sonofabitch, then I get told all my super, all my retirement money, it’s gone ‘cos that dumbass SOB can’t do any kind of a decent job of coverin’ his tracks!”
Tim nodded. “Hard to know who to trust these days.”
“Got that right. Shee-it.” Bernie spat in the snow. Tim jerked a thumb towards the boxes crammed into Bernie’s wagon’s backseat.
“Mrs. Overington ask you to take those?”
Bernie blew out his breath, fuming. “Guess she did. Most of them. That one at the back? That’s my computer.”
“Well, Bernie, I gotta take all these.”
“Not my computer, man! Come on! I gotta wife, she don’t - she don’t need to see what I got on there.” He seemed genuinely upset by the thought.
Tim frowned.
“How would she see- ?”
“In court, man. They’ll go through it, they’ll enter it into evidence, and she’ll see it.”
“Uh-huh.” Tim’s feet were beginning to hurt with the coldness collecting around his ankles, matching the ache in his head. “So we’re talking - ?”
Bernie looked about him, checking for witnesses, then leaned in conspiratorially. “Porn, buddy. Some - some kinda porn sites.”
“Well, maybe your wife will understand. A man’s got urges.”
“But she might say,” and Bernie’s voice dropped even lower, “they were unnatural urges.”
The weak amusement Tim felt faded away for a coldness that had nothing to do with snow.
“Are we talking children, Bernie?”
“No! God, that’s sick, man. Not kiddie porn. Christ.” Bernie was clearly offended at the notion. “No, no, it’s more - it’s animals, you know? Dogs.”
“Dog porn?” Tim blinked. “You watched dog porn, Bernie?"
“Shhh. Don’t say it out loud. Christ!”
“Okay. Tell you what, Bernie. I gotta take all this stuff, but I promise I’ll go through on your computer and delete any dog porn I find, okay?”
“You’d do that?"
“With pleasure.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Bernie stamped his boots. “Fuck, it’s cold. Yeah, screw it. Take the lot. What do I care if he goes away for ten or twenty, huh? Not goin’ to bring me my money.”
The wagon belonged to the business, so Tim ended up taking the keys and driving it directly to the Marshal’s office, leaving Rachel to bring the other car. The snow asked for care as he drove, and it helped him bring his mind to bear upon the day. He wondered, vague with weariness, how badly Art would carpet him for the morning’s display. Plucking a car full of incriminating documents from a routine visit would offer some appeasement.
He leaned against the wall in the elevator, and regretted it almost at once; the urge to slide down and just sleep on the floor was almost overwhelming. But crossing his arms and leaning back told the world that all was cool with Deputy Marshal Gutterson, and that’s what he wanted to be when he opened the office doors. He drew in a breath, then another, and pushed off with an assumed air of couldn’t-care-less as the elevator doors slid back and he strolled into the office.
Only to find it almost entirely empty.
“Well, hello there, Joan Crawford.” Art gave one of his not-grins and tilted his head. “We done with the grandstanding for today?”
“Where is everybody?”
“Why? Missing your audience?”
“Chief.”
“Okay, okay.” Art’s eyes glittered with something sardonic, clearly unimpressed, but he let it go. “Well, turns out your new BFF Burl had some intel on that fella Raylan’s been chasing down Danville way, name of Cassius Chilver.”
“Chilver?” Tim didn’t squeak the name, but it was a damn close thing. “They’re goin’ after Chilver?”
Art feigned concern. “And that causes you some agitation because..?”
“Chilver.” Tim threw his arm out expressively. “He’s got ties to Miami, and Del Rey, shit, Raylan’s been chasin’ him for months. Chilver, really?”
“Now you mention it, I do recall hearing some vague notion about this guy and Raylan and all that Miami mess.”
Of course he did; when it came to the Lexington Marshal’s office, Art knew if two flies fucked in the fruit-bowl.
“And Torvey knew something..?”
“Apparently,” said Art, in that faux-gossipy way he employed when he wanted to demonstrate his superiority all over again, “he heard whispers about Chilver through an old Army pal who runs a bounty hunting service in Mobile. Got an address from an ex who’s pinin’ after some daddy child-support.”
Cassius Chilver was a violent, evil man rumoured to have stingers in his artillery. The thought of the Marshal’s office going after him without Tim in support made his guts churn, in the way they always did when other units were sent to a fire-fight and he was ordered to stand down.
“Should I suit up?”
“I believe they’re managing just fine without you.”
“So everyone’s okay? Did they get him?”
Art waggled his head. “Bringing him up as we speak. One casualty - seems your BFF Burl gave Cassius a black-eye after a misunderstanding upon meeting.”
A carload of documents and doggy porn was yesterday’s news. Cassius Chilver was a genuine catch, the kind of takedown that got written up in gold ink and forwarded to the powers that be.
He hadn’t begun to process it when the office doors burst open behind him and he whirled to see half a dozen marshals escorting the glowering figure of Chilver into the bullpen. Dragging him along, with one hand on his elbow, was Burl Torvey, grinning like a kid. Raylan prowled behind, his satisfaction level evidently at some point beyond happy and moving into officially dazzled. He gave Tim a beaming nod before helping to steer Chilver into the holding cell, while Art crowed.
“Aw, now, look at that. Burl, you brought me a present, in my size and all. ‘Afternoon, Mr. Chilver, I hope my deputies have been showing you the due and proper care and courtesy?”
“Fuck you all to hell,” Chilver spat. Burl cuffed him behind the ears as he closed the door.
Then the buzzing afterburn of a successful mission took over. Nelson and Melissa gave an impromptu re-enactment, complete with sound effects, while Burl and Raylan sat cross-ways on their desks, both magnanimous in their mutual praise, and Art leant against the conference room wall and lapped up the story, each detail more heroic and outlandish than the last.
And Tim felt the dislocation, a snapping back, breaking off, leaving him alone on some distant, flashlit edge.
Tim Gutterson had talked about the war, had opened one vein, one rivulet, popped the top off one encrusted scab - and the world kept turning. Nobody was upset. It wasn’t that no-one cared; no one had even noticed.
He sat down heavily at his desk, feeling old. Old as the hills, but not so wise. Useless old, like dust, or hate, or broken down factories no one used any more, all rotten parts and gaping windows, a target for children and strays.
He heard and saw the congratulations erupting all around him, a dozen little geysers of backslaps and high fives. Cassius Chilver was brought to heel, and the useless, pitiful, stupid, stupid, stupid tantrum of one junior marshal counted for absolutely naught in the ongoing rush of marshal business.
Well, good. Great. As it should be.
Tim cleared his throat, booted up his computer, and sat blinking at it as he wondered when the hell he’d gotten so self-absorbed and emotionally febrile that his problems mattered enough to be spread all over the bullpen. It was sitting next to Raylan that did it. The man was a human headline. Somehow the lessons of his childhood of keeping his head down, mouth shut had been abandoned in favour of Raylan’s grand guignol, delivered cowboy style. Tim shook his head - carefully, the headache still boomed behind his eyes - and set about typing up the underwhelming Overington case, with a silent promise that he would not open his mouth for a solid six hours while his spirit level dipped back to even again.
He tapped diligently, checking his notes when his fuzzy mind failed to provide exact details. One page. Two. What was the registration on that wagon? Right, there it was. Three pages. Keeping his eyes down as Nelson said, “Man, shoulda seen Burl, Rachel, guy’s a genius with a rifle,” and Raylan said, “How did you know that guy was spotting us from the outhouse?” and Art said, “Burl, you keep this up, I’m gonna have to get some more bourbon,” and Burl said, “Got taught to look six ways to Sunday when I was out at Now Zad, ‘bout 100 klicks from Kandahar, and this Taliban ambush almost caught us with our pants down but luckily I saw the fella’s rifle gleaming, like today,” and Tim said, “Why don’t you keep your goddam fucking war porn to your goddam fucking self?”
He felt the silence as much as he heard it, and looked up to see why all the mutual masturbation had stopped, and what it was that was suddenly pressing down on his shoulders. It was suddenly like being on the inside of a kaleidoscope, all the angles and colours converging on a centre that was his desk, all the sharp points facing towards him.
“Tim. My office.”
That was a sergeant’s snap, and Tim obeyed.
He expected some kind of well-remembered mocking chatter to drive him in to the roasting no doubt due, but it was quiet behind and before him. Art motioned to the couch, and Tim sat down. Everything was just a little far away from him. Focus was hard. He waited for Art to throw him another rope.
“You mind tellin’ me what’s going on with you?”
A gentler tone than he expected or deserved, and it made him sway a little. Hard to stay buttressed against a push that doesn’t come.
“Tim, a blind man can see you’re drowning where you sit. Now, I didn’t make it to chief on my good looks, distracting though they must be. I can trace your weird, non-Tim behaviour to the Mertens incident, and I gotta say again - it was a good shooting.”
“That it was.” Tim frowned a little, a default setting. “Real good. Just above the eyebrow, centre of the forehead.” He placed a finger precisely where the bullet had struck. “A Hall of Famer.”
“Tim.” Art’s voice was different, it was sad, and Tim couldn’t have that. He offered the only bone he had.
“I stole a dog.”
Art’s hands had found their usual occupation when perturbation troubled his soul; they were working across and behind his head as if soothing ruffled fur. At Tim’s words they stopped, comically frozen.
“You. You. Stole a dog.”
“Yeah.”
Art leaned back, his hands still trapped against his head as if glued there.
“You see that printer/photocopier out there? See the book on the string attached to it, just above it? That’s for people in this office to list their private printing. See that tin beside it? That’s for people in this office to put ten cents a copy for every print that’s not for marshal’s business. You know the only name in there? Yours. And the money matches every single copy you list. Tim, you don’t steal.”
“I know.” Tim nodded in absolute agreement. “Stole a dog.”
“May I ask why? Or am I being too pedestrian in my thinking? Too bourgeois?”
“She was - Chief, she was in a real horrible way. It was a rescue. I had to rescue her. Couldn’t leave her.”
“Uh huh. So you stole her.” Art’s hands finally found movement again. “So the owner wasn’t willing to sell?”
The question brought Tim a moment of incomprehension brilliant in its thoroughness.
“I - I guess I didn’t ask.”
Art frowned.
“You know who owns it? You didn’t think to offer twenty bucks to take it off his or her hands?”
“No, I -“ and Tim floundered, suddenly sick of himself and everything to do with him. What the hell was wrong with him that he didn’t offer Bart a twenty? Why did he still feel that doing so would have robbed himself of something else?
He felt a buzzing in his pants pocket, and after a glance for permission, drew out his phone. He knew before checking it exactly who it would be.
“Art, I gotta go. That’s my neighbour. I got an issue at home.”
“Alright. Let’s draw a big, black crayon line through today and start fresh tomorrow. When you’ll be partnering Burl Torvey as you go and sort out those Overington warehouses.”
“Yessir.”
“And you will both come back all bonded and shit over your Band of Brothers fandom websites, right?”
Tim opened his mouth to deny any such thing, and closed it at the look in Art’s eye.
“One more thing before you go. What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“The dog. What have you called her?"
It threw him again, another loss of balance as he reached for a surety that simply wasn’t there.
“Well, she’s already got a name, Art. Can’t call her something when she’s already got a name.”
“Sure. That makes sense.” Art swung forward, interest by way of concern narrowing his eyes. “But I’m gonna bet a five dollar shot that you don’t know it.”
Jazz, Tim thought. She should be Jazz.
“Tim, take the dog back. Or take the owner money. It throws the universe out of whack when you’re on the dark side of the Force. And get some sleep. I was only kidding about the zombie apocalypse, but you look like the lead role.”
Tim nodded, and turned to face the bullpen. Everyone kept their eyes studiously at their computer or the coffee machine or their phone as he passed. He didn’t know if it was pity or disgust. He didn’t know what to do with either.
Outside the snow had eased a little. The neighbour’s text in its capslocked fury told of the dog outside in the back yard, barking and jumping at the tree. It told of sworn revenge, and ready shotguns, and a willingness to gun down an old dog from behind a six foot fence if that was what was needed, by god and damn it all to hell. And he was all too tired for it, the pettiness, the aggravation, the disconnect from the office, so as he drove home he found he didn’t have the energy to stop thinking of that time so long ago, when he had to rescue another lady lost in the snow.
******
More coming soon.
Dally Gutterson had four articles of faith that he passed on to his children.
It was a given fact that the moon landing was a hoax.
You never flushed pills down the sink or the toilet because they made the fish grow into mutants.
Scramble soda was the best soda in the Unites States, bar none.
And the more a man like Thurgood Galby said he’d done in the war, the less action you knew he’d actually seen.
Tim hadn’t said a word in the office about Afghanistan until today. He stood by the window and listened as Rachel extracted an address list for Daphne Overington’s warehouses full of confiscated goods, his eyes following the silent battery of snow as it hit the pavement and the people and the cars six storeys below, and wondered if his reticence came from a sense of honor or if he was simply holding onto the last of his old man’s dictates to be abandoned. The thought was a sour one.
Daphne Overington was apologetic, red-eyed with repressed tears, as the devastation wrought by her husband’s crooked business deals was visited upon her.
“We don’t need you to be present, ma’am,” Rachel said, only the barest trace of sympathy in her voice. But Tim knew her eyes would be kinder; just enough that the humiliation was still present but lessened, gentled by a touch of humanity. Too much kindness and they would be dealing with a breakdown; too little and they’d leave feeling like thugs. “If you give us the addresses, the Marshals will go to the warehouses and record and remove the contents.”
“Of course. Thank you.” Daphne stopped, gave an awful little laugh. “Should I be thanking you? You’re taking everything. How will you know what is - what is illegal, and what is legitimate?”
“Ma’am,” and Rachel gentled her voice further, “the court has decided that none of it is legitimate, since Jeffrey used laundered money to purchase and run the business in the first place.”
“Yes, of course, of course, I knew that. I... none of it?”
“Everything your husband did in his business was tainted by its provenance. I believe the house is in your name? We won’t be touching that.”
“It’s just - my children, I can’t bear the thought of them paying for Jeff’s sins, you know? They’re innocents in this.”
“Your husband ruined more than a few people along the way, Mrs. Overington. I’m sure many of them had children, too.”
“Deputy Gunnarson, was it?” She was trying another approach, looking for a crack in their collective wall. He stayed by the window, giving her a quick glance and nothing more, keeping his watch on the white world below, wrangling his headache. “Will you be going to the warehouses?”
He gave a slight shrug. “Probably.”
“Perhaps you could let me come with you? There might be personal items at the warehouses that I could make sure weren’t taken by those - by the Marshals.” He was sure she was going to say something uncomplimentary there and pulled back at the last second. It was a ploy to render her vulnerable in his eyes, so transparent it was almost cute.
“’Fraid not, ma’am,” he murmured to the window, watching the snow twist and fly back upon itself, full of play and spite. Papers rustled behind him, and he heard Rachel get to her feet.
“Thank you, ma’am. Deputy Gutterson?” She was annoyed with him, thought he’d been unhelpful, unprofessional. Her voice cracked like a whip. “Deputy? Are you ready to go?”
“Ma’am,” and he turned to see Daphne Overington’s quick flush of relief that they were leaving, hastily hidden as she dropped her gaze to the blotter-pad on her desk. “You mind telling me what’s in those boxes being carried to the car out back?”
“Boxes?” She worked a wisp of hair behind her ear, unconsciously flirting as her mind raced. “I don’t know. Just trash, I expect.”
“You won’t mind if I check that trash, will you? Can you tell me the name of the employee loadin’ that car?”
With obvious reluctance, Daphne joined him at the window.
“Why, I can’t be sure. Probably some intern. We get so many...”
Tim nodded at Rachel.
“Whyn’t you stay here while I go have a word?” And Rachel gave him a wry little grin before resuming the mask, her acknowledgement that she’d misjudged him.
The employee was a man named Bernie Wagstaff, and he had worked for Overington Industries for 28 years. Tim resisted the urge to shuffle in the snow as Bernie waved his arms to make his point, the least intern-like man he’d ever seen.
“Twenty-eight goddamned years I work for that sonofabitch, then I get told all my super, all my retirement money, it’s gone ‘cos that dumbass SOB can’t do any kind of a decent job of coverin’ his tracks!”
Tim nodded. “Hard to know who to trust these days.”
“Got that right. Shee-it.” Bernie spat in the snow. Tim jerked a thumb towards the boxes crammed into Bernie’s wagon’s backseat.
“Mrs. Overington ask you to take those?”
Bernie blew out his breath, fuming. “Guess she did. Most of them. That one at the back? That’s my computer.”
“Well, Bernie, I gotta take all these.”
“Not my computer, man! Come on! I gotta wife, she don’t - she don’t need to see what I got on there.” He seemed genuinely upset by the thought.
Tim frowned.
“How would she see- ?”
“In court, man. They’ll go through it, they’ll enter it into evidence, and she’ll see it.”
“Uh-huh.” Tim’s feet were beginning to hurt with the coldness collecting around his ankles, matching the ache in his head. “So we’re talking - ?”
Bernie looked about him, checking for witnesses, then leaned in conspiratorially. “Porn, buddy. Some - some kinda porn sites.”
“Well, maybe your wife will understand. A man’s got urges.”
“But she might say,” and Bernie’s voice dropped even lower, “they were unnatural urges.”
The weak amusement Tim felt faded away for a coldness that had nothing to do with snow.
“Are we talking children, Bernie?”
“No! God, that’s sick, man. Not kiddie porn. Christ.” Bernie was clearly offended at the notion. “No, no, it’s more - it’s animals, you know? Dogs.”
“Dog porn?” Tim blinked. “You watched dog porn, Bernie?"
“Shhh. Don’t say it out loud. Christ!”
“Okay. Tell you what, Bernie. I gotta take all this stuff, but I promise I’ll go through on your computer and delete any dog porn I find, okay?”
“You’d do that?"
“With pleasure.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Bernie stamped his boots. “Fuck, it’s cold. Yeah, screw it. Take the lot. What do I care if he goes away for ten or twenty, huh? Not goin’ to bring me my money.”
The wagon belonged to the business, so Tim ended up taking the keys and driving it directly to the Marshal’s office, leaving Rachel to bring the other car. The snow asked for care as he drove, and it helped him bring his mind to bear upon the day. He wondered, vague with weariness, how badly Art would carpet him for the morning’s display. Plucking a car full of incriminating documents from a routine visit would offer some appeasement.
He leaned against the wall in the elevator, and regretted it almost at once; the urge to slide down and just sleep on the floor was almost overwhelming. But crossing his arms and leaning back told the world that all was cool with Deputy Marshal Gutterson, and that’s what he wanted to be when he opened the office doors. He drew in a breath, then another, and pushed off with an assumed air of couldn’t-care-less as the elevator doors slid back and he strolled into the office.
Only to find it almost entirely empty.
“Well, hello there, Joan Crawford.” Art gave one of his not-grins and tilted his head. “We done with the grandstanding for today?”
“Where is everybody?”
“Why? Missing your audience?”
“Chief.”
“Okay, okay.” Art’s eyes glittered with something sardonic, clearly unimpressed, but he let it go. “Well, turns out your new BFF Burl had some intel on that fella Raylan’s been chasing down Danville way, name of Cassius Chilver.”
“Chilver?” Tim didn’t squeak the name, but it was a damn close thing. “They’re goin’ after Chilver?”
Art feigned concern. “And that causes you some agitation because..?”
“Chilver.” Tim threw his arm out expressively. “He’s got ties to Miami, and Del Rey, shit, Raylan’s been chasin’ him for months. Chilver, really?”
“Now you mention it, I do recall hearing some vague notion about this guy and Raylan and all that Miami mess.”
Of course he did; when it came to the Lexington Marshal’s office, Art knew if two flies fucked in the fruit-bowl.
“And Torvey knew something..?”
“Apparently,” said Art, in that faux-gossipy way he employed when he wanted to demonstrate his superiority all over again, “he heard whispers about Chilver through an old Army pal who runs a bounty hunting service in Mobile. Got an address from an ex who’s pinin’ after some daddy child-support.”
Cassius Chilver was a violent, evil man rumoured to have stingers in his artillery. The thought of the Marshal’s office going after him without Tim in support made his guts churn, in the way they always did when other units were sent to a fire-fight and he was ordered to stand down.
“Should I suit up?”
“I believe they’re managing just fine without you.”
“So everyone’s okay? Did they get him?”
Art waggled his head. “Bringing him up as we speak. One casualty - seems your BFF Burl gave Cassius a black-eye after a misunderstanding upon meeting.”
A carload of documents and doggy porn was yesterday’s news. Cassius Chilver was a genuine catch, the kind of takedown that got written up in gold ink and forwarded to the powers that be.
He hadn’t begun to process it when the office doors burst open behind him and he whirled to see half a dozen marshals escorting the glowering figure of Chilver into the bullpen. Dragging him along, with one hand on his elbow, was Burl Torvey, grinning like a kid. Raylan prowled behind, his satisfaction level evidently at some point beyond happy and moving into officially dazzled. He gave Tim a beaming nod before helping to steer Chilver into the holding cell, while Art crowed.
“Aw, now, look at that. Burl, you brought me a present, in my size and all. ‘Afternoon, Mr. Chilver, I hope my deputies have been showing you the due and proper care and courtesy?”
“Fuck you all to hell,” Chilver spat. Burl cuffed him behind the ears as he closed the door.
Then the buzzing afterburn of a successful mission took over. Nelson and Melissa gave an impromptu re-enactment, complete with sound effects, while Burl and Raylan sat cross-ways on their desks, both magnanimous in their mutual praise, and Art leant against the conference room wall and lapped up the story, each detail more heroic and outlandish than the last.
And Tim felt the dislocation, a snapping back, breaking off, leaving him alone on some distant, flashlit edge.
Tim Gutterson had talked about the war, had opened one vein, one rivulet, popped the top off one encrusted scab - and the world kept turning. Nobody was upset. It wasn’t that no-one cared; no one had even noticed.
He sat down heavily at his desk, feeling old. Old as the hills, but not so wise. Useless old, like dust, or hate, or broken down factories no one used any more, all rotten parts and gaping windows, a target for children and strays.
He heard and saw the congratulations erupting all around him, a dozen little geysers of backslaps and high fives. Cassius Chilver was brought to heel, and the useless, pitiful, stupid, stupid, stupid tantrum of one junior marshal counted for absolutely naught in the ongoing rush of marshal business.
Well, good. Great. As it should be.
Tim cleared his throat, booted up his computer, and sat blinking at it as he wondered when the hell he’d gotten so self-absorbed and emotionally febrile that his problems mattered enough to be spread all over the bullpen. It was sitting next to Raylan that did it. The man was a human headline. Somehow the lessons of his childhood of keeping his head down, mouth shut had been abandoned in favour of Raylan’s grand guignol, delivered cowboy style. Tim shook his head - carefully, the headache still boomed behind his eyes - and set about typing up the underwhelming Overington case, with a silent promise that he would not open his mouth for a solid six hours while his spirit level dipped back to even again.
He tapped diligently, checking his notes when his fuzzy mind failed to provide exact details. One page. Two. What was the registration on that wagon? Right, there it was. Three pages. Keeping his eyes down as Nelson said, “Man, shoulda seen Burl, Rachel, guy’s a genius with a rifle,” and Raylan said, “How did you know that guy was spotting us from the outhouse?” and Art said, “Burl, you keep this up, I’m gonna have to get some more bourbon,” and Burl said, “Got taught to look six ways to Sunday when I was out at Now Zad, ‘bout 100 klicks from Kandahar, and this Taliban ambush almost caught us with our pants down but luckily I saw the fella’s rifle gleaming, like today,” and Tim said, “Why don’t you keep your goddam fucking war porn to your goddam fucking self?”
He felt the silence as much as he heard it, and looked up to see why all the mutual masturbation had stopped, and what it was that was suddenly pressing down on his shoulders. It was suddenly like being on the inside of a kaleidoscope, all the angles and colours converging on a centre that was his desk, all the sharp points facing towards him.
“Tim. My office.”
That was a sergeant’s snap, and Tim obeyed.
He expected some kind of well-remembered mocking chatter to drive him in to the roasting no doubt due, but it was quiet behind and before him. Art motioned to the couch, and Tim sat down. Everything was just a little far away from him. Focus was hard. He waited for Art to throw him another rope.
“You mind tellin’ me what’s going on with you?”
A gentler tone than he expected or deserved, and it made him sway a little. Hard to stay buttressed against a push that doesn’t come.
“Tim, a blind man can see you’re drowning where you sit. Now, I didn’t make it to chief on my good looks, distracting though they must be. I can trace your weird, non-Tim behaviour to the Mertens incident, and I gotta say again - it was a good shooting.”
“That it was.” Tim frowned a little, a default setting. “Real good. Just above the eyebrow, centre of the forehead.” He placed a finger precisely where the bullet had struck. “A Hall of Famer.”
“Tim.” Art’s voice was different, it was sad, and Tim couldn’t have that. He offered the only bone he had.
“I stole a dog.”
Art’s hands had found their usual occupation when perturbation troubled his soul; they were working across and behind his head as if soothing ruffled fur. At Tim’s words they stopped, comically frozen.
“You. You. Stole a dog.”
“Yeah.”
Art leaned back, his hands still trapped against his head as if glued there.
“You see that printer/photocopier out there? See the book on the string attached to it, just above it? That’s for people in this office to list their private printing. See that tin beside it? That’s for people in this office to put ten cents a copy for every print that’s not for marshal’s business. You know the only name in there? Yours. And the money matches every single copy you list. Tim, you don’t steal.”
“I know.” Tim nodded in absolute agreement. “Stole a dog.”
“May I ask why? Or am I being too pedestrian in my thinking? Too bourgeois?”
“She was - Chief, she was in a real horrible way. It was a rescue. I had to rescue her. Couldn’t leave her.”
“Uh huh. So you stole her.” Art’s hands finally found movement again. “So the owner wasn’t willing to sell?”
The question brought Tim a moment of incomprehension brilliant in its thoroughness.
“I - I guess I didn’t ask.”
Art frowned.
“You know who owns it? You didn’t think to offer twenty bucks to take it off his or her hands?”
“No, I -“ and Tim floundered, suddenly sick of himself and everything to do with him. What the hell was wrong with him that he didn’t offer Bart a twenty? Why did he still feel that doing so would have robbed himself of something else?
He felt a buzzing in his pants pocket, and after a glance for permission, drew out his phone. He knew before checking it exactly who it would be.
“Art, I gotta go. That’s my neighbour. I got an issue at home.”
“Alright. Let’s draw a big, black crayon line through today and start fresh tomorrow. When you’ll be partnering Burl Torvey as you go and sort out those Overington warehouses.”
“Yessir.”
“And you will both come back all bonded and shit over your Band of Brothers fandom websites, right?”
Tim opened his mouth to deny any such thing, and closed it at the look in Art’s eye.
“One more thing before you go. What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“The dog. What have you called her?"
It threw him again, another loss of balance as he reached for a surety that simply wasn’t there.
“Well, she’s already got a name, Art. Can’t call her something when she’s already got a name.”
“Sure. That makes sense.” Art swung forward, interest by way of concern narrowing his eyes. “But I’m gonna bet a five dollar shot that you don’t know it.”
Jazz, Tim thought. She should be Jazz.
“Tim, take the dog back. Or take the owner money. It throws the universe out of whack when you’re on the dark side of the Force. And get some sleep. I was only kidding about the zombie apocalypse, but you look like the lead role.”
Tim nodded, and turned to face the bullpen. Everyone kept their eyes studiously at their computer or the coffee machine or their phone as he passed. He didn’t know if it was pity or disgust. He didn’t know what to do with either.
Outside the snow had eased a little. The neighbour’s text in its capslocked fury told of the dog outside in the back yard, barking and jumping at the tree. It told of sworn revenge, and ready shotguns, and a willingness to gun down an old dog from behind a six foot fence if that was what was needed, by god and damn it all to hell. And he was all too tired for it, the pettiness, the aggravation, the disconnect from the office, so as he drove home he found he didn’t have the energy to stop thinking of that time so long ago, when he had to rescue another lady lost in the snow.
******
More coming soon.