Act of Mercy – Chapter Seven
The next week Tim trailed around after Rachel, following on her heels while she did her work, delivering subpoenas, in and out of court, on prison transports, learning and obedient. Dan Shaw took to calling him Rover.
"You've picked up a stray, Deputy Brooks," he teased.
"Actually, he's my hunting dog," she corrected. "You're welcome to borrow him if you'd like."
"I just might."
Tim found he didn't mind the work. It wasn't as exciting as his first week, but the variety kept it interesting and Rachel was diligent about the training. She was also unwaveringly cool toward him, and that was fine. Dan would wander over for a chat when they found themselves in the office together, keeping a watchful eye on him, solicitous, and that was fine, too. Dan was the right kind of interfering.
It was the time away from work that Tim was having trouble with. He could only run so far and his apartment wasn't much of a haven, still empty of furniture. He spent most of his spare time reading, plowing through books from a second hand store down the street. The owner was gruff, a bear in his cave of tomes stacked like stalagmites, but he let Tim explore undisturbed for hours through his inventory.
He stayed out of the bars and kept a sparse supply of beer in his fridge. He'd have one after work while he answered emails, keeping up with army friends. He couldn't stop himself from trawling the veteran news sites hoping not to read a name he recognized. He felt he'd abandoned them and it weighed only as guilt could weigh, heavily, belying gravity.
Thursday morning Rachel informed him that they'd pulled a finger print at the shack with a name attached to it, Stephen Price. The face that popped up on the database was not the one Tim had seen, still, Price was on several federal warrants and the case dropped back into Rachel's lap.
"What's a Tennessee meth cooker doing with a guy from Seattle wanted for white-collar crime?" Rachel asked her computer screen.
It couldn't answer and neither could Tim, leaning over her shoulder. She directed her hunting dog to pull everything he could get his paws on relating to Randy Sullivan or Stephen Price, looking for a link. He had it all arranged in organized stacks on the floor around his desk.
"Looks like your digging for a bone." Dan Shaw smirked, eyeing the piles on his way from Art's office.
Tim growled.
"Careful, he bites," Rachel warned sweetly.
Tim got up, grabbed his mug and stretched, stepping around the papers and over to the kitchenette for a refill.
"Hey, Gutterson."
As he was pouring, one of the techies and another Marshal cornered him by the counter. He looked up.
"Rumor has it you were in Afghanistan," one stated.
Tim didn't respond, turned and leaned against the counter, concentrating on his coffee. Dan looked over from his desk. Rachel had her head in a file but her ears twitched.
"You see much action?"
Tim eyed them warily, licked his lips.
"I've heard most guys never get close to any fighting," the second added, trying to draw him out.
Tim considered grabbing at the excuse and offering up a lie, stood teetering between digging into fresh wounds to satisfy idle curiosity or throwing himself into a deceitful web the maintenance of which would wear him thin. He licked his lips again and stared into his mug, frozen by doubt.
"Gutterson," Dan called, standing up from his desk and grabbing his jacket. "I could use some backup this morning. Feel like getting out of the office?" He turned to Rachel. "Brooks, can I borrow Rover for an hour or so?"
Rachel had stopped reading and was watching, curious. Dan caught her eye and hoped for some backup from her, too. She gave him a smile, complicity rounding out the corners.
"He hasn't had his walk this morning, Deputy Shaw. I'm sure he needs the exercise."
He smiled back, respecting her more, whistled to Tim and slapped his leg, "C'mon boy."
Tim squeezed between his coworkers, leaned over his computer to hook his jacket off his chair and followed Dan out the door.
"Thanks," Tim said when they were out in the hall. He realized he was still holding his mug and felt foolish about it.
"Don't thank me yet. I forgot to bring your treats, though I bet I could stretch out this dangerous mission to cover the noon hour."
"Ruff," Tim replied.
He dumped his coffee in the parking lot and dropped the mug on the floor of the back seat. Dan drove them out of Lexington to the next county to talk to the ex-girlfriend of an ex-con about a case and then they went for lunch.
"Good thing you had me along. She must've weighed, what, 90lbs? Though the ink might've put her over a hundred. Definitely needed backup on that one."
Dan wasn't listening. He was thinking and spoke his mind. "Gutterson, there's nothing in your job description that says you have to answer questions about your time in Afghanistan, but be prepared for it. Don't lie or give in to shut them up. Just tell them you don't want to talk about it. The less you say, the happier they'll be. It'll give them something to gossip about around the water cooler on slow days."
Tim played with his fork, staring down at the table then said, "I've got some furniture being delivered Saturday."
Dan barked out a laugh.
"You didn't mention before that Randy Sullivan was into this shit," Tim said quietly.
He tossed the file he was looking through open onto Rachel's desk. She glanced at the photos on top, reached over, closed it and sighed.
"It was never proven. And besides, we chase down federal fugitives. It's not as if we get to pick and chose which ones we'd like to handle. So what difference does it make?"
"If I'd known, I could have shot him by accident."
She looked up sharply, casting around his features, hoping to catch a jest. He pulled over a chair and sat down, handing her another file open at a police report.
"They found similar photos on Price's computer when he was indicted a few years back for internet fraud," Tim explained what she was looking at. "He managed to convince the grand jury that the photos were placed there without his knowledge by a disgruntled victim of the fraud and those charges were dropped. He got a slap on the wrist for the rest."
"It wouldn't be the first time an attempt was made to defame someone that way," Rachel commented, cautious about assigning guilt. "Apparently it's not hard to do and he certainly would have had enemies if he committed fraud."
"Hell of a coincidence," Tim stated.
Rachel nodded, acknowledging the connection. She watched Tim rubbing his hands uneasily on his pants, his leg jumping.
"Something you want to say, Gutterson?"
He sat quietly for a good while, fidgeting. She turned back to the work she was doing not feeling at all inclined to be patient with his indecision. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear it anyway.
"I had to sit on a target once." It broke out of him. "There was this boy, delivering packages every afternoon. I watched him rape that poor kid two days in a row."
Tim stopped the story abruptly, the tone in the last word rising, suggesting there was more to it. He ran a hand over his mouth, looked at the floor.
There was more to it. He was wide open. Rachel stared, waiting for the rest. But his face fell then closed and he turned away from her, reading his past somewhere across the room. He stood up abruptly and picked up the files.
"Would you think it a waste of my time if I started scanning through the sex offenders' database?" he asked.
"Looking for a face?" She searched his.
He nodded, shut tight again.
"I wouldn't think it a waste of time," she said, approving.
He sat back at his desk, punctuating his frustration on the keyboard while he called up the federal database.
He wanted to tell her the rest, wanted to tell her the ending but he couldn't. He couldn't get there from here. Here and there were completely incompatible, dissociated. He couldn't tell her that when he finally got the green light, he'd already taken the shot. It was the third day and he was sick with it. Pete, his buddy, lay quietly beside him in the hide. The unexpected sound of the rifle firing shocked Pete out of his lethargy, left him stunned. He looked at Tim, communicating silently his understanding and approval, his complicity. Then eventually necessity nudged and he pushed Tim to break down and clear out. They got the go ahead a few hours later, sitting eating rations, hidden a few miles away from the village waiting for the exfil. Neither of them ever spoke of it.
But Tim had a satisfying memory, and this is what he wanted to share with her, a clear series of snapshots through the crosshairs of the boy standing transfixed, staring at the ruined man, and then looking around, nervous, practical, poor, grabbing the money on the table and the sack of rice and running out the door. That boy never had to go back.
Don't ever start talking. Tim could hear a friend's warning, advice given out before he went home for good. It always leads to something you don't want to talk about or something you can't talk about.
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