Marshaling Enough Empathy – Chapter Sixteen

She walked out of the house, or more like staggered, stopped in front of the Marshals and grinned, yellow-teeth, blouse gaping. Then she reached under her skirt, pulled off her underwear, turned them inside out and put them back on again. She laughed, brash and harsh, pushed between them and continued to weave her way out to the road, turned left and wandered aimlessly in that direction, still laughing here and there, no rhyme, no rhythm.

"It must be Monday," said Raylan, smiled humorlessly for Tim.

"Fuck me," Tim said. "Some days I love this job."

"This one of them?"

"Nope."

"You've set your bar pretty high then."

Tim snorted, turned to look when the woman cackled one last time, watched her stumble into a garbage pail, fall over. She didn't get back up.

"Do we go help her?"

"We'll check on the way out. If she's still there, we'll make a call."

"Okay." Tim was happy to defer to Raylan's judgment on this.

"You want to knock this time? I always get to knock. I should really let you knock once in a while."

Tim tilted his head, not fooled for a minute by Raylan's generosity. "Gosh, Raylan, I'm still not feeling confident about taking the lead. I think maybe you should knock. I'll watch. Maybe I'll learn something."

Raylan pursed his lips and squinted at the steps to the house, the porch floor years ago replaced with plywood and that now rotting and not looking long for the world. But he tapped his hat firmly down on his head and headed up to the front door gamely, looked back at Tim.

"Note the technique," he said, mock-serious. "A firm knock the first time, let them know you mean business."

He rapped smartly, nodded at his partner. Tim looked down at his feet and smirked. The two started giggling, smothered it quickly when the door opened and revealed an elderly man.

"Was that your wife that just left the house?" Raylan asked, all innocence and concern. "She's had an accident, fell down, and we thought you might want to come see."

"I ain't married. Wife passed two years ago."

"Just as well," Raylan said. "Is that your son's wife then, a daughter maybe?"

The old man turned his head, yelled, "Trevor. Someone's here about that woman."

Trevor came to the door and Raylan reached a hand out. Trevor, flying high on something that came in a little clear bag, reached back out of habit, an artifact of social conditioning slinking out of his past. Raylan grabbed the offered arm and twisted him around and had the cuffs on him in less time than it took for Tim to finish the sentence he had started when the younger man appeared at the door.

"Trevor Warren, we're US Marshals and we have a warrant for your arrest." He delivered it in a dead-pan tone, kept an eye on the senior Mr. Warren.

"That was easy," said Raylan, a hand on Trevor's shoulder, and to the elderly man, "Have a nice afternoon, sir." He tipped his hat.

The door slammed.

Tim took a step backward and his foot dropped straight through the rotting floor and he lost his balance. Raylan let go of Trevor and grabbed Tim's arms, steadying him while he teetered and shifted his weight onto his other foot, swearing as the splintered wood scraped up his shin. Trevor decided to pick that moment to have an idea. He sprinted down the steps and headed for the road, making a getaway.

"Shit." Raylan huffed. He let go of his hold on Tim and stood glaring, annoyed, eyes burning irritated holes into Trevor's retreating figure. "There's something awful amusing about watching a man try to run with his hands cuffed behind his back. Looks a bit like a raccoon, the way he's rolling. You see that?"

Tim was bent over, gingerly turning his leg trying to free himself.

"You okay?" Raylan asked.

"Yeah, yeah. Go."

Tim waved him off and Raylan jogged after his fugitive, calling, "Hey Trevor, that's not fair now. You didn't say, 'You're it.'"

Raylan's comment pulled a grin out of Tim's scowl and he looked up briefly to see Raylan easily catch up with his runner. Tim then turned his attention back to his problem. Whoever had done the half-ass repairs to the porch twenty years earlier had skimped on the wood but not the nails and two long rusted ones had sliced deeply into Tim's calf. He hobble-hopped sideways and carefully slid his foot free, avoiding any more iron on skin, and cursed liberally – cursed the day, the job, Will Graham, the handyman responsible for the nails, the drugged up woman now on her feet and scuttling back down the road with a broken bottle aiming for the back of Raylan's head.

"Fuck!" Tim scuttled too, only faster, down the walkway and grabbed the woman by the hair and hauled her over onto her butt on the dirt. "Don't," he warned, limping around to face her and threatening her with a finger.

She wailed at him and he stared her down until her indignant screams petered out.

"That was just Neanderthal, Tim." Raylan appeared at Tim's shoulder, eyeing the mess at his feet. "If you want to ask a woman out, you gotta be more subtle."

"I had to touch her. Now I need a tetanus shot and a rabies shot."

"Hmm." Raylan commiserated.


"What're you stewing about?"

Will fucking Graham. "I'm trying to remember the last time I had a tetanus shot!"

"You don't need to yell," said Raylan. "You want me to take you by the clinic?"

Tim sighed. "Drop me at the VA center. They have my records. I just don't remember…" He screwed up his face, dropped his head with a thud onto the car window. "It's every ten years, right?"

"I think so."

"Do you remember what you were doing ten years ago?"

"No."

"I think I'd just signed up. No, that was earlier. Oh fuck, I don't remember."

They drove into Lexington with Tim grumping, pulled into the parking lot at the VA center and got out of the car.

"I'm fine," Tim said. "I'll get a cab back."

"It shouldn't take long. I'll wait." Raylan followed Tim through the doors and looked around curiously. He'd never had an opportunity to walk into the place.

Tim hobbled to the desk and explained his problem, handed over his Veteran's Identification Card and they told him to wait. He sat quietly in a chair against the wall, sullen, trying to disappear.

Raylan joined him and made a valiant attempt to keep up both sides of their usual banter. Eventually he gave up, fell silent, catching Tim's mood and thinking about Arlo's moods, thinking there were similarities and differences too. "You come here much?" he asked finally, a bit of humor, a bit of curiosity.

"No. Never had a reason to. I got good insurance through work, right? Only time I was injured was when I was still in. Got looked after at the base hospital in Germany, shipped back to Kandahar from there for my next deployment."

"Oh." Raylan tapped his hat against his knee, tried not to gaze too openly at anyone. "What happened?"

"It was nothing. I was in and out."

The nurse called Tim's name then and he was finished in ten minutes and limping determinedly to the exit. Raylan stood up quickly when he saw him and hurried after him.

"All good?"

"Yeah."

"Should we go see Art and show him your boo-boo?"

Tim snorted, then laughed. "Yeah, okay. Do you think he'll let me have the rest of the day? I had to have a needle too." He pouted, pointed to his left shoulder.

"If you play it up. Just say 'ow' a lot."

"Ow."

"You're acting sucks, buddy."

"Ow."

"Now you're getting it."


Art was properly sympathetic.

"Sucks to be you." He pointed to Tim's desk. "Stay there till tomorrow."

"I have to sleep here?"

"Don't be obtuse."

"What does obtuse mean?"

"Stupid on purpose!"

Tim grinned as Art stomped back into his office then stomped out again.

"When was your last tetanus shot?"

"About half an hour ago."

"Do you want a lollipop?"

"Bourbon flavored?"

"It's not five yet."

Tim managed to stay in his chair for an entire hour. He fished through his messages, putting them in order of importance. His friend at the FBI ended up on top. He phoned her back. She didn't have much to add, only that the disappeared WITSEC guy was in a sealed-folder protection deal – a DEA case and out of her reach. Tim already knew that. Then she informed him that Frederick Hayes, the man Tim shot in the cave, had been under investigation for malpractice and was suspected of performing identity changing facial surgery on anyone with enough money to pay his fee. The feds were keeping an eye on him. Tim figured Jack Crawford already knew that.

Being stuck at his desk anyway, it didn't seem like such a waste of time to call the DEA and see what kind of attitude they could give him. He ended up talking to the agent in charge of the WITSEC guy's case and he was surprisingly friendly. Maybe he was stuck at his desk too; maybe he was feeling lonely now that his WITSEC guy was dead. Either way, he had some interesting information for Tim.

He hung up after a quarter of an hour and started to type an email, stopped and picked up his phone, stopped and considered writing the information up in a report. But who would see it? Will was on vacation. He picked up his phone again, finger poised to dial, stopped, got up and walked out of the office.

Art, frowning, watched him go.

Tim sat on the steps of the courthouse and dialed Will's cell then hung up before it rang.

Will called him right back. Tim stared at the display and let it ring, answered it when it was almost too late.

"Hey," he said, talking quickly, "I got some information for you." Keeping it all business. "Apparently Mr. Skinless Bone-in was…"

Will interrupted. "Mr. Skinless Bone-in?"

"That's what Raylan calls him."

"I see."

"So anyway, Mr. Skin…the disappeared WITSEC guy, he was giving anything he had to the DEA to try and…"

Will interrupted again, "And to think that…people call me…antisocial. Hi, Tim. How are you?"

"Do you want to hear this or not?" There was no audible response. "Are you laughing?"

"It seemed…appropriate. Why aren't you laughing?"

Tim thought about it, and it did seem funny. He made the face for an empty world, smiled. "So, do you want the news on skinless, bone-in or not?"

"Yes, please."

Tim put the conversation back on track. "He was giving up anything and everything to the DEA to try and get protection. I have no idea what he finally made the deal on, but he did tell them about a plastic surgeon that he knew through business who he suspected was killing for fun. The DEA passed the name on to the Feds and I don't know what the fuck your people did with it, but, do you want to make a bet that surgeon met his end with a bullet in a cave in Kentucky?"

"Frederick Hayes. They knew each other."

"Maybe."

"So, Hayes was likely just getting rid of him for the cartel."

"Maybe, though maybe he was getting rid of a witness for his own sake," Tim said. "You should start digging around in his backyard for bodies."

"They've…already dug up his entire life. They still think he's the Chess Master."

"But you don't?"

"No."

Tim nodded distractedly for the voice on the phone.

"Tim?"

"Yeah."

"You should come to Virginia."

"That's an eight-hour drive."

"I know. I've done it…twice."


Eight hours later Tim was sitting up in bed, black centers of his eyes fixed on the corner of the room, hand curled around a glass of bourbon. He'd left them on the floor from the previous week, the glasses and the bourbon, not on purpose, not because he expected to be woken soon by sweats and shakes and the rest of the 'it's all over but the crying' bullshit that he couldn't seem to lose the shadow of, but out of neglect, because the chaos of the living room was starting to spill into the precision of his bedroom now too. And he was willing to let it. The other life was loosening its hold everywhere he looked until he closed his eyes and then it was all he saw; it had a firm grip in his dreams. He wondered if it would fade there too. And then what? There had to be more to it than that. He couldn't decide which was more horrible – remembering or forgetting.

He picked up the bottle and padded into the main room of his apartment, discontented with the bedroom now, settled himself at the computer and checked his messages. His buddy, the one still in, was having a good rant about the quality of new recruits and the ridiculous ideas they brought with them then he ranted more about Syria and Afghanistan and UN policy makers and Tim grinned finally and answered back that soldiers make lousy politicians and even worse diplomats and that maybe the grunts of the world should be allowed to run things for a while and let's see what happens.

There. He hit send and felt happy that he'd given his buddy plenty to respond to. It should be an entertaining reply. He poured more whiskey.

There was another message – he'd noticed it, left it until last – one from an online chess site, a response to the invitation, a next move. Tim logged on, accepted, countered quickly, following the famous game, Karpov vs Kasparov. His grin changed into the hunter's smile. It might just be a coincidence. It might.

He wasn't sleeping now. Not that he was sleeping before. He wouldn't be sleeping right for a while. The nightmares never flew solo.

Maybe he needed a vacation.


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