Chapter 15

Rachel is a freakish mind reader.

"How's Evelyn?"

He's not said more than three words to her since he got in and they were: "Hey. What's up?" Nothing could be more bland and uninformative. Her head was buried in a file when he came through the doors and spoke his three words and she didn't bother responding. She didn't even look up. But it must show on her radar somehow that Evelyn is on his mind, handily beating out Hardy and the dead guy for top position in his thoughts. There's been a Marshal-involved shooting. He knows Rachel will have heard all about it, and yet the first thing out of her mouth is: "How's Evelyn?"

He's standing at the coffee machine counting scoops into the filter when she sneaks up on him and asks. The clock's hand is on the drinking side of seven. Art took Hardy straight home from the scene and sent Tim back to the office alone. A shooting is a big deal; a shooting because a deputy screwed up is a bigger deal. Art will want to talk it out, and he'll insist that everyone write up their statements before any drinking. It's been a long day that's going to pour into a long evening but that's okay. Tim's in no hurry to go home – just some caffeine needed to see him through the administrative obstacle course standing between him and a bar and a drink. He needs to get to work on his report but he's still fog-bound by a hangover and his messy feelings about Evelyn. This is the state of affairs that Rachel interrupts with her simple question.

He stops mid-task and turns to look at her, amazed. Then he answers her. "Disappeared again."

There's not a hint of sympathy when she says, "Is that why you drank so much last night that you were still drunk this morning? Tell me you didn't sleep with her."

"Fuck off." He's now fully convinced. Rachel is a freakish mind reader, and she's made him lose count. He stares at the spoonful of ground coffee still poised in his hand. "Shit. Where was I?"

"Six."

He looks at her, looks down at the filter. "You sure?"

"I'm guessing." She peers over his arm at what's already been measured. "Sure. Six."

"Fuck it. I'm not fucking starting again." He dumps the coffee in, another scoop. "Fucking six. Fucking seven."

"That hangover you're wearing is interfering with your vocabulary."

"Fuck, Rachel. I can't. Just…fucking don't. Not today."

She holds out her hand and in it a piece of paper. He shovels another scoop of coffee into the filter and screws up his face in an expression of caffeine prayer and shuts the lid and takes the paper from her. She reaches past him and turns the machine on while he reads what's written on the note. It's an address. He reads it twice. He's no wiser.

"What? You need some company for this?" He waves the paper. "Someone with a sidearm and a hangover? Wait." He tilts his head for her. "I don't think I'm allowed. I just shot somebody."

"I heard. Are you okay?"

His expression is a slap. "Seriously? Save the concern for someone who needs it, like Hardy."

She's looking at him in that freakish mind-reader way. He glares back. They know each other too well. She shrugs away her concerns and he relents and says in a bored voice, "I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

"That's where they live – Evelyn and her daughter." Rachel taps the paper still in his hand.

He reads it again. It's the right neighborhood. He ran the street this morning, right past this house. "You sure?"

"Yep. You owe me."

"How did you…?"

"I pretended to be a gossip."

He grimaces imagining what that must've cost her, and consequently what it's going to cost him. "How…?"

"I was over at LPD Headquarters for something this morning, insinuated myself into a group of female officers gabbing outside on a smoke break. I know one of them so I stopped, bummed a cigarette. I said I had a friend whose husband was abusive and asked about getting her help and they started talking. People love to talk. It went round and round and I encouraged them. I knew sooner or later it would get personal. It always does. They all hate him – Evelyn's husband. Misogynist asshole. Quote."

Tim holds the paper delicately, like it might explode if he moves. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Rachel plants a hand on her hip. "Whatever stupid thing comes into your head." She turns in a huff.

He stares at the address a minute longer then stuffs the paper in his pocket and follows her to her desk.

"Hey." She ignores him. "Smoking and gossiping. You are an undercover fucking ninja." That's a compliment from him and he's rewarded with a smile. He smiles back. "Sorry. I'm an asshole. Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just don't do anything stupid and make me regret that cigarette anymore than I already do."

The last of the water sputters noisily into the coffee pot across the room. He doesn't notice. He's trying to think of something not stupid to do with an address for a woman he's committed adultery with and would like to again, and her abusive cop husband that he'd like to punish in a bloody way. Either option is stupid, at least by Rachel's definition.

"Do I smell coffee?" Art bulldozes through the doors and straight to the kitchenette, pours himself a mug. "Tim."

"Go surrender your weapon," says Rachel, looks pointedly at his holster and sees that it's already empty. "Never mind."

"I fucking hate this part of the job. I got to keep my rifle in the Rangers and I can't tell you how fucking many times I had to pull that trigger." He says the word, and it brings up again thoughts of the custom trigger work he did on the Glock and he frowns.

"The way I see it, you have a choice – either hold off on the custom work, or stop shooting people. I'll send you the link for the website where I ordered those parts for you when you were in the hospital. Better prices than the place you suggested."

"Are you a mutant?"

"Excuse me?"

"You don't live in a big mansion with a bald guy in a wheelchair?"

"What are you on about?"

"Nothing. I appreciate the website info. Thanks." He stops for some coffee on his way to see Art, blows across the top of the liquid and takes a careful sip. He exhales a string of expletives. "Fucking shit fucking weak-ass fucking..."

Rachel looks up. "What?"

"Was not six."

He tells himself that continuing to run past her place isn't stupid. He'll just be keeping an eye on things now that he knows which house it is. He's invested and no one can tell him otherwise. He doesn't have a plan beyond that. He's just going to run by. That's all.

He gets home late, close to midnight after drinking with Art and Raylan. It's become a tradition – whoever shoots doesn't have to pay. Art thinks it reflects badly on him that his bureau has had the opportunity to build a tradition around shooting people, but he goes along with it. And now for Tim it's two nights in a row drunk, though not nearly as drunk as the previous evening, and he feels the need to do something productive to counter all the bad behavior. He changes into sweats and ties on his runners and sets out to reconnoiter the address that Rachel gave him. He's just going to check it out. That's all.

He knows it's bad before he reaches the end of her street. There's a rhythmic and familiar flickering of blue and red off the white clapboard house at the corner. It stirs in him every dreadful nightmare that he's imagined for her. There are twenty other houses on that block but he knows it's hers before he gets to the corner. He breaks into a sprint, barely slows down to dangle his badge on a chain at the uniform standing perimeter. He'll remember later that he didn't even bother to check the address before he charged in the open front door. The call must've just come in. Evelyn is still lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Paramedics are checking vitals. She's completely naked, bared for the world to see. His eyes stop still at her breasts. He doesn't want to look anywhere else because there's blood and a red mark turning an eviler blue as he stares, spreading below the soft curve where the ribs give contrast beneath beautiful brown skin in a delicate tapering that he was aching for just minutes past. He can't bring himself to look at her eyes for fear of what he won't see. He looks for a breath from her chest but the paramedic closest stands and blocks his view and they lift her onto a gurney and cover her.

His eyes finally move to her face and he wants to cry. A new gash opened up on her cheek, eye swelling, lip bloodied.

"Hey. Who are you?"

There's another uniform standing before him in the hallway. Tim looks at him, then over the man's shoulder to the gathering of police in the kitchen. He knows immediately which one is the husband – the one with the cigarette and the shaking hands. He shoulders past the hall guard and yells something enraged and primal as he rushes into the room full of Lexington police and tackles the man responsible for the blood and bruises on the angel, slams him hard against the floor, sending chairs and table scurrying. His fist pounds into the hated face and he knows nothing else but the need to pay out in kind.

It takes three of them to pull him off. He fights his way free again and goes back for more. There's nothing but rage.

He sits on the curb watching Nelson with Cecilia Rose. He's actually got her smiling, tears dried. Tim can't work up enough energy to feel sorry for the little girl. He's spent everything he had and accomplished nothing.

Evelyn is on the way to the hospital. Her husband, face mashed and bleeding, is in handcuffs. Tim can see the back of his head through the rear window of the cruiser as it crawls carefully down the street weaving through the emergency vehicles. In his imagination he lines up the shot, takes it, knows he could make it count, wishes they hadn't confiscated his subcompact. The rage burns hot under the graying coals.

Rachel and Raylan are talking up the locals, calming nerves. He'll be getting off lightly, the angry Marshal. He's already been told as much by one of the uniforms. No charges, a slap on the wrist. No flies on him, just blood. They had trouble subduing him and the evidence of the struggle marks more than one of them, and him, shirt torn, more blood and bruises to add to the evening's tally. The officers on the scene are sympathetic, happy in fact that someone did what they all wanted to do but couldn't. But they couldn't stand by and let him beat a man to death either. The excuse is going around that Deputy Marshal Tim Gutterson was involved in a shooting earlier and that explains why he lost it. Everyone present is latching onto the lie, grateful for it. It's bullshit.

"Christ, Tim," says Art. He makes the effort to get down to Tim's level, seats himself on the curb beside him. "Not that I blame you but…you sure made a mess of his face. Were you trying to punch through it?"

Tim looks down at his knuckles, flesh torn, a mix of blood types. The swelling has started by now and his fingers feel stiff when he clenches them into a fist. He has nothing to say.

"Rachel explained a bit to me on the way over. I remember that little girl from the hospital. Nelson befriended her. Didn't realize you had too. Or were you more friends with the mother? Evelyn, is it?" Art is stirring the coals, hoping to discover where the fire started. He must know. "I understand you helped her out a few times, sanctuary or something?"

Or something, thinks Tim and wishes it were as simple as sanctuary. It's where he should've left it. He wonders if he'd be as angry if he hadn't slept with her. He'd like to think he would be. He'll never know. He turns his head to look at Art, squints at the sun now coming up over his shoulder and then looks back at his hands. His head hurts. His hand hurts. His arm and shoulder hurt where he was grabbed from behind and held. He wishes his heart would hurt. He feels vacant and cold but for the rage.

Art takes a deep breath in when he finally tires of waiting for any reaction from Tim. "I told their chief that you were on administrative leave anyway because of the shooting today and that I'd keep you at home or on a desk for a bit until things calm down. He's pretending to be angry about it, talked about charging you but it won't come to that. Everyone knew about what was going on. Nobody did anything, so nobody's gonna start slinging mud for fear of slipping it in themselves."

He can't even bring himself to nod in response. He hears Art sigh, feels a heavy hand on his shoulder as his boss uses him to push himself back up to standing.

"Raylan's gonna take you home. He's the only one I can count on to shoot you if you try to go anywhere. I'll be by later. Get some sleep. I at least got an hour in before the phone rang."

Something crosses his mind, stirs him to speak and his voice is hoarse. "They have my gun. I paid good money for it."

Another sigh, this one with a bit of disgust in it. "I'll make sure it gets back to you."

Raylan hands him the confiscated handgun as they're walking to the car. "I'm supposed to hold on to this till we get to your place. But I gotta drive, so here, you hold it for me. Keep the safety full on, will you? Don't want you going around half-cocked."

Tim accepts the offering and the conditions, unclips his back holster and slides his weapon in snugly and holds it in both hands in his lap on the drive back to his house. There's nothing to shoot anyway.

"Rachel told me about Evelyn. Sorry you had to see that." Raylan has walked straight through to the kitchen ahead of Tim. Familiar with the layout of the house and what's in it, he goes for the cupboard with the alcohol, chooses the better bourbon and pours. He raises his glass and smiles without humor and says, "Here's to an interesting twenty-four hours."

"You think that was interesting?" Tim downs the shot in tandem with Raylan then takes the bottle from him and pours two more. He's still holding the bottle when he turns and trudges to the living room and slumps onto the sofa. "That was nothing." But that's not the truth. He's had nights of violence that surpass this one, more than he can count without an effort, but this one summoned up a rage unique, different than anything in his experience. He feels exhausted on the inside, agitated on the outside. He thinks about it while he sips his second drink. He's never been angry like that. Blind rage. Angry. Angry. Another gulp of whiskey. He tops up his drink and passes the bottle to Raylan. Such anger as he's only witnessed once before.

He sets down his glass and walks to the kitchen and opens the junk drawer and pulls out the mess of papers that is the case file for his abduction and beating. He's thinking about rage. He brings the pile back to the sofa and sifts through the pages until he comes to Sandoval's arrest history.

"Shit."

Raylan's watching and drinking. "What?"

"He's been charged…a few times, but never convicted. Victims won't testify. No other corroborating evidence. DA has to drop it."

"Who?"

"Sandoval."

"Charged with what?"

"Aggravated sexual assault."

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