Night passage

“He’s a lot of priors. He’s looking at twenty, easy,” the deputy said.

They got in the elevator and started down.

“What’s his name?” Charlie Buck asked.

“Matthew Ploughman. Says he’s from Denver.”

“He in the interrogation room?”

“Not yet. I didn’t know if you’d want to talk with him.”

“I’ll go in,” Charlie Buck said. “You bring him to me.”

The interrogation room was small with gray cinder block walls and no windows, and only a one-way observation port in the door. There was a shabby maple table and two chairs. A sign on the wall read “Thank You For Not Smoking.” Charlie went to the far end of the room and leaned on the wall. He waited silently while two deputies brought Ploughman in and left, closing the door behind them.

Ploughman was short and scrawny with a long beard and a lot of hair. His eyes were small and close together and his nose seemed insufficient compared to the rest of his face. He stood, not sure whether to sit, just inside the closed door.

“You got a smoke, man?” he said.

Buck nodded at the sign on the wall.

“Sit down,” he said.

Ploughman pulled out one of the chairs and sat, his clasped hands resting on the table edge.

“What have you got for me?” Buck said.

“I can help you with that bomb killing on Route Fifty-nine,” Ploughman said.

“Go ahead,” Buck said.

“Do I get something back?”

Buck shrugged.

“Hey, I ain’t trying for Eagle Scout, you know. I scratch your back, I want you to scratch mine.”

“Matthew,” Buck said. “You’re looking at twenty years, maybe more. You and I are not negotiating as equals.”

“Hey, don’t I know it. I’m the one sitting in a holding cell with no cigarettes. But I can help you, and if I do, you could get me a break in court.”

“Maybe.”

“Lemme get my lawyer in here, we can work out some sort of deal.”

Buck shook his head.

“You give me what you got, I like it, then we talk with your lawyer.”

“I got a right to an attorney,” Ploughman said.

“You been arrested, Matthew. You’re not being questioned. You asked to talk with me. You want to talk, talk. Otherwise I go back upstairs and finish my coffee.”

Ploughman was silent, the tip of his tongue ran back and forth across his lower lip. Buck waited a moment, then shrugged and started for the door. He knocked, and the door opened immediately.

“Wait,” Ploughman said.

“For what,” Buck said.

“I’ll do it your way,” Ploughman said.

Buck turned and walked slowly back to the end of the room and leaned on the wall. The door closed. Buck folded his arms on his chest.

“Go ahead,” Buck said.

Chapter 49

Jesse resisted the impulse to smile. “So,” he said, “she fools around.”

“She does with me, yes, sir.”

Simpson was like a good boy in the principal’s office.

“Stop calling me sir,” Jesse said. “You think she fools around with anyone but you?”

“I don’t know.”

“How’d you and she get started?”

“Jeez, Jesse, I’m sorry, but I don’t see where it’s any of your business, you know?”

Jesse knew that Simpson was right. Unless it co

“I think Jo Jo killed the Portugal girl,” Jesse said.

“You think he killed the girl?”

“Yeah, and he had to let me know it.”

“He told you?”

“No, nothing I can arrest him for, but he told me.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because it’s about me and him,” Jesse said. “He did the patrol car and he did Captain Cat, because I knocked him around in front of his wife.”

“So why wouldn’t he come straight after you?”

“Because he’s afraid to. I’m a cop. I’ve got authority. I’ve got a gun. He assaults me and I can have him in jail.”

“So he does stuff to embarrass you?”

“Yeah. Just like I embarrassed him. But it’s no good if I don’t know it’s him, so he had to let me know.”

“What’d he do?”

“He stood across the common from me and smiled and mouthed ‘slut’ at me.”

“But that doesn’t mean he did it. He could be ragging you about it even if he didn’t.”

“He did it,” Jesse said. “I been at this too long to be wrong. He needed to tell me.”

“So what’s that got to do with Mrs. Hathaway?”

“Just before Jo Jo told me he did it, she was making goo-goo eyes at him over the cider table.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s having an affair with him.”

“It’s not something you expect to see,” Jesse said. “I see something I don’t expect, I want to know about it. The fact that I opened the door and you were behind it is an accident.”

Simpson sat and thought about this. Jesse waited. There’s too much coming at him, Jesse thought. He doesn’t know enough. He’s not old enough yet. He wants to talk about it, hell, he’s dying to, but he thinks it’s dishonorable.

“I met Mrs. Hathaway at the Yacht Club,” Simpson said. “Some kind of big wedding reception, I was doing a paid detail. She started talking to me, and at the end of the party she asked me to drive her home, because her husband was going out with a few of the men afterwards and she was tired. So I took her home and she asked me in and . . .”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “I don’t need the details. In effect she picked you up.”

“Yes.”

“And she was both affectionate and expert.”

“You better believe it,” Simpson said.

“Way to go, Cissy.”

Simpson blushed more darkly.

“It’s not like she was my first,” he said. “But . . .”

“She was your first grown-up,” Jesse said.

Simpson nodded.

“She’s amazing,” he said.

“I don’t want to sound harsh here, Suit, but you might not be the only guy she ever picked up.”

Simpson shrugged.

“She say anything about her husband?”

“She said they get along fine, but the fire’s gone out.”

“In his furnace only,” Jesse said.

“I think she likes him though,” Simpson said.

“You think he knows?”

Simpson shook his head.

“I don’t know. She’s not all that careful. I don’t think he wants to know.”

They were quiet, until Simpson said, “I still don’t see what it’s got to do with Tammy Portugal.”

“I don’t either, Suit. Maybe I will later. If she’s co

“Always?” Simpson said.

“If you’re a cop,” Jesse said, “always.”

Simpson sat for a time thinking. Jesse knew he didn’t believe it was always better to know. But he was getting older every minute, and Jesse knew he would believe it, if he stayed with the cops.

Chapter 50

“You know about the militias,” Ploughman said.

Buck nodded.

“Well, I know some guy from one of the militias, come to me, said he needed something done for a comrade in arms back east. That’s what he called him, a comrade in arms.”

Buck waited.

“They talk fu

Ploughman waited for Buck’s reaction. Buck had no reaction and Ploughman looked disappointed.

“Deactivated! They want him clipped, why don’t they just say so, you know? So I tell this guy, No. I steal shit, but I don’t kill people. I mean I’ll carry a piece sometimes and make people think I would, you gotta make them think so, otherwise whaddya do, go in the bank and say gimme the money or I’ll yell at you? But I never used it. I ain’t a life taker. So I says no. And the militia guy kind of nods and looks at me like I’m a freaking enemy of the people and he says, well perhaps they will have to send someone.”