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“I had a meeting with Don Tishman, who was technically in charge of the KBI investigation. I laid out the facts of the matter concerning Jalbert, but felt it would be smart to withhold the name of the trooper who stopped you and looked for drugs.”
“For a smalltown lawyer who specializes in real estate contracts, you’ve been pretty busy.”
Danny means it lightly, almost as a joke, but Ball flushes and looks down at his hands. “I should have tackled that kid. I could have, he was totally focused on you. Instead I went facedown in the dirt.”
Danny repeats that it’s not like TV.
Ball raises his head. “Understood, but I don’t have to like it. No man wants to think he’s a coward, especially one that rides a badass bike.”
“I wouldn’t call a Honda Gold Wing badass, Edgar. A Harley Softail, that’s badass.”
“Be that as it may, we’ve reached an accommodation. I think. A few details still to be worked out, but… yes, it looks good. In exchange for keeping quiet about Jalbert—who has indeed put in his retirement papers—you’re going to have your medical bills paid by the Sunflower State, and with a certain sum left over. Not huge, but tidy. Five figures. It will get you relocated in Colorado, if you still decide to go.”
The nurse doesn’t just poke her head in this time. She points at Ball. “Not asking. Telling.”
“Going,” Ball says, and gets up. “You could have your job back, you know. Once you’re well enough to do it.”
“Good to know,” Danny says.
He has no intention of staying. Someone threw a brick at his trailer. Someone put shit in his mailbox. Bill Dumfries basically told him, on behalf of the good people of Oak Grove, to get out of Dodge. What weighs against those things is Darla Jean sitting in the dirt next to her dollhouse with tears rolling down her cheeks. But he doesn’t think it weighs enough to tip the scales. He has a brother in Colorado, and if getting shot does nothing else, it gives you insight into how short the time is you have to spend with your loved ones.
“All because of one dream,” he says bitterly. “It didn’t even help catch the guy.”
“But think of the adventure you had.”
Danny shows him a middle finger.
“On that note,” Ball says, and takes his leave.
61
While Albert Wicker is spending his first afternoon in the Wilder County jail, hardly aware of what he did—the last few days are a blur, that morning hardly there at all—Franklin Jalbert is sitting in his dining room in his bathrobe doing a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.
When completed, it will show a collage of movie posters—classics like Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life, Jaws, two dozen in all. Jalbert keeps track of how many pieces he’s put in. After 10 pieces, he takes one step (in place, as if marching, so he can sit down again). After 20, he takes two, one out from his chair and one back. He’s up to 800 pieces, almost done, when his phone rings. He looks at the screen and sees H. Allard. Hank Allard is a friend of his, a captain in the Kansas Highway Patrol. Jalbert is torn between answering and doing the next set of steps, which would be one to eighty, inclusive.
He decides on the steps. 3,240—quite a lot! He starts at 80 and counts in reverse. The steps take him outside to the small backyard of his ranchette and back again. He sees that previous trips have made a path in the grass: a rut, in fact. He’s aware that the step-counting thing—and running the chairs, that too—has gotten even more out of control since his failure to arrest Danny Coughlin. Davis called it arithmomania. While doing the steps associated with his jigsaw puzzle, Jalbert often thinks he’s like a hamster running on a wheel, going and going, shitting on the run and never getting anywhere. But that’s all right. What Davis couldn’t realize is that this minor craziness keeps him from the greater craziness of contemplating a future from which his job has been subtracted. How many jigsaw puzzles can he do before facing the pointlessness of his life going forward and slides his service weapon deep into his mouth? Boom, gone. God knows he wouldn’t be the first. God knows he’s thought about it. Is thinking.
He comes back to the steps when he’s down to five. By the time he gets to zero, he’s in the kitchen. Time for another 10 pieces and then he’ll count down from 81. Possibly first by odd numbers, then doing the even ones. After that it will be time for lunch, and a nap. He loves his naps. Such smooth oblivion!
His phone is beside the mostly completed jigsaw puzzle (he’s currently assembling The Ten Commandments, which he most definitely doesn’t consider a classic). Hank Allard has left a voicemail, and he sounds excited.
“Call me, I’ve got news. You’ll want to hear.”
Jalbert can’t imagine any news he wants to hear, but he returns the call. Allard answers on the first ring and wastes no time. “Your boy Coughlin has been shot.”
“What?” Jalbert stands up, giving the table a hard bump and sliding the nearly completed puzzle almost to the edge. Several pieces patter to the floor.
Allard laughs. “The Wicker girl’s brother shot the motherfucker. You want to talk about justice? Whoomp, there it is.”
“Is he dead?”
“We can hope. The first trooper to respond to the scene said there was a lot of blood and several bullet holes in the bastard’s truck. They took him to Regional in an ambulance instead of treating him at that little excuse for a hospital in Manitou, so it was bad. Maybe he died on the way.”
Jalbert shakes a fist at the ceiling, thinking closure, sweet closure. “God did what I couldn’t.” His voice isn’t quite steady.
“I wouldn’t disagree,” Allard says.
“Keep me informed. You know I’m out of the loop.”
