The Unwilling(64)
“Definitely.”
“I’m coming over.”
* * *
On the crosstown drive, French was as much cop as father.
Could he have done it?
Not possible.
But maybe …
It came down to a single thing.
* * *
“Hi, Ken. Sorry. I know it’s late.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Burklow stepped back to let him inside, then made drinks without asking. “Here. You look ragged. You okay?”
“It just hit me, is all.”
“Jason, you mean?”
“Everything.”
French kept his wife out of it. Her regression to near-infantile contentment was too personal to share.
“So.” Burklow sat across a low table, his long, heavy frame cradled in a worn leather chair. “What can I do for you?”
“A favor.”
“Ask it.”
The response was automatic and honest. If French killed a man, Burklow would scream and fret, but, in the end, he’d help bury the body. It was that kind of friendship. “You spoke to me once of a friend at the Defense Department. He told you there’s war and then WAR, and that Jason fought the second kind.”
“Chris Ellis. He’s high up.”
“A good friend?”
“Good like you’re good. Is he the favor?”
“It’s time I knew more about Jason.”
Burklow immediately stood, tall and unsmiling. “Wait here.” He went to the back bedroom, and came back with a manila envelope tucked beneath his arm. He dropped it on the table between them.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
INTERNAL USE ONLY
Beneath those words were Jason’s name and rank and serial number. “Jason’s military records.” Burklow sat again and picked up the whiskey. “I knew you’d want them.”
“But … when?”
“I made the call yesterday. Drove up last night to collect them.” French leaned away, as if afraid of so much unadulterated insight into the life of his oldest living son. “Most of it is classified. If you get caught with it, we’re both screwed, and I mean federally.” He sipped again. “Are you sure you’re ready for what’s inside?”
French had been sure, but now was not. People said twenty-nine kills, but it could be fifty or a hundred; and both men understood enough of war to know it could be even worse than that. Friendly fire. Civilians. Black ops.
Not all kills were clean.
“After we found her,” French said. “Tyra, I mean. I asked the medical examiner what could make a good man do bad things. What could break a man so horribly and irretrievably? He said it would be something big.”
“And you’re thinking, War.”
“Do you know anything that’s bigger?”
A silence followed, both men lost in their own memories of war, and in the stillness, a phone rang, shrill enough to make them flinch. Burklow answered the phone and listened. “Yeah, he’s here. Hang on.”
He held out the receiver.
“This is Detective French.”
“Detective, hi. This is Lauren at dispatch. I’m sorry to bother you so late. I tried your home first, but no one answered.”
“It’s all right, Lauren. What’s the problem?”
“I hate to give you more bad news.”
“Best just say it, then.”
“Yes, sir. Four minutes ago, I took a radio call from a patrol unit working the industrial corridor on the south side. They found your son beaten senseless, facedown in a ditch two hundred yards from the Carriage Room. He’s alert now, and declining medical attention. Patrol is still on-site, but they say he’s hurt pretty badly. I can send paramedics, but thought you might want to keep this one quiet, given the past few days and the news and all.”
French felt disconnected from the voice, the room. Maybe it was sleeplessness or the scotch, but what he’d heard made little sense. “I think you have a bad ID, Dispatch. Jason’s in lockdown at Lanesworth.”
“I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m not talking about Jason.”
* * *
French drove fast, Burklow on shotgun. Beneath the hood, the engine screamed. On the roof, the cherry flashed. “You can’t help him if you kill us getting there.” They crested a hill, and the car rose on its shocks. “He’s safe. He’s with our people.”
But the hammer stayed down. Words. None of them mattered.
“Bill, slow down. I mean it.” They blistered an intersection, the stoplight steady red. “Jesus Christ.”
French understood the concern, but something wild had filled his heart. “He’s different, Ken. He’s changing.”
“Your son is changing. Fine. Slow down and we can talk about it.”
French drifted a hard right, and left rubber on the road. “I think it’s Jason,” he said. “He’s opened up something rebellious and dark. Watch Gibby’s eyes, the way he looks at his mother and me, his whole life. He’s trying to prove something.”
“How about you get us there alive, and then we see what’s what?”
It was hard to do, but French slowed enough to get them across town in one piece. It was a dismal part of the city, a place people lived because they had no choice, or because they wanted the drugs, the bought sex, the loss of self. Cops patrolled, but rarely.