Cage of Night by Ed Gorman Page B

blue.
    "I just wanted to tell you what I was thinking, Chief," I said.
    "I appreciate that, Spence."
    "I really did yell over to him. You know, that Myles didn't have his gun anymore."
    "I believe you, Spence. I also believe that Garrett didn't hear you."
    "I guess that kind of wraps things up, doesn't it?"
    "Far as I'm concerned, it does." Then: "Spence?"
    "Yes?"
    "This is a small town. Rumors get started pretty fast."
    "I won't say anything to anybody."
    "I'd appreciate that."
    He stood up from his desk and put a beefy hand out, one that mine disappeared inside of.
    After we shook, he walked me to the door and clapped me on the back.
    "You miss the Army?"
    "Not really."
    He smiled. "I was the same way. Couldn't wait to get out of it. That was forty years ago, back when they still had a draft."
    He opened the door for me.
    "Spence?"
    "Yes."
    "I know you're not satisfied with our little talk this morning but I'm not trying to hide anything at all. Far as I'm concerned, Garrett was discharging his duties by the book. I would've done the same thing myself in those circumstances. And so would you."
    "Maybe I would have."
    "And anyway—" He hesitated a moment, as if not sure he wanted to say what he wanted to say. "Save a lot of heartache. In the community, I mean. Putting all of Nancy Tumbler's people through a trial—Hell, it wouldn't have been very easy for Myles' folks, either."
    "No, it wouldn't have been."
    "And we know he did it."
    "Yes, we do."
    "There were witnesses."
    "Yes, there were."
    "So in the scheme of things—"
    I guess I couldn't disagree with that part of it. Myles really had killed a woman in cold blood. And a trial would just make the whole town suffer even more.
    But there was one thing Chief Stewart wouldn't acknowledge—that his officer had heard me tell him that Myles was unarmed, but had proceeded to execute him anyway.
    "You have yourself a good day, Spence."
    "You, too, Chief."

    This was Monday morning right after breakfast.
    When I finished at the police station, I walked over to the department store and went to work.
    By noon, just about everybody who worked in the store had come up to me and asked me if I'd been scared after Myles carjacked me. I didn't blame them. They worked hard at drab, empty jobs for very little money and no security. They needed some kind of excitement and management wouldn't let them watch TV during the day so I was the next best thing.
    On my lunch hour, I finally worked up the nerve to call Mrs. Brasher.
    "Well, Cindy's in school," she said, sounding surprised that I'd choose now to call.
    "It was you I wanted to talk to, Mrs. Brasher."
    "Me?" She sounded even more surprised.
    "I want to bring Cindy a present—something that'll help take her mind off things—and I was just wondering if you could mayhe give me an idea of what she'd like."
    Long pause. "I don't think Cindy wants to see you anymore, Spence. So I'm going to ask you not to try and contact her in any way."
    The queasiness was back in my stomach. "Why wouldn't she want to see me anymore?"
    Another pause. Then a sigh. "She thinks that she helped drive David to—you know, Saturday night—that if she hadn't started seeing you, maybe he wouldn't have gone insane."
    Right, I thought. He would have just kept on beating her.
    But then I thought of Myles' face in my car a few minutes before he died—the grief, the terror.
    "She's going to start seeing Dr. Granger again. She's—not doing very well at the moment." Granger was the town's one and only shrink. "She went to school but I wouldn't be surprised if she came home early."
    "I want to help her, Mrs. Brasher."
    "Then stay away from her, Spence. I don't mean to be harsh—but that would be best for everybody. And now I have to go."
    The rest of the day I kept tearing up and breaking into fits of trembling. I wanted to vomit but when I went back to the john, all I did was peer down into the toilet bowl.
    —I'm going to ask you not to try and contact her in any