I felt my heart skip a beat at this unpleasant bit of history.
He kept talking. “Won’t be summer forever and you’re thinking deck plants, we need a utility vehicle.”
Again, this made sense. And his sudden and far from unwelcome domesticity made my heart beat faster. And he had four hundred and fifty thousand dollars somewhere. And a job. And, clearly, a history of getting cool things in one way or another. And he was a grown man, he wanted an SUV, who was I to say differently?
But I needed a rewind.
“You had to sell your other Land Cruiser to finance your defense?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you have to sell anything else?” I asked.
“Coupla cars I won the pinks on, few other toys. Things got cheaper when I copped a plea.”
My heart skipped another beat and my body went solid.
“You copped a plea?”
“Yeah. I copped a plea.”
I pressed closer to him and put a hand on his chest. “Why, when you were innocent, did you cop a plea?”
“’Cause I had no alibi, my fingerprints were found at the scene and a bunch of ass**les made statements and lied about my whereabouts. They wanted second degree and were muttering about bein’ aggressive and goin’ for first. That nightmare ended, I had things to do and I wanted to do them so I wanted out in five, not fifteen and definitely not f**kin’ twenty-five.”
My sunglasses looked into his sunglasses.
And I knew.
But I asked anyway and I did it on a whisper. “This is not about justice, it’s about payback.”
He looked over his shoulder and then back at me, his other arm sliding around so he could hold me loosely but his head dipped close.
“This isn’t where I wanna have this conversation but it has to be had. You’re right. This isn’t about justice. It’s about payback.”
I didn’t have a good feeling about that so I started, “Ty –” he shook his head and gave me a light squeeze so I stopped.
“I told you who Tate is and who he was. He pulled out all the stops when that shit started goin’ down. He got nowhere except on radar. I pulled him back from that so he didn’t get caught in the same shit storm as me. And this goes to what I told you earlier. You do not get on radar. They get you in their sights, they’ll chew you up, babe, spit you out and not f**kin’ blink. And, sucks for you, but you got shit in your past they will use to f**k you with. And make no mistake, baby, the instant you picked me up outside the penitentiary they started lookin’ into you. That means you gotta keep your mouth shut and a tight handle on it. At all times. Carnal PD is infested. The citizens of that town keep their heads down and go about their business. You do that too. You let me handle my business and I’ll let you know if I need you.”
“Aren’t there any good cops in that department?” I asked.
“Huddle with the boys first night I was home?” he asked back, I nodded and he went on. “Update. Nothin’s changed except Fuller is now Chief of Police rather than just the captain. Which is worse. There are three cops Tate trusts and all of them are in uniform. No rank, no power.”
“Isn’t there some other authority –?” I began.
“Babe, they are the authority.”
I pressed my hand into his chest to get him to listen to me and I said, “Some other authority.”
He shook his head but said, “Tate had hope. At the party, I heard Betty talkin’ to you about Dalton, that guy who kidnapped Laurie, stabbed her and Jim-Billy?”
I nodded.
“FBI got involved in that. Agent in that case, name’s Tambo, smelled somethin’ funny workin’ with Carnal PD. Tate thought he’d run with it. He didn’t.”
“Maybe you could talk to him?”
“And tell him what? I got played by pu**y and dirty cops in two f**kin’ states not even connected conspired against me? He’d think I was a f**kin’ nut.”