Part 12 (1/2)

Knowing exactly where he was going, Ruddik turned up a hill and into a new lane still lacking public works, a stump where a fire hydrant would go, multicolored wires splaying from a telephone box, the ground torn up, the curbs unfinished, and three houses in various states of construction. Ruddik parked the car across the street from the third house, a two-story McMansion. Two worker vans were parked in the unfinished drive. I glimpsed a few construction men in the open hallway, another one behind a window on the second floor.

”What are we doing here?” I was reaching for a joke, but nothing came.

”How much do you think a house like this runs?” Ruddik asked. The serious look had returned to his face, the grave disapproval of misdeeds.

I gave it my appraising homeowner's eye, the one on the lookout for defaulted subprime mortgage deals. The neighborhood, the size, the amount of land. I pegged it at three-quarters of a million.

”More,” Ruddik said. ”And last week they decided to go with brick on the exterior.” He pointed at a pile of bricks under a tarp on the front yard. ”And you know that's not cheap.”

”Okay, what's the point?”

”The house is owned by Allison Marie Harris. She's a single mother of three boys, twice married, twice divorced, just moved from Sacramento, California.”

The name did nothing for me, except I wondered why anyone would move from California to the Upper Midwest.

”One year ago Allison Harris was in a state prison for drug possession. An eighteen-month sentence. Her three boys were temporarily placed in foster homes. She got out quickly, after just five months, then went on social a.s.sistance. Didn't have a penny to her name. And now she's moving into a million-dollar house in the suburbs.”

I tried to understand where he was going, what connection he was pointing out. ”Is she family to one of the inmates?”

”Not quite,” Ruddik said. He looked over and gave me that long, mournful glance, then put the car back into drive. ”She's Roger Wallace's kid. Your Keeper's daughter.”

Everything I'd known about Wallace and how he operated s.h.i.+fted in an instant.

Ruddik nodded. ”Twenty-five-year veteran, Roger Wallace, still working because he can't retire, buying his daughter a million-dollar dream home. Go figure, huh?”

The car suddenly moving, pulling away from the curb, my brain slowly chasing after.

”I wanted you to see the house before we talked. You had to know it's real.”

22.

Ruddik brought his briefcase into the diner, and we sat at a booth. I was tired and grateful for the idea of cheap comfort and food. It already felt like a long day.

”Lawrence Elgin is dead. Did you know that?” he asked me.

I shook my head, another thin slice of shock.

”His condition kept getting worse until they had to take his leg off. I wanted him to talk to me before the operation, spill it all, but he wouldn't budge without a transfer. I tried to get him treated in a civilian hospital, but the paperwork didn't come through quickly enough. A blood clot got him on New Year's Eve, around the time you and I were sitting in the parking lot talking. I call that bad luck and worse timing.”

The waitress came to take our order, and it took me a moment to bring my thoughts to her question and decide what I wanted. While I hesitated, Ruddik asked for eggs and bacon. I got it together and ordered yogurt and a fruit plate.

”I'm sorry about that,” I said after she left. I meant Elgin. I meant the loss of his snitch.

He shrugged. ”It always gets harder just before it breaks. At least that's what I tell myself.”

He started to bring his briefcase up to the surface of the table, then stopped.

”Here's what you need to know about me,” he said.

I waited with a certain amount of anxiety for the next p.r.o.nouncement. I realized partway through that I was listening to a confession.

”I'm a drunk. The socially acceptable term is recovering alcoholic. I used to fall asleep at the kitchen table in front of my family with a drink in my hand and my gun still loaded in its holster. That's how bad it was. Not a drop for eight years now, but a daily urge as strong as you can imagine.”

I nodded. I knew drunks like that.

”I lost my wife and daughter, but if I'm honest with myself, that doesn't bother me as much as the bad career turn. The job meant everything to me. Have you ever had that kind of frustration in your life?” Maybe not that, I thought, but I understood frustration. ”I miss my girl, but I miss the job harder. That's not a pleasant admission to make, but I try not to fool myself.”

He s.h.i.+fted the cutlery around and brought the sugar bowl in closer.

”This job I have now is a s.h.i.+t job. But I do it because it's a second or third or fourth chance at the kind of work I do well and because it is nasty and no one else wants it. I've never been in a place where illegality is so openly tolerated. We can argue from now until the end of time about what the rules should be in a self-contained world like Ditmarsh, but I think we can both agree that some actions are wrong no matter where they occur. Anyway, the main thing for you to know is I'm a drunk. And I work very hard to make up for that. You can ask my ex-wife if you can find her.”

He stopped talking. Was he waiting for my answer? I acknowledged that I had been sufficiently forewarned. I didn't offer any of my own confessions in turn, nor did I think he expected it.

The waitress brought our coffee. Decaf for me. I needed nothing further to up my adrenaline.

”You saw the video. What did you think?” Ruddik asked as he stirred in cream.

Did he want me to express my outrage? I didn't feel any. No one was hurt, all of it theatrical, boys being boys. I was numb to the cruelties that might have shocked a weak sister. It was only what happened to Crowley that made the video matter.

”How did you find it?” I asked.

”On the kind of site where you find such things. It's already gone. Someone took it down.”

”Who?”

He shrugged.

”The Ditmarsh Social Club,” I said. ”I want to know what that means.” And I did. Intensely.

He nodded. ”I agree. We need to figure that out somehow.”

I hesitated. I didn't know how to have this kind of conversation. ”Not just the name. There was a mark, an emblem, below the name. Did you notice it?”

”Three triangles,” Ruddik said. His interest encouraged me, made me braver.

”Three triangles inside a circle,” I said. ”I'm sure it comes from a fallout shelter sign.” I took a pen from my pocket and drew the marks on a napkin, then turned it around. ”You see? That sign is in the bubble, above the stairs where the hatch goes down into the armaments room and the old dissociation unit. That's how I found Crowley.”

He looked impressed. ”How did you make the connection?”

I wasn't ready for my own confession and felt my words curving away from the full truth. ”I saw the sign first in a drawing, something Crowley had done for his art cla.s.s. Then I noticed the same mark a number of places around the prison, mixed in with all the other graffiti. When I was working the bubble on Christmas Eve and saw the old fallout shelter sign turned upside down, it just clicked. I checked out the City because it seemed possible that the mark meant something. I didn't know Crowley would be down there.”

He looked as if he had something to add, but he cut it off. ”Good work. That's how an instinct can pay off. Now, is there anything else you want to ask me before we go further?”