“We will take care of Conrad,” I say. “But the best thing you can do is stand as witness against him.”
“Everyone will hate me if I do that.”
Even I have to fight the urge to sigh by this point.
“No, everyone will blame him,” I say. “He tricked you. They’ll understand why you tried to…” Bury him alive? Nope, no one’s understanding that. “Why you tried to stop him before he hurt others.”
“That’s right. I did stop him, didn’t I?” He pauses. “I’m kinda a hero.”
Oh, just ask Phil how big a hero you are. Better yet, ask Isabel.
“You kinda are,” I say. “Now let us come down there and help you up.”
“I’ve got it.” He pushes to his feet. “It’s not that far down. I can climb it.”
He puts one foot on a small rock, and before I can warn him, he shifts all his weight onto it, and it pops from the soft ground. I jump up, imagining him falling backward, the one thing that could indeed seriously injure him. Instead, his feet scrabble to find a hold, and he slides right over the ledge. He has time for a single second of terror before his feet splash into the shallow river.
He goes still. Then he looks around slowly, leaps up, and bolts. He gets two long strides. Then his ankle gives way, and he pitches forward, howling in pain.
“He’s all yours,” I say to Dalton as I pass him a handcuff strip.
NINETEEN
Dalton goes to get Brandon, but before he can, Brandon is stung by a water insect, and then freaks out over that, tries to run, gets his foot trapped, falls face-first, and nearly drowns because he doesn’t realize it’s so shallow he could just lift his head to breathe.…
No, none of that actually happens, though I wouldn’t be the least surprised if it did. Today is truly going down in the books as our most ridiculous wilderness pursuit ever.
By this point, Brandon is just tired. He’s used up all his adrenaline stabbing people, running for his life, being treed by a moose, falling off cliffs … By the time we reach town, we need to give him a shake-up. If anyone saw us dragging a semiconscious suspect in, it wouldn’t matter if the guy confessed on the steps of the town-square podium, he’d clearly be making up shit out of sheer terror after whatever we did to him in the forest.
I tell myself it isn’t that bad. Residents don’t hate us. Most at least. They either support us or they’re confused by what’s going on and understandably concerned. Yet it’s like any performance evaluation. Ask ten people to rate us, and we’ll get a bunch of high numbers, a few middling ones, and two who only gave us a one because zero wasn’t an option. Statistically, we’re doing great, but if twenty percent of our residents think we’re liars and killers, we cannot stop feeling the sting of that.
We rouse Brandon into a sensible state, and then Dalton escorts him into town as I follow along, chatting with Cypher. No big deal, see? Brandon’s fine, and we only need one person to bring him into town.
We escort him to the station, where he’ll be held in the cell until the council can be notified. Then I sit at the desk to write my notes.
I grudgingly have to hand it to Conrad for a mildly ingenious scheme. He found out that some people here aren’t victims in hiding. He wonders how he can use that information. His first thought? Booze!
It isn’t as if we’re all borderline alcoholics up here. It’s just that there’s a huge list of things we don’t have and can’t get, things we took for granted in a world where we can think I’d like to take up cycling again and have a new bike within hours. Rockton compensates for that by making sure residents get plenty of the things we can supply: books, clothing, hobby supplies, pastries, coffee, and so on.
What lies in the middle is the very short list of things we have and you’re only allowed to purchase in limited quantities no matter how many credits you’ve saved up. The most prized item on that list is booze. Our tight regulation only exacerbates the problem. People want what they cannot have. Of course, loosening the restrictions would lead to binge drinking and all that goes with it in an isolated community.
What did Conrad want? Extra booze. Hell, he’d even pay for it. So he blackmails the bartender and gets those extra bottles of wine to enjoy on his front porch.
What next? What is the other tightly regulated and highly desired commodity in Rockton? Sex. Yet even if he’d found a woman who’d bought her way in, she obviously hadn’t fallen for his “I know your secret” shtick without proof.
But he then meets Gloria, former alcoholic teetering on the edge. Excellent. Just go back to Brandon, buy more booze, and seduce Gloria.
Now what else did Conrad want? The right to work a day or two a week as a dentist, without filling in the extra time stocking shelves.
To get that, he needs to blackmail someone in charge. Jen has a dental appointment, so let’s see what she knows. There he hits the jackpot. His designated nemesis is a murderer. Ka-ching!
The problem there is that Anders isn’t in a position to determine Conrad’s work orders. Nor would he cave to blackmail. So it’s time for a little personal revenge. Make the bastard pay with public exposure.
Conrad won all this from discovering that some of our residents are criminals.
I look up at Dalton, who’s stoking the station fire. “How often have people figured out that criminals can buy their way in?”
“Figured it out and complained? Never as far as I know. Took me years.”
“Because it probably wasn’t happening before that. Or not in large enough numbers to notice.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. But whenever it started, it’s not as if anyone’s going to stand up in the Red Lion and announce they were a violent criminal.”
“Or even tell their friends and lovers.”
“If you’re trying to figure out how Conrad knew, I’d check his patient file.”
“You think someone other than Jen talked under the influence.” I tap my pen on my notebook. “I suppose, but…” I look toward the thick door separating us from Brandon’s cell and lower my voice. “I feel guilty as hell about what I did, and I’ve still never talked, drunk or sober. There is a third option. Plenty of people in town do know criminals can buy their way in.”
He frowns. Then he swears.
Who knows criminals can buy their way in?
The criminals themselves.
* * *
I would love to stride into the clinic and confront Conrad. Get confirmation of Brandon’s story and confirmation that Conrad himself is here because he committed a crime.
Others keep quiet in hopes they’re the only one … or because exposing Rockton’s secret would expose their own. Why did Conrad take that risk? Because he wanted stuff and he thought he was entitled to it and he doesn’t think he should be held accountable for his actions. Almost makes me wonder whether I’m wrong about the violent part, because otherwise, he fits the mold for our white-collar criminals.