Dean said, “Oh, yeah. Jimmy here spent more time in the county jail than most of the jailers.”
“It ain’t like I enjoy it,” Jimmy grumbled. He rolled over on his stomach and lifted his wrists so Dean could cuff him.
Lucas pulled open the back door and he and Dean marched Jimmy into the Quonset, where the troopers and deputies were looking at Ralph and Natalie Parker, who were sitting on an old church pew. A gray-muzzled German shepherd sat unleashed between them, and Natalie Parker was stroking his head with one hand and holding a toddler with the other.
Ralph Parker, a stocky, red-faced man with a pompadour, had been handcuffed, but Natalie hadn’t been. The toddler, who waslooking solemnly at all the cops, was teary but not quite crying. The place smelled of welding torches and engine oil.
One of the deputies crooked a finger at Lucas and they went off to a corner and the deputy asked, “What do you want to do?”
“As I see it, if this car was stolen, you gotta take Parker in. And this Jimmy guy probably stole it. You could take Natalie in or leave her with the kid. Leaving her with the kid is probably the best idea, even if she knew her old man was running a chop shop, because somebody’s got to take care of the boy, and he looks like he’s pretty well taken care of.”
“That’s my idea,” the deputy said. “I thought you might want to talk to her about her brother, while she doesn’t know what we’re thinking about doing with her. Maybe you could tell her about the Pooles.”
Lucas grimaced. “Oh, boy. Okay. Let’s walk her over to the office, talk to her there.”
—
THEY DID THAT.Ralph Parker called to his wife, as they separated them, “Don’t say nothing, Nat. Wait till we get Comfort over here.”
Comfort, the deputy said, as they left the Quonset, was a lawyer, but not a very good one.
—
IN THE OFFICE,Lucas and the deputy put Natalie in the single office swivel chair, still holding on to the toddler, who now was as silent as a cat, and pulled two other wooden chairs around to face her. Lucassaid, “Natalie, the cops back there have read you your rights, so you know you don’t have to talk to us. But you need to...”
She put her hands over the toddler’s ears: “Fuck that,” she said.
Lucas tried to take it easy: “You don’t have all the information you need, and that information is really bad. Really, really bad.”
Natalie Parker was a lean, auburn-haired woman, pretty without makeup, wearing jeans and a plaid cotton shirt. She looked uncertainly at Lucas’s face, then said, “What happened? Did something happen?”
Lucas said, “We think your brother Gar and some other people robbed a drug counting house and killed five people. This was last week...”
“I don’t have anything to do...”
Lucas held up a finger to silence her, and continued. “...The drug people have come looking for their money. That’s what we think. They started with your parents.”
Parker went pale: “They didn’t hurt them?”
“I’m afraid they did,” Lucas said.
“Did they kill them?”
“Yes. We found them an hour ago,” Lucas said. “That’s why we came down here. We were afraid your mom might have given up your location.”
Parker squeezed the toddler tight, said, “That goddamn Gar. He had to go and rob some drug guys, didn’t he? He just had to go and do it.” She put her face into the kid’s neck and she started to cry, and then the kid started to cry, and he looked at Lucas and the deputy with open fear. Lucas and the deputy sat for a moment, saying nothing, and then the deputy said, “Why don’t you hand me that boy, there? I’ll hold him for you.”
The deputy took the kid, who struggled a bit before settling down, the deputy patting him on the back, and Natalie said, “I gotta tell Ralph. Let me talk to Ralph.”
“I’ll see if they’re still here,” Lucas said.
—
RALPH PARKERwas still in the Quonset and Lucas got Dean to bring Parker out and uncuff him, and Lucas told him what had happened and Parker wrapped up his wife and held her for a while, but told Lucas, “We don’t none of us know where Gar is. If we did, and we told you, he’d come here and kill us. That ain’t no foolin’. He’d cut our throats in one New York minute.”
—
LUCAS AND THE DEPUTYtook Natalie back to the office, sat her down again, the deputy still holding the kid. Lucas said, “I’m a U.S. marshal and I’m looking for your brother. If you cooperate, Gar will never know. If the local DA decides to charge you in this car thing, I will speak privately to the judge in your case and tell him that you cooperated in something a lot more important than a car theft. I think that could keep you out of jail and with your boy. Furthermore, given what we know now, I think we might save the lives of some of your friends.”
