Charlie’s Not Sorry #2
“That’s crap!” Eric growled. There had been plenty of time for Jai’s boyfriend, George, to fill everybody in on the conversation he’d overheard between Brady and Fucker 1 before Brady had taken off. “We have two witnesses!”
“Yes, we do,” Burton said. “But we need to keep them off record unless shit gets dire, or we’ll be protecting George and Amal too.”
Eric nodded and swallowed. He’d finally had a chance to meet Jai’s boyfriend at Ace’s while they’d been putting together what to do after Brady picked up his vehicle.
He understood Jai’s protectiveness now—everybody’s protectiveness—over the two nurses.
As far as the others were concerned, the most illegal thing George and Amal got to do was to treat them, if they screwed up and got hurt.
Ernie had confessed quietly that the two of them ran clinics for anybody afraid of the government or law enforcement for any reason, but mostly for immigrants terrified of being inhumanely deported.
Like Brady, Eric had thought. Not helpless, but not made for fighting dirty either.
“So at least we know what they’re going to blame him for,” Eric said, letting out a sigh.
“What we need to know—really—is why. Brady thinks it’s because they called his aunt and uncle, and they let out the big gay secret, but I don’t think the local constabulary is that bright.
That would take effort and investigation, and I don’t think they’d throw themselves into it like that. ”
“Ace thinks it has something to do with the Kuntz brothers,” Burton said, and for a moment, Eric’s brain shorted out.
“Who?”
Burton scowled at him like he was being obtuse. “That preacher guy and his cop brother who liked to make and share dirty pictures?”
Eric’s stomach roiled. “Oh—yes. Of course.” He remembered Brady’s panicked, blurty conversation as they were standing outside of Ace’s garage, watching the sunset.
“Brady’s been trying to get Sheriff Cuthbert to investigate it, but Cuthbert’s been balking.
Brady is pretty sure that’s why they decided to…
well, not back him up. Cuthbert is hiding something. ”
Burton scowled. “Well, he is, but we all know he’s not hiding the murderer. He’s hiding the reason they were murdered. That at least should become common knowledge, you think?”
Eric nodded. “I’ll ask him about how to do that tonight,” he said. “You’re right. If none of it hit the press, it’s being covered up, and secrets like that kill.”
“Absolute poison until they’re exposed,” Burton confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, then. You two figure out what you have to do to expose the secret, and we meet for breakfast tomorrow to figure out how to get that done.”
“But first….” Ernie glared at Burton meaningfully, and the big man looked abashed.
“But first, Ernie has actually cooked a brisket and baked bread and bought fresh vegetables from a farmer’s market in Palm Springs,” Burton muttered, looking hunted. “He would love for us all to sit down and enjoy lunch.”
“And leftovers,” Ernie added before fidgeting. “I, uhm… I’m nervous. So I cook.”
“Which is fun for everybody,” Burton added, “because he also cooks when he’s happy, when he’s sad, and when he’s excited about meeting new people.”
“Everybody needs to eat,” Ernie said brightly. “So, uhm, when he’s done petting the kittens in there, have him wash his hands.”
Eric nodded helplessly, and Ernie padded off on long, bare feet.
“If you’re wondering if it’s just you,” Burton said, sounding baffled, “it’s not.” He shrugged. “Sometimes, you have no choice.”
Burton wandered into the kitchen, ostensibly to help Ernie, and Eric was left, staring at the nice policeman who had begged him so sweetly the night before.
He’d always assumed having a choice was the best thing about choosing a lover, but as Brady turned a rather gamine smile in Eric’s direction, he thought that maybe—just maybe—he’d been mistaken.
“GOD, I’M full,” Brady muttered as they practically rolled across the street after lunch, a little foil packet of dinner in Eric’s hands. “I… that kid can cook.”
“He was trying to make a nice impression,” Eric told him, and it didn’t feel like a lie.
“Why did you leave the kittens there?” Brady asked. “I… you know. I can tell you miss them.”
Eric grunted and unlocked the door to the RV. “I worry,” he said. “It’s a small space. They have more room to play there, and the idea of having to take off when they’re not secured….” He shuddered. “No, with the present situation, they’re really much safer at Ernie’s.”
“What do you mean, take off?” Brady asked after they’d both swung up to the inside. Eric had left the windows open that morning, and the inside smelled surprisingly fresh from the cool winter breeze.
Eric grunted and put the foil-wrapped brisket sandwiches in the fridge, making sure to use the lever lock that kept it from swinging open in transit.
With a sigh, he turned to his houseguest and reluctantly faced some reality for him.
“Listen, we’re hoping things will hold off until tomorrow morning, because we want a better idea of what Cuthbert and his goons with badges are doing, but you have to know that they could find this divot in the desert at any time.”
Brady grunted. “Not any time,” he said. “I know you all were pretty upset when I showed up, but honestly, the only person at the station who had enough imagination and intelligence to figure this place out was sent on vacation last week.”
Eric cocked his head. “Sent?” he said.
“Yeah.” Brady frowned. “The day after the, uhm, murders actually. Tony got called into Cuthbert’s office and told to take unused vacation time—he didn’t even know he had it coming, but, you know, he’s got three kids and a wife who needs to drink coffee in Disneyland.”
Eric smiled appreciatively, but he could see Brady making the necessary leaps.
“I….” Brady swallowed. “Yesterday, when I realized nobody was coming, I thought that might be why they’d sent Teo away.”
Eric nodded. “You’d be right. Teo’s a perfect little soldier, but he’s probably also got a moral center. Easier just to not make him choose.”
Brady blew out a breath. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that the odds of them finding me here are slim.”
Eric hated doing this—he really did. “But Brady, you can’t stay here forever.”
Brady swallowed and nodded. “Wouldn’t suck,” he said with a pale smile, but Eric couldn’t let him do that.
“Yeah, it would. I mean, not for me—I’ve been…
.” He swallowed, knowing he was about to reveal something hard and naked and personal.
“I’ve been searching for a place to hook my trailer up for…
a long time.” He caught Brady’s perceptive glance then, but continued on.
“But you’ve got plans, right? Go out in the world, do good things?
There’s a reason you moved down here from Idaho after your uncle outed you to the force.
” Eric had needed to read between the lines for that one, but as he watched Brady turn his head, as if dodging the truth of that statement, he knew his reading had been accurate.
“I didn’t know you’d figured that out,” Brady grumbled.
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Eric told him, not wanting to be brutal. “There had to be a reason, and you kept saying you should call him up, ask him if he did this, but you wouldn’t.”
Brady swallowed. “My dad didn’t care,” he said, and there was something so raw, so vulnerable, in his voice that Eric felt naked in sympathy.
“But he and my mom got killed, and politics got weird, and something that was okay in the family was suddenly something my uncle got drunk and bitched about at the local cop bar. And… and my sergeant told me he was going to pay me for a month but take me off the schedule so I could find a job somewhere else.”
His voice was breaking, and Eric’s eyes burned. Like he’d suspected from the very beginning—a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool public servant, fucked over by his rainbow trim.
“Brady, I’m sorry,” Eric said softly. “I’m sorry about all of it. I’m sorry you had to leave your home for the godforsaken desert. I’m sorry you got caught up in something that wasn’t your fault. Hell, I’m sorry your entire department tried to kill you yesterday.”
He saw Brady pass the back of his hand over his eyes. His face was turned resolutely away as he stared sightlessly at the closed blinds over the tiny kitchen sink.
“None of these things are your fault,” Brady said tonelessly. “You shouldn’t be sorry.”
“I am,” Eric told him. “I am, because you seem like a decent guy—a decent cop. But you’ve got a crossroads now. You know why they tried to kill you, don’t you?”
Brady nodded, his face still turned toward the blinds.
“I… the day of the two murders. We found the phone by Roy Kuntz’s body.
I found it—and it wasn’t locked, which was strange.
One touch, and suddenly there were all the pictures.
The deputy’s brother, the preacher, naked with a bunch of little kids, Roy with them too.
” He turned toward Eric then, looking sick.
“I-I didn’t see beyond that. I have no idea who else was on that phone.
But Cuthbert grabbed it from me and I… the next day, I checked with the evidence locker, and it wasn’t there.
I gave a murder case to the FBI—you gotta know that isn’t done, right?
We piss on our corners like tomcats. But I told the agent in charge there that I’d seen the phone, and it involved the deputy, and I didn’t know who else, and suddenly she was knocking down Cuthbert’s door. ”
Eric knew most of this, but the FBI agent was an angle he hadn’t thought of. “Is she still interested in him?”
Brady shook his head. “Her calls stopped,” he said. “Day before yesterday. I… I called her, and she answered the phone in the bathroom and then told me she’d been warned off the case.”
Eric swallowed and cocked his head, waiting for Brady to say it for him.