“I think what Witty intends to express is that you trying to get this boy off for killing our local medical hero, Dr. Singh… well, that ain’t sitting well with nobody.”
“So… you’re taking me out of town. For… a chat?” Bob proposed. He snuck a peek out the window. They’d gone ten miles already, he guessed. “I figure maybe it’s a little more than that.”
“And what happens if we let you go?” Fowler said. “You go on out next week, get some other guy off what don’t deserve it, and some poor individual gets raped or murdered by them. Dealing with you is a blessing to society. Pest control.”
“Pest control!” Czernowitz repeated overzealously, like the prospect was a little exciting. “That’s what you said, right, Jeb? Damn lawyers.”
The venom rang true. He hates defense attorneys. But he wasn’t up for whatever Fowler’s got planned, not initially. That’s something I can work with. Bob chuckled loudly. “Well… I hate to disappoint you, Officer Czernowitz…”
“What?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
‘Whuh?” He looked confused. He glanced sideways at Fowler. “Jeb…?”
“It’s true,” Bob said. “I think your partner already knows this, because I wasn’t in court with my alleged client yesterday. Sharmila Singh’s cousin, Anuvab Kumar, an actual lawyer, handled his case. And your partner was there.”
Fowler nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah… I did suspect that to be the case, so I looked up Mr. Bob Richmond, attorney at law, after the bail hearing. Took some digging to find a picture from the state bar association. He’s at least ten years older and quite a bit heavier than you, Bob, or whatever your name is.”
“Sum’bitch!” Czernowitz exclaimed. “He’s an impostor!”
“Not really,” Bob said. “I just used fake ID to get in and see an old friend and borrowed someone’s name to legitimize it. Things… snowballed.”
“Huh.” Czernowitz pushed his hat back. “Well, don’t that beat all.” He looked unsure, Bob thought, as if the new information had thrown a wrench into his expectations.
Fowler turned off the highway, onto a dirt trail. They were at least fifteen minutes out of the city, Bob figured. The Ford Crown Vic rumbled along the dirt track, the shocks cushioning each rut, dust partly clouding the view through the rear side windows.
“You … sure we should be doing this now, Jeb?” Czernowitz asked his partner, his voice quiet.
“What’s eating you? Spill it,” Fowler demanded.
“Well… he ain’t a scum-sucking lawyer, for one thing. You said this was a win, that we was taking a problem off the streets. But he ain’t a lawyer, just some loser whose talked his way into the station.”
Fowler shot him an angry look. “He’s still trying to take us down and embarrass the department, ain’t he? Embarrass our brother officers?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“But what? But what, Witty? And pay heed: think before you speak. You know darn well you ain’t smart enough to make these decisions, that I always done the thinking for us. Got you a job, got you a badge. Don’t start trying to play genius now, when there’s careers on the line. We leave this guy out there, he kicks over more rocks, maybe finds something on our friend…”
“That would be Merry Michelsen, I take it,” Bob interrupted.
“SHUT IT!” Fowler barked. “You shut your god-dang mouth or I’ll draw on you while you’re cuffed, I do truly swear to God!”
After two more minutes of silence, the tension in the car had built. Fowler yanked the wheel to the right, taking the sedan off the trail, into the desert dirt southwest of the city. “No derricks means no visitors any time soon,” he said.
Two hundred bumpy yards in, he stopped the car.
“They could still maybe see us from the road,” Czernowitz noted quietly.
“Shut it, Witty, god-dang it! Just… shut it! What did I just say about letting me do the thinking? You are a god-dang high school dropout who never read more than an Archie comic in your god-dang life! Let me keep us safe, like I always do. Is that okay with you?”
Czernowitz nodded. “Didn’t drop out by choice,” he muttered sullenly. “Had to help Momma make the bills.”
“Okay. Whatever! Just help me get this sum’bitch out of the back.”
The dust around them had settled. Bob looked to his right. About twenty-five feet from the car was a two-by-six rectangular hole in the ground.
“Yeah, you see right,” Fowler sneered as he got out of the car. “Took me near an hour last night and it’s still not deep enough. You’ve got some digging to do, son.” He shook his head and sighed. “Fat bastard better be god-dang grateful, is all I can say.”
He slammed the car door as his partner joined him. Both men drew their service weapons. They opened the rear right passenger door. “Come on, Mr. Bob Whoever-You-Are. Get on out of there. Don’t kick now, or make a fuss, or it’ll be long and painful from multiple shots. Come nice, it’ll be clean and quick.”
“Clean and…” Czernowitz repeated, the words hollow. “Jeb, you sure this…”
“Like I said, he’s dangerous. It ain’t enough to just talk, Witty. Sometimes, to do right, we’ve got to get our hands dirty. Just… get hold of him there.”
They pulled him from the car, Czernowitz’s strength surprising Bob, his collar grasped firmly. He tumbled to the dirt. They waited as he righted himself and rose to his feet.
Czernowitz stared wordlessly at the hole. He began to raise a hand to point at it.
“Yeah, it’s a god-dang grave,” Fowler said. “Man… You need to sack up, Witty! This is what we talked about. Righting wrongs, taking care of problems for real!”
“He means me,” Bob said dryly.
“I tell you what. I’m sort of glad you tried to escape with that there handcuff trick,” Fowler said. “I was going to have to uncuff you so you can carry your friend, and now you can just do it wrists together.”
“My friend?” Bob said.
“Jeb… what’re you saying there?” Czernowitz asked.
