Casualties (25 page)

Casey spotted the state trooper in the rearview mirror before they'd gotten twenty miles from Ogallala. Reflexively, he clicked off the cruise control and allowed the Jaguar to slow a bit, but the guy stayed behind them.

“What was that for?” Ruth said, glancing at the speedometer. “You weren't speeding.”

“Something about a police car on my ass makes me nervous.” Now the lights flashed on the top of the cop car. The siren sounded briefly, like a shout.

“Ruth, if there is anything you need to tell me, tell me now,” Casey said, pulling the car into the emergency lane and taking as long as he could to roll to a stop.

Ruth twisted around. “Maybe—”

“What?” Casey said. It was too late. The cop was already getting out of his car. Damn.

“License, registration, please,” the officer said. Casey didn't bother to ask why. Chitchat would just delay the inevitable. He dug
his wallet out of his pocket, grateful that he'd thought to put the cash in the sock, now safely in his bag. “Ruth, pass me the registration.”

She talked past him to the cop. “Why did you stop us? We weren't speeding.”

“Lens on your taillight is broken and your left directional doesn't seem to be working.”

“Just give him the damn registration,” Casey said.

The officer peered through the driver's window. His breath blasted past Casey's nose, a warm mess of onions and grilled beef. “Do we have a problem?”

Ruth opened the glove compartment and shuffled through the few slips of paper in there until she found a plastic sleeve holding the registration and the insurance card. Casey passed them to the cop. The trooper glanced from Casey's license to the registration and back.

“Whose car is this?”

“Mine.” Ruth's voice was chilly.

“What's your name, ma'am?”

“Ruth Nolan.”

Casey saw that Ruth was trying not to look straight at the trooper. With a rush of gratitude, he realized that she was trying to hide her bruised eye and swollen lip, which the guy would automatically assume had something to do with him.

“May I see your license, please?”

Shit.

“I don't have it with me, officer. That's why my friend is driving.” She was cool. Very cool. Casey glanced at the trooper, who had now pushed his own sunglasses up on his head, a balding head, freckled and burned. He was not a young guy.
That's good
, Casey thought. He hated young cops. Full of shit and testosterone. On the other hand, this one seemed to be stuck, wondering what to do next. Then he shrugged and walked back to his car. Casey kept watching the
trooper in the rearview mirror, but he spoke to Ruth quickly from the side of his mouth.

“Tell me now.”

“Tell you what?”

“Whatever it was that you were going to say before the cop got out of his car before.”

Ruth hesitated. Casey saw the trooper pick up his radio and start to speak into it. “He's stopped writing the ticket. What the fuck, Ruth? What's going on?”

“It's possible that my friend got them to look for me. Or maybe my secretary. Or both.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They are probably worried about my state of mind. I left without much warning. I left a voice mail back in Denver telling them I was okay, but maybe they didn't believe me.”

“And now they're going to think I kidnapped you or something.” A pain lit up in Casey's temple. He was clenching his jaw.

“Relax. I'll just tell them you're extorting money from me.”

Casey couldn't believe it. She was smiling at him. She was acting suddenly like this was a joke—or worse, like she didn't give a fuck what unfolded, just like she'd acted in the casino, laying all her credit cards out for the world to see. He rubbed his head between his hands. Suddenly the cop was back at his window.

“Miss Nolan, do you have anything that would identify you?”

“Is that really necessary?”

“Afraid it is, ma'am.”

Casey looked at Ruth. She seemed to think for a moment.

“Move the seat up, I need to get my briefcase,” she said to Casey. Casey felt the eyes of the trooper on him as Ruth reached behind the driver's seat. What was taking her so long?

“Here, will this do it?”

She held one of those plastic company ID cards with a photo on it and a lanyard, like the security guys at the casino wore. Her
company's name sounded familiar to him but he couldn't figure out why. RyCom Systems. Casey passed it to the trooper. “Would you mind taking off your sunglasses, please?”

“Why?”

“Then I would be absolutely sure the woman in this picture is you.”

“First, tell me who sent you and why, if we haven't broken any laws, I should put up with any of this,” Ruth said. The throbbing in Casey's temple intensified.

“We have a missing-person report. Don't see a lot of Jaguars. License plate matches up with the report.”

“Well, you found me. Your job is done.”

“You want to tell me how those bruises on your face got there?”

From the corner of his eye, Casey saw that the trooper was looking at him, not Ruth. He forced himself to stay still.

“No, I don't,” Ruth said.

She wasn't even looking at the guy. She was going to piss him off.

“It's okay, Ruth,” Casey said. He tried to make his voice sound gentle, the way he imagined a concerned friend or brother would sound. “Tell him about the accident.”

In response, Ruth whipped her glasses off and stared directly at the officer. Casey winced at her eye, still puffy, ocher and purple and black. He hoped like hell she would take his cue and make up something about an accident.

“I was nearly raped by a trucker. As it was, all he got was my wallet. This man helped me. Now we are traveling together.”

Casey felt his jaw go slack. He heard the cop let out a long breath.

“Did you file a report?”

“No. I had other things on my mind.”

“What kinds of things were those, ma'am?”

Casey glanced at her and shook his head. He wanted her to stop; she didn't owe this guy a thing. Ruth either didn't notice or decided to ignore him.

“My son.” Her voice sounded flat, hard.

“Ma'am?”

“I didn't want to bury him just to make a lot of other people feel better. That's why I left. They expected me to shut up and take his ashes out on a boat and throw them in the ocean. My son hated the ocean.”

Casey watched the trooper's face. He seemed to be searching for the right words. But before he said anything, Ruth started in again, her voice growing colder as she went on.

“Would you like proof of that, officer? Would you like to see the box that holds his ashes?” Ruth twisted again in her seat and brought forward the metal box. “Here it is. Would you like to see his duffel with his Marine uniform and the sand he hauled all the way back here from Iraq? Would you like, officer, to tell me the right way to handle the death of my kid? A few bruises don't come near it.”

The trooper winced. He put his glasses back on. For a moment no one said anything. Then the trooper cleared his throat.

“Look. I'm sorry.”

Ruth's shoulders slumped in a way that made Casey want to hit the cop. When she spoke, her voice was low.

“It's not your fault,” she said. Casey heard those words and remembered how he'd felt just a little while ago when he'd said them. He wished there were a way he could show her that he understood, but he didn't move. No one moved. The silence stretched until, finally, Ruth broke it.

“Tell me who filed the missing-person report. I'll call them right now, in front of you. If they agree that it is me, then you can let us go on our way, right?”

The trooper looked hard at Casey as if he were trying to make up his mind.

“Never mind,” Ruth said. She grabbed the phone from its spot on the console between the two front seats. She'd been charging it;
Casey had forgotten it was even there. A few seconds later, Ruth said, “Terri? It's me.”

Casey was at the mercy of Ruth and whoever was on the other end of the line. He looked straight ahead but felt the officer's stare on him while Ruth went on.

“I'm fine. Really.” She was trying to sound cool, businesslike, but from the corner of his eye, he saw Ruth look down at her lap where her left hand had clenched into a fist. Whatever Terri was saying, Ruth didn't like it.

“I know. I'm sorry I worried you. I told you in the voice mail, I just needed to get away for a little bit, to think things through. Nebraska. I know, I said . . . Terri, stop talking. Please. Just for a minute. You need to tell the officer here . . . what's your name, sir?” Ruth leaned past Casey to look at the man still standing outside the driver's-side window.
Sir
, that was a nice touch, Casey thought.

“Jennings. Sergeant Jennings.”

“Terri, tell Sergeant Jennings that I'm who I say I am.” A pause. “I don't have my license, it was in my wallet and . . . Just do it, please? We can talk about all this later.” Ruth reached past Casey and handed the phone to Jennings. “I would appreciate it,” she said in a low voice to the trooper, “if you would not dramatize the situation.”

Ruth put her sunglasses back on, covering her shiner.

“Jennings here, Nebraska State Police. Who am I speaking to?” He paused. “Would you please confirm that the woman you just spoke to is Ruth Nolan?” A pause, then. “Red hair, thin. Has an ID from your company. She informs me that her son has died recently. Yes. Thank you. Please hold on.” Jennings leaned down and talked through the window.

“What is your son's name, ma'am?”

“Robbie. Robert Nolan O'Connell.” Ruth turned her head toward the passenger window.

Jennings straightened. “That's all I need. Thank you.” He
handed the phone back to Ruth. He handed back the registration. “You are free to go, ma'am. You should get medical attention for those injuries.” Casey tensed as the trooper eyed him one more time. No doubt there was more he'd like to know about Ruth's story, but Casey figured that in the absence of charges or witnesses, there was not much the guy could do. Casey watched him walk back to his car.

Beside him, Ruth sighed and lifted the phone to her ear. “Injuries? Nothing serious. Can I call you later, Ter? Yes, of course. Tell Neal I'm fine. Tell him he can call off the dogs. Yes. Yes, I promise to call him. Yes, my family too.” Ruth sounded tired now and, to Casey's ear, abashed.

“He's a . . . friend. I'll explain later.” She paused. Casey saw from the way her jaw pulsed that she was hating every minute of this. “Thank you for handling the credit cards and all that. What? I don't know yet. Can you hold on to the new ones? I'll let you know where to mail them.”

A longer pause. Casey thought he heard a woman's voice, faint and rapid on the other end of the phone. Ruth broke in, gentler now but firm. “I've got to go now. I promise I'll . . . Yes. Ter?” She paused and glanced at him before lowering her voice. “I'm . . . I'm sorry for putting you through this. I never meant to . . . anyway. Thank you.” Casey saw her nod to whatever the woman on the other end said. “'Bye, Ter.” Then Ruth clicked a button on the phone and brought it down from her ear.

Casey stared at her. The back of his shirt was soaked with sweat. “If that guy could have, he would have hauled me in.”

“But he couldn't, so here you are.”

“Is Neal your boyfriend?”

“No. Sometimes. A friend . . .”

“And Terri? Who is she? What's RyCom?”

“I already told you Terri's my assistant. Was.” Ruth paused a moment. “She's a friend, too.”

RyCom. The name was familiar but he couldn't think of a single
reason why. He started to ask what the company did, but he noticed Ruth looking down at the box in her lap, smoothing the edge of the label with her son's name on it.

“You okay, Ruth?”

She glanced up but he couldn't see her eyes through the dark lenses. “I'm fine.” She turned and gently placed the box in the backseat, securing it by packing a couple of plastic bags around it. “I want to drive.”

“Are you out of your mind? Now they know you have no license. Forget it. We don't need to run that risk.”

“No one's going to stop us again. It's done now. Let me drive. I need to do something.”

Casey's head ached. It felt like a crab had seized a nerve in his neck. The desire to escape returned. Accommodating the needs of another person was something he'd forgotten how to do, if in fact he'd ever really learned it. He didn't have the first idea about what to do for Ruth and it made him feel deficient, the way he'd felt in the days after coming back from the Gulf, minus half a leg and the will to be anybody's good boy. He shook his head.

“Please.”

Damn it. She wasn't alone in the world; people were looking for her. Let them deal with her mess. Next stop, he'd figure out what to do. Maybe he could call her boyfriend to come get her. He'd have to get the name; the number was probably on her phone. If that didn't work, there was always the secretary. The thought calmed him. Some of his resistance gave way.