7

He looked up at us, mouth agape.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” He shook his head. “You two? All I wanted was a good Mexican standoff, and they had to send me rodeo clowns instead.”

Joel had already dropped his hand to his holster, so good at it that the Chief hadn’t noticed. In a heartbeat, he pulled out his .45 and lifted it, trained on the Chief’s chest. Center mass. Problem was, all the Chief had to do was hug his grandson a little closer, and Joel wouldn’t have a clear shot anymore.

“So, Chief, how’s it going?” I wasn’t the marksman that Joel was, but I’d always been a reasonable talker. Maybe I could diffuse this threat. Was it a bluff? Cowardice? Was he really willing to end his grandson’s life right here and now?

I cleared my throat. “Everything okay?”

A feeble laugh. He lifted the gun — those things weigh a ton, I tell you — and scratched his scalp with the barrel before letting it fall again. The grandson registered a little discomfort, eyes moving from TV to me to Joel. Wide, now. Then to his grandmother, standing behind me, arms crossed.

The Chief inched his face towards Joel, lifted his chin. “You should’ve listened to me. Should’ve sat this one out. But they figured out your talent. Killing people from far away. So now the golden boy has his own sniper, does he?”

“I’m standing right here in front of you, Chief. I’m not up in the woods.”

“I don’t care. They still sent you, didn’t they? I’ve heard all about it, but I thought he’d at least send Thorn. I’m due a little respect, but you two.” Head shake. “I’m not going out without taking all of you with me. Someone’s got to stand up to you. Fags and liberals, trying to drive the rest of us out to pasture. That dyke who took my job when I wasn’t ready to leave. You, Jahnke, practically a walking ad for new and gayer cops — useless, all of you. And Corporal, I had my eye on you. You could’ve held the front! Toss out all the … the … garbage!”

“I hear you.” Joel, steady. “Still hear you, boss.”

“Do you? Partnering up with whatever the fuck Manny is? Nearly killing an agent to protect him? And then, when he comes to you with, with, what, lies about me? And you roll right along? You don’t even try to hear my side! Not one peep from you!”

I took a step forward, my calm-down palms out, patting the air. “Chief, listen, we understand. You can still tell your side. It was an accident, wasn’t it? You panicked. We understand. Everyone will understand. You’re lucky you didn’t go into the lake either. Isn’t that right?”

Come on, Chief. Take the bait. Make this easy on everyone. I felt his wife behind me, heard her teeth chattering. She made me nervous. We didn’t need the distraction. What we needed was for the Chief to do what he did best: play politics.

What we got instead was an angry, puzzled expression, that and a tighter grip on his grandson. “The fuck? I thought you’d figured it out, Nancy Drew. Hannah, she was dead. Very dead when she went into the lake. I choked the life out of her myself. Bitch.”

Joel and I shared our own cop telepathy for a sec. Is he kidding us?

The kid’s hands stopped moving on the game control. I heard his character die onscreen.

“No, Chief, maybe you just remembered wrong. Think harder. It was an accident. You were both in mortal danger. You couldn’t save her. But we all know why you couldn’t come forward.”

I wondered how much his wife already knew. Wondered if she knew about the cottage barely a two-minute walk from here. Wondered if they had some sort of ‘agreement’ after having been married so long.

His grandson tried to scoot out from beneath the Chief’s arm, but the bastard hugged him back, the gun now pressing into the boy’s stomach. If he were to shoot, the kid would be wearing a colostomy bag for life, and that only if he got lucky and didn’t bleed out first.

The Chief cleared his throat, obviously getting rattled now. “I know exactly what I did. And don’t call me a faggot. She wasn’t like you, Manny. She wasn’t playing dress-up. I met Hannah as a woman. Dick, balls, didn’t matter. A woman, do you hear?” He turned to his wife. “I swear, nothing happened. Nothing. Don’t you understand? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Hey voice, icy. “I don’t care right now, if you’ll just let him go. He’s your boy. Just let him go.”

I wished I could have stopped her from saying it. It wasn’t what we needed him to focus on right now. He knew the kid was his bargaining chip. We needed to show him a new one. But now he leaned down to kiss his grandson’s head, lingered there close to his scalp. Squeezed his eyes closed.

“I feel so stupid saying it now, can’t believe I trusted him.” Strained. “But women like Hannah, they were victims of fate, trapped. A big cosmic mistake. But then, Hannah … if I’d known … I’d knew Hans. I liked Hans! I knew Andrew! How could he have let me believe …?”

“She,” I said. Instantly regretted it. No time for a pronoun lesson.

“What?”

“You said ‘he’. You meant ‘she.’”

He let the correction hang between us, unfinished, unanswered, but his face told the story. He’d been humiliated. Hannah comes along, sophisticated, mature, someone he wanted to spend more than a couple hours with. Someone who seemed to get him. The Chief had felt so comfortable around her, and then the revelation that part of her was still Hans, it was like a mask being pulled off. A practical joke.

I fell into his story, forgot about the other one we wanted to ‘plant’ in its place. “You planned it. It wasn’t the heat of the moment. This took time. Thought.”

“Malice, right? Malice aforethought.” He leaned closer to his grandson’s ear. “Remember that for your law school days, ‘malice aforethought’. I mean, if you make it to your law school days.”

“But grandad, I want to work in a zoo, with animals,” the kid said.

“That’s cute. Real cute. Just remember, though.” Neudecker turned back to me. “I’m a career cop. I’m not stupid. And I know that what goes into the Lake doesn’t often come out. Bonus for me, no one could come out and say that Hannah was missing. Hans, sure, but that had nothing to do with me. Even people who had an idea, like Raske, well … I never had to say a word to him, except when you started sniffing around.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment from a top cop.”

“Take it up your ass, for all I care. I made a mistake. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. But killing Hannah wasn’t one of them. No one’s life should be ruined for … that.”

He couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘love’.

Joel was slowly working his way to the right, away from me, for a clear shot. The Chief was too busy with me to notice. I was still hoping we could flip him, but this mess was getting dangerous. The grandson. The wife. A trannie. And his very own Anakin Skywalker in Joel, who hadn’t succumbed to the dark side after all.

“Chief,” I went on. Needed all his focus. All of it. “You’re not hearing me. You didn’t mean to. It was an accident. A drunken—”

“Don’t tell me what I did! I know that trick. I know all the tricks.” His gun barrel lifted, pointed my way. I steeled myself, or tried to. A man points a gun at you, you can’t help the way your muscles react, or the sound weeping from your mouth, or the speed your eyes blink, but I did the best I could.

Until his wife shouted over my shoulder, right in my ear, “You son of a bitch! You monster!” It became a moan, and she braced herself on my back. “Why? Why?”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, sweetie. Jesus. Calm down. Everyone calm down.” The Chief wiped his forehead with the back of the gun hand. A reflex, maybe. But both his grandson and I saw our chance. Our eyes met. I reached out, quickly, and he jumped off the couch before Neudecker could get his arm back around him. Instinctively I turned, shielded both the kid and his grandmother with my back to the Chief. I must’ve really trusted Joel to cover me.

Then again, I already knew I could trust him with my life.

I peeked over my shoulder.

Joel was right up on him now. Inches. Dead quiet, though. They were frozen in place. The wife began yelling through tears: “You son of a bitch! You freak! You monster!”

I began pushing her and the grandson towards the door. They didn’t need to see the Chief get manhandled, put on his stomach, cuffed up and dragged to the back of a squad car. “Let’s get some air, okay? Everyone take a deep breath.”

And so we did. Neudecker’s wife sank to the ground. The boy hugged his grandmother, stifled loud sobs into her back, arms wrapped around from behind. I shut the front door and leaned against it. The wind battered the three of us, instantly freezing my shirt to my skin. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been sweating. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. The iciness was refreshing. It numbed the fear as much as the heat, my ears pulsing, probably fire red.

So what if the Chief told the same story to the cops? At least he knew better than to pull Raske and the Senator into it. He was a smart man, like he’d told us. There was no reason for Neudecker to tell the truth, the whole truth, and all that, but if he told just enough of it, Raske and Marquette would catch on and make sure he ended up with the lightest sentence in the easiest minimum security prison, with the chance of beginning his life again once he was paroled, which he no doubt would be faster than I’d find a new job.

Tell them the accident story, well, it might be an even shorter stay. Someone could get to Neudecker behind bars. The Senator wanted him gone, and here we were trying to save him. But the Chief knew better than to follow our stupid plan. He was right about Joel and me. We weren’t very good at strategy, if only we’d sat and thought about it a little more …

I felt the shot before I heard it. The percussive thrum against my back, making me dive forward milliseconds ahead of the blast, the one that took my breath away.

The wife’s cry lit up the air, a swirl of seething hate and grief.

I turned. One hand on the doorknob, the other yanking my gun from its holster. I didn’t dare turn it. Refused to walk into my own death. “Get back, the other side of the car!”

They did, scuffling like crabs until they reached the shelter of our borrowed squad.

I took in a deep breath and wished I didn’t have to do this.

And, well, I didn’t have to.

The knob twisted in my hand without me moving a muscle, and just like that the door swung open. Joel standing there. His pistol hanging by his fingertips, and the Chief’s revolver shoved into the front of his waistband.

His face … angry is too light a word. Devastated not nearly strong enough. This was the edge, his expression. The knife edge between two emotions I hope none of you will ever have to feel this intently.

He stared at me, eyes as dead as the Chief. “Suicide.”

A peek behind him into the cabin, I could see the blood on the couch, the windows, the Chief’s fallen body.

Back to Joel. His eyes. Still nothing wavering there. No sign of what he’d just seen.

“Suicide?”

The wife had come out from behind the car at a full run. I caught her, held her back. She scratched at me, tried to maneuver around. I wouldn’t let her go. The boy stood behind the car. Blank.

Joel nodded. Once, slowly. “Yep. He was determined.”

Our cop telepathy wasn’t working anymore. It fizzled, just like that. I had no idea if he’d shot the Chief or not.

He wasn’t stupid, though. All the proof came back later — powder burns on the Chief’s hand, his prints on the Colt, one empty shell in the wheel, the proper angle — but still, I wondered. What had happened? Really?

That moment outside the cabin was when our already fragile partnership unraveled to the final thread. Of course I was going to back his story. Of course. But he knew I didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. The man had been toying with us. He’d already planned the whole show. The Chief would not have ended things by his own hand.

I said it again. “Suicide?”

Joel tightened his lips. He pulled out his phone and turned from me. “I’m going to get wheels rolling our way. Deal with these two.”

He walked away.

The Chief’s widow bit my arm, and I let go. She pushed back into the cottage, ran into the living room, and stopped shouting. Hands covering her mouth. I rubbed the spot where she’d bit me — no broken skin — and called out, “Don’t touch anything.”

Seemed more appropriate than “Sorry for your loss.”

Because I got a feeling all she’d lost was a heavy weight on her shoulders.

I closed the cottage door and sat on the front step.

The wind. I didn’t mind the wind. It felt like it was finally blowing what was left of Manny away. All he’d done, all he’d seen, all he’d felt. Manny felt like a character I’d been playing to get away from who I really was, and I’d played him well. But maybe I wouldn’t need him much longer. Maybe.

In the meantime, Manny had finished what he’d set out to do: find justice for Hannah.

Or had he?

Days later, I was sitting in the wind again. Spring wasn’t quite ready to overtake the North Shore, but we could all feel her breath in the air and hear her footsteps in the cracking ice on the Lake. I waited for her on the back deck of Hannah’s cottage … or should I say my cottage? Andrew had been true to his word. I could be myself here, as long as I put on my Manny costume for his campaign. Nothing against ‘Hannah’, but he didn’t want any confusion. Besides, I wasn’t ready for a public coming out party, not quite yet. In the meantime, I was free to sit on the deck and be me. Who I wanted to be; whoever that was. I had no need to constantly question myself. Just being me felt good enough.

To be honest, I was greedy when I made that deal with Andrew. Selfish. I thought I’d won a negotiation. But … what if I hadn’t won anything at all? Now I was beholden to him. It was in my best interests to defend him, champion him, make sacrifices for him.

It only struck me later that he might have more of a reason to take out Neudecker on the sly than ‘justice’ alone. After all, being Hannah’s brother, Marquette might have as much reason as Raske or the Chief to support the club financially. If it provided a safe place for Hannah, maybe it was worth the cost. In that case, Neudecker hadn’t been nearly as big a threat to the Marquette empire as Joel and me.

How does a political mover-and-shaker like the Senator handle his political enemies? By hiring them. By keeping them close.

Shit. Maybe the trap set for Joel wasn’t the real one. Maybe I was the one who stepped in, grabbed the cheese, and got my neck snapped, even though it felt like victory.

Not much to do about it now. Not with a cottage like this, a rich man’s townhouse in the Cities, and a job better than any I’d ever had.

Joel and I hadn’t spoken much since the ‘suicide’. I’d gotten him the job with Marquette, but we probably wouldn’t be working together that much, if at all. Not that either of us wanted to. I had the distinct impression that we’d gone as far as we could go together.

The final thread, snapped.

I knew he was in deeper with Robin, more drama and more desperation keeping them together. He hadn’t moved in with her yet, but he spent most of his nights there, only returning home when they boiled over.

Paula was back to her old self, and had been to see me at the cottage a couple of times. While she hadn’t flat out told me, I could tell the idea of me asking to be called ‘Hannah’ freaked her out a bit. I don’t know why I felt compelled to do it. That one night in her skin, pretending to be her, it just felt like Hannah’s work was unfinished.

She had more to teach me. I hoped everyone would come around, eventually. But if not, fuck ‘em.

As far as I knew, Titus was keeping himself close to home. His father’s secret was still safe. I considered that a victory, not so much for Raske as for the women he was protecting. The only good thing about that asshole.

So yes, there I was, in a soft dress, shaved all over, my wigged head in one hand, a cup of hot tea in the other, as I gazed across the Lake. I would never forget what happened in the Chief’s cottage, but the Lake helped keep it quiet, as quiet as its many other ghosts. What went in never came out.

But don’t mistake this for a happy ending. Don’t mistake this for an ending at all. In a few minutes, the phone was going to ring. The new campaign manager would call and give me my marching orders. And no, they wouldn’t have much to do with tweeting the Senator’s election sound bites. How could I be sure of that, you ask? Well, let’s just say a little birdy told me. Mr. Marquette had bigger plans for Manny, and I had bigger plans for Hannah. Oh yes, it was going to be a busy election year in the Twin Cities.

You want to know more? I’m glad to hear that. But let me finish my drink first and welcome you to my world, everyone. Nice to meet you.

My name was Manny.

My name is Hannah.

You don’t know the real me. But if you stick around, you soon will.