Taggart
Taggart rarely spent time in the woods—out in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t get the attraction. If it wasn’t hotter than hell, with the gnats and mosquitoes going after your face, sweat rolling in your eyes, pollen, and God knows what else being sucked into your lungs, it was cold and too damn quiet. Quiet was the worst. Nothing to block out the constant tug-of-war between guilt and cravings that waged in his head every single day. Noise and chaos helped keep it at bay.
Taggart was a city guy. Maybe Towanda wasn’t exactly a big city like Philly, but it was big enough, and Binghamton was only an hour away and had more going on. Give him the traffic, the aggressive drivers, the steady drone of horns and music, and people screaming any day of the week. The call of ambulance sirens and helicopters was white noise to him and made him sleep like a baby. He’d gone camping with his father when he was ten and hated every second of it. Cooking hot dogs over the fire and sleeping in a tent didn’t hold any charm for him. The incessant call of the katydids filling his ears was memorable, as was the sound of his father snoring a few inches away from his sleeping bag that smelled like a raccoon had taken a crap in it. Taggart had never been in such close physical proximity to his father for so long before. His father’s breath stank of beer and cheap hot dogs. It was awful. And those memories were what now represented the great outdoors for him—nothing great about it. That was the last time he was deep in the woods. He had hoped it would be his last.
But now, here again, surrounded by nothing except trees and snow up to his ass, Taggart was reminded of the horrible silence. A few birds were singing, but even they didn’t sound all that happy to be there. God, he really hated the quiet.
If I weren’t drunk, I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. I would have confronted the man. Looked him in the eye to see if he was a real threat.
Taggart glanced to his right and caught a glimpse of the sheriff working his way through the trees fifty yards off. The sheriff had instructed him to make sure to maintain visual contact. If they got separated, the sheriff said that he would have to send out another search party just to find Taggart. He imagined the sheriff got a little thrill out of demonstrating his prowess in all things woods.
He and the sheriff had driven a few miles out of town to a spot where the sheriff thought they might find the suspect. The sheriff had said it was only a few miles away, but it took them twenty minutes of riding in uncomfortable silence up and down so many rambling dirt roads that Taggart had no clue where in the hell they were.
Taggart checked his watch again. It was a little after seven and they had only been out here for an hour, but it felt like it had been at least eight. He had sweated out a lot of the alcohol from his system and was feeling slightly more clearheaded.
You killed him, Bill. His daughter was murdered, and you made the poor man’s wife a widow.
Sobriety was letting the raw truth filter in more, and Taggart could hardly stand it. The truth about his entire fucked-up life started seeping out of his brain that he had worked so hard to numb and silence. He hadn’t felt anything in a long time except self-loathing. And there was plenty of that nowadays. He was a piece of shit, exactly like his old man told him he was.
Okay. Just take a breath, Bill. It’s going to be okay. This mess will sort itself out somehow.
He wiped a thin layer of sticky sweat from his forehead and rubbed it between his fingers. He felt like hell and wanted to crawl out of his skin.
You stupid idiot. You stupid goddamn idiot. You’re never going to change. You’re going to keep screwing it up and bring Shannon and the girls down with you.
He couldn’t take it anymore. Being in between drunk and sober was the worst. He couldn’t shut off his inner voice. It came in loud and clear and bared the naked truth that was just too brutal to handle.
Screw it.
He reached into his pocket and grabbed both of the flasks he knew he would eventually be going for. Starsky and Hutch. What a team they made. Starsky felt about half full. Hutch was running low to empty. A little bit swished around inside. That should do the trick for now. Starsky would be for later. Should be plenty to get him out of this day.
Taggart looked back toward the sheriff and saw the old man moving through the trees at a pretty good clip. Taggart ducked behind a large tree, uncapped the flask, and took a hard pull. The instant burn in his stomach was a welcome friend.
He took another pull.
Okay. Just stabilize. You’ll get through this.
And another pull.
Think about it. The sheriff said so himself. You did the right thing. You saw a situation with an officer in jeopardy and you reacted. That is what you were trained to do.
His stomach glowed, and his brain anxiously waited its turn.
Stay the course here. Track down this son of a bitch and get the hell out of this cow pasture of a town.
Taggart found himself smiling a little. His buzz was coming back.
There we go. One more nip for good measure.
He drank a little more and screwed the cap back onto the flask. He stepped out from behind the tree and took a deep inhale of the country air.
Not so bad after all. Let’s do this thing.
He looked to his right but didn’t see the sheriff. The forest was both still and quiet.
A moment of fear crept up from his stomach.
Shit.
He could feel his buzz intensify. He had a good one coming on. He looked to where he thought the sheriff was last walking.
Screw it.
He started walking. Not knowing where the sheriff was or whether he himself was going in the right direction. And not really caring. He felt something growing deep inside him. A growing anger, a growing rage toward Danny Bedford. It was all because of this Danny Bedford that he was in hot water. Danny Bedford was responsible for this—not him. Rage was burning. Rage he could deal with. He fed off it, in fact. Taggart was going to make the guy pay for the shit he was causing. He was going to make him pay in full.
