Free Bone Key by Les Standiford Page B

attack. A deputy had locked the door behind Malloy, but was probably at the watch just outside, Deal thought.
    “If you asked the arresting officers,” he said to Rusty finally, “they’d probably tell you I bumped my head getting into the back of the cruiser.”
    “Is that what happened?” Rusty persisted.
    Deal wondered which shrug of Driscoll’s to use. “In a manner of speaking,” he said. He could have added that one of the deputies was holding him by the hair at the time, and that he’d somehow “bumped” into the top of the door frame two or three times while being ushered into the cruiser, but he didn’t see the point. Russell Straight and the poor kid they’d tried to help had fared far worse, that much Deal was sure of.
    “Assault on a police officer, interference with an officer during the performance of his duty, resisting arrest…” Malloy shook his head. “They’ve got a pretty long laundry list, Johnny.”
    “What were we supposed to do, let him kill that poor kid?”
    Malloy shrugged. “Officer Conrad says that ‘poor kid’ came after him with a knife—”
    “Bullshit,” Deal said. Still, a little worm of doubt had crept into his brain.
Had
there been a knife? What if he and Russell had just been too far away to see it? Still, there hadn’t been any knife in the kid’s hand by the time he and Russell had made it to the scene. The deputy had been about to kick the kid to death, he was certain of that much.
    “The kid’s a known offender—drug dealing, petty theft, public intoxication…” Malloy ticked the charges off as if they were simply the tip of a large iceberg. “He was driving without a license, with expired plates, maybe the car was stolen, too. The cops are still trying to run the VIN down.”
    “Expired plates? That a capital offense down here?”
    “Forget that little grifter,” Malloy said, waving his hand impatiently. “You’ve got plenty of problems of your own.”
    “How’s Russell?” Deal said sullenly. “I expect he bumped his head a few times, too.”
    “Russell’s fine,” Malloy said, nodding over his shoulder. “They’ve got him in a holding cell down the hall. I spoke to him briefly, told him to keep his mouth shut until we had a chance to talk.”
    “Russell’s done time,” Deal said. “You don’t need to tell him how to behave.”
    “He’s a convicted felon?” Malloy said, staring in disbelief. “What else do I need to know?”
    “That we did exactly what anybody else would have done,” Deal said. “That asshole cop was ready to kill that kid. All we did was stop him.”
    “That’s not the way Deputy Conrad puts it,” Malloy said.
    “He was ready to blow Russell away, too,” Deal said. “I kicked his gun away just in time.”
    “Conrad says he drew his gun and ordered Russell to cease and desist. That’s when you blindsided him.”
    “Like hell,” Deal said. “Did he tell you I had a knife, too? Or maybe it was a two-headed axe I came after him with.”
    “They did find a knife on your person, John.”
    Deal stared at Malloy in disbelief. “My Swiss Army knife?” he asked, incredulous. “The one with the two inch blade, the tweezers, and the nail file?”
    Malloy shrugged. “No one’s making a big thing about your Swiss Army knife,” he said. “I’m just trying to make a point.”
    “Look,” Deal said, “I appreciate your coming down here, Rusty, but maybe I need to talk to somebody who’s on my side.”
    “I
am
on your side,” Malloy said testily. “I just want to be sure I understand exactly what happened out there. If you expect me to help, I need the facts.”
    Deal took a deep breath. “Maybe Russell got a little excited,” he told Malloy, “but if you’d been there, you’d have probably done the same.”
    “I doubt it,” Malloy said. “I might have
said
something, but assault is hardly my style—”
    “It wasn’t the time for conversation,” Deal said. “Russell tackled him just as he