RandomActNEWpub

by Random Act (retail) (epub)

  The outfit from the store.

  “Like I said, I figured somebody would show up.”

  “I’d love copies of any of this,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “From what I saw on TV, he’s not getting out anytime soon.”

  “Probably not. Cops been in?”

  “No, you’re the first. But I’m telling you what I’ll tell them.”

  The guy motioned to the walls, the covers, then pointed to the picture of Hakata with his ax.

  “You know what they’re doing in all of these?” Reggie said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Superheroes save people. Cities. Whole planets. They don’t hurt anybody, unless that being is evil. There’s a strict code of conduct. Morals.”

  “Teak thought Lindy Hines wasn’t really Lindy Hines?”

  “It’s the only explanation I can think of. I mean, when Teak is feeling okay, he’d help an old lady cross the street. He’d carry somebody’s groceries to the car.”

  I nodded, wrote that down.

  “Funny thing is, he’d come in here, me stuck behind this counter, captive audience. You get to know a guy. Between us, it really kills him, being sick. Being on the street, not being able to support his family.”

  “Yeah. I met some of them.”

  “Down East. Fishermen, right?”

  “His dad was a lobsterman.”

  “Right. Well, I’m no shrink, but I think that’s what Teak’s all about. When Teak’s down, he feels like he’s failed his kid, his mom and dad and brother, his girlfriend. Tears him up.”

  “He told you this.”

  “Right. So he’d have to be really off his rocker to kill somebody like that. I mean, way beyond anything I ever saw. He’d come in, talking about Hakata—how he’d been to his castle and Hakata had given him his orders. I mean, Okay, Teak. Whatever you say.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Another thing,” Reggie said.

  He tapped the counter with his forefinger.

  “Teak or Hakata—they wouldn’t hit somebody from behind. They’d challenge them, face-to-face. Mano a mano.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “All this stuff is very chivalric. Honor is very important. Integrity.”

  “Got it.”

  “So if Teak thought somebody was really sent here to do evil, he’d say it to their face. Challenge them to battle. The Teak I know wouldn’t sucker-punch anybody. No way.”

  “Or ax them from behind.”

  “Can’t believe it. I mean, he has a tattoo. W-W-H-D. And a question mark. It’s on the inside of his left arm, up high.”

  “What would—?”

  “Hakata do. Thing is, if it was an evil god inside her body, he’d challenge it to do battle and defeat it. Hakata, and Teak, they don’t need to sneak up on anybody. It’s beneath them.”

  The door rattled open and the bell jingled. I looked over my shoulder and saw a young guy start to sift through the stacks in a bin. I turned back.

  “How much is this pile here?”

  “These aren’t much. All beat-up. How ’bout thirty bucks.”

  “How ’bout a few pages of Hakata? Including the cover.”

  He considered it.

  “Will I get them back?”

  “Sure.”

  After the story was out and nobody else had it. The cover was gold.

  “Then how ’bout another fifty, like a deposit.”

  “Deal,” I said. I took bills out of my pocket, handed them over. He took a roll of cash out of his pocket, added mine.

  I turned to the door, the papers under my arm, then turned back.

  “What’s Hakata mean anyway?” I said. “In Finnish. Someone told me it was ‘ax.’ ”

  “Close but not quite. It means ‘hack,’ ” he said. “Like it sounds. Hacking away at something.”

  “This was just one big swing.”

  “And Teak is one strong son of a bitch,” Reggie said. “That lady, she didn’t have a chance.”

  “No,” I said. “Not a fair fight. Not a fight at all.”

  27

  k

  The hearing was at the Penobscot County Judicial Center, a new complex downtown on Exchange Street a couple of blocks from the river. I parked and went in the front doors, stopped for the deputy just inside. I told her who I was and what I was there for. She directed me to the courtroom on the second floor, and I proceeded through the metal detector, waited while other deputies gave me the electronic pat-down. The corridor outside the courtroom was filled with cops and lawyers and family members hoping to bail somebody, or at least wave from the front row.

  I stood and surveyed the group, listened to their murmuring. There were stories here, I knew, but I was only after one. I walked inside, asked a court deputy, an older man with a hearing aid, if the hearing for Teak Barney was still on. He said it was, as far as he knew. I asked if Teak would appear or be arraigned by video, and the deputy gave me an inspecting look and then a shrug that said he knew but wouldn’t say. I turned away.

  The courtroom was all blond wood and blue carpet. The seats were partly filled, tattered people waiting to find a way out of some sort of scrape. Fancy building, same scuffed-up lives.

  I found a seat in the front row, settled in. An assistant district attorney, a young guy in a tight dark suit, was reciting the charges against a scraggly-haired kid in an orange jumpsuit. Aggravated DWI, failure to stop for a police officer, driving to endanger, driving after suspension, speeding thirty over.

  All a good idea at the time.

  The judge, a brisk woman with silver hair and an efficient manner, set bail at $1,000 cash, which might as well have been a million. The deputy led the kid away and a bailiff came over to the bench and bent down and whispered something to the judge. She said, “Okay,” and the ADA picked up her folders and made way for a woman in a gray suit.

  I figured her for an assistant attorney general up from Augusta, called in for the homicide. Her name was Wagner: fifty, blonde hair, horn-rimmed glasses, all business. When she turned to the rear of the court, I did, too, saw Bates and Tingley, both in their courtroom outfits: gray slacks, blue blazers, blue shirts. They walked up to the front of the room and stepped through the gate, took their place by the prosecutor.

  They were followed by the defense lawyer for the day, a schlumpy-looking guy wearing a tan sport coat, a black shirt, and purple floral tie. Maybe it was a look. Maybe he was color-blind. Maybe the judge would feel sorry for him and cut Teak a deal.

  He put a briefcase on the defense desk, took a folder from the briefcase. The judge nodded to the bailiff, who nodded to the deputy, who opened a blue door to the far right of the bench.

  And Teak stepped in.

  He was wearing an orange jumpsuit. His hands were cuffed to a belt around his waist and shackles jingled at his ankles. There were deputies on either side of him. He looked around the room and smiled.

  It was a benevolent sort of gaze, like a king surveying his assembled subjects from the balcony of his castle. The deputies gave a pull and led him to the defense desk, where the schlumpy lawyer nodded and pointed to the place beside him. Teak stood at attention and smiled at the judge.

  A deputy said “All rise,” and I heard a rustle behind me as the group reluctantly stood.

  “Are we ready?” the judge asked the lawyers.

  “I am ready, m’lady,” Teak said. And smiled.

  The judge glanced at him, said, “Good, Mr. Barney. Then let’s begin by reading the charge, the reason you’re here.”

  She picked up an open folder and said. “Mr. Barney, you are charged with homicide, namely causing the death of one Lindy Hines, on Dec. 6, in the city of—”

  “That was the name she had taken here on your planet but she was not
of Earth, m’lady,” Teak said. He spoke in a radio voice with a sort of ye olde English accent, like somebody in an old movie about knights and damsels.

  “Mr. Barney, you will have an opportunity to speak but—” the judge said.

  “She was sent here by Perkele. He turned her into a piru, m’lady. A demon. The piru, they can take over the body of a mere mortal person. Like it’s nothing. You don’t know, m’lady, the piru, they’re walking the streets of your cities and towns. They’re like invisible to you because—”

  The defense lawyer leaned over and grabbed Teak by the arm, muttered, “Not now.”

  “Mr. Barney,” the judge said, louder but still in control. “You will have a chance to present your side of this. Now is not the time, sir.”

  “I’m sorry, m’lady,” Teak said. “I do not know all of your earthly rules. When Ukko asked me to help him, he said there would be times when I would be tangled up in earthling customs. I understand.”

  There was a twitter of laughter in the courtroom. Somebody behind me said, “He’s fucking whacked.”

  “Mr. Graves,” the judge said, “please control your client, or we’ll have to do this by video.”

  The lawyer leaned closer to Teak and whispered something. Teak nodded, then looked back to the judge.

  “You remind me of Ku, m’lady. The goddess of the moon.”

  There was louder laughter. Teak smiled, shook his head. “If they knew Ku,” he said, “they would not laugh easily. She can summon Akka and she has unlimited power.”

  The judge slammed her gavel down, said, “That’s it, sir. It’s your turn to listen. Can you do that?”

  Teak made a broad sweeping bow, like one of the Three Musketeers.

  “Yes, m’lady. I’ll listen. It could be interesting, the goings-on in your humble court.”

  The gavel slammed down again and the judge said, “Last warning, Mr. Barney. If you can’t sit down and shut up, we’ll do this by video from the jail.”

  Teak gave the regal smile again, looked around the courtroom, then raised his arms until the chains at his waist stopped him. “Remember,” he said. “Gods walk among us.”

  People snickered and giggled.

  I quickly scribbled on a piece of notebook paper, ground the pen into the lines over and over. Teak was turning to see the back of the courtroom and the deputies moved a step closer. As he started to turn back to the judge, I held up my notebook. He stopped short, looked at the notebook, then at me.

  “Hakata,” he said, reading the name.

  Then he nodded, gave me some sort of salute, a clenched fist held out to the side. The judge looked my way just as I slipped the notebook back onto my lap.

  “We will meet again, my friend,” Teak said, in a deep, wise voice.

  “Mr. Barney,” the judge said. “If you could give us just some of your attention.”

  He turned to her. The lawyers stood and waited, glancing at Teak, waiting for the next eruption. The judge started again, reading the part about Teak causing Lindy Hines’s death. Teak nodded, like the judge had it about right. She asked the lawyers if they had anything to say, and Graves said he hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to his client.Wagner, the prosecutor, said the State had nothing more. Teak smiled at her, too.

  The judge said Mr. Barney would be held without bail. He nodded gratefully, like she’d conferred an honor, said, “Very wise, m’lady.”

  She took a quick exasperated breath, then asked Teak if he understood, and he said, “Yes, m’lady. And I thank you for your hospitality. When someone visited from another galaxy or dimension, Ukko always—”

  She pounded the gavel as the deputies swooped in, pulled Teak out from behind the table, and started leading him toward the blue door. Halfway there, he turned, searched for me in the crowd, and our eyes met.

  And then he was gone.

  I felt a tap on my back.

  Tingley.

  “McMorrow,” he said. “The lobby.”

  He turned and I followed, eyed by defendants and their lawyers, the ones in jackets and ties. When I pushed through the door, he and Bates were standing off to the side. They glared. I walked over to them, holding my notebook.

  Tingley said, “What the fuck?”

  “I don’t think they allow that sort of language here,” I said. “Not from the cops.”

  “Frig that,” Tingley said. “If I want to—”

  “What did you say to him?” Bates said.

  “None of your business,” I said.

  “It’s my business if you’re tampering with the defendant in a homicide,” she said.

  “I think he’s pretty tamper-proof.”

  “You could tamper yourself all the way to a jail cell, McMorrow,” Tingley said.

  “I’m just trying to figure the guy out.”

  “What’d you say?” Bates said.

  “Just let him know I want to talk to him.”

  “Wait for the trial,” Bates said.

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  “Guy’s whacked, kills somebody in cold blood in front of twenty witnesses,” Bates said. “I don’t see much to talk about.”

  “Why you’re a detective and not an editor.”

  “We’d prefer that this trial not be moved because of some inflammatory jailhouse interview,” Tingley said.

  “Not my problem,” I said. “With all due respect.”

  “It will be your problem, if the judge—”

  He paused and pulled his radio out of a holder on his belt. Tingley did, too. They held them up to their ears.

  “Holy shit,” Tingley said.

  “My God,” Bates said. “The son?”

  “Whose son?” I said.

  “Damn,” Tingley said.

  They wheeled around and started for the door in that accelerating lumber that cops have when they’re in a big hurry but don’t want anyone to know. I was right behind them, out the door, across the parking lot, and onto the street. They had blue lights flashing.

  I stayed with them through the downtown, weaving through traffic, running red lights.

  All the way to Orrington.

  28

  k

  There were three sheriff’s cruisers out front, crime-scene tape across the entire front yard of the house. An ambulance idled behind the cruisers and cops milled around the front door. The door was open and I could see Barrett Hines body on the floor, at least his feet.

  Bates and Tingley went under the tape but a deputy stopped me. I asked her if the S.O. did homicides and she said no, state police. But S.O. had secured the scene. “How did it come in?” I said.

  She hesitated.

  She looked around.

  “I know Barrett,” I said.

  “Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me.”

  “Right.”

  “And it isn’t pretty.”

  “Gunshot?”

  She said, “I can’t talk to the press.”

  I smiled, said I understood. I didn’t go away.

  “This is horrible,” I said. “His mom was the one—”

  “I know,” the deputy said.

  “What, somebody knocked on the front door, when he opened it they popped him?”

  The cop looked around.

  “Listen, it all has to come from somebody way above my pay grade.”

  And then she looked around one more time, turned back to me and stabbed her chest with a forefinger.

  “My God,” I said. “Tell them I think I know what it might have been about.”

  She looked at me.

  “What’s your name?”

  I told her.

  “Will they know who you are?” the deputy said.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “We go way back.”

  “Stay right
here,” she said, as if that would be a problem.

  I stood in the cold, joined by the reporter from the Riverport Broadcast. His name was Trevor something, the same guy from the Home Department scene. He said he had an in with the local cops.

  “They give me the releases first,” he said. “Doesn’t that piss the TV guys off.” He grinned, very pleased with himself.

  I looked at Barrett’s feet, the dutiful son, dead on the floor. Why was this guy grinning? Trying to be tough?

  Trevor asked who I wrote for and I told him. He looked at me with a knowing smile, like I’d slept my way to the top. He said, “That’s a sweet gig. How could I get to write for the New York Times?”

  I looked back at him, made sure he was looking me in the eye. “Die and come back to life as a reporter,” I said.

  He waited for me to smile, but I didn’t. We were standing in an awkward silence when Tingley came over, ignored Trevor, and, with a jerk of his head, led me away.

  We stood by his car amid the flashing lights, radio chatter, and idling motors. Steam billowed up from car exhaust and it had started to snow, fine flakes falling straight down like frozen drizzle. Tingley wiped snow from his glasses, then said, “Get in.”

  He sat in the driver’s seat. After he cleared away some papers and an iPad, I sat beside him. The car was hot as a sauna, and he said, “Jesus Christ,” and flipped the heat and fan off. Wiped his glasses again and put them back on. Looked at me and said, “What?”

  “Barrett Hines,” I said.

  “What about him, other than he’s dead?” Tingley said.

  “You know he blamed his stepdad for his mom’s murder.”

  “Yeah, you told us that. Seemed like a reach.”

  “Well, he told me later that his mom knew of some shady financial stuff involving his dad’s business. He said Rod made Lindy cheat on taxes, that sort of thing.”

  “Huh,” Tingley said.

  “He said, ‘I have something on him.’ Words to that effect.”

  “You’re saying the stepdad, the guy with the construction company, could have driven over here and stabbed his own stepson in the chest? He goes down and the stepdad gives him another one in the neck?”