I was professional, most of the time. I hit submit, was watching the whirling ball when I heard Sophie bounce out of bed, then her footsteps on the stairs. She came into the study, leaned against me.
“I heard you typing,” she said.
“Lots of work to do,” I said.
“Like what?”
Figuring out whether the nice lady in our kitchen was the killer or the killee. Getting inside the head of an ax murderer. Hoping to make sense of it so I could sleep at night.
“Just stories,” I said. “Let’s go to bed.”
The jail was part of a compound of county offices on Hammond Street, just down the road from Lindy Hines’s condo. I made a loop up to the library and back, looked at Lindy’s windows overlooking the stream. The slider was papered over with cardboard. I wondered if the lovesick super had cleaned up the mess.
A trail of tragedy, and I needed to finally talk to the guy who had started it all.
The public entrance was on the ground floor, a gabled doorway with the stone and brick jail on top of it. I parked and walked over, notebook conspicuously in one hand, ID in the other. The door opened to what was an empty foyer with one-way glass on the far end, a buzzer button beside it. I walked up, knowing there was a corrections officer on the other side, and pushed the button. The speaker hissed and a man said, in that neutral cop tone that is somewhere between polite and threatening, “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to see Teak Barney.”
“Visiting hours are . . .” He recited the days and times, said, “You can find the visitation procedure on our website.”
“I’ve read it,” I said. “I’m a professional visitor. I sent in a request.”
“You a lawyer?”
“A reporter. Jack McMorrow. New York Times.”
The speaker went silent.
I waited. Flashed a smile for the invisible guy behind the glass. Waited some more. The door rattled and an inmate came out. He was wearing jail-orange and carrying a black trash bag. He looked at me and said, “You have to push the button.”
A trusty. He was mid-twenties and slight, hair in a ponytail, missing a front tooth.
“Thanks,” I said.
“They helping you?”
“I think so,” I said.
He pulled out the bag from the trash can. Coffee must have spilled, because the odor filled the room. He put the new bag in. I turned away from the microphone and said, “You know Teak Barney?”
The guy looked at me, startled, then wary.
“A little.”
“How’s he doing?”
“You family?”
“No,” I said.
He waited for more but I didn’t offer. Then he glanced at the window, turned his back to it, and said softly, “He’s doing fine, except he’s batshit crazy.”
“Making sense?”
“To himself,” the guy said, and then he went to the speaker, pushed the button. The metal door buzzed and he pulled it open.
I said, “You see Teak, tell him a friend of Hakata is here.”
He nodded and stepped through the door. It clanged shut the way jail doors always do.
I stepped back to my place in front of the window. Waited. Rocked on my heels and forward onto the balls of my feet. I was about to start whistling when the door rattled open and a woman in a brown uniform stepped out. She turned to me and put her hands on her belt.
“Captain Townsend,” she said.
“Jack McMorrow,” I said.
She was fortyish, with short sandy hair, a square jaw. Her blue eyes didn’t seem to blink, and in a place where sun didn’t shine, she was incongruously tanned.
“You’re from the press.”
“That’s right.” I held up my notebook. She pointed to my other hand, the one holding the ID. I handed it over: driver’s license and Times credential. She looked at the photos on both and then at my face.
“You want to see Teak Barney.”
“That’s right. I saw him in court and I need to follow up. I sent in the request from your website.”
“We don’t process those every day,” Captain Townsend said. “Besides, I don’t know if that’s possible. I don’t know you. New York Times? Buncha made-up bullshit.”
“I understand. But a question for you: Is Mr. Barney in the medical unit? Incapacitated? If not, if he’s just incarcerated; you can’t hold him incommunicado. If he wants to see me, it has to be permitted.”
The jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed.
“According to who?”
“The law. I’m sure you’re vaguely familiar with it.”
“What if I don’t see it that way?”
“I hope you do. But if you don’t, then the Times gets a fancy lawyer, I see him anyway, and I write in my story that jail administrators tried unsuccessfully to violate his civil rights. And I look into whether that’s standard practice at this correctional facility.”
I smiled.
She looked at my ID again, running through the scenario. Her name in the newspaper. The whole thing possibly blowing up, ACLU and every other pinko outfit jumping in. When all she had was another year and then out, that double-wide waiting in the park in Zephyr Hills, Florida.
“What makes you think he’ll want to see you?”
“He will,” I said. “Guaranteed.”
She looked at me, then took a deep breath. Her name tag rose and fell and then she said, “Wait here. It may be a while.”
“I have time,” I said. “I appreciate your help.”
Captain Townsend put her hand on the door and it buzzed and she went back inside, the door snapping shut behind her.
There was a bench along the wall and I went and sat down. Opened my notebook and started writing out my questions for Teak. They were all in my head, but I wanted to let the people behind the glass know I considered the interview a foregone conclusion.
Why Lindy Hines?
Had you seen her before?
Do you regret killing her?
What made you do this? Why then? Why there?
What role does Hakata play in your life?
What about your family? Were you worried this would hurt them?
Do they understand comics? Hakata?
Are you getting meds in jail?
Had you taken your meds in the days leading up to the killing?
Do you get your meds at the shelter?
Harriet says you’re a good guy. Do you think that’s true? Are you still?
You could get forty years for this. Was it worth it?
Did you know Lindy Hines had a son? Did you know he was killed too?
The outside door opened and a guy came in carrying a carton. He looked at me and nodded and stepped up to the window and pushed the button. The same jailer answered. The guy said he had books to donate to the jail library. The jailer told him to leave them on the floor by the bench.
The guy did, dumping the carton on the tile with a thud. Reminded me of Arthur and Dolph and the boxes at the shelter. Then the guy left. I looked down at the titles. Paperbacks, murder mysteries. The one thing this murder wasn’t, unless it was the mystery of the human brain.
I waited. Scrawled some more—Marta and Barrett, lists of unanswered questions. Why Barrett? Did he really have something on Rod? Enough to kill for? If Marta was dead, was that the end of the story? What if they never could prove it either way?
I folded the notebook closed. Got up and read the notices on the board beside me. AA. Narcotics Anonymous. How to put money on an inmate’s account. (Bring cash.) A four-day waiting period for inmates transferred in. Children under five on a visitor’s lap didn’t count toward the two-person limit.
I wondered if Tawny would ever bring their son in, if little T. K. would ever meet his dad, the g
uy who killed the lady with the—
The door banged open. The captain stepped out, holding a clipboard. She dropped it on the counter. I stepped up and filled in my name and address, the date and time. She jerked her head toward the door and said, “This way.”
I followed her down a beige-walled corridor, took a left and a right. Townsend coded through another metal door and a corrections deputy met us—young, high-and-tight cop haircut, very bulked up. There was another turn and another door. That led to a cubicle of a room with a chair, a counter, and a Plexiglas window looking into an identical cubicle. There was a phone on the wall to the left of the chair.
“Non-contact?” I said.
“Don’t push it,” Townsend said.
She said she’d see me when I was done. The thick-necked deputy said he’d be on the other side of the door, that I was to knock when I was ready to go. He slammed the door and there was a moment when the metallic clang echoed. And then there was silence.
I sat.
Took out my notebook and pen.
Waited.
33
k
One minute. Two. All the way to five when I heard voices from the other side. And then the opposite door opened and a deputy held it and Teak stepped in. The deputy exited and the door closed.
Teak stood with his arms folded across his chest, his legs slightly apart. His long hair was pushed back so it fell behind his ears and onto the shoulders of his orange jumpsuit.
He looked at me, an intense stare like a cat in a cage. Stepped to the counter and sat.
He reached for his phone receiver and I did the same. His brown eyes were open wide and unblinking.
“You know Hakata, my friend?”
It was the voice from the courtroom, deep and knowing, a benevolent king speaking to a vassal. I touched the record button on my phone, held it to the receiver.
“I know of him,” I said.
“And your name on this planet?”
“Jack McMorrow. I’m a reporter.”
“Yes. I was informed of this by my keepers. Who has sent you to me?”
I thought for a second.
“My editors in New York.”
He smiled. “Ah. New York. I have known it.”
I doubted that Teak had been as far as New Hampshire, except in his head.
“How are you doing in here, Teak?” I said. “Are you being treated okay?”
Small talk to warm up, except he got right to the point.
“It is good,” he said. “Ukko has a plan. I will stay until he dispatches me again.”
“I see. And you await your orders?”
“I do his bidding,” Teak said.
“Did Ukko send you to Home Department?”
He flinched, just in the eyes. Recovered and gave me the patronizing smile.
“He cannot be everywhere. There was something that needed to be done and I was summoned.”
“Killing Lindy Hines?”
He gave a snort.
“Alas, he had assumed the poor woman’s form, absorbing her life energy. He had been to Tuonela, land of the dead, and the evil ones had divulged the secret of transformation.”
“Who?” I said. “Who had assumed the form of Lindy Hines?”
“Perkele,” Teak said. “The devil god.”
“When you killed Lindy Hines, did you kill Perkele as well?”
“Perkele was forced to flee the woman’s body and retreat. He will return. It is only a matter of time.”
He looked at me calmly. Waiting for the next obvious earthling question.
“Teak, you’re a guy from Down East, Maine. Grew up in Ledge Harbor. I went there. I met your dad and your brother and your ex. I didn’t meet your son.” The smile fell away and there was a flash of alarm in his eyes, then a new wariness. He tried for the regal pose again, but couldn’t hold it.
“The young one stays with the mother of his mother,” Teak said. “He is safe there.”
“Safe from what? From Tawny and Jason and the drugs? From you?”
Anger this time, maybe panic. A quick pant. His eyes darting to the corners of the room.
“From the world. It is a dangerous place.”
“That it is, Teak,” I said. “Lindy Hines found that out.”
“She was a caught in the vortex.”
“And you don’t want T.K. to be caught in the vortex?”
“He can’t be caught,” Teak snapped. “He can’t be part of this. He must grow up in peace.”
His breathing was coming hard and fast. I waited.
“And not a lot of that around here,” I said.
Teak looked at me. Took a deep breath. Said nothing.
“Your dad told me about you as a kid. He said you were a hard worker, and then you got sick. And you don’t go back there much anymore.”
“My father is of this planet,” Teak said, mustering the smile again. “He is a good man.”
“Yeah, and he’s worried about you.”
“I’m sorry my calling led me away from the ancestral village on the great ocean.”
“Your calling?”
“Ukko needed assistance on Earth. I answered his call. I had no choice.”
He was falling back into it. I had to jar him loose again.
“You had no choice when you killed Lindy Hines?”
“It had to be done. To prevent Perkele from carrying out his plan.”
“I have to say that Lindy Hines was a very nice lady. She had just moved to Riverport after she split up with her husband. He’s a jerk. She moved here to be close to her son, who was a very nice guy. A schoolteacher. She had a little dog that she doted on.”
He leaned toward the glass.
“She was doomed. When Perkele leaves a mortal body, he sucks it of life. She would have died within hours. In this universe, it is often the innocent who pay the price when evildoers roam free. There would be more innocent victims if we did not keep evil at bay.”
“A murder for the greater good?”
Teak nodded. “Thus it must be.”
“Lindy Hines was an accountant. She’d volunteered to help the shelter with their books. The finances and all that. Did you know that?”
He didn’t reply or shake his head.
“Miss H. knew her. Miss H. is a close friend of yours, right?”
Teak smiled, held the phone to his ear. “Miss H. is a strong person.”
“You helped her out there, she said. Fixing stuff.”
“She has no one who can assist her.”
“And she reminded you to take your medication. Is that right?”
He nodded.
“Did she remind you lately? Had you been taking your meds?”
“There are times when I need all my powers.”
“And the meds drag you down?”
“Hakata, the divine one. When he calls, I must be ready.”
“Like you were ready for Lindy Hines.”
“Perkele.”
“The meds make you unready to help Hakata? But you were ready this time?”
“I was fully ready to carry out my mission,” Teak said.
“Why? How did you get ready?”
“The sacred elixir,” he said. “It comes from the gods.”
“How do they get it to you?”
“They have their ways,” Teak said. “They are all-powerful.”
He gave me the benevolent smile, McMorrow the mere mortal.
“Is your sacred elixir also known as crystal meth?” I said.
He looked puzzled, shook his head.
“I know this poison. It has ruined many a good man and woman.”
“So you wouldn’t take it?”
Teak shook his head again.
“But
it was in you, Teak,” I said. “In your blood.”
“No.”
“I was told that the blood test showed meth in your system.”
“No.”
“What is your elixir, then?”
“It is not of this world.”
“Where do you get it? From Jason? How do you take it? Do you drink it?”
He looked at the wall above the window and scowled. His held the phone receiver tightly, clenching and unclenching his hand so that his biceps flexed. I waited, then said, “I met your buddies from the shelter. Arthur and Dolph. And Mutt. They send their regards. Miss H. does, too. She said to make sure I told you she’s still with you, no matter what.”
He looked at me more closely.
“You have spent a lot of time on me, Mr. McMorrow,” Teak said.
I leaned closer to the window, got more of his attention.
“There’s another reason, Teak,” I said. “I was there at the store when you killed Lindy Hines. I saw you standing over her with the hatchet. What do they call it? A tomahawk?”
He was staring hard, listening intently.
“Did quite a number on her head. Blood all over the place.”
He stared at me like he was waiting for the point.
“You know her dog was in the car? Very loyal little guy. I’m sure the dog wondered where his mistress had gone. Cops ended up giving him to her son. And then you know what happened?”
Still the stare, but the first traces of a scowl, his mind whirring to get it all to fit.
“The son, Barrett was his name, somebody killed him, too. Stabbed him at his apartment. That wasn’t something Ukko needed done, was it? I mean, you’re in here. Are there other people like you around here, helping Ukko out?”
“No,” Teak said. “No one else hears Ukko. But other gods issue decrees. Vedenemo, god of the waters. Tapio, god of the waters. They may have sent their own emissaries.”
“Okay. Then did Ukko recruit you? I’m just trying to understand all of this.”
“It was Ukko,” Teak said. “He sent the message to me in the stories. Through his messenger vessel, my uncle.”
“Okay. I see. Then how ’bout this? Could this Perkele devil guy have jumped from Lindy Hines to her son? If he needed another earthling form?”
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