Signs of Portents

by Lou Paduano

  “We do.” Ruiz laughed at the thought.

  “Good.” Loren cracked open the book in the center of the table. A hand fell on top of it before he could pull it back to read the notes in the margin.

  “Break time, Loren. I’ll buy your dinner.”

  “One minute,” replied Loren, pulling the book back.

  Ruiz stood to fix his jacket. “Food first. Then murder and mayhem. Tomorrow, maybe there will be some sleep involved in the schedule.”

  As Ruiz backed up for the door, Loren tossed him the book he found tucked under Mentor’s pillow. Ruiz looked down to see the title in bold white letters on the cover. There was a list of authors in small print. A book that extensive needed many hands to put it together. Loren waited for the look of recognition. It came almost immediately.

  “Beth worked on this book,” Ruiz stated plainly, staring at the name Bethany Schmidt—her maiden name.

  “Looks like.”

  “Your wife worked on a lot of books.”

  “But this is the one that matters to this case.” Loren snatched the book from the questioning captain and held it in front of them. “Every book in this store mentions the founding of the city as being the early 1890s. Every sign, every monument has different stonework, with a revised date to make the word of all of these books true. But they’re wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “This book talks about the first Portents. The real Portents that’s still here, buried in the rubble. It goes from the founding in the 1870s until the revised dates. Maps, details, historical documents long thought lost. All from the very beginning.”

  “I’m not seeing the connection, Greg,” Ruiz replied. He held the door for Loren. The detective gathered up his belongings on the table quickly, holding tight to the case files and the book. He moved for the door, giving a quick nod to Mason behind the front counter before exiting to the street. The minivan was parked next to the curb out front. Loren shot Ruiz a look, but the captain ushered him on without a word.

  “I know, I know. It sounds crazy, but when you’re dealing with people killing other people with their bare hands and old souls, this is what it comes down to, you know?”

  “Old souls?” Ruiz tried to ask, but Loren refused to slow down.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “the same name keeps popping up throughout the book and I’ve seen it in a half dozen places in the last three days around the city. Tell me, Ruiz. What do you know about a guy named Nathaniel Evans?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Life surrounded Soriya while she paced uneasily through the living room of the Eckhart home. Down the hall, she could hear the sounds of pans clattering. Julie Eckhart, the daughter of the man Soriya called Mentor, worked diligently to provide a meal to the wayward girl. Attempts were made to pass on the meal, Soriya wanting more than anything to leave, but after being allowed the use of their shower and some fresh clothes, the line in the sand had become blurred. Julie’s mother rested comfortably in her bed, exhausted from the day’s events. It was only awkward for the stranger in the living room, surrounded by the secret life of the man who raised her.

  Photos lined every inch of the wall above a large mantle. Few were recent, most dating back what looked to be decades. Happier times. Times never forgotten. She recognized the man in a few of the images immediately as the one who showed up one spring day to free her from her life as an amnesiac orphan. He gave her purpose. He gave her a life. She thought she had done the same, but she was wrong. His life had already been lived.

  How did she not know? Why did she not think to ask more questions about him? Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face smiling down on her in the small garden outside the church. He had known so much about her. She knew nothing.

  Over eighteen years they lived as a family. They shared stories of conquests and failures. She cried her eyes out when nightmares awoke her in the middle of the night, sobbing soundly into his chest as a daughter would. They shared their lives, only they didn’t at all. She didn’t because the memories were lost to her. He didn’t by choice. That stung deeper than any revelation could.

  When he called himself Mentor, when he took the title to train her and guide her in her task, she thought it was as he always said. The job came first. The title was more powerful than a name. It symbolized something greater than a simple word. She was the Greystone and he was the Mentor. That was how it was. It made sense to her that it went that way. She never questioned it.

  Questions, though, were rampant in the Eckhart home. They had to know everything she could offer, needed to know it all. Soriya shared what she could while she sat at the kitchen table across from the grieving widow and her daughter. She told them about their time together, about the stories he told her and read to her from the books they found in their travels. Most of the telling was nothing more than a fiction but she spun it with enough truth to satisfy their queries. It would have been what he wanted. He would have shared what he could with them, though most of their time together went unexplained. The Eckharts were a connection Mentor severed twenty-five years earlier, the same way he had expected her to for the responsibility of the task he had given to her. She told the story with that in mind.

  To the Eckharts, they were strangers passing in the night that connected as a father and daughter would for a time. Only a short time. Not the eighteen years she recalled vividly. Not the connection that caused her heart to break every instance she saw his body behind her closed eyelids. All of a sudden, the weight of the stone, buried in the pouch strapped on the right hip of her borrowed jeans, felt heavier than she had ever known it to be.

  Standing in the living room of the Eckhart home, Soriya knew she should have listened to Mentor when she had the chance. She should have disconnected from the world and dedicated herself to the job. She should have measured up to the woman he always believed her to be. She should have listened while she had the chance.

  He was right. He was always right. And she didn’t even consider his way.

  Until it was too late.

  It started in her gut, deep thrumming sounds that tightened her muscles into a giant ball. It shot through her arms to her hands, forcing them into fists. Every inch of her was tense, staring at the life of her friend hanging from the wall of the Eckhart home. Grief turned to rage and she reached her breaking point. A killer was running free in the city. Loren was desperate for closure. There were no leads other than the dead man she tossed into an alley. Lives were being lost every second she stood in the living room of the Eckhart family, with soft socks balled up along fibers of carpet. Lives she should be saving, knowing that all she ever did was let them die. Some of the grief was from little to no sleep over the last three days but she knew most of it came from the truth that echoed in every thought, in every recollection. She did not belong there, among the family of her father figure. She did not belong anywhere but in the shadows of the city of Portents, tucked away from the waning hours of sunlight. Soriya’s eyes fell on the living room door on the other side of the room, and then back down the hall.

  When Julie Eckhart stepped out of the kitchen, she carried a small smile on her face. There was some doubt in her mind at first about asking the grime-covered woman from the morgue back to their house, but after hearing the stories about her father, she knew it had been the right choice. The closure of it all was something she had prayed for since she was eight. She dried her hands on a dishtowel as she stepped into the living room.

  “It’s not much, but I made some broccoli cheddar soup and….” She stopped at the sight of the empty living room. Confused, Julie turned away, wondering if the bathroom was in use. The light remained off in the half bath in the home’s main hallway. In the living room, she felt a slow breeze. The front door stood ajar. The woman was gone.

  Disappointed but not completely surprised, Julie Eckhart closed the door and clicked the lock. She started for the kitchen and the soup she had prepared for her guest, but stopped in the center of t
he room. On the wall above the mantle, there was a single space left wide open. An image was missing. She remembered it well. It was of her father before one of his lectures at the university. He wore a suede coat and a thin, brown beard to go along with a joyful smile that he rarely donned in photos.

  The photo was gone along with the woman who took it.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The neon sign buzzed brightly even in the light of the afternoon sun. Some of the letters had dimmed over the years, but the sign continued to blare The Coffee Hut in red. A small cup was poured out of the t at the end. Underneath, stenciled on the window where they sat in silence, it read, Our specialty is in our name. (Huts not sold here.), which had become a running gag for the regulars that showed up for their morning coffee, asking for a side of hut.

  Loren dumped a third sugar packet in the small cup of coffee, stirring it loudly to drown out Ruiz’s glare on the other side of the table. When he first mentioned his restaurant of choice, the captain scoffed. There were dozens of options on the strip near the bookstore but Loren insisted on the small diner six miles away. No explanation was given beyond a simple “They make a good cup of coffee.” It was true, in its own way, though Loren had never actually tasted their coffee before. He was content with the results, and took a long swig of the black liquid.

  Few people were in the brightly lit restaurant, fewer still near Loren and Ruiz, which suited their needs perfectly. Loren needed the quiet. Ruiz needed to talk. Neither one was anxious about the proposition of another conversation so Loren stuck with the rule set by Ruiz at the bookstore. Food first. Then murder and mayhem. Ruiz regretted his choice of words, sipping water through a thin straw. From behind the counter, Loren saw their server retrieve their order and start toward the table. His raised eyes caught Ruiz’s.

  “So…” the captain started.

  “Don’t,” Loren hissed before the server stopped in front of their table. In her hands were two plates. On the left, which she placed before Loren deftly, was a light breakfast of eggs and wheat toast. Breakfast served all day was what Loren loved most about the local diners of Portents. When sleep came in waves and mornings were actually needed, sometimes the only cure was a breakfast of over-easy eggs and butter-smothered toast during the dinner hour. In her right hand was a plate brimming with fries. In the center of the plate was a half-pound burger with cheddar cheese caked on the bun and three strips of bacon dripping grease on the fries that surrounded it. Loren noticed the drool collecting at the corner of Ruiz’s mouth when she placed the meal in front of him.

  “Can I get you anything else right now?” the server asked, disinterested. Her eyes were already turned to another pair of customers who had sat down at the counter.

  “Yes. Sandy, is it?” Loren replied, noting the name clasped to the young woman’s chest with a small photo of her smiling. He pointed to the greasy burger across from him. “Does his meal come with a coupon for bypass surgery?”

  She looked awkwardly between the two gentlemen, unsure of how to respond.

  Ruiz stepped in for her. “We’re all set. Thank you.”

  Loren watched his new friend, Sandy, depart their table. Every few steps she would peer back at the two men. Loren smiled and waved, to which Ruiz slapped his hand down as only a father could.

  “Leave her alone. And leave this burger alone,” he said, picking at a fry. “You dragged me all the way out to this diner to criticize my meal selection. All the way out here instead of a dozen good choices for dinner on the strip so that you can make crappy jokes and not talk to me about it.”

  “Looks that way,” Loren snapped. He pulled a slice of toast apart and tossed half in his mouth. Too much butter, but he didn’t care. “Case is screwed for us, right? So since this is my last supper I think it deserves some silence, don’t you?”

  “Well then, I’m going to talk about it,” Ruiz said. “I brought you into this. I understood the pressure and the memories this could have brought up but I did it anyway. You made your choice when you left and I respected it, but I still asked you to come back for this and I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “No. You shouldn’t have,” replied Loren, peering outside at the fading light of the day.

  “I didn’t want this, Greg.”

  “No. But you wanted her out there. That’s what you told her. So she did. She went out there, poked and prodded by you and by Mentor and sure as hell by me so that I can get back to what little life there is for me in Chicago. So we went out there like you wanted. And here we are.”

  Ruiz picked up his burger and put it back down. Loren continued to work on his toast diligently between breaths. The Latino’s eyes were low and sullen. “I wasn’t looking for this to happen. I didn’t want it to happen this way. But I’m not talking about Soriya Greystone. I’m talking about you. I’m talking about Beth.”

  Loren stopped and wiped his mouth. He held tight to his fork in his right hand, pointing to the mammoth plate before Ruiz. “Eat your food, Captain.”

  Ruiz continued over the sound of Loren’s chewing. “When these things happen, when someone dies on your watch, it makes you second guess some things. Hell, if Michelle weren’t at home every night to bring me back to reality, I would snap in half. But you…I get why you left. I get forgetting about it. I get trying to move past everything. But you’re here now. You came back and we’re at it again. I know you have family out there…and I damn well know you probably haven’t said word one to them about any of this, have you?”

  “No,” Loren replied, finishing his meal. He lifted his empty coffee cup, catching Sandy’s eye with the shaking of the small cup. Slowly, she made her way over with a fresh pot. “I haven’t said a word.”

  “Family understands. Your parents must—”

  “Dad died a year ago, Ruiz,” Loren said, nodding thanks to the silent server. She finished filling his cup and quickly stepped back behind the counter, her fake smile shining brighter. Loren stared at the black liquid in his cup then turned back to his friend. “He died while I was here. Mom called and called but I could barely function, much less grieve. I never answered. I never called her back. And he died. Mom hasn’t talked to me since. My sister tries, she tries to bring us together every now and then, especially since I’ve been back in Chicago, but both of us can’t bear to even make a real attempt.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah. Some life I recaptured. Keep convincing myself that my family and friends are there for me and maybe they will be but when it comes down to it, I’ve been here for three days and the only person calling and asking about me is you.”

  “Christ, that’s depressing.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Loren stirred more sugar into his cup and held it before his lips. His eyes shifted across the street to the real reason they had come to this diner above all other restaurants on the way. Across the street was the very spot the fifth victim was found, the one that showed no sign on the scene, the one that failed to line up with any of the previous victims. The signs were integral to the killings. Kok’-Kol confirmed that much for him, though every instinct told Loren to ignore the words of a raven and follow the clues laid out before him. The signs were crucial. The victims were vital. And the locations were key. All three, though, for different reasons. Loren knew it. He knew it more than he knew that no matter what happened, Ruiz would have his back and so would Soriya. He knew that it didn’t matter how many mistakes he made, how many people he lost, those two would be with him through it all. Thoughts of Chicago became distant. It had been his escape plan, his final refuge away from the insanity around him, away from Beth and her unknown killer. Away from the anger and the mistakes. But he came back. He came back and stayed at the simple request of a friend in need. That meant something too, didn’t it?

  Loren’s thin, brown eyes recaptured the scene across the street. From the position of the body in the mouth of the alley to garbage piled on the left-hand side, every inch replayed before his eyes.
The man had been skinned, the trophy of the fourth victim passed to the fifth. No apparent history connecting him to the other victims. This one was blatantly desperate, yet more open than the others. It was rushed, too, where the others were meticulous in their order. But no sign. Nothing found near the body. No blood other than the victim’s.

  Then he saw it. Not on the brick building across the street. Not in the alley of garbage that threatened to spill out to the street. None of that held the answer he was looking for. No, what Loren saw was from the photo of the crime scene taken the day before. The photo of the victim and the clothes found at the scene of his death. On the right jacket pocket was the imprint of something missing. His eyes shifted to Sandy and the wide smile adorning her nametag.

  “Son of a bitch.” The words slipped from his lips. They were louder than he intended and some of the denizens of the restaurant turned toward their table. Ruiz huddled close, his first bite of burger hanging from his lips.

  “What?” he asked as small flecks of bun popped loose. “What is it?”

  Loren reached for his coat, slipping his arms in the sleeves. When his right arm was in place, he snagged the book he found at Mentor’s bedside, tucking every piece of evidence from the case within the thick binding. “We have to go. Now.”

  Ruiz watched Loren stand. The detective reached back and grabbed a single fry, popping it in his mouth. He started for the door.