“I thought it would be nice.”
I spoke in a measured, colder tone, starting to get frustrated. “What would be nice?”
“To have you and the kids here,” she put her hands on mine, and pulled them back off. “The dynamics. It’s all too real. Luke going to work, me looking after Rachel and Chase, and trying to start realtor classes in the fall. You are here in limbo, hanging around, just sort of languishing.”
The notes all made sense now. Vanessa’s voice trailed off, my head ringing with the first grasp of clear understanding: We’re not wanted here anymore. Vanessa’s voice went crooked, fingers trembling by her chin, her mouth moving. “My private space,” she continued. “I didn’t think I had any desire…to have any. But I do, Shade. I need acres of it, wide-open air, fields of distance from people, all the memories and stuff.”
She didn’t even mention Emily. Not once. Why didn’t I see this coming? It’s not Emily’s death, or Chicago, or Kentucky, or alcohol, or my career fucked. The problem is me. Her problem is me. Me being here. Living here. It’s all too much. “Let me get this right Van. Okay? You need distance from me? What is it exactly that I did to you? How about a clue?”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh Shade, it’s me. It’s all because of me. And I’m so sorry. There are just things I want to explain to you that…I just can’t.”
Her eyes brimmed and tears began to flow. Vanessa was truly wracked with pain. Dumfounded, I got up, pulled a paper napkin from a drawer, and slid it in front of her. She drew the napkin into her hands and patted her eyes. I wanted to rip out my hair. I could use a fucking drink right now. It hit me like a thunderbolt and tasted like dry gin. For all the intensity, the impulse left as suddenly as it came.
“I’m not asking you to leave right now,” Vanessa twisted in her chair to look up at me, her eyes searching mine. “I’m just saying start…start aiming that way.”
Start aiming that way? Start fucking aiming that way? I slid my hands into the pockets of my jeans, crossed the dining room, hooked my toe on the corner of a throw rug which sent my old, ski-injured hip into soft spasms. Ever since I thumped Lassiter at the boat dock, the hip was with me now, the joint aching in the background with each step.
Vanessa saw me trip and take a quick seat on the couch. “Are you okay?”
Massaging my hip, the frustration taking on the harder angles of anger. “No Van, I’m not okay. You asked us to come here. You’re the one that begged us every single day since Emily died. You single handedly drew us down here, reeled us in. With what? Some idea of saving us? You ordered the moving truck for God’s sake. What the hell is wrong with you anyway?”
Sensing my growing hostility, she flexed her jaw. “Shade, it’s more than just us. I mean, more than just you and me. In this house. We’re not the only two people here. Everyone else matters too. Their well-being. Luke. The kids.”
She’d lost it. The woman needed more than a shoulder to lean on. More than a friendly ear. She sounded like me before I met Kathleen Hodges. I wasn’t a qualified professional counselor. Nor was I about to play one. I couldn’t help Van through her emotional troubles. But there was one thing I could do. Actually, something I learned to do in sobriety. I could keep my side of the street clean. Obviously, relying on other people to help save Lilly and Brant was spectacularly foolhardy. Even absurd. That much was clear to me now. I circled the table, knelt down by my sister-in-law and touched her cheek. A scrap of sunlight caught her dark eyes, lighting them up amber, one of those rare moments where the black pupil could actually be discerned from the iris.
“Van, two things. First, I love you. Second, whatever’s going on with you, I don’t get it. But the good news? I don’t need to. Everything’s okay. Brant, Lilly and I are so grateful for what you’ve already done for us. And we’re moving on. It might take a week or two. But we’re moving on.”
I stood, my hip giving me a shock or two, and walked to the front doorway, pushing the screen door open. Vanessa sucked in a quick breath. “Where are you going Shade?”
“Out,” I looked back.
“To?”
“Van, I didn’t come here to live off you.”
“What?”
“I have an appointment,” I said tapping my fingers on the doorframe.
“Where?”
“Undisclosed,” I smiled. I am the architect of my children’s dreams. Me. No one else. And I walked straight out the door and skipped down the porch steps, my hip not liking it. Vanessa was at the doorway.
“Shade,” she called out. “It’s not you. It’s me, okay? You guys stay as long as you want. Look, I have more to tell you. I haven’t explained myself. You don’t understand.”
“Thanks Van, see you this evening.” I waved her off without turning around. Was she crying again? Too much crazy for one day. I slipped into the car, slammed the door shut and looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I’m so fucking out of here. Like yesterday.
In town, I weaved the Taurus down a side alley and veered into the rear parking entrance of the Exodus Police Department. I turned off the ignition, unclipped my seat belt, swung open the driver door and…froze. What if taking a contract here, the newly added responsibility combined with not drinking alcohol, what if it all made me finally snap? What if it sends me over the edge? What if I go in and say yes- and they say no? What if the offer no longer stands? Caught with one foot hanging out the car door, I turned into a statue with thoughts racing inside a concrete head. My mind flashed with the one thing I promised I would never tell anyone. Ever. That series of blackouts near the end of my drinking career. Coming out of it each time with the pistol inside my mouth. I didn’t want to go back there.
But being here with one foot sticking out the car door and the other on the brake was hardly an answer. To do nothing was not an option. The flipside of the coin had to be considered. There were risks of not taking this job. Keep living with Vanessa and Luke? Live like a bum, while being dominated by someone else’s wife in someone else’s home? What kind of role model would I be for my kids? Their father, the has-been detective who couldn’t even afford an ice cream cone. I was under no illusions. This was for Lilly and Brant. There was no choice to make. I didn’t have a choice anymore. “Screw it,” I muttered to myself. Between bad and worse, I chose bad. With that, I jerked the key out of the ignition and slammed the door shut.
Inside, I knocked on the office door and it creaked open with the force. Lean and long-limbed with his potbelly pushed into the desk, the Chief stopped scribbling on a yellow legal pad, eyes flicking up at me. He tucked his pen behind his badge on the front pocket of a freshly starched plaid shirt and propped himself forward on his elbows, twiddling his thumbs.
“Well, well,” Chief Wadsworth smiled. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“It’s been bugging me,” I said inquisitively, acting all cool, taking a seat from across his desk, as if I’d never left a couple days ago. Like I had just stepped back in from using the bathroom. “What was the victim riding?”
“Excuse me?” the old man asked, pulling the reading glasses from his face, squinting.
“The victim, what was he riding?”
“A motorcycle?” He asked, taunting me, a light grin raising up.
“Hilarious,” I gave a nod. “What model motorcycle?”
“Remains to be determined.” He reached down into a drawer, thumbed a file, put his readers back on, and flipped it open. “Let’s see. The vehicle wasn’t registered. No plates. Obviously. Probably stolen. And… it was torn to shreds. Took us a day and a half to read the VIN number. Which we got off the engine core. A few numbers had been intentionally scratched off, but not enough to keep us from tracking it down.” He scraped over another page, eyes peering over his readers at me with curiosity, and looked back down again. “Also, here it looks like we’ve narrowed our search to about a dozen bikes- which we’re curren
tly running against existing registrations. Some deductive work, and we’ll find it shortly. What I know for certain is that it’s one of those Jap bikes. The ones they call rice-rockets.”
I drew a deep breath, and dug the heel of my palm into my hip, short-circuiting a spasm. “Even when you locate the title, you’re only going to find some creep that sold it years ago. Who might in turn deny ever having owned it. If he’s not in jail or dead. That’s a long trip around the block only to wind up back where you started.”
He grinned. “Explain that to the honorable Clinton Loray, the Commonwealth’s Attorney and second cousin to Story Mount’s Mayor Marty Breznik. The mayor’s re-election bid is this November. A muddled murder investigation doesn’t play well with voters. So, every T is crossed. Every I dotted.”
“The trajectory of that bullet means everything here, Chief.”
“Explain.”
“Gadford told us the gunshot residue test showed positive. It was coated all over the back of Mr. Stopher’s skull. So the killer was right on top of him. The hunched-over position of a sport bike rider is identical to a mounted horse jockey, just like you said that day in the lab. This puts the vic’s head angle downward, chest laid against the gas tank. With that proximity of a pistol shot, the perp had to be mounted on a motorcycle too. So close in fact that when he fired he got sucked in.”
“Sucked in?”
I closed my eyes, making shapes with my hands, trying to see it unfold. “There’s just no way the killer took the shot and dodged the aftermath exploding in front of him, a corpse plus a bike careening under his front wheel.”
“What are you trying to say?”
My eyes blinked open. “The killer had to go down too. There’s just no way around it. He ate the pavement. I’m positive.”
“There’s not a scrap of evidence of that.” Wadsworth scratched his chin, eyes rolling to the ceiling, thinking. “There’s no extra corpse. Worse yet, there’s not an extra motorcycle.”
I shifted uneasily in my chair. “I disagree. There’s another motorcycle out there. Just not found.”
The chief slapped the file flat down on his desk, eyes squinting at me over the readers. “So tell me- what the hell are you doing here boy?”
I rubbed my face and let off. “I’m just interested in the case. That’s all.”
“You need the money.”
I shrugged. He folded his hands. “You still want the job? How do you know I’m still offering?”
“I don’t.”
“Well.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “I am.”
“What are your terms?”
“Hot damn,” he said grinned. “Welcome aboard.”
“Wait a second,” I sat up. “I haven’t said yes yet.”
“Yes you did,” he smiled, coming up with a folder, my name hastily scrawled across the jacket. He opened it and began scribbling. “Now we’re just negotiating a price.”
I began to speak but he interrupted. “I’ve written a sixteen-week contract, flat fee, paid weekly, but no insurance. On contract you have to purchase your own health insurance.” He jotted something on the corner of the yellow notebook pad, tore it off, folded it in half and handed it to me. I opened it and read the number. My mouth fell open. “Chief,” I said my trying to not let my voice crack. “For sixteen weeks- this is very generous.”
“I had to make you an offer you couldn’t refuse. Heard you big Chicago types were that way.” Before I could speak, he cut me off again. “That there would be enough to rent your own place, maybe even save a little something on the side. Now what you sign today is an informal agreement. As I told you before, we already applied for your Commonwealth of Kentucky investigator’s license. I can’t officially pay you until you formally start- but in the meantime we would appreciate any pro-bono you can offer Assistant Detective Nichols on this case.”
He laid a pen on a contract and slid it across the desk at me.
A wave of fresh fear hit me. I wanted to run out of the room. I just wasn’t ready for this. None of it. My hand trembled. I pumped my fists to stop it. Lilly told me before we left the city that she wanted a bedroom with the walls painted pink, flowered curtains, and a huge Barbie Doll house. Brant wanted his room finished in shades of blue, with race-car posters, wall maps, and a bunk bed by the window. So I leaned forward, picked up the pen, and scribbled my name.
On the way to the car, I tried on the idea that I was suddenly a working detective again. And being on this side of saying yes, I realized something new- it hadn’t been just about the money. A part of my decision I didn’t want to admit, or couldn’t see until now, came into clear view: Ever since Stan Gadford pushed the plastic projection rod through Ricky Stopher’s head in the morgue that morning, I knew I was in trouble. It never went away, lurking in the back of my mind without me even realizing it. When I saw the trajectory of that bullet, the assassin’s up-close and personal shot he’d brazenly taken, I’d been hooked. I’d worked hard to back-peddle from questions surrounding the victim, physical and forensic evidence and possible motives for murder. In quiet moments, I’d wondered if one of heathens I punched in the face that day could be the killer. I came to Story Mount without a plan. I was so distracted by the moving part, I’d forgotten about the living here part. Or the making money part. Or the providing for the kids without Emily part.
Leaving the Chief’s office just now, he’d shoved the case file in my hand and said, “Your copy.” Reclining the driver’s seat I cracked it open, my fingers buzzing and tingling as I riffled over crime scene notes and photos. There had been a second bike out there. They just didn’t find it yet. The killer had to be fucked up, if even alive. Not wanting to admit it, I felt electrically charged, like I could smell the electrons of the hunt drifting off me. It was undeniable. A stark fact that could not be ignored: I was designed for this shit. And so naturally, it was time to celebrate.
I wanted to ride this wave of success right back to Luke and Vanessa’s home, taking it so far as visualizing walking up the front porch steps, announcing to everyone that I was now a detective again. With this driving force of guiding my mind, I cannot account for why my car veered into the liquor store parking lot anymore than I could account for God’s existence. Sucked into a trance-like state as if my soul had been hijacked by a stranger, I slipped out of the driver’s door with my wallet in my hand. I sensed that this was not a bright idea and waved off Kathleen Hodges warning that success could be as powerful as defeat for a drunk. Or something like that. Then I stepped right into Toaster’s Liquors.
The cool chill of alcohol vapor and the peppery scent of wine corks hit my nose. This followed by the sensation of falling. Heat flashed down my spine and my shirt suddenly clung tight to my body. A few dozen bottles of bourbon were magically illuminated from below on a glass shelf in the front window. The liquid inside each shined with blonde, gold and copper highlights. It was like studying an old girlfriend at a high school reunion that had grown more attractive with age…right before she tore off her clothes and yanked me into the janitor’s closet. My fingers danced over the necks, stroking the curves of every bottle, my mouth salivating. I picked up a bottle of Knob Creek and held it over my right eye, looking through it, the room immersed booze bronze.
“Hey buddy, you gotta’ problem?”
I let the bottle down to find a guy behind the register with sideburns and craters in his skin staring at me. The bottle dangled at my side. I didn’t answer because, yes, I did have a very serious fucking problem. And now it wa revealing itself in a brand-new way.
“Look, is there something I can do for you buddy?”
I stood there shaking my head, stunned.
“Hey buddy,” his face took on vague fear. “I don’t want no trouble. I don’t want to call the cops.”
“I am the cops,” I mumbled. Crater-face bit his lip, and picked up his phone but not dial
ing yet. With confusion, not seeing where the booze fit back in on the shelf, I sat it down it down on the floor and walked right out into the center of the parking lot, I reached into my pocket, grabbed my nicotine gum and chewed three pieces at once. Up to this point, my drinking problem had been puzzling. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. But this wasn’t compulsion. Whatever just happened was something new. Like a demon had reached out and dragged a claw down my side, leaving a long, red scratch on my soul. I’d gone temporarily insane. And it shook me. In my car, I grabbed my cell phone and called Kathleen Hodges. By the great mercy of God, for a woman who never answers her phone, she picked up. “Shade?”
“Kathleen,” my voice jumped with relief. “You’re never going to believe what my car just did.”
12
Girl from the trailer park
Lost in the thick fog of a heroin hangover, I crossed the parking garage and used the keycard to get inside my medical office building to start seeing patients. Palms sweaty, heart racing, I tiptoed into my office and fell into my rolling office chair, my arms like sandbags, too heavy to lift. I’d been here before. To the place where my role as a physician had become a joke. Once again, I’d become the two-bit actor playing a cheap version of myself. Since my return to the dope circus, I’d gone crazy. Like not caring-anymore crazy. A clown with fangs dancing around with a needle in her in her arm. Just one this time. I always promised myself. Then cracking, just one more. What an active junkie couldn’t admit: In the game of more, more was never enough. Because, there was always more. But how many more times until the line ran out? Will this be the last time? Russian Roulette. Maybe this time I won’t wake up. I would jab my flesh with a loaded syringe, pull the trigger once more. And pray for another dry click instead of a body bag. I wasn’t ready to let go of my faraway plans yet. I could save enough money and escape this crap-addled, po-dunk, sorry excuse of a town. I would control my addiction, save funds, and leave Story Mount forever. Maybe head out west. Maybe fly to Europe. Maybe make a life in the Blue Mountains of Australia. One thing I was damn sure of? I’d go anywhere but here.
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