Skin the Cat

by R Sean McGuirk

  “Where the hell are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m taking my kids to see our new house.”

  22

  Ka-Boom

  I snatched the skillet from the flame, the fat bubblin’ up all slow like pop, pop, pop, the bacon color goin’ golden crisp. Daddy was stretched long ways on the couch, boots crossed, drankin’ a beer. Since I took out Fast Eddie, old Charlie was extra pleased, said he even had a permanent-like place for me on his team. Called me a regular professional killer. Laughed when he said it. That he’d come to find a way to put my daddy Barry back on the dole. Sure, killin’ Eddie and Ricky sort of head-fucked me some. Nights was worst time to time. The bad nights, they’d be standing at the foot of my bed just starin’ at me, not sayin’ nothin’, just lookin’. The whole time they’d take a step forward and wait, till after a couple hours they was right there leanin’ in on me, faces all swollen up. I come to, hoppin’ out of bed, tryin’ to throw-up. But business was business. I told ‘em not to play around with that sex video with Carlina. They’d dug their own grave. I saw an opportunity and took it. Now I could afford bacon for breakfast, lunch and dinner every damn day.

  “I’m just real proud ‘ah you, son,” Daddy scratched his big belly. I grinned and limped to the table, the leg cast makin’ me go thunk, thunk, when I walked. I spread out the bacon, a loaf of toasted bread and a fresh jar of mayonnaise. The money was so good. Ole’ Charlie didn’t like me personal but he liked me for business. And at the end of the day, we was business men. Then, just like that silver devil heard my thoughts, my phone started buzzin’. “Daddy keep it down,” I tapped the air. “It’s Charlie.” I cleared my throat. “Tadpole here.”

  “How’s the new place Billy, do you like it?” Greymore asked all quiet like.

  “Oh man!” I nodded into the phone like he could see it. “We love it sir.”

  “Listen, it’s time to wrap this up once and for all,” he whispered. “Thank you for the thumb drives. Was that all of them?”

  “Yes sir,” I lied. I’d kept an extra copy for myself and never even found the one Fast Eddie had in his possession. Instead I’d copied my copy and give it to the old man and said it was Eddie’s copy. Just like that and presto! A pocket full of money.

  “Billy, listen to me,” Charlie’s voice went all tight and quiet. “Are you absolutely certain that was every last thumb drive? There are no other copies?”

  “I promise sir,” I lied again. Like I done fell off the turnip truck. Like I was a complete fuckin’ retarded. Greymore said how smart I was but treated me like some dumb-ass punk. Yes I had an extra copy. If he ever come after me, that thumb drive could save my life. My ace in the hole. It was none of his goddammed business no way.

  “You will be rewarded boy.” Greymore went all relaxed. “We need to talk. Where are you now?”

  “Our place,” I said and gave daddy a thumbs up.

  “Alone?”

  “Nope, Daddy and me in for the night.”

  “I don’t want to drop by and you’re not home.”

  “Sir, my leg is busted to pieces, I have nowhere to be.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “My driver will bring me over in an hour. I have a new business proposition for both of you.”

  “Yes sir,” I fist-pumped the air. I’d have a new motorcycle ‘fore the week was out.

  “Hey,” Greymore added. “You remember the password, right?”

  “Yes sir,” I nodded at the phone. I ain’t your dumb-ass punk.

  “Very good,” he said and the line went dead.

  “Daddy,” I said goin’ all big with smiles. “He’s comin’ after dinner for a new money makin’ opportunity.”

  An hour went by and sure as clock work, there came a light tap on the side door of our kitchen. Daddy motioned his hand at me and I grabbed the shotgun with one of them big 12-gauge slugs loaded up, and stepped beside the refrigerator with the barrel aimed at the door.

  “What’s the word?” Daddy said into the crack of the door. There was nothin’ spoken. Not even a peep. Daddy’s eyes got all big and his jaw went tight. He brung his revolver up beside his face with his elbow bent and clicked the hammer back.

  “Milk-bone,” the voice outside said and added. “And it’s a stupid-ass password if you ask me.”

  Daddy’s beard shook as he gave out a deep breath, and his shoulders relaxed as he let down the gun. He stepped forward, unlocked the deadbolt and flung the door open. “How about next time you answer a little faster, partner?” he bitched at the driver. “I almost blew your fuckin’ brains out.”

  A popcorn-tin with the lid duct-taped bounced across the kitchen floor and the door slammed back shut.

  Daddy turnt at me and said, “Oh no.” White lightning ripped sideways. Daddy’s body let out all directions at once and the room swallowed me whole. I tried to set up, but my head thundered like an angry motor turnt up in my brain. The smoke was blacker than night, so heavy I couldn’t bring it into my lungs. Then all at once the smoke lifted. I was on my back, my shirt was on fire and my stomach skin had turned black and split open with pink cracks, the blood drained out all at once. I reached up my hands to tamp out the flame but my arms wouldn’t come up like they was gone. I heard screamin’ all around and realized it was me. Ricky and Eddie stood watchin’ me. They didn’t laugh, or smile, or say a damn thing, they just stared while I shrieked.

  A man I never saw before stepped over me, and shook a thumb-drive at my face and smiled. “Boy, you are one fucked up pile of shit. Don’t you know never to lie to Greymore? The man is like God. He knows everything.”

  “That ain’t the only one left,” I shrieked and give him a bloody smile. “So mister, fuck you.”

  The man frowned and aimed the barrel of a gun between my eyes.

  “Little shit-head,” he growled eyes darkening. “Now isn’t soon enough.”

  Behind him, I could see the roof blown open. Inside the hole, clouds eased apart, and a starlit gash of sky shimmered against a slice of the Cumberland Mountains. I peered in real deep, deeper than I ever seen before. The gun in the stranger’s hand jumped with a bright light.

  And all my screamin’ stopped at once.

  23

  Colorblind Rainbows

  A peaceful Sunday evening and we were enjoying a housewarming dinner at our new cottage on Iron Mountain. Vanessa brought out the chocolate cake when dispatch called me: A double homicide by bombing involving two unidentified males. Fantastic. For a small town, Story Mount was becoming its own little horror shoe. A real butcher shop. But then again, Wadsworth had warned me not to be fooled by the beauty of rural Kentucky. These were weird times. These were hard people. And mixing the two was apparently combustible. For the sake of jagged geography and low clearance , the Ford Taurus was sidelined for the task. We jumped into Luke’s truck and hustled down the mountain in 4-wheel drive. I hoped we’d get a quick rundown at the crime scene, stick Debbie on it and return to the festivities as soon as possible. We pulled up beside first responders with lights flashing where the Chief could be seen on the walkway, chatting with bystanders, taking notes and nodding, his eyes focused like pinpoints. Behind him, a dilapidated row house stood blown in half, the left side reduced to a smoldering heap of wreckage. The shattered landscape looked more like war-torn Afghanistan than small-town rural America. I slammed the truck door hard with raw disappointment. There would be no chocolate cake tonight. Luke shuffled around the truck and stood beside me massaging his red stubble. He let off an explosive sneeze, his face mottled with allergies, like somebody rubbed pine needles in his face. “You know, they have shots for that.”

  “They have a lot of shots for it,” he snorted, grinding his knuckles into his face. “But none of them fucking work.” He got his bearings and looked up. “Jesus age Christ,” he grunted. “They practically bombed out the entire fucking street corner. Wha
t did dispatch say? Two males?”

  “Two men is what they said,” I dug in my pockets for nicotine gum but found none. “You think they concluded that by sheer volume or total number of pieces?” Luke didn’t laugh. A cool wind whipped up and the trees rustled all around like light applause, the smoke from the rubble took on the shape of a tornado. Lightning blinked in the distance and the air went sweet with the pungency of excited electrons. I scanned the horizon for soft thunder rumbling from nowhere. And everywhere. “Now where in the hell did that come from?”

  “It was already there you just couldn’t see it,” Luke coughed into his hand. “On this side, the mountain range blocks the entire western view. We can never really see what’s coming.”

  I looked toward the torn house, stomach unsettled, a deeper interpretation of his words rising in my mind. “None of us can really see what’s coming.” The flickering yellow and red emergency lights brightened beneath the darkening atmosphere, and diagonal drizzle shellacked all objects with a greasy dreariness. A News Channel 7 turned onto the street and parked. Debbie gathered in beside the Chief, spotted us and waved us over. We huddled in a group and I clasped my jacket around my neck to stay dry. He looked at the remains at the house and squinted at us. “Monkey Shit.”

  Debbie rocked her square jaws at him. “What?”

  “This town is flinging more crazy shit than a monkey exhibit in a public zoo. The Chief threw his thumb over his shoulder. “I think we found the Harmony boys. But I doubt they’ll participate in court proceedings.” He watched the rain sparkle in the emergency responder lights and added, “Can you fucking believe this shit? What’s the world coming to?”

  Encircled by yellow crime tape with the entire left side of the exterior wall ripped away, the profile of the kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom sat perfectly exposed like the rooms inside a dollhouse. An entire section of the roof had been torn open by the explosion, the puncture resembling a crude skylight. Several silver tarps were visible, thrown over the bodies and body parts here and there. A curtain of rain showered down and the Chief covered his head with his notebook, dripping wet, skin glistening. Tough work for an old guy. He didn’t have to be here. Well, at least not until people started blowing each other up with bombs and the media showed up.

  “Listen closely guys,” he half-shouted over what had become a drumming downpour. “Stan Gadford is on his way. Officer Chad White and Tawny Miller are securing the area. Shade and Debbie, see what you can find inside that crime scene before this fucking rain ruins everything. Be obsessive about the chain of custody, tag and bag anything you get your hands on. Everything will admissible in court and probably used within the next week. Give everything to Stan Gadford.” He glanced at the news Channel 7 truck and said it like it couldn’t have come sooner enough. “We may have just solved this case postmortem.”

  Wadsworth handed Debbie his notes and began to turn away. I stepped in. “Chief, what do you mean solved? If Tadpole was our man, we have a new problem.”

  The old man bristled a little. “What’s that detective?”

  My mouth fell open with disbelief. “How can we use the word solved,” I crooned. “When we have a new killer that killed our killer?”

  Wadsworth dropped his head, the rain streaming off his nose, shoulders wet. “One thing at a time detective. Tonight? It was a victory.” He glanced at the news van. “The first part of this is finished. We won the battle today.”

  Floored, I looked at him. “What?”

  “All this will cancel each other out,” he wagged his finger side to side to emphasize the each other part, still looking at the van. “We can spin the media that our killer has been laid to rest. We’ll focus on that.”

  I put my hands on my hips. That wasn’t even half the story. He was compartmentalizing the investigation. Drawing lines and cutting the truth in separate boxes. It was the greatest lie people told themselves. That everything existed in separate rooms. No. That’s not how life works. Life is organic. All this spinning around you? It’s really happening right now. All at once. Bleeding together. The colors colliding and smashing liquidly into each other. But humans just can’t bear it. They turn truth into fiction by chopping it into bite-sized pieces. Day. Night. Right. Wrong. They just couldn’t accept the reality of it. Or refused. The sun rises and falls continuously people. It never stops. Wake up. It’s all the same fucking day. You can choose to sleep through it if you want. But I’m not. The idea stirred the thought of an old love. The one before Emily. She’d actually bragged she was good at compartmentalizing everything. As if being colorblind helped anyone see rainbows. For a long, long time, I’d wanted her to see the flame inside of me. The one I held for her. But it burned too brightly. She couldn’t take it. Or wouldn’t. I’m sure she was alive, safe, and slumbering her life away in a world of fancy compartments. Just like the rest of the fucking world. I didn’t want to be put in someone else’s box. Who wants to be disregarded? I’d always been an outsider searching for my other outsider. I’d faced my personal demons. I knew my own truth. But loneliness was the currency that paid for the cost of knowing it. I would always be alone. Emily and that stupid, stupid naked boy. I cursed under my breath and kicked the concrete, forcing the mind to refocus. This double-murder. There was no other way about it. Wadsworth was flat wrong. The first stage of this investigation wasn’t solved. Instead something much worse was happening. I saw decay. I saw a case widening. Deepening. Like a sinkhole opening at our feet, pulling it all in and eating everything alive.

  “Then that’s it for now,” Wadsworth tipped his finger to his brow and headed toward his dark-green Chevy Suburban. Thunder rumbled and I could feel it in my feet. Debbie glanced after the old man and her face went crooked.

  “Chief,” she pulled a toothpick out from her mouth and threw a limp hand into the air like, say what. “Where the hell are you going?” He opened his truck and shot a wary glance her way, plaid shirt saturated, the badge bending the pocket over, the rain flying down in sheets. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he shouted. Then he climbed in.

  “I’ve got bags but do you have rubber gloves?” Debbie yelled over the clatter of rain, water running down her face.

  “Nope,” Luke shrugged.

  “Shade?”

  “I drove with Luke.”

  “Shit,” she worked the toothpick with zeal. “Stan’s still not here.”

  “Let me check with the Chief before he rolls out,” I shouted. I jogged over to the old man just as he was shutting the rear passenger door and stuck my hand in. “Chief,” I huffed. “You have any spare gloves?”

  He scowled at me. “Is the universe conspiring against me to not have dinner tonight?” He stepped out of the door and circled around the trunk, taking on the full rain. Door open, I peered into the backseat and greeted Mrs. Wadsworth, wondering who was driving, the tinted front passenger window hummed down and a woman sitting at the steering wheel shot me a smile. “Small world,” she laughed. “Nice night to be out with all…this.”

  “Melanie?” I drew back with a light grin. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me?” she asked, her eyes brimming with excitement. “What about you?”

  I jabbed my thumb in the air. “I work for him.”

  “Ohhh,” she laughed, twisting her grasp on the steering wheel. “You are the new detective my grandfather hired.”

  “Grandfather?” I repeated in wonderment.

  “I guess we lost anonymity?” she smiled. “Melanie Wadsworth. Shade…?”

  “Bardane,” I smiled back. “Detective Shade Bardane. What are the odds?”

  “Not as remote as you might think,” her eyes brightened. “More small-town dynamics.”

  The Chief came around and slapped a box of gloves in my hand. “Don’t tell me you two know each other,” he grunted. Then he held up his palm. “Never mind. See you tomorrow detective.” As they
drove off, Melanie cracked her window and fluttered her fingers at me. I wondered if she too was good at compartmentalizing everything.

  Inside the destroyed residence, Debbie and I moved room to room working the rubble. We combed over every object inside the destroyed house, examined every drawer, searched every corner and scrutinized Barry Harmony’s truck from top to bottom. The harder we looked, the less we found. Like they had just moved here. From say, a professionally sanitized trailer. In the end, we only accumulated scant trace evidence that included burned fragments of the detonation device, and maybe a footprint by the door. Luke caught a witness description offered by an elderly woman across the street regarding a suspicious man in dark clothes lurking about right before the explosion. He had to go pick up Vanessa and the kids at my place so he left. Debbie and I slogged into the wet grass of the easement out front and stood by Debbie’s truck. The storm had moved out and a blanket of stars reappeared behind the craggy horizon of the Cumberland Mountains. Debbie gave the Chevy’s door panel a couple slow fist thumps and leaned into my face. “Shade, what is it?” She was almost pleading now. “Why are these people dying off? What are we missing here?”

  “A connection,” I snapped off my rubber gloves. “Maybe a secret relationship. An affair somewhere. But what we’re really missing is a motive.”

  Another fist thump against the truck like a bass-drum. “What in the hell could it be?”

  “Way I see it,” I leaned against the truck, eyes closed. “These people know each other. They’re all connected somehow. But the link is complex and the answer might be right under our nose, we just haven’t found it yet.”

  “That’s not enough,” Debbie said, shifting in her cowboy boots, her clothes a shade darker, still moist from the rainfall. “I mean, what could be our missing piece? Humor me here, Shade.”

  “You want scenarios? Okay.” I stood and faced her, clicking the points off my fingers, thinking it through. “The vic’s are all men- unless Carlina has also been killed and we haven’t found the body yet.”