Dark Streets, Cold Suburbs

by Aimee Hix

  “Okay, I’m going to open the front door.” I felt her nod.

  “I’m not scared.” I was sure that wasn’t true, but she got points for trying. My earlier frustration with her had completely fled.

  I cranked the locks open, probably the only thing that kept that sledge from caving in the frame was the reinforced bolt plate that had to be installed to manage the multiple locks. I opened the door and we pushed forward just enough to look out into the lawn and driveway. I saw an older man staring at us. He had a small, white fluff ball on a leash. It was so furry I couldn’t tell if it was a dog or a cat or a baby harp seal.

  I raised the hand not carrying a gun and pressed my gun hand slightly behind me.

  “Hi. This is going to be an odd question but—”

  “Are you girls okay? I saw the truck. And the door. It looks like you’re both kind of scared.”

  Both of us? I may not have felt it but I sure as hell looked calm. It was the only thing I managed to pull off perfectly lately. Looking fine. Aja, of course, looked like she’d just left a horror movie. A 3-D one. With interactive popup villain planted in the audience.

  “We’re fine. But did you happen to see the guy who vandalized the door? And the truck.”

  He stared at me, a little smile on his face. Like he was enjoying that someone had tried to break in. In broad daylight. With a teenager at home. I hoped it was that frisson of excitement one got from watching a cop show or reading a particular thrilling book. Something to bust up the boredom of retirement.

  “Nope. The missus heard it though and insisted on calling the police.”

  And you decided to snap the leash on Fido and check out the scene.

  “Awesome. Thanks so much.” Brava, Mrs. Old Neighbor. Calling the cops and getting some official eyes on the house was now out of my hands. I didn’t have to convince Aja to let me do it and I didn’t have to worry about her loyalty to her parents keeping her from doing it.

  I turned back to the inside of the house, still concealing my gun and changed hands with it again. I did another one eighty to holster it. I wasn’t about to have it in my hand in a ritzy neighborhood when the black-and-whites came screaming in to check on the well-being of the Richie Riches even if I was protecting one of them.

  The man was still staring at us while the cotton ball tugged and ran in circles trying to get the show on the road.

  “We’re fine. I promise. We’re going to wait out here for the police.” He looked annoyed that I was rushing him along. Like I cared.

  “He’s the neighborhood snoop,” Aja whispered. “He’s hoping you’ll ask him to come up and look at the damage.”

  Fat fucking chance. I kept smiling and waving. “Really. We don’t want to keep you from your walk.”

  “I don’t know you. You don’t live here.” He’d taken a few steps into the yard, the little dandelion puff barking now. So it was a dog.

  “She’s my friend, okay?” Aja said. Her voice was not the sad girl or the scared girl. This was black eye makeup goth girl and she was pissed.

  “Down girl,” I said, quietly, trying not to laugh. The tension from the adrenaline started to dissipate from my limbs. Watching Aja go snarly on the busybody was perking my mood back up.

  My ears picked up the sirens the little dog had heard thirty seconds before.

  He stomped down the grass, pulling the dog along just when it had started to relieve itself.

  The cops came, ones I’d never met before, and took a report. They weren’t as deferential as they’d have been if Aja wasn’t a teen and I wasn’t a PI, but they did reassure her that they’d talk to the neighbors. They seemed even less concerned about my truck. I believe the quote was, “That’s what insurance is for, right?” Said the guy who didn’t have to explain to her partner/boss/father why there was an insurance claim.

  After a call to a locksmith where we got extremely deferential treatment for the extra money Aja threw at him, I made one to my dad to have him come pick Aja up.

  His reaction was, as predicted, unthrilled. He didn’t say a word about Aja, though. Just came, introduced himself, made sure she was okay, and said he was sure she was hungry so they’d better get her home. That was it. I got a look leveled at me then he smiled, perhaps reminding himself that he’d lied to and tricked me only a few hours earlier.

  I had to make a call to a glass replacement company for the windshield, but after that I called Seth’s cell and got his voicemail. I didn’t want to leave any of this in a message so I called the number for the task force.

  “This is Willa Pennington. I need to leave a message for Seth Anderson to call me as soon as he can, please.”

  “One second, Ms. Pennington. Let me look up your access.”

  Standard operating procedure. All the task force members had to compile a list of people who were authorized to leave or receive messages or, in case of an emergency, receive notification. Seth and I had fought over that list. He’d left his parents off. I’d told him that I would call them and he told me he couldn’t control me and then I’d told him he was a stubborn ass and that if I was the one who had to call his parents and tell them he was dead I was going to find some kind of witchcraft to bring his selfish ass back and then I was going to kill him myself. He’d added them to the list.

  “Ms. Pennington. Agent Anderson has left a message for you.” There was a click and the recording began.

  “Sunshine, I have to go out of town for an undetermined amount of time. I’ll call you when I know more.”

  I stood in the front yard of Aja’s house, staring at the ground as the recording clicked off. My chest was tight. He hadn’t called me. He’d left a message for me in case I called the task force.

  I called his cell phone again. Now I had a message I definitely wanted to leave.

  “That is some coward bullshit right there, Seth. I mean, who does that? Who just takes off without a word? I … I’m so pissed at you right now.” I disconnected the call before I said something I’d regret.

  I chewed on his message over and over until the locksmith arrived, the windshield repair truck following a few minutes later.

  “You know I can’t repair the damage to the decorative frame, right? There’s a nasty gash in the wood. It’ll need to be replaced or puttied.”

  I nodded. “We just want to make sure the locks are changed and whatever you need to do to make sure they’re set properly in case there was any damage to the wood around the bolt and strike plates.”

  “Um, lady. There’s a sledgehammer in the windshield.”

  I turned my attention to the truck. I resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. It wasn’t his job to move the implement. I was pissed the cops didn’t take it, but their attitude was if there were fingerprints they wouldn’t be in the system and it was a waste of time and resources. Had I caught a call like this when I’d been a uniform you can bet your ass I’d have taken it as evidence, but I wasn’t a cop anymore and I couldn’t dictate their judgement. Or lack thereof.

  I hauled out my tool case and got out a pair of latex gloves. I was preserving evidence either way. I laid it on the backseat and grabbed the file Jan gave me. I could go over it inside while I waited for the work to finish.

  I wandered the first floor looking for the kitchen and found a vast room of white marble and stainless-steel appliances. It looked like a meal had never been cooked in the room. A table with eight chairs sat to one side and I knew that a syrup bottle had never touched its surface. The refrigerator was filled with bottled water and not much else. What did Aja eat? I grabbed a bottle of water and dropped it and the file onto the counter while I snooped through the cabinets. All I found were box after bag after package of processed, chemical-laden, artificially colored, mass-produced junk. It was enough to put me off my stubborn clinging to the diet I’d indulged in most of my life.

  My phone
beeped.

  Got Aja settled at the dining room table to do her homework.

  You had to love Nancy. I threw an almost full-grown teenage stalking victim at her and her only response was “Did you do your homework?”

  My phone blipped again: OMG! Ur mom is impossible.

  I chuckled. Poor girl had no idea that she was about to fall deeply under the spell Nancy Pennington wove. First it was homework, then it was fresh fruit, and before you knew it you were turning in early to get a good night’s sleep. There was no use fighting it. I never bothered. I side-stepped it on occasion, but we both pretended I didn’t.

  Beep: She reminds me so much of you when you were her age.

  Translation: I’ll break her like a breadstick.

  Blip: She’s making me eat a cut up apple with homemade peanut butter. She made peanut butter from scratch just now.

  No fighting it. She’d already started falling.

  Beeeeeeep: Poor thing just needs some attention and love.

  And Mom was gone too.

  Bliiiiiiiiiiiiip: I love ur mom!!!

  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep: I’m keeping her.

  I texted them both back Talk to each other and put my phone on silent.

  I unscrewed the cap and took a long drink of the water.

  Had the guy been lurking when I’d gotten here? Where would he have hidden himself? Where had he gotten the sledge from? Had he brought it with him? Where had he gone when he left?

  And what the hell was hightailing it out of town without so much as a phone call supposed to mean? I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that. Seth would call and I’d hear what he had to say. Or he wouldn’t call and that was that too.

  I had Aja to worry about and the case Jan had asked me to review for her. I grabbed the file off the counter and spread the photos out on the table. It wasn’t like being at the crime scene, but it was the best I was going to get. I looked at the short list detailing the exhibits displayed in each. I flipped back to the case overview.

  The decedent, Amanda Veitch, known to her family as Mandy, was found dead in her room at 14:17 on November 26th by her mother, Marilyn Veitch.

  I flipped to the coroner’s report.

  Manner of death: Homicide

  Cause of death: Blunt force trauma resulting in middle meningeal arterial rupture

  A small amount of blood had been found on the dresser corner. I took out my phone and Googled middle meningeal artery. She’d hit her head. It was an easy way to die. The skull thinned out over the ear, the artery located outside the dura. An unlucky blow and you could be dead in minutes without ever realizing there was an issue. You could feel fine, suffering what seemed like a small bump to your head, you were walking and talking and then down for the count.

  Had Amanda Veitch been conscious after the fall? Had she been alert? Had she seemed fine to her killer? Had it been an accident? Boyd didn’t think so and neither did the coroner. Manner of death was listed as homicide. But why?

  I went back to the summary.

  Attempt made to cover the death with fire. Assumption is homicide pending autopsy. Initial suspects: brother, Kevin Veitch, and boyfriend, Kyle Warnicky.

  Initial suspect was the brother? What kind of screwed-up family dynamic led to that assumption? Boyfriend, sure. I’d been on enough domestic calls to see what love could twist into—hell, if my own boyfriend had been in front of me, I’d cheerfully bash him on the head—but fratricide wasn’t a radar hit for me. Maybe because I couldn’t ever imagine being pissed off enough at my own brother to contemplate worse than ratting him out to our parents.

  Mother’s witness statement indicated the victim and brother fighting the night before, Thanksgiving. Jeez, the mom had been out shopping for Christmas presents when her daughter was killed. Brother and sister had been close in age and emotionally until the summer before. Mother didn’t know what had started the estrangement.

  Okay, they had a dispute, which having a brother I knew was a normal state of affairs. How does that lead to murder or even suspicion? Boyd wasn’t the kind of cop to pull a flimsy assumption like that out of nothing. I read further.

  Alibis:

  Kevin Veitch, none

  Kyle Warnicky, none

  So the brother and the boyfriend had no alibis. That still wasn’t enough to list either as an official suspect, not even counting a recent estrangement. Had Jan played fast and loose with the case because she’d been a rookie? There had to be something more. She was a fantastic detective and she didn’t cut corners. And the case was cold, so whatever her reasons for suspecting the two men, they hadn’t panned out into real evidence.

  I got an alert on my phone that the windshield was done.

  Too bad it hadn’t been the locksmith since it had started to get really cold in the house with the door open.

  I went out through what looked like a pantry or mudroom to what I was assuming was the garage based on where the kitchen was laid out in the house.

  I opened the door to the garage and sent the automated door up. I didn’t want to get in the locksmith’s way going out the front door. Three cars sat in the bay. Two shiny sports cars and a black Mini, I assumed was Aja’s. She really liked the color.

  “Man, you guys have the worst luck with cars. Who did you piss off?” The windshield repair guy pointed at the back of Aja’s car and I could see bitch had been gouged into the paint. Bare metal gleamed under the garage’s overhead light. Damian had been angry and dedicated.

  “Yeah, we’re dealing with a bad breakup.”

  He handed me a business card. “We’ve got an association with an auto body repair place.”

  “Most windshield repair isn’t due to sledgehammers wielded by jilted teens?”

  He chuckled, probably relieved I wasn’t all shriek-y and weepy. “That’s a first for me.”

  I motioned to Aja’s car. “Stick around. I have a feeling if I don’t catch her ex soon enough, we’ll be giving you more business.”

  “Catch him? I thought you were like her sister or something.” He flushed. I narrowed my eyes at him. That “something” damn well better not have been “her mother,” buddy, I thought. Maybe something slightly older, like “cool aunt.” Or “cousin.”

  “Nope, friend who happens to be a PI.”

  He smirked. “You’re a PI? Right. Let me see your badge.”

  Fun. Another man who thought that PIs came in only one variety—penis-laden. “How about a business card?”

  “You don’t have a badge?” He looked skeptical.

  The locksmith came over with his toolbox. He was smiling. “She’s the real deal, dude. She was all over the news a couple months ago—some joint county-feds operation.”

  Now it was my turn to smirk. I didn’t usually like it when someone mentioned the events of the previous fall, but it was nice to see the stupid look on the guy’s face. It had been bad enough being a female cop. The force hadn’t officially been a misogynistic cesspool of boob jokes and fatheads offering to help me pick up heavy objects, like their dicks, but it happened. You had two choices: strident ball-buster who needed to get a sense of humor or one of the guys laughing it off. Either way, you still endured it.

  Being a female PI brought out all kinds of raised eyebrows, jokes, and questions. It was long past time that we put all that sexist bullshit into some Viking ship and turned it into a funeral pyre.

  I tipped my imaginary cowgirl hat at the locksmith. “Just doing my part, sir.”

  He laughed and handed me the receipt and a set of keys. I tried not to look as shocked as I felt, but there were more numbers on the left side of the decimal point than I’d been expecting. Higher numbers than I was expecting too. All that for the one door.

  “That’s for the whole job. I’ll be back tomorrow morning to change out the locks on all the other exterior doors, put in
window security pins, and assist the alarm technician.”

  That was more like it. He looked at Aja’s car. “I’ll make sure we install manual locks for the garage door too.”

  I watched both men drive off and returned to the kitchen to grab my water bottle and case file. I needed to take pictures of the damage to Aja’s car before I returned home.

  I rolled my neck trying to diffuse the tension in the muscles running from the base of my skull to the middle of my back. I needed to get to a heavy bag and beat back the escalating anger I was feeling.

  On the drive home, the mess with Seth popped back into my head. I still couldn’t do anything about it except maybe consider giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe. I could consider it and still discard it. I could choose to be the bigger person and get Ben to figure out how to delete the message I’d left. I could. I wouldn’t. I hadn’t had that much therapy. I didn’t think that much therapy existed.

  So he’d get the message and he could damn well call back to give me a decent explanation for how someone who’d been bugging me relentlessly to move in with him as recently as forty-eight hours before could take off for parts unknown without even a text. Damn him!

  Aja and Ben were out front playing with Fargo when I pulled up. “Playing” was a euphemism for training her to rip off an enemy’s arm, of course. I wasn’t sure why Ben thought a washout from federal training would be a good guard dog, but I knew he needed to do something to feel productive after my attack. And if it took the form of a companion, especially since my human one had lit off for parts unknown, I wasn’t going to interfere anymore.

  Fargo caught sight of my truck and began to run frantically toward me.

  “Phooey,” Ben yelled. Fargo stopped her flight and looked back, her head tilted. She wasn’t the only one who looked confused. Aja stared at Ben like he’d lost his mind.

  I laughed. “Hier, Fargo.”

  The puppy resumed her gallop toward me and I got down on one knee to accept her exuberant, and damp, puppy greeting. It had felt like weeks since I’d seen her beautiful eyes. I hated the overnight weeklong training Ben had insisted on. In retrospect it seemed like a great idea since I needed someone that happy to see me when I got home. I wasn’t about to tell my brother he’d been right though. I’d rather poke myself in the eyes with a sharp stick. Twice.