Fish on a Bicycle

by Amy Lane

  This time Kryzynski let out the deep breath. “Roger that. Happy hunting.”

  “You too.”

  Jackson signed off just as Joey pulled up into one of those weird driveways you often found in Fair Oaks, with the 6 percent gradient. As the car tilted up at an angle, he heard Henry swear and looked back in time to see him sliding sideways off the jump seat he’d been using in the supply van very much not meant for public transport.

  Jackson snickered and got out, surprised to find himself wobbling a little in the heat. Goddammit, he needed to get his shit together.

  “Let me text Ellery,” he said as they gathered around the back of the van to get cleaning supplies. “If nobody tells him he’s got a detail, he’s going to be pissed.”

  “Why’s he get a detail, and we’ve got to clean houses?” Henry griped, and Jackson flashed him a quick sympathetic smile.

  “Because when you get a detail, it’s going to come with handcuffs and a metal table, suspect.”

  “Pass the pine cleaner, and let’s get this bitch done!”

  Joey handed him a basket instead. “You gotta listen to me when we’re inside, you understand? There’s three spray bottles in there, and if you use the wrong one on the wrong thing, I’m out a customer and I get sued to boot. Capiche?”

  “Capiche,” Henry returned soberly. “Hey, purple gloves!”

  “You’re going to want those—that shit in the green bottle will eat your fingerprints if you’re not careful. You only use that on places that look like the germs will eat you first, understand?”

  Henry regarded him with a fair bit of horror. “You really earn your money, don’t you?”

  “I’ve built an empire on knowing which stuff you wipe and which stuff you beat off with a broom. You can worship at my feet later, but for now, we’re running late!”

  Jackson watched them go, his own basket of goodies at his feet, and allowed himself to sag against the back of the van. His heart thudded in his throat, and in a clear voice in his head, he heard Dr. Keller, who’d attended him after he’d checked out of the hospital that November.

  You have a heart murmur. All this means is that every now and then, your heart remembers it stopped and gets confused. Dizziness, exhaustion, light-headedness are all very much a part of the package. I’ll want to see you in a few weeks, and if that goes well, in a few more. We might not need the heavy medication yet, but you need to eat well, eat more, and take care of yourself. Your body did you a favor by coming back this time. It won’t always.

  Good words—and Jackson had taken them, well, to heart. But after he and Ellery had gotten back from down south, Jackson had managed a couple of appointments. Right up until this last one, which he’d just sort of… forgotten. He’d been recovering, right? He’d been eating right—mostly. He’d put some weight back on.

  Even so, before Ellery had thrown a paperweight at his head, he hadn’t been sleeping well, and some of that weight had slid right back off again. And goddammit, Henry was depending on him right now, and he needed to get oxygen in and out of his body if it killed him.

  Hey, Counselor—you there?

  Yeah. What’s up?

  He frowned. Goddammit, he couldn’t remember how to spell “Kryzynski”! Officer Sean is putting a security detail on you. All of Cormier’s former thugs are turning up with holes in them. I’ve been one of the people to see them last, so you get a tail.

  There was a silence, and his phone rang.

  “What about you?” Ellery snapped.

  “I won’t tell him where I am, and you shouldn’t either. I’ve got Henry with me, and we’re about two hours from evidence that will clear him. If we can get to it first, we can keep him out of jail. And since that’s where one of Cormier’s people got his holes, I’m all for that, you know?”

  Ellery grunted. “You sound funny.”

  Shit. Shit balls fuck. “My breathing’s not great,” he admitted, only because it felt like God had a steel-toed boot aimed at his balls. “You know what I skipped last month—”

  “Your cardiologist appointment,” Ellery said, his voice cracking. “Goddammit, Jackson!”

  “Look. I’ll take it easy—”

  “And I’ll make you an appointment for this afternoon.”

  Jackson kept hearing that paperweight shattering by his ear. “Fine. Get me in if you can. After Joey takes us back to his warehouse, I’ll drive—”

  “Where are you now?”

  “On Joey’s housecleaning route. He’s got two stops, Sampson’s house, and then we’re going to go see where Sampson’s rugs went to be cleaned and resold—Joey’s cousin’s place out in Rio Linda. Joey got called in to pick it up three days ago. Joey thought it had been ruined by a bad cleaning, but—”

  “But you think it was ruined by a pool of blood,” Ellery finished. Jackson had sent him pictures of the documents Crystal had provided before he’d left her house. “Who’s Joey?”

  Jackson had to laugh. “He runs the cleaning service Sampson uses. I told you that’s where I was going, right?”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me you knew someone there!”

  “I know lots of people in the city. Me and Joey used to hang after I was shot—the first time.”

  “You slept with him, didn’t you?” Ellery’s voice had a particular note when he made that deduction. It wasn’t anger, wasn’t jealousy, wasn’t hurt.

  But it wasn’t ecstasy either.

  “Way back before I even met Langdon,” Jackson soothed, and Ellery snorted.

  “Tell me which was harder,” he said. “Talking to me about your health or telling me you slept with a source in the dark ages?”

  “The first one,” Jackson said gruffly. “Joey’s a friend. The heart thing—that could hurt you.”

  “Love you, Jackson. Take care of what’s mine. If things get any worse, call me. Henry’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

  “Yeah, but we promised to take care of him when he needed us.” Breaking that promise would hurt, Jackson couldn’t lie.

  “Jackson….” Ellery’s voice broke, and Jackson realized how truly worried he was.

  “I’ll take care. And that’s a promise too.”

  He heard Ellery’s deep breath. “Good.”

  “Gotta go. I’ll text you when we get to Sampson’s.”

  “Deal.”

  The dizziness faded, and Jackson grabbed his basket of spray cleaners and headed for the house.

  BY THE time they were done with the second house, Joey was willing to offer them both a job, and Jackson reminded Henry that he might have to take him up on that.

  “Remember, you still have to get your degree before you do this for anything more than save your own ass,” he cautioned.

  “I could always use someone part-time,” Joey chimed in. “You’re a hard worker.” He leered. “And you got a great ass!”

  “He’s taken,” Jackson told him, before Henry could blush and sputter and generally string Joey along. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “I’m….” Henry flailed with the hand not shoving the cleaning basket in the back of the van.

  Jackson took pity on him. “He’s generally trying to pull his life together. He doesn’t need Hurricane Joey and his nine-inch dick making things any more exciting.”

  Joey smirked, and Henry’s eyes got really big.

  “That really is about two inches more excitement than I need,” Henry finally said after the shocked silence. “But I may take you up on the job offer.”

  “Well, I won’t say I’m not disappointed.” Joey pretended to pout, and they finished loading up the van. “You guys ready to see the bad-guy’s house?”

  “I’m on the edge of my seat,” Jackson told him with a wink. But as they were getting into the van, Henry showed him, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “You look tired,” he said quietly. “And pale. What’d Ellery say?”

  “About having a detail watching him?
He wanted to know why he was so special. Why?”

  “Did you tell him you don’t feel well?”

  A faint headache throbbed at Jackson’s temples, and he was done with the game. He’d conceded. He felt like crap, and it was time to do something about it. “He’s meeting us at Joey’s business to take me to a doc appointment.” His phone had buzzed while he’d been scrubbing baseboards in the last house. All Ellery had put was the doctor’s name and the time of the appointment, but it had been enough.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just some residuals from treating my body like shit for thirty years,” Jackson admitted. “Crap. Thirty-one years in September.”

  “We don’t have to do this right now.”

  Jackson glared at him. “We do. Henry, you are on the fucking clock. Don’t make this a deal, okay?”

  Henry nodded. “Okay, fine. But how about you investigate and Joey and I clean at the next house.” Henry raised his voice. “That okay with you, Joey? If Jackson sits this next one out? He’s not looking so hot.”

  “Well, he always looks hot,” Joey placated, “but he doesn’t look well.”

  Jackson laughed, like he was supposed to, then leaned against the door and closed his eyes. “Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.”

  IF JACKSON had never been to Ellery’s house, had never visited Ellery’s parents, he would have said Sampson’s house was classy.

  The color schemes were actually similar, with lots of navy in the trim, lots of cream carpets and hardwood floors. But Ellery had odd touches—a deep red comforter or a throw his sister had made on the couch—that made the place a home. His parents’ house had seen two kids and two grandkids, and the flowers were sometimes massacred, and there were dents in the doorframes where furniture had been moved, and Jackson had actually seen an entire room painted blushing pink. It had been Lucy Satan’s office, so Jackson’s mind had officially been blown.

  The point was, people lived in those homes. Dust gathered in the corners sometimes, and the rooms were arranged for comfort, not for aesthetics. Ellery hired a cleaning company usually, although they were between cleaners at the moment. Still, not even a once-a-week dust and vacuum could combat Billy Bob’s shedding problem or the fact that sometimes the cat thought the couch was a better place to sharpen his claws than the convenient scratching post scented with catnip. Even before Jackson had moved in, there had been slightly wilting flowers on the table and closet doors that weren’t always closed.

  Ellery had pictures on the walls that he liked—subtle colors, happy moments, watercolor prints. His mother liked pictures of flowers.

  Robert Sampson had blocks of navy-blue canvas, carelessly splashed with white and black.

  It made Jackson’s head hurt, as did the rest of the house.

  He haunted the place, stealthy as a cat, as Joey and Henry rushed around, conducting the most useless housecleaning ever.

  “Fuck house-cleaning,” Jackson muttered. “This place needs to be cleansed.”

  Because there wasn’t a speck of dust in the place. But there weren’t any good feelings either.

  “Hey, Joey!” Jackson called. “Do you know what happened to Mrs. Sampson?”

  “Hadley?” Joey called back from the kitchen, where he was sterilizing the trash can with whatever was in the green bottle. “Yeah. She moved to her sister’s place in New Hampshire a year and a half ago. She discontinued housecleaning and let Mr. Sampson pick his own after that.”

  Jackson grunted. “Lucky for me he picked you.”

  “So, what were you going to do if he hadn’t?” Joey asked, coming in from the kitchen to join Jackson as he—gloves on—checked all available drawers for incriminating information.

  “My original plan was to slip in when the cleaners came by. And by the way, I knew this would work because that’s how somebody used Ellery’s cleaning service to bug his house last fall. We’ve been tidying up after ourselves since we found out, but if you’ve got room for another house on your roster—”

  “Yeah, sure. You send me his address, I’ll give you a once-a-week wipe job.” Joey chuckled at the double entendre, and Jackson rolled his eyes.

  And kept looking.

  “Hey, the kitchen’s done, and your boy’s doing the bathroom,” Joey told him.

  “Because you’re a sadistic punk who’s taking advantage of a rookie,” Jackson said, and Joey’s chuckle picked up the evil.

  “Well, yeah. But besides that. Do you want to see the office?”

  Jackson’s eyes popped open. “So could we look for bloodstains first?” he begged.

  “Oh yeah. I’m all over that. Do you have a sample kit?”

  Jackson pulled a Ziploc bag out of one of the pockets of his cargo shorts. It had thin nonlatex gloves, five small sample bottles, a sterile pack of Q-tips, and a little spritz bottle of luminol.

  “Never leave home without it,” he muttered. He had another Ziploc bag with scissors, tweezers, and small evidence bags in his other cargo pocket, for when only physical evidence would do.

  “Good. Let’s go find some blood spatter.”

  At first, it seemed impossible. The office was darkly paneled and oppressive as hell, with oxblood chairs and a desk topped with black marble. Joey started turning on lights, but Jackson stopped him and reached into his pocket again. This time, he came out with his keychain and a small-sized black light, which he switched on near the doorway and moved methodically from floor to ceiling along the walls as he moved.

  “Look for dark spots,” he said. “Like black holes. I don’t want to hit the whole room with luminol—this will give us an idea of where to start.”

  Joey looked around and frowned. “Okay, so I know this is totally cliché, but there used to be a big chunky paperweight on the desk, and it’s gone now.”

  “With square edges on the base?” Jackson asked, because could it really be that easy?

  “You know it!”

  “Turn on the light and look to see if it got moved,” Jackson told him. “And show me where the rug went.”

  Joey looked at him funny. “How’d you know the rug was from the study? He’s replaced it already.”

  “Hunh.” Jackson had never really thought about it. “I guess, you know, bad guy kills his enemies in the study. It’s a time-honored trope among bad guys.”

  “Does that really work? I mean, do bad guys honor the rules?”

  “No,” Jackson said definitively. “Our last bad guy was training assassins for the military—and he took good guys and broke them and made them bad guys. I’d say that’s the opposite of honoring the rules.”

  “You broke my tiny brain, Rivers. I think that’s why you and I never worked. I’d be all, ‘Let’s fuck!’ and you’d be all, ‘Are either of us ready for the relationship that another fuck would give us?’ And by the time I answered that question in my head, my boner had disappeared.”

  Jackson snorted. “As if that’s an option. Now show me where the rug used to be, and look around for that paperweight!”

  “Come here and help me shift the rug that’s down there now. It’s bigger than the one he moved.”

  “Is the desk in the same place?” Jackson asked, because the rug was actually under the desk.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because he couldn’t have done this by himself without fucking up his floor,” Jackson noted, grabbing his end of the desk. “And I don’t see any drag marks. So someone else must have been here. And I think I know who.”

  “Care to share with the class—oof! This thing is heavier than it looks!”

  “No, because I want you to have plausible deniability,” Jackson panted. Fucking desk—Jesus, his back would never be the same. He set it down with a thump, and both of them went after the rug. “Oh my God! This is two rugs—not even a rug and a pad. What in the hell?”

  They both stared at the mess on the floor. What should have been super expensive lacquered ebony was scrubbed so hard, the finish had gone white and rough. A spot t
he size of a car seat had been completely sanded out of the black floor. “That’s not blood,” Joey said grimly.

  “But it used to be.” Jackson took a breath. “And on wood this color, it still might be. Kill the lights for me, okay?”

  Joey did as he asked, and Jackson wielded the black light. Sure enough…. “See those drops right there?” Jackson asked, pulling out the Q-tips and luminol.

  “Wow—in the black light they look… blacker.”

  “Yeah. I think it’s the shiny lacquer. It works as a foil.”

  “Doesn’t hurt that the bleach spot is glowing like the crab nebula,” Joey said, awe in his voice.

  “Right? Now here.” Jackson tossed Joey his camera. “Film it.”

  For the sake of the video, he said, “I’m taking a swab here, from Robert Sampson’s floor. First, I hit it with the luminol, and….”

  And like magic under the black light, the blood drops appeared.

  “And you’ve got yourself a crime scene,” Joey said. “Damn! I learned how to crunch numbers, you learned how to solve stuff. Well done!”

  And at that moment, three things happened.

  Henry walked in carrying a big glass bad-guy paperweight, complete with blood and brain matter, secure in a Ziploc bag, at the same time the front door opened.

  “Hey, River Breeze people!” called a familiar voice from the front door. “I need you to get the fuck out of here! Goddammit, I forgot this was your fucking day!”

  They all met eyes, and Jackson swore, hopping up from the ground and kicking the rug over.

  “He’s seen me and Henry,” Jackson muttered, settling the rug and grabbing one end of the desk. “Henry, put the murder weapon in Joey’s basket. Joey, grab the basket and get out first. Get in the van, head for the rug, take my cell and call Kryzynski. He’s ‘Dickhead’ on the contacts list.”

  Henry started moving before he was done talking. “What do we do?” he asked, grabbing the other end of the desk while Joey balanced the basket. Jackson’s chest tightened all over again, and he saw stars, but they couldn’t afford to slow down now.