Storm Justice

by Pamela Cowan

  Storm smiled at Nicky’s silliness. Making friends had always been hard for her. Her father's army career had kept the family moving so frequently that she'd never had a chance to learn how to maintain a long-term friendship. After the accident, she'd felt even less inclined to let someone get close.

  Nicky, though, was special. She was Storm's opposite in so many ways and not just in the superficial and obvious ones. Tall or short, brunette or blond, slender or curvy, didn’t really matter. The important differences could be found in their personalities. Where Nicky was filled with optimism and positive energy, Storm was cynical and downright somber. Where Nicky was carefree and fun-loving, Storm was controlling and tedious.

  Being around Nicky forced Storm in a new direction. She always felt more balanced after spending time with her friend. She wondered if maybe she was like a house plant on a windowsill that had to be turned now and then. Nicky kept her from leaning too far in one direction.

  Smiling at her fanciful metaphor, Storm dug in her purse for her coffee card, and then, hesitating, placed it on her desk. She'd go in a moment, but before she forgot . . .

  Storm clicked a few keys on her keyboard and opened the law enforcement database. She had found her father was on post-prison supervision and had been living in a halfway house but had moved out. He was supposed to have reported change in residence but not enough time had gone by for anyone to be worried. Well, aside from Storm. She was worried.

  Her usual methods of discovering someone's whereabouts had failed. Not that much of a surprise. After all, it wasn't as if he had been part of society for a few years. He had no credit cards, probably not even a library card. He'd joined no online organizations, neither for his old squad or his high school. She'd discovered no paper trail at all—at least, not yet. Storm hoped for a parking ticket, half expecting a DUI. With his lifelong quest for the next buzz, eventually he'd screw up and she'd learn where he was.

  She ran his name, but again had no luck. Coffee sounded better and better.

  Standing in line at the coffee shop, Storm fidgeted. There were five people ahead of her. She hated lines.

  “White chocolate mocha, please.”

  That voice. It was familiar. Storm peered around the shoulder of the man in front of her just as the woman who'd placed the order turned to walk to the counter where the barista would place her drink when it was ready. Their eyes met and they both froze.

  Storm decided to do nothing. Forget the woman was even there. She sidestepped back to where she'd been in line, her view the back of a suit jacket. The woman had obviously made a different choice.

  “Psst.” It was more hiss than word.

  Storm saw that the woman was now standing nearby, boldly staring at her. “Did you say something?” Storm asked.

  “You were at The Cooler that night,” the woman said. Storm had immediately recognized the diminutive Hispanic woman with her dark skin and blond-streaked hair.

  “You work here?” Storm asked, surprised.

  “Upstairs,” the woman replied curtly, giving nothing more.

  “Small world,” said Storm. “Have you heard anything about your friend?”

  The woman's eyes narrowed, and she looked Storm up and down as if she might find an answer of some sort if she just stared hard enough.

  “Nothing,” she finally spat out. “It’s been a month and the police haven't said anything. They talk to you?”

  “Yes. They followed up with me because I work in P and P, and they wanted to be sure I wasn't the one he was after. He broke my arm after all.” Storm held up her left arm. Her sleeve was rolled back to mid forearm to accommodate the thickness of the cast, now decorated with faded magic marker drawings of flowers and a smiling sun.

  “Hmm,” said the woman, whom Storm remembered was called Celine, “I think you have fast answers to every question. Maybe too fast.”

  “Yeah, well, I think you and your friends weren’t much help that night. You got in the way. You assaulted me. You’re lucky I don’t sue you.”

  Storm took a shallow breath and kept her eyes locked on the woman’s. She was nervous and still felt a little guilty about how she’d selected Angela Ruiz, this woman’s friend. But acting too nice wouldn’t have helped anything—it would have only allowed her guilt to show through.

  “White mocha,” rang out the voice of the barista.

  The woman looked Storm up and down once more, and tossing her head, moved off to get her drink.

  Two customers later, Storm placed her order. Still rattled but determined not to show it, she moved up to the counter and asked for a wet cappuccino and a bran muffin, though she no longer wanted either.

  Back in her office, Storm worked steadily through the pile of files on her desk. The coffee she'd bought grew cold, the muffin stale. She wanted to shut off her mind, throw herself into work and nothing else.

  That woman, suspicious and far too close by, added another level of misery to an already rotten day.

  She should have known it would be an awful day. She'd had the dream again last night—the good dream, or the bad dream, depending on how she looked at it.

  The dream always began the same way, and the images seemed so real, she was sure it was based on an actual memory.

  She was very young, no older than Lindsey, maybe even as young as Joel. It was a quiet day. A dreadful emptiness filled the house, and she wondered if it would be like that forever.

  There was a reason it was so bleak. Her father had left again. Just like that. There one day, tossing her onto his shoulder and carrying her around like the queen of the world. The next day, gone, leaving an empty space where sound echoed but had no real voice.

  In the dream, she found his room, the one with the big bed, so very tall, but she managed to climb onto it anyway. She pulled back the blankets and found his pillow, buried her face in the mingled scents of Old Spice, hair oil, and rum. The tears had come. Slow, warm tears that made her feel a little better. Eventually, she fell asleep, the pillow hugged tightly against her chest, not happy but content, at least.

  She woke from the dream each time with the same longing ache for a father who didn't exist, except as a child's flawed memory, and a blinding anger at her loss.

  That morning was no different. The pang of nostalgia, the child she had been, was still present, still able to remember and hurt. This bothered the grown-up that was Storm.

  She didn’t love that child. She wanted to spit on her, slap her, force her to act. She wanted to save her. Too many of her memories held that child cowering in a corner, hiding under a bed, sneaking around the edges of a life of fear. There was no pride there, no fighting spirit. That child made Storm sick to the core of her being.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  IN THE MONTHS since landing the county project, Tom had fallen into the habit of taking Storm to lunch on Mondays. It was the day he usually met with the county’s project manager to discuss progress on the new building. Storm always looked forward to those lunches. Since the kids had come along, they rarely had alone time.

  On a blustery day in early April, she and Tom ate lunch at Baker’s Burgers, a local family-owned restaurant that made burgers like the ones they remembered from childhood.

  “We’ll have to bring the kids here,” Tom said. “I don’t think they’ve ever had an old-fashioned burger or a cup of fries.” He held up the cup, fries spilling from the edges. “What do you think is the idea behind this?”

  “That’s funny. I asked the counter girl that same question. She said it’s so you can put them in the cup holder in your car.”

  “That’s brilliant!” Tom enthused, his architect’s mind thrilled by the functionality of the idea.

  Storm smiled at his enthusiasm. How nice to be able to spend a relaxed moment free of the need to analyze every nuance. There were no lies to tell to cover late returns or unexpected absences. Since her last meeting with Howard, when she’d cried like a baby for no reason at all, he’d left her completely alon
e.

  Because Howard had been compliant with all his court-ordered sanctions, and since his fines and fees were being paid on time, she had no reason to call him in. She was starting to think he had given up pressuring her into resuming their partnership.

  She’d even begun to give up on her fear of running into her father. He was an old man—well, at fifty-three, an older man. Twenty years in prison was a long time. Odds were good that he wouldn’t want any trouble and she was simply being paranoid. There had been no letters or phone calls in all the time her father had been in prison. Aunt June had forbidden it and Storm hadn’t minded.

  “I’m sorry, I was daydreaming,” said Storm, when she realized Tom had asked her something. “What did you say?”

  “I was asking if you read the paper this morning.”

  “No. Why?”

  “I was looking at one while I was waiting for you earlier. I read about this grandmother they think drowned her grandkid and buried her in the back lot. They found the body yesterday. Wondered if you’d heard about it.”

  “I did actually. Didn’t the grandmother call the police to report her granddaughter was missing? Are they saying she did it?”

  “Seems like. Though everything is worded so carefully. Wouldn’t want to come right out and say it, I guess. Not without plenty of evidence. I just wondered if your office will be involved.”

  “Doubt it. We don’t handle the people going into jail. We just handle the ones coming out.”

  “I knew that. I guess I was curious if you had insider information. How could a grandmother kill anyone, much less their own grandkid? Sort of blows your mind.”

  “Sort of makes me sick to think of it.” Storm looked at the half-eaten burger sitting on the tray. The yellow paper wrapped around it was stained with grease. She pushed it and the nearly full cup of fries away and took a long sip of her iced tea.

  “Let’s talk about something more cheerful,” suggested

  Tom. “What are you planning for Easter? Should we take the kids to the Alpenrose Dairy’s egg hunt this year or to the zoo, like last year?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we can try the dairy.”

  “You don’t sound very enthused,” said Tom.

  “Well, you know I’ve never like the whole egg-hunt thing. I hate the competitiveness. Some kids get lots of eggs, some get a few, and some get pushed around. Do you really think that sounds like fun?”

  “We’ll keep an eye on them, Stormy. I don’t remember being traumatized by hunting for Easter eggs, and I had lots of competition. We always held ours at the church.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  The throwaway cell phone in Storm’s purse rang at 4:45. Howard’s voice: “Did you hear about the woman who killed her grandkid? She’s just been released. We can’t let this stand.”

  Storm sat quietly, the phone gripped in her hand. “Yes,” she finally said, “We can.”

  She switched off the phone.

  The phone in Storm’s house rang at 6:30 p.m., but when Tom answered it, the caller hung up. It rang again at 7:15 with the same result. At 8:00, when it rang the third time, Storm was ready and snatched the cordless from its cradle.

  “This is Storm,” she said, a warning in the tone of her voice. There was a click in her ear as someone hung up. In the next five hours the phone rang five times, and each time it was answered, the caller hung up. The last call came at 12:45 p.m.

  Tom pressed *69 after the third call, and a number had appeared, but neither of them recognized it. When Tom dialed it, there was nothing but an impersonal recorded voice suggesting he leave a message for the phone’s owner.

  Storm was not fooled. She had purchased a throwaway phone for Howard. There was nothing to keep him from buying another.

  After the sixth call, Tom tried to call the number back to leave a scorching message, but Storm stopped him. She didn’t want Howard angry at Tom.

  In the morning, they were bleary-eyed from sleeping too little and too lightly. They had turned the phone off after the 12:45 p.m. call, but they needn’t have bothered. According to its memory, there had been no further calls. It was as if the caller knew he couldn’t bother them anymore.

  Storm got the kids ready and told Tom to sleep in. She dropped them off on her way to work. She was eager to get to her office, a private place where she would be free to call Howard.

  Unfortunately, as soon as she reached her office, the phone rang. It was Carrie.

  “You’ve got a client waiting.”

  “Already?” Storm was certain it was Howard waiting to apologize or threaten.

  “Yep. Sorry. His name is . . . let’s see . . . Eldon Shatterly.”

  “Oh.” Storm was both disappointed and relieved. She took a quick glance at her appointment book. Eldon did have an appointment, though not for another half hour. “He’s early, but I guess I’ll go ahead and see him. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay.”

  Eldon Shatterly: the client who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He must have been getting eager. There was only a week left until the end of his probation period. She’d asked him along for an exit interview. They’d go over everything just to make sure he’d pass through the system with the least amount of friction.

  “I’m glad to see you doing so well,” said Storm, once they’d finished going over the necessary forms. “Your new job sounds great, and didn’t you tell me last time you were here that you turned in a financial-aid application for college?”

  “Yes, I did. I got accepted to a couple schools, and now I’m just trying to figure out which one is giving me the best deal. It feels like a whole new start.”

  His smile and enthusiasm were infectious. Storm found herself smiling back. She’d tell Tom about this later. He hated the people she had to interact with and worried about her all the time. Eldon was the kind of person he’d want to hear about, someone who had earned a second chance. Furthermore, despite having more reason than most to hate the system, he’d done all that the court asked of him and hadn’t projected his sense of injustice or anger back on her.

  After escorting him down the hall and back to the reception area, with the usual admonishment to stay out of trouble, Storm returned to her office.

  Storm’s coworkers were busy and noisy, so to escape them, she closed her office door, sat down in her ergonomic chair, and stared blindly into the middle distance. She wondered what, if anything, she could do to earn a reset of her life. Maybe she’d already made a start. She listened to Tom’s story about the abusive grandmother, and though it made her angry and upset, she hadn’t felt the need for further research or to take action.

  Let someone else deal with the evil people in the world, she decided. She was tired and wanted nothing more than to raise her children, be a good companion to Tom, and do her job. This horrible path she’d strayed onto, the anger that drove her there, were both things that should stay in the past, like everyone’s mistakes.

  Thinking about the past few months, there was a part of her that couldn’t really believe what she’d done. It was as if there were two Storms or, maybe, one Storm and one Willow.

  The strange thought caught her imagination. Storm and Willow, but which was the killer? Willow, of course. The one who’d been burned, spent all that time in the hospital, dealt with the surgery that followed. Willow was a little girl having a temper tantrum and demanding revenge or justice.

  Storm was just a mom who wanted a quiet life and good times with her family, a person who stood aside fearfully and watched from some dark corner of Willow’s mind. Storm would never have done what Willow had. She’d never have taken part in any kind of killing, and she’d never have become involved with Howard.

  Blinking, Storm rolled her shoulders, sat up straighter, and looked nervously around her empty office. These were the kind of thoughts crazy people had, and she wasn’t crazy. She didn’t have a split personality or hear voices. She was just a person who had seen too much crap
and decided to do something about it. Well, to be honest, to get Howard to do something about it.

  Yeah, that was the truth. If she hadn’t talked to Howard, found that first number, agreed to go with him to serve as lookout the first time, none of the killings would have happened. People had those kinds of thoughts, but they didn’t act on them. She would never have acted on them if it weren’t for Howard.

  Howard. He was the key to all of this. A truly damaged person if ever there was one. She thought of him with his nasty whip, spittle flying from his mouth as he reared back and then swept forward, blood and screams at the end of each horrid stroke. This was the man who had her phone number and was calling her home. The place that sheltered everyone she cared about.

  She thought of his smirk, his smug expression, and suddenly she could see him as clearly as if he stood in front of her. She thought of the unwelcome touches of his hands and lips. A sense of disgust bordering on hatred filled her. God, what had she allowed herself to get into? How dare he call her home? Shaking, she swept her right hand across her desk. Eldon’s file flew across the room and smacked into the wall and to the floor.

  Storm wanted to hit something else, break something or someone. He’d reached right into her house—the son of a bitch.

  Taking the special cell phone from her pocket, she punched his number with her forefinger. She heard one ring, and the call went directly into voice mail. Taking a deep shuddering breath, she said, in the calmest voice she could muster, “Don’t call my house again. Don’t call me again. After I hang up, I am going to throw this phone away. I’m also transferring your case to a coworker. He will contact you soon. We are done. We are finished. If you call me or try to contact me in any way . . . well, trust me, you will not enjoy the outcome.”

  Feeling proud she’d kept her temper and said what she had to say, Storm set the phone down. Her hands shook, but she knew she had done the right thing—finally.

  Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Each day that went by without a reply from Howard added another layer of anxiety.