Blood on the Tracks (Sydney Rose Parnell Series Book 1)

by Barbara Nickless

  I strapped on my belt and added Sarge’s Colt to my bag. Finally, I pulled my DPC coat on over my filthy clothing. Cohen’s blood still spattered the front of the jacket, a weeping of red tears across the DPC logo.

  At the front door, I paused. I looked around the worn-out living room. At the ancient furniture, the faded walls, the hardwood floor rubbed to dullness by passing feet. I took in Grams’s sampler on the wall and the framed picture of my parents that Grams hadn’t let me shove in a drawer. I stared at my textbooks piled on the coffee table, my spiral notebook still open where I’d been jotting notes next to a stack of books. The Iliad, In Search of the Trojan War, and The Art of the Essay.

  I took it all in as if I’d never see it again.

  Then I tugged on gloves, and Clyde and I walked out the door into the icy dawn.

  At Nik’s, I parked on the street. The snow had stopped, and I stared out the window. It had been less than forty-eight hours since I’d come to give Nik the news about Elise.

  The house looked deserted. Curtains drawn, lights off. Harvey quiet somewhere—in the yard or maybe the house. The porch light still burned, and a couple of newspapers lay in the snow on the uncleared driveway. No one had shoveled the path or the stairs.

  Just beyond the feeble reach of the porch light, a tiny amber flare came and went like a warning signal. Someone smoking.

  I slid painfully out of the truck. Clyde hopped out beside me and we made our slow, limping way up the drive then up the porch steps toward the cigarette’s glow. A low growl came from the porch. Harvey.

  Clyde stiffened but made no sound.

  “Sydney Rose,” Nik said from the darkness. “Come sit with me.”

  I held my groan as I reached the last stair and stepped from the promise of dawn into the gloom. I eased my weight onto the plastic lawn chair next to Nik’s and took the blanket he offered me, wrapped it around my legs. Harvey snarled again from his place beside Nik and Nik ordered him quiet. Clyde ignored Harvey and sat regally by my side. Score one for the Belgian Malinois.

  “What are you doing out here, Nik?”

  “There’s so much pain in the house it’s like being wrapped in plastic.” He sucked the cigarette. “Man’s gotta breathe.”

  I eyeballed Nik in the crackling light from his cigarette. His face was gray and sunken, red eyes heavily lidded. He looked half frozen in his jeans and railway jacket.

  “You’ll die of the cold out here,” I said.

  “No. I’ll suffer a little. Seems like I should. Just so long as I can breathe.” He nodded toward a box of donuts on the wrought-iron table. “Neighbor brought them. They’re half frozen. Help yourself.”

  I was too nauseous. But I gave Clyde a glazed donut. He ate it politely, came back for more. Gently I pushed his head away.

  Beyond the houses to the east, tentative sunlight infused the sky with opal. A splash of light splayed across the snow-filled yards. The air burned with cold.

  Nik handed me a bottle of whiskey. I drank. Handed it back. The warmth crept into my stomach like an animal curling up in its burrow.

  “You’re hurt,” Nik said.

  “Some.”

  After a few times back and forth with the bottle, Nik said, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  I talked as the sun rose in a dead-white sky. I told him about the skinheads and the shootout at Melody’s house and the missing little girl and Cohen getting hurt and Tucker’s confession. I told him that despite those words, Tucker almost certainly hadn’t killed Elise. Nik looked at me for a long time, then looked away, out toward a neighbor’s yard where a pair of squirrels chased each other among the poplars, their crazy leaps dumping clots of snow to the ground.

  “You sure?” he asked. “That he didn’t kill her?”

  “Pretty sure. Yes.”

  A pause. “Chief called me before you got here. I already knew he confessed.”

  “He confessed because he’s a Marine who wants to protect other Marines.”

  “You’re saying another Marine killed her?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “I got time.”

  “Forget complicated. It’s irrelevant. And you said it yourself, Nik. What happens in Iraq—”

  “Stays there. Okay. Who killed our Elise?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  He kept his face toward the street and the yard. Seeing. Maybe not seeing. “But you got some idea, I can tell. So go on.”

  “It’s about a man named Alfred Merkel.”

  Nik’s face shifted. Went under, like the face of a drowning man. “Tell me.”

  So I did. I told him about the cops being shot and about Thomas Brown, although I didn’t provide a name that would link him to his sister. When I got to the part about what the skinheads had done to Brown, I had trouble going on for a while. After I found my voice again, I told Nik about Cohen’s home, a place the size of a small village, and even though it had nothing to do with the investigation, I wondered aloud what drove a man to have so much and yet turn around to risk his life for so little.

  I ended by bringing it back to Alfred Merkel and the news that he had once been one of the Royer Boys. I didn’t mention Jazmine Brown, or the fact of Gentry’s name in her file. But I tossed out the Royer Boys like a piece of bait, wanting to see if Nik would grab on. When he remained silent, I ended my story with Cohen heading back into work and me needing some time and space to clear my head.

  I didn’t mention Sarge.

  “You get hurt like that with the skinheads?”

  “Partly.”

  “What’s the rest?”

  “Nothing to do with Elise.”

  The sun lifted over the houses, sent light like an ice pick stabbing across the porch. Nik squinted, took another sip, passed the bottle. His breath was a ghost in the morning air.

  “It’s good sitting here with you, Sydney Rose,” he said.

  “Yeah.” By now I’d been shivering for some time. Despite the liquor and the pills, something mean and fanged had coiled up in the back of my head where Sarge had slammed me against the wall.

  But I couldn’t leave Nik.

  He chose a donut out of the box, began tearing pieces off for Harvey. Finally he picked up the bait.

  “Those Royer Boys.” He cleared his throat. “Used to call them the Lost Boys. You know, like that movie about the vampire kids. Or Peter Pan, I guess. None of them with anyone to look after them. And all of them looking for something bigger than themselves to hold on to.”

  “You remember much about them?”

  Nik shook a cigarette out of the pack on the table. He placed it in his mouth but didn’t light it.

  “Gentry got tangled up with them when he was still in high school,” he said. “Kid wanted to join the Marines. We should have let him. The Marines would have given him direction like it’d done for me. Would’ve given him something to belong to. But Ellen Ann—” His voice broke a little. “She told Gentry that if he enlisted, he might as well put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. She’d be that dead. Said she’d never sign that release, not for love or money.”

  I wondered how my life would be now if she’d fought that hard for me back then. “So instead he hooked up with the Royer Boys?”

  “Kid just wanted to be part of something. The Marines were his first choice, but he didn’t have it in him to break his mother’s heart. And he was seventeen, needed both our signatures to enlist. So he took to hanging out with those asshole punks down at the Hole.”

  “My dad always thought they were trouble.”

  Nik scooted his chair out of the dawning light. “Could be the one time your dad got something right.”

  Talking about my parents was the one place Nik and I had agreed—without words—to never go. I’d clung to the hope that my dad had a good reason for leaving. But Nik never forgave him for walking out. Who leaves their kid with a woman who turns out to be a killer?

  “So how long was Gentry
with them?” I asked.

  Nik’s eyes went small. “Not long. Those boys were older than Gentry, and mean. They got that way because of what they had to deal with at home. Parents missing or drunk. No one giving a shit about them. I promised I’d put him six feet under if I ever saw him with them again.”

  I said nothing.

  “And don’t take that personal, Sydney Rose. A broken home is just an excuse. You were always stronger than all of those boys put together. But for Gentry to hang out with them? He didn’t have any good reason. His mother and I worked as hard as anybody ever worked to make sure he had everything he needed.”

  Nik finished feeding his donut to Harvey.

  “And eventually it paid off,” he said. “Away from them, and with the Marines no longer dangling in front of him, he decided he’d do something to make his mother proud. He studied for his SATs, finished school strong. And look at him now. He’s going to make partner before he’s much past thirty.”

  We gave Gentry’s success a respectful pause.

  “Worst of all,” Nik said, “was when that little black girl went missing. The police came to ask Gentry about it. Was the first time the kid had to learn that it matters which toilet you do your business in. Ellen Ann was horrified, of course. But it was good for him. Taught him something.”

  “So you never . . .” I stopped.

  “Never what, Sydney Rose?”

  I could feel ice cracking beneath my feet. “You never thought he—”

  He sucked in air like a man who hadn’t drawn breath in a while. “No.”

  “I had to ask.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  I blinked. The flick in Nik’s eyes was a blow, as sharp as if he’d really struck me.

  I backed off. “How is Gentry holding up?”

  Nik backed off, too. “He’s hurting. Bad. He’s taken himself somewhere, gone into hiding. Just like he did when he was a teenager. But he’ll be okay. He has a future, that boy. And that’s what he needs to focus on right now.”

  “What do you mean, hiding?”

  “Means he was never the kind to fall sobbing into his mother’s arms. He’ll come around when he’s ready.”

  “Did he and Elise talk much? In the last few weeks?”

  “Those two always had something to jabber about lately, seems like. Dinners here. Heard them on the phone sometimes.”

  “And things seemed fine between them?”

  That flick in his eyes again. I winced.

  “It’s not me,” I said. “It’s the police. If they start looking—”

  “There’s nothing to find. Gentry was cleared by the police back when that little girl disappeared. Anyway, why would they think there’s a connection between that little black girl and—and what happened to Elise?”

  “Tucker said Elise had started this thing where she was pushing people to come clean about their past. What if she thought the Royer Boys did have something to do with Jazmine’s disappearance, and she was telling them to confess?”

  “And they killed her for it.”

  I nodded.

  He took the cigarette out of his mouth, rolled it between his fingers. “I don’t see it, Sydney Rose. I wish I did because if Tucker didn’t murder Elise, then her killer is still out there. But the truth is, no matter what Elise might have wanted them to come clean about, they didn’t have anything to confess. Not, at least, when it came to that little girl. Those boys could be royal creeps. They terrorized her, I’d be willing to bet. But the police did their investigation. They pushed hard. They couldn’t find anything.”

  “I read the reports. The detective seemed to think they were good for it.”

  “The report also mention that the lead detective was a drunk six months out from his retirement? Probably wanted to close the case and finish his career a Level Five. Probably would have arrested Santa Claus if he thought he could get a conviction.” Nik rubbed a hand along his jaw, scratching at the stubble. “Nah, they didn’t have anything on those boys. I wish they had. Maybe they’d have been put in prison a long time ago.”

  “So maybe,” I said, “it wasn’t Jazmine she wanted them to come clean about. Maybe there was another crime she knew about that involved those skinheads. Because Alfred Merkel assaulted Tucker in Wyoming and took his hobo beads. We found the beads near Elise’s body. Or ones just like them, anyway. The theory is that after Merkel jumped Tucker in Wyoming, he got to Denver before him and killed Elise.”

  A muscle jumped in Nik’s jaw. “What beads? What are you talking about?”

  “There were hobo beads in Elise’s room. Scattered. Like a strand had broken during a fight.”

  Nik tucked his chin down to his chest, hunched his shoulders.

  “It looked like more evidence against Tucker,” I said, “until we cross-checked his story about being jumped by Merkel and having his beads stolen. Now it speaks against Merkel.”

  “And you’re just now sharing this with me?”

  “Because your first thought is revenge. You’re tough, Nik. But that gang is tougher.”

  Nik offered the pack of cigarettes to me, passed me his lighter. We lit up together, letting the smoke hang in the air with our breath.

  “Funny the turns life takes,” Nik said after a while.

  “Or not.”

  “I’ve spent too much of my life trying to leave the past behind. But the past is a leech. Digs its head into you and sucks your blood until it leaves you dry.”

  “What past you talking about, Nik?”

  “You sweet on that detective? Cohen, right?”

  “What? No.”

  “You got all misty when you talked about him.”

  “That was just heart palpitations over the size of his house.”

  “I’m serious, Sydney Rose.”

  “So am I.” I took a lungful of smoke, released it. My chest protested. “Okay. So maybe I thought about it. But it won’t go anywhere.”

  Nik waited.

  “He was asking me things last night,” I said. “About the war. First time anyone’s wanted to know. To really know. About me. Warts and all.” I gave an elaborate shrug, kept my voice casual. “It counted for something, you know?”

  “You want my advice?”

  “You going to tell me anything I haven’t already told myself?”

  “Keep it close, Sydney Rose. About the war. He’ll tell you that it doesn’t matter what you did. That he’ll love you no matter what, if that’s what you two have going. But every time you break down or lose your temper, he’ll start worrying that it’s because of something you did. He’ll start to wonder if you’re really right in the head, worry that you’re going to explode. First he’ll hide the guns, then he’ll hide the knives. He’ll start to think you’re broken.”

  But I am broken, Nik. Broken bad.

  “My experience?” Nik went on. “Pretty much anything you’ve done you aren’t proud of, whether it was in war or with something else, it’s best to keep it close.”

  “I have.”

  “All that news footage they’re blocking.” Nik went on. “The videos that show the coffins coming back. People don’t want to know. And you and I? We’re part of what society can’t bear to remember. Because if they really think about it, if they really look at us and realize the cost we’ve paid to keep them safe? They can’t live with the guilt. They put up their ribbons and they give us fucking discounts at stores and they say, ‘Thank you for your service’ so they can go home and feel good about themselves. But if they really looked at what war does to us? Hell. They’d never let us come home.”

  “Stop it, Nik.”

  “And for what? What did either of us accomplish in ’Nam or Iraq? What, exactly, did the US achieve?”

  The front door opened and Grams looked out. “Sydney Rose? And Clyde? What are you doing out here in the cold with that crazy man? Get inside.”

  I mashed out the cigarette and hoisted myself from the seat. “You know what Elise said to Tucker? She
told him that a life’s no good if it’s a lie.”

  “What we did over there?” His eyes followed me. “That’s the lie.”

  CHAPTER 22

  There was nothing I could do for Dougie, the Sir told me. Fate had dealt its hand.

  But later, many hours later, after they’d taken him away, I went back in. I knelt in his blood on the floor, and I prayed for the last time.

  After a long time, I stood. I swept the floor clean of sawdust dark with what remained of Dougie, packed the sweepings into bags, and carried them outside.

  —Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

  Grams drew me into the tiny foyer. She took in my battered face and filthy clothes and pulled me into her arms. I clung to her briefly then pushed away before the tears could start again.

  “Don’t go home for a few days,” I told her. “You need anything, I’ll get it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her eyes went speculative. “How did this happen? Who hurt you like this?”

  “Later, Grams. I need sleep. I’m dead on my feet.”

  “You’ll be dead off of them if you aren’t careful,” she said. “Triage first. When I’m sure none of those injuries is going to kill you, then you can rest.”

  Grams had been an ER nurse all her adult life. Convenient in a place like Royer, where kids play chicken on the streets and the adults are into bar fights. Grams had always been popular, even after we moved away. Cheap, capable, and she never asked uncomfortable questions.

  Now she took my arm, led me down the shadowy hall toward the warmth and light of the kitchen, Clyde trailing behind.

  Ellen Ann sat at the table, staring into space, a cigarette smoldering in her hand. The light over the table carved such deep shadows on her face that her features looked as if they’d been stitched together by a child, and an awkward one at that.

  “Ellen Ann?” I said.

  Her gaze slid unseeing around the room until her eyes met mine. My presence registered with a shock that bounced down her body.

  “Dear God, girl, what happened? Is that your blood?” She stubbed out her cigarette. “You need to go to the hospital.”