Sleight

by Tom Twitchel

  Swallowing hard Sawyer said, “Absolutely. No problems. It’ll be all good. I promise.”

  “Excellent,” Kenwoode said.

  Sawyer headed toward the hallway beyond the library entrance.

  Standing, and feeling my left leg ache from sitting so long, I felt nervous, my hands hanging awkwardly at my sides. “Well, nice to meet you, Dr. Santome.”

  She favored me with a smile. “Please, call me Constance. And the pleasure was all mine.”

  Nodding to Kenwoode I took a small measure of satisfaction from the frown on his face.

  I left the library and went to Breno’s room. The door was closed and I knocked softly. I could hear rustling inside and someone moving around, and then the door opened. Breno peered out at me with puffy eyes and a serious case of bed head.

  “Hi Benny,” he mumbled, tugging at his Sponge Bob T-shirt.

  “How ya doin’?” I asked.

  “Good,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at his unmade bed.

  “I just wanted to check in on you.”

  Breno bobbed his head, waggled his fingers at me and grinned sleepily. He seemed much more at peace. I wondered if Constance had checked on him when she and Kenwoode had arrived from the airport.

  “I’m glad you’re doing better Breno. Did Mr. Kenwoode explain to you why you’re staying here?” I asked, concerned that he might walk over to his apartment and run into Brock.

  “Yuh. He said the bad lady might be looking for me, so I should stay here. He said there’s a man pretending to be me.” He smiled, as though the thought of someone masquerading as him was flattering.

  “Alright. Well, get some rest.” As I said it the door to the room on the opposite side of the hall opened and Sawyer looked out at us.

  “Sawyer, this is Breno. He’s the superintendent for my apartment,” I said.

  Raising his hand in a lazy wave he said, “Sup Breno?”

  Ducking his head bashfully, Breno waved a paw and mumbled a hello. Grinning, Sawyer gave me a chin nod and closed his door.

  “Is he your friend Benny?” Breno asked, lifting his eyes from the floor.

  “Um, yeah I guess so,” I responded. “He’s actually a friend of Mr. Kenwoode’s.”

  “It’s good to have friends. Like you and me, huh?’ he said.

  I smiled. “Yeah, it kind of is. I’ll see you later.”

  His lopsided grin quirked up and he bobbed his head. “Okay Benny.”

  His door closed. I decided I wanted some private down time so I headed outside and back down to the street. Trying to use my baseball cap and the lapel of my jacket to fend off the rain I made it to the front door of my apartment building when a familiar car pulled up to the curb. I let my hand drop away from the rain slick door handle and turned toward the car, as the driver’s door opened and Detective Danton got out.

  Shoulders hunched and taking long strides he walked up with his hands jammed in his coat pockets. “I need to talk to you right now.”

  There was no way that could be good. “Uh, sure. What about?” I asked.

  “Those two clowns you said were following you?”

  “Yeah?”

  He glared at me while rain dripped down his forehead. “They just turned up.”

  “Okayyyy…” I stammered.

  “In the morgue!” He said angrily.

  TWENTY-SEVEN: STRAY DOGS

  THE CHILL I felt wasn’t from the rain. If the two thugs were dead I had a strong suspicion as to how they may have gotten that way.

  Laying his hand on my shoulder he steered me toward the door. We both entered the lobby, water dripping from our clothes onto the tile floor.

  “When? Why do you want to talk to me?” I asked.

  He looked around the small foyer and back to me. “You and your mom live here, right? Let’s head up to your apartment. I don’t want to have this conversation where there’s even the slightest chance that we’ll be overheard.”

  “Um, okay.” I tried to remember what condition I’d left the apartment in. We started up the stairs.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  Danton just shook his head. “Wait.”

  Trying to change the topic I said. “So, how did everything work out with the Winters?”

  “Not great,” he snarled.

  Terrific, an angry cop was about to join me in my parentless home.

  “Sorry,” I offered, as we walked up to my door. Rattled and not thinking clearly, I knacked the lock. Fortunately I caught myself before I used my knack to push the door open. I twisted the knob with my hand.

  Danton’s eyebrows rose slightly. “With all you’ve been through, you and your mom leave your door unlocked?”

  “Must have forgotten. I was only going next door. Dumb.” Dumb was right. I couldn’t afford to make a bunch of lame-brained mistakes in front of him.

  Scanning the room for any incriminating evidence that would make it obvious that I lived alone, I breathed a sigh of relief that everything looked reasonably tidy and mom-ish.

  Pulling off his damp coat, Danton walked over to the dinette that I almost never used, draped his coat over a chair, and took a seat. He indicated another chair with an open hand.

  I unzipped my windbreaker and took off my hat. Resisting the need to take a deep breath I sat down trying to look calm.

  “The Winters thing?” he growled. “That went to hell almost immediately. I barely beat the girl to the house and she walked right into the middle of an argument between me and her mother. Who I might add...then again maybe I shouldn’t add any of my thoughts about her.”

  “Sorry,” I said again

  Danton scowled and shifted uncomfortably in his damp clothes. “Sorry my ass. I came off looking like an incompetent schmuck. It was only a slight improvement that I was one step ahead of her arriving home. You owe me and that’s what this conversation is going to start with. I don’t like looking dumb.”

  I swallowed but kept my mouth shut. Easy to do seeing as how I was experiencing some serious cotton mouth.

  He could see that he had my attention. He pulled a small notepad from his pocket and flipped through a couple of pages. “Wendell Jenkins, One-Eye to you and me, and his running partner Aaron ‘Tank’ Dvorak, were admitted to Swedish Hospital last night after being found in an alley one block from here. Both subjects were unconscious and non-responsive, their symptoms being very similar to multiple cases that have occurred over the last eighteen months. The Zombie Deaths thing. Both men coded early this morning, all attempts at revival failed.” He looked up from the notepad in his hand, staring hard at me.

  What was I supposed to say? Oh, sure, I know exactly what’s going on there: their boss is the equivalent of a soul vampire and when they screwed up trying to serve me to her for a snack, she got pissed and sucked what feeble magic they had in them and turned their minds to goo. Uh huh, that would go over super well.

  All I felt comfortable saying was, “What?”

  He made a growling noise in his throat. “Remember when I told you that the next time I found you in the middle of something sketchy that I was going to give your life an investigative enema? Well this is gonna be it unless you cough up some details, because this is just too damn coincidental. They’re following you, or you claim they’re following you, and less than forty-eight hours later they’re found within a stone’s throw of where you live? And they end up a couple of stiffs? No. And the Winters thing? That may not be all your fault but your not telling me she contacted you, well, that’s suspicious at best, and impeding an ongoing investigation at worst.”

  My mind was awash in all of the crazy information and new acquaintances I’d made in the last two days. This confrontation was making me uptight.

  “What are you asking me for?” I stuttered. “I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to them. They were following me! ”

  Danton scooted his chair an inch or two closer. “And you let them follow you in a half-assed attempt to get them t
hrown in jail. Listen to me Benny. There are no coincidences. You may not have done anything to them, but you know something. I can smell it. The Winters’ girl coming to you first, that could make sense but it doesn’t look good. If I hadn’t been able to corroborate your claim that she’d been hiding at the Greenberg house I would probably have you and your mother down at the precinct answering questions right now.” His head snapped up and he looked around the apartment. “Speaking of your mother, where is she?”

  It had gone from bad to really crappy in an incredibly short time. I spread my hands out to my sides, palms up. “She’s at work. Hospice care.” In a panic to get the focus off questions about her I rambled on, “Justine showing up here had nothing to do with me. Well, it sort of did because she wanted to talk to me, but it was out of the blue. Ask her.” Danton continued scowling at me. “And how am I supposed to know about those two thugs ending up dead?”

  He smacked his hand on the table top, making me jump. “Do you know how many times I’ve questioned witnesses?” I shook my head. “More than I can count. I know you know something and if you don’t give me something I’m going to make things as hard for you as is humanly possible. And let me tell you, that’ll be more than you want to experience.”

  I was too rattled to feel any relief that I’d thrown him off the mom scent. I could tell he was fired up enough that I was going to have to tell him something or my fragile world was going to come crashing down around my head. But what? And how much? It would be like pulling at a thread in a sweater. The whole of my bizarre connection to the knack community would unravel and create no end of problems. Unless he wrote me off as a nut. Like that would be better.

  “Danton, what did you do before you became a cop?” I asked.

  He leaned back in surprise. “What has that got to do with anything?”

  Crossing my arms over my chest I blew out a breath. “Why did you become a cop? Are you a dick? Because if I’m supposed to bare my soul to you, I need to know what kind of person you are.”

  Smiling in disbelief he ran his hand across his damp forehead. “Really? That concerns you now? And...a dick? I don’t know whether to laugh at that or slap you.”

  “What kind of person are you?” I repeated.

  He shrugged and rubbed his jaw. Reaching behind him he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of a coat pocket, shook his head and put it back. “What kind of person am I? You do realize I could just tell you anything I thought you wanted to hear?” He nodded to himself. “For starters my ex-wife would like an answer to that too.”

  I waited. If I was going to share anything about my sketchy existence I needed to know at least a little more about him before I potentially screwed myself.

  His hand went back into the coat and he pulled a cigarette from the pack, holding it between his fingers.

  Looking down at it he said, “This is a really filthy habit. Don’t ever start. When you’re young and trying to get through the academy and trying to fit in, you do it because you think it’s cool. Then you do it because it’s social. Then...then you need it.” He shook his head and turned the cigarette over in his hand, staring at it. “I’m just a basic guy. Cop first and last. Divorced. Before I was a cop I was a hotshot baseball player who was supposed to make it to the majors. I spent two years in the farm system and couldn’t stick.”

  I sat there watching him and the unlit cigarette he was playing with. He saw me focusing on it, put it in his mouth, but didn’t light it.

  “Before I was a cop I wasn’t anything really. I do this job because I like it and it likes me. I’m good at it and it keeps me off the beat and working cases that sometimes actually matter. But I’m not going to tell you much more than that because there isn’t much more to tell.”

  Swallowing hard I forced out a question that I knew was out of bounds. “Why’d your wife leave you?”

  He frowned so hard that his mouth clamped down and he almost bit the cigarette in half. Angry he yanked it out of his mouth. “Who said she left me?”

  Whoops. “Sorry,” I squeaked.

  He grunted. “Yeah, me too.” He put the bent cigarette back in his mouth. “She pulled the plug. And it was all about her not liking the job. Some of it was the fact that I’m not easy to be around, but mostly the job. She couldn’t hack it.”

  “Kids?” I asked.

  He blew out an exasperated breath. “Geez, kid. You have balls.” He shook his head again. “No. No kids.” He frowned and narrowed his eyes. “You done? Got enough? That’s all you’re gonna get. Now it’s your turn.”

  Over a month ago I’d been so devastated by Mr. Goodturn’s being hurt and the school bombing attempt that when Danton had grilled me about the kidnapping I hadn’t really looked into his mind. I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d told me had revealed about him, but I’d scanned him big time while he’d been talking. No lying. He shone as honest but...damaged. Nothing ugly or scary. He was definitely frustrated but that was understandable. I could trust him, but probably only within the limits of what being a good cop meant to him. If what I shared with him conflicted with what he thought was right he might throw me under the bus. With good intentions of course.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you. But you’re not going to believe some of it.”

  “Oh, good. Let me reset my B.S. meter.” He pretended to twist an imaginary dial on his wrist.

  It was my turn to shake my head. Humor, it’s such an individual thing.

  “My mom and I moved to Seattle because my dad was abusive. He doesn’t know where we are and we can’t afford to let him find out. I limp because he broke my leg one night when he was drunk. It was right after he knocked me down a flight of stairs.” I took a breath and saw Danton’s face soften slightly. He’d probably heard a thousand sob stories and was a little jaded, but he had a heart after all. He scribbled a few notes on his pad.

  “When we got to Seattle we got separated and I ended up in a hostel for a while before we found this place.” I waved a hand around, indicating the apartment. “A screwed up CPS worker that fixated on me was working my case when we disappeared on her. She tracked me down and had the thug twins kidnap me and Justine, for what I don’t know. My...grandfather got hurt by her thugs and recently we found out they were snooping around again. That’s all I know.”

  He looked down at his notes. “What’s this CPS worker’s name?”

  That was a big problem. If I told him what her real name was he would likely start a serious search and she would go into hiding and we’d never find her. The fact that she’d probably knack-sucked her former helpers meant that she’d sensed being compromised already. An active police investigation would put her on alert. Danton didn’t like my hesitation in responding to him.

  “I don’t remember,” I fudged.

  He grimaced. “Right. Try harder.”

  “Um, Foles? Roles? Holes?” I pretended to search my memory.

  Setting his pad on the table he lazily pushed it in a circle with the fingers of his left hand. “What Hostel?”

  “Emerald City? I think?” That was the truth and I immediately started worrying that he would begin digging into my past. That would go nowhere good.

  “So, what’s her name again?”

  I decided that continuing to be cute was just going to get me deeper into trouble. “Hoch I think.” My stomach flipped over when I said her name out loud. “Sonja Hoch.”

  He picked up his pad again. “Hawk? H-A-W-K?” he asked, his pen poised over his pad.

  I couldn’t believe my good luck, even if it would only slow him down slightly. “Yeah, I think so.” She’d changed her name at least once in the past and there was no guarantee that she even used that name any more.

  “She fixated on you? Why?”

  My nerves buzzed. How could I explain that? “I guess there was something about me that she didn’t like or...liked in an inappropriate way.” Not entirely untrue.

  “Do you know how she tracked you down?” he asked.
<
br />   “No.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this a month ago?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t trust you I guess. A lot of what I just told you I don’t talk about much.”

  He scribbled on his pad and looked up at me. I sighed in relief.

  “What do you think caught up to these guys, Dvorak and Jenkins?” he asked.

  My sigh hitched in my throat. I’d thought we were done. “Her I guess. Sonja.”

  “You didn’t see them again after I found you cruising that alley behind the restaurant?”

  “Nope.”

  He flipped the notepad shut and laid it and the pen on the table. Tapping the pad with a long finger he looked over his shoulder out the window and then back at me.

  “No contact with this Miss Hawk either?”

  “Uh uh.”

  “The Winters’ girl, you seen her since late last night?” He asked it in a way that made me believe that it was a question he’d been waiting to ask.

  “No. We texted once after she went home but I haven’t seen her or texted her since.” As the words came out of my mouth I felt a tingle run along my spine. Justine not texting or calling me all day was odd. I’d been distracted and sort of written it off to her parents having her in lock-down mode, but now I was worried.

  Danton rolled his shoulders and grimaced. “Yeah, that’s what I expected you to say. You mind letting me see your phone?”

  I hesitated for only a second and then pulled it out of my pocket. Other than stuff from Maddy there weren’t any other texts in my phone’s memory that I was concerned about anyone seeing.

  I held it out to him and he waved it away. “No. If you’re willing to hand it over I’m sure it’s clean.”

  “Why? What’s going on?” I asked.

  “She’s missing again.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT: LOST AND FOUND AND LOST

  I WOULD HAVE said unbelievable but it didn’t surprise me at all. Missing again.