by Tina Whittle
And Lex. In his photo—his dark hair running with red, the black leather and black nails—he wore celebrity easily. In two dimensions, he fit together seamless and whole. In real life, however, the cracks had become chasms. Unfixable fault lines.
Something pulled at me, but I couldn’t identify what it was. I wished I had a way to diagram the whole wall, to draw the same links that Trey did on a yellow pad and see everything come together in a clean coherent fashion.
“Lex’s killer is probably here,” I said, “in this crowd somewhere. Maybe even up on this wall.”
“Possibly.”
“Are there undercover cops around?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“If I tell you, you can’t look.”
“I won’t.”
He hesitated. “I see two of them at the…you’re looking.”
“No, I’m not. Keep talking.”
He took my chin firmly in hand, eyes on mine. “Two undercover officers at the edge of the stage and one behind us, next to the streetlight.”
I tried to spot them without moving my head, but couldn’t. I did spot Rico, however, headed toward the stage, hands shoved in his pockets.
I pulled Trey’s hand down. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Rico saw me coming. He was dressed even darker and baggier than usual, slouched and sullen.
He shook his head. “Cops to the left of me, reporters to the right. This is a sad state of affairs.”
Most of the reporters were TV news—I saw the battalion of vans lining the streets, all of them plastered with logos. Cameramen stood with their equipment hoisted on their shoulders, while others in neat suits held only microphones. I could pick out the newspaper reporters; they were the ones with paper and pens and minute recording devices.
“So what kept you?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”
I sighed. “Fine. Where’s Adam?”
“I don’t feel like talking about that either.”
“Y’all didn’t come to Lupa last night for the clean-up. Something going on between you two?”
“Not talking, I said.”
Before I could ask further questions, Frankie moved to the microphone, her expression solemn. “Thank you all for coming. We’re ready to begin.”
The crowd grew silent and pushed in tighter around her. At the edges of the action, video operators shouldered their cameras, and the pretty people with perfect hair moved into place. Rico took his spot beside Cricket, who leaned over and whispered something in his ear. He smiled at her and shook his head. Jackson stood behind her, not one of the team, but always in the background, like her very own bodyguard.
As flashbulbs illuminated the podium with sporadic flares, Frankie spoke louder, her voice rising. “We are here to honor one of our own, poet Lex Anderson, taken before his time on this very ground. We are each diminished when one light goes out. Therefore, it is our responsibility to make up for that darkness by shining a little brighter ourselves.”
She indicated the box of tealight candles and a white pillar candle the size of a salt box. “As you come forward to pay your respects, please take a candle. Light it here, or from your neighbor. Pass along the light.”
A few “amens” rose, and someone started humming some unnamable hymn, the sound mingling with the hot thick air rising up from the pavement, rising like prayer itself. And in fifteen minutes everyone had a candle, the dozens of separate lights fracturing and cracking in each tiny glass cup, but melting back whole, yellow and liquid.
Someone handed me one, and I accepted it. Trey declined. He was keeping his hands empty.
The crowd was larger now, thicker with the tattooed and the pierced, but also older men in ponytails and blazers, women my age in jeans and fitted tees. I recognized one of the men standing by the streetlight as the undercover cop Trey had indicated. Of course the killer would be here, drawn to these lights as irresistibly as Lex had been. Different moths to different flames, but all pulled by a similar desire.
I got a shiver, despite the hot night, despite Trey standing barely six inches from me. He cased the crowd, noting and cataloguing, unmoved by the spectacle. I almost took his hand before I remembered why he was keeping it free.
A man in a black hooded sweatshirt moved abruptly to the edge of the stage. He was dark-skinned, so dark it was hard to tell where his clothes ended and his skin began, but his eyes flashed maniacally bright, slanted and predatory, like a coyote. His attire was all wrong for the heat, heavyweight cotton knit, with a cowl-like hood obscuring his face.
I grabbed Trey’s arm. “Uh oh, menacing figure at two o’clock.”
“I see him.”
To my right, one of the pony-tailed men moved forward too, talking into a walkie-talkie. Onstage, Jackson squinted into the crowd as the hooded man reached under his sweatshirt.
Jackson pointed. “Watch out! He’s got a gun!”
The first screams reverberated as Jackson jumped off the stage and made straight for the hooded figure. The guy whipped around, saw Jackson barreling for him, and then pulled back for a roundhouse punch…
But Trey reached him first.
Hoodie launched the fist at Trey instead, and Trey blocked it with a single forearm sweep, neatly side-stepping the force of the blow. In a blur of motion, he grabbed Hoodie’s arm and yanked. Hoodie somersaulted forward, landing with an audible fleshy thud on his back. Trey flipped him on his stomach, knelt beside him, and pulled his arm back into a half-nelson. The guy spewed curses into the asphalt, but he didn’t move a muscle.
“Stay down,” Trey said calmly.
“Goddammit, get off me!”
Trey pulled the guy’s arm back another half inch. “And stop talking.”
The guy did not argue. Jackson did not argue. Even the cop did not argue. He did step forward, however, badge out.
“I’ll take it from here,” he said.
Trey nodded, letting the police officer drag the guy to his feet. The guy immediately started protesting, but the cop propelled him toward a waiting cruiser without pausing to listen. I heard Frankie’s name in the jumbled conversation, but the police officer’s voice rode roughshod over whatever the guy was trying to say.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the officer said, and he shoved the guy into the backseat of a patrol car.
Frankie froze behind the mike. Cricket too. Even Padre was a statue, his mouth agape, eyes wide.
Jackson squinted. “Vigil?”
It was too late for the guy to answer. The door to the patrol car slammed shut, and the light bar flared to blue life. Suddenly, the whole scene was a roiling stew of relentless cameras and spasmodic flashbulbs. I pushed forward until I was right beside Trey.
“What the hell was that?”
“That was Maurice Cunningham. Also known as Vigil.”
“I got that, but what was he doing with a gun?”
“It wasn’t a gun.”
Trey pointed. A can of spray paint lay at the end of the massed candles, a uniformed cop already stooping to pick it up.
I turned back to Trey. “He was going to vandalize the memorial.”
Trey frowned. “That makes no sense. There are over a hundred people here, including news crews. And most have cameras.”
He was right. We were surrounded by cameras—news cameras, regular cameras, cell phone cameras. Soon there would be hundreds of photos, maybe thousands, headed for the TV news, for the Internet, to be texted and e-mailed and tweeted.
“I think the cameras were the point,” I said.
Chapter Nineteen
Back inside the restaurant, I made Trey sit while I dabbed a washcloth against the pavement burn on his palm. He endured my clumsy ministrations stoically. The cops had known who he was, of course. They’d been friendly, almost deferential, Trey’s due as one of their fallen brothers.
I squinted at the scraped flesh. “There’s gravel in your life line.”
“Is that bad?”
“Can’t be good.”
Rico sat at the bar all by himself, nursing a rum and Coke. Padre paced the hallway, cell phone pressed to his ear in intense negotiations that didn’t include us. Frankie stared at her phone, watching news video after news video, sometimes nodding, sometimes shaking her head. Cricket kept bringing in snacks and hovering, twisting her hands like Lady Macbeth, shooting nervous glances at Jackson. And Jackson huddled at the card table, staring into a bowl of soup.
I put the finishing touches on a bandage fashioned from a paper napkin and adhesive tape. When I’d seen the blood, I’d dragged Trey inside, pulled off his jacket, and searched him for bullet holes. Luckily, his diagnosis had been correct—a simple surface abrasion, the result of carrying most of Vigil’s weight during the takedown.
I gave Trey his hand back. “Next time slam the guy, okay?”
Trey examined his palm. The team members kept throwing perturbed glances in his direction. I understood their unease. I was accustomed to seeing Trey do takedowns and front blocks all the time at the gym, and yet the same moves on the street had startled me with their brutality.
Vigil had been lucky all he’d had was a paint can.
Rico shook his head. “What did that fool think he was doing?”
I returned the spool of tape to my tote bag. “I don’t know. Let’s ask Frankie.”
Frankie didn’t look up from her phone. “Why me?”
“Because it was your name he kept using as the cops hauled him away.”
“So?”
“So I think that needs some explanation.”
She snapped her phone closed. “He finally returned my calls, so I told him about the memorial. He said he’d come, and I told him we could talk about his rejoining the team.”
“So why’d he show up with spray paint?”
“Hell if I know.”
Rico stared at her. “So what do we do? Talk Padre into performing again?”
This seemed like an imminently good idea, and every head turned toward the hallway where Padre still paced, his mouth tight with both weariness and worry.
Frankie shook her head. “I asked. He refused. End of story.”
Rico wasn’t letting the idea go. “Maybe we could—”
“No, we can’t. Regardless of what insanity Vigil brought tonight, he’s still our best bet at winning.”
“Is that all this is about anymore, winning? Movie deals?”
Frankie kept her eyes on her video screen. “I’m making the best of the situation.”
“For you, maybe, but not the team.”
“You’re one to talk about the team. You weren’t even going to show tonight.”
“Because this was a stunt, not a memorial.”
“For your dead teammate!”
“I refuse to pretend we were friends because he’s dead. Screw that.”
Without warning, Jackson shot to his feet and shoved the table away, spilling his soup. Cricket grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the spreading liquid, hushing Jackson at the same time. He ignored her.
“Shut up, Rico! You’ve caused enough trouble for one night!”
Rico stood. “You got something to say, say it plain.”
Trey tensed. I put a hand on his shoulder as Cricket put a hand on Jackson’s. But he paid her no attention. His temper flared as hot and fast as a tracer round, only this time Rico was the bull’s eye, not Trey.
Jackson pushed his sleeves up. “I’ll say it plain. I think you killed Lex. I think you stabbed him in the heart and set my restaurant on fire to cover it up.”
“I did not!”
“Prove it!”
Jackson took one step in Rico’s direction, and that was enough for Trey. He stood too, and before I could stop him, his mouth opened and the words tumbled out.
“Rico’s telling the truth. He didn’t kill Lex.”
Jackson harrumphed. “And how do you know that, Mr. Big Shot Ex-Cop?”
“Because I can tell when people are lying.”
That shut the room up fast. Trey regarded everyone evenly, arms folded. Jackson froze. Rico shot me a doomsday look. Frankie and Padre put down their cell phones.
Cricket came forward, wet napkin in hand. “What do you mean?”
Trey looked at me, the question in his eyes. And then suddenly everybody was looking at me. I put a hand on Trey’s shoulder. He sat. And I explained.
I started with the basics of a coup contrecoup injury, took a brief foray into the biomechanics of the right frontal lobe, then closed with a summary of micro-emotive expressions and what it meant to have an overly-enhanced sensitivity to them.
Nobody said a word. Finally Frankie stood up and moved right in front of Trey. She didn’t even have to tilt her head back to look him straight in the eye, all six feet of him.
Her expression was flat. “I didn’t kill Lex Anderson.”
She pronounced every syllable with care, so that there was no mistaking her words. I held my breath for the verdict.
Trey cocked his head, then nodded. “Okay.”
She waited for some other response, and getting none, she turned on her heel and left without looking back, her clogs clacking on the hardwood. I heard the slamming of the backdoor behind her.
Cricket stared. “You mean all this time I’ve been talking to you, you’ve been reading my mind?”
Trey shook his head. “It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then?” She was breathing hard, and something rabid flared in her eyes. “I didn’t kill him! Maybe I should have, but I didn’t!”
Rico took a step toward her, but Jackson stepped in his path. I felt the aggression flare again, and I swore, loudly.
“I am going to shoot the next man that bellies up to some other man like a threatened alpha dog, I swear I am, so you two had better dial it down, and fast!”
At that point, as if on cue, Cricket started crying, and Jackson whipped his attention her way. She ran from the room, and he followed right behind her, calling her name.
Padre watched them go, then examined Trey. “Heavy duty stuff, my man.”
Trey nodded. “Heavy duty, yes.”
“But for the record, I didn’t kill Lex either.”
Again Trey nodded, which meant I could strike Padre off my potential murderer list too. Damn, were there any suspects left?
Rico gestured behind us. “Don’t look now, but we’ve got bigger problems.”
I turned to see Detective Cummings enter through the swinging doors, his badge out. Two uniformed officers flanked him. Cummings wasn’t disarmingly soft-spoken and empathetic anymore. He was all business. He saw Trey and me across the room and nodded.
“Ms. Randolph. Seaver.” Then he looked at Rico. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, Mr. Worthington.”
I took a step forward, but Rico shot me a look. “Stay there, Tai.”
“But—”
“No buts!”
Cummings returned his attention to Rico. “We have warrants to search your person, your home and your vehicle. We are currently executing those warrants.”
I took another step forward, and as I did, the patrol guys moved forward too. I froze, breathing hard. Then I felt Trey’s hand in the small of my back.
He bent his head close to my ear. “I know what will happen if you go over there. And it won’t help Rico. So stay here. Please.”
Rico’s voice cut through my confusion. “Listen to me, Tai. I’m going in. I need you to take care of things at this end.”
“Like what?”
“Call my lawyer, for starters. The number’s in my phone. Then call Adam and tell him what’s coming. Tell him I’m sorry.” He looked past me to Trey. “Take Tai home and keep her there, you hear me? Sit on her if you have to, but keep her out of this. I’ll call when I can.”
The cops pushed him out, and the door closed behind them. Trey had his jacket draped over his arm, my make-shift bandage unraveling. He
stood quietly at my back. I could feel him there, solid.
Outside, I heard a car door slam, and I knew that Rico was in the backseat of a cruiser now. Going into the APD hole without me. Not because I wasn’t willing, but because he didn’t want me.
I leaned back against Trey’s chest. “Take me to your place, boyfriend. I need a long hot bath.”
***
The ride home was uneventful. First I got Rico’s lawyer on the case. Then I called Adam, who sounded dazed and infuriated to learn that a search team would be invading the apartment. Afterwards, I lay back in the Ferrari’s leather seat and closed my eyes. Trey recited the procedure. Rico could be questioned for twenty-four hours without being charged; after that, they had to either charge him or release him. They couldn’t ask him questions once he’d asked for a lawyer.
I listened to the recitation, watching the city roll by.
“Tai? Did you understand all of that?”
He was shifting into cop mode, his former self asserting its presence—calm down, pay attention, do what I say. It was both annoying and comforting at the same time.
“I understand.” I kept my face toward the window as the cityscape rolled by. “What else could they want? They already questioned him!”
“Not as a suspect.”
I flashed on the image of bare walls and bright lights. “So now it’s an interrogation?”
“Yes.”
I’d been on the end of many question and answer sessions, but as Trey reminded me, I’d never been interrogated.
“And then what happens?”
“In the best case scenario, they decide not to charge him. Then he’s released.”
“But they arrested him! They must have some evidence, right?”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll charge him. If he can explain the evidence they have, they’ll let him go. His record will show that he was detained but not arrested.”
“I don’t care about his record, I want him out of there!”