by P. A. Brown
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I woke the next morning when the day was breaking with the first soft blush of pink. I was stiff and could barely move when I tried to sit up. Leather creaked and my face stuck to the pillow under me. I shoved it onto the floor and nearly followed it when two legs appeared in my narrow field of vision.
Hands grabbed me under the armpits and hauled me upright. "You look like you had a restful night." Alex looked down at my morning erection chafing against my jeans. "You might want to take care of that."
I shuffled past him into the bathroom, which was still filled with steam from his shower. I longed to take one too, but Alex appeared in the doorway. "Hurry up. I've got something for you."
"I can hardly wait," I muttered to his retreating back.
In the kitchen he had a mug of coffee already in front of him and had set out a second mug which I filled with blessedly hot strong coffee. He waited until I prepared a cup then pointed at the bar stool beside him.
"I want you to go to your place this morning," he said.
Despair filled me. He was sending me home. "I—"
"Listen first. I want you to get your car and bring it back here. You have a key. Bring some more clothes if you want."
"My car? Why—?"
"I don't like you being out here on your own without a vehicle. I wasn't kidding about some people looking for trouble. Most don't know about me, but once they realize you're staying here, they're going to put two and two 158
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together, and it's not going to paint a pretty picture. You got a cell, right?"
I nodded, confused by the turn the day had taken. The guy kept me permanently off-balance.
"Don't go anywhere without it."
"Where am I going to go?"
"You like to hike through the woods right? I don't want you getting caught out there. Keep your cell phone close. Does it have a GPS locater in it?"
"I-I don't know—"
"If it's less than five or six years old I'm sure it does. Try to keep it charged, so that when you're out you can keep it turned on."
"Jesus, what do you think is going to happen?"
"Nothing if I have anything to do with it."
"Why are you doing this?"
"I don't want anything to happen to you. Be content with that. You're coming to stay here. I want to keep you close."
No mention of needing me, or caring. Just that he wanted me close. But ... was that so horrible? Alex wasn't the type who got sentimental or soft for anyone or anything. He must care in some way to go to all this extra effort.
I nodded solemnly, suppressing the urge to grin like an idiot.
"Come on, get dressed. I need to get going. Do me a favor when you get back. There's some laundry in my room. Take care of it." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "When do you get paid?"
"Next Thursday."
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He handed me two twenties. "This will tide you over. Put some gas in the car, I don't want you getting stranded up in the hills somewhere trying to chase down whatever it is you're chasing down. I'll be back around six. We'll talk about dinner then."
I was torn between telling him I couldn't take his money, to throwing myself in his arms. He did say until payday, so he probably expected it back. I stuffed it in my jeans pocket and said, "Thanks."
We were silent on the ride to my place. When he let me off he gave me a smoldering look and said simply, "Later."
"I'll be there," I murmured. He nodded and sped away.
I made my way inside my musty, empty room and carefully closed the door behind me. Then I let out a whoop that shook the thin walls and dashed to where my Murphy bed lay unfolded, and unmade, the blankets still rumpled from where I had risen to find Alex at the door. I started pulling out clothes and thinking of what I wanted to take.
There wasn't much I needed from the place. Clothes and books. My notebook with the life list I had been assembling of the birds I sighted over the years. Damn, I had that library book ... I still had two weeks left on it. Surely I'd be back in town in time to take it in or renew it. I decided to take it rather than swing by the library on my way out of town. I was in a hurry to get back before ... before what? Alex came to his senses and changed his mind? It had been his idea, without any prompting from me, so why would he do that? I had the feeling Alex Spider didn't make decisions lightly, nor did he change his mind often.
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For better or worse I was committed to this.
I was whistling again as I finished packing and loaded my little Honda up with everything important in my life, and headed back to the most important thing of all.
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Spider
"We need a federal warrant to access those military records."
I had arrived at the station ten minutes before Nancy. She hadn't even got her jacket off before I hit her with my announcement.
"Good morning to you, too." She dropped into her chair and stabbed the power button on her PC. She didn't wait for it to power up before she swung around to glare at me. "Least you could do is bring me coffee if you're going to drop bombshells. What makes you think we can get a judge—a federal judge, no less—to sign off on a federal warrant on a couple of old Army gits?"
"My winning charm?"
She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, you think it's going to lead to anything?"
"Who knows? It's a long shot, but I got a feeling..."
"Oh right. That old Spidey gut."
"Hey, if it keeps Garcia's nose out of my affairs then it works for me."
"You could keep him out of your affairs by being a little less in his face about said affairs."
"If I was boffing prime pussy you think he'd give a fuck?
He can't stop thinking about me and whoever I'm getting it on with."
"You think?"
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I bent over my keyboard. I intended to get that warrant. It was too much of a coincidence that both our recent victims were ex-military. There had to be a connection but without the records of their service days, I was fishing in the dark.
I spent the morning fielding calls. The papers had made a connection between Blunt and Dutton and splashed it all over the front page. The papers made a big deal of there being no suspects. By eleven-forty I had listened to three confessions, a half a dozen people who swore they saw either Blunt or Dutton, one psychic who said the killer lived near the water—
good one, I felt like saying, we live on the fucking Pacific ocean—and a 5150 who said Elvis did it and was going to do him, too.
Well give him my regards I wanted to say. Instead, per our exalted leader's instructions, I listened to each caller through their rants and thanked them for their help. I'd be sure to get back to them if I had any other questions.
At twelve sharp I slammed the last phone call—a little old lady, convinced her husband was the killer, since she hadn't seen him in three months. I probed her story and it turned out she had buried him at Calvary cemetery four months ago.
I wasn't sure what happened during the month that she claimed she did see him. I decided I didn't want to know and snatching my jacket off the back of my chair I thumped to my feet.
"One and only call: Lunch, El Torito. On me."
"Wow, big spender. That how you keep the young ones coming around for more?"
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"Shut up and go get us a car. After lunch we've got some people to see."
"Who?"
I checked the clip in my Beretta. "T
axidermists."
The server led us to a table in the back when she saw we were cops. A lot of restaurant patrons lose their appetite when they see a cop and his piece hunkering over a meal.
Maybe they think we're going to shoot the waiter if our eggs aren't cooked right. I ordered Red Bull and she went with decaf coffee. I kept throwing glances at the other diners, looking over at the front door then back at our table.
"What's up?" Nancy asked.
"What do you mean?"
She pointedly looked at my foot, which was bouncing off the floor, my whole leg vibrating. She raised one eyebrow.
"You only get this agitated when something's upsetting you.
Is it Garcia? The boy from the boat?"
"Nothing." I took a hit of Red Bull, knowing damn well it was something. My mind kept spinning back to this morning.
What the hell had possessed me to invite Jason to practically move in with me? Was I nuts? Sure the kid was hot in bed, and even out of the sack he was entertaining, but live with me? When had that happened?
Part of me said pick up the phone right now and tell him to forget it. I didn't need some flaky kid that I knew next to nothing about crowding my living space. Tell him to go back to his loser apartment, and what? I'd go back to mine?
I shoveled a mouthful of spicy carne asada and glared at her. She looked back impassively.
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"How long we been partners?" she asked.
Too long if she was going to go all psychic momma on me.
"You ever think this," she indicated my bouncing leg,
"means you're doing the wrong thing? Maybe you need to stop and think about whatever it is you are doing."
Or maybe it meant for the first time in my life I was doing the right thing and part of me didn't want it to happen?
Forming ties, even tentative ones ... I haven't done that since my marriage failed. I pushed my palm against my leg, holding it in place. I took another slug of energy drink, though clearly the last thing I needed was more caffeine.
Her plate was empty.
"Ready to hit the road?" I sure as hell didn't want to carry on this conversation.
"You line up some taxidermists?"
I flipped my arm up and looked at my watch.
"Appointment at one-thirty. Mr. Geoffrey Lowe, spelled with a G—do not forget that."
She threw some cash on the table. I threw it back. "My treat, remember."
"Jesus, you really are soft on this guy."
"Let it go."
The taxidermy was in a small, red brick building with a green awning over the front door. Parking was shared with a podiatrist and a real estate office with a for-lease sign on it.
The interior was dark after the brilliant light outside. The walls were all dark paneled wood and covered with a surreal collection of animal heads. In front of the till there was a display case with several smaller animals, including a couple 165
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of birds. But no ravens. Or crows. All game animals as far as I could tell, though I didn't have a clue what a game animal was. It included an impressive looking black boar with tusks on it that looked like they would mean business.
Somehow my nine didn't seem really adequate anymore.
Nancy cleared her throat and I looked back to find a hulking bear of a man standing behind me. He followed my gaze.
"Mean looking sucker, ain't he? Bagged that one in Hawaii.
Let me tell you that was a trip and a half."
"I can imagine."
"No, I don't think you can."
I ignored the slight and held out my hand. "Mr. Lowe?"
He allowed as he was. I introduced Nancy and myself. We both flashed our badges. "We need some information. We're hoping you can help us."
"Sure. If I can." Like most civilians, he looked less than happy to have us here. I gave him the usual request for name, occupation and contact information. Then:
"How long have you been a taxidermist?"
"Six years."
"Decent job?"
"Pays the bills." Clearly not a talker.
"This your place?" I knew it was, but like any good lie detector, you threw out control questions and monitored the answers.
"Six years."
"Lots of people want things ... stuffed?" I looked back up at the boar's menacing black head.
"Enough."
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Maybe he liked taxidermy because his clients didn't talk to him.
"As I told you on the phone, my partner and I have few questions we were hoping you could answer."
"Ask them."
"If we were to show you a stuffed animal," Nancy cut in.
"Would you be able to tell us who did it?"
"First of all, they're not 'stuffed,' they're mounted. What we do here is art."
"Then would you recognize a particular artist's work?"
"Probably. I'd at least know if it was mine. You have something you want me to look at?"
"You do many birds?" I was reluctant to release the identity of the bird. It was a hold back, an item that could be identified only by the killer or close accomplices. As this morning had demonstrated, the world was full of yokels who got a kick out of confessing to crimes they didn't commit.
"Sure. Geese, ducks, pheasants, did a wild turkey once.
That was a beauty."
"Any other birds?"
"Lot of birds are protected," he said cautiously. "Can't touch 'em."
"Like what?"
He shrugged. I tried another track. "Say I brought in a crow? You do that?" I wished Jason was here, he'd be able to rattle off a dozen names of birds. I thought of all the birds I knew from personal experience. "What about sea gulls?
Pelicans? Eagles—"
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"You better not bring any eagles in to me. Or pelicans for that matter."
That struck a nerve. I pressed on, maybe I'd hit some more. "Penguins? Ostriches?" Even Nancy was looking at me.
"Ravens? Robins?"
"I don't know where you're from, mister, but I've never seen any of those things. Can't imagine why anyone outside a museum would want them."
"But you could do it, right?"
"Could. Haven't. Probably wouldn't. I serve the hunters around here who want to display their trophies."
"To remember them by?"
"Why else?"
I stared into the glass eyes of the monstrous boar head. I smiled. "Trophies."
Nancy nodded as she picked up on my thought. "Thank you, Mr. Lowe. I think we're done here."
"Don't know what good it was."
"You never know," she said. I followed her out the door back into the brilliant sun that wasn't doing a whole lot to warm things up. A trio of raucous sea gulls flew over our heads, heading out to sea. I followed their flight path and thought again of Jason. Waiting at home for me. Or was he?
Would he decide enough was enough, take my money and split?
Nancy unlocked the car door and leaned on the roof. "Good call, that. Trophies, huh?"
A lot of serial killers collected trophies from their victims.
The occasional one left them.
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"Let's go get that federal warrant rolling," I said, slapping the roof and climbing into the passenger seat. "Then we'll work on the logistics of getting our talkative friend to take a look at our bird."
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Jason
I put thirty dollars in the tank and used the rest to buy a six-pack of Mexicali beer. Back at Alex's I gathered up every scrap of clothing I could find that I suspected
was dirty and went in search of the laundry room. I found it in the very back of the house, beside a utility closet. I separated the lights and darks with a lot more care than I gave my own clothes and soon had a load on.
I did some channel surfing after looking over Alex's selection of movies and deciding they weren't for me. I slouched on the sofa, my bird book open in my lap, the remote in my hand, restlessly flipping through all nine hundred plus channels. Up until now I never knew what they meant when they said there was nothing on. You'd think with nine hundred freaking channels someone could put on something decent. I finally settled on here! and some sex show, though I wasn't really watching. White noise to fill the background spaces.
I fell into the zone, reading about Tofino spring migratory birds until the alarm went off and it was time to go back to my Cinderella chores. In between loads of laundry I cleaned up the kitchen and the bathroom, found clean linen and changed the sheets, smoothing my hand over the covers before I spread the burgundy and black duvet back over it.
The domestic diva strikes again. Get back, demon dirt.
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When the place was as clean as I could get it, I took my book and binoculars and headed outside. Feet propped up on the second chair I idled away the time watching for anything that moved. I thought of having one of the beers I'd bought, but decided Alex wouldn't like that. Then I thought, fuck that shit, and went to get a beer.
I settled back into the chair and scanned the skies. A turkey vulture glided through a domed sky so blue it bounced light back into my eyes. I flipped my binoculars up and followed his flight. He was joined by another bird, then a third. Looking for road kill, no doubt. The beer went down just fine.
I was tempted to get another one when I thought: car, binoculars, hiking boots, beautiful day. I was going to find someplace to enjoy it. I still had four hours before Spider would return. I'd watch the clock and get back in plenty of time.
In about five minutes I was on Gibraltar Road and climbing. My Honda labored, unfit for the journey. I pushed on. I had no idea how high I climbed. I passed Rattlesnake Canyon Park and a cluster of towers and power lines, taking the steep switchbacks slowly. When I finally pulled off the winding road into a side spur on the juncture of Camino Cielo and the San Marcos Pass and got out of the car, the air was crisp and cold with the definite bite of winter. Snow had fallen here recently; it still dusted the sprawling distant pines and the nearby scrub brush rattled in the moaning wind. The vultures had disappeared. Maybe they'd found their midday snack. Very few cars went by. This time of year there was 171