A Cup Full of Midnight

by Jaden Terrell

  My gaze slid back to Dark Knight’s body. I resisted the sudden urge to cover him with a blanket.

  In the bathroom, another detective was coating the windowsill with black fingerprint dust. A mobile phone with lots of chrome, probably Absinthe’s, lay on the floor beneath the window. It looked like a crushed beetle. I watched the technician for a few moments, then went back into the living room. The scene was abuzz with detectives and forensic technicians turning the duplex into an efficient and official crime scene.

  Harry was kneeling beside Dennis Knight’s body, talking quietly to the medical examiner. I gave him a quick nod on the way out. He nodded back.

  I stepped out onto the porch and came nose to eyebrows with Kelly Malone. Her hair was tousled, her face bare. I guessed she’d gotten the call at home, no time for makeup.

  She crossed her arms and said, “What are you doing at my crime scene?”

  “Nice to see you too, Detective.”

  “Answer the question. I said—”

  “I know what you said. The girl called me. Absinthe—Laurel—O’Brien.”

  “So?”

  “She’s in trouble. Her mom hired me to find her.”

  “Then unless she’s hiding in the closet, this is not your business. I suggest you get out of here before I have you arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “For being a pain in the ass.”

  “I don’t think there’s a law against that. Did you call Frank?”

  She looked like she’d swallowed a slug. “I’ll call Detective Campanella when he learns what a chain of command is. And you. Go home.”

  “Stellar idea,” I said. “You’ll be happy to know Detective Kominsky gave me the same advice.”

  “Good. Maybe I won’t have to fire him.” She uncrossed her arms and stepped forward as if she might walk through me. I moved aside and let her pass, even though I knew she’d consider it a sign of weakness. But this was a battle I could only win at Harry’s expense. And Frank’s.

  Absinthe’s Corvette was still parked in front, one front tire on the curb. A quick glance told me Officer Brandt and the other two uniforms were gone. Back on patrol, I assumed.

  I peered through the window of Absinthe’s car. Nothing out of the ordinary inside. McDonald’s wrappers, a half-empty bag of Cheetos, a stack of library books.

  I tried the door. Unlocked. A quick toss of the car turned up no clues as to where she might have gone.

  Damn.

  I rubbed my eyes as if I could wipe away the fatigue and turned back toward the Silverado just as Malone came back outside. She fumbled in her pockets, came up with a pack of cigarettes, and tapped one out. Placed it between her lips and stuffed the pack back into the pocket it had come from. Even in the dim light, I could tell her hands were shaking.

  I went over and stood next to her. “You okay?”

  “You’re still here?” she said, her voice strained.

  “This your first?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  She pulled out a disposable lighter and flicked her thumb across the spark wheel. After the third try, I reached across and took it from her. This time, the flame caught. I shielded it with my cupped hand and held it out so she could light her cigarette.

  Still trembling, she took a long draw from the cigarette, blew out the smoke through her mouth, and said, “You get used to it, I guess.”

  “Some do.” I handed her the lighter, which she pocketed. “Some just aren’t cut out for it.”

  “I thought I should see what it’s like. My detectives have been having a hard time. Tough guys, I’d’ve said.”

  “They probably are.”

  “They’re falling apart.”

  “It’s a different kind of toughness. Your guys—Gilley and Robbins?”

  She nodded.

  “I bet they could take on a bunch of bikers, talk some hop-head down from a building, walk into a domestic disturbance and stay cool, even with some jerk-off waving a shotgun around. Am I right?”

  “I’d’ve thought so. But this . . . Gilley looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. Robbins acts like he’s sleepwalking all the time. And Harry’s in there cool as Christmas, like he’s looking at a frozen turkey instead of a murdered boy.”

  “You have to turn it off, that part of you that says this is a murdered kid. Not everybody can do it. You’ll just end up unraveling guys like Gilley and Robbins and wasting guys like Harry and Frank.”

  “The policy—”

  “The policy is bullshit.”

  She looked back over her shoulder, toward the apartment. “Something to think about,” she said. She ground out the cigarette on the sole of her shoe, field stripped it, and put the butt in her pocket. “Don’t be here when I come back out.”

  I nodded. Waited until the door closed behind her. Then I called my brother. I told him what had happened, told him to stay put, and snapped the phone shut before he could argue. Then I stopped at a Quik Sak for a box of NoDoz. I popped two into my mouth and washed them down with a cup of tepid coffee.

  No rest for the weary. Absinthe was still out there somewhere. And Elgin wanted to kill her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  It was close to dawn, but the lights were still on at Barnabus’s. It was possible the police had been here before me, but I rang the bell anyway. No answer. I rang again. The door opened a crack and Barnabus’s pale, sharp face peered out.

  “What do you want this time?” he asked.

  “Feeling peckish, are we? The police been here yet?”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched. “Why would the police have been here? And why the hell are you?”

  “I wanted to know if you knew where Absinthe might be.”

  The heavy lids looked suddenly less drowsy. “What makes you think I’d have any idea where Absinthe is?”

  “She’s not at home. With Dark Knight out of the picture, that leaves you and Medea.”

  “Haven’t heard from her. Is that all you wanted?”

  “How come you didn’t ask me why Dark Knight was out of the picture?”

  His nostrils flared. He wavered for a moment. Then he said, “Hey, you say he’s out of the picture, he’s out of the picture.”

  “When I say he’s out of the picture, I mean he’s dead. Murdered.”

  “Oh.” He pressed a finger to his lips.

  “Could be you and Medea are next.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Not threatening. Warning.”

  He gave a nervous titter. “Why would anyone want me and Medea dead?”

  “Judith Hewitt.”

  “That again. If we raped her, how come there was never a mark on her?”

  “You threatened her at knife-point.”

  “Says who?”

  “Dark Knight says. Judith confirmed it.”

  He smiled as if he’d caught me in a mousetrap. “But Dark Knight’s dead. That makes it her word against mine.”

  “Wonder who they’ll believe.” I pushed the door open a little wider and shouldered in past him. “And if you have any ideas about shutting her up, I’d forget it. Anything happens to her, cops’ll be all over you like maggots on carrion.”

  “Lovely image.”

  “What I’m saying is, the police are not your biggest problem.”

  “And what, exactly, is my biggest problem?”

  “Big guy. Mustache. Scar on his cheek. Same guy who killed Dennis Knight and his mother. He’s a martial arts expert and a trained sniper, but he’s partial to knives. And for you, I think he’ll want to get in close.”

  His lower lip quivered. He closed his upper teeth on it. “Hey, man, she wanted it. Couldn’t get enough.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think he’ll buy it. Look at the bright side, though. Maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s just some freak with a jones for vampires.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Barnabus muttered, but his gaze jumped around the room as if Elgin’s form might coalesce f
rom the shadows.

  “No worries.” I tucked my card into his shirt pocket and breezed out past him. “Just get Medea to whip out a couple of protection spells and I’m sure you’ll both be fine.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I drove a grid through downtown, north to south, east to west, saw no sign of Absinthe. Made one last stop on the way home. This time, I didn’t worry about waking anyone. The guy I’d come to see was always up before dawn.

  I turned the Silverado onto Broadway and followed it to Third Avenue, made a series of convoluted turns to navigate a maze of one-way streets and came back past the bus terminal. Kaizen, the rehab center run by my good buddy Billy Mean, sat on the opposite corner. Kaizen was a Japanese term. Billy said it meant improving by a small amount each day. Miniscule was good enough, as long as you kept moving forward. It was Billy’s philosophy about sobriety.

  It seemed like a pretty good way to get through life.

  Back in the early seventies, Billy had been in Vietnam. Special Forces. He’d had trouble adjusting when he got back home. Black days. Bad choices. Ended up in prison, somehow managed to get his head on straight, and started a shelter for other lost veterans. Kaizen offered three squares a day, job training and transportation, business wear for interviews and the workplace, and classes in goal-setting, anger management, and overcoming addictions.

  He was my first client. I’d found his estranged daughter, arranged a reconciliation. For this, he declared me a friend.

  I pushed open the door to the shelter, and a burst of warm air teased me with the scents of fresh coffee and frying bacon. Billy stood behind the serving table, plopping heaps of scrambled eggs and hash browns onto plastic trays. His paunch strained beneath a dingy white apron speckled with grease. When he saw me, his face broke into a grin, his teeth gleaming white amidst a wiry tangle of beard.

  “Jared, my man!” He waved me over with his serving spoon. “Grab a plate and join us for a bite.”

  I eyed the eggs, clumps of congealed yolk floating in a watery soup. “Truth to tell, I’m not all that hungry.”

  “Since when?” He guffawed, tugged off his apron, and came out from behind the serving table. “You look like you ran into the wrong end of a lawnmower.”

  “Got a job for you and some of your boys, if you’re interested.”

  “Always interested.” He waved at a grizzled man with a nearly empty plate and tossed the apron to him. “Here you go,Arnie. Make yourself useful.”

  I nodded to a familiar face across the room, a Vietnam vet with his dog at his feet. Then Billy and I walked out the back door into the courtyard, a twenty-foot cobbled square surrounded on three sides by gray brick walls. The fourth side was separated from a narrow alley by a wrought-iron fence with spikes at the top. Billy’s clients had laid the cobblestones, built the slatted benches lining the walls, dug the tiny pond with the Japanese-style fountain, and planted a red twig dogwood on either side of each bench. The trees were bare this time of year, but the deep red branches gave a splash of brightness.

  Billy dropped onto one of the benches, which creaked beneath his weight.

  I stayed standing. “Got a lost girl,” I said. “I can’t hunt for her twenty-four seven, thought you and your guys might take up the slack.” I gave him a description of Absinthe and a quick run-down on events to date.

  When I finished, he leaned back and spread his arms out across the back of the bench. “You got any idea where this kid might be?”

  “Not really. Might check out the Goth hangouts. There’s a dance club on Second, used to be called the Underground. And a club off Elliston that caters to the vampire crowd. The Masquerade.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine.” He heaved himself to his feet. “You know, we got extra beds if you need to crash for a while.”

  “Thanks, but I better get home.”

  “At least let me send a cup of coffee with you. That way, when you fall asleep at the wheel and smash face-first into an eighteen-wheeler, no one can say it was my fault.”

  I gave him a weary grin. “Billy, my friend, you’re all heart.”

  Maybe the coffee helped. I nodded off twice on the way home, came awake with a start, and jerked the pickup back into the center of the lane. When I got home, Jay was fixing breakfast and Elisha was curled up on the couch. I bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she gave me a sleepy smile. “I was worried about you.”

  “Sorry.”

  She sat up, looked around blearily, and rubbed her eyes. “It’s daylight already.”

  “Things got complicated.”

  “Is Absinthe all right?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t found her yet.”

  Jay popped his head in and gave me a relieved smile. I shot him a thumbs-up signal. He nodded and disappeared down the hall.

  “Well.” Elisha stood up, smoothing the front of her blouse. “Now that I know you’re okay, I should probably get home.”

  “Be all right if you stayed,” I told her. “There’s plenty of room.”

  “Jared—”

  “Don’t worry. I’m too tired to do anything but sleep.”

  I didn’t tell her about Dark Knight’s death, or about the cartoon figurines or the comic book collection or how young he’d seemed. I didn’t tell her that I should have been able to stop it. Something must have shown on my face though, because she put her arms around my waist and looked up at me. “All right. I’m still pretty wiped out myself.”

  I laid my palms against the sides of her face and stroked her cheeks with my thumbs.

  Beautiful.

  I closed my eyes and saw Absinthe’s face. Lost and afraid. Running. Hiding. They’re here, she’d said. But who were they? And what would happen if they found her first?

  “Maybe I should—” I started.

  “Sssh.” Elisha placed two fingers over my lips. “Even Superman has to sleep sometime.”

  “I’m Batman,” I said. “Randall is Superman.”

  “I always liked Batman best.”

  She hadn’t brought a nightgown, so I gave her one of my flannel shirts. It came almost to her knees. I slept in a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt with a picture of a rearing stallion on the front that Maria had given me.

  I fell asleep quickly, but not deeply, drifting at the edge of consciousness with unsettling images scuttling through my dreams. When I finally awoke, Elisha’s back was pressed against my stomach and I was holding onto her like a drowning man.

  I lay there for a long while, not moving, afraid I’d wake her. Then she stirred, stretched, and rolled over to face me.

  “Morning.” She smiled.

  “Morning.”

  “Or maybe I should say afternoon.” She snuggled into the crook of my arm. “This is nice.”

  “Very nice.”

  She trundled off to take a shower while I went out to do the barn chores. As I passed Dylan’s room, I heard him say, “You shouldn’t be here. What if someone reports you?”

  I peered inside and saw him sitting up in bed, eyes focused on the corner of the room opposite the Christmas tree. There was no one else in the room.

  I stepped inside and leaned against the doorframe. “Who are you talking to?”

  He looked up. Saw me. “Just that damn Marine. He comes here all the time.”

  “Really.”

  “Today, he’s supposed to have inspection and then a five-mile run. But he came here instead.”

  “He say why?”

  Dylan laughed. “He’s hot for me is the real reason. But he says he’s here to help me on my way. Earlier this morning, he even brought a friend. A lot more solid than most of my hallucinations.”

  The hairs on my arms stood up. “What did he look like? This friend?”

  “Big. A little scary. He had a scar.” He traced a line from the corner of his mouth to his jawline.

  “Di
d he say anything?”

  “No, he waited over by the barn.” Dylan’s bony fingers plucked at the blanket. “I like it better when the children come. I like to see them play.”

  I kept my voice neutral. “They come here a lot?”

  “Not so often.” He chuckled. “It’s all right, Straight. I know they’re not real. It’s just that I can see them. I’d heard about the hallucinations, but no one ever told me what a hoot they can be.”

  My mouth felt dry. “It’s good you can appreciate them.”

  He picked at a scab on his ear. “You’re stuck with them either way, right? Might as well enjoy them.”

  “Good point.”

  “I didn’t used to be so philosophical, but what the hell, right? Dying kinda puts things in perspective.” His gaze drifted to the beta. “I named him Straight. After you.”

  “I’m honored.”

  He smiled. “Before you go, would you tell that Marine to get on home? I don’t have time to fool with him.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Good.” He lay back and closed his eyes. “He’s not bad looking. But he’s really not my type.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  From Dylan’s window, it was easy to see where the hallucination must have stood. I crunched my way across the frozen grass to a small depression near the corner of the barn. A few shreds of tobacco and a smattering of ash had been ground into a partial heel print. Someone, probably Elgin, had field stripped a cigarette here.

  Dylan’s Marine might be a hallucination, but his guest this morning had been all too real.

  A slow burn started low in my stomach. The son of a bitch had been in my yard. He’d seen Elisha’s car and probably taken note of her license plate. Then he’d skulked away like the ghost he claimed to be. But he’d left a trace of himself behind. The carelessness was uncharacteristic, and I wondered if he’d left the tobacco and ash on purpose as a message or a warning. I can get to you at any time.

  I sent Elisha home and made Jay practice with the Glock again. Then I called to update Frank and Harry. Frank was heading up the surveillance on Barnabus’s place and seemed almost chipper.