by Tony Urban
It stood at the edge of town, on the west side. By the way the parking lot packed in, she figured it serviced a handful of counties that bordered Hopkins. And it was just far enough out of the town limits that most residents didn’t have to think about it on a daily basis.
A purple neon sign blazed high above the roofline, visible from every direction. Along with the text was the outline of a cartoonishly curvaceous woman, just in case you didn’t know what the club was selling.
A group of rowdy men hurried in, pushing past her without regard. They smelled like alcohol, already pregaming for the night, and looked like college students. By their behavior, all grabbing and pawing at one of their own, a fairly handsome guy topped in a birthday hat, she could only assume they were celebrating his twenty-first.
The stupidity of youth, she thought as she followed behind them. The bouncer at the door, a Black version of The Incredible Hulk, took his time with the flashlight over the guys’ identification cards, and then he checked their faces with a surprising amount of scrutiny. Once he was satisfied, he waved them through and stopped Carolina.
He gave her a quick once-over, then let her in without checking her ID. If she cared, she would have been offended. But instead, she walked inside.
Her senses were overwhelmed when she made it to the main room. Pounding techno music shook the walls and the inside of her head. If anyone wanted to have a conversation, they’d have to get right up to her ear to be heard. It was dark, except for the stage being lit up, and the pulsing black lights everywhere else. She looked down at her jeans and saw the splatter of some condiment she’d forgotten to rinse out. Mayonnaise, if she remembered correctly.
The smell, however, was the worst and made her eager to get back outside into the fresh air as soon as possible. It was the thick, stuffy odor of sweaty bodies mixed with a strong, noxious combination of colognes and perfumes. The girls that worked there must douse themselves with it before each shift to overpower everything else.
A waitress, fully clothed and carrying a tray of drinks, approached her. She leaned into her ear and Carolina could smell the artificial cherry scent of body wash. “You here alone or looking for someone in particular, honey?”
Carolina turned her head. “A man, probably pretty drunk.”
“Take your choice,” the waitress said with a shrug.
“This one has a badge,” Carolina said.
The waitress’s eyes lit up and she pointed to a corner. “That’s where most law enforcement sits. We’ve got two in today.”
Carolina thanked the waitress, who lingered longer than she should have, and Carolina realized she was looking for a tip. Carolina dug into her jeans and pulled out a dollar and change. She tossed it on the tray and left before she had to spend any more money.
She climbed a handful of stairs to a section that was raised above ground level. A low-rent VIP section, she thought, but there was no one important enough to require bouncers or ropes. Two men sat before a small stage where a dancer gyrated spastically. The first man, a flat-top, fresh-out-of-the-State-Police-Academy type, glanced at Carolina, then went back to ogling the stripper.
She wasn’t very good, swaying her hips back and forth out of sync with the music. Her top was completely off, and Carolina noticed the sag of her breasts. The edges were striped like a tiger, as if they’d grown, then deflated over time. She wore a small skirt that was too low to cover a C-section scar, and too short to cover the crotch of her black panties.
She dropped to her knees and started to crawl toward the younger cop, but Carolina wasn’t interested in the show. She was only there to see the second man in this pseudo-private area.
Hank, busy gawking at the stripper and unaware of Carolina’s presence, was almost unrecognizable from the buttoned-up, prideful Sheriff she’d met upon entering Hopkins. A gray beard had sprung up on his face and neck, the hair already a half-inch long, wiry, and coarse. His eyes were glassy and vacant and clearly quite drunk. Judging from his wrinkled street clothes, he hadn’t showered or changed outfits in days.
Carolina got his attention by dropping her hand onto his shoulder. He radiated a moist heat that made her want to break out the hand sanitizer.
“You look like week-old shit,” Carolina said.
When he noticed her, he didn’t seem shocked or angry or even annoyed. His face was as emotionless as a mannequin.
“Fuck you, too,” Hank muttered before looking back to the stripper who was now using the skirt to buff her vagina to a new car shine.
His visible disinterest infuriated her. How could the sheriff of a town where a serial murderer was at play be so checked out? It was disgraceful.
Even Billington agreed, but she also made it clear that dead weight was unacceptable. If Hank wasn’t on his game, she’d prefer to have him stay hidden in his office and out of her way. Having someone in Hank’s present state be involved would only tear her focus away from the case, causing more harm than good.
But Carolina wasn’t ready to just write him off. Hank was the one who brought her into this, and now she was invested. She was going to see it through, and she was going to make damned sure that he did, too.
Carolina slid into the empty chair beside Hank and turned her eyes to the stripper. Whatever the woman had planned to do to make Hank hard and get money from him wasn’t going to happen. She locked eyes with the woman and pointed her chin toward the other cop.
The stripper paused, and Carolina could see in her drowsy, bloodshot gaze that she thought about protesting. When Carolina dug another dollar out of her pocket and put it on the stage, the woman had a change of heart. She scooped up the single and changed positions, settling in directly in front of the younger cop.
It was the loss of his up-close-and-personal encounter with the stripper that finally drew emotion from Hank. “What the fuck’s this about?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said, leaning in close enough to smell the whisky ebbing from his pores.
“I’m just trying to take my mind off things. What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong is you giving up and handing the investigation off to someone else to be their problem.”
Hank shook his head and took another one of his shots that were lined up at the edge of the stage. She noticed there were two more at the ready and wondered how many empties had already been taken away.
“I’m doing what’s best for the county. They wanted the feds and they got it. Agent Billington is going to do a bang-up job catching the prick. And you know what? If I stay out of it and don’t fuck anything else up, I might get to keep my job. Wouldn’t that be something?” Hank asked, his words soft and on the edge of slurring.
“You didn’t screw anything up,” Carolina said. “This is a tough one and we were just starting to get somewhere before those drunken assholes went and fucked everything up.”
Hank waved his hand dismissively and took another shot. He went for the other glass, but Carolina swept it up from the stage before he could. She tossed it across the floor, and it shattered in the corner. Hank glared at her, furious. But it was the first time in days that he looked like he gave a damn about something.
“Just leave me be,” he demanded.
“Not until you get off your ass and work this case. Leigh is out there, trying. She really fucking cares, you know? She might be inexperienced, but she’s doing everything she can. With the right direction, she will make a great cop. And Billington… I might not be her biggest fan, but she’s got a damned good head on her shoulders. Plus, you’ve got me. So be a part of this team. And start acting like the sheriff again.”
Hank laughed in her face. He bounced up from his chair, towering tower over her. “Go fuck yourself, McKay. I never should have brought you in on this. You haven’t done a damn thing since you’ve been here to help me out. It’s just like back in Baltimore. All you do is fuck me over.”
Carolina clenched her jaw, wanting to yell at him, to go off on him. But she couldn’t
. He was right, in a way. He’d bragged her up to his deputies and what had she done to live up to that praise?
“We’ll talk when you’re sober,” she said, pushing out of her seat and hurrying away from him.
“You’ll be waiting a while,” he cackled. Then he started yelling at her, saying something more, but she didn’t have time to listen. She couldn’t listen. If she did, she’d feel even more sorry for herself than she already did.
She was angry, she was emotional, and most of all, she was in need.
In need of a fix.
Chapter 43
Carolina ran into Frijole within five minutes of returning to the motel.
Ran into. That was a bit of a stretch. More like sought him out and asked to buy oxy. She didn’t care that he pulled them from his pocket with his crusty hands and long fingernails. Her body was craving that sweet numbness and she was all too willing to give in.
But when she brought it to the room, she only stared at the pills in her palm. Then she set them on the nightstand and stared a while longer.
She felt like she deserved them. She’d worked so hard to stay straight, and what had it got her? Now that she had a case with more at stake than someone’s bank account, she was failing. Yet, before getting sober, she could stumble into nearly any situation and somehow come out on top. She was sober but struggling more than ever. So fucking unfair.
She flopped backward onto the bed, looking at those damned ceiling stains rather than the pills which were whispering to her from the nightstand.
Come on, Carolina. We’ll make everything better.
Just one night. You’ve earned it.
Her mind reeled as she thought about that numb release. About giving in. About anything but dealing with her own emotions and the prospect of failure.
While moderating that internal debate, she fell asleep.
When the light of the rising sun spilled through the thin curtains and woke her, the pills still remained on the nightstand. And they stayed there when she hit the road for the station.
They’d be there if she needed them later. For now, she wanted to try one more day as Sober Carolina.
Much to her surprise, Hank was there. Maybe she’d gotten through to him in a way, not that he would have admitted it. Just like she wouldn’t admit that he had gotten through to her about being such a somewhat shitty partner in the past.
They briefly locked eyes, but he snapped his head away without saying a word to her. He looked awful, like he’d risen from the grave after being in it for a year. His eyes were ringed red, and his street clothes looked like they could stand up on their own. But he was there, which she hoped meant he hadn’t completely given up.
Just by looking at him, Carolina could feel a secondhand hangover coming on and it made her queasy. While seeing Hank there was good, even in his condition he wasn’t her main focus. She wanted to see where she was needed and what she could help with.
Billington was alone in the conference room, her back turned, when Carolina entered. It was clear the agent was steering the ship now. In recent days, she’d pinned a myriad of files up on the wall next to the images of the murdered women. It wasn’t anything new that Carolina could tell, but there was clearly a path that Billington was trying to pave.
The federal agent wore another black outfit, but this time it was a dress. It touched just above her knee, which was a bit surprising to Carolina. She’d always thought most feds had a stick up their ass, but after sneaking a peak, she couldn’t see one poking out.
Unfortunately for Carolina, the look on Billington’s face when she saw her indicated the stick was indeed there, but deep enough to be concealed from view.
Carolina was prepared to bend the knee and ask what the next move was, and where she might be needed. She wasn’t thrilled at begging Billington for orders, but they were there for the same reason. If she could get a grip on what the agent was thinking, she might be able to put the jumble of abstract pieces together faster than anyone else. But currently she was stuck, and fresh eyes could help.
Just as Carolina opened her mouth to say, ‘Good morning,’ Billington grabbed a thick file, a very thick file, off the folding table in front of the cork board, walked three paces, and dropped it onto Carolina’s desk. The agent’s eyes narrowed but never left Carolina’s face.
Carolina looked at the file, then to Billington. Neither of them said a word, so Carolina gave up and opened it. Inside, she saw an old ID photo of herself clipped to paperwork labelled BALTIMORE PD. She flipped through and saw various notes from her years on the force. It held everything from reviews from superiors to reports from Internal Affairs.
Once Carolina had sorted past that stage of her life, the file shifted gears to her homecoming to Dupray, newspaper articles about the cases she’d worked there, even a printout of Max’s damned blog. The headlines were all too familiar, things she’d preferred to block out. But here they were, all neatly wrapped up in a bow for her to relive.
I really should have taken those pills, she thought as her gaze returned to Billington’s harsh face.
“I thought I recognized your name, but I couldn’t place it. So, I called my guys at the Bureau. It didn’t take much digging to come up with this,” Billington said. “I loathe to imagine what skeletons they would have uncovered if they had really tried.”
Carolina pursed her lips and took a deep breath, feeling her foot tapping rapid-fire as her anxiety took over. Along with her rage.
Billington rapped the file with her bony knuckles. “I read about the compound road which you led in Baltimore. PR spun it well, portraying you as quite the hero. But reading between the lines, it sounds like you’re lucky you got away with a medical retirement instead of a prison sentence.”
So much for trying to be a team player, Carolina thought. Her past just couldn’t stay buried. It was always following her, just waiting for her to slow down so it could catch up and ruin her all over again.
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Carolina said.
Billington crossed her arms across her slender chest. “Oh really? So, I shouldn’t believe that you were playing amateur PI while your unofficial step-father was butchering women in West Virginia? And let’s not forget that you shot and killed some local yokel that wasn’t even involved with those crimes.”
“In all fairness, he tried to shoot me first.”
Billington went to Carolina’s side of the table and grabbed the file, fishing out a newspaper article. “Or, my personal favorite,” Billington’s voice went shrill and Carolina had a feeling she was lying about the favorite part. The agent read, “Former police detective Carolina McKay was involved in an unofficial investigation involving FBI Special Agent Jack Burrell, an unnamed prostitute, and a New York City reporter, which ended in bloodshed in a rural Pennsylvania town.”
“Actually, Max is a blogger,” Carolina said with a wry grin. There was no sense trying to score points with Billington now, so she might as well stop pretending to be a kiss-ass and let her sarcastic self shine.
Billington looked up from the paper, no smile in sight. She stepped into Carolina’s personal space, looming over her. “I’m glad you think this is amusing. Your pathetic undercover act cost a Federal Agent his life.”
Billington looked disgusted, and Carolina felt like she was about to get spit on, but she was ready to take it. As much as she hated the ass-reaming she was enduring, she wasn’t getting involved in some tit-for-tat mouth battle. Billington had a lot more ammunition against her than Carolina had to defend herself with.
Finally, the agent backed away from her. But she wasn’t finished. “I don’t know the deal between you and Sheriff Kolazarek. Maybe you’re carrying a torch for him, or maybe you were his side piece back in Baltimore. But I have no use for you.”
She was finally done talking, and now it was Carolina’s turn. She just needed to stick to the facts at hand and not get personal or emotional. It was a minefield through which she was willing t
o walk.
“I’m licensed as a Private Investigator. And I’m here officially, brought on by H-- the sheriff himself. Until he tells me otherwise, I’m working this case. I won’t be leaving,” Carolina said.
“That’s cute,” Billington said. “You can stick around and watch your old pal go down in flames. As the saying goes, it’s a free country. I can’t stop you. But keep your goddamn nose out of my case.”
Carolina wanted to punch her. Old Carolina would have punched her. But this was the new and improved model, or so she’d been told. So, she tried to reason with words instead of fists. “Wouldn’t it be better if we worked together to catch whoever is doing this?”
“What kind of Kumbayah hippy fuckery is that?” Billington said with a cackle of a laugh. “Listen, Nancy Drew, I’m not your sorority sister. I’m a lone wolf. From now on, if I want your input, I’ll snap my fingers.”
Billington slammed her hand on the table, closing the file on Carolina. Literally and figuratively.
Carolina was angry, but mostly she found herself feeling self-conscious and weak around the agent. That was something she’d never felt before. And she hated it. Billington had Carolina nailed down on paper, but that wasn’t who she was anymore, right? People could change.
But Billington wasn’t having it.
And Carolina worried that she had finally met her match.
Chapter 44
Carolina unwrapped a cheeseburger that was so greasy the bun was slick in her hands. She guessed it was one hundred percent baaf, but nothing soothed her soul like unhealthy food. That’s why she’d added a jumbo order of fries to her order. Along with a Diet Coke, of course.
The fast-food joint, some knock-off of the golden arches, wasn’t busy in the middle of the morning and she preferred it that way. She wanted to wallow in her shame with as much privacy as possible.
Maybe its lack of popularity compared to The Coffee Pot or Sustenance was the reason Leigh suggested meeting there. Or maybe because it was far enough out of town that Billington wouldn’t see them meeting together.