Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  “Just like I can’t get anything through my own gloves, I won’t capture anything from something touched by a person wearing gloves or any other kind of barrier.”

  Crap. The crime lab investigators felt pretty sure their killer had been wearing gloves, considering there were no prints in the trailer, other than those expected to be there—Barry’s and Sookie’s. There were also, of course, hundreds of smeary prints on the counter where people placed their orders and passed over their well-handled money.

  “Now, if you find me the gloves he wore...”

  “I’ve got it.”

  Glancing at the letter, and the envelope, he added, “We just have to hope he was dumb enough to handle the paper with his bare hands. Which I seriously doubt. If he thought about placing a clue as obscure as a feather so he could play games with the police, I can’t imagine he’d do something as stupid as risk leaving prints or flecks of his skin.”

  She swallowed, knowing he was right. “Well,” she murmured, her voice low, “maybe he wasn’t quite as lucky the night of the murder. Gloves can tear, can’t they?”

  “It’s possible. Meaning he might actually have touched something in that food trailer.”

  Their stares met, both of them understanding where this was going. As little as she wanted to, she was going to have to ask him to go to the murder scene…and do what he did.

  She just hoped it wasn’t too horrible for him.

  But she doubted either of them would be that lucky.

  “You up for it today?” she asked.

  “If the trailer’s been released. After I go in there, mine are the fingerprints that will be all over the place.”

  She’d considered that. And the trailer had been released by the state crime lab, after their thorough investigation. It was her evidence, now, to hold onto until they came up with a suspect, and a trial. So she could let him go in there.

  But she hesitated. Part of her wanted to be absolutely, 100% certain before she allowed him go through it.

  “Let’s do it tomorrow, okay? Give me one more crack at it.”

  He appeared to understand. “I’ll be okay. It won’t be the first time I’ve shared the memories of a murder victim.”

  “One this brutal?”

  “Touché,” he said with a slow nod. “Tomorrow it is.”

  Chapter 4

  Gypsy’s last examination of the trailer turned up nothing new.

  So it was Mick’s turn.

  Not for the first time in his life, he was very glad that his strange ability to know the history of anything he touched—and the thoughts of those who touched it—did not include physical sensation. Because if he’d had to feel what Barry Spencer felt in the final moments of his life, he would probably need a week in an isolation chamber.

  It was bad enough knowing what had happened.

  Bad enough knowing what Barry had been thinking, moment by moment, as he’d died.

  With a torrent of thoughts running constantly through his mind, the murder victim’s bare hands had touched every surface of that food trailer.

  Every. Damn. Surface.

  And now, so were Mick’s.

  Barry has worked in the funnel cake trailer for years, ever since he stopped playing the sideshow “Brute.” His is one of the few food stands not owned by Frank Bell. Barry and Sookie had purchased it from the D’Onofrio Brothers carnival owner a few years back, looking for an investment for their retirement. He doesn’t like being indebted to anyone; they stay here now out of loyalty and friendship, not obligation. He and Frank go back almost fifty years—to the early days of D’Onofrio Brothers. Only a few others—Jersey, Gil, Shep, and Tony-the-Boney—have been around as long. He can’t imagine ever living anyplace else, and since Jersey, Gil, Shep and Tony are all still around, too, he knows he isn’t the only one.

  His wife ran the business for a while during Barry’s illness, and now that he’s healthy enough to get back on the job, he’s repaying her for her hard work and support. He works long hours, pushing himself hard, not just to prove he can, but also to provide more of a financial cushion for her in case the cancer comes back.

  Barry prides himself on making the lightest, crispiest, tastiest funnel cakes that ever graced a midway. Sookie’s famous toppings—especially her tart black cherry—take the treats up to another level. She pits the cherries, he makes the batter and hand-beats the whipping cream. The chocolate is of highest quality and he melts it to a perfect consistency. Sookie re-sifts the confectioner’s sugar to make it as fine as air, and creates delicate, lacy patterns when she sprinkles it on.

  They are a perfect team, and he blesses every day of the forty-some years they’ve been together, even if those years had never included the children they had both wanted. She’d been unable to give them to him…but she’d never shown him her disappointment. Instead, they’d focused their attention on making other people’s children happy.

  That had to be enough to satisfy them both.

  And to atone.

  She had been his grace, and through her, he had tried to atone for all the bad things he did in his life.

  There were many. He is sorry.

  His repeat customers obviously agree that his is the best food to be had at the Winter Carnival. There hasn’t been a night this fall when he hasn’t been swamped with customers. Some of them claim they just stop by to pick up dessert on their way home, and aren’t interested in doing anything else at the carnival.

  Barry takes pride in that.

  Tonight has been especially busy. Sookie helped out earlier, but her arthritis has been bothering her as the nights get chillier, and he sent her on home. Since she left, he’s barely been able to stop to take a breath. But finally, as the kiddie attractions surrounding him begin to close up shop at ten p.m., and the crowds drift over toward the adult rides to finish out the night, he’s able to start cleaning up and shutting down.

  He starts by turning off the outside lights—the signs that advertise his treats, his prices, and his guarantee of freshness. It’s a little shadowy out there, since this part of the midway is the earliest to close. But he already knows the grounds by heart. This place is the closest thing he’s had to a home since childhood, and he’s memorized every step of it, thankful to still be here to walk those steps after his bout with colon cancer.

  He closes the windows through which he takes orders, and money, and delivers his crispy, hot cakes. To be assured of privacy when he counts the till, he pulls down the interior shades. That also prevents any desperately hungry visitors from knocking on the window, begging him to please open back up for one last sale.

  Turning off the deep fryer, he goes into the back part of the food truck, to the food prep area, to seal containers of flour and sugar, to refrigerate batter, to clean up mixing bowls and pouring funnels. His fingers brush against bowls, squeeze the sponge, dry off on a clean towel. He twists the handles on the sink, and wipes it down. He pulls open cabinet doors, and rearranges things on the interior shelves. The routine is so familiar, he barely pays attention—every night he does the same thing.

  But then, suddenly, something changes. A slight draft of cool air hits him, and he shivers, not even entirely conscious of the change in the temperature, just reacting to it physically.

  The noise, though, does hit home. He realizes an unexpected hum has filled the trailer. Machinery running. A whiff of ozone, a crackle of electricity, and then a low gurgle.

  What the hell? Thought I turned that fryer off. Gettin’ senile in my old age.

  Not a big deal. There are failsafes—the fryer can’t spill over and the dang thing ran all the live-long day. So he finishes what he’s doing, wiping down counters, sweeping the floor. And then he heads out of the tiny back room toward the front, seeing the bubbling oil and realizing he has, indeed, forgotten to turn off the fryer. He walks over to it, and puts his hand on the big, round handle to shut it down, feeling a little batty for having been so sure he’d shut it off before..

>   Pain explodes in his head. It is sudden, completely unexpected. Shocking.

  Confused and dazed, Barry grabs the sides of the fryer to try to keep on his feet. His hands burn on the metal exterior. Worse, his thumbs slide into the oil. His moan of agony at the throbbing in his head is about to explode into a scream as his skin burns away.

  Before he can open his mouth to howl, he is struck again, in the same place. Shards of skull plunge into his brain. A few random electrical impulses shoot through his mind—his eyes make out the blur of hot oil, his ears hear it sizzling.

  Sookie? Soo…and then he falls forward, and his face…his face…his face…

  “His face.”

  Mick jerked his hands away from the cold, empty deep-fryer. His thoughts became his own, although Barry’s lingered. Oh, how they lingered.

  Striding to the door, he pushed it open and bounded down the two outside stairs. He bent over, his hands on his knees, and drew in deep breathfuls of late afternoon air. He needed to clear his head, to wash away the memories. He wasn’t even sure if AC/DC screaming in his ears would be enough to wipe his brain clean of what he’d just experienced. How could it, when he’d known and cared for the person who’d borne that brutal death?

  It would be a long time before he was able to go back inside that closed-in food trailer, if ever. Knowing that he’d gleaned every bit of information to be had from every surface within made him feel better about that. He’d done his best—that was all he could do.

  Thinking about the anguish Barry must have been feeling in those final milliseconds, he wanted to weep. And he had to suddenly send out a mental thank-you to Detective Gabe Cooper, who was his co-worker Olivia Wainwright’s live-in boyfriend. Gabe had urged Olivia to stop using her ability to share death-experiences of murder victims. To really share them—including every physical sensation. Now, Mick totally understood what that meant. If he’d felt what Barry was feeling, rather than just going into his mind as the victim lived his last moments, he’d have gone crazy. So, Gabe had insisted, would Olivia, if she’d continued down that path. Mick believed it. God, did he ever. He only wondered how Olivia had managed to survive doing what she did for so long.

  “Are you okay?” a soft voice asked.

  Gypsy.

  She’d stayed outside, at his request, within earshot but not able to see his reactions to what he experienced. So she hadn’t witnessed the way his palms had slid over the floor and up the walls, how his fingers had brushed the smooth, polished metal of the sink, had stroked the plastic bowls, and the funnel, and the paper plates, and the sponge, and the countertop, and the window, and the cash register, and the till box.

  He’d done all of that before going over to the deep fryer, putting off the worst of it. He had gotten no glimmer of another presence in the trailer, other than Barry’s incredibly strong one, Sookie’s recent visits, and some long-ago thoughts of people who’d run the food stand in the past. So he had no other choice. If he was ever going to learn the truth about Barry’s death, the fryer would be the place it would happen.

  The moment he’d put his hand on the control dial, he’d seen the entire picture of the old man’s murder. Including the horrific fact that he’d been not-quite-dead when he’d fallen face-first into that boiling oil.

  Christ, Barry, I’m so sorry that happened to you.

  “Mick?”

  “Give me a second, okay?”

  She did, staying a few feet away, watching him as he straightened and continued to draw in deep, steady breaths. He tilted his head back and looked up at the big, blue sky, streaked with the exhaust from a plane that had already disappeared. A few puffy clouds floated by, the pink tinge of an early sunset casting a glow on them until they looked a little like the cotton candy he’d eaten earlier. They’d waited until late in the day Sunday to conduct this experiment, Gypsy putting him off all day while she took samples and made calls.

  To no avail.

  Mick dropped his head, swallowing hard to stop himself from puking right on the ground inside the Ocean Whispers Police impound lot. Everything in his stomach wanted to come up the more he thought about what Barry had gone through.

  As if knowing that, Gypsy handed him a plastic bottle, cold and slick with condensation. Nodding his thanks, he twisted off the cap and lifted it to his mouth. Taking a mouthful of icy water, he swished it, spat it, and then drank a few sips.

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “No problem. I take it you saw something?”

  “Not saw, exactly…”

  She sucked in a gasp. “Tell me you didn’t feel it. Like your friend from work…Olivia?”

  He sipped again and shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. I never feel the pain, or see or hear what the person holding the item was experiencing.”

  As if knowing he needed to put off telling her what he’d just learned of Barry’s death for a few moments, she said, “What is it like? I’ve always wanted to know but never felt right asking you. What exactly do you experience?”

  He gulped more water, considering her question. He’d been asked how it worked. Asked what he had seen or learned. But he couldn’t recall anyone asking exactly what happened when he used his ability.

  Finally, he replied, “It’s like sticking my hand into a hornet’s nest.”

  She sucked in a breath. “You said there was no pain.”

  “No, not really pain. It’s more like…shock from thousands and thousands of stings. Little pinpricks of knowledge, or memory, of emotion and thought, jabbing into my brain all at the same time, needing to be heard, sifted through, and examined. I might not feel anything, but I know everything. Including the thoughts of any person who’s handled an item with their bare hands.”

  She still appeared confused. Mick lifted the bottle she’d just given him. He hadn’t put his gloves back on when he’d left the trailer. That was a good indication of how affected he’d been, since he never forgot to re-sheathe his sensitive hands.

  “Take this, for example. It was manufactured at a plastics plant in Missouri. After it was pressed and shaped, a guy named Terry made sure it and all its twins were tucked down into the shipping carton before it was sent off to the water-filling facility. Terry was thinking about his wife and little girl, who were at home, both sick with colds. He felt bad leaving them, wondering if he should have taken his wife to the doctor since her cough was chest-rattling. He planned to call her at lunchtime to make sure she was all right.”

  She was standing so still, listening.

  “The next person to touch this bottle worked for the Icy Springs Water Company. She was on the assembly line, in quality control, checking random samples as they came off the machine that filled them, labelled them, and capped them. Her name was Emily. Her boss had come on to her that morning. She was wondering if she should report him, was angry she hadn’t told him off, was worrying about her job and wondering how she’d pay her rent if she lost it.” He shook his head ruefully, feeling bad for Emily, but knowing he had to ignore his reaction, as always, since there was nothing he could do about it.

  Although, if he ever happened to be at the Icy Springs Water Company plant in Seattle, and ran into a guy named Jerry Weiner, he might just punch him in the jaw. For Emily, and all the other women who worked at the plant.

  “Then there was the guy who delivered it to the convenience store. The owner who unpacked the carton. The employee who put all the bottles in the refrigerator. The guy who picked it up to buy it but then changed his mind because he wanted a Coke instead. The woman who eventually did buy it—that’d be you. The cashier who rang it…”

  “Wait. Me?” she exclaimed.

  He’d been wondering if she would zone in on that. “Yeah. You stopped for gas on your way here to meet me, and went in to grab a cold drink. You were wondering how long I would be at Uncle Shane’s, and if I’d be on time to meet you at the lot. And if I’d find anything. You were thinking about Barry, the case, the double-damned feather, the let
ter, and you were worrying about your grandfather.” He managed a tiny smile. “You were also cursing the fact that you’re attracted to me.”

  “Oh, fuck,” she said, swiping a hand over her face and looking down at the ground.

  Mick crushed the bottle, tossing it over the chain link fence into a recycling bin that stood directly outside the lot. He pulled his gloves out of the back pocket of his jeans, and slowly pulled them on. “Don’t worry about it. I’m attracted to you, too.”

  She finally raised her eyes to look at him—those dark, almost-black eyes narrowed and suspicious. “You’re just saying that.”

  “It’s my creed,” he explained, being entirely honest. “It’s not fair for me to know what somebody else is thinking, so when I tune in to a friend’s private thoughts, I’m always completely honest in return.”

  Sometimes that integrity backfired in a big way. Like once when he’d told an ex that she should stop stealing tips out of the tip jar where she worked. They’d broken up, not because he’d told her not to steal, but because he’d found out she was a thief in the first place.

  “So,” Gypsy said finally, “you mean you’re really interested in…”

  “I am very attracted to you, too,” he said, being totally blunt. “I’ve thought about you nonstop since you showed up in my office the other day. I’ve been lying in bed thinking about it at night, fantasizing about having sex with you in every way known to man.”

  She sucked in a breath, and her throat quivered as she swallowed. He’d swear the faintest tinge of pink appeared in her cheeks. The idea that he might have made Chief Gypsy Bell blush amused him, but he didn’t tease her about it. Nor did he admit where his late-night fantasies had taken him. Of course, he was a guy. So she could probably guess.

  “But it’s complicated,” he explained with a sigh. Disappointed didn’t describe it.

  “Well, yeah,” she insisted, tossing her head. “There is also the fact that even if I am attracted to you, that doesn’t mean I’d sleep with you.”