Titanshade

by Dan Stout

  I wished Ajax was there. He had a softer way about him. Surely he could’ve said something that would make things easier for this woman. Some quote or gentle insight that would be more at home on an inspirational poster than coming from a cop. It occurred to me that maybe this partner thing wasn’t so bad after all.

  The door opened and a woman with red-rimmed eyes stared at me. Nina Bell wore jeans and a cotton shirt, topped by a loose-knit sweater she clasped tight to her neck.

  I displayed my badge and introduced myself. She stood aside to let me in and I walked into the entryway, feeling the blast of her threshold vent against my face. Her home had an unusual smell. I wrinkled my nose as I tried to place it. The air had a salty tang, like a brine or ocean breeze. It was a distinctive odor in a landlocked city far from any non-frozen body of water.

  A quick look back at the front door was all it took to solve the mystery. The threshold vent had almost a dozen pine-tree-shaped air fresheners hanging over it. I tilted one toward me. It, like all the others, was labeled Salt Water Taffy.

  “Effective,” I said. Vent scents weren’t unusual, especially among recent arrivals who weren’t accustomed to the smell of sulfur that permeated the city. Though having read her rap sheet, I knew Bell was a native Titanshader.

  Nina gave a self-conscious shrug, as if she knew what I was thinking.

  “It makes me think of the ocean,” she said.

  She brought me into her living room and I saw that she had a scrapbook out on the couch. Remembering the family. I’ll never understand that impulse. Pictures can be horrible things. Frozen images of people you’ll never see again, glimpses into happy moments that ultimately remind you of the story’s tragic ending. Why tear open those old wounds?

  Nina stood by a bookshelf and fingered the knickknacks that covered it like emotional moss. I stayed on my feet as well and flipped out my notebook and pencil. At least I didn’t have to break the news to her.

  “How did you hear about it?”

  “Their neighbor called. Told me that some young detective would be coming by.” She glanced at me without comment. But she didn’t really need to. I wasn’t the poster child for young detectives.

  I sucked in my middle-aged gut and pushed ahead.

  “Do you have any idea why someone would target your sister and her family?”

  “No,” she said. “Nothing.”

  “What about their oldest son, Jermaine? You know where we can find him?”

  She squeezed her mouth shut. “Do you think he’s in danger?”

  “No,” I said, though I had no idea.

  “If I lost him too . . .” A hitch crept into her voice. “I just don’t know.”

  I changed the subject.

  “How about financials? Were they in debt?”

  Nina blinked, surprised, but nodded. “Tara was stressed, said they were struggling to pay the bills. But who doesn’t?”

  “You think anyone would’ve thought they had more cash than they did?”

  “How would I know—”

  “You were an addict.”

  Nina turned from the shelf to glare at me.

  “Am.” She drew back her shoulders. “I am an addict. Addiction doesn’t go away just because you stop using.”

  I gave her a slight nod without dropping my gaze. She was right, but my question still stood. After a couple of seconds, her shoulders slumped.

  “You think I did this?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, and looked her in the eye to let her know I meant it. “But do you have old contacts you still talk to, anyone still needing cash or a fix? Anyone that might’ve seen your family as easy targets?”

  Nina looked down. Her body language was tight, anxious. One hand clutched her sweater while she rubbed her forehead with the other. I couldn’t blame her. The rest of her life she’d always have her motives questioned, always be looked at with suspicion when something went missing or when things went wrong. And always, always she’d hear a tiny whisper, reminding her she could escape it all with a syringe’s pinch. I told myself I was lucky to not have that struggle, and I ignored the polite whisper of disagreement from the pills that rode in my pocket.

  With a loud exhale Nina raised her head.

  “I cut off all my friends from that life. You can’t keep bad relationships and expect to stay clean.” She moved a hand to the bookshelf, bracing herself. “That’s one of the things you only realize after you’ve hit absolute bottom. Clarity’s the gift you find when you fall that deep.”

  She plucked a porcelain tiger from the shelf, gripping it like a child holding a teddy bear.

  “I looked at my list yesterday, and I’d made almost all the goals I’d set for myself, so I set new ones, and now today—” She broke off and gulped in a breath. “Today everything went to shit. It’s all shit, and I don’t know what to do.” She slammed the porcelain tiger back onto the shelf and I heard the slight snap as its leg broke. A hand went over her face to hide the tears. I gave her a three-count before I started again.

  “Can you think of anything out of the ordinary? Anything unusual?”

  She looked up, eyes red, and shook her head. “No. Tara and Jon are just normal people.”

  I didn’t correct her use of the present tense.

  I ran through the rest of my standard questions quickly. At the end I patted my pockets, finally locating a business card in my suit coat. “If you think of anything else,” I said and handed her the card.

  “If I knew something, I would tell you. If I thought anyone I knew would do something like . . .” She licked her lips. “Jules was twelve. Peter was nine.” She stared at me from the corner of her eye. “Nine! Who does something like that to kids?”

  I didn’t have an answer. But she took the card anyway, and I walked out of there thankful that I wasn’t going to be taking any of my loved ones to the mountain that day.

  At the door I paused, my hand in the warm, sulfur-tinged air of the entry vent as I searched for something useful to share. But my internal cop took charge and I asked one more question instead.

  “You said you were making lists. Why?”

  Nina wiped at one eye. “My social worker. She said to set a goal, complete it, then set another.”

  I could hear what Ajax would say to that, even down to the musical tones in his voice. “Like one step after another on the Path.”

  I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but when I did Nina smiled. Embarrassed, I pulled my hand away from the Titan’s warmth and left her home. But as I walked to my car it felt like the warmth stayed with me, and somehow the streets seemed a little less dirty on my way back to the Bunker.

  10

  THE CROWDS AT THE BUNKER had grown and now the media circled the demonstrators, searching for conflict to serve their audience. Television vans formed a loose ring around the group, broadcast antennas raised high, creating a half circle of skeletal aluminum fingers that ringed round the Bunker like an iron crown.

  There were so many of them that Kravitz must have let leak some rumor of a break in the Squib case. It was a smart move; when there was big news all the media flocked to the source instead of trawling through the city, harassing cops and victims. It was like chumming for sharks to distract them from nearby swimmers. A good plan. Except now I had to cut through that line of predators.

  I circled the building and came at it from the rear, pulling up to the gate that divided the back lot from the police parking garage.

  I leaned out the window and punched my code into the security box, when a lanky man jogged out from behind a dumpster and stood in front of my car. As a general rule, I’ve found that nobody who lurks behind dumpsters is up to anything good.

  “I’m with The Titanshade Union Record, Detective. You got a minute?” he said.

  The Union Record was a strong-selling hotsheet that played
loose with the facts in favor of whatever topic the public was currently clamoring for. Unfortunately for him, I’d agreed long ago to have as little to do with the media as possible.

  I stared past him into the garage. “I need you to move away from my car, please.”

  A flash blinded me and I shielded my eyes with a hand. My vision cleared immediately and I saw a Mollenkampi in a wool skirt dropping to one knee to get a shot of me from a better angle. I’d reached for my revolver without thought and pulled my hand away to grip the steering wheel instead.

  The reporter leaned over the gate arm. “You were at the scene for that family that got sliced up. The Bells, right?”

  “You need to back away from my vehicle.”

  “C’mon. I won’t use your name. Just give us a couple details of what it’s like being in the slaughterhouse. Was it like the dead Squib?”

  “If you don’t move, you’ll be interfering with an officer.”

  He held up his hands but didn’t back away. From the side came the pop and crackle of the camera flashbulb.

  “What about the candies?”

  “Candies?” I tried to keep my face neutral.

  “The ones that turned up dead today,” he said. “Were they like the Bells? All hacked up?”

  I reached out and hit the pound sign, opening the gate. The reporter jerked to the side to avoid the fiberglass arm, and I rolled my car forward at an angle. A third flash lit up my profile as I accelerated.

  The reporter popped onto the hood of my car then bounced off to the side. I opened my door and stepped out.

  “Oh, my goodness!” I put a hand to my lips. “Are you okay?”

  The reporter lay sprawled on the ground, with nothing more serious than scuff marks on the tails of his jacket. I propped an elbow on the doorframe and flashed him my pearly whites. There was another flash, and the Mollenkampi photographer thumbed her frame advance frantically to get in another shot.

  I gave her a quick two-finger salute and said, “Have a good day now,” before climbing back into my car and entering the garage.

  That’s where I found Ajax, cracking jokes with the mechanics as I pulled into the bay. He’d been in town two weeks and he already had more friends than I did.

  I grabbed him and we headed toward the staff elevator, only to find it taken up by a frustrated tech trying to cram two display easels and an overhead projector mounted on a wheeled cart into the elevator cab. So we opted for the second set of elevators, a path that took us through the public-facing lobby of the Bunker. As we entered the lobby, someone at the front desk called my name. I pulled up short, and the desk sergeant waved us over. Jenkins was a husky guy with a crumb-catcher mustache.

  “Kravitz told me to send you up to 5D when you got here,” he said.

  “You know what for?”

  “Nah, he just told me to tell you.”

  So we headed up to the fifth floor and made our way to interrogation room D.

  A patrolman in the corridor waved us into the adjoining observation room. Kravitz and Bryyh were already there, joined by Angus and Bengles. A one-way mirror showed the occupants of 5D: Divination Officer Guyer and a human girl of maybe fourteen or fifteen. The youth was seated at the examination table, but not handcuffed to the custody ring set in the tabletop. She looked anemic and tired, her eyes set behind dark rings.

  A cooler sat on the floor, and the table held a length of cloth folded onto itself. Kravitz nodded to us as we came in.

  “Carter. Ajax. Glad you made it.”

  I looked at the DO beyond the glass. “What’s going on?”

  “You don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  Kravitz frowned and looked at Angus. The Mollenkampi shrugged.

  “I gave the message to Dispatch,” he said. “You should have been paged, Carter.” His grade school politics were in full gear.

  I bit my cheek, but let it slide. “Well, we’re here, so tell us now.”

  Kravitz turned back to me and Jax. “DO Guyer’s going to try to turn up more direct evidence from the victim. I want you both to hear what turns up directly, instead of reading it in transcription. Trying to be more efficient.”

  From his spot across the room Angus huffed, “It’d be more efficient to let Bengles and me work the Haberdine case full time, instead of scraping candies off the pavement.”

  I practically jumped at his mention of a candy. The reporter had asked about dead candies. Had Angus been assigned to that case? I was already nervous about Talena’s possible exposure. The last thing I needed was Angus digging into candy activity.

  “What candies?” I asked.

  Angus shook his head. “Complete waste of time.”

  Bryyh walked between us. “We don’t have all day.” She punched the intercom, bracelets jangling, and said, “When you’re ready, Officer Guyer.”

  In 5D the DO leaned forward and pressed Rec on one of the reel-to-reel tape recorders that had become standard issue in interrogation rooms over the last few years.

  Guyer wore professional attire, but the outfit was still topped with a sorcerer’s cloak. She spoke into the microphone, stating the date and then, “Oracular Tongue procedure, Divination Officer Guyer supervising sorcerer.” The term “Oracular Tongue” meant nothing to me, though Bryyh winced slightly at the phrase. Guyer kept talking.

  “Assisted by my apprentice, Carla-Jean, we are attempting to contact Garson Haberdine.”

  Guyer opened the cooler and pulled out a plastic bag. Viscera, undoubtedly from Haberdine’s remains. Bryyh thumbed the intercom again.

  “Do you need respirators?”

  The DO shook her head. “I’m only using a couple drops.” Which confused me, since when she’d stormed out of the Eagle Crest she’d been yelling about needing more blood, not less. I glanced at Angus and saw his forehead wrinkle. He was thinking the same thing.

  Guyer dipped a thumb into the bloody bag then quickly resealed it. The blood on the remains looked half coagulated. I wondered if they had added some kind of thinner to make it easier to work with. She crinkled her nose and shook her head. Even with that slight exposure it was getting to her. She swallowed and my mouth watered in sense memory. In a quick movement Guyer pressed her blood-smeared thumb to her forehead, leaving a smudged circle that approximated a third eye. Then she grasped her assistant’s head, placing one hand on either side of the girl’s jaw. Leaning in, Guyer pressed her forehead to the girl’s. When they separated, they shared mirror images of the same bloody mark.

  The apprentice—Carla-Jean—looked tense. Her breathing was rapid, and she clenched the armrests of the chair as Guyer released her. The DO unfolded the cloth draped over the table, revealing a selection of tools and implements that I couldn’t see well. I found myself rising on my toes to get a better view.

  Guyer held up a spray bottle no larger than a lipstick case and nodded to her apprentice. The girl’s lips tightened, and then almost against her will, she stuck out her tongue. Guyer spritzed the girl’s tongue, and although I couldn’t see the distinctive iridescence, I was sure it was manna. Carla-Jean left her tongue sticking out of her mouth. I envied the girl for the experience. I was more likely to snack on a platinum and diamond sandwich than taste pure manna.

  Guyer then picked up a thin, cone-shaped metal instrument with her right hand, and a pair of locking pliers with her left. The jaws of the pliers were wrapped in cloth. She bent over to look her apprentice in the eye. “Prepare yourself,” she said, and grasped her apprentice’s tongue with the pliers. Her right hand jerked upward, cutting into and through the girl’s tongue from underneath.

  The girl writhed, and all of us in the observation room shuddered. Even a bitten tongue bleeds heavily, and this apprentice—this child—was no exception. A jet of blood squirted across the table.

  I fought the urge to jamb my thumb int
o the intercom. Bryyh’s mouth was pulled down into a scowl, and even Angus’s eyes were wide with what appeared to be shock or disapproval.

  Kravitz spoke, a slight quiver in his voice. “The apprentice is here voluntarily. It’s part of her training. She can stop it at any time.”

  For his part, Ajax had actually taken several steps toward the door, as if he intended to storm in and put a stop to this display. I had to admit, the kid was growing on me.

  I looked back into 5D. Guyer set the piercing cone aside and slipped the pliers, still clamped on Carla-Jean’s tongue, into a short stand in front of her apprentice. The girl’s head nestled against a curved chin rest at the front of the stand. It allowed her head to sit level while keeping her ravaged tongue pulled taut.

  Guyer held a metal ring with what appeared to be a white silk ribbon tied to it in her right hand. Chanting words that meant nothing to me, she lifted the ring up and through her apprentice’s tongue. She grasped it on the other side and pulled, the silk ribbon now drenched in blood. With her left hand she picked up a wooden spindle and raised it above her apprentice’s head. She slid the ring onto the spindle, then lifted a cloth with her right hand. Continuing to chant, she turned her left hand, pulling the ribbon through the bloody gash in Carla-Jean’s tongue. With each twist of Guyer’s wrist the girl moaned, and more ribbon was pulled through her tongue before being wrapped around the spindle. With her other hand Guyer used the cloth as a squeegee, wiping excess blood from the ribbon as her chanting became questions.

  “Are you there, Garson Haberdine? Do you hear my call? Are you willing to aid in our investigation into your death?”

  There was no answer, but after each question Guyer was silent for a few moments while she continued to curl more ribbon onto the spindle. The young apprentice kept her eyes closed, sweat glistening on her brow.

  The DO fired off a litany of what I assumed must be standard questions, then moved on to ones the others must have given her already. Probably by Angus while I had no idea any of this was being planned.

  “Was there a prostitute in the room with you the night you died?” A pause. “Do you know the name of the person who killed you?”