Swamp Monster

by C. A. Newsome

Stu, who could not let Mal talk.

  The lock rattled again. The jerks must be drunk if they can’t get the door open. What will it be this time? Another beating? Cigar burns? Will they finally kill me?

  Creaking hinges. Mal shut his eyes, waiting for the lids to turn red when the bare bulb hanging overhead came on. He heard stealthy footsteps and cracked his eyes open. A faint beam of light bobbled on the stairs.

  A flashlight. Not the goons.

  The light wavered and stabbed through the dark as it came closer. It landed on him, blinding. A gasp, a frantic female whisper.

  “Mal? What happened to you?”

  “Lower the flashlight will you?” he hissed.

  The light dropped away. “Sorry.”

  Mal blinked several times before a pale oval appeared over him. Rose.

  “Are you crazy? What are you doing here?”

  “I—I heard noises. I had to see.”

  “Where are they? They’ll kill you.”

  “Uncle Stu won’t kill me, but they’re gone. We’ll hear the car when they come back. I don’t understand, Mal. Why are you here?”

  Mal tipped his head back, gusted a sigh at the ceiling. Winced at the pain in his ribs. “Then there’s no need to whisper. Get me some water and I’ll tell you.”

  Mal sat, propped against the stone foundation, exhausted from explaining. But finally, understanding appeared in Rose’s eyes.

  “So you were helping Pete hide money before Moe Dalitz could steal it? And Uncle Stu decided to help himself?”

  “In a nutshell.”

  “But why are you here?”

  “Because Pete hid the take and Stu wants to know where it is.”

  “If they’re hurting you, why not tell them?”

  Three days of torture and threats of dismemberment hadn’t made him squeal, and here he was spilling to a dame. If he was Stu, he’d send a sweet-faced angel to soften him up. Even if Rose was as innocent as he thought, Stu could get her to blab in a hot minute.

  “Because I don’t know where it is. I could make something up, but talking won’t get me out of this. I bet Pete thinks Dalitz waylaid me. Stu can’t let Pete find out it was him.”

  The Betty Boop mouth made an “O.” Emotions shifted across Rose’s face like racing clouds across the moon.

  “I have to get you out of here.”

  “No can do, doll.” He shook his leg so the chain rattled. “They poured lead in the lock. The only way I’m getting out of here is in pieces when they cut me up with that saw.”

  He jerked his head at a workbench on the other side of the room. Rose turned her flashlight on the odd machine.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s called a circular saw. It’s electric. See that disk with the zig-zag edge? You press a button and it spins so fast you can’t see it. It’ll cut through me like butter.”

  “Will it cut through the chain?”

  Oh, how he wished. The yearning for freedom was so sharp his voice turned hoarse as he grabbed her hand.

  “Forget it doll. If the blade didn’t snap, it’d take so long to cut through the chain you’d get caught. Go back up those stairs and pretend it’s rats down here. Pretend I ran off to Mexico. Whatever you do, don’t ever tell Pete what you know. Promise me.”

  “But—”

  “Pete trusts Stu. You tell Pete, Pete will ask Stu what you’re talking about, and Stu will kill you. You can’t risk it.”

  Day 26

  Wednesday, May 15, 2019

  As Lia approached the gang at their usual table, Terry and Steve waved identical dog biscuits, hoping to catch Gypsy’s attention. Gypsy squirmed in the Moby wrap, desperate to get out. Whether she wanted pets or treats, Lia couldn’t say. She stroked the soft head, holding Gypsy in place with her other hand.

  “It’s a contest,” Bailey said. “You’re supposed to set Gypsy on the end of the table so we can see if she likes Terry or Steve better.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s scientific,” Jim said.

  Lia rolled her eyes and held out a hand. “No lures. Give me the biscuits.”

  “Told ya,” Steve said.

  Terry grumbled.

  Lia took the biscuits and pointed. “Everybody on that side. Bailey and Jim, too.”

  Gypsy whined and wiggled. Lia fed her a biscuit while her friends lined up on the far side of the table. Kita lumbered up, drool hanging, begging for the remaining biscuit. Kita leaned against her as she crunched, sixty pounds of love bought on the cheap.

  “No moving,” Lia said. “No smiling or talking or coaxing of any kind.”

  “Spoil sport,” Terry said.

  “You want science, be scientific.”

  Lia stood in front of the stone-faced human wall and placed Gypsy on the table. Collective breaths held. Gypsy remained where she was.

  Kita hung her muzzle over the edge of the table and nosed Gypsy’s side. Gypsy ignored the prod, turned to Lia and barked. Lia did nothing. Gypsy wagged her tail and barked again.

  Lia scooped Gypsy up, cradling her as she took a seat on the bench. She cooed, “Who’s Mommy’s little girl?”

  “That answers that,” Bailey said.

  Jim tapped the tabletop, attempting to get Gypsy’s attention. Gypsy looked at his finger with suspicion, then pounced. Jim whipped his finger up, starting a game of keep away.

  “What did Dick say? How did he do it?”

  Lia had seen the video on Peter’s laptop, Dick bragging about knocking on Andrew’s door under the guise of looking for lawns to mow and forcing his way into the house.

  Andrew had been running a bath when the doorbell rang. For Dick, the tub was an invitation to torture Andrew with a series of near drownings. Andrew’s death had been an accident.

  Dick had shrugged, saying, “It was the old man’s fault. He kept pushing. He should have talked. I ended up with nothing.”

  Panic drove Dick to bury Andrew in the most inaccessible location he could think of, hauling Andrew’s body across the creek because there was no level ground on the near side.

  It was an obvious answer, and Peter was mortified he hadn’t thought of it.

  After Dick calmed down, he returned to search Andrew’s house, finding packed luggage and airline tickets. Genius that he was, he realized he could throw everyone off and buy time to find the egg if he used the ticket and bussed back.

  Most appalling was Dick Brewer’s lack of empathy, framing Andrew’s death as bad luck on par with hitting a knothole with your drill and nothing to do with repeatedly forcing the man’s head under water. The helpful paddler was gone, leaving behind a heartless psychopath celebrating his own ingenuity.

  The video would wind up on YouTube after it became part of the public record. For now, Lia needed to respect Peter’s confidence.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Which means you could, but you won’t,” Terry pouted.

  “At least tell us how he got Dick to confess,” Steve said.

  “Enquiring minds want to know,” Bailey said.

  Jim nodded.

  Lia smiled. “I can tell you that. OCT.”

  Blank looks all around.

  Bailey was the only one willing to admit ignorance. “What’s that?”

  “Old cop trick. Dick’s a narcissist. First Peter fed Dick’s ego and let him think he was controlling the interview.”

  “Namby-pamby waste of time,” Terry grumbled.

  “The more Dick spun out his story and the more lies he told, the easier it will be to convict him of kidnapping Jenny. Then Peter went back and made Dick implode.”

  “Implode how?” Jim asked.

  “This is where the old cop trick comes in. Peter said you put a guy who think’s he’s the smartest guy in the room in front of a pretty woman and tell him he wasn’t man enough to commit the crime. He’ll confess just to keep his man cred.”

  Terry nodded. “A tried-and-true strategy.”

  Bailey huffed, “That is so sexist.�
�

  Steve shrugged. “We’re simple creatures.”

  “Peter said getting him to confess was a piece of cake. The hard part was talking Cynth into wearing lipstick and flirting on camera. Now she owns him. He mumbled something about doing her paperwork for a month.”

  “He should have negotiated that part in advance,” Jim said.

  “He said he had no idea she was that vindictive.”

  Steve tickled Gypsy’s chin. Pup bit his finger. “No new videos from Susan. Wonder what she thinks of all this.”

  Lia pulled a limp and ragged length of silk from her pocket and dangled it in front of Gypsy’s nose. Gypsy latched on and tugged.

  “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  Fame sounded from Lia’s pocket. She retrieved her phone, tapped the call. “Don’t tell me. Zoe got a cat.”

  “Aren’t you the psychic one,” David said. “Not a cat, a guinea pig, for Travis. They named it Godzilla.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It was her husband’s idea. Will you do it?”

  Chewy returned from his daily peregrination and butted her leg. She scratched behind his ears while she considered.

  “A guinea pig? Really?”

  “He’s very cute.”

  Lia said nothing.

  “Please? For me?”

  Lia sighed.

  “You’re a rock star. My rock star.”

  “Conditions?”

  “She wants it as big as Dakini’s portrait.”

  A three foot guinea pig. “Of course she does.”

  “Make it heroic. And no, Zoe does not possess the Millennial affection for irony.”

  Lia sighed. “I’ll need photos.”

  “If you trust me to take them, I’ll have them when you bring Peter over for dinner. Then you can meet Bob. Hold on, you must see this, it’s delish.”

  Lia’s phone dinged. The photo of a dreadlocked hunk had her double-checking the sender.

  “You didn’t tell me you were dating a Norse god.”

  “A Celtic god. There’s a brain inside that brawn. We have actual conversations.”

  “A Celtic god named Bob.”

  “Robert McDuff is a respectable Scot name, but it’s too white bread for media. He goes by Duff at Channel 7.”

  “You sound happy. Tell me about this photo.”

  “Duff and his friends spent a Saturday running an obstacle course through Over the Rhine. Bob’s amazon cop friend took the photo and texted it to me when we met up for dinner at Zula’s. You might know her. Cynth something. Doesn’t she have a terrific eye? I’m blowing this up to life size for the loft. What do you think?”

  Lia eyed the sweaty biceps and flying dreads. Cynth had omitted salient details about her parkours date. It would be fun to see the expression on Peter’s face when he met Bob.

  “She could put me out of business if she got tired of being a detective.”

  “People will always want flowers, darling.”

  Elvis sneered at Peter as he labored on reports. He narrowed his eyes, muttering low so Brent wouldn’t hear.

  “Don’t you start.”

  “What did you say?”

  Not low enough. “Talking to the skull.”

  “Get rid of that thing before it tanks my reputation as a man of taste.”

  “I don’t know anyone I dislike enough to dump it on.”

  “Your mouth, God’s ear, brother.”

  They returned to work, silence broken only by the clattering of Peter’s keyboard as he typed, deleted, and retyped. Convinced Elvis' constant supervision was ruining his productivity, he faced Elvis to the wall and felt relief.

  He’d kept the damn thing, hoping to smoke out the prankster who kept turning it around while Peter was gone. So far it hadn’t worked. He’d take Elvis to Saint Vincent de Paul, but he was certain he’d find the skull on his desk when he returned.

  Across the office, Brent crowed. “Hah. Gotcha, you mutha-lovin’ son of a bitch!”

  “What have you got?”

  “Jamal, the sneaky bastard.”

  Peter swiveled his chair to see the photograph on Brent’s monitor, a man in a hoodie with a huge dollar sign on the back, putting a garbage bag in the trunk of a parked car while a caucasian woman looked on. Corners poked the sides of the bag. It contained boxes, not garbage.

  “What is that?”

  “That, my friend, is Jamal at his staging area. We’ve got him.”

  “Explain.”

  “Your lovely neighbor, Alma, saw a post in the Northside Facebook group complaining about a car parked on Jerome, sans license plates and belonging to no one who lives there. The OP said people were stopping by every few days to put bags in the trunk, sometimes putting plates on it and driving off for a few hours.

  “He was helpful enough to include this photograph of the vehicle in question. Being a sharp old bird, Alma pegged it as a dubious situation. Knowing you were tied up with Brewer, she called me.”

  “I’m not familiar with Jerome.”

  “A dead end three very quick turns from the on-ramp to I-74, exactly the spot I’d choose if I wanted to stay out of the public eye while having rapid access to a highway. If we run the VIN on that car, I bet it comes up stolen and we can’t tie it to anyone. The only risk is when someone is driving the car. If they drive nice, there’s no reason to pull them over.”

  “Why drive the car when they could leave it parked and offload the packages there?”

  “First, you have to move a car every few days if you don’t want it towed. Second, I bet Jamal figures if he gets pulled over he’ll make a run for it and leave us with a vehicle and loot we can’t connect to him.”

  “You can’t see his face. That could be anyone.”

  “I’ve tailed that hoodie enough times. It’s him. I just need to ID the woman.”

  Peter leaned closer to the screen. “Well, I’ll be.”

  “What?”

  “A monkey’s uncle. That’s Joyce Bender.”

  “Stacy’s mom?”

  “The very one, explaining why Ms. Bender stormed out of that meeting. Either Stacy strung me along, or she doesn’t know and that’s why Mom didn’t want her hanging out with Jamal’s little sister.”

  “I imagine we’ll know which it is soon enough.”

  Brent cracked Peter’s case, and did it with help from someone who should have come to him first. It was a stab to the heart that he would swallow.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I could nail him the next time he drops packages, but I’d rather follow the car to wherever the packages are going.”

  “Bigger fish.”

  “Exactly.”

  Peter’s desk phone beeped.

  “Dourson.”

  “Susan Sweeney to see you.”

  Peter sighed. “I’ll be right up.”

  Susan stood in the lobby, studying a display dedicated to fallen officers. The fingers of her left hand rested against her jaw, angled for him to see her new wedding set when he came through the door.

  If that’s what it was. The diamonds were big enough to qualify as a set of brass knuckles.

  “What can I do for you, Susan?”

  She turned and smiled, waiting a second too long before she dropped the hand to clasp its mate in a demure pose.

  “I wanted to see if you needed anything from me.”

  In a pig’s eye.

  “We have your statement. If the prosecuting attorney needs anything, she’ll contact you.”

  “Will I need to testify?”

  Peter looked, but couldn’t find a telltale, isn’t-this-exciting-gleam in her eyes. Maybe Susan wasn’t trying to milk Brewer for more exposure.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. Brewer will never make it to court.”

  Her hands balled up, popping to her hips, indignant. “Why ever not? That man—”

  “Hold your horses. I hear his lawyer is pushing for a plea bargain, and it’s the most sensible th
ing for Brewer to do. Don’t worry, he’ll pay for his crimes.”

  “It was stinky of you to renege on my exclusive interview.”

  “Parker nixed it.” Or she would have if he’d asked her. “How’s your car?”

  Susan glanced toward the door, though you couldn’t see the parking lot from where they stood. “Dwayne thought I should have a new one, after the trauma and all.”

  “Dwayne?”

  “He flew up after he saw the story on Channel 7. He begged me to come home.”

  “Giving up fame and fortune in the big city?”

  “People are nasty here. I thought Ada Belle was so nice. Yesterday I got a phone call from a lawyer. He said Ada Belle has whiplash and it’s my fault. Then someone started tweeting that all my interviews were faked. Now people think I’m a joke. Can you believe that?”

  Peter could, but thought it best not to say so. “Then I guess this is goodbye.”

  She bit her lip, took his hand. “I need to confess.”

  “Oh?” He flicked his eyes sideways. The desk sergeant’s face dropped to her computer.

  Susan looked away, at nothing, or maybe the water fountain. “All that stuff I said about relocating and wanting to be with you, it was just me making Dwayne jealous. I never meant to stay. It wasn’t nice to use you that way.”

  That was Susan, revising history to create a more flattering narrative. Peter shrugged, slipping his hand out of hers and stuffing it in a pocket.

  “Looks like you got what you wanted.”

  A glimmer appeared in her eyes now, an unexpected dampness above the cheerleader smile.

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  Into Thin Air

  Wednesday, March 13, 1940

  The food had been the only decent thing about Mal’s captivity. It sent an odd twist through his guts to know Rose cooked it. They’d fed him black-eyed peas and greens after her visit. Then they’d kicked his broken ribs until he vomited Rose’s greens all over the floor.

  Joe told him they’d let him go, send him to California if he talked. Larry sent nervous, excited glances toward the circular saw.

  Mal listened for Rose the next day, the clatter and bustle of a woman in the kitchen, comfortable sounds that sent longing through him when they came, and when they stopped, grief that he would never hear them again.