Not a Mermaid

by Madeline Kirby

  Lana had clearly loved her dog and I was struck again with a feeling of loss. It seemed strange to feel such a personal sense of grief over the death of someone I hadn’t even known. Maybe it wasn’t really me feeling it. Maybe it was residual feelings from Ruby. I made a mental note to talk to Miss Nancy about it.

  I looked out the window in the back door and saw a tennis ball in the yard. I opened the door and went down the three steps to a small concrete patio.

  I put the ball into the grocery bag in my hand and was straightening up when I heard a snap come from behind me. I turned toward the sound just as a man stepped out of the bushes.

  When Cats Attack

  “Just stay right where you are.”

  Frank Forrester looked like hell. There were bags under his eyes and his cheeks were covered with grey stubble. He seemed to be wearing the same clothes I’d seen him in a few days before. If I didn’t know better I would say he looked like a man tormented by grief.

  I raised my hands, dropping the bag. Dog toys spilled out on the ground at my feet.

  “Hey, Mr. Forrester... Frank...” I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice. I held myself as still as I could and tried to look nonthreatening.

  He took a deep breath and his hand shook. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except that there was a gun in that hand and it was pointed at me.

  My mouth flooded with saliva and I swallowed, trying not to gag. “It’s, um, gonna be okay, yeah?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It’s not. My daughter is dead and it’s your fault.”

  “How’s that, Frank? I didn’t know your daughter.”

  “Not you. All of you. This city. Fags and feminists and that so-called boyfriend of hers. She used to be a good girl until she started hangin’ around with – ”

  Okay, at this point it just turned into a rant full of racial slurs and misogynistic white supremacist bullshit and I wished I could tune it out, but I couldn’t. I let him go on to buy some time.

  “ – you get what I’m sayin’ to you, boy? Do you?”

  Oops. “Um... I can see you’re very, um, passionate about this, Frank.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You messin’ with me? That other guy. That cop – he thought he could mess with me. Thought he was so clever. Thought he was better than me. Thought he was real funny. You think you’re clever, boy? Think you’re funny?”

  “No! No, sir. Not at all. I’m just, uh, nervous is all. Maybe you could put the gun down and we could talk about it?”

  “Talk about it? What’s there to talk about?”

  “Anything you like, Frank. We could talk about Lana, if you want. Maybe... maybe you could tell me more about Lana, huh?”

  His face tightened up and his hand started shaking even more. “She was my little girl!” He said, his voice rising.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Someone hurt her, and you just want to make it right, yeah? Who hurt her, Frank? Was it Standing?”

  “It was this city! It corrupted her! Made her sinful! People like you and that... those... friends of hers.” He said “friends” like it was a dirty word.

  I decided that now was not the time to point out that he was the one who kicked Lana out of his house. Where did he think she was going to go? A freaking convent? The time for logic had passed. I was fumbling around trying to figure out what to say next, where to go with this, when I heard a noise behind me.

  Frank shifted his gun hand, pointing now at someone behind me and to my right. “You stay where you are!”

  “Sure. Okay.” The voice was deep, and calm. I turned my head to see Stanek standing near the corner of the house, elbows bent and his hands empty, raised to shoulder height. His face was expressionless. “How you doin’, Mr. Forrester?”

  “How am I – GAH!” Forrester’s arm swung wide and he was screaming in pain as the gun fell to the ground. Stanek moved faster than I thought he could, slamming into Forrester and taking him down. The black blur that had raced from the bushes and sunk its teeth into Forrester’s wrist was disappearing to where it had come from with a flash of its tail. I surprised myself by running to where Stanek and Forrester rolled on the ground, kicking Forrester’s gun out of reach.

  Stanek had Forrester in cuffs and was dusting grass off the knees of his grey suit trousers when Petreski came running around the corner of the house, shirt untucked and his tie trailing from his jacket pocket.

  “Where the hell were you?” Stanek asked, voice still calm as he examined the grass stains on his knees.

  “Sorry. Got held up. Looks like you’ve got it under control.” Petreski pulled a bag and gloves from an inside pocket and dealt with Forrester’s gun.

  “Yeah, well. Could’ve gone sideways if this guy’s cat hadn’t gone all protective. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “Oh... I don’t... I mean, he’s not my cat, per se. I mean...” It wasn’t until the words were out of my mouth that I realized they might sound dismissive.

  “You sure about that?” Stanek asked, his face impassive, and I wondered whether he knew more than he was letting on. He didn’t wait for an answer, just started pushing Frank Forrester towards the driveway. “Come on, Petreski. You can read this guy his rights on the way to the car. Oh, and Mr. Hillebrand will need to make a statement. Tomorrow will do.”

  I finally got the courage to meet Petreski’s eyes. “You okay?” he asked. I nodded, and he was jogging after Stanek and Forrester.

  “Wait!” I called after him, and he stopped and turned. “Inside – in the TV stand. There’s a book, with a homemade disk in the back. It could be important.”

  He jogged back to me. “Come again?”

  “In the TV stand – I was checking to make sure I got all of Dani’s stuff and I found a textbook. It has two disks in it, but it should only have one. I put it back where I found it.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me, but I don’t have time to wrangle it out of you right now. Is there anything else I need to know before I go in there?”

  I shook my head, and he was on the move again.

  My knees started to shake and I sat down right where I stood on the wet grass, one of Ruby’s toys squeaking in protest beneath me. I ignored the damp soaking up through my jeans. “Shit.” I pulled my phone out and called Don.

  “Jake?”

  “Shit.”

  “And it’s lovely to hear your voice, too.”

  “I... um...”

  “Jake? Are you okay?”

  “I... no? Shit.”

  “Okay. Are you safe? Where are you?”

  “Y – yeah.” I didn’t like the way my voice was trembling. “I’m safe.” Deep breath, Jake. “I’m at Lana’s house. Can you come get me?”

  “You have the car, remember? Did you have an accident?”

  “Oh yeah. No, it’s okay. But can you come? I don’t think I should drive.”

  ❧

  I could hear Don’s voice raised in the hallway, and the lower rumble of Petreski’s reply. Don was chewing Petreski out for leaving me alone earlier. I decided not to interfere. Let Don get it out of his system.

  After a minute I got up and put my ear to the door.

  “I had to leave. I had to deal with Forrester. He said he was okay,” Petreski said.

  “Of course he said that! He’s not going to –”

  “Not going to what?” I asked, opening the door.

  Don and Petreski turned to face me. I don’t know why they looked so surprised. Did they really think I couldn’t hear them shouting right outside my door?

  “Not going to what?” I asked again.

  “Not... you’re not going to want to be a bother.”

  “Jake is never a bother.” Petreski said, frowning.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “I know I am. And I am okay. I had a scare, and I needed a friend, so I called Don. It’s all fine.”

  “But –”

  “Don. Please. I get it. But let it go, okay? I’m tired and the two of you fighting is n
ot helping anything.”

  Don didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Okay. Fine. But just... I was scared, too.”

  I walked across the landing to hug my best friend. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m okay now, though. We all are.”

  “Yeah.” Don sniffed and nodded. He turned to give Petreski a glare before going back into his apartment. “You need to take better care of him, or I will kick your ass.”

  Petreski just nodded, looking serious. I hid a smile with my hand, because Petreski had about three inches and forty pounds of muscle on Don.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Petreski asked as he closed my apartment door behind us.

  “Yes, Boo, I’m sure. Do I need to make my statement tonight?”

  “Come to the station first thing tomorrow morning and talk to Stanek, okay?”

  “Sure. So, did Forrester confess? Did he kill Standing?”

  “Says it was an accident. That he confronted Standing about Lana and Standing pulled his gun. They struggled, the gun went off, and Forrester panicked, stashing the body.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Petreski shrugged. “Yeah, I think I do. It fits with everything else and with the evidence we’ve found.”

  “What about the disk? What was on it? Or can’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged. “They haven’t finished with it yet, but there’s a record of her meetings – or ‘dates’ – with Standing. A kind of diary, notes about her suspicions. As far as we can tell, she trusted Standing at first because he was a cop, thought she was helping him build some kind of case by giving him information about Miletti. Somewhere along the way she figured out he was manipulating her and using that information for his own gain, so she started keeping records. She was smart, if maybe too trusting.”

  “What kind of information about Miletti? Anything criminal?”

  “She was too vague about that. Seems like after she figured out what Standing was up to, her sympathies were with Miletti and didn’t put anything definite about him in writing.”

  “But, why keep seeing Standing after she figured it out?”

  “She was afraid of him, and rightfully so, I’d say.”

  “So, was it Forrester outside Lana’s house that night? Or Standing, or what?”

  “Forrester denies it, so I’m left thinking it was Standing. We’ll never know for sure, but Standing makes sense. He may have been trying to search for any evidence that he’d been there, or looking for Lana’s diary or notes. Fortunately he was unsuccessful, and thanks to you we have it. You hungry?”

  “It’s, like, 11:30.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t had dinner. You hungry?”

  “I am, actually. I could murder a tamale platter and a tostada.”

  “Hey,” Petreski said, his strong arms pulling me into a tight hug. “For real, you’re okay? We’re okay?”

  I nodded.

  “When you said ‘not my cat,’ it was –”

  “I realized after I said it how it sounded. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I meant, well, I don’t own you. But you’re mine, and I’m yours, okay?”

  He sighed, and I could feel him relax.

  “Alright, then. Let’s go find a tostada for you to murder.”

  Cat Perez was on the landing when I opened my door.

  “Hey,” Petreski said, crouching down to talk to her. “You were right, you know. Standing killed Lana. We may never be able to prove it, though.”

  She blinked, then turned her head to look at me. I didn’t need to be any kind of psychic to understand the I-told-you-so in that look. I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t think any of us is really surprised.”

  Don’s door opened at that moment. “What’s going on out – oh, hey, Princess. You wanna come in and have dinner with Bridger?”

  Perez gave us one last look, turned, and with a flick of her tail sauntered into Don’s apartment.

  Petreski and I started down the stairs, but there was still one last question on my mind.

  “Hey, Boo? Do you think Perez is really eating cat food?”

  “Nah. Not unless Don’s buying the premium stuff. But you remember what happened the last time you fed a stray?”

  Coming Soon

  Not a Zombie

  It’s the start of a new semester and familiar faces are popping up all over – most of them unwelcome. Jake knows Petreski’s not going to like his new study buddy and Don has a big decision to make. Jake’s mother will no longer be denied, and it’s meet-the-parents time. Miss Nancy’s past comes calling in an all too literal way. And to top it all off, Petreski’s ex shows up and it turns out there’s someone out there who Perez hates even more than Jake. Oh, and somebody gets murdered.

  About Jake’s Meditation Practice

  Jake’s experience with meditation is based on my father. When his macular degeneration became disabling in 2001, the VA sent him to what he referred to as “blind school” in Tucson, Arizona. One of the classes he took there was meditation for stress relief.

  He was frequently scolded (gently) for falling asleep during meditation class. He argued that falling asleep was proof that the stress relief was working. The instructor wasn’t buying it, but it was too good not to include here.

  About the Location

  Jake’s neighborhood is a fictionalized version of my own “hometown” of Woodland Heights. Most of the locations are real, but portrayed fictionally. Some are based on real places, but the names are changed. If you were to ask me about any location in the book, I could take you to the spot(s) that inspired it. Jake and Don’s apartment building is based on an apartment building I lived in myself. It is still standing, although others like it have sadly been lost in recent years. I love my neighborhood, and I grieve to see the so-called progress that is being inflicted upon it.

  About the Author

  Madeline Kirby lives in a Craftsman bungalow in Houston, Texas, with her husband, four cats, and a squirrelly neighbor who leaves pecan shells all over the front porch. If she’s not at home writing, you’ll probably find her at her local coffee shop.

  You can follow Madeline on Twitter – @Madeline_Kirby – or check out her neglected blog, www.evilgeniusatwork.com.

  Other books by Madeline Kirby:

  Not a Werewolf (Jake & Boo – Book 1)

  Saving Grapes (Cable’s Bend – Book 1)

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