by Makenzi Fisk
Derek hit the speaker icon and rested his cell phone on the rental car’s hood. “What’s up Ernie?” He leaned against the fender and crossed his arms. It felt like old times, shooting the breeze with a work buddy. Back then, he’d been drinking coffee, not beer. “Is Z-man coming for me today?”
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the bottle into the weeds where it smashed against the last one. He regarded the now-empty case. Once again, he was running too close to the edge and would have to do something about this situation soon. Would it be such a bad thing if he turned himself in and went to a nice detox country club?
Ernie was out of breath and excited about something. “I have news for you, boss. I just found out and wanted to let you know right away.”
“Well, spit it out, boy.” Why all the mystery?
“Z-man’s not coming for you, but I overheard him talking to Erin Ericsson on the phone.”
“Don’t tell me she’s coming to try to catch me. Seems a bit below her high falutin’ new job to be poaching on local turf.” When goddamn Ericsson had left for Quantico, he thought he’d finally be rid of her, but she kept popping back up. Would she never leave him alone?
“She’s not coming to arrest you, boss. She’s after your daughter.”
“Lily? But she’s in Canada, isn’t she?” Derek sat up. “Isn’t she?” Allowing himself to be trapped in detox became a sudden impossibility. His daughter needed him.
“She escaped almost a week ago—”
“And you didn’t think it was important enough to tell me?” Like acid, Derek’s anger funneled from his gut to his throat. “Why the fuck not?”
“Uh, it seemed she was headed south, nowhere near here. You have a lot on your plate and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“She’s my daughter!” Sour vomit filled his mouth and he bent to retch. Were his hands shaking? Already? “I oughta bloody your nose for that,” he sputtered. “We’re buddies ain’t we?”
“I’m sorry, Lieu, I should have.”
“What else do you know that you are holding back to protect my delicate sensitivities?” Derek balled his scabby hand into a fist and pounded the hood of the car.
Regret washed over him as soon as the cell phone bounced onto the gravel. He leaned over, picked it up and glared at the new crack in the screen. It would have felt a lot better had that been Ernie’s face, or Ericsson’s. No doubt about it, that bitch had a vendetta against his family. If she was coming back, there’d be hell to pay.
Ernie couldn’t have missed the thunder on the connection. He chose his words carefully. “After everything that… happened here, there’s the question of why Lily would even want to come back.”
“To see me, of course. I’m her goddamn father. Why else?”
“Um, no one told her you got out early. She might think you’re in prison.”
“Hunh.” Hadn’t they told her a damn thing about what had happened to him? Why hadn’t they let her write?
“Perhaps there’s something else. Something she needs to take care of. A secret.”
“No, I would’ve known. She didn’t hide anything from me.” As the words spilled from Derek’s mouth, he knew they weren’t true. Everything Lily said or did was a lie. Had Tiffany told the girl where she was going? Was she keeping a secret for her mother?
“Uh, there’s a little more.” Ernie hesitated so long he wondered if he’d lost the signal. “She escaped with another inmate, a seventeen year old boy. The two of them are suspects in a number of serious crimes across three states. That’s why the FBI is involved.”
The phone shook in Derek’s hands and he placed it back on the hood. “It’s not my kid. It’s the boy. If he hurts her, I’ll kill him.”
“Don’t talk like that, Lieutenant. You’re already in enough trouble.”
“Swear you won’t hold nothin’ back from now on. She’s my daughter. Promise me.”
“Yeah, boss. I’ll call as soon as I hear anything.”
“Phones don’t work so well where I’m staying.” Nothing worked in the swamp now. Not phones, not electricity, not anything. He was tired of warm beer, and sandwich meat that smelled like it was going south. “You keep tryin’, you hear?”
Derek touched the screen to end the call. Goddamn Ernie. These days a man couldn’t even trust someone he’d trained himself. He left the car and walked the three blocks to Armand’s house. Armand the pimp. Armand the drug dealer. Armand the guy who might know a little something about what went on in the underbelly of Morley Falls.
The broken front door hung ajar, and he shoved it open with the flat of his hand. Angie squeaked and made a dash for the bathroom, but this time he blocked her escape route. He pointed to a spot on the sofa next to Armand, who was snorting something off the coffee table. Meth? Stolen prescription medication? Who cared anyway? This was no official visit. Angie sat rigid and stone-faced while her boyfriend finished.
Finally, Armand’s head flopped against the sofa cushion, scraggly hair over his glazed eyes. They popped wide open at the sight of the burly ex-policeman, and the drug dealer sat up. “Why are you back, pig? I told you, I don’t know nothin’ about why Tiff left you.” His high gave him false courage.
Angie fidgeted and scratched an invisible spot on her arm. Her eyes darted to Armand and back.
Derek wanted to punch him right in his druggie mouth, but first he needed to make him talk. “Who killed that guy in the motel?” He reached over and took a handful of Angie’s hair. Her breath quickened, but she didn’t make a sound.
“Hey, you leave her be,” Armand protested, rising to his feet. “She’s a good earner. I won’t have you messin’ with business.”
“Tell me who killed Badger in that motel. You know, don’t you?” He twisted the handful and elicited a squawk from Angie. It had the desired effect.
Armand sank back to the sofa. “Sorry, baby, I wanna protect you, but this guy,” he glanced up, “this guy is outta control.”
He twisted a little more and Angie kicked Armand in the shin. “Tell him!”
“I don’t know his name. Word on the street was Badger used him to get meth into the prison. He might work there. That’s all I know!”
Derek released Angie’s hair and picked up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the table. There were still two inches of precious liquid in the bottom. He’d take this for his trouble.
Angie slapped the drug dealer’s face. “Why you let him treat me like that?” She smoothed her rumpled hair and shot Derek a dark look.
He watched her skinny butt pump under her skin-tight skirt until she slammed the bedroom door. Angie a good earner? Her johns must be too wasted to see straight. Tiffany was not like her at all. She was too good for this life. No wonder she had run away.
“Call me if you hear anything.” Derek flicked his P.I. business card so it sailed to the floor.
He left Armand to enjoy his buzz and scratched his unshaven chin as he strolled to the sidewalk. Badger had been smuggling drugs into Stillwater Prison. That explained a lot, like why a weasel like him always had a big fella watching his back, and why he wouldn’t let things go. Who was his smuggling partner, someone outside, or in?
He walked back to his car, drove to the end of the road, and parked in his usual treed spot. The rain had stopped and the short walk back to Gunther Schmidt’s property was much more pleasant than when he’d left in the downpour.
Everything was as he’d left it, the shed with its cell-like hidden room, the musty bed he’d hauled up, and the fridge he avoided because it was starting to smell.
He took the last swallow and set the whiskey bottle he’d liberated from Armand’s house on the work bench. When the fridge stink got worse, he’d have to consider moving on. Besides, when Erin got here, she’d know right where to find him. Hell, if Gina had been telling the truth, Zimmerman already figured it out.
The swamp simmered in the heat that followed the downpour. Each organism had a life of its own and the bog kept secr
ets he could only imagine. He watched from the doorway and considered his options. If he turned himself in, he’d be back in prison before nightfall. That wasn’t gonna happen. He had to find Badger’s partner, the real killer, and help his daughter.
He shut the door to keep out the mosquitoes and walked to the bog. At the far end, marked by the blackened spires of burnt trees, stood the remains of the Johnson house.
When he’d been called to investigate that fire, it had sure seemed like an accident, the misadventure of an addle-brained old woman living by herself in the middle of nowhere. He should have spent more time poking around the ashes instead of swapping jokes with Ernie out on the main road.
Pant legs tucked into his socks, he followed the overgrown trail to the property. There was a gap in the fence, the gate long since missing, and he slipped through. Now abandoned, the cinderblock foundation and brick chimney stood amidst charred wood. Voracious weeds and poplar seedlings had taken over. Separating the yard from the bog was a white picket fence, rotten from neglect.
When Erin had seen him in prison, she’d said Lily had been watching Mrs. Johnson’s house. She had blamed his daughter for the fire, but could he believe it?
He walked the path from the driveway, and imagined the structure when he’d last seen it standing. A well-kept bungalow, it was the sort of place you’d expect a particular old woman to tend. He circled the foundation and returned to the trail.
If he’d been the one watching, where would he have stood? He sidled along the fence, side-stepped and peered through a bare spot in the bushes. There was a clear view of the back steps. A few years ago, this opening would have been a few inches lower, the right height for an eleven year-old kid. Maybe so, but that didn’t mean it was Lily. He squatted. This location offered complete concealment. Still…
His alcohol-deprived body rebelled and his trembling knees gave way when he tried to stand. He grabbed the fence for support but the boards came loose under his hands. “Damn!” He crashed to his ass in the wet grass and curled into a ball.
Five minutes, maybe fifteen, he stared at the bottom of the fence. Wedged between the boards, where the wind had blown it, were the remnants of a faded cigarette package. Marlboro was Tiffany’s brand. The brand Lily liked to steal from her purse.
Tiffany Schmidt was a town girl. She liked nice things and she liked nice shoes. She wouldn’t be caught dead out here, smoking goddamn cigarettes in a mosquito-infested swamp. Sure, there might be a few others in this piss pot town who smoked the same brand, but this was one more coincidence in a veritable heap. A prosecutor might say this kind of evidence was merely circumstantial, but this particular heap was beginning to look pretty convincing. Erin might be right about Lily watching Dolores Johnson’s house. His head spun. Could it all be true?
He forced himself to his feet and brushed twigs from his pants. Now he was soaked to the knees and feeling the chill. Or was that the shakes coming for him again?
Somehow, he made it back around the bog. Since it had been drained, there were fewer mosquitoes than usual, but blackflies had chewed the backs of his ears raw, and his fingers were bloody from scratching. He pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth to keep them out. What was worse? Hordes of mosquitoes or clouds of blackflies? Both could drive a man insane if he didn’t have decent shelter, or DEET insect repellant.
He quickened his pace, eager to get into the shed. The vestiges of sunlight slanted through the trees when he reached the excavator, and a glint caught his eye. Half the water in this end of the bog was gone but the recent rains had refilled the hole in the middle. Already the bog was reclaiming itself.
Water sloshed over the toes of his shoes when he edged out on the wooden plank. It wouldn’t take but a minute to rinse the blood off his hands, and he could get a better look at whatever it was shining in the mud.
He shuffled out, one foot after the other until he reached the end, still yards from the sunken excavator. Most of the forward track was underground, the glass windows of the cab peeping out. How the hell had the operator gotten out? Maybe that glint was something he’d lost, maybe something worthwhile.
He squatted, and leaned toward it as far as his trembling legs would allow. The object that had caught the light was there, just out of reach. It was a rusty metal, horseshoe-shaped buckle of some sort, attached to a leather band, from a bag, or… a purse?
He lost his balance and toppled into the mud, elbows splayed like a newborn fawn. It was denser than he feared but he managed to get most of his weight back onto the plank and haul his upper body out. He rolled to his back, chest heaving. The blackflies would soon be coming with a vengeance but he didn’t give a shit.
The last time Derek had seen Tiffany, she’d talked him out of a fifty dollar bill. She’d smiled at him and tucked it into her purse with her Marlboros. The diamond ring he’d given her flashed on her finger when she’d snapped the buckle. The little horseshoe-shaped buckle on its leather strap.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“What the hell is this?” How friggin’ hard was it for T to do what I told him? I click out of the video app and put down my new cell phone. Get me a cheeseburger and fries I’d said, right before he hobbled on his sore knee into that goddamn green and yellow restaurant.
“It’s a runza. They said it’s really good. Everybody loves them here in Nebraska.” T squeezes two sodas into the cup holders.
“A fucking what?” I pick up my phone and zoom in on the greasy package he’s holding. Just looking at it makes me wanna barf.
“A runza. A stuffed sandwich with beef, cabbage and onions.”
This is not what I asked for, and he knows it. He unwraps the white paper, takes a big bite, and smiles like an idiot for the camera. I do a close-up of the bloody scab twisting the hair on the side of his head. That completes the disgusting picture.
“Didn’t they have cheeseburgers?”
“Yeah, but everyone in the lineup was getting these. They said they are way better.” He takes another bite and offers me a french fry.
“What the hell is that?” In the package, god awful onion rings sit side-by-side with the fries. “They got your order wrong.”
“This is what I asked for. They call them frings. Half fries and half rings, get it?” He pulls a second package out of the bag. “Look, there’s one for you too.”
I bat them away. “That’s messed up. You can’t do that to fries.” I swear to God I wanna poke out my own eye right now. Who does he think he is? “Go back and get me what I want.”
He shoots his hand into his pocket and shows me a jumble of coins. “This is all that’s left. I spent the rest.” He holds the runza out like I’m a baby that needs to be fed. “It’s tasty. Try a bite.”
“I’m not eating that.” I throw the thing out the window and pull away from the restaurant.
Fuck him. Fuck all of this. It’s always been this way. If I want something, I have to get it myself. Two blocks away is a drug store with a faded blue sign. I tuck my phone into my pocket and leave the truck running, with T still sitting there eating his fucking frings.
Inside the doors, I stalk past the pimply checkout guy to the back and jump the counter. A little man in a white lab coat stares at me with his mouth open when I shove my knife against his ribs.
“Give me the cash.” I need money for beer. Beer and a real cheeseburger. I consider T, who hasn’t had any drugs for a while. He’ll be whining soon, and I’ll need to shut him up. “And gimme all your Oxy.”
The color drains from his cheeks. “I can’t. It’s in the safe. There’s a time release.”
I press the knife through his coat until he winces from the pressure. “You better do it. Now.”
He opens the cash register and forks over all the money. “Here, but I can’t—”
“Do it or die.” I stuff the bills in my pockets. No way is T getting any of this.
His mouth turns down and his eyelids flicker. Is he gonna pass out right here? He whimpers and a yello
w puddle forms on the tile between his shoes.
Scheisse! I don’t want his piss on me. Knife out, I jump out of the way. There are so many bottles of drugs on the shelf. What is the big deal? I point to the closest package. “What about that one? It says Oxy right on it.”
“That’s Oxytocin. It’s not—”
“Give it to me.” I point to another. “And that one. It says Oxy-something too.” What a liar. There is plenty of Oxy on the shelf. That was bullshit about it being in the safe. “Give it all to me or I’ll cut out your gizzard.”
He shovels the row of bottles into a bag.
I let him go. “If you call the cops, I’ll find you and slit your throat.”
“Dad?” The pimple-faced checkout guy has come to see what’s happening. “Is everything okay?” He stares at the piss between his pussy father’s feet for a moment before he brings his eyes up to mine. He can’t be much older than me, and his pupils are pinpricks of fear. Will he wet his pants too? I show him my knife and try to push past him, but he stands his ground.
“Move, or I’ll shove this in your guts.” Why doesn’t he step aside? Is he stupid?
“No. Give that back.”
Is he kidding me? He’s a kitten facing off with a panther and I have no time for this. “Fine, have it your way.”
There’s a subtle pop when I drive the knife through his white shirt and pull it out. He doesn’t go down like I expected. He hunches his back and clutches at the red spot spreading through the fabric.
“No.” The man in the white coat groans but his feet don’t move. He’s paralyzed, glued to that tile.
I can’t take my eyes off the stain bleeding into the boy’s shirt. It’s hypnotizing. Irresistible.
I shove the drugs into the front of my pants and fumble for my phone. This is a moment to remember. My heart skips a beat when the video of his bloody shirt comes on-screen in brilliant color. I pan from the shirt to the man with the puddle of piss at his feet. I can’t wait to watch it over, and over.
On the display, the pimply boy slowly reaches for the phone on the counter. Don’t do that. I step in to stab him again and my knife flashes in the corner of the image. This video will be amazing.