AHMM, November 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Tiffani looked out the window, blinking.

  "Can you understand what I'm saying?” Kristal said.

  "This isn't how I really look,” Tiffani said, her narrow little face still canted toward the window. “I didn't have time to take a shower or put on my makeup."

  "Or fix your nail polish."

  Tiffani rolled her eyes and stared out her window some more.

  Kristal turned right, onto Highway 43. The patrol car was running rough. Probably needed oil. The pine woods thinned, giving way to homes, a smattering of shabby businesses. They crossed the bridge over Cat Bait Creek. “I was teasing,” she said.

  Tiffani looked at her suspiciously. “I'm out of polish remover."

  "That something you use to cook?” Kristal couldn't remember the ingredients for crystal meth right offhand.

  "I don't know,” Tiffani said.

  "'Course not."

  "I don't."

  "Do you use?” Kristal said.

  "No."

  "Can I see your teeth?"

  "No!"

  "What were you doing at that pigsty if you don't use?"

  "I've been staying there."

  "Why?"

  "I've got friends there."

  Kristal mentally reviewed the five people they'd arrested at the trailer, four men and a woman, none of whom had shown the slightest interest in Tiffani's fate. “A real caring bunch,” she said.

  "You don't know anything about it,” Tiffani said hotly.

  "I'm not blind,” said Kristal.

  "Do you know what's going to happen to them?"

  "Jail."

  "For how long?"

  A childish question. Kristal looked at Tiffani again. “Hard to say. Which one is he?"

  "Huh?"

  "Which one is your boyfriend?"

  "None of your business,” said Tiffani.

  "Never mind. You probably don't have one."

  "Yes, I do."

  "No way."

  "I do too. Billy Hawkins."

  Kristal couldn't remember which one of the skinny blank-eyed, bad-smelling men at the trailer had been named Hawkins. “That's the same last name as the girl whose ID you gave us. Is she his wife?"

  "Noooo,” said Tiffani.

  "Did he steal her ID for you?"

  "She loaned it to me."

  "How generous. What for?"

  Tiffani didn't answer.

  "Tiffani, where is your mother?” Kristal asked.

  "In Florida. She got a job there."

  "Why didn't you go with her?"

  "I couldn't. She couldn't take me."

  "You're a runaway, aren't you?"

  "No. Not really,” said Tiffani. “I was in a foster home, but it didn't work out. They hated me. They were glad I left. What difference does it make anyway? I can look out for myself."

  No look-fors or warrants had dinged when they called Tiffani in. Maybe no one had reported her missing. “Your teachers don't like you, your foster parents don't like you. How come you have so much trouble getting along with people?” Kristal asked her. “What's the story?"

  "I don't know,” Tiffani said.

  "Do you get into fights? Steal things?"

  "No!"

  "What is it, then?"

  "I don't know!” Tiffani said.

  "What's your mom's name?"

  "Neddie Jakes."

  "You said your last name was Shephard."

  Tiffani shrugged.

  "Where's your dad?"

  "Around."

  "Around?"

  "I won't go to him,” Tiffani said flatly.

  "Do you know how to find your mom?"

  "No."

  There was no telling how much of this was true. And all of it was the social worker's problem anyway, not Kristal's. Kristal was mere transportation, point A to point B. “How old are you?"

  "Eighteen."

  "Liar,” said Kristal, but mildly.

  They pulled up at the police station, a Gulf Coast cottage on an oak-shaded street a few blocks from Bitter Tree's main square. Behind the cottage was a cinder-block jail, the town's main fire station, a chain-linked compound full of city vehicles, and a cleared and scraped area where the new police station would be built whenever the city had the money, a time difficult to foresee, especially since Hurricane Melvin. The social worker's red sedan was already in the lot.

  Kristal had not met the social worker before; she was grayhaired and seemed competent enough, if a little tired, a little bored. They filled out and signed some paperwork and put the girl's things in the back seat and the girl in the front. Kristal sat on the steps of the station's front porch and watched the car leave. Tiffani looked back at Kristal. Her face was a small white oval in the car window, receding.

  The day had not cooled, but here in Bitter Tree the air did not stink, and a breeze moved the leaves of the oak trees that shaded the station and the city compound. Kristal knew everything around her intimately; the blocks of houses and churches and businesses and offices that included the police station, the town itself a grid of shady streets centered on the Square, shady streets that eventually ran downhill and abutted the river, the few remaining wharves and shrimp boats, the new condos going up. She knew Bitter Tree down to its concrete sidewalks, poured in the thirties, a WPA project, and patched and repoured ever since, tree roots always twisting ceaselessly beneath them. Not far from where she sat was her parents’ farm, her little home, her own young son.

  Kristal called the social worker's cell phone. “What will happen to her?” she asked.

  "Juvie tonight. I'll see the judge tomorrow."

  "Why juvie?"

  "Why not? We've got to put her somewhere. She won't tell us how to contact her parents. I can't get hold of her fosters. You picked her up at a meth lab. That hardly sounds promising."

  "Let me talk to her for a second, okay?"

  "Sure."

  "Yeah?” said Tiffani. “What do you want?"

  "Don't you want to call your parents? Your mom? Your dad? Otherwise, you're going to end up at Strickland tonight."

  "I don't care."

  "Do you understand what's going to happen?"

  "I've been there before. It's not that bad."

  "If you say so,” Kristal said.

  "I don't know how to find her,” Tiffani said. “She went off to Jacksonville. Her cell phone ain't been working. She don't know how to reach me. And I'm not going to my real dad's. They hate me there. He's an asshole. I don't care what you do."

  "You don't care?"

  "I don't give a flying fuck."

  "What's your whole name, Tiffani?” asked Kristal. “Your real name."

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "Just tell me."

  "Tiffani Juliet Jakes."

  "Juliet?"

  "That's right,” she said defensively.

  "Tell me the most important thing about you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Like, what would you want people to know about you?"

  "That I don't take no shit off nobody."

  Kristal wanted to laugh. Yes, Tiffani Juliet Jakes, plain little girl whom everyone hates for no reason, runaway girl, sleeping with a crankhead for dope and a place to sleep, young girl whose life is already a rapidly narrowing trap, with your glittery purple nail polish and your filthy SpongeBob pillow case: You're tough.

  "No, that's not it. What I mean is, like, what would God say is the most important thing about you?"

  "That's stupid."

  "No, it isn't."

  "Do you pray for people?"

  "I'm not very good at that stuff,” Kristal said. “But my mama is. She'll pray for you if you want."

  "Excuse me while I barf."

  "You asked."

  "Why do you want to know about me?” Tiffani asked.

  "So I won't forget you,” said Kristal. “I forget what's important, sometimes. You can think about that, if you want. You can think, well, that one lady cop in Bitter Tree knows ab
out me."

  "Whatever,” said Tiffani. She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, “I used to take care of my little brother. I'd make him lunch. Play with him. Show him how to do stuff. I started teaching him how to read. He liked it."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He got took away. My mama said she was going to get him back, but she never did. His name is Hunter."

  "Then I'm going to remember that about you,” said Kristal. “Your name, and that you were kind and generous to your little brother Hunter. You helped him, and you taught him."

  "Okay,” Tiffani said. And then again: “Okay.” Something in her voice had changed.

  "Good-bye."

  "Wait! What's your whole name?"

  "Kristal Starlene Gibson Jaramillo."

  "I'll remember that too,” Tiffani said.

  Copyright © 2006 Janet Nodar

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  SOLUTION TO THE OCTOBER “DYING WORDS"

  Word List

  A. Newsworthy

  B. Finesse

  C. Ushers

  D. Leased

  E. Lattice

  F. Extremes

  G. Rhythm

  H. Addlepated

  I. Beforehand

  J. Overview

  K. Umbrella

  L. Tallies

  M. Generic

  N. Lonely

  O. Addressee

  P. Doorstop

  Q. Yorkshire

  R. Streetcar

  S. Majorette

  T. Improvised

  U. Through

  V. Cheddar

  W. Hostile

  X. Encyclica

  Y. Layaway

  Z. Lhasa apso

  QUOTATION

  Author—N(icholas) FULLER

  Work—ABOUT GLADYS MITCHELL (Excerpted from Sleuth's Alchemy by Gladys Mitchell, edited by Nicholas Fuller, published by Crippen & Landru—Copyright © 2005)

  "The world of Gladys Mitchell is an extraordinary place, one where the plots have ‘all the mad logic of a dream,’ where the detective is ... sorceress and psychoanalyst, where the murderer is just as likely to be devoured by Nessie as more prosaically arrested..."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  SUDDEN STOP by Mitch Alderman

  Elvis wagged his tail and sat up when the office phone rang. Bubba yawned and lowered the recliner. Looking at the caller ID, he let it ring. It was Arnie at State Insurance with work. Elvis barked with each new ring. After a dozen barks, Bubba picked up the phone, “At the sound of the tone, leave your message. After my nap, I'll call you back."

  "It's one in the afternoon. Another sunny day in beautiful Winter Haven, Florida. Time to go to work."

  "What is so important?” Bubba scratched Elvis's neck as the bluetick hound tried to climb onto the La-Z-Boy.

  "You remember the wreck on Cypress Gardens Boulevard where the nurse hit the bridge support head-on? Passenger flew out the windshield into Lake Roy?"

  "I remember. Killed him. Is she still in the coma?"

  "Yes. We have the insurance on her. Hospitalization, her auto liability, and an umbrella policy. Unfortunately, she had Melvin Banks as her agent.” The voice faded and strengthened. Bubba could picture him pacing laps in his office, talking on the speaker phone, the largely unsuccessful attempt to keep his waistline under control.

  "Upper Limits Mel. Why don't you quit letting him write those policies?"

  "Actuarially, he's on target. But now the deceased's family is suing."

  "So pay them and let me get back to sleep."

  "Pay a million three? Never. I'll messenger what we have on the accident, but you'll need to get the autopsy report. The woman's in Winter Haven Regional, costing us a fortune every day."

  "Send it to my house. I'll see what I think."

  "Find us a lever or a hammer. Your usual plus a grand bonus for something useful. Get moving. Call me.” Arnie hung up. Not for the first time Bubba wondered why he kept working so hard to save State so much money. The fact that Arnie called him a couple of times a month and therefore paid his overhead had something to do with it that coupled with the fact that there was not much else that the knowledge gained from twenty years of prowling through Polk County's underbelly was good for. A sergeant's retirement check was the sure sign of a misspent youth.

  "Time to go to work, Elvis.” Elvis barked as Bubba stood and stretched, palms against the ceiling. He felt a knot in his lower back from doing stiff-legged deadlifts at Big Al's Gym before work. After a small late breakfast—the diet was working; he was down to 308 pounds—he had taken a couple of ibuprofen, then fallen asleep in the recliner, where he'd been when Arnie called.

  By the time the messenger arrived, Bubba had managed to fix a glass of iced tea, take off his boots, and sit in his rocker on the back porch. Elvis ran circles around the young man as he walked through the yard. He had delivered to Bubba before. Accepting the five dollar tip with his left hand, he scratched the dog with his right. Bubba sat back into the rocker with the big manila package and watched the messenger trot away with Elvis barking at his heels. He sipped tea and read the file. On the surface, it looked like a million three might be the total liability. Arnie hated having to pay that much money for any reason, much less a mere death from a traffic accident. A grand bonus if he saved them a million. Sounded like the usual ratio. Insurance companies.

  When he finished the file, Bubba dialed the Winter Haven Police Department. After a few minutes’ conversation, the desk sergeant put him through to the traffic supervisor, Roger Grimsley.

  "Hey, Bubba. How's retirement?"

  "Arnie out at State Insurance just ruined a good nap. He has the policy on that wreck on CGB where the passenger went through the windshield and the driver is in a coma. I'd like to see the file."

  "Don't see why not. Come by about two."

  He put Elvis in his pen, fixed a carry-mug of iced tea, and headed for Winter Haven Regional Hospital to see his client's client. Was any client of his client a client of his? After ten minutes of driving through tourist traffic, he reached the spreading complex. When he first started driving a patrol car, without air-conditioning, when life was simple, there had been huge oaks along the edges of the hospital's parking lot where he could park in the shade and stay cool. Now he had an excellent AC, and the parking lot had asphalted every available surface to the north of the complex. The trees, of course, were gone.

  He parked in a police-only space near the emergency room entrance. It was either there or a hundred yards away in the visitors’ lot. As he shut the door to the Bronco, a golf cart stopped and a red-faced man in a security uniform climbed out carrying a clipboard. His uniform was sweat-soaked, and a slump seemed to curve his entire body. He almost looked comical except for the gleam below bushy eyebrows.

  "You're big enough to be a cop,” he said.

  "I was a sergeant for a long time,” Bubba answered.

  "The Bronco sort of looks like a police vehicle."

  "It was an off-road search and rescue for a long time."

  "But neither of you are anything important now?"

  "Neither are you, right?"

  The man laughed and pulled out a bandana to wipe his forehead. “Thirty years in a uniform in Detroit. Came down here three years ago to get away from the winters. Now the heat's killing me."

  "This is a lovely spring day, almost cool. Can't be over eighty-five."

  "You can't park here. Real police only."

  "I'm working on a case. Won't be here long."

  "That's for sure. Move it now.” He jerked a thumb to the north.

  "All the way over to visitors'? I will be back in ten minutes. I promise."

  "It's my ass, my job, if the administration finds you here. I don't want to depend on supplementing my retirement by finding change at the park with my metal detector. Back when, I had Henry Deuce towed for parking in a police space, and I don't think you own the politicians the Fords did. So move it."


  "No wonder you never made it out of a prowl car. I'm Bubba Simms. Used to be with the Polk County Sheriff."

  "I'm Harold Johnson. And now you're a private snoop. Still have to move it."

  Bubba smiled ruefully and stuck out his hand. They shook.

  "At least it is a cool spring day for your walk,” Harold said as Bubba climbed back into the Bronco.

  The sun was bright and the air did not feel cool as Bubba hiked back to the emergency room entrance. He waved at Gina, the triage nurse, standing at a gurney. She waved back, and he slipped through the back way to the elevators. He rode to the sixth floor and found the nurses’ station. He gave the RN writing charts, his card, and found out the room number.

  Room 617 looked more like a college girl's dorm than a hospital. There were framed pictures on two nightstands. A poster of a girl surfing in a pipeline curl. Three different flower arrangements accented the coverings on the tables arranged about the room. The room had clearly been designed for two beds, but there was only one now. The bed, covered with flowered sheets, was beside the window and the afternoon sun brought the unconscious woman's features into sharp relief. She had dark curly hair that had been brushed recently and pinned back on one side. She wore a pale rose gown that complemented her olive skin. A monitor with a slow heartbeat wave, a breathing tube taped to her nose, and an IV drip completed the picture.

  "Who are you?” A woman's voice sounded behind Bubba. He had heard her nurse's shoes approaching. He answered without turning.

  "Bubba Simms. I'm working for State Insurance, investigating what happened. Not very big, is she?"

  "Big enough to be a pediatric RN. Four foot eleven and a half."

  Bubba turned around and a tall nurse dressed in blue scrubs stood there looking past him at the bed. Lean, with broad shoulders, long legs, and red hair pulled back in a ponytail, she was too severe to be considered pretty, but her green eyes glistened in the sunlight.

  "Is there any hope?” Bubba asked.

  "Always hope. Not much chance. Her brain swelled too much. I'm Clarice. I work down in pediatrics too. The desk called and said someone was up here visiting."

  "Who did the room?"

  "Friends. She has no family anymore, parents dead."

  "Are you a friend?"

  "We worked together. We were friends."