Pretty Pretty Boys

by Gregory Ashe

  “Are you sure?” Cravens’s voice was deceptively soft, so soft that Hazard leaned closer to hear her over the fire. “That’s InnovateMidwest, the investment firm of which the mayor happens to be a major shareholder. The same mayor who appoints, among other positions, a police chief at his discretion. You didn’t have anything to say about them?”

  Swinney’s cheeks were red; she shook her head.

  “Derelict,” Lender said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s the word for places like this. Derelict. Lots of abandoned property in Smithfield, and this trailer was one of them. In the winter, squatters and drifters use them. A lot of them are crammed with garbage—some of it the squatters collect, some of it just seems to show up. Easy for a place like that to catch fire.”

  “Did you see someone in there?” Cravens asked.

  Lender shook his head, but before he could say more, Somers trotted up. He looked like hell. No, scratch that. He looked like hell after someone had dragged it behind a freight car for a few miles. His shirt was misbuttoned, his collar flipped up, his tie hanging halfway down his chest. He had two shoes on, and they didn’t match.

  “Jesus,” Swinney muttered, turning her face away from Somers.

  “Detective Somerset,” Cravens said, taking in Somers’s appearance in a single glance. “Do we need to have a conversation about the department’s dress code for detectives and the importance of our public image?”

  Somers was pale, and his lips were clenched together. He shook his head and then managed to say, “No, chief.”

  “Are you sick, Somers?”

  He shook his head again, but this time he couldn’t say anything.

  “Somers, I really think—”

  “Chief,” Hazard said, “Somers and I should talk to some of the patrol officers, see what they’ve found.”

  Cravens stared at him for a long moment. She wasn’t a fool; Hazard knew she wasn’t a fool. But she seemed willing, at least this once, to let him get away with it. With a nod, she dismissed them.

  As soon as Hazard and Somers had put a few yards between them and the chief, Hazard said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I’m fine.” Somers clamped his mouth shut, though, and he wobbled on his feet.

  “You’re not fine. You’re about to puke at a crime scene. And you look like you dragged yourself out of a two-dollar whorehouse. Jesus, you even smell like you did.”

  Somers stared at him.

  “Listen,” Hazard said. “You’re a drunk. Fine. I get it. But the drunks I know, they still have their shit more or less together. You—you’re like a teenager. Like a kid that just doesn’t know when to stop, but he thinks he’s got it together right until he tosses it in his daddy’s shoes.”

  “I said I’m fine,” Somers managed to say through gritted teeth.

  “Fine. You mess things up, you’re on your own. You understand me?”

  Somers gave a tight nod.

  Hazard grunted and turned towards the uniformed cops near the cordon.

  “Hazard?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks. For earlier.”

  Hazard didn’t bother to reply.

  The cop at the cordon was young, black, and had a pleasant, easy-going look to him. When he saw Somers and Hazard approaching, he nodded and said, “Detectives.”

  “This is Moraes,” Somers said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Moraes, this is Hazard.”

  “Yeah, I heard about you.”

  “Moraes?” Hazard said.

  “My mom. Brazilian. Came here for university, never left. My names Joao, but most of the guys just call me Jonny.” He held out his hand, and Hazard shook.

  “You got the call?”

  Moraes smiled. “Nah, we were the ones who found it.”

  “People in Smithfield wouldn’t even piss on each other to put out a fire,” Somers said. “Let alone call one in.” He looked almost green in the firelight. “I’m going to see if the EMT has a bag I can throw up into.”

  “He’s all right,” Moraes said as Somers hustled towards the ambulance. “Lot of shit going on lately, but he’s a good guy.”

  Hazard shrugged. “So you found the fire?”

  “I’m partnered with Patrick Foley, the big Irish lug over there.” Moraes gestured down the cordon where a massively-built red-headed man stood with his arms crossed. “We have second shift and cover Smithfield, so we were patrolling and saw it. The whole place was already up and going by the time we called it in, so there wasn’t much to do except sit and watch.”

  “Anybody inside?”

  Moraes shrugged. “Couldn’t tell.”

  “You ever heard of InnovateMidwest?”

  “This is another one of theirs? They own half the town, it seems like, but nothing ever happens.”

  “The mayor is in on it?”

  “In on what? They don’t do anything. Buy up chunks of property, usually stuff that nobody else wants, and they do just enough maintenance to keep the buildings from falling over. I’m talking literally. The first year they were in Wahredua, an old brick building they owned collapsed. Nobody was hurt, but you better believe that woke people up.”

  “And they just sit on it? All this property they’re buying, they don’t do anything with it?”

  “Nothing. Couple of years ago, there were billboards all over town. InnovateMidwest, the future is coming. Stuff like that. Then,” he made a flicking motion, “gone.” Moraes appraised Hazard. “Somers told me you grew up here. You guys were buddies.”

  “Something like that. Mind if I ask you something?”

  Moraes shrugged.

  “You like living here?”

  With a smirk, Moraes said, “Because I’m black? I guess you know all about the Ozark Volunteers.”

  “Hillbillies with too many guns. If they weren’t too busy getting their sisters pregnant and smoking crystal meth, they might cause trouble.”

  “Maybe ten years ago. Hell, maybe even two years ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some hotshot showed up and started whipping them into a frenzy. They have peaceful assemblies if you can call hate speech and fear-mongering peaceful. They march through town. All the permits, everything in order. And weekends they’re out in the hills practicing formations and shooting dummies wearing police uniforms and doing everything they can to start a civil war.”

  “That’s all? They march around, do some target practice?”

  “Had two crosses burned in my yard this year. Two, and the year isn’t over. I don’t think they’d get physical—especially not with a cop—but I’ve got kids, man. That’s some scary stuff. Kids didn’t wake up either time, but my wife sure did. Then you hear about what’s going on now, all that shit with the gays, man, it’s going to get worse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t know. It just is. Pretty soon it won’t be something you can pass off as a mugging or a nasty prank. It’s going to be something dark, like swimming down shit river, that kind of dark. And the public stuff, that’s nothing to laugh at either. This one, Bruer, she’s one of the nastiest. Off the grid type, survivalist, but that’s never stopped her from showing up to public forums and raising hell about everything from drinking water to the color of the street signs. You know she said the street signs should be white? Not green. They’ve got green street signs everywhere I’ve ever been, but Bruer says they should be white. Represents purity. And don’t get me started on the drinking water.”

  Hazard grinned. “You had some run-ins with her?”

  “No, not personally. You’d better pray there isn’t a white person inside that trailer, though.”

  With a nod, Hazard said, “Ozark Volunteers would stir up a shit storm. Decent citizens aren’t safe in their own homes, that kind of crap. They’ll make the whole thing political.”

  “Decent white citizens,” Moraes corrected. “You better believe the sheriff and the chief are going to have to da
nce pretty fast if that shit starts blowing.”

  “It all rolls downhill,” Hazard said.

  “Hazard,” Somers called, waving Hazard to join him with Cravens and the detectives.

  “Thanks,” Hazard said.

  “Take it easy,” Moraes said.

  Hazard trotted over to Somers and was surprised to see that Upchurch had arrived. “What’s he doing here? I thought he’d retired.”

  “Small town,” Somers said. He looked a little better; he’d re-buttoned his shirt, and his face had regained some color. “Besides, it’s hard to turn it off. He’s been a detective here for a long time.” Cravens was talking to a stout man with thinning blond hair, and Somers nodded in their direction. “That’s the fire chief, McClinckie.”

  Cravens, whose face had darkened, scanned the dark street and waved for Hazard and Somers to join her. “Boys,” she said, “this is yours.”

  Hazard nodded, but to his surprise, Somers screwed up his face in anger and said, “This is Smithfield. Probably a drug lab, and Swinney and Lender get all the drug cases.”

  “Whoa,” Swinney said, breaking into the conversation. “Chief, we can’t take this one. We’re running around like crazy already. Two labs exploded last week, not to mention all the shit still in processing. This is arson, plain and simple. That’s Hazard and Somers.”

  “We’ve got a PR timebomb we’re trying to defuse,” Somers said. “That should be our priority, not worrying about an abandoned trailer.”

  Cravens glanced from Swinney to Somers and shook her head. “It’s yours,” she said to Somers. “You keep telling us we hired the best detective since Pinkerton. Let’s see what he can do.”

  “It might be an accident,” Somers said. “Bad wiring, something like that. I mean, look at it, that thing was a shithole.”

  “Lender said these things are full of trash,” Hazard said. “Easy for a place like that to go up, right?”

  “True,” Cravens said. “Ron?”

  The fire chief spoke for the first time since Hazard had approached. “We won’t know until we get the fire out and everything cools down, but it doesn’t look like an accident.” He nodded to the men working the hose and the fire engine; a steady spray of water blasted the burning trailer now, but it seemed to have little effect. “Some sort of accelerant in there, no doubt about it. It’s making that fire burn damn hot, and we’re going to have to wait until it burns itself out, more or less.”

  “And,” Cravens prompted. “Tell them the rest.”

  McClinckie flashed her an irritated look. “There’s nothing conclusive, and we can’t see a damn thing.” Cravens folded her arms and waited, and after a moment McClinckie sighed. “You smell that?” He made a display of sniffing the air. “Paint thinner, that’s my guess. And probably a lot of it. The smoke, kind of brown, all of that tells me it’s suspicious.”

  “At the very least,” Cravens said. “Go on.”

  “And,” McClinckie said with another sigh, “it smells like somebody’s in there. That’s not official, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and you don’t forget that smell.”

  Hazard’s stomach flipped. The foul smoke seemed everywhere now, leeching into his clothes and skin and hair. He’d seen death before. He’d even seen burned bodies before. But the smell, the burned-meat smell—

  “If Ron finds that it was a drug lab,” Cravens said, “we’ll see about dropping it into Swinney and Lender’s pool. Otherwise, you two might have a murder on your hands.”

  SOMERS CAUGHT FORTY WINKS in his unmarked car because he couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the empty apartment. The alarm on his phone woke him at half-past six with a crick in his neck, a pounding headache, and the certainty that it would be a hell of a lot easier to crawl under a passing train than to get up and face another day.

  After Cravens’s announcement, Somers and Hazard had done their best to survey the surrounding blocks, although it was the dead of night and Smithfield’s normal inhabitants had vanished—like rats sliding into sewer drains—when the police showed up. The fire department had taken care of the burning trailer, and by the time Somers and Hazard left, the flames had subsided into greasy, smoking char. Then there had been nothing left to do until McClinckie reached a conclusion about the fire.

  Hazard had gone back to the motel; his goodbye had been expressionless, even cold. Somers knew what the other man was thinking, even if Hazard had the decency not to say it. Hazard was thinking that he’d been partnered with a royal fuck-up. Not just a piece of shit bully from his past. That wasn’t bad enough. An inept cop too. Somers wanted to crawl into a bottle, but the bars and liquor stores were closed and his apartment was dry.

  In the early summer light, everything took on a bluish tinge, and Wahredua looked unusually peaceful as Somers drove to his apartment. He unlocked the door, rode the elevator, and let himself into the apartment. No couch, no chairs, no TV. Jesus, even the trash bags were gone—had someone stolen his garbage? Or—please, God, no—had Hazard taken them on his way out? Somers felt his face burning; he couldn’t believe he’d let Hazard see this place.

  Somers showered and changed. He had a four-by-six, unframed, on the windowsill. The sun was starting to bleach the colors, and for the tenth time, Somers decided he’d move the picture somewhere safer. But he didn’t. He left it where it was, in the morning light, tinged with the same dusty blue as the rest of the world: a picture of his two-year-old daughter, Evie, and his wife, Cora. His estranged wife, Somers reminded himself. His estranged wife who wouldn’t let him in the house, who wouldn’t answer his calls, who wouldn’t let him see his own daughter.

  He should have told Hazard the truth or at least part of it. But Jesus, it was embarrassing. No, it was humiliating. And there was part of Somers that knew it was even worse that it was Hazard instead of someone else. Somers was already fighting an uphill battle, trying to patch things up with Hazard, trying to fix the past. Somers knew he had a snowball’s chance in hell if Hazard found out all the other shit in Somers’s life.

  So Somers styled his hair and drank water until his stomach felt bloated and drank coffee on top of that, and he pounded down a few aspirin and drove to the station. The old school building looked pristine in the morning light, outlined by the rising sun, all the old chinks in the brick and mortar washed away by the hour. No sooner had Somers settled at his desk, starting to feel halfway human when Hazard appeared.

  Carrying two coffees, Hazard crossed the bullpen and stood at Somers’s desk. He eyed Somers for a moment and then said, “Let’s talk.”

  Somers nodded. He got to his feet and followed Hazard, who still held the two coffees, towards a side door. They stepped out into the early summer morning; the smell of fresh-cut grass followed the buzz of a lawnmower—a block away, maybe two—and the stale cigarette smell that came from the plastic crate where every dumped their butts after a break. Hazard passed Somers a coffee.

  Here it comes, Somers thought. This was when Hazard would say it wasn’t working out, and he was going to ask Cravens for a transfer. And Somers wouldn’t blame him. Hell, it had been such a fucking kid’s dream anyway—the idea that he could make up for being a twisted little shit in high school. The idea that he could make up for the past at all.

  “You clean up pretty well,” Hazard said. “For a drunk, I mean. I wouldn’t have guessed. I didn’t see it yesterday.”

  “Uh, this is all kind of new. Hasn’t been going on that long. I know I need to get it together, and I want you to know I will—”

  “Let’s start over,” Hazard said. Those scarecrow eyes flashed to Somers and seemed to pin him in place. They were so intense, and in the morning light, they were full of golden fire. “I suck at this shit. At talking, I mean. But let’s just call it and start over, ok?”

  “Yeah. Ok.” Somers paused, trying to figure out how to ask the next question discretely, but he couldn’t. He settled for blurting it out: “Why?”

  “Because we’ve got a j
ob to do, and we can’t do it like this. Not the way we are.”

  “I want to tell you how sorry—”

  “No. You apologize, and I’m going to break your neck, ok? I don’t want apologies. We forget about that shit. We move on. All right?”

  Somers nodded, but deep down, he knew it wasn’t all right. The past stayed with you. The past was like poison, and it built up in you like poison, like lead in your tap water, until it killed you. It was all well and good for Hazard to say forget it, but Somers knew Hazard couldn’t forget—not with a letter carved into his chest. People couldn’t forget, not the really awful things. They carried the past with them, sharpened it like a knife, and when you weren’t looking, when you least suspected it, they cut your heart out. Hadn’t Cora taught Somers that?

  “Did you take out my trash?” Somers asked, the question dropping out of his mouth before he’d thought about it.

  To his surprise, Hazard looked away. “That place was a sty,” Hazard snapped. “So yeah, I took out your trash.”

  “Oh. Thanks. What happened to your hand?”

  “I fell,” Hazard said, his voice dropping dangerously low.

  “While you were taking out my trash?”

  “Somers?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You better drop it.”

  Somers nodded and grabbed the door. “One thing, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “This coffee sucks. You ever go to the—”

  “If you say that bakery that Grames owns, I might shoot you.”

  “Oh, Grames doesn’t own it. His mom sold it. But I was going to say the Caribou Coffee that’s up Market Street. You tried it?”

  “No.”

  “Tomorrow. On me.”

  Hazard just grunted.

  When they got back to their desks, Cravens opened her office door and called them in. Somers was unsurprised to see Ron McClinckie sitting in front of the desk. He still wore his uniform from the night before, and his thinning blond hair was dusted with soot.

  “You look like shit,” Hazard said.

  There was the old Hazard, Somers thought: all tact.

  McClinckie patted at his face, as though searching for whatever Hazard had seen, and said, “Feel like it too.”