by Gregory Ashe
Somers tried not to groan. He had woken this morning feeling fine—no major hangover, at least—but he felt a headache starting. He had gotten so drunk that Hazard had taken him home. Again. Hazard was going to start leaving him in the gutter. Somers steadied his grip on the coffee and marched into the bullpen. He was going to have to face his partner sooner or later. And anyway, if the worst thing that had happened last night was that he had a little too much to drink, well, Hazard would get over it—right?
“Morning,” Somers said, setting a paper cup on Hazard’s desk. “Caribou Coffee. Oh, and—” He fumbled the bag of donuts onto the desk too. “Breakfast.”
Hazard grunted and continued typing into his computer.
The trickle of worry inside Somers widened. Did it mean something that Hazard hadn’t looked up at him?
As though responding to Somers’s thoughts, Hazard glanced at him and then at the coffee. Was he—yes, he definitely was. Emery Hazard was blushing. Why?
“Thanks,” Hazard said. He took a sip of the coffee, and one dark eyebrow shot up. “Pretty good.”
“Better than Casey’s. And whatever crap they brew here.”
Hazard only nodded and turned his attention back to the computer. After another moment, Somers slid into his desk and powered on his computer. He knew they had a mountain of work to do: searching for information on Armistead, trying to corroborate Naomi’s claims about the missing Ozark Volunteer, looking into Lynn Fukuma, and checking back with the ME to see if he’d sobered up enough to give them more information on their victim.
Somers came out of his reverie and realized that Hazard was staring at him. Not an indirect, sidelong glance. A full-on stare.
“What?”
Hazard blushed. Again. Hot enough that it looked like it could melt his face right off. “Nothing.”
Then a scrap of memory hit, and Somers groaned again. “I didn’t, did I?”
Hazard turned even more red if that were possible. If you’d asked Somers a day before what Emery Hazard looked like when he blushed, Somers would have said it wasn’t possible. Hazard was built more or less on the same lines as a tank, and you couldn’t really imagine a tank blushing. But there it was.
“Come on,” Somers said. “You’ve got to tell me if I did.”
Hazard hesitated; Somers could see it in his eyes. He wanted to say something.
“I’ll pay for the dry cleaning,” Somers said.
Hazard flinched like someone had thrown cold water in his face. “What?”
“The dry cleaning. Come on, man. I’m a veteran drunk by now. I know that look. What’d I do? Throw up all over your favorite suit?”
“You—what?” The look of shock on Hazard’s face was almost comical.
“Just give me the receipt. I’m good for it. Or if you need me to buy you—”
“No. God, no. You didn’t puke on me.”
“Then what are all the funny looks for?”
“I just—I was wondering if you were feeling all right. After last night.”
It took a moment for Somers to respond. Hazard was a lot of things, but a good liar wasn’t one of them. And right then, he had just lied to Somers. Lied about why he was looking at Somers funny. And, Somers realized, lied implicitly about something else. Something that had happened last night? The unease in Somers deepened. Why would Hazard lie? And what was he covering up?
“Oh,” was what Somers finally managed to say. “Yeah. Fine. Cold shower, that stuff. You know.”
“Huh.”
There was an opening, right there, when Somers could have asked what was going on, but he let it slide. Hazard didn’t want to talk about it, and if Somers had learned anything about his partner over the last two days, it was that things had to happen on Hazard’s emotional timetable.
“You looking into Armistead already?” Somers asked.
Hazard seemed to visibly relax as the conversation shifted to work. He shook his head. “First report for Cravens. I thought I’d get a head start.”
“Nice. I’ll start digging on Armistead then and see what I can turn up. First, though, I’ve got a phone call to make.”
“Upchurch.”
Somers grinned. “See? You’re a grade A detective.”
“I’d have knocked out his teeth if he did that shit to me.”
“You’re also a meathead,” Somers said, feeling his smile widen. “Keep going on the report, and leave Upchurch to me.”
As Hazard went back to typing, Somers dialed Upchurch. The phone rang once before going to voicemail; Somers tried to keep his tone even as he said, “Hey, buddy. It’s me. I want to talk to you about yesterday. That meeting you set up. Lots of surprises. I wanted to thank you for that. Give me a call.”
Hazard had rolled up his sleeves and was bent over the computer, with the keyboard looking child-sized under his hands. As usual, Hazard was dressed in a tight-fitting button-up that showed off his massive shoulders and arms. He paused in his typing, biting his lower lip as he considered a fact or phrase, his attention fully focused on his work. A lock of his long, dark hair, which he had so carefully combed into order that morning, was already snaking out of place and threatening to tumble into his eyes.
“Stop staring at me,” Hazard grumbled, and then he went back to typing.
“You’re just too pretty. Those eyelashes—good God, man.”
Hazard only grunted and kept working, but he was blushing again.
One final wave of unease washed over Somers—had he pushed things too far? Should he not make jokes like that, especially since they weren’t entirely jokes?—and then he pushed it aside. He turned his attention to Armistead and began digging.
A search through the police database brought up relatively little. A better-quality copy of Armistead’s license appeared, which Somers printed, as well as a transcribed copy of the information: height, weight, and age, which matched the information Naomi had provided, as well as his eye color—blue—and his hair—brown, although clearly that was optimistic considering Armistead’s shiny scalp in the picture. Based on the limited information the ME had provided, along with what Hazard had informally inferred, Charles Armistead could have been their victim. That didn’t really mean much, though. About half of Wahredua could have been their victim.
What did mean something, though, was the vehicle registered under Armistead’s name. The record was from the previous year when Charles Armistead had registered a red 1997 Ford F-150 with two hundred and forty-three thousand miles on it. It sounded exactly like the old red pickup that Lady Mabbe had seen the devil driving. With a surge of exhilaration, Somers printed the information.
“I got something,” he said.
Hazard flicked him a quick look as he typed. “What?”
“Hold on. I’ll show you.”
Somers crossed the bullpen to the printer, collected the pages he’d printed about Armistead, and turned back. He stopped, though, because someone was seated at Hazard’s desk, talking to Somers’s partner.
It was the young man from the vandalism case the day before. Flores, Somers thought. Coppery skin, thick, wavy black hair, tall and built with the kind of slender musculature that you only ever saw on models and movie stars. As he had the last time Somers had seen him, today the young man was clearly dressed down: flip-flops, baggy gym shorts, and a tank-top that was so shredded it looked like it was hanging together mostly by hope. The clothes left a lot of smooth, perfect skin to appreciate, and from what Somers saw, Hazard was doing a hell of a lot of appreciating—and, at the same time, trying his hardest not to.
The struggle in the dark-haired detective’s face was comical, but Somers felt, to his own surprise, a moment of pity for his partner. It was easy to see why Hazard felt so attracted to the young man—Somers, who considered himself more or less straight, was nevertheless enjoying his eyeful. What Somers couldn’t figure out, though, was why Hazard looked so conflicted. Was it that cheating asshole back in St. Louis? What in the world was keep
ing Hazard with that kind of guy?
Watching the two men interact, Somers crossed to stand by them. As he reached them, he heard the young man say, “I just want to talk.”
At that moment, Hazard looked up at Somers, and the young man cut off. Hazard was trying his hardest for his normal, cool professionalism. It probably would have fooled most people, but Somers had known him too many years—and, more importantly, Somers had seen the range of Hazard’s self-control over the last few days. To Somers, Hazard looked like a man clutching at a fraying rope.
“Hey,” Somers said.
Hazard gestured to the young man. “You remember Nico.”
“Nico?”
“I mean, Mr. Flores. From the vandalism case on Monday.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember. You were pretty upset that day.” And, Somers added to himself, pretty goddamn aggressive when it came to pursuing Hazard. And now here Nico was, sitting next to Hazard in the bullpen and looking like he wouldn’t mind dragging the detective into the supply closet for a quick—and very unprofessional—frisking. “Is something wrong, Mr. Flores? Can we help you?”
“You can find whoever did that shit to Nico’s garage,” Nico said. He got to his feet. His deep, brown eyes settled on Hazard’s face. “Can I talk to you in private?”
Hazard cleared his throat. “I don’t think that would be—”
Nico spun to face Somers. “Would you give us a minute, please?”
“I’ve got some work to do. In fact, we both do. And that’s my desk right there. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to sit down and do my work. If you need something, we’re happy to help. If this is just a social call, though . . .” Somers let the sentence trail off. He waited another moment, but Nico said nothing, and then Somers moved to his desk and took his seat.
Somers made a show of typing on the computer and staring at the screen, but his attention was fixed on Nico Flores and Hazard. After another moment of painful silence, Nico bent and spoke to Hazard in a low voice. “I know you think I’m just trying to pick you up. I know I acted . . . pretty badly on Monday. I was pissed at Chendo. And you are fuckably cute.”
Somers coughed, and he fought back a grin as Hazard blushed.
With a sigh, Nico threw Somers the finger and kept talking. “I’m telling you I’m worried. I just want to talk to someone. I need to talk to someone. I’d like that person to be you.”
Hazard shook his head. “If you file a report—”
“Oh fuck that.” The words sounded exasperated more than angry. Nico stretched past Hazard, plucking a pen from the far side of the desk and managing, while doing so, to expose a tan, muscled eight-pack of abs as his shirt slid up. Hazard’s eyes slid automatically along the sculpted skin and then, to Somers’s surprise, Hazard’s gaze flashed up to Somers. Hazard didn’t look embarrassed. He looked guilty.
Somers sighed. He was going to have to explain to Hazard that he didn’t care if Hazard cheated on Billy. As far as Somers was concerned, Billy was bottom-of-the-drain scum, and the faster Hazard moved on—even to a hot kid like Nico—the better.
“Here,” Nico said, scribbling something on a piece of paper. “I’m going to be having dinner tonight, alone, but I’ll ask them to set two places. If you change your mind—” He folded the piece of paper and tucked it into Hazard’s shirt pocket—and, as he did, managed to get in a sizeable feel of Hazard’s chest. “You might think I’m being a little fuck-tease right now, but I’m serious. I need to talk. And you’re the only one I’m going to talk to.”
Without waiting for an answer, Nico strode away. His obvious sexual openness—and assertiveness—was counterbalanced, Somers saw, by a strikingly confident masculinity. Nico had the kind of effortless, rumpled college boy looks that worked well with gym shorts and flip-flops.
“Don’t say a fucking word,” Hazard growled. “Don’t even breathe?”
Somers laughed. “What did he want? Besides your ass, I mean.”
“You want to say that again?”
“Relax. I’m just joking.”
“He wasn’t—he didn’t—”
“For God’s sake, take a breath. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just giving you a hard time. You act like that’s never happened before.”
Hazard settled into his chair. His strong, slender fingers pinched the arms of the chair, and then he slowly let out a breath. “It’s a reaction,” he said. “Most guys aren’t teasing. Most guys are saying it to—well, you know why they say it.”
Somers shrugged. He didn’t say the next part—he knew if he said it, it would be meaningless because it would sound trite. But he hoped Hazard could read it in his body language and in his expression: I’m not most guys.
“He wanted to talk,” Hazard said after a moment had passed. “About Chendo Cervantes, the guy whose house got tagged.”
“What did he want to talk about?”
“I don’t know exactly. He said he was worried about him. He won’t answer the door, he keeps sending disturbing text messages. Stuff like that.”
“Does he think he’s suicidal?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know what to tell him, so I suggested a missing person report, but he said Chendo isn’t missing, he’s just locked up in his house.”
“This has something to do with the vandalism? Or does it have to do with the cheating? That’s what Nico told us, right? That Chendo was cheating on him. That’s why they had that big fight. That’s why Chendo was moving out of the house when we showed up.” That’s why, Somers added to himself, Nico Flores was looking at Hazard like he wanted to peel his clothes off with his teeth.
“I don’t know. It didn’t sound like it had anything to do with the vandalism.”
Somers waited.
After a moment, Hazard added, “But it might. I guess . . . I guess I should at least talk to him. See if it’s something we need to follow up on.”
“Yeah.”
Hazard threw a guarded look at Somers, but whatever he saw, it must not have been what he was expecting. He rolled his massive shoulders and said, “Just, a professional responsibility. You know?”
“That makes sense.”
“It’s not a date.”
“Yeah, I get it.” But what Somers wanted to say was, who the hell cares? Let it be a date. Get rid of that asshole back in St. Louis and go to town on the hot college boy that can’t get enough of you. He didn’t say that, though. He just tried his best to look supportive. “You want to see what I have on Armistead?”
Hazard nodded, and Somers laid out the information he’d found in the motor vehicle registry. When Somers had finished, Hazard nodded again and said, “Anything else?”
“Not in the databases.”
“She was telling the truth, at least, part of it. This guy was trying to be a ghost. Off-grid as much as possible.”
Somers thought about that. He knew that his shock at seeing Naomi, and her ability to put him off-balance, had forced Hazard to take the lead in their questioning. He also knew, from his conversation with Hazard at Saint Taffy’s, that Hazard thought Naomi had intentionally tried to misdirect Somers, to keep him from thinking too carefully about her answer. But that had only been partially true, and while Somers wasn’t as smart as Hazard—he knew that instinctively—he also knew that he had a better sense of people, and a better ability at dealing with them, than his partner.
“When you asked her about Armistead and social media,” Somers said, “did you get the sense that she was lying?”
Hazard nodded.
“Why would she lie about that?” Somers asked.
“Good question. Did you get the feeling she lied about anything else?”
“I get the feeling she would have lied about anything she thought she could get away with.”
“The second man. The one with Armistead—”
“Allegedly Armistead,” Hazard said.
“Right. But she said she was certain the second man wasn’t in the Volunteers. She was certai
n he was pretending to be a Volunteer. And she didn’t want to admit that Armistead would have recognized the deception.”
“Which part do you think is a lie?”
Somers shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if she knows she’s lying. I get the feeling she was trying to convince herself, more than anything else.”
“Convince herself that a Volunteer couldn’t be responsible?”
“Maybe. I think we should keep that possibility open, at least.”
“And the other possibility?”
“That Armistead was doing something that ran against what the Volunteers wanted. That he was out of line, in some way, and that’s why he was involved with someone that wasn’t actually a Volunteer.”
“Another group like the Volunteers?” Hazard frowned. “The swastika isn’t proprietary to the Volunteers; that would explain the tattoo. If Armistead were working with another white supremacist group, or even a splinter group of the Volunteers, that would explain Naomi’s answers.”
“And it would explain why Naomi wants to pin it on Fukuma. Naomi doesn’t want anything that looks bad for the Volunteers—no dissension in the ranks, no signs of weakness, none of that.” Somers sighed. “Christ, this is a mess. I’m going to dig around, see if I can find anything online. If she was lying about Armistead having a digital presence, I want to find out why.”
“I’ll start looking at Fukuma. We’ll need to talk to her, and I want to know something about her before we do.”
With decisions made, they turned to their respective machines and began working. Somers googled Armistead under the names Charles and Chuckie, and he was surprised at the number of results. Most of them, unfortunately, had to do with a scandal in the early 2000’s. A Connecticut podiatrist named Charles Armistead had been arrested after posting photographs of his patients to a foot-fetish website. Somehow, Somers doubted that the two Armisteads were connected.
Quick searches on Facebook and Twitter failed to turn up anything substantial either. Somers branched out to Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest, and even some of the defunct sites like Orkut and MySpace. Still nothing. Hazard, on the other hand, was typing briskly and making notes in his tiny chicken-scratch.