by Gregory Ashe
“And then?” Somers said.
“And then we rushed the march and gave those bastards what they deserved.”
That was how the protest had turned into a brawl, Hazard realized. Because this woman was determined to bring a full-scale war to Wahredua.
“Any confrontations with particular members of the Volunteers?” Somers asked. “Before or after?”
“None.”
“Any other public confrontations?”
“I speak at a number of venues and forums, detectives. I’m an intellectual. People understand my position. The Ozark Volunteers have known who I am and what I believe for a long time.”
“But nothing like the riot at the Ozark Volunteers’ march?”
“It was not a riot, Detective Somerset. It was a legitimate display of righteous force.”
“Aside from your righteous force, then?”
“No, nothing.”
“What was the name of the man whose nose you broke?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know who Charles Armistead is? He often went by the name Chuckie.”
Fukuma shook her head. “Never heard of him.”
“You haven’t had any personal interaction with him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know him. If we’ve crossed paths . . . I just don’t know.”
Hazard watched Fukuma’s face closely as Somers drew out a picture of Armistead. He noticed the flash of recognition: the dilation of pupils, the slightest intake of breath, the flush in her cheeks. She recognized Armistead and she hated him.
“And this man?” Somers asked. “Do you recognize him?”
“No.”
“Really?” Hazard said, leaning forward in his seat. “Take a closer look Dr. Fukuma.”
“I said, dog, that I don’t recognize him. I don’t need a closer look. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Dr. Fukuma,” Somers said, pausing. “Where were you the night of October 24 into the morning of October 25?”
“Monday night?” For the first time since they had met Fukuma, she looked genuinely startled. “Why?”
“Do you remember where you were?”
“Of course I remember. I was speaking at the Sporus Organization.” She shuffled through the papers on her desk. “They’re a non-profit that supports ethical forced castration—here.” She held out a page.
“Ethical forced castration?” Somers said.
“Too bad we already have a charity for the department fundraiser,” Hazard said.
“This is their schedule,” Fukuma said, waving the page at Somers. “You can see I was a keynote speaker. And here’s my badge. You can call the organizers to confirm I was there.”
“We’ll do that,” Somers said, taking the items and studying the page. “The convention was in Kansas?”
“Manhattan. Some of the faculty at Kansas State are doing really provocative research into the social benefits of gender neutralization.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Somers said. “Is there anything else we should know, Dr. Fukuma, about your encounters with the Ozark Volunteers? Anything that would explain today’s events?”
“They’ve known who I am for years,” Fukuma said. “They know what I stand for: their extinction and the extermination of the hetero/cis patriarchy that rules the U.S.”
“If they’ve known for years, what changed? Why did they attack today?”
“You want to know why a pack of dogs will lunge and attack. I don’t know. Ask a dog.” Her eyes moved to Hazard.
“I think that’s all I need to hear,” Hazard said. “Can we go?”
“You asked me about Chuckie Armistead,” Fukuma said, her words pitched towards Somers but her eyes never leaving Hazard. “Is he the one who died in the fire on Monday?”
“We don’t comment on ongoing investigations,” Somers said.
“Let’s hope for your sake it was.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Chuckie Armistead was the one behind all the assaults and vandalism in Wahredua. And I don’t mean he was the mastermind. I mean that pathetic little man was the one doing these things: spray-painting obscene words, vandalizing property, attacking those girls outside the Pretty Pretty.”
“Do you have any proof?” Somers asked. “Some of those cases have been outstanding for months. Why didn’t you come forward?”
“I have eyewitnesses. And no, detective, I’m not going to give them to you. They spoke to me confidentially. They spoke to me because they knew that the problem needed to be resolved outside of an oppressive and biased in-justice system.”
“Dr. Fukuma, are you telling me that these eyewitnesses confided in you because they assumed you would punish Chuckie Armistead?”
“What I’m telling you, Detective, is that you’re trying to solve the death of a man who deserves to rot in the public square. Chuckie Armistead is dead, and the world is a better place. Leave it at that.”
“I can’t breathe any more crazy for one day,” Hazard said in a low voice to Somers. “I’m getting some air.”
“That’s all we need for today, Dr. Fukuma,” Somers said. “We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.”
As they left the cramped office, Fukuma called after them, “Detective Somerset, be sure to give your dog plenty of exercise.”
Somers yanked the door shut so hard that the frame rattled. The two men left the Social Sciences building, and Hazard was grateful for the spill of sunshine and the sticky heat when they stepped outside. A breeze carried the smell of fresh-cut grass, and along one shady edge of the quad, sprinklers chirped happily, their mist wetting the sidewalk and sparkling in the sunlight. Everything seemed so normal in contrast to the dark, musty insanity of Fukuma’s office.
“Well?” Somers said.
“She might have done it. I’m not saying she did. But she might have.”
“She’s a lunatic. And I need a drink.”
“You need lunch. And a doctor.”
“You too, before you pop out of that t-shirt.”
Somers led them towards the car. Hazard closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on his face and wrestling, deep down, with Fukuma’s words. The things she had said—just a dog on a leash—rang dangerously close to true.
“Hey,” Somers said, poking Hazard in the arm. “Fuck her, right?”
“What?”
“What she said. Fuck her.”
But Hazard didn’t respond; he didn’t trust himself to say anything.
“You’re not taking her seriously, are you?” Somers poked him again. “That stuff she was saying about you, it was out of line. And dead wrong.”
“You mean I’m not a butch, unobjectionable gay? I’m not trying too hard to blend in? She’s right, Somers. I want to be part of the force.”
“Yeah. You want to be part of the force. That doesn’t mean you’re some repressed closet-case. Unless—” Somers screwed up his face. “Do you really want to be wearing a mini-skirt, heels, and a feather boa?” Hazard’s shock must have shown on his face because Somers laughed. “See?” Somers said. “You’re not hiding who you are. Everybody knows you’re gay. Everybody knows you have a boyfriend.”
“But—”
“And trust me on this part,” Somers said as he opened the Impala’s door. “Or, if you want, you can ask Cravens. You are, hands down, the most objectionable detective on our force.” Then Somers grinned like a neutron star and dropped into his seat.
“Uh, thanks,” Hazard said as he climbed into the car. “I guess.”
THEY PICKED UP SANDWICHES at the Wahredua Family Bakery. Hazard felt a tingle of apprehension as they stepped through the door; the bell jingled overhead, and the smell of rising dough and freshly-baked bread and cinnamon swept over him in a rush. Fifteen years ago, this would have been trespassing of the highest order. Fifteen years ago, this would have gotten Hazard a broken nose at the least. Daring to step on holy ground, Mikey Grames’s sanc
tuary, carried a steep penalty.
“This place is awesome,” Somers said. “Totally turned around in the last few years, and it’s the best place to get a sandwich.”
Hazard didn’t answer. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the shelves full of specialty breads, the cases holding cookies and muffins and an enormous five-layer carrot cake and what looked like a hundred other desserts. A pair of old women, each of them carrying a marble rye and each of them looking like the bread weighed as much as she did, tottered around the displays, clucking to each other, but otherwise, Somers and Hazard were the only customers. Hazard’s gaze moved instinctively to the counter, expecting to see one of the many members of the Grames brood working there, and instead, he found a sunny-faced young woman wearing earrings the size of hula hoops.
“What can I get you?” she asked. “Oh, hi, Detective Somerset. Didn’t see you come in.”
“You know what I want, Mary Anne,” Somers said, smiling as he leaned on the counter-case. “This is my partner, Detective Hazard.”
“Oh,” Mary Anne said, and she blushed scarlet. “Nice to meet you, Detective.”
“Hazard will have the—” Somers hummed under his breath as he scanned the menu. “Same thing.”
“Hold on,” Hazard said. “I want—”
“Trust me.”
A few minutes later, they were back in the car, driving towards the hospital. Somers had already unwrapped his sandwich and started eating. Hazard peeled back the butcher paper and examined what Somers had—unasked for—ordered for him.
“I don’t like horseradish.”
“Just try it.”
“Or roast beef.”
“Just try it.”
“And what kind of cheddar—”
“For the love of God, will you take one bite?” Somers emphasized the statement by tearing another chunk from his sandwich.
Gingerly, Hazard raised the sandwich and took a bite.
“Well?” Somers said.
Hazard didn’t answer. He didn’t like horseradish. He didn’t really like roast beef. And the cheddar looked like it had come from a block of store-brand cheese. But—but the sandwich was incredible. The bread was soft, with a slight firmness in the crust. The flavors of the meat and cheese and the horseradish—not too strong—mingled perfectly.
“Well?” Somers insisted.
“It’s fine.”
“Bullshit.”
“All right,” Hazard said, “it’s pretty good.”
“It’s the best damn sandwich of your life.”
“I didn’t say—”
“It’s the best damn sandwich of your life,” Somers repeated. “And you’re welcome.”
Hazard rolled his eyes. But he did take another bite of the sandwich. “So,” he said. “That place doesn’t belong to the Grames anymore.”
“No, thank God. Mikey’s mom just about ran it into the ground. I heard she was taking the money out of the till and putting it straight into her pocket. Wasn’t paying vendors, wasn’t paying taxes. Just about as crooked as Mikey. I guess that’s where he got it from.”
“You ever see him?”
“Mikey?”
Somers chewed for a while longer. Tension began to build in Hazard’s stomach; he no longer felt hungry, and he rewrapped the sandwich. This was why he had come back to Wahredua, in part: because of Mikey Grames and Hugo Perry and John-Henry Somerset. Because Jeff Langham had put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger and Emery Hazard, almost twenty years later, felt an old, familiar helplessness that he’d never been able to shake. Now that Somers had given Hazard the perfect opportunity to bring up the past, Hazard wasn’t going to waste it.
After a few more minutes, Somers blew out a breath and threw his sandwich in his lap. “Look, I know I fucked up a lot in the past. I know I tried to apologize earlier, but here I go again: I’m really sorry.”
“Somers—”
“No, let me finish this time.” Somers breathed again. “What happened that day in the locker room—”
“No.” The word exploded out of Hazard before he could stop it. “We’re not talking about that.”
“I think we should. We never talked about it. We never even acknowledged it happened.”
“Of course we acknowledged it,” Hazard shouted, unable to control the pitch and intensity of his voice. “You pushed me down a fucking flight of stairs.”
A minute of strained silence passed between them.
“Emery,” Somers began.
“If you say another word, we’re done. I’ll walk away from this.” Hazard’s hands were shaking; he clasped his knees to steady them. “Somers, we’re done with the past. You’re a good guy now. I like this John-Henry, the one I’m partners with. I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d hate your guts. But I do like you. I want to work with you. I want to solve this case. That’s enough.”
On Somers’s face, for less than a heartbeat, a deep, internal struggle played itself out. Then it vanished, and Somers’s smiled his normal frat-boy smile. “So,” he said, drawing out the word. “You like me?”
“God, you’re a fucking moron.”
Somers grabbed his sandwich and took another bite. Speaking as he chewed, he said, “You really want to know about Grames, huh?”
“I saw him. At the Casey’s. He looked . . .” Hazard trailed off, trying to find a polite way to describe the man.
“Like a strung-out white-trash addict? Like a guy who’s been to prison more times than he has changes of underwear? Like a nice, shitty ending for a pretty shitty human being?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, you can pretty much guess his story.”
“Drugs?”
“I think speed is his flavor. He’s lucky if he still has anything teeth; last time I saw him, they were dropping out of his mouth like dead flies.” Somers’s hands tightened on the wheel. “I avoid that Casey’s, if you hadn’t guessed, so I haven’t seen him in a while. And if you want to know about Hugo, well, he’s dead.”
“Huh?”
“Hugo Perry. He’s dead. Got himself hit by a train on the MP lines. His car was sitting on the tracks, with him in it, and a train came along. Pieces of him and the car for fifty miles.”
“He was drinking.”
“Who knows. He was an idiot.” Somers shifted in his seat and fixed Hazard with a surprisingly penetrating stare. “What’s this all about? Are you planning on settling something?”
“No.”
“A lot’s changed in fifteen years. You could probably take Mikey Grames apart with one hand tied behind your back. You’re a cop, too, so you could do it and nobody would blink. Just say he was resisting arrest.”
“Is that who you think I am?”
“No. It isn’t. But I’m trying to figure out your angle. Did he do something when you saw him in that Casey’s? Did he recognize you? Say something? Take a swing?”
“Jesus, don’t be melodramatic. He was so wiped I don’t even think he’d have recognized his mother.”
“But you recognized him.”
After a moment, Hazard nodded.
“You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?” Somers said. “Because if you are, I’m your partner, and you’ve at least got to let me try to talk you out of it. And if I can’t talk you out of it, you have to let me help.”
“I’m not going to do anything.”
But that was a lie. Of the three people who had last been seen with Jeff Langham—while he was alive, that was—one was dead. With Hugo Perry out of the picture, that left only two remaining witnesses of what had happened in the hours before Jeff’s death: Mikey Grames, and John-Henry Somerset. Hazard wasn’t willing to risk a confrontation with Somers, not yet, not without more information. But he didn’t have any qualms about tracking down Mikey Grames. And, to borrow a phrase from Somers, Hazard wouldn’t mind taking the old bully apart piece by piece.
SOMERS FELT A KIND OF WEARY dizziness as he parked the Impala outsi
de Wahredua Regional Hospital. It had already been a long day: their research at the station, followed by the adrenaline-fueled rush to the college, and then their encounter with the Volunteers. Somers’s part in that encounter had left him with a stunning headache and a creepy-crawl shame that made him want to curl up in the Impala’s backseat with a forty.
But the day hadn’t ended there; it had just gone on and on. The interview with Fukuma had been bad—it had hurt Somers, in a way that shocked him, to see how Fukuma’s words had cut Hazard—and they hadn’t gotten anything useful from the women except an alibi and a string of accusations against the man who was, most likely, the victim of a murder. And then, to top it all off, Hazard had come out of the blue with questions about Mikey Grames.
What Somers wanted to do—if curling up with a forty in the backseat wasn’t an option—was talk. Not just about the locker room, although he’d been wanting to talk about that with someone, anyone, for almost fifteen years. He wanted to talk about all of it. About the name-calling and the shoving and the sneers. About the time he had held Hazard’s arms while Mikey cut on him. About pushing Hazard down the stairs—why the fuck had he thought it was such a brilliant idea at the time? But Emery Hazard might as well have been God’s own Fort Knox, and getting anything out of that man was close to impossible.
“You coming?” Hazard asked as he popped open the Impala’s door.
“Yeah.”
Wahredua Regional didn’t really look like a hospital. With its vast sprawl of multi-colored wings and additions—the color palette was a mixture of brown, mustard, and a hazardous orange—it most closely resembled a toddler’s first round with Lincoln Logs—if, that were, the toddler finished the project by throwing up all over everything. Somers hated the place on general principle, and its appearance didn’t help.
They were attended quickly and placed into adjacent rooms. Somers bounced his heels off the examination table as he waited. From the next room, where Hazard was, came low voices punctuated at the end by a furious growl from Hazard. A moment later, a young male tech practically flew out of the room, looking like he’d come close to having his hand bitten off. Good old Hazard.