by Rob Cornell
I gyrated my pelvis into Autumn’s hand, growing manic, clawing at her t-shirt, tugging it up off her waist, sliding my hand over her skin, feeling every ridge of her spine, down to her panties, then underneath, slipping around to the front, reaching with a need that unraveled the last thread of my self-control.
My touch acted like a trigger for the both of us. She yanked off my boxers while I tore at her panties, thinking I could get them off with one tug, only the elastic band wouldn’t rip.
Autumn’s mouth laughed against mine. “Nice try, cowboy.”
“Works in the movies.”
“This is quality underwear you’re dealing with. Not some cheap movie prop.” She rocked away from me, threw her legs in the air, and slipped her panties up and off.
I dove on top of her and yanked off her t-shirt. We laughed, and touched, and rubbed our naked bodies against each other. The whole time my body screamed as if from two mouths—one of need, the other of pain.
The need screamed loudest.
When I slid inside Autumn, everything else drifted away.
The world seemed to right itself, and for the rest of the night, until dawn colored the light in the room a pale orange, I felt like I belonged.
I should have known better.
I slept for a couple hours and spent another hour staring at the ceiling and listening to Autumn’s breathing.
Gently, I slid my arm out from under her and eased out of bed. I picked my clothes up off the floor and carried them into the front room before putting them on. Through the window the sky showed mostly blue with thin strips of white clouds, promising clear weather. It was a good day to track down a fellow high school alum and see what kind of trouble she was into.
First, I needed a breath of fresh air.
I went out onto the back deck accessible through the kitchen. The morning air was chilly and a little wet, but the sun coming up over the lake added enough warmth to make it bearable. I stood at the railing and stared into the glittering water. My mind crawled over the events of the last few days, lingering on the night before with Autumn. I sucked deep of the cold air, and for a second felt content.
Then my bruised face started hurting.
That lead to a worming in my stomach as I thought about what we had done. It shouldn’t have happened. Autumn had hired me as a detective, and… Who was I kidding? It wasn’t a lack of professionalism that bothered me. What I’d said to her last night was true—outside of this cabin reality sat waiting to slap the smug smile right off my face.
I’d fucked the wife of a murdered man.
What did that say about me?
The view ruined, I went back inside and found Autumn in the kitchen rummaging through cupboards.
“I don’t know why I’m bothering to look. Even if I found coffee, there’s no coffee maker.”
“Might be one in the front closet,” I said, watching her search through a stack of canned vegetables and soup with yellowed labels.
“Would you drink some or should I quit wasting my time?”
“I have to get going.”
She slapped the cupboard shut. “Where?”
“Find Dixie,” I said, tugging on my right shoe.
“Do you have to go now?”
I slipped into my left shoe. My words came out sharper than I intended. “You’re still a murder suspect, remember?”
“I remember.”
I felt like something was slipping out of my grasp. It fed the edge in my voice. “What happened last night doesn’t change that we’re both in deep shit.”
“I never said it did.”
“Good.” I picked my jacket up off the loveseat where I’d tossed it last night. While shrugging into it, I said, “Remember what I said about reality.”
She looked down at her hands, started picking at her nails. “I get it already.”
I left the cabin feeling justified and like a complete asshole at the same time.
I stopped home first and noticed the unmarked car across the street and down a ways, two shadows sitting inside. Tom and Palmer, I presumed. I smirked to myself, knowing they probably wondered where I had been all night. I’d have to stay careful, though. The only reason Tom probably hadn’t figured out a way to put me in a cell was because he expected me to lead him to Autumn.
I had to clear this up fast.
I showered and changed, finally giving the damage to my face the attention it deserved with Neosporin and a couple of Band-Aids. The shiners weren’t too bad, though between those and the saucer-sized bruises on my torso, I looked like a cross between Herman Munster and a Rorschach inkblot.
Feeling a little more refreshed, I sat down at my computer and did some web-searching. I checked the state’s correction website, typing in Dixie’s real name, Samirah Jawhar. I came up with two hits and cracked a grin checking out the more recent. Looked like Ms. Jawhar was on parole. I clicked into the record and learned her latest encounter with the Michigan corrections system came about due to an auto theft and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.
Bad girl.
After clicking on the link to get information about her parole office, I went back and checked out the earliest charge listed. Home invasion. Weapons felony. Assault with a weapon. This was what Autumn had told me about.
The more I thought about her as Doug’s killer, the more right it felt. The timing might have been off, but her second trip to prison could have delayed her revenge plans. Or maybe she had let the frustration build until she couldn’t take it anymore and blamed all her problems with the law on the girl who had helped put her away the first time.
I used the info I’d pulled off the net to call Dixie’s parole officer and find out where she was hanging out these days.
I found Dixie in the sort of place I expected, a trailer park on the south side. While I’d taken care to lose my tail on the way, I wondered if Tom had put two and two together and already checked on Dixie. Frankly, I didn’t know what my old friend was thinking anymore.
The trailer park wasn’t a complete dump. A number of the units had some meager landscaping in their meager yards, adding character to an otherwise mundane living space. And most of the yards looked well maintained.
Dixie’s trailer sat just off center of the park and blended well with those around it. She had curtains in the windows, flower beds on either side of the door, and even a couple of those gnome statues peeking out from between the shrubbery.
Maybe the park had a groundskeeper that cared for the yards. The place seemed a little too homey for Dixie.
When I knocked, a shirtless man with all manner of tattoos writhing along his toned arms answered the door in a tank top. He had a sharp, angular face with somewhat feminine eyes. His complexion was almost as dark as the tattoo ink. Before I even opened my mouth, the guy looked like he wanted to kick my ass.
“What?” he asked.
I gave him a bright salesman smile. Maybe not the best strategy, but I knew my own limitations. I didn’t think intimidation would work here.
“Hi. My name’s—”
“I don’t care.”
He started to swing the door shut. I got bold and held it open. That won me the Glare of Death. I held my smile as if it had been Botoxed in place.
“I’m looking for Dixie,” I said.
His expression changed. He looked sick to his stomach, and didn’t move or say anything.
“Samirah Jawhar,” I added.
“I know who you’re talking about.” He opened the door and flexed his muscles, making all that ink on his arms undulate. “Dixie’s dead. Go home.”
I almost laughed. “Recently? ‘Cause I just talked to her parole officer and she said—”
“Do I know you?”
I tripped over my words, stopped. I looked in his eyes and had to admit he looked familiar. “You graduate from Hawthorne High?”
“Holy fucking shit.” A smirk quirked up one corner of his mouth. “Brone?”
I stared even h
arder at his face, struggling to find a name in my cluttered mind. I couldn’t place him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
I sputtered, no clue how to respond.
His smiled widened. “You can’t figure it out, can you?”
I shook my head.
He rolled his eyes. “My PO is a real trip. She didn’t tell you, huh?”
What the hell was this guy talking… The eyes. The feminine eyes that somehow looked familiar. I nearly choked when I figured it out.
“No way.”
He laughed. “There it is.”
“Dixie?” I said, voice breathy with disbelief. “You’re—”
“A dude,” he/she said. “And stop fucking calling me Dixie before I have to kill you.”
I felt dizzy a second. I had a hard time connecting this man with the girl I knew in high school—the girl I had made out with in the back of a stranger’s car.
“Close your mouth,” he said.
I did. That didn’t keep me from saying something stupid. “So you’re a man now.”
“Were you this slow in high school?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the very male torso in front of me. “You look… convincing.”
“You should see what the doc’s done with my plumbing. It’s not finished, but I’m getting there.”
“You mean you have a …”
“Not quite yet. Basically, they’re turning my clit into a dick, if you can believe it.”
I looked down at one of the flower beds flanking the door to hide any repulsion that might have showed on my face.
“Sorry. Too much information, huh?”
There was something in the cadence of his words that, like his eyes, held a hint of the girl he used to be. “I don’t know what to say.”
He/she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “The last person I ever expected to see again was you.” He narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t you move away?”
For a second I was surprised he knew anything about me until I realized Autumn might have talked about me with her…or him. This was going to take some getting used to.
“I moved back,” I said.
He shook his head. “You almost look exactly the same as you did in fucking high school.”
“Obviously, I can’t say the same about you.”
He laughed, but didn’t really sound amused. His stare hardened with each passing second, as if he was realizing something.
“What do you want?”
Before I could answer, a woman’s voice bellowed from inside the trailer. “Who is it?”
Dixie, or Samirah, or whoever she/he was now, looked over his shoulder and made a face. “Calm down.”
The woman stepped into view. Her t-shirt read “Bite Me” in red block letters, and her expression mirrored the sentiment. Something brownish in a spatter pattern stained the baggy sweatpants she wore. A distinct ripe scent wafted through the doorway at her presence.
She scowled out at me. “You an old boyfriend?”
Dixie stroked the woman’s arm with the back of his/her hand. “Easy, hon. Go drink another for me, okay?”
“He’s taken,” the girl said to me. “So fuck off.”
“Yes, hon, he knows,” Dixie said and kissed the woman on the neck, then gave her a shove back into the trailer. Dixie turned back to me and shrugged. “She just lost her job. She’s usually not so… Who am I kidding? She’s a slob, but I love her.”
A few more synapses in my brain fried out. It took me a second to reroute my thoughts to form a half-coherent sentence. “So you’re with a woman now.”
“I’m not a fag, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, then smirked. “Why? Interested?”
I tried to keep cool, remain an adult. Did it really matter that Dixie was a guy now?
“I need to ask you some questions, Samirah.”
“Fuck, Brone, you can’t call me by a girl’s name.”
I tossed up my hands. “Throw me a bone, would you?”
“Sorry. You’re the first person I knew as a chick I’ve seen since the switch. Call me Sam.”
“Sam. Not too drastic.”
The sound of mariachi music echoed against the metals walls of the surrounding trailers. Shouts in Spanish tore out from the open windows of a neighboring home.
“What did you say about questions?” Dixie/Sam asked.
“You sound like you’re doing real good.”
“Got my girl. Got a job I can stand—and have to go to in a bit.” He cocked his head. “You didn’t go cop on me did you?”
“Why would you say that?”
“This question stuff.”
“I’m not a cop. I’m doing a friend a favor.”
“You’re not doing any friend a favor coming here and calling me Dixie. Now you know the situation, you should just leave here remembering old times. I’m not answering any questions.”
Right when I thought this might be easy.
“Just a few minutes of your time. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Trouble hangs on me like sweat. You know that.”
“I thought maybe you got your shit together.”
“That’s why I’m not taking any chances.” He flexed his neck. “You gotta stop thinking about how I used to be a girl. I’m all man now, and I will fuck you up you don’t walk away.”
“It’s important.”
“And your life isn’t?”
“You’re not going to violate your parole.”
Sam made a show of looking both ways. “Who’s going to tell?”
He probably had a gun parked somewhere close by. Man or woman, I remembered Sam well enough when he was Dixie to know he’d have no problem fucking me up.
I held up my hands in a placating gesture. I started to turn, but a nagging part of me wouldn’t let it go until I’d tried one more time.
Lowering my hands, I said, “Remember Autumn Rice?”
His face flushed. “Get the fuck away from here.” He slammed the door, the trailer’s metal siding rattling from the force.
He’d chosen to shut me out rather than throttle me. This told me he’d rather not violate parole, no matter his big talk. One thing most ex-con’s had in common was a firm desire to stay out of a cell.
I strolled back to my car, fleshing out a plan to force some answers out of Sam now that I knew what button to push.
Chapter 12
Thirty minutes later, I cruised two cars behind Dixie/Sam on his/her way to work. He drove a junked Reliant with little more than rust keeping the thing together. A bumper sticker on back reminded those following to get their cats spayed or neutered. Probably came with the car when he got it. Sam didn’t seem like a cat person.
I still struggled with the sex change. You don’t assimilate such information in an hour’s time. I kept getting my pronouns confused, and marveled at her/his masculine physique.
I needed to work out more.
Only a few miles from the trailer park, Sam turned into a diner parking lot. I sailed past, taking a quick look to see if he was parking or pulling through. When I saw the Reliant turn into a parking space, I made the next right and circled the block. By the time I’d reached the parking lot again, Sam was inside.
I waited in the lot for fifteen minutes, listening to Mozart’s requiem on the BMW’s stereo. Then I pulled my gun out of the glove box and strapped it on—for looks, not because I thought I’d use it. I pulled on my windbreaker, climbed out of the car, and strolled into the restaurant.
I asked the hostess to see the manager. While she went to fetch him, I made sure my windbreaker hung open and showed off the strap of my holster.
The diner was one of a chain, all designed to look the same once you stepped inside. A glass case filled with pies and Jell-O rotating inside stood by the cash counter. The banana cream looked a little too yellow.
I peered past the counter and into the kitchen, but I didn’t see any sign of Sam. Odds were they had him washing dishe
s, maybe cooking. Jobs that didn’t involve handling money.
A couple seconds later a portly black man came out sporting a tie and a plastic name badge. He hesitated a second, giving me the once over, before offering his managerial smile and coming over to greet me.
On his way, his gaze dipped twice to my holstered Sig Sauer.
He offered a hand to shake. “Can I help you, officer?”
Now, I never said I was a cop, so no law had been broken. Maybe I hadn’t heard him say “officer.” Oops.
“I’m looking for someone I think works here.”
His face tensed. “No trouble, I hope.”
“Hope,” I said, pausing dramatically, the buzz of conversation and clink of silverware filling the gap. “Good idea.”
The lines in his face deepened along pathways that looked accustomed to worry. I bet the guy went through half a bottle of Tums in a day. It was a noble but weary man that hired ex-cons.
“May I speak with Sam Jawhar?”
The manager looked genuinely surprised. “Sammy? You sure?”
I tucked back my own surprise and stuck to the script. “Afraid so.”
The manager sighed, shoulders sagging. “Please tell me I ain’t gonna lose another one of my cooks.” He cocked his head back and opened his mouth wide as if he intended to shout for him. He caught himself and smiled at me. “I’ll go and get him. You want a coffee or something? Donut?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling bad for shaking up a guy who probably worked hard and got paid in stomach ulcers. But I wanted him to look worried when he talked to Sam. That, in turn, might worry Sam enough to answer my questions.
The manager guided me to a small booth, then headed back into the kitchen.
Even with his dark complexion, Sam looked a little pale coming out of the back, the manager hanging by his side and a step behind as if escorting a prisoner. When Sam spotted me, though, a little color came back to his face.
“You sit here and talk to this nice man,” the manager said when they reached my table. To me he said, “Jenna will be right out in a sec with your coffee and donut.” He waited until Sam took a seat across from me before leaving.