“Er, well, more or less. I mean, we did take in the old archival copies once the Eagle went out of circulation, just for historical sake, but only the first decade was ever properly placed on microfiche. Is . . . is there a reason why you ask?”
I took out the slip of paper Tucker Pearlman gave me and rested it on the counter. “We need two issues. This one, and the one from the next day.”
He leaned in to read it, then sagged back in his wooden swivel chair. His hands gripped the chair’s arms, like it might launch into the air at any moment.
“I’m . . . I’m sure we don’t have that one anymore,” he said. “The archives aren’t perfect—I mean, there are gaps, years of gaps, even. Sorry I can’t help.”
Jessie shot me a look. I nodded. She rested her palms against the counter and leaned in.
“We’d like to look for ourselves. Just to be thorough. You understand.”
“D-do you have a warrant?” he stammered. “I mean, I just don’t want to get in trouble for not following protocol—”
“These are the public town archives, yes?” she asked.
“Well, yes—”
“Then do two things for us. First, walk us back there and show us where to find the Talbot Eagle archive. Second, get a dictionary and look up the word public.”
He led us back into the stacks—tight aisles overflowing with cardboard boxes and bundled-up folders, piles of loose paper and rows of magazine binders.
“How do you find anything back here?” Jessie asked.
He looked back over his shoulder and smiled nervously. “Oh, there’s—there’s a system, ma’am. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Ah, here we are.”
The Talbot Eagle archive consisted of twelve tub-size boxes of folded newspapers, with nearly illegible dates scrawled on each box in thick black Sharpie.
“As I said, it’s . . . not very organized, or complete. Still, you’re welcome to take a look for yourselves.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He didn’t move. He just stood there at the end of the aisle, watching us and wringing his hands.
“Thank you,” I repeated. This time he got the hint and doddered back to the front desk.
“That wasn’t suspicious or anything,” Jessie murmured.
“Agreed, but remember, last person through here was Tucker. Jerk probably bragged about how he was uncovering some big local scandal. That, followed by a visit from the FBI? Can’t be good for the nerves.”
“I still don’t like it,” Jessie said. She put her hands on her hips and stared down the wall of boxes. “So. You take one, I take one?”
We each pulled down a box, set it on the hardwood floor, crouched down and started hunting. The filing system was even worse than I’d feared. The dates on the boxes, at least the ones we could read, were more vague suggestions than firm commandments. The folded, faded papers mixed together with no rhyme or reason, stacked this way and that. The ink on the oldest papers had already faded to faint hints of words on yellowed, brittle pages—years of history abandoned to careless neglect.
“Kinda sad,” Jessie said. “You’d think they’d want to preserve this stuff. Small-town pride and all that.”
I lingered over a headline.
Kite Paper Mill Closes Its Doors
Below, a smudged black-and-white image of the factory on the waterfront, skeletal and lonely.
“Not always. Places like this . . . sometimes there’s a lot of pain buried just under the surface. Some people think it’s better to cover it up than to talk about it.”
“What do you think?”
I glanced up at her. She watched me from the other side of the aisle, her turquoise eyes bright and curious.
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I think. People hide the truth. We dig it up. That’s our job.”
Something annoyed me, like a fly buzzing near my ear. Not her question, and not the tedium of searching through faded byline after byline, something I just couldn’t put my finger on. I was halfway through the second box before I figured it out.
“Somebody’s messing with us,” I said.
“What, is it a day ending in the letter Y?”
“I’m serious.” I gestured toward her box. “Let me guess. The papers on top are all out of order and jumbled around, right?”
“So far, yeah.”
“Dig deeper. Go about halfway down.”
Jessie lifted out an armful of papers, stacking them on the floor, then resumed her search. She looked up a moment later, frowning.
“They’re in perfect order.”
I swept my arm out, gesturing to the stacked boxes.
“So have the last two I searched. I bet they all are,” I said. “This isn’t carelessness. Somebody pulled the boxes out and scrambled them on purpose, mixing fistfuls of back issues at random. It was a rush job, though. They mixed up only the top layers to make it look like they were hopelessly out of order.”
“Since most people would get just about that far before giving up,” Jessie said. “And since Tucker Pearlman didn’t have any trouble at all finding what he needed . . . ”
“It happened after his visit. Somebody found out what he’d dug up and went back to make it harder for anyone else to do the same.”
Jessie’s gaze turned slowly toward the front desk.
“Let’s go have a word,” she said, and cracked her knuckles.
The archivist swiveled in his chair as we walked up the stacks, forcing a big smile.
“So, uh, Agents, did you find what you were looking for?”
“No,” Jessie said, looming over him. “We didn’t, because some asshole went and sabotaged the filing system. Know anything about that?”
He held up his open hands, eyes going wide.
“Now, now, ladies, I told you the newspaper archives are very poorly maintained. I did warn you.”
I flanked his chair and slapped Tucker’s paper down on the desk under the palm of my hand, loud enough to make him jump.
“Do you remember yesterday?” I asked him.
“W-well, sure, of course, but what does—”
“So do we. Because we weren’t born yesterday. A reporter for the New Perspective came in here. He asked to see the stacks. Probably said some things you didn’t like. Such as, for example, bragging about a news piece he’s doing: Talbot Cove’s history and the Bogeyman abductions from the ’80s. Tell me if I’m warm.”
“He . . . he did, yes, that . . . that happened.”
“Spooked you, huh? And maybe you got to thinking, he might not be the only big-city reporter who’ll come breezing through town, looking for some dirt to toss on the Cove’s good name.”
“Reasonable,” Jessie said. “Nobody could blame you for that. You were trying to do the right thing.”
His head jerked between the two of us, neck swiveling, as if his attention was a ping-pong ball.
“Sure, sure,” I said, “nobody likes those guys. Muckrakers. They don’t understand small-town life. Me, I was born here. And I’m not writing any articles.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice cracking. “I had to protect myself. It would have been too obvious . . . ”
He bit his cheek and clammed up. I sighed and looked over at Jessie.
“What do you think he’ll get? Twenty years?”
“Oh,” Jessie said, catching my angle, “at least. He’s lucky Michigan abolished the death penalty.”
The archivist’s eyes bulged. “W-what? What are you talking about?”
“Obstruction of justice,” I said, “carries a maximum penalty equal to the actual crime itself. The obstruction, in this case, is that you’re willfully withholding critical evidence. The crime, in this case, is at least six counts of kidnapping. Six. Counts. Maybe more. You can go behind bars with a life sentence for just one count.”
“I say we run him in,” Jessie said. “We don’t need this guy. There’s nothing useful he can tell us.”
He
grabbed the lifeline, just like we knew he would.
“Hold on, hold on! I can! I can tell you where to find them. They’re not here—the articles, I mean.”
“We’re listening,” I told him.
He slumped back in his chair. Beads of sweat glistened on his wrinkled brow.
“When that . . . reporter left, I called the mayor immediately. He stormed in, frantic. I guess he didn’t realize we had that year in our archive. He demanded to see those two issues. And he left with them. He told me . . . he told me that if I said a word about it to anyone, I’d be fired or worse.”
“Or worse?” Jessie said.
He shrugged, helpless. “I don’t know what he meant, but he . . . I’ve never seen him that frightened.”
“And the scrambled papers?” I asked.
“That was me. The mayor made it sound like other people would be coming to look for the papers. I just thought, if I made it look like a hopeless search, they’d just give up and I wouldn’t have to lie when they found the gap in the records. I didn’t know it was evidence! Please, believe me, I was just trying to protect my job.”
Jessie and I locked eyes. We nodded simultaneously. I put my hand on the archivist’s shoulder.
“We believe you,” I said. “Now tell me just one more thing: Which way to the mayor’s office?”
TWENTY-ONE
Mayor Kite’s office was up on the second floor, just past a pair of curving staircases with alabaster rails. As we climbed up toward him, he stepped out of his office lugging a hefty, stuffed valise under one arm of his ill-fitting jacket.
“Mayor Kite,” I said as we approached, flashing my credentials. “Special Agents Temple and—”
That was as far as I got. He spun toward us, a look of horror plastered on his face, then he turned and ran.
He bolted down the hallway, faster than his heavy frame looked capable of, and grabbed a clerk on her way out of a side door. He shoved her to the ground, a living obstacle in our way, and kept running. She went down in a flurry of papers and open, spinning folders.
I took two seconds to make sure she was okay, and kept going. Jessie got ahead of me, her lips curling back in a frustrated snarl. Kite grabbed a rolling mail cart and shoved it backward as hard as he could, sending it rattling our way. It hit Jessie full-on, metal cracking against her kneecap, but she knocked it aside with a violent sweep of her arm and kept going.
Kite slammed against the fire exit door and barreled on through. A klaxon wailed, red emergency lights strobing in the stairwell. We followed him through, but he was already almost to the bottom, taking the steps two or three at a time, running like the devil was on his heels.
He should have been so lucky.
“Mayor Kite!” I shouted, rushing down the stairs just behind Jessie. “We just want to talk!”
He wasn’t in a talking mood. He tore through the lobby and out into the sunlight, climbing into a late-model BMW with a sheen of dried tree sap and gunning the engine. Jessie grabbed his door handle, but he threw the car into reverse and stomped the gas, peeling out of the parking lot.
“Fuck,” Jessie hissed, rubbing her fingers. “C’mon, let’s go!”
We jumped into the Crown Vic, and I mashed the gas pedal, clinging tight to the steering wheel as we spun out of the lot and onto the main road. I watched the redline, pushing the engine as hard as I could while we crept up on the mayor’s rear bumper.
He turned off the highway, leading us on a chase along a winding country road that slithered over a chain of forested hills.
“When we get close enough,” I said, “I’m going to PIT him. You cool with that?”
“Cool as a cucumber,” Jessie said, buckling her seat belt.
PIT stands for Precision Immobilization Technique, and it’s a hell of a lot safer—for you, the suspect, and any civilians within three hundred yards—than trying to shoot the tires of a fleeing car. Easier, too. It’s a controlled crash, where the chase car comes up and carefully bumps into the target from the back corner, then applies engine force. Do it right and the target’s wheels lose traction, they spin out, and you can force them to a more-or-less graceful stop. Or at least one where everybody survives.
We crested a hill, and down below I saw the narrow road straighten itself out. Taking him on a curve was too risky, but there was our chance, just ahead. Then something in the corner of my eye, something black and burning, flitted across the tops of the pine trees.
It slammed down onto the roof of the Crown Vic, shaking the car and making the shock absorbers groan. A fist, or something I thought was a fist, punched the roof hard enough to put a dent in the metal just over our heads.
“What the hell?” Jessie said. “Shake it!”
I held the wheel tight and swerved, veering from side to side, but whatever it was held on fast and punched the roof again.
I knew what it was. If I hadn’t guessed, the flood of foul magic washing over me like a skunk’s stench would have given it away. It was an aura of rot and ruin, like the taste of putrid flesh, and my stomach churned as I fought to control the car.
Nyx.
Jessie yelped as a face appeared in the passenger-side window, peering down from above. The incarnate demon didn’t bother pretending to be human, not on the hunt. She had a face like a desiccated corpse, but her flesh was rubbery black and her lips pulled back in a permanent, skeletal grin to show jutting, curling fangs. Pupil-less eyes of molten copper glared at us through the glass.
She burned. A thin sheen of flame, so blue it was almost black, rippled over her head and down the bony black chitin armoring her shoulders like a mane of burning hair. If it bothered her, she didn’t show it. She just reached out, curled a taloned fist, and punched through the window.
The safety glass shattered, spraying us with rounded chunks, and Jessie ducked as two-inch steel talons raked the air where her face had just been. She whipped her Glock out of its holster and fired two booming shots at point-blank range into the demon’s face.
My eardrums throbbed with pain, the aftermath of the shots echoing in a receding ocean wave, but I could still hear Nyx’s shrill scream. She pulled back out of sight, clinging to the roof, and I heard the scraping of her claws as she scrambled to my side of the car.
“Coming around!” Jessie shouted. I scrambled for a warding spell, a banishment, anything, but I couldn’t pay attention to the road and my magic at the same time.
“Take the wheel,” I said, and let go. Jessie lunged over, grabbing hold and keeping the car on the road, as I brought my hands up and locked my fingers in a ritual gesture.
Focus, I thought, and took a deep breath. I couldn’t care about the road, or the trees, or anything but the task at hand. One task. One focus. I thought back to my teenage years. Endless hours in my mother’s study, kneeling beside her at the family altar, learning our craft. Learning patience. Learning to be calm in the heart of a storm. Sometimes we would go down to the shore and meditate on the water. Watching it lap up against the sand for hours, graceful and smooth and silent.
“Water flows,” my mother told me. “It does not burn; it does not break. It adapts. There’s a river in your heart; in panic, in chaos, that’s where you’ll find serenity.”
Nyx dropped into sight on the other side of my window. The bullets had gouged two deep furrows in her skull-like face, drooling with black ichor, but they were already beginning to heal. Her gaze locked with mine. In my years with the Bureau I’d crossed paths with extremists, Klansmen, and even aspiring terrorists . . . but I’d never experienced the kind of hatred I saw in those burning eyes. It felt like a fire hose being turned on me, an utter torrent of loathing and rage without cause and without end. I let it flow. It washed over me without touching me. In my serenity, I could see Nyx—really see her.
She was born with this rage, I thought, this fury. She can’t be anything else. She’ll never know anything else. The waves of hatred hammered at me, trying to dig their hooks in, to tempt me to lash
out and respond in kind. I couldn’t.
“I feel . . . so sorry for you,” I whispered.
Nyx shrieked and pulled back her claws to strike. That’s when I exhaled a sharp gust of wind, carrying the spell I’d summoned to my lips and my fingertips. A word of banishment, a word of peace. Just a word.
Nyx lost her grip. She rolled backward, bounced off the trunk of the car and onto the country road, flailing. A five-foot barbed tail slashed like a bullwhip, gouging scorched furrows in the asphalt.
“Unless you’ve got something more powerful up your sleeve,” Jessie breathed, “do not stop driving.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice.
We’d lost Mayor Kite. Part of me wondered if that was the intention.
“Two possibilities,” I said once we’d caught our breaths and put a few more miles of road behind us. “Either we got on Nyx’s radar when we went poking around at town hall—”
“Or Kite’s the one who hired her, and he called her for a little emergency backup,” Jessie said, finishing my thought.
“Would she do that, though? Fontaine made it sound like these Chainmen are pretty big on the law—or what passes for it in hell, anyway. Is offering an on-call assassination service part of the employment package?”
Jessie slumped in her seat, exhausted. Cool, crisp air billowed in through what was left of her side window. She tried to roll it down, making little pieces plink and shudder loose.
“He also made it sound like Nyx was kind of murder happy,” Jessie said. “And you know what? I’m inclined to agree with his assessment. Either way, Kite’s involved in this. Neck-deep.”
“Agreed. He found out what Tucker was researching, flipped out, and pulled the articles. He doesn’t want anyone knowing that the Bogeyman gave a kid back. I mean, given his reaction, I think we can take ‘It was all a mistake on the newspaper’s part’ off the list of possibilities.”
“We should rush to Kite’s house. Maybe we’ll catch him packing a bag.”
I drummed my fingers on the wheel, thinking.
Harmony Black (Harmony Black Series Book 1) Page 14