A Black Deeper Than Death (Miki Radicci Book 1)

by M. E. Purfield

  Or not.

  “What’s up with you?” Corey asks from the couch as he watches television.

  Grandpa stands at the stove, frying sausages and boiling sauce. He wears his wife beater T-shirt that shows off the dark hair on his shoulders and his gray work pants. “There’s my bambina.”

  I wipe the tears off my cheeks. “You’re here. You’re okay?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Corey says, looking at me like I’m high. And maybe I am.

  Grandpa steps closer and inspects my eyes. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? You been crying?”

  “What? Oh, no. It’s the wind. Was blowing right into my eyes.”

  He sniffs. I know he knows I’ve been drinking. He sighs, defeated. For the last year he’s been trying to get me to stop. Up until recently he learned that the only person who can make me stop is myself. But I don’t care about that now.

  “I’ll be right back.” I walk into my bedroom and close the door. I take off my jacket and sit on the bed. I don’t know whether to be glad or pissed. Grandpa and Corey are alive, but the killer knows a lot about my life. They know how to make me suffer.

  The cell phone vibrates in my pocket. I pick it up and the screen tells me I have a message. I dial into voicemail and play the single message on it. No one says anything, but there’s that raspy giggle for about thirty seconds.

  I close the phone and realize that forgetting this murder is going to be a lot harder than I thought.

  NOTHING MUCH TO DO

  I’m back in the little interrogation room at the 1st Precinct. This time I’m not in cuffs or under suspicion. Detectives Sampson and Hersh sit on the other side of the table with the two-way mirror at their backs. I tell them about the killer calling me at the park and then play the message. After the raspy giggle, I close the phone and say, “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Hersh crosses his arms over his belly. I can read the boredom on his condescending face. “It sounds like a prank phone call.”

  “It’s not a prank call. It’s the killer.”

  “How do you know? They didn’t say they were.”

  “Oh, my God. What? Do you expect them to say, ‘Hi, it’s me the killer. I’m going to laugh now on your voice mail so the fucking cops know who I am.’ Is that what you want to hear? I know it’s the killer because he laughed the same way in the message as he did when I talked to him at the park just before that.”

  Hersh shakes his head and grins.

  Sampson leans forward and places his steady palms down on the table. “Okay, first off,” he says, “How does the killer know who you are? Your name was not mentioned to the press as a witness or a suspect.”

  “I know. But there were people taking pictures that night, or maybe they saw me and recognized me. I don’t know how? Don’t these psychos return to the scene of the crime or something?”

  “Or maybe one of your art fag friends is playing a joke on you. Or maybe you’re trying to make a fool out of me like you did to my partner yesterday,” Hersh says. “I think she’s full of shit like she was full of shit telling you that psychic telepathy story.”

  I feel my face redden with anger. Sampson’s blushes with embarrassment. I so can’t believe he told a bullhead like Hersh about my ability.

  Hersh stands up. “You need to go home and paint up some crap to sell for six figures and then go to bed. Huh, little girl?”

  After Hersh leaves the room, I turn to Sampson and say, “He’s a dillweed.”

  “That may be so, but we still have no reason to put you in protective custody. Has there been a physical threat on your life?”

  “He said he wants to gut me. Does that count?”

  “Yes, but it’s still not enough. Anything else?”

  I sigh. “Yeah, he said that he knows me. I’ve been thinking, what if he knows about my thing.”

  “You being a psychic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, who else knows that?”

  “My grandfather, Corey, Sharon, my parents, and my Uncle Tony.”

  “The uncle in jail?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What’s your relationship like with your parents?”

  I shake my head. “No. No way. We haven’t spoke in over a year. It couldn’t be them. I don’t even know where they live.”

  “Hear me out. What if your grandfather talked to them and told them about what happened to you. Maybe they still have a lot of unresolved anger and want to scare you.”

  “If they wanted to scare me they would move in with me,” I say. “Trust me, it’s not my parents. They’re grifters. They love to con people and be sneaky about it. They pride themselves on the game. Something like this is way too loud for them.”

  “Petty thieves for parents and an uncle in prison. You sure have an interesting family, Ms. Radicci. Is it just you or do you have any siblings?”

  “Just me.” I sigh. “So can you help me or not?”

  Sampson’s eyes inspect mine. He nods and says, “Okay.” He takes out his pad and pen and pushes it across the table. “Write down your cell phone. I’m going to check your records and see if I can trace the number.”

  “You need me to sign something for that?” I write down my cell number.

  “Yeah, actually, I do. It will be easier than getting a judge to sign it.”

  “So what do I do until then?” I ask, passing him the pad back.

  “You got my number, call me if anything happens. I’ll have them patrol around your building more often.”

  I shake my head, not too reassured.

  LATE NIGHT SILVERFISH

  Grandpa and Corey are sleeping, the silent television behind me plays late night music videos, and there’s no traffic honking or humming outside. Just the gentle gurgle of hot water running through the radiator pipes and the wet scratching of my brush moving over the canvas breaks the silence.

  I add color to my portrait of the killer, working my way to the edges and revealing more of the shadowed evil face in the background. I wish that I had details of the killer’s face but that damn hat shadows him out. After that, I focus on the strange shape on the killer’s wrist. I try to conjure a strong image in my head so that my hand can translate the shade and texture perfectly. What’s so hard about this process is trying not to mix memory with creativity. I want the shapes on the wrist to come out the way I saw them, not as I think they should be. Is the object that shade of black, or more of a darker gray?

  I hear shuffling slippers from behind and turn to Corey. He stops at my side and scratches his bare stomach under his bony chest. In his other hand he holds a glass of water.

  “Aren’t you worried you’ll wet the bed?” I ask.

  “Aren’t you worried about getting bags under your eyes?” he says. “Oops. Too late.”

  I shake my head and go back to mixing a color on my palette.

  “You feeling any better?” he asks.

  I shrug.

  “You look like shit. You know I can understand not telling your grandfather what’s wrong, but not me. After all I am your BFF of all BFFs. True, I can’t compete with the rank taste of a whisky bottle, but still.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “C’mon, Miki. Spill it.”

  I take a deep breath and work on painting the killer’s jacket. I tell him about the phone call at the park, the threats, and what the police are doing. When I finish, I place the palette and brush down. “So yeah, I’m a little tense.”

  “Jesus,” he says.

  “Yeah. Jesus.”

  He hands me the glass of water. “Think you need a drink.”

  I smile. He’s right, but I could use something stronger than water. I take the glass and sip it anyway.

  “You think we’re in any danger?” he asks.

  “No. Not you or grandpa. I think they’re just trying to scare me. After all, you guys didn’t see anything.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I have two choices,” I say. “I can sit around until th
e cops catch this psycho and if they don’t I can wait to be killed. Or I can try to find him.”

  Corey motions to the picture. “Well, you already know what he looks like.”

  “Sort of. The alley was dark. But Otto thinks that Katherine Moore might have known the killer since there was no sign of a struggle and she wasn’t dragged back there.”

  “Otto?”

  “Detective Sampson.”

  “Mmmmm. First name basis are we? Should I expect to find him in your bed soon?”

  “Ew. Oh, my God. He’s like twice my age.” I shove his shoulder. “But he is cute. Didn’t see a ring on his finger.”

  “You are so bad.”

  I grin and swirl the paint on the palette. He’s right, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it.

  Corey leans in and studies the mystery shape dangling from the killer’s wrist. “Hm.”

  “Hm, what?”

  “Looks like a silverfish.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The antennas in the butt, I guess. The way the two on the side curve out,” Corey says. “My father had to deal with them on the farm back in Georgia. He hates them with a passion, probably more than he hates me for being gay.”

  “Sounds like my kind of bug.” I smile and Corey smiles back. He doesn’t talk much about his father who kicked him out a few years ago. I don’t pressure him about it, just like he never pressures me to talk about my rotten parents. I guess that’s why we make such good friends and I asked him to live with me instead of on the New York City streets or with whatever man that would take him for the night.

  I yawn and weariness attacks my eyes for the first time tonight.

  “Want me to clean up?” he asks.

  “Go back to bed. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Okay, but promise you’ll leave me something to do tomorrow after school. I hate knowing you’re giving me a free ride.” He kisses my cheek and shuffles back to bed.

  I stand in front of the painting, sip the water, and stare at the silverfish.

  FISHING IN A POOL OF TEARS

  The students of New York University are having a candle light vigil for Katherine Moore at Union Square Park. After dinner, Corey and I take a cab down there to check it out. If I’m going to try to find this killer, then getting to know the victim would be a smart first step. I figure this would be the best place to do that rather than at the funeral. I don’t think I can handle a funeral. I would probably soak up every negative emotion from family and friends. Plus, what if I get too close to her body in the coffin and experience the poor girl’s death again.

  We hop out of the cab and face the large crowd in the park.

  “Mmmm hmmm, I surely have to go to college one day,” Corey says. “Would you check out the beefcake?”

  I scrunch my face at him. “How can you tell with all these winter coats on?”

  “Baby, I gots the x-ray vision. Bam.”

  “What you have is a wild adolescent sex-fueled imagination.”

  He shrugs. “So. At least I don’t have magazines of tube steak in my room.”

  I gasp. “Some people prefer the art of photography to the flatness of a computer screen.”

  “Trust me, once 3D Internet porn breaks out, you won’t be complaining.”

  I laugh and pull him into the crowd. “C’mon.”

  Although there are a lot of sad and weepy faces I find that I can handle the sorrow, thanks to the extra Xanax I took before leaving. Corey and I wander through the mixed crowd of pre-yuppies, socialites, and ghetto poseurs. This is exactly what I hate about this school. If I wanted to hang around fake people, I can just go to one of my own openings. At least I can make money doing that instead of wasting it on tuition.

  “Shit,” I say.

  “Excuse me,” says Corey.

  “Nothing. Just forgot I have an opening tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t. I was going to remind you tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh. Good. Thanks.”

  “So what do you wanna do first?”

  “Let’s check out how people remember her.”

  We walk over to the George Washington statue where pictures cover a large bulletin board. Seeing that a girl just put one up of her and Katherine, I assume that it’s a mass made memorial. From the table next to it, a black girl with a fur-lined collar coat smiles sadly and hands us two white candles. I grin a thanks and then check out the pictures.

  “She was a very social girl,” Corey says.

  Based on the pictures, you would think that Katherine Moore never had a bad day in her life. Smiles, smiles, and more smiles. Even the boys and girls she poses with smile. And not one picture is embarrassing, catching her drunk or making a funny, or with red eye, or in bed with a frat boy or animal. I can’t help but to wonder if this whole scene is phony. Can someone be remembered so perfectly? Did she not piss off one person? Since most of the pictures are with guys, surely some girl must have hated her. At least enough to kill her.

  “Do you need me right now?” Corey asks.

  “No. I guess not. What’s up?” I ask, turning away from the board.

  “I think I found my future husband.” Corey motions to a slick looking Latino boy talking to a blah-faced white guy. Based on the way the Latino boy is dressed in tight, tapered jeans, green snug sweater and gray blazer, he is either gay or a metrosexual. Either way, Corey should be okay. I doubt anyone would bash here.

  “Yeah. Go ahead. I’m going to walk around a bit.”

  Corey squeals and strolls over to the two boys.

  I wander around with my candle and eavesdrop on the stories about Katherine; some end with laughs, some with tears. A lot of girls lean their heads onto one another’s shoulders and offer support. A few times I catch my hand reaching for the pill bottle in my jacket pocket. Bad hand, I scold myself.

  I make my way back to the homemade picture memorial and notice the mourners observing two girls. They seem confused why they’re here and how they know their dead friend. Maybe they think they’re just attention seekers or have some morbid curiosity of the death since they dress so underground.

  The white girl has dreaded purple hair and wears a green dress with yellow leggings and a snakeskin leather jacket. The Asian girl has a black leather biker jacket and a black knee-length dress and white t-shirt over it that says NO FOR LIFE which clues me in that she’s into the short lived NYC No Wave band No. Both girls are pierced: eyebrows, lips, and probably their tongues and nether region. With their make up so Day Glow, they look like they just came off work from a 1960’s Go Go bar. No, they do not appear like the types that would know Katherine.

  I stroll over to them.

  “Hi,” I say, smiling.

  The girls give me a cautious glance.

  “Feels kind of weird being here, huh?” I ask. “Like I’m Katie’s black sheep friend or something?”

  The Asian girl smiles. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “I’m Miki.”

  “Fanny,” the Asian girl says.

  “Liz,” the other one mumbles, looking at the condescending eyes of the crowd checking her out. “Maybe we should have come undercover.”

  “I would have,” I said. “But the old lady section in JC Penny was closed.”

  The girls smile. I’m in.

  “So this is fucked up,” I say. “Felt like yesterday we were just hanging out.”

  “I know, right?” Fanny says. “But I guess it’s like those religious kooks say. ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword.’”

  “Oh, my God.” Liz covers her mouth and checks to see if anyone heard. “So throw in the puns of bad taste. The poor girl was stabbed with a huge knife.”

  Fanny smirks. “Oops.”

  “Excuse her, she’s still pissed about Katie swiping some guy from her last year.”

  Fanny slaps Liz’s arm. “I am not.”

  I share smiles with them: three girls finally comfortable in an uncomfortable setting.
<
br />   I lean in closer and say, “So, the cops talk to you yet? I hear they’re scrambling to get to everyone.”

  “Nope,” says Fanny. “I doubt they will. We didn’t have that kind of relationship with her. I don’t think her so-called friends even know about us.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” I said. “I don’t even recognize her in these pictures taken in the daylight.”

  “Yeah. Kinda right,” Liz says.

  Fanny stares at me. “You on the site? You look familiar, but I’m not sure. Are you Cherry Bleed?”

  “Site?” I ask.

  “Red Velvet Pocket?”

  “Oh, no.” I shake my head. “Is that where you know Katie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, we’re strictly drinking buddies. And then some,” I add with a grin. “You know, I think she did mention the site. She thought I would be interested in it. God, what was the name she said she used? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

  “Betty Blue Blood,” Fanny says.

  I snap my fingers. “That’s it.”

  “Always thought it was tacky,” Liz says.

  They nod. Looks like I’m still in the club.

  “You know, the site is gaining a curse,” Liz says.

  “What do you mean?” Fanny asks.

  “Uh, Katie is the second girl to die. Remember Chloe Bateman?”

  Fanny’s brow furrows at Liz.

  “She was tagged as Vicious Ripper.”

  “Ohhhh,” says Fanny. “Oh, my God. Don’t say such a thing. Devlin pays too well for me to quit the site over a stupid superstition.”

  “I know, right.”

  When the conversation dies down, Fanny says, “Well, I think I’m thoroughly uncomfortable and have handled all I can. Present company excluded.”

  We smile at each other. I then ask, “So maybe we can hang out sometime. Where you girls slum these days?”

  “Oh, yeah. That would be cool,” says Liz.

  “Mostly at the Honkey’s Ladder. It’s over on 56th and 8th,” Fanny says. “Lots of cute boys there. You should check it out.”

  I nod like I know where it is.

  “See you around, Miki,” Fanny says.

  “Yeah, later,” Liz says.