Hidden Things

by Doyce Testerman

  Calliope walked to the door, locked it, checked the street through the glass, and headed back into the office. About halfway there, the room began to spin.

  Joshua White stops on the frozen gravel driveway. It is afternoon, and the sun is nearly done for the day—he can barely make out the outline of the porch and railing ahead. He looks down at his feet where the cracked cement of the front walk meets the driveway gravel. Crude chalk drawings, more bestial than childish, cover the concrete. He studies them for a moment, thinking of a rhyme from his childhood, then peers back up at the dark windows of the house.

  “All right.” He steps onto the walk, and up to the door. “Ready or not, here I come . . .”

  He will be dead in two days.

  Pain pressed at the inside of her skull like an inflating balloon.

  One of the reasons Calliope had chosen her office over Joshua’s when they’d first found the space was that its window faced west. Joshua’s faced east and was also larger. He’d joked on more than one occasion that the window meant he could work uninterrupted until noon, since Calliope tended to avoid natural light.

  The end of the couch that Calliope was curled up on was the first part of Josh’s office the sun reached.

  Groaning, she shoved herself into a half-sitting position away from the glare. In doing so, she came to rest on the feet of the couch’s other occupant. Remembering the blank stare on Lauren’s face the night before and her own struggle to arrange the woman comfortably before dizziness overcame her, Calliope slid toward that end of the couch.

  The thick smell of spilled whiskey rising from the carpet made her head feel worse, but she saw that Lauren’s eyes were closed and that she was breathing normally, even snoring slightly. Shoving her way to her feet, she contemplated curling up in her own office chair away from the growing light of dawn—uncomfortable, but darker.

  Someone knocked on the front door.

  Calliope blinked for several seconds before checking the clock. Six thirty-eight. Shrugging, she shuffled toward the outer office. As an afterthought, she pulled Joshua’s door closed behind her.

  The light coming in through the front door was a physical, painful thing. It was several seconds before she managed to relax her squinting eyes to the point where she could see. What she saw should have surprised her.

  But then a crazy homeless man who can knock people out by speaking magical Hungarian attacked me, Calliope thought. It’s a bright new day.

  She unlocked the door, opened it a crack, and said, “Our normal office hours are from nine A.M. to six P.M. Please call back.”

  “Ms. Jenkins,” Detective Johnson said. “Have you been here all night?”

  Calliope could only stare at the dark-skinned detective and the federal agent behind him. “Have I . . . ?” She shook her head. “Jesus, we both need some coffee, I guess. Come in.” She turned away and headed for the cabinet with the coffee-making equipment that Joshua had bought a few weeks after they’d opened their doors.

  “Have a seat,” she spoke over her shoulder.

  “Ms. Jenkins.” Detective Johnson showed no signs of irritation at repeating himself. “Have you been here all night?”

  Calliope turned back to the men. Both were still standing. Johnson looked serious; Walker looked suspicious. “Yes, Detective, I have been here all night. I do not normally get to work this early in the morning, and on the rare times it does happen, I don’t look like this. Are there any other blindingly obvious questions you’d like answered?”

  Johnson’s expression remained stern. “You’ll have to forgive me for asking, Ms. Jenkins, but Mrs. Hollis-White was reported missing this morning and we are checking out all her known acquaintances.”

  “That’s smart,” Calliope said. “She’s in there,” she added, nodding at the closed office door and turning back to the coffee machine. “Do you want sugar?”

  The silence that greeted her announcement was almost worth being awake so early.

  “Don’t wake her up,” she added when she heard one of the two men head for the closed door. “She had a hard night.”

  She heard the door open; a few seconds later, Johnson let out a sharp exhalation. “Pretty much drank it all, didn’t you?” he commented. Calliope turned back to him, leaned against the cabinet, and said nothing.

  The detective looked over the room as best he could from the doorway, then pulled the door shut and turned back to her. “The two of you didn’t exactly strike me as drinking buddies.”

  “We’re not.”

  “Then this looks a little curious.”

  Calliope met his gaze, ignoring the throbbing in her temples. “You want to tell a woman how to mourn her husband, Detective?”

  Johnson raised his hands. “No arguments, Ms. Jenkins. It’s really none of our business.”

  Calliope turned to fill three mismatched cups. “Have you found out anything about the answering machine message?” She turned back to the men with a cup in either hand. “I didn’t tell her anything,” she said in response to the question in Johnson’s expression.

  The detective nodded as he took the proffered cup. “Thank you. Nothing yet on the recording; they told me they might have something by lunch.”

  She nodded. “I should be back here by then.”

  “You’re going back to your residence?”

  “That’s the plan.” She reached back for her own coffee. “I take it you checked for me there first?”

  Johnson rubbed at his jawline. “Your neighbors didn’t think you’d been home.”

  Calliope’s lips pressed together, but she raised her cup to the detective. “That’s why they pay you guys the big bucks. Did you need anything else?”

  Johnson glanced at his companion, who remained silent and hadn’t touched the coffee cooling in his hand. “No, I think that’s it. Everything here has been all right?”

  Calliope tipped her head. “I looked through our files for something about Iowa, but didn’t find anything. Like I said, he must have taken everything with him.” She motioned toward Josh’s office. “I didn’t get a chance to check everything since Lauren showed up around eleven and we had to chase off a homeless guy around two A.M.” Johnson nodded, but Walker’s face grew taut.

  “Homeless man? Does that happen often in this neighborhood?”

  Calliope already regretted mentioning the visitor. “Not really, but I told him to leave and he did.”

  “Did you get a look at his face?” Walker asked.

  Calliope kept her expression neutral and masked her annoyance at sidetracking the conversation. “I didn’t. It’s pretty dark at two in the morning. Is this”—she glanced at each man in turn—“important in some way that I’m not understanding?”

  It was Walker who answered; Johnson seemed as puzzled as Calliope. “An unidentified individual, possibly transient, was seen around the area where your partner was killed, Miss Jenkins.”

  Calliope blinked. “And you see a connection? You couldn’t possibly drive from Iowa to here in twenty-four hours, and I’m pretty sure this guy didn’t have a car to begin with . . . or a plane ticket.”

  Walker stared at her, his eyes hard and unreadable. Finally, he shook his head and attempted a smile that seemed to stretch his face in uncomfortable directions. “You’re right, of course. I apologize.”

  Calliope didn’t reply. Detective Johnson stepped forward and set his cup down on the unused front desk. “We’re sorry to have bothered you so early, Ms. Jenkins. Thank you for the coffee. We’ll let you know what we find out from the answering machine.”

  Calliope nodded acknowledgment, watching as the two men left.

  As soon as the outer door closed, Josh’s opened. Lauren stood framed in the doorway, her face wan and her arms hugged tightly around her.

  She glared at Calliope. “What answering machine message?”

  Dammit.

  Calliope resigned herself to an endless cycle of uncomfortable conversations with people she didn’t particularl
y like. She poured another cup of coffee and took it over to Lauren. “Josh left a message here a few hours after he called my place. Mostly static. They’re checking to see if they can get anything out of it.”

  Lauren looked down at her coffee. “What . . . what did he say, that you could make out?”

  Calliope felt a twinge of sympathy. “He mostly talked about you, actually. He said he was going to find a way to tell you what was going on.”

  Lauren flinched.

  “I’m sorry,” Calliope said. “I thought you should—”

  “Could you get my jacket for me?” Lauren asked, walking past Calliope toward the front window of the office. “If I go back in there again, I’ll throw up.”

  Calliope half nodded, half shook her head at her guest’s back. “Sure.”

  The miasma of greasy pizza and spilled whiskey was stronger now, thickened and warmed by the morning sunlight. Calliope held her breath as she retrieved her and Lauren’s shoes, both jackets, and Lauren’s purse.

  “Thanks,” Lauren murmured as Calliope held them out to her.

  “No problem.” Calliope sat down and picked up her coffee. “You’re right about that room; it smells a little Sam Spade in there.”

  “It smells like Sam Spade’s ass,” Lauren said. Calliope laughed out loud, and the other woman turned to her. “What?”

  “Oh . . . nothing. You’re just a little out of character today.” She raised a hand at Lauren’s expression. “No complaints. You’re more than entitled.”

  Lauren turned back to the window and knelt, working her shoes on. “Thank you, incidentally, for telling them off on my behalf. But why did you lie?”

  Calliope raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, Counselor?”

  Lauren straightened, shaking her hair back into a semblance of order. “The vagrant. I don’t remember much about that, but I didn’t get the impression he was going to leave simply because you asked him to.”

  “Okay, I kicked him in the chest and then I told him to leave and he left.” Calliope waved her hand. “Details.”

  “They’re the police.”

  “They’re people. That’s it. People doing a job, which right now is finding out what happened to Josh. Our visitor didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Agent Walker—”

  “Admitted that a teleporting hobo is an unlikely suspect.” She eyed Lauren. “Let’s say I tell them everything and they think it might be a clue. So they waste two days on bullshit instead of working on the real case. Hell with that. It happened. I handled it. It’s done. None of their business.”

  “But they’re the police. How—” Lauren pursed her lips and cut herself off. “I need to get home. My parents probably called them in the first place.”

  “Sounds reasonable.” Calliope’s words hung in the air like a judgment.

  Lauren ducked her chin rather than reply and walked out the front door. Calliope watched her cross the street to her car and swore to herself in the quiet of the empty office. After a few moments, she locked up and headed back to her house, replaying the morning’s conversations, the surreal exchange with the vagrant the night before, and finally the evening talk with Lauren.

  “I don’t know why he broke up with you.”

  In the middle of the drive home she pulled off onto the shoulder, crying too hard to see.

  5

  “Calli?”

  Slowly, the room comes into focus. Calliope smiles up from her hospital bed.

  “Hey . . .” She manages a smile. “How are you?”

  Josh’s eyebrows rise. “How am I? That’s funny, considering I’m not the one in ICU. How are you?”

  She shrugs. Regrets it. “Did the cops find the guy?”

  Joshua nods, his lips tight. “Yep.”

  Calliope traces the lines of tension on his face with her eyes. Her fingers shift on the coverlet. “I’m okay.”

  “I know.”

  “It was just a precaution.”

  “I know. You just . . .” He looks out the window. “Can’t keep putting yourself in situations like this. You’re the only pseudofamily I’ve got.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Think you’re forgetting your wife.”

  He makes a face. “That’s not what I mean. You can’t pick fights with three-hundred-pound guys no matter how many self-defense courses you’ve taken.” He shifts forward. “I should have gone with you.”

  “So you . . . wanted to make it up to me by bringing me his head?”

  “Hmm?” He glances down at the large paper bag in his hand. “Oh. I brought you . . . stuff.” His eyes flicker in a way with which Calliope is quite familiar. She smiles.

  “Stuff?”

  “There were balloons, but they wouldn’t let me bring them in here—said they’d mess up the monitors.”

  “Screw the balloons, what’s in the bag?”

  He glances inside. “Flowers, candy, a bear from the gift shop, and a few toys.”

  She waggles her eyebrows. “I like toys.” Her grin grows when he reaches into his jacket pocket instead of the bag and places a narrow, six-inch cylinder of black metal in her hand. “Is this the thing you were talking about?”

  Josh retrieves the cylinder and gives it a strong flick with his hand—the tube telescopes out to eighteen inches.

  “They wouldn’t let you bring in balloons, but this was okay.”

  “It never really came up.”

  “Cool.” She holds out her hand, looking up at his face when he doesn’t hand the baton over. “What?”

  “Did you think about the other thing?”

  “I’m not quitting.”

  “It’s not—”

  “I. Am not. Quitting.” She reaches her hand out farther, grimacing. “Now, gimme the damn thing.”

  “Do you have a permit for that?” asks a half-familiar voice from the doorway.

  “Who—”

  A ringing phone jerked Calliope out of a sound sleep. Fumbling, she ripped the receiver off its cradle. “Josh?”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Ms. Jenkins, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” Detective Johnson’s voice was apologetic. “Again.”

  Calliope jerked her head off her pillow, checking the windows and clock. Afternoon. Three.

  “Sorry, Detective. I laid down for a second—”

  “Completely understandable, Ms. Jenkins.”

  Calliope lay back, frowning at the ceiling. “I was supposed to be at the office. You were going to—did you, what did you find out about the answering machine?” She sat up on the edge of the bed and pushed her hair out of her face.

  “We got some more of the recording, although the techs say some of it simply isn’t there to be recovered.” There was a pause and Calliope could hear the rustle of papers over the line. “Do you know . . . someone called the fat man?”

  Calliope paused, wondering if she’s misheard.

  This is the part where I realize I’m dreaming.

  “Ms. Jenkins?”

  Calliope shook the thought away. “I’m sorry; I heard you ask if I know ‘the fat man’? Please be joking.”

  The papers shuffled again. “I’m definitely not joking, Ms. Jenkins. The last portion of the recording seems to be ‘the fat man knows what’s going on, so just get hold of him and he’ll be able to explain most of this to you.’ ”

  “I’ll see you soon,” Calliope murmured.

  “Excuse me?”

  “ ‘I’ll see you soon’,” she repeated. “That was the very last part of the message.”

  “Yes,” the detective replied after a moment. He didn’t say anything else, and the silence stretched to the point of being awkward.

  Calliope cleared her throat. “The fat man.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I have no damn idea what he’s talking about, Detective. I’m sorry.”

  There was a pause. “You’re sure?”

  “I am,” Calliope said.

  “Would
you mind if we had an officer check over Mr. White’s files for some reference to this?”

  “Oh, who do you hate that much?” Calliope whispered.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing. Thinking out loud.” Calliope pulled herself upright. “Yes, Detective, that would be fine; you’re welcome to it.” When he didn’t respond, she added. “Detective?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Jenkins. Thank you. Could we meet at your office in an hour?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  It was well over two hours later when Calliope finally pulled up at the office in her Jeep. Two cars—unmarked, but unmistakably law enforcement—waited outside. A younger agent climbed out of one as she pulled up, followed by Johnson in the other.

  “Sorry for making you wait. The traffic was terrible.” Calliope could hear the tension in her voice; she’d never minded being late, but it irritated her when the delay wasn’t her doing.

  Johnson shook his head to deflect the apology. “Not at all, Ms. Jenkins. This is Agent Hyde. He works with Special Agent Walker.” The younger man offered his hand in greeting. Calliope filled it with a spare office key. “Door you want’s on the right, coffee’s in the cabinet. Feel free to pull files into the front room to get away from the smell.” The younger officer hesitated, then nodded in a way that felt like a salute and headed inside.

  Calliope watched the young man walk away. “Junior agent?”

  “When I was a rookie in homicide they made me categorize the dog feces samples taken from a crime scene at a county animal shelter,” Johnson deadpanned. “Walker’s letting him off easy.”

  Calliope smirked. “If that’s everything, Detective?”

  He scanned her face. He’s got police eyes, she thought. Sad, and nice, but still police eyes.

  “Everything regarding this,” Johnson replied. “But can I ask an unrelated question?”

  Calliope crossed her arms against the evening chill. “Sure.”

  “Don’t be offended, but I was expecting you to ask for a warrant.”

  Calliope studied his face in turn. “This should be done right, Detective.” She looked at the front window of the office, through which she could see the young agent carrying a stack of the desktop files she’d gone through the night before into the front office. “I don’t want to look back on this and think I might have been part of the problem.”