Wisdom's Grave 01 - Sworn to the Night

by Craig Schaefer

  But here she was.

  I’m awake, she texted back. Shouldn’t be, but I am.

  Insomnia? I get that sometimes.

  Nerves, Marie replied. IAB appointment tomorrow. The shrink says I’m good to go, so I’ve just got one last hurdle before I get my badge back.

  IAB? Nessa asked.

  Internal Affairs. The police who police the police. I’m Certified Not Crazy according to the doc. Now I need to be a Certified Good Cop, too, or I don’t go back to work.

  I think you’re a good cop.

  Marie rolled onto her stomach, holding the phone in both hands in front of her, and muted the volume. Janine’s remark about thin walls was fresh in her memory; she didn’t need to be interrogated in the morning about who she was up late texting with.

  Great. Tell the IAB investigator that. I could use the support.

  No answer. Marie wondered if Nessa had fallen asleep. Then her phone gently vibrated as the response came across: What’s their name?

  Marie laughed, putting one hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. You are NOT calling Internal Affairs.

  No, Nessa’s next text read. But I want to know their name.

  Why?

  Another pause.

  Curiosity. My husband gives generously to the police foundation. If they don’t clear you for duty, I might be able to make a few phone calls. If.

  Marie had to dig into her emails, flipping through a week’s worth of spam and random memos to find her appointment listing.

  Antoine Carson, she replied. But you don’t have to do that.

  Don’t have to. Want to.

  This is crazy, Marie texted, having to keep things quiet, so my roomie doesn’t hear me. I feel like a teenager in algebra class, passing notes.

  I had a teacher who would read the note in front of the whole class if he caught you. Mortifying.

  Marie grinned at the screen. She bent her knees, kicking at the air.

  Me too. Maybe that’s what made it so irresistible.

  What did? Nessa asked.

  The feeling of danger, she replied.

  * * *

  Huddled over her phone, surrounded by open books, Nessa snickered. She couldn’t help herself. She reached for a wire-bound pad of drawing paper, tore off a sheet, and grabbed one of her pencils. Nessa quickly scribbled a note and took a photograph, sending the picture to Marie.

  The result mimicked any number of countless furtive classroom notes, an old classic passed down through the decades. A simple scribbled line and a pair of empty check-boxes: Do you like me? Yes / No.

  The second she hit Send, her delight deflated like a popped balloon. She wanted to kick herself. That was stupid. Too forward. If she hadn’t done anything to scare Marie off yet—and it was just a matter of time—that was going to do the job.

  No response. A minute passed. Then another. Nessa hugged herself and gritted her teeth. “Fucking stupid,” she hissed. “You never learn. You never learn.”

  Her phone chimed.

  She didn’t look right away. She couldn’t. She knew what the razor-blade bite of rejection was going to feel like, and as long as she didn’t look, she wouldn’t suffer the sting. She could just stave off the moment forever like this. The response wasn’t real until she read it. Schrödinger’s abandonment.

  She peeked at the phone.

  Marie had sent a picture of her own. She’d copied Nessa’s note on the back of a rumpled receipt, in faded ballpoint pen.

  The word YES was check-marked, circled, and underlined. Twice.

  Nessa beamed. She bit down on her knuckles to keep from squealing and thumped her slippered feet on the floor.

  What time is your appointment tomorrow? she texted.

  I face the firing squad at 10AM sharp, Marie replied.

  Nessa glanced at the time. Which doesn’t give you much of a full night’s sleep. What I found will keep for later. Let’s face this hurdle first. I want you in bed, lights out, in two minutes.

  Already in bed. Just reading, want to finish this chapter.

  Nessa eyed the phone. Could she push this? Just a little?

  Marie, she texted, I wasn’t asking. You need to be at your best in the morning. I want you to go to sleep. Now.

  She held her breath until the response chimed in. Marie sent her an emoji of a yellow happy face sticking its tongue out, followed by: Yes, ma’am.

  Nessa closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh.

  We’ll talk tomorrow, she replied. Sweet dreams.

  Then she put down her phone and gathered her supplies. She’d told a tiny lie to get the information she needed; she didn’t have any pull with the authorities.

  What she had was witchcraft. And her special book, open to a page that read “The Game of Binding an Enemy’s Tongue.”

  Twenty minutes later, Nessa sat in a ring of silver candles, their flames rippling in the dark. She’d inscribed Antoine Carson’s name on a sheet of parchment, inked in black, drawn on a precise grid both horizontally and vertically. A sketch of the ouroboros, a serpent eating its own tail, encircled the words. Nessa’s fingers carefully, methodically worked with a long string of black wool yarn. She curled the strand around her fingers, looped it, and felt a spark of heat as she jerked the knot tight. Thirteen knots for thirteen letters in the investigator’s name.

  “You will bend to my will,” Nessa whispered to the shadows. “Or you will break.”

  Twenty-Five

  “And you understand,” Lieutenant Carson said, “that you can have your union representative present for this interview.”

  The investigator’s office was clean. Cold. Bland. Aggressively empty, like he was just borrowing the place and had to return it in pristine condition. The air smelled like Pine-Sol. A tape recorder bore mute witness, sitting on the desk between him and Marie, its reels slowly turning.

  “I told you what happened,” Marie said. “Twice. My story should match up with my partner’s perfectly. Haven’t said anything that’d jam me up, as far as I can tell.”

  The investigator—clean, cold, bland—studied her. His pen rapped against his spiral-bound notebook.

  “And why are you confident that your stories will line up perfectly?”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  He offered a noncommittal hmm. Then silence, inviting her to fill the void. Interrogation 101. Marie could play that game too. She sat, still and sullen, until he decided to speak again.

  “You left your jurisdiction.”

  “To follow a lead,” Marie said.

  “You could have passed the lead to Monticello PD.”

  “And they could have sat on it. And a woman could have died.”

  Carson checked his notes. “‘Baby Blue.’ Who wasn’t at the aforementioned house you left your jurisdiction to investigate.”

  “They moved her before we got there. But she was there.”

  “And you know this how?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. She knew it because Harlow, the limo driver, confessed to taking her there. She knew it because Beau Kates admitted selling the woman for a shoebox filled with drugs.

  And she’d learned both of these truths while she was suspended, with no badge and no legal authority. Not to mention bouncing Kates off half the furniture in his office and handing him grounds for a lawsuit.

  “A confidential informant,” she said. “My CI is reliable.”

  “I see,” he said, sounding like he didn’t. Or didn’t want to.

  “I don’t understand what the problem is here. It was a righteous shoot. We came under fire, we responded with appropriate force, and we uncovered a homicide scene and a stash house in the process. Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to say, I’ll say it, you can sign off on my paper, and I can get back to work.”

  “That isn’t how this works,” Carson said.

  Again, he stopped talking. She’d broken perps the same way, using people’s natural discomfort with a silence to spur them on. She�
��d seen suspects babble themselves into a full confession more than once.

  She wasn’t a perp. But he was treating her like one. Marie’s anger simmered, a rising boil in the pit of her stomach.

  “Then tell me,” she said, her words carefully measured, “how it works.”

  He turned a page in his notebook and took a cursory glance.

  “Would you be surprised to find out that your story doesn’t match up with your partner’s?”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Would you be surprised?” he repeated.

  Interrogation 102. Separate two suspects. Put them in different interview rooms, don’t let them compare notes. Tell each one that the other guy is singing a different tune, and see how fast they change theirs.

  “I’d be very surprised,” Marie replied. “Considering I’m telling the truth and Detective Fisher has no reason to lie.”

  “If there’s anything that either of you are omitting,” Carson said, “anything that might cause a problem down the road, it’s generally a good idea to be the first one to come clean about it. For instance, if he were to reveal details that you kept hidden, for whatever reason, it’ll go a lot easier for him. And vice versa, of course, if there’s anything you’d like to tell me.”

  Interrogation 103. “Your buddy is in the next room, selling you out. First one to confess gets a deal from the DA.” Marie’s short-cropped fingernails dug into her knees as her shoulders clenched.

  “Lieutenant,” she asked, “were you given this post because you were a failure at real police work, or was it an aspiration? When you were a little boy, did you dream of joining the rat squad when you grew up?”

  He sat forward in his chair. “Excuse me, Detective?”

  “You’ve got zero reason not to clear me for active duty. Zero. And while we’re dicking around in here, people out there need my help.”

  Carson folded his arms. “Is that so?”

  Marie opened her wallet. She slapped the picture of Baby Blue down on the desk.

  “This woman has been abducted. The suspect is a serial murderer who holds his victims no longer than two weeks before butchering them. And I’m the only person who can save her. So while you’re—”

  “Why?” Carson asked. “Why only you? There are thirty-four thousand police officers in New York City, Detective Reinhart. Why are you the only one who can save her?”

  Marie’s jaw tightened. “Because nobody else is trying.”

  “You like analyzing people, Detective? Sounds like a fun game. Let me take a turn.” He unfolded his arms, leaning in, aggressive as he flipped through his notebook. “You’ve got a hero complex. Even your partner characterized you as a ‘crusader,’ and he was being nice. A regular knight in shining armor.”

  “Sign my paper so I can go back on active duty.”

  Carson sneered at her. “You’re living in a fantasy world, Detective. It’s a shield, isn’t it? You’re always looking for that next damsel in distress, that next hit of being a hero, so you don’t have to deal with your own shit.”

  He rapped his finger on Baby Blue’s photograph.

  “This isn’t the first vic you’ve carried around in your wallet, is it? I bet you’ve done it your entire career. One obsession after another. Some people would say you’re sick in the head, Detective.”

  Marie’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Fuck. You. Sign my paper and let me get back to work.”

  “What will you do if I don’t?” Carson asked her.

  Under the desk, out of sight, Marie’s hands curled into fists.

  “Don’t push me,” she said.

  Carson studied her like some kind of lab rat. “What happens if I do?”

  Marie’s stomach churned. She felt like throwing up. She felt like jumping over the desk and slamming Carson against the bare office walls until she wiped that smug look off his face. She felt like bolting for the door and just running, running down the stairs, running outside in the warm air, running until she dropped from exhaustion. Being anywhere but here.

  “I’ve got you pegged,” she told Carson. “You’re getting off on this, aren’t you? You get cops in here, good honest cops, and their careers, their lives hang on your signature. You like that, don’t you? You’re the sick one, not me.”

  “Is this career your life, Detective? What would happen if you never got your badge back?”

  “Fuck you. Sign my paper.”

  “What would you do? Can you think of a life without it? Have you ever thought of—”

  Marie jumped out of her chair and slammed her fists on the desk.

  “This is all I have!” she roared.

  Carson didn’t even flinch. His cool, steady gaze cut a hole in Marie’s rage.

  Marie sank back down into her chair. Withering, her sightline drifting to the desk between them.

  “This is all I have,” she said again, soft now.

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “It’s my job,” he said, “to protect the integrity of this department. You can call me a rat if it makes you feel better, but at the end of the day, we’re on the same team. As it stands, there are certain outstanding irregularities in the Monticello shooting. Enough irregularities that I can’t in good conscience—”

  Carson fell silent. He blinked. His lips moved, but no words came out. Marie squinted at him, her brow furrowed.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Carson’s eyes went wide. His hand went to his throat. He took a deep breath, trying to speak, but all that emerged was a froglike croak.

  Marie shoved her chair back, on her feet in an instant. “Are you choking? Do you need help?”

  Carson shook his head wildly. He croaked again. Biting his lip, his face drawn as if racked with pain, he stammered, “N-nuh. No. Under…under the circumstances…”

  He opened another folder and tugged out a yellow form, slapping it down on the desk. His movements were stiff, robotic, like a puppet dancing on piano-wire strings.

  “Under the circumstances,” the investigator said, “I can see…I can see no reason not to clear you for active duty, effective immediately.”

  Marie watched, puzzled, as Carson scrawled his signature on the form. He shoved it across the desk, hand fluttering, wordlessly begging Marie to pick it up.

  “Thank you,” Marie said. The words came out as a question, sounding as befuddled as she felt.

  Carson slumped against the desk. He rested his head in his hands, breathing heavy.

  “Lieutenant? Can I get you some water or something? Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Carson spoke into his hands, his voice muffled, eyes squeezed shut. “I have…I have another appointment coming in. Please leave.”

  Twenty-Six

  It was the weirdest thing, the text read. Nessa smiled contentedly at her phone as she adjusted the hem of her dress. She paused to tap out a quick response.

  Well, the important thing is we got what we wanted.

  We? Marie responded.

  You think I wasn’t cheering for you?

  Ha ha, true, Marie texted back. I guess I wasn’t alone in that room after all.

  Nessa looked to the mirror, taking herself in. For once, she liked what she saw. Her hair was pinned up, her body adorned in jet-black Christian Dior, a sheath dress with a stylish drape of silk at the neckline and one short sleeve slightly longer than the other.

  “You have no idea,” she murmured to her reflection.

  This felt good. This felt right. Nessa hummed a happy, tuneless song as she sifted through her jewelry box, looking for her favorite silver earrings. Then Richard poked his head into the bedroom.

  “You’re not wearing that,” he told her.

  She glanced up, catching his reflection in the mirror, the look on his face like a kid being told to eat his broccoli.

  “Why not?”

  “Seriously? Come on, Vanessa, you look like you’re going to a funeral. This is supposed to be a party. Bright colors, festive, don
ors with open wallets. You know Dad likes everything colorful. Put on that orange dress, the one I bought you in Aruba.”

  She slammed the lid of her jewelry box.

  “Sure,” she said, her voice bone-dry. “Then I’ll check on the caterers again, ensure the house is pristine, and play the perfect hostess while you and your father smoke cigars on the deck.”

  He gave her a thumbs-up, missing her tone by a mile. “Great! That’s all I’m asking. Thank you. Did you take your meds?”

  Her gaze drifted to the unlabeled prescription bottle sitting on the edge of her vanity.

  “Not yet.”

  “Please. Nessa. C’mon. I can’t handle you when you’re—” He shook his head. “Tonight is really, really important for Dad, okay? So just…don’t be weird. Take your meds.”

  He vanished. Nessa glowered at the mirror, her confidence crumpling like a house of cards in a gust of wind. She trudged over to the walk-in closet, looking for the orange dress she hated.

  The bottle of pills sat on the vanity, untouched.

  * * *

  As night fell over New York, the skyline igniting to push back the dark, the crème de la crème of the city descended upon the Roths’ brownstone. Politicians, moneymen and bankers, a B-list celebrity or three, everyone there to bask in the spotlight. And at the heart of it all, holding court and cradling a glass of champagne, stood Senator Alton Roth.

  He was a big man with expansive gestures, the kind of politician who looked like he was born wearing a Stetson and a flag lapel pin. His hair was silver at the temples, his eyes falcon-sharp. He glad-handed his way across the room and back again, at ease with everyone, cracking focus-tested jokes and boldly taking only the most crowd-approved stances. While Richard trailed in his father’s shadow like an obedient puppy, Nessa played the role of the dutiful wife and hostess. She milled around the edges of the room, making small talk when she had to, watching the caterers to ensure the drinks and finger foods kept circulating.