Full Mortality

by Sasscer Hill

  When the county squad car showed up, relief hit me so hard my knees buckled. A young cop, about six-foot-two with wary eyes, called in for backup. Ten minutes later, Detectives Trent Davis and Charlie Wells barreled down the road, siren screaming. Hard to imagine I could be so happy to see them.

  The evening stretched into a festival of flashing blue lights from county cop cars, a wailing ambulance and even a fire truck. I couldn’t see the need for the fire truck, but the more rescue types that appeared, the better I felt.

  From inside the warmth of Davis’s car, I rubbed my wrists where the handcuffs had been, watching some cops search Clements truck — inside, outside, and under. I’d told them about the gun. They bagged a few items, spread out, apparently searching for Clements, but he’d disappeared.

  A glance at the car’s dash clock told me it was only 8. Felt like 3 A.M. to me. Davis and Wells came up from the truck, folded themselves into the car, and eased into a question-and-answer session. No more accusations. I told them everything I could remember, finishing with the car that had rushed in and out of the park.

  “Maybe Clements was picked up,” Davis said.

  I sagged into my seat, hating to think Clements was loose.

  “How’s that forehead?” asked Wells.

  “I’ll live.”

  “Yeah,” said Davis, “but you need to have that looked at.”

  “The ambulance medic already did,” I said. “Who do you think put on this bandage?” But they walked me to a squad car, urging me to go to the hospital with the young officer who’d first responded. I stood in the cold air shivering, arguing that I was okay and should get going.

  Right about then Carla and Lorna showed up. Turns out Carla had hounded the cops ever since I’d disappeared. She rushed up to me, pulled off her jacket and hung the butter-soft leather around my shoulders. She started crying. Lorna looked fierce, like she wanted to fight somebody. The three of us started jabbering at once, until I noticed Carla was shaking with cold in a low-cut black sweater. I turned to Curtis, gestured toward Carla and asked if we could go.

  His unreadable eyes swept over us. “You three think you can make it through the rest of the night without getting into trouble?”

  We nodded and started edging toward Carla’s Mercedes.

  “Latrelle,” said Davis. “Stay someplace different tonight.”

  Wells stepped closer, the revolving blue lights reflecting off the lenses of his glasses. “Tell whoever’s in charge at Laurel to call me. We’ll straighten this thing out. You’re pretty much clear at our end.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah, we’ve been doing our homework. Know more than you think.” He made me promise to come into the CID in the morning for a statement, then turned me loose.

  We climbed into Carla’s car and she drove onto the deserted road leading away from Sandy Bay Park, past the place where the SUV had hidden, and surprised me by swinging onto Route 50 in mere moments. We headed west, passing the exit for Annapolis.

  “Thought I was a million miles from anywhere,” I said.

  Lorna leaned forward from the back seat, sticking her head between Carla and me. “So you think those detective dudes believe you now?”

  “They’re starting to.” I fingered my forehead.

  “Leave that bandage alone.” Carla’s eyes flicked on me, sharp and tired. I figured my disappearance had been hard on her and put my hand in my lap.

  “Where to?” Carla asked.

  Silence filled the car. We all knew I had no place to go.

  “I should check on Hellish, so I guess back to Dimsboro,” I said.

  “I don’t think so.” Carla stared at me like I was crazy.

  “No way. Besides,” said Lorna, “I went, like, everywhere, looking for you. Including Dimsboro. That Mello guy was feeding your horse, around 5. Said you were in trouble. I’m, like, duh.” Lorna flopped back into the rear bucket seat. “Hellish was fine. Hay, water, clean stall, the works. I got an extra bed in my room. Mom won’t mind. You heard that cop — you should stay with me for a while.

  “Done,” said Carla, speeding down the big highway. Though headlights and road lamps lit the wide pavement, the surrounding night encased the road like a soft black tunnel.

  To tell the truth I was glad somebody else was making the decisions. I needed food, a good night’s sleep, a safe place to lick my wounds.

  Lorna’s family didn’t live far from the Silver Diner. Carla dropped us off in the restaurant’s lot next to my car, making me promise to call her in the morning. Lorna found the extra Toyota key I kept in a magnetic case in the passenger wheel well and drove us to her house.

  Lorna’s mom, probably in her late 50s, greeted us at the door, her head a halo of gray, overcooked perm. She fussed over me and made grilled cheese sandwiches, which Lorna and I inhaled. Slippers sat next to a kitchen table leg, glaring at me. By the time I swallowed the last crumb and finished a glass of milk, I was almost asleep in the chair. We climbed the carpeted stairs to Lorna’s room, where posters of heavy-metal rockers threw hard-ass stares from the wall. Pink flowered quilts covered twin beds.

  I eased into one, and my cat hopped up, crouching near me, examining me like I was an unfamiliar creature. Just before I sank into sleep, Slippers relented into purr mode and Lorna asked, “Nikki, how’d that Mello dude know you were in trouble?”

  * * *

  During the night I remembered the voices. I drifted from a deep well of sleep, humming with anxiety, until I remembered I was at Lorna’s. The gentle rhythm of her breathing as she slept in the nearby bed reassured me. I inhaled a measured breath, then exhaled, trying to capture the memory or dream that had evaporated upon waking. Quiet filled the Doone house. Only the occasional sound of a distant car passing broke the silence.

  Three men talking. A Spanish accent. My mind shied from the sharpening recollection, but I pushed back into it. With the park only a 45-minute drive from Laurel, where had they kept me from midday til dusk?

  Concentrate. My hands bound, my mouth sealed shut. Whatever drug Vipe had injected in my veins insulated the panic, but I could still feel it. The accented voice must have been Vipe’s. The other, Clements’. The nasal tone filled me with revulsion. Who was the third man? I listened to the memory. The voice was disturbingly familiar, yet surprised me with its cruelty, as if a mask of goodwill had loosened and tumbled from its place. My mind chased the sound, but the speaker’s identity danced out of reach. Vipe’s high-pitched laugh echoed in my head. I sat upright in the twin bed, wrapping my arms around my sides, rocking back and forth.

  Chapter 37

  Lorna’s mom, Betty, made hazelnut coffee at 6:00 A.M. the next morning, and I waited at her kitchen table for the first cup out of the pot. Good kick-start with the plate of eggs Betty slid onto my place mat. Lorna was long gone for the Laurel track by the time I’d awakened again at 5:30.

  “Sweetie, you should have that head injury checked out at the Laurel clinic.” Betty knew how to fuss.

  “They looked at it last night, said it didn’t need to be stitched.” I looked worse than I felt, my forehead swollen and purple. Thought I’d go to Dimsboro, then to the CID to see Detective Wells. By the time I drove through Pallboro and into the track, my earlier energy had gone south. I felt shaky and knew better than to climb on any horses.

  Mello sat on his broken-legged stool in front of Hellish’s stall, wearing a yellow bow tie and a tweed jacket one step up from shabby. “You wants to watch out, Miss Nikki. Felt footsteps on a grave.”

  I shuddered, stared at the man.

  His hands were folded over his knees, a brown paper bag sat by his feet in the dirt. He saw my glance at the bag. “Rough times. This be medicinal.”

  “They’ve probably got Vipe and that Arthur Clements by now.” I made my voice bright and confident. “Cops are on to them. Probably nothing left to be scared of.”

  Mello shook his head, swung a hand down and grabbed the bag. Long fingers crinkled back t
he paper, exposing an amber bottle. He took a swig of liquid and wiped his hand over his mouth. “I afraid for you. Somebody bad. He ain’t finished yet.”

  “He? Mello, do you know who it is?”

  “Wish I did. Indeed, I do.” His hand trembled and reached again for the bottle. “Can’t see him, just knows he’s there, stepping on that grave.”

  His words spun me back to the dream. The third man. A shiver shook me from inside. I moved over to Hellish, stroked her neck, grateful for her body heat. Her stall smelled clean. Fresh hay filled her rack. “Thank you, Mello. You’ve been really good to us.”

  “I always good to Gallorette.” His words slurred a bit.

  I hated to see him drink, but after my misadventure I could understand his desire for the familiar comfort of booze.

  Hellish shifted a few times, then spun in a tight circle, squealing. She needed to get out. I led her to a round pen and turned her loose. The enclosure was made of sixfoot-high, heavy wire mesh and filled with deep sand. Hellish bucked and leaped, spun and kicked until her muscles swelled and her veins popped. With her head and tail held high, her nostrils dilated, she looked a picture.

  Chocolate hurried toward the pen from the direction of Raymond Marteen’s barn, her eyes glowing, hands clutching some papers. “Looky here.” She radiated enthusiasm, shoved the papers at me.

  My hands held a certificate and a brochure from Prince George’s Community College. “I just passed me a high school GED.”

  “Chocolate, that’s so cool. You —”

  “That ain’t all. Talked to a man at Prince George’s College, and he say I can enroll in marketing and sales. In January.”

  I could feel a grin stretching my mouth.

  She tossed a look at the arena. “That blond woman we met when they had the food? She in sales, right?”

  I nodded.

  “How much money she make?”

  “Enough to own a Mercedes Roadster.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Chocolate’s black-and-blond braids shook as she nodded her head. “Sales be my speciality.” She pronounced it, spesh-eee-ality. “No more Marteen, no more you-know-whatsies.” She held up her palm, and I slapped it. She snatched her papers back, turned and sped off, filled with possibilities.

  I put Hellish away, then looked for Mello, but he’d disappeared somewhere, and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. I cranked up my Toyota and headed for Crownsville. I’d have felt almost as optimistic as Chocolate, if they’d caught Vipe and Clements. If I wasn’t pursued by the disembodied voice of a nightmare man.

  Detective Wells opened his desk drawer and pulled out my cell phone. I took the molded plastic, staring at it like it might hold answers, slipped it in my pocket and sat in the visitor’s chair. His desk stood against the mint-green wall near the interrogation room they’d shut me in a few weeks earlier. The cool wall color and plush carpet did little to soothe my wariness.

  “I don’t suppose this is yours?” He slid his hand back in the drawer and withdrew the Phillips.

  “Yeah, that’s mine. It was . . . ”

  Wells held up a hand. ”I don’t want to know.” His drab blue suit jacket hung on a nearby wall hook. Today’s tie, a pale gray edition, featured miniature blue police cars, emblazoned with red roof lights.

  “How’d you get the phone?” I asked.

  “An officer found it in Clements truck after they pulled the gun out from underneath.” Mention of the gun made him smile. A big smile. “It’s the right caliber. Crime lab’s running a ballistics test. Maybe it’ll match the one used on O’Brien.”

  I hoped Vipe or Clements hadn’t closed my fingers around the thing while I dozed in la-la-land. Sickening to think of them watching me, touching me, while I was out of it. And that other man.

  “You all right, Miss Latrelle?” Wells’ eyes rested on mine. Curious or concerned?

  “You said you know more about this. Is there a third man?”

  Wells’ eyes shifted away from me a moment. “Why do you ask about another man? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  He was worse than a psychiatrist. “Forget it,” I said, feeling a spark of anger. “I just hope I don’t get hurt because you like to keep stuff to yourself.”

  Wells picked up a pencil covered with teeth marks. He jabbed it at me. “You are not a police officer, okay? You don’t need to know everything. Just stay out of trouble.”

  I sank back in my chair, the fight ebbing out of me. “So can I have the Laurel security chief call you?”

  “Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk to him.”

  Trent Davis burst into the room, saw me and stopped. Hesitated a moment, then moved toward us. “They found Clements.”

  “Is he here yet?” asked Wells.

  Davis’s eyes remained blank, but the muscles in his neck bulged, and I could see the pulse throb from where I sat. “He’s not coming in. He’s dead.”

  My fingers white-knuckled the wooden arms of my chair.

  “Hell.” Wells shoved his chair back, stood up. “Tell me,” he said, sliding on his suit jacket.

  “Somebody slit his throat. Patch of woods behind the Laurel Wal-Mart.

  I thought I was going to be sick. “I need a bathroom.”

  “Over there.” Wells pointed at a door near the interrogation room. “You going to be alright?”

  I nodded, stood up. Took a step and held on to the back of the chair. “Vipe has a knife.”

  They stared at me.

  “Come on Charlie,” Davis said. “We gotta roll.”

  They moved toward the door, Wells turning back to me. “You watch it. Like I said, don’t go anywhere alone, stay at the Doones’. We’ll have a patrol car driving by the next few days.”

  In the bathroom I leaned over the sink, throwing cold water on my face. The nausea passed, and I headed for my car and Lorna’s house.

  “This is really scary,” said Lorna. We stood just inside the Doones’ front door. That’s as far as we’d gotten since she’d let me in, seen my face, and asked what was going on. “That Vipe’s a nasty dude. What are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know.” I moved to a brown wing chair and collapsed in it. Closed my eyes, saw Vipe’s knife, and jerked my focus back to the Doones’ living room. Beige carpet, taupe-and-gold patterned curtains. Framed prints of bucolic landscapes on the wall. I kept seeing the knife.

  “I should call Offenbach.” I dialed Laurel Park, reached the security chief and brought him up to date.

  He was silent a moment. “I know the chief at Crownsville. I’ll talk to him. If it’s going like you say, I’ll notify the stewards myself.”

  I thanked him and called Jim.

  “Police were swarming all over Clements’ barn this morning,” he said. “He always was a hard case. Brought this on himself.” He paused a beat. “Everybody misses you. Hurry up and come back in.”

  “As soon as they let me.”

  By 3 P. M. Lorna and I’d watched two movies, eaten ham and cheese sandwiches and were going stir-crazy.

  “I can’t stand this.”

  “Who could?” Lorna zapped the TV off with the remote.

  “Listen,” I said, “Mello was drunk at 8 o’clock this morning. He may forget to feed Hellish.”

  “You’re not going alone.” Lorna set her hands on her hips, gave me her fierce look.

  “How ’bout we go right now, before it gets dark?”

  We were out the door in two seconds, on the road in about five. We zipped down Route197, turned onto 301 and stopped. Dump trucks, school busses, 18-wheelers, endless cars inching along the choked highway. No choice but to join them.

  * * *

  “Well, that was the ride from Hell,” I said, exiting the miserable highway at a crawl and accelerating into Pallboro. As we zoomed over the bridge and turned into Dimsboro, a bank of dark clouds rolled toward us from the west, blocking the sun.

  “It’s getting dark.” An uneasy prickle stirred me.

  “T
hat damned traffic,” Lorna said, glancing up at the heavy clouds flattening into a solid lid overhead. “And we’re just off daylight-saving time. I forgot how early the sun goes down.”

  “Let’s feed and get out.” I grabbed my cell phone, hurried from the car, heading for Hellish. A stiffening breeze, sighing beneath the cloud bank, blew bits of trash and rolled a discarded beer can along the gravel lot near my feet.

  Lorna, hustling alongside, suddenly stopped, her eyes scanning the grounds. “Where is everybody?”

  Dimsboro looked like a western movie when the bad guys ride into town — everything silent, deserted. Did the locals hide behind locked doors and barred windows? A few cars lay parked down by Bubba’s and Marteen’s, but not a soul was in sight, no bustle, no boogie. We stood still a moment, listening. “Let’s do it and get out of Dodge.” I tugged the sleeve of Lorna’s jacket. We ran the short distance to my barn. No sign of Mello. Hellish saw us coming and sounded a “feed me” nicker. We bustled around, throwing grain in her bucket, freshening her water, giving her stall a quick pick-and-clean, tossing fresh straw down and hay up into her rack. We were brushing stray chaff from our clothes when Lorna froze.

  A ghost of movement flickered at Vipe’s barn. The thin boy stared at us from the aisle way. He stepped out from under the dark overhanging roof into the gray light. His arms were rigid against his sides, his eyes wide and frightened.

  Chapter 38

  “Maybe you should call the cops,” said Lorna.

  I slid my phone from my pocket. Before I flipped it open the thing started ringing and pulsing. We both jumped backward. I took a breath, looked at the caller ID. Old lady Garner . . .

  “Martha?”

  “Nikki?” Her raspy voice sounded tentative. “Jim just called me. I want to apologize, the way I treated you.”

  “Forget it, Martha. You didn’t know.” I could hear the click of a lighter, her mouth pulling smoke into her lungs.