by J. L. Murray
“Hey, Frankie,” said a deep, too-friendly voice behind me. “Who's your friend?”
I froze for a second and had to force myself to turn around. It felt like slow motion. And then he was standing there, smiling, dimples showing. But his eyes were cold.
“Tommy,” I said, my knees weak. “Hey.”
“Hey, Frankie,” he said, wrapping his fingers around my upper arm tightly, so tight it almost hurt. “Maybe we could go somewhere and talk. Us being partners and all.”
I stared at Roo, who looked terrified.
“Excuse me, but me and this bitch are talking,” said Shawn.
“This bitch and I,” said Dekker.
“What?”
“You're already a meth head,” said Dekker. “No need to be a stereotype.”
If I hadn't been so terrified, I would have laughed. But Shawn scrunched up his face into an expression he probably thought made him look tough.
“Before you do something stupid,” Dekker said quietly, “please know that I'm a detective in the Chicago Police Department. But that's not why you don't want to pick a fight with me. You look like you haven't had a square meal in weeks, maybe months. And fighting me would result in not only some pretty hefty hospital bills, but quite likely your death. Now, think about this for a bit. I know it's hard because I can see the track marks on your arms. Maybe you think you have the upper hand here, but I assure you that you are very much mistaken.”
Shawn was speechless, looking from Dekker to me and back again. I shrugged.
“He's probably right,” I said. “Dude looks like a bodybuilder with his clothes off.” Shawn swallowed hard.
“Yeah, smart decision,” said Dekker. “Frankie? Shall we?”
“We could get a table,” I said, trying to smile at him.
“Right, yeah, let's do that. Oh, wait. I seem to have forgotten my wallet.”
“Fair enough,” I said, letting him lead me outside. When the door slammed behind us, I wrenched out of his grasp, rubbing my arm. “Are you going to arrest me?”
Dekker looked shocked and, to my surprise, he laughed.
“That's a joke, right?” he said.
“No.” I watched him, confused. Then what Shawn said in the bar dawned on me. The body in the trunk. The trunk of Dekker's car. “How'd you find me?”
“I'm a detective,” he growled. Then he shrugged. “My car has LoJack. Tracked you to St. Thomas. Then stopped in for a drink and met a delightful bartender who talked about a hot blonde who came through on her way to Helmsville. Something about having family there. Oddly, a man lost his wallet that same night and someone stole a couple hundred dollars out of his bank account.”
“Isn't that curious.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Curious as fuck.”
“So you want your car.”
“I want my fucking car. And my wallet.”
“Are you going to kill me, too?”
“What?”
“You've got a body in your trunk,” I said. “And I stole your shit. Although, I had some pretty good reasons to do that.”
“Really?”
“No, not really,” I said.
“Just give me my damn wallet,” he said. I pulled it out of my satchel and handed it to him. “You had it on you?”
I smiled in what I hoped was a sheepish way. “I may have used your badge to question someone.”
“You impersonated a police officer?”
“Just a little.”
“For what? Another scam?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What else would it be?”
“Take me to my car.”
“Fine,” I said. “Your ride or mine?”
“Yours. Did you steal it?”
“No, my dad and I restored it.”
“Where's the Honda?” His eyes looked past me and he squinted. I turned to see the four ravens, all blinking at us.
“You know that guy you just threatened to kill?”
“What?” He frowned. “Yeah. What about him?”
“It's at his place.”
He stared at the door to the bar, then he looked at me.
“Fuck,” he said.
“I didn't know you were a cop,” I said, taking the turns too fast on purpose. Dekker was hanging onto his seat for dear life. I could tell he was trying hard to look calm, but he was so obviously a city boy, and I knew these curves like they were a part of me. “I mean, you don’t seem like a cop. Not any cop I’ve ever met.”
“That's a huge consolation,” he said, his voice strained as he watched the road. He squeezed his eyes shut as I got too close to the side of the mountain. I glanced at him. Even if I stole his wallet and car, there was something weird about him tracking me here. Despite my gut telling me to run, despite the fact that he was pissed off at me, despite the dead body in his car, I wanted to keep him here.
“Are we even going the right way?” he said, peering at me through one open eye.
“Relax, I want to show you something.”
“I've been driving for three days,” he said. “I just want to get what belongs to me and get the hell out of this shithole.”
“You mean the dead body,” I said.
“What?”
“What belongs to you. A dead body.”
“Are you threatening to turn me in?” he said. “A bit late for that, isn't it?”
“You could have reported me,” I said. “Could have said I put the body there. Who was it anyway? A drifter who pissed you off? A girlfriend? Oh, was it another cop?”
“You don't know what you're talking about,” he said.
“That's why I'm asking questions. What kind of detective are you?”
“Homicide,” he said. “Or I was. I don't know anymore.”
“Well that's interesting. A homicide detective with a dead body in his car.”
“Just drive,” he said. It was getting dark now, stars dotting the barely blue sky.
“You came out here for a reason, didn't you?” I said. He looked quickly at me, then out the window. “I know I'm not that good in bed. So you must be running from something. Come on, Tommy. Spill the beans.”
“Why are you doing this?” he said, massaging his temples.
“What do you mean? The witty banter?”
“It's not as witty as you think.”
“That hurts. I think I'm quite vivacious.”
“Jesus, are you always like this?”
I shrugged. “Only when my interest is piqued.”
“Why the hell should I tell you anything? You fucked me, robbed me, and stole my car.”
“Nobody's perfect. Besides, I can help you.”
He snorted. “Right. Like you helped me last time.”
“That wasn't my fault,” I said, remembering and growing serious. “I'm sorry it ended that way.”
“How was it not your fault?”
I didn't answer right away. The car was silent but for the rumbling of the engine and the sound of tires on gravel. When I finally did answer, my voice was quiet. “I was called away.”
“Called away,” he said. “Bullshit.”
“I don't need you to believe me, Tommy.”
“Stop calling me that. Call me Dekker like everyone else. How can you help me? I'd love to hear that.”
“It just so happens this is a perfect place to get rid of a body,” I said. “People don't come here for the community, you know. They come to get away from everything else, to mind their own business, to hide from the world. And if the bears or coyotes don't take care of the remains, the elements will. And Shawn can get rid of your car. Apparently he draws the line at dead people, though. Go figure.”
“What makes you think I want anything from you?” he said. I felt his eyes on me.
“To be honest, you don't seem nearly as mad at me as you should be,” I said. “That's fine, I'm good with how well you're taking all this. And maybe you really did drive all this way for a badge and a shitty car with a dead guy in the trunk, but I feel
like there's more to this. So why don't you tell me what it is, Tommy.”
“Dekker.”
“You just don’t seem like a cop to me. And I’ve met a lot of cops.” I slammed on the brakes, pitching him forward. He cried out as he banged his head on the dashboard. “You should wear your seat belt, Tommy.”
“Goddammit, Frankie. I'm not the bad guy here, you are.”
“Why are you here?”
He was holding his nose, which was barely bleeding. He sneered at me, wiping the blood on his sleeve.
“You're not telling me what you're really doing, Dekker,” I said. “And I need to know. I need to know why you followed me across six states and didn't leave me to the wolves.”
He eyed me, like he was trying to read me.
“Frances Abigail Mourning,” he said. “Convicted of eight murders at the age of seventeen, tried as an adult. One of the deaths was your own sister, Rebecca Mourning, killed in this very town. Sentenced to death.” He was holding something in his hand now. A small gun. “Executed January 8th of this year.”
“Jesus, you men and your guns,” I said. “So what is this, some sort of clever rouse? Are you wearing a wire? Something to catch me in your dragnet?”
“That's not really a thing,” he said.
“Tell that to Joe Friday.”
He stared at me for a long time, but I didn't look away. His dark eyes glinted in the dark. “You're dead,” he said finally. “I saw the pictures. The autopsy report. Everything. Your fingerprints match the person who was executed that night. How are you here?”
“Maybe I'm Frankenstein’s monster,” I said. “My body disappeared from the morgue.”
“And you're still doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“The vigilante killings. You left Jimmy Wayne Frasier's car in the parking lot. The feds were all over it when I snuck out. So tell me how you're sitting here next to me, breathing and talking and cracking wise.”
“I don't know,” I admitted. “It's not like I didn't want to die, Tommy—Dekker. I was ready. I was so tired. I still am. But apparently I serve some purpose for someone I've never seen. Someone who has people come and tell me where to go so I can find the bad guys.”
“And murder them.”
I nodded. “Yeah, and murder them. I kill the killers. I keep thinking maybe I'm crazy. I hope I'm crazy. Because the shit I've seen in the last six months is insane. Healthy people shouldn't see the things I've seen. I have blood on my hands. A lot of blood. Did you know who I was when we met in that bar?”
“No,” he said. “I found out when I asked some friends about Jimmy Wayne Frasier's car. I thought it was a fluke that a dead girl's fingerprints kept showing up in these scenes. All over the country, killers were turning up dead. No one believed there was a connection.”
“Except for you,” I said. “So you're the rogue cop, suspended for his passion and determined to find out the truth.”
“No,” he said, wincing. “I'm the cop who killed a guy that was about to get away with something very bad. And now I need to disappear. But I am obsessive. That's something you should know about me.”
“Why? Are we best friends now?”
“No,” he said. “I want in.”
“In?” I said. “In on what?”
“Whatever you're doing here,” he said. “This is where you're from, right? So what's going on in Helmsville that would force you to come back to your worst memories?”
“Think you're pretty smart, don't you?”
“Sometimes.”
“You won't believe me. It's not anything even I've ever seen before.”
“I'm an open-minded guy.”
“Put down the gun,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I'll do you one better. I'll show you.”
He grinned as he shoved the gun into a holster on his belt. “That wasn't so hard, was it?”
“Shut up.”
“Hey, Frankie.”
“What?”
“Those scars aren't really from heart surgery, are they?”
“Wow, you really are a detective.”
I pulled into the field where my father's church used to be and put the car in park, but didn't cut the engine. I just sat there, feeling Dekker's eyes on me. I reached into my pocket and took out a battered pack of smokes, tapped one out, and didn't protest when Dekker reached over and lit it. He'd put his gun away and was just sitting there. Patient. As if he knew this was hard for me. It was the only way to show him without taking him to Beatrice's house. I didn't want to bring her into this.
But why show him at all? I pulled the smoke deep into my lungs and glanced at Dekker out of the corner of my eye. I thought about Alyssa Kroger, killed by her own daughters. About Roo's brother, my father, about I didn't know how many murders. Ghosts taking over lives. The blue hand print on the mirror. Bea's horrified expression, like I was dead already. How much time did I have?
“I don't have to show you this,” I said, watching the knapweed sway in the wind. It was dark now, but the headlights illuminated the scene in front of us. Dekker was silent. He probably worked this way, just waited patiently for criminals to tell him everything. The calm annoyed me, but I didn't show it. I took another drag of my cigarette and cracked my window, watching the smoke curl out into the night.
I finally looked at him. “I'm alone. Always. I work alone, and I'm damn good at it.”
“At killing.”
“Yes, at killing. Better than you.”
“I'm not a killer.”
I watched him, waiting for the irony to dawn on him.
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “But only when it's important.”
“You said you wanted in,” I said. “If that's true, I need to know you understand what you're asking. I do this alone. But this time, I don't know. This isn't some freak with a thing for his mother. It's not some guy murdering call girls. I don't understand what's happening.”
He was frowning, watching me closely. “You're scared,” he said. “You're scared, and you're not someone who's used to being scared.”
I looked away, watching out the window.
“Frankie,” said Dekker beside me. “Just tell me. I can help you.”
“That's what you people always say,” I said, stabbing out my cigarette in the ashtray. “Cops. You say you want to help, and then you abandon us. How do I know you're not going to turn around and make everything bad for me?”
He looked out the window, not seeming to have an answer. But after a long moment, he rubbed his face with his hand. “Internal Affairs,” he said.
“What?”
“That's who's in the trunk. A cop.”
“Damn,” I said.
“I'm a good cop,” he said, anger in his voice. “Was a good cop. But, this fucking world. I didn't want to kill them. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.”
“No one ever does,” I said. “How many?”
“My partner,” he said. “Two others. Then this corrupt Internal Affairs asshole. It wasn't intentional, Frankie. You have to understand. But I just...”
“Couldn't let it lie,” I said, finishing his sentence.
“Yeah,” he said. “I couldn't let it lie. They were taking money from this big drug dealer. Real bad motherfucker. They were stealing, extorting, there was even talk of them forcing women into sex when they couldn't pay. I never saw that. If I had, I would have killed them a lot more painfully. My partner...” He closed his eyes, as if talking about it was overwhelming. “My partner denied it at first. And then, he offered me what he called a piece of the action. Action. Killing people for a drug dealer. I don't remember pulling the trigger. But I sure as hell remember dumping his body. That's when I stopped being a cop, I think. All my life I wanted to be a detective. And I threw it away for one shithead.”
“You could have claimed self-defense,” I said.
“No,” he said, with a dry, humorless laugh. “I couldn't. It wasn't. I killed him because I wanted to. I killed him and I sl
ept like a goddamn baby that night. I didn't lose a wink after I killed my best friend. Why is that, Frankie?”
“I don't know,” I said.
“I think you do. I think you know, and you've felt the same goddamn thing. When the dealer and his bodyguard confronted me a week later, it wasn’t hard. I made a choice. It didn't just happen, I decided to kill them. I wasn't in danger, I wasn't angry. They were pieces of shit who were making the world an uglier place than it had to be. I killed them and I left them there in that alley. And when I took off, I ended up in the Starlight Motel. And that Internal Affairs dickhead found me. Not through the police, but through whoever he was working for. Followed me.”
“To kill you,” I said.
“To kill me, after a fashion,” he agreed. “But mostly to frame me.”
“For what?”
Dekker shrugged. “Whatever he wanted. Murder, rape, burglary. He was going to turn me into the most hated piece of shit who was ever incarcerated in Chicago, Illinois. Said he was going to take me back and spread the word in prison that I was messing with kids. That’s how he wanted me to die.”
“Jesus. Why didn't he just kill you outright?”
“I asked him that, too,” said Dekker. “Know what he said?”
“No.”
“Said it wouldn't be as much fun.”
“So you killed him.”
“It was easy,” he said, his eyes going flat. “It makes me sick how easy it was. A human being. Four human beings. And I killed them like it was nothing. Like they were animals.”
“They were animals.”
He looked over, his eyes burning into me. I refused to look away.
“I know who you are, Frankie Mourning,” he said. “I understand you because I am you. We're the same, you and I. It's a mistake to turn me away. The truth is, I haven't stopped thinking about you since we met. I killed a man two hours before I hit on you. That should tell you about my character, my moral compass. I murdered a man, and took you back to my room when he was still in the trunk of my car, not even cold yet.”
“I killed a serial killer, drove to a bar, and screwed you while his car was outside,” I said.
“Look, I know you don't need my help,” Dekker said, leaning toward me, his voice nearly a whisper. “Frankie, I know you don't need me. But I'm begging you. Please. I need this. I need you.”