Stranger in the Room

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “They’re all charming at first,” Miki said, proving she was just as jaded as I was. She handed me a fork and got one for herself.

  I took a stool at the bar that divided my living area and kitchen, speared a pillow-shaped piece of Marko’s homemade pasta. “All I’ve eaten is doughnuts and coffee,” I confessed. “I have stress hormones bleeding out my eyeballs.”

  We both had a bite and took a minute to enjoy it. Marko was an artist with food and with plating it. He had an incredibly delicate touch. Miki turned around and stirred whatever she had in the pot, adjusted the flame on my gas burner. “I didn’t know you cooked,” I said.

  “We don’t know one another, Keye. Not really. We haven’t since we were kids.”

  Miki is a photojournalist, successful and sought after. Her moods had derailed her career a time or two, but she had always been welcomed back to her professional life. I knew some of the details only because my mother is an unapologetic gossip. I’d seen Miki’s photographs in magazines for years. And in her house. Huge talent. Walks into war and natural disaster with cameras hanging off her. It seemed the perfect job for someone perpetually suicidal. She’d made the tabloids a few times during a steamy three-year relationship with a famous rocker. And then again with Cash Tilison.

  She cut a piece of ravioli with her fork. Shrimp and cream spilled out. “Ever think about finding your biological parents?”

  “Where’d that come from?”

  Miki shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “Like I need another crazy mother?” I broke off a piece of leek bread.

  Miki chuckled. Crazy mothers were something she was intimately familiar with. “I mean seriously.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I have a narcissist’s desire to see if they look like me. But that’s all it is. Medical questions, maybe. Oh, and I’d like to know when I was born. And where. There are no hospital records. And my grandparents hadn’t enrolled me in school yet when they were killed. No paperwork at all on me until I went to the children’s home.”

  “So your bio mom just squatted in the woods and squeezed you out or what?”

  “More likely she squatted in the back room of some strip joint.”

  Miki grinned at me. “So April Fool’s Day isn’t your birthday?”

  “I think somebody with the State ballparked me and wrote in April first just for fun. Bastards.”

  “Sure was fun on your birthday when we were kids,” Miki remarked.

  “Yeah. Good times. Huge shocker I’m in therapy.” I stabbed at some arugula. “You know, what I really want to know is how I ended up with the last name Street. I know my parents had tried to have biological kids for a long time. They always told me that. I know they’d decided to adopt when Mother couldn’t get pregnant. But I’m pretty sure adopting a Chinese kid wasn’t in the plan.”

  Miki frowned. “But, Keye, they love you so much.”

  “Oh I know they do. But something’s off. I know it. I’ve always known. I mean, who adopted minority kids thirty years ago in Georgia? I guess somebody did, but not my mother. You know what kind of shit my parents had to put up with from neighbors and teachers and everyone. Back then, nobody in our lily-white neighborhood looked like me and Jimmy. I overheard them talking when I was little. It was just before Jimmy came. Mother was venting, saying life would have been easier with a white child. She said it was Dad’s fault. I always assumed from that conversation that something in his past put them out of the running. Everybody knows the paperwork got a little fuzzy back then on kids with alternate ethnicities. They were practically begging people to take us and make room for white children who were actually considered adoptable.”

  “But then they adopted Jimmy,” Miki pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, maybe it’s like adopting a shelter pet. It changes you. Once you’ve seen the need, you don’t go back to a breeder. My parents are decent people. My father has this huge sense of social responsibility. Plus, they’d always wanted a boy and a girl. I wanted to run the records on my dad when I was at the Bureau, but you can’t do that unless it’s tied to an investigation. Every request for sealed records has to be explained. It’s not something they take lightly. And, to be honest, I’ve always been a little afraid of finding out the truth.”

  Miki used her fork to stab the cake. Gooey dark chocolate ran across the plate. “Does it really matter?”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  Miki touched my hand. “I can’t imagine growing up without you and Jimmy.”

  I liked my cousin. I always seemed to forget this during the long stretches between our visits. I liked her sober. Not so much last night. I’d had enough drama in my life. I’d avoided hers. Maybe I hadn’t been there when she’d needed family. Miki’s mother had been institutionalized for years. Her father was dead. Jimmy and I and our parents were what she had left. She was right: We’d been close as kids.

  I thought again about Miki going shopping, then ordering food. Or not ordering food. Or not remembering that she’d ordered food. And not answering her phone. I thought about the cuts up and down her arms and the unsettling darkness inside her. I thought about how confrontational and defensive she’d been at the bar last night. Creeklaw County and the counterfeit urn were starting to sound pretty good.

  “Thanks for taking care of me last night.” Miki must have seen something in my face. “I was pretty shaky. And I got a little drunk.”

  “Understandable.”

  “I’m sorry I’m still here, Keye. I’m sorry I’m wearing your clothes.”

  I loaded my fork with chocolate cake. “You should be. You’ve got camel toe really bad.”

  She laughed. “I promise I’ll go home tomorrow. I’ve just got the creeps right now. I need a day.”

  “It’s okay. You’re family.” I remembered staying in her house when mine was unlivable because of construction. She had handed her keys over without a second thought.

  I felt White Trash weaving around the stool legs. She was as accomplished as any beggar I’d ever met on Peachtree Street. I picked a piece of feta out of the salad and dropped it for her. “Listen, I have a job up in Big Knob, so if you want the place to yourself for a couple of days, it’s all yours.”

  “Big Knob?”

  “I know, right? I’ll have Mom come by and take care of White Trash.”

  “Are you kidding? I can take care of White Trash. We’re buds.”

  “I mean really take care of her.”

  “I grew up with cats and dogs just like you did, Keye. I know how to take care of them.”

  “She has a litterbox and she needs fresh water and food and stuff.”

  “Oh really. Well, the deal’s off, then,” Miki said. “I get it. You think I’m a drug addict. And flaky. Anything else?”

  “I think you might be an alcoholic,” I said. I didn’t feel like pulling the punch. And I sure as shit was not going to leave my cat with someone I couldn’t trust. I’d found White Trash having breakfast in a garbage bin on Peachtree Street when I’d first moved into the Georgian, half starved, covered with all forms of parasite, half wild and extremely unappreciative of my efforts. But she’d warmed up very quickly to regular meals and human attention. New people still scare her at first, as do Rauser’s big shoes on my hardwood floors. He gives in to her neurosis most of the time and tries not to stomp. Or he removes his size-twelves when he comes in.

  “I was hitting it pretty hard last night, Keye. It’s not my usual. I swear. I’ll take really great care of her. And I appreciate you letting me stay. It means a lot.”

  “Where’s the coke?”

  “It’s gone. Look, I was out with friends. We had dinner, drank, did some coke. I had a little left. That’s all.”

  “Great,” I said, but I’d already decided to call Mother and have her check up on both Miki and my surly feline. Miki had freely admitted to drinking and drugging before seeing the man in her window. If there had been a man at her window. Most people who use stimulants also use pills
to come down. No telling what else was in her system. And then there was the thing with Marko and the food. She’d seemed completely stumped, like she’d really forgotten she’d called the restaurant. None of it was sitting well with me.

  I looked at the time display on my phone. “I have to get moving. Somebody blew a court date.” I went to the couch and put my shoes on. “I need to pick them up.”

  Miki followed me. “A bail jumper? I want to come. I’ll get my camera.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Oh come on. Don’t you want company? I’ll turn the stove off and we’ll go.”

  I was silent.

  “Keye, look at me. I’m clear as a bell.”

  If that was true we wouldn’t have a dinner tray from the restaurant sitting in the kitchen. I looked up into her blue eyes. I fully intended to tell her she absolutely could not come. But she had that caged-animal look. I knew it well. “Okay, but you have to do what I say. I’m serious. This is my work.”

  Miki kissed my forehead. “I’ll behave. I promise.” She skipped off down the hall to get her equipment. “Is it dangerous?” she called from the guest room.

  “Only if you’re afraid of boogers.”

  6

  The hours between five and seven are great for bond enforcement. Southerners never seem to think things can go wrong at supper-time. People are just getting in from work and preparing dinner. They’ve left the outside world behind and walked into the safety of their homes. It had been a sacred time in our household growing up. No one shows up at your door during those hours unless they want a seat at the table. It’s just common decency. No business. No solicitors. No telephone calls. My parents had been fanatical about this. Mother was passionate about cooking, and if she spent all day doing it just to see our faces light up, our faces better be at the table and friggin’ lit up on time or she would throw a full-on fit. And Emily Street could really pitch one.

  We pulled into the Sunshine Duplexes in Chamblee near I-285 in the scarred-up ’97 Neon I use when I don’t want to make a big splash. The dented hood was an unrepaired reminder that texting while driving is irretrievably stupid. It was a low-income area, ethnically diverse, with a heavy concentration of Korean, Vietnamese, and Hispanic immigrants who had gathered near Buford Highway, the strip in Atlanta for just about any kind of authentic flavor you’re craving, from Japanese to Ethiopian and everything in between. And it was a good place to find honest employment if your English or your green card wouldn’t hold up.

  “So what did this guy do?” Miki wanted to know. She had her camera hanging around her neck.

  I gave her the short version and omitted certain details involving Wriggles’s attempted transfer of DNA. “He robbed a convenience store.”

  She was checking her camera. The light was still good and would be for a while. She leaned out the window with the camera to her eye. So much for keeping a low profile. A group of boys with baseball gloves and a bat were playing on the crumbling pavement. There was no green space at all. The entire complex was paved, cracked, forgotten. “This is fantastic,” she said. “Let me out.”

  I parked at a closed-up duplex. No trespassing signs were hung on the boarded windows. The pavement had broken away so badly that the tiny driveway was nearly all weeds. A tin overhang that had once been a carport drooped hopelessly. Miki got out and headed for the boys playing ball. Miki had a way with boys of all ages.

  I looked back at Wriggles’s file. He was white and six feet tall. The photograph showed a receding hairline and a mousy brown ’fro—a poor man’s Steven Wright. That he moved into a community where he’d stick out like a football bat when he was supposed to be on the down-low was cementing the idea that Wriggles wasn’t a very talented criminal. Fine with me. Easy money.

  The boys had gone back to their game. Miki was talking to them while she snapped pictures. I walked over. “Anybody want to earn five bucks?”

  I was practically mobbed. I showed them Wriggles’s photograph. They recognized him at once. They all wanted a slice of the pie. We settled on five bucks each. One would come with me and the others would slow him down if Wriggles made a run for it. After a brief powwow, one boy emerged as the chosen escort.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Angel.” He didn’t look up at me. He was dark-haired, around ten years old, wearing a Braves cap and generic high-tops, the kind you get at discount stores. I thought about the strangled-child case Rauser was working, then about Rauser. He’d slept all of two hours. Rauser had children of his own, grown now but loved no less. The cases with kids always wore deep lines in him.

  “Don’t be scared, okay, Angel? All I want you to do is knock, yell through the door your mom wants to borrow something. Then you take off. He’ll never see you, okay?”

  “I’m not scared,” Angel said, and squinted up at me in the late-day sun.

  We walked up the cracked drive past little brick duplexes, each with two narrow windows in the front and one in the carport. Miki was taking pictures of asphalt and brick and everything else, moving lightly over potholes and dips like the camera was part of her. Whatever her photographer’s eye was seeing, I hadn’t seen yet.

  “You know if this guy has a job, Angel?”

  “Don’t think so. He walks to the beer store in the middle of the day.”

  Wriggles’s carport was covered in the same rusty overhang I’d seen at every unit. It was empty except for a trash can and a recycling bin full of Michelob bottles. His car had broken down at the convenience store he’d robbed, I remembered from his file.

  “He was in our house once,” Angel told us quietly, as we stepped in the carport. “He smelled bad.”

  “Good to know,” I said. Vertical blinds were closed—the plastic ones you get for seven bucks at Home Depot, standard issue for apartments around here.

  “The guy’s a freak. My dad says he’s bringing the neighborhood down.”

  Miki hung back with her camera. Angel and I went to the door. I could hear a television. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. An impatient male voice shouted over the television. “I gave at the office!”

  “Hey, man, my mom needs to borrow something.” The volume muted on the television. “It’s José from down the street.” Angel smiled up at me. “White people think we are all named José.”

  “Nice touch,” I whispered. We heard someone approach the door. Angel gave me a thumbs-up and took off. The door opened.

  Steven T. Wriggles was shirtless and in his underwear. And we’re not talking Calvin Kleins here. I mean just plain underwear, Walmart special, the kind boys wear in school. I’d seen more of them than I wanted to admit. White with a red band. And not attractive. Wriggles was tall, with a pasty beer belly and sparse tufts of curly brown hair on his chest. I stepped up in the door frame. Wriggles frowned.

  “Was that your kid? I don’t have kitchen stuff, if that’s what you want.”

  “You forgot to show up for court, Mr. Wriggles. Need to get you in and get a new date set.”

  He tried to close the door on me. I pushed back with my forearms and squeezed in a little further. I felt for my cuffs. “So get dressed and let’s go.”

  He put his hands on his hips, planted himself with feet shoulder width apart, defiant in his dingy underwear. I heard Miki’s shutter buzzing. He scowled at her. “Who the fuck is that?”

  I charged the rest of the way in and slapped the cuffs on his right wrist. Wriggles jerked his arm away, and the dangling end of heavy silver handcuffs flew up and smacked him in the face. I think his eyes crossed for a second. Miki was in the house now too, circling us with her shutter humming like she was covering Afghanistan. And then Steven T. Wriggles did the unthinkable. With handcuffs swinging off one wrist, he brought his hand to his nose and jammed his finger inside. Then he jabbed at me with the offending finger.

  “Jesus!” I leapt out of the way and with delayed empathy understood why the clerk had emptied the cash register
that day and handed Wriggles three hundred dollars. I think even Homeland Security would have caved. TSA agents would run screaming at the sheer repulsiveness of the act.

  Miki was laughing, moving around us. I whipped the Glock out of the duty holster on the back of my jeans. Wriggles’s eyes got wide. If you’ve never seen a full-size 10mm Glock, it’s an imposing weapon. The Bureau had experimented with making them standard for agents, but the size was unmanageable for trainees, and the recoil will make your teeth rattle. I got attached to mine, though. It’s a great deterrent. Dr. Shetty has some ideas about why I continue to work in fields that require a big-ass gun—something about being short and not having a penis. But even a full-on dimwit like Wriggles appreciates the sinister character of my weapon.

  His hands went up. “Okay, okay. Just don’t fucking kill me.”

  “We’re going to go in back and you’re going to get some clothes on,” I told him. “And just so you know, the safety on this thing is in the trigger. It’s not even really a safety. It’s really awkward. You do something gross, there’s going to be an accident.”

  I followed Wriggles to a bedroom piled up with dirty clothes and ashtrays and beer cans. He pulled jeans over his underwear and put on a blue T-shirt that had K-Y Lubricating Jelly printed on it in white. Just the thought of that kind of hit my gag reflex. He pushed the hanging handcuffs through the sleeve.

  “Get on your stomach on the bed.”

  “My God,” Wriggles exclaimed.

  “Oh right. As if.” I waved my Glock at him and he got on his stomach. I pushed my knee into his back, pulled his arms up behind him, and got his other wrist cuffed. I used a plastic zip tie to attach them to his belt loop. Then I pulled a shirt out of a pile on the floor, rolled it up, and tied it around his head like a bandanna, pushed it down under his nose.

  Wriggles started flopping around like a seal. “I can’t breathe,” he protested. “It smells bad.”

  “Sorry, pal. I’m not letting that nose of yours in my car.”

  Miki helped me get him turned over and up on his feet. We put him in the passenger’s seat. Miki got behind him.