Wriggles was processed while I waited for the paperwork I would need for Tyrone’s Quikbail. My cousin was surrounded by cops and, I suspected, flirting her way into some seriously great photographs of Atlanta’s Finest. There was a lot of laughing.
“I woulda put on my mascara if I’d known it was picture day,” Rauser said. He slipped his arms around my waist and bent to rub his rough cheek against mine. “Commercial Robbery says you brought in the snot guy.”
“Don’t you have enough to keep you busy in Homicide?”
He pulled out his phone, moved some things around with one of his knobby fingers, then showed me the screen. “Miki sent it to me. I’m thinking it should be my wallpaper.” It was a still shot of Wriggles in his underwear lunging at me with his nasty finger. “Can’t wait to see it on YouTube.”
“She uploaded a video?” I shot a look in Miki’s direction, and realized now why she and the cops were doing so much laughing. “I’m going to kill her,” I growled, and Rauser laughed. “As soon as I get back. Right now I need a backup pet sitter.”
“You’re going somewhere?”
“Larry Quinn called today with a job. It sounds interesting.”
“The cow lawyer? Uh-oh.”
I walked with Rauser to the breakroom and watched him pour burnt coffee into a cup. I could see the muck inside the pot. He offered me some, but texture is not really what I look for in a cup of coffee. “Somebody up near Lake Chatuge says the crematory put chicken feed and cement mix in their mother’s urn instead of ashes.”
“You’re shittin’ me. Why?” He took a sip and made a face, then added a ton of powdered non-dairy creamer, which he poured out of a sugar jar.
“I haven’t come up with an answer to that,” I told him.
“Motive is usually money,” he reminded me.
“Where’s the value in cement mix when you’ve got cremains on hand?”
“What was the explanation?”
“An employee spilled the real ashes and tried to cover.”
“Sounds plausible.”
“Larry doesn’t think so.”
Rauser made a humph sound. “Larry Quinn smells green. You know how he is.”
“Well, I could use a little green myself, and it means I won’t have to spend the Fourth of July with Mother alone.”
“Ouch. Guilt. Won’t Papa Bear be there to protect you?”
“Dad can’t help me. I think she beats him.”
“I hope that runs in the family,” he said, and did that up-and-down thing with his eyebrows.
“You’re a freak.” I smiled.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?”
I touched his rough cheek. “You better.”
Loud voices from the outer room drew our attention. Through the glass walls we saw Miki with Balaki, Williams, Velazquez, Bevins, and Angotti from Homicide and a handful of other detectives, some I recognized vaguely from Robbery. Some I didn’t know at all. A few uniformed cops had joined the mix, all of them looking up at the wall-mounted screen at the head of the detective cubes. I followed their eyes and saw Steven T. Wriggles slapping himself in the face with the handcuffs, then my own image leaping out of the way of his filthy finger. My Glock came out. It ended with me telling Wriggles, “I’m not letting that nose of yours in my car.” Text shimmied across the screen: Booger Bandit Bounty Hunter. The room came apart.
“She is so kicked out,” I murmured.
Rauser’s phone rang. He pulled it from a back pocket, listened for a minute. “What kind?” he asked. “Frank, give me the short version.” He waited. “Well, can we get a profile?” He waited some more, let go of a half growl, half sigh, returned the phone to his pocket. “Loutz,” he said, meaning Fulton County’s medical examiner. “Forensic light source picked up some kind of fluid on the Delgado boy’s skin. ME’s gotta send it to the lab.”
“Where was it?”
“Left shoulder and the side of his neck.”
“The boy was on his stomach,” I said. “So this happened while the offender was behind him, probably on top of him during the murder.”
“Or after,” Rauser said.
“Was Frank able to exclude anything?”
“He’s knows it’s not blood.”
“In this heat and from that position, sweat would be a good bet. Saliva.”
“Semen or urine,” Rauser added. “They found it by accident. Some kind of fluorescently labeled dye one of the techs had, something they don’t use on skin, ended up on the body. It’s for eyes or something. UV picked up drops and spatter from the fluid under the dye. Frank said it lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“When will you know?”
Rauser chewed his lip. “We send everything out now. GBI is back-logged, even on priority cases. Budget cuts have been unreal. Everybody wants smaller government. Well, this is what you get.” He blew out air and tension. “Jesus, I want a cigarette.”
Rauser had quit smoking last Thanksgiving, but he had not stopped wanting one. He pulled a packet of nicotine gum from his pocket. “Can you believe I’m eating this pansy shit?”
7
I picked Neil up at his house in Cabbagetown, an old mill workers’ district turned hip. I hoped we’d be able to function without drawing too much attention to ourselves up in Creeklaw County. Okay, so it’s rural North Georgia, I’m Chinese, and Neil’s a ’60s beach movie on downs. But, hey, it could happen. It was our first road trip together. In the past, Neil had shown only sporadic interest in anything beyond his job description, whatever that was. He seemed to always be tweaking it. I’m never quite sure what will pique his curiosity. Apparently cement mix, chicken feed, and dead people do it for him. That and too many girlfriends.
I glanced over at him in the passenger’s seat looking down at the phone in his hands. This was normal—busy thumbs on tiny keys, a downy coating on slender knuckles that looked like corn silk in the bright sunlight. He might have been Tweeting or stealing the formula for Coca-Cola or making the garage doors in his neighborhood go up and down. One can never be sure where Neil’s perpetual boredom and freakishly overdeveloped technological skills will lead him.
We took I-85 North out of the city with the top down in my old Impala, sped past exit ramps with office parks, chain restaurants, furniture outlets, and shopping malls that became sparse as we moved farther north toward rolling farmland and orchards and long stretches of forests.
We split off on 985 and crossed Lake Lanier on 129. I pulled into a filling station. I needed to suck it up and call my mother, and I knew she would not appreciate the background noise of my convertible. Neil lifted his head, took in our surroundings briefly—gas pumps, convenience store, racks of propane tanks for rent—and went back to his phone.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Keye? What’s wrong?”
I floundered. “I just thought I’d say hi.” Neil looked at me.
I heard the screen door open at my parents’ house. I’d heard it a million times, same door, the one going to the back deck. My father had cans of WD-40 in strategic locations, one just outside the door my mother had pushed open, and he could quiet creaky hardware in the wink of an eye—a quick-draw Clint Eastwood with an oil can and a flathead screwdriver.
“Howard, it’s your daughter calling to say hi. Do you remember the last time she called just to say hi?” An indecipherable grunt from my father. “No you don’t, because your daughter never calls just to say hi.” The hinges squeaked again. Mother was back inside. “I swear I don’t know why I even bother to speak to him. He’s so full of himself lately. Ever since he sold another one of those metal sculptures. And to an art gallery, Keye. Can you imagine? For thousands of dollars! Now all he says are things like target audience and the World Wide Web. Lord help us.” Mother’s buttery southern accent was heating up. Emily Street always became more southern when she was in the middle of transforming herself—outrage, courage, martyrdom, offense—Mother deftly seized any opportunity. She was a born actress. “I�
��ve got your father out on the deck right now blistering some poblanos. Might as well put that torch to good use.”
“Mother, he’s getting thousands a pop for his sculptures. It sounds like he’s putting it to work just fine.”
“Thousands a pop? I swear, Keye. Where did you learn to talk like that?” She paused. “You’re going somewhere dangerous, aren’t you? That’s why you’re calling. No, don’t tell me.”
“It’s not dangerous.”
“You always say that. What kind of riffraff are you chasing after this time?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“We’ve told everyone you’ll be here with Aaron for the big neighborhood barbeque.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. Rauser has an impossible caseload right now. And I really needed to take this job up north.”
“Well, at least his work is important.”
“There goes another year of therapy.”
Mother fake laughed. “Oh please! You are not that fragile, Keye. And why do you have to call him Rauser? Why can’t you call him by his name? I’ll tell you why. Because Rauser is impersonal. It’s exactly like Dan said. You have a problem with intimacy.” Zing. Score one—Dan, ex-husband, sensitive area. Intimacy—a slam dunk.
“I learned it from the best,” I said, and the bitterness in my voice surprised even me.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Mother pounced. “And you wonder why relationships are difficult! Maybe that’s what you should be talking about in therapy instead of your parents, who worked hard their whole lives to take care of you and your brother.”
“Okay, well, this has been really fun. Listen, Mother, I need you to check on Miki and White Trash at my house, okay? I’ll only be gone a couple of days. Will you just call and make sure she’s taking care of my cat? And if she’s not, will you?”
“What’s wrong with Miki? I just spoke to her the day before yesterday.”
“There was a break-in at her house. She seems, well, jumpy. She’s staying at my place while I’m gone.”
“Oh my Lord. Was she hurt? What happened?”
“She’s fine. She wasn’t hurt. Maybe you should call her,” I suggested.
“I’ll invite her over for our cookout. I’m making black-eyed pea and roasted poblano salsa, butterbean humus, tomato-and-eggplant bruschetta with artichoke pesto, and we’re going to grill some pizzas and pile them up with arugula and feta.” Emily Street was self-taught, but she could flat-out cook her ass off. A line formed at her door when she was testing new recipes.
Her voice turned sugary and singsongy. “I just can’t decide which of your favorites I should make. Peach empanadas with homemade crème fraiche ice cream or red velvet whoopie pies.”
My mouth watered. First of all, we know how to grow peaches down South. They are meaty and sweet, and when they’re lightly cooked, all that juice runs out and seeps into the pastry, and it will damn near take your head off. And red velvet cake, well, when it’s done just right, it’s a southern delicacy. No picnic or family gathering I could remember came without it. Of course my mother had to put her own spin on everything. Over the years that peach pie on the checkered tablecloth evolved into a plate of gorgeous empanadas. The red velvet cake now comes in personal handheld sizes, with vanilla cream that squeezes out between the layers.
“Jesus. That sounds amazing.”
The door squeaked again. “Howard, do you know your daughter just used the name of the Lord in vain?”
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
“Keye, wait.” The screen door again. “I have some news, and I want you to hear it from me.”
I braced myself.
“There was this video recipe contest on that cooking network, and mine won.”
“That’s fantastic. What did you win?”
“The opportunity to submit an audition tape for my own cooking show. Miki knows TV people who will help me make it. My own cooking show, honey!”
“You’re auditioning for a television show?”
“Isn’t it wonderful? I may have to go to Hollywood.”
“Is that where they make cooking shows?”
“Okay, well, maybe New York. Or someplace.” Her voice lowered to just above a whisper. “But you know your father won’t support me. Frankly, Keye, we’re moving in different directions.”
“What? It sounds like you’re going in exactly the same direction. You’re both beginning second careers and finding things that make you happy. Lots of couples do it, Mom. Dad always liked you doing your own thing.” He liked it when she stayed busy and left him alone, but I decided not to say that.
“Maybe you’re right, honey. But I tell you one thing, nobody’s going to get in my way. I’m going to be the next Paula Deen.” She paused. “Only prettier.”
I laughed. “What does the current Paula Deen think about that?”
“Oh come on, Keye. She’s in so much hot water. You know that slot is going to open up.”
“Bye, Mom. I love you.” I disconnected and leaned my head back on the seat. “God.”
“So how’s Emily?” Neil was smiling at me.
“Brutal. She’s a hammer. A friggin’ ice pick in the eye.”
Neil and my mother had terrible chemistry when they first met. They had each later complained privately to me about the other’s rudeness. But last year when all hell broke loose, Neil stepped up and ran the business and Mother came onboard to handle the phones and filing and billing. Miraculously, they ended up liking each other.
“She’s … the … pick …” Neil was speaking in that strange, choppy way that let me know he was typing the words as he said them. “And I’m the ice.”
“You’re Tweeting that?”
“New Facebook status,” he said. “Forty-five people ‘like’ it already.”
I pulled back out on the road and followed a shady, muscadine-laced two-lane past split-rail fences, fescue pastures, and grazing horses. The magnolias were blooming, and that citrusy scent drifted into the open car, bringing with it the particulars of my southern childhood. I remember sitting under the enormous magnolia tree in our Winnona Park backyard with Jimmy, smelling that delicious scent—like lemon cream and butter. We tried picking them for Mother’s table, pulling flowers off the tree by their short, fat stems without touching them. She had warned us that magnolia blossoms weep when touched by humans. And sure enough, everywhere our tiny fingers accidentally grasped a lush white petal, a brown spot appeared to betray us. And something else—that tree and those big, fragrant blossoms are my earliest memories of coming home with my new parents after losing my grandparents, after the terror of seeing them murdered, and the terror of living with strangers—a temporary foster home, a children’s home. I thought about the wailing woman whose child had been strangled last night and the way the grief webs out through your life.
“It’s the next right,” Neil said, looking down at the map on one of his devices.
White fences surrounded the property. A guard shack sat square in the middle of a two-way entry/exit, painted white with its own little fence to match the others, a miniature Cape Cod design. A uniformed guard came through the door when we stopped, waddled down the steps with a clipboard in his hand. No weapon, I noticed.
“How can I help you?” He was in his forties, thinning hair, his eyes looked puffy. A second job, I thought. This one couldn’t pay much.
“Hi.” I smiled. “We’re going to eight-twenty-eight Murdock.”
“Mr. Tilison’s residence?” He glanced down at his clipboard. “Name, please.”
“Keye Street.”
He glanced up at me. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t see you on the guest list. Was Mr. Tilison expecting you?”
“It’s a surprise,” I said, truthfully.
The guard smiled indulgently. “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Tilison gets a lot of surprise visitors. I’m real sorry. But I can’t let y’all in unless you’re on the list.” He glanced at Neil.
I showed him my identification,
which had the state seal, the secretary of state’s printed signature, my business name, and my name and address. I had a badge too, but decided not to break it out.
He handed it back. “Same agency gave you that licenses security personnel. I got one almost just like it.”
“This concerns a friend of Mr. Tilison’s,” I said. “It really is important I speak with him.”
“I am sorry, Ms. Street, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Neil, would you mind getting Cash on the phone, please?” I wasn’t thrilled about tipping Tilison off. I wanted to surprise him, judge his steadiness with an unscheduled visit. But unless I ran the barricade and dinged up my currently unblemished Impala, it didn’t look like I was going to get inside.
Neil punched in the number Miki had given us. The sun was heating up, beating down on us. He handed me the phone. “Mr. Tilison, my name is Keye Street. I’d like to speak to you about Miki Ashton.”
“About Miki? What about Miki?”
I recognized his howdy-ma’am country-singer voice. I’d heard it in television interviews. “I’m at the guard shack. Would you mind instructing security to open the gate?”
The call came half a minute later, the arm lifted, and we pulled in to Cash’s multimillion-dollar neighborhood—a honeymoon of Old South and new money, with three-acre lots, weeping willows bending over garden bridges and koi ponds, gigantic shoreline homes overlooking Lake Lanier. And so far out of my price range I couldn’t have hit it with a high-powered scope.
We found the address and pulled into a long driveway. The antenna on my old ragtop teased a row of twilight crepe myrtles and the blossoms drifted into my open convertible like lavender snowflakes. Tilison’s limestone mansion shimmered with the water behind it like it was the end of the rainbow.
I parked in a circular drive in front of the house. We both got out. I looked back at my car and decided it looked good in this neighborhood. My sixty-nine Impala was in perfect condition, thanks to my dad, who’d pieced it back together after some bad luck last year—a serial killer with a tire tool and an angry subpoena recipient with a thirty-eight. Just so happens, as my dad loves to point out, I’m just as tough on cars sober as I was as a practicing drunk. Thanks, Dad. Why do people enjoy reminding you of the past? And when I say “people,” I mean parents. They hold on to everything. Doesn’t matter if you’ve recovered from alcohol, Jehovah witnessing, an attraction to guys in ball-gags, or once had a bout with gender dysphoria, your parents will clobber you with it eventually. And given the tiniest opening, they will share it with whomever you’ve decided to bring home for dinner.
Stranger in the Room Page 6