Either way, it was boooooooring.
And it sure as hell wasn’t helping us find Dylan.
Alas, that wasn’t my concern anymore. I was only a worried coworker now. A friend of the victim. Whatever instincts I had to grab my fedora and slip on my gumshoes, neither of which I own, thank fuck, was quickly squashed by the scene in front of me, a cold concrete garage full of even colder cops who wanted me to stay the hell out of the way.
After another giant yawn that spread to Joel despite the fact that he was busily texting Robin to justify being out so late, Tennyson and Thorn showed up and made the very conscious effort of avoiding us while they talked to the people in charge. Finally, they looked our way and started over.
“Fuck,” Joel said.
“I could’ve told you.”
“Still … fuck.”
Tennyson started talking directly at me while still six feet away. “Why did I have to find this out from the Senator? What happened to calling me first?”
Thorn did the same with Joel. “Did you lose your mind there? Did you forget who’s in charge? Of course, you did. That’s what you do, isn’t it, soldier?”
“Marine.”
“Dickhead.”
Tennyson chopped the air with the side of his hand. “Enough. I want answers.”
My turn. “Joel picked me up, brought me here. It rattled me. I called Andrew. Just … bad habit.”
“In my presence, you’ll call him the Senator, or Senator Marquette, is that clear?”
I nodded.
“I need to hear it.” He hadn’t raised his voice, yet somehow intensified it. Made you respect it in spite of your pride.
“Yes. Sir.”
Then to Joel, “And you call Thorn first. On second thought, since neither of you bothered to follow up with us at all, maybe we demote you to phone bank workers. Or sign makers. Then there would be about forty people between you and us!”
Joel shrugged, his eyes wandering everywhere except our bosses’ faces. “Yeah, got it.”
Tennyson shook his head, but he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t need to cut us off at the knees. I’m sure that even if he didn’t know why, exactly, the Senator must’ve told him we were too valuable to be fired. So this show of authority was just meant to rein us in.
Looking at the two of them stand shoulder to shoulder, I got the sense that they were equals as far as their campaign power went. Thorn was the only one who could pull the plug, but Tennyson was the one who set up the means of doing so.
“Any questions?” Thorn asked.
Well … while I’d been sitting there, answering cop questions and trying not to fall asleep on Joel’s shoulder — because if I’d done that, he’d probably have let me face-plant into the concrete — I’d thought about what I’d seen in the car. What I’d smelt. After the panic subsided, it all seemed a little too good to be true. Way more blood than there should be, spread over a larger location than typical in such cases.
“That’s not Dylan’s blood,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it’s not even human blood.”
Wide eyes, I can tell you.
While we’d been waiting for the cops, we hadn’t just sat on our asses. I’d interrupted Andrew at some dinner, but as suspected, he hadn’t got annoyed. He’d just listened. And it had hit him hard.
“Dylan? No, not Dylan? Why? I can’t … I can’t … get someone fast! Get the cops! Jesus!”
They’d known each other for a long time. I’d long had the impression that Dylan was more of a younger brother to Andrew than Hans had ever been.
He had excused himself from the table, asked for his car. “Call me if there’s news. Immediately. I’m going straight home. Jesus, Dylan. Dylan. Oh god.”
So I’d called the cops.
But when things went quiet again, a voice in my head started bugging me about the blood.
“It’s too … wet.”
Joel shined his flashlight in my eyes. “Let me check your pupils.”
“No, I’m serious, it’s too wet. I only see blood like that from, like, frozen meat. It’s got water in it. Too much water.”
I walked back to the car, knelt down outside the open door. I didn’t want to mess up anything, or get my DNA mixed up in all of this — I’d never been in Dylan’s car. Never had a reason. So I kept my distance and checked my pockets. Still had a wadded up cocktail napkin from the bar. I must have wiped a little beer off my fingers and absentmindedly shoved it in my jeans. Now I pulled it out, found a corner where I hadn’t gotten anything on it, and dipped it into the pool on the driver’s seat. The blood wicked quickly up the napkin. I pulled it out, stood up and, stupidly, pinched the wet part between thumb and forefinger.
“It’s cold.”
“What did you expect?”
Used the rest of the napkin to wipe my fingertips. Put it back into my pocket. “It’s cold like it’s been frozen and thawed. If this was human blood spilled in the last several hours, it wouldn’t be that cold. And if it had been spilled any time before that, it wouldn’t be wet at all. It would be dry, dry and black.”
Joel flashed his light around the front, seemingly for no other reason than to avoid acknowledging my point, but then he said, “Leather seats. If he’d had cloth, probably would’ve soaked it right up.”
So later, I told Tennyson and Thorn the same thing, leaving out the part about the napkin. I wanted to show off some Sherlock Holmes magical thinking for them.
Tennyson rubbed his mouth. Thorn looked over his shoulder at the team working the scene.
“All because of the leather seats,” I said. “Someone didn’t do their homework. But it shouldn’t matter. They knew someone would figure it out eventually.”
Thorn pointed at me. “Like you?”
“Hey, you know where I’ve been.”
“Not once you left the office.”
Tennyson placed a hand on his arm. “He was with me. Had a few beers and talked strategy.”
That got me some side-eye from Joel.
Thorn grunted, seemed to reconsider. “A prank?”
Tennyson shrugged. “Maybe? Sure as hell doesn’t feel as … serious now.”
“Then where’s Dylan?”
Tennyson’s phone went. He looked down. “The Senator. Got to take it.” He walked away to the nearest empty corner.
Thorn turned his attention to Joel. “Where have you been for the last few hours, anyway?”
Joel jutted his chin out, crossed his arms. “Fucking your wife.”
Thorn didn’t even blink, just shot his hand out and gave the boy a slap. Not to hurt him, just to get his attention. “She said it felt like a toothpick. You ever try that again—”
“Ask Robin. We had dinner. I had a hunch, went to share it with Manny. Came here and we were right.”
Well, how about that? Joel lying to his boss, pulling me into it, and here we were again, knee-deep in mud. Thorn flicked his eyes at me. I nodded.
But a tiny part of me wondered if Joel could be trusted. The part that grew like a popcorn bag in the microwave as I imagined Joel suddenly turning into a good snoop … but that was unfair. I shook it away. The microwave beeped. The popcorn bag deflated.
Tennyson came back over. “The Senator can’t come to the scene himself, of course. He’s on pins and needles. We won’t be sleeping tonight.” He turned to me, hand on my shoulder. “But you, we need you fresh tomorrow. Got a speech in Alexandria. Go home, get some sleep. Mr. Skovgaard, if you wouldn’t mind giving him a lift? Then head for the Senator’s house.”
That was that.
But as I turned to close the rear door of the Tahoe, Tennyson mumbled my name and waved me over to the side. He slipped me a folded piece of paper, almost like he was tipping a valet, then walked back to the leads on the scene for another discussion.
I got in the cab, tried to act normal. Joel was having none of it. “What was that?”
“What?”
“The note.”
I flitted it in my f
ingers. “Probably nothing.”
Hoping it didn’t say ‘Meet me at …’ or ‘Key to room # at hotel …’
But no, it was just paper, not a key card. In the past weeks I had been trying — and struggling — to grow accustomed to the sheer thought of what it meant to fuck a real man. Sure, it had been in my mind for much longer. Much longer. But the sex had only even been imaginary. I was getting increasingly comfortable with watching others do it in porn. But something that actually happened to me? Too soon. There was so much pent-up sexual frustration, so many identity issues I had to deal with before I could really think of dealing with somebody else — not to mention letting some other body deal with mine.
And yet I couldn’t wait. I opened the note.
Dinner, tomorrow night, 8:30, Spoon & Stable. BRING HER WITH YOU.
I crumpled it up.
“So?”
I shook my head. “Just … just … instructions. People to call tomorrow.”
“Bullshit. Could’ve texted you. He wants to fuck you, is that it?”
Felt my cheeks go red. Mad red. “I’m not gay. He’s not gay.”
“Yeah, but you’re a woman.”
I almost said, I’m not a woman! Almost. And maybe that’s why he was baiting me, to see if I would.
But this time I kept my cool. “I’ll have to work with him. Some things are better not texted.” I lowered the window a smidge and tossed the paper out. “Quit projecting your sex fantasies on me, jackass.”
He drove me home without firing up a cigar, didn’t even play DAC’s bad career choice, so we rode the rest of the way in silence.
Until he pulled up outside my place, let me climb out, and slowly pointed at the hole his cigar ash had made in his pants. “You owe me new jeans.”
Then he sped away.
But Joel did not go home.
He texted Robin, told her to go to bed, this would take a while.
Then he met up with two other guys, former military. One was ex-Marine, the other ex-Army. One was now a State Trooper. The other a cop in Stillwater. One had lost a foot. The other his sense of purpose. Then again, that was a casualty they all mourned, which brings me to the reason why they were now sitting in Joel’s truck. They’d met online, ex-Iraq discussion boards, whole bunch of guys trying to keep each other from killing themselves. In between reliving the firefights as if they were highlights of a college sports career.
These three had decided to gather at a VFW in St. Paul for some drinks and reminiscing, more drinks and political venting, more drinks and …
Before too long they started going on ‘patrol’. No orders from the stripes this time. No IEDs to worry about. No snipers. Just driving around the ‘bad’ neighborhoods — keeping an eye out for ‘troublemakers’ — excuse the excessive quote marks, but seriously, they were going at it vigilante style, until they got sleepy, or sad, or found some other way of putting the head-monsters back in their cages.
Thank God they hadn’t found any of those ‘troublemakers’ so far. And I could only hope Joel would bring his self-appointed guard dogs to heel if they ever did.
That night, it was mostly quiet in the Tahoe. They barely knew each other’s names, but they were all clued up on each other’s deployment dates, specialties, nicknames. Joel was Iceberg. Trooper was Dogged (Two syllables, ‘Dog-ged’). Stillwater was Soulfather, because he was the black one. Didn’t matter what they thought about race outside the Tahoe. In the truck, they were on the same team. Brothers. Only wanted to kill the ones wanting to kill them. HOOAH!
“You kiss the Senator’s ass tonight?” Dogged asked. All three laughed. They knew who Joel worked for and weren’t too happy with all the gay shit Marquette supported. “He do a fundraiser at a disco?”
“Hey, I got no problem with the man telling people to lay off the fags. It’s not even a fair fight. We protect them, as long as they don’t shove that shit in our faces.”
Which really got them laughing.
Trolling Cedar-Riverside with their windows down, daring some of the punks on the street to make a move — throw a can of beer at them, a rock, or even a passing glance that didn’t pass fast enough. All three of them were ready for action — two .45s and Soulfather’s .40, each with one in the chamber, index fingers straight alongside the trigger, resting in their laps.
Soulfather frowned at the others. “You hear about last week? Some fucks up on the Northside got into a shootout.”
Dogged shook his head. “Forty-eight fucking shells recovered.”
“Old woman died. Her granddaughter survived, in the same car.”
“Fucking gangs.”
“Jesus.”
Joel nodded, made some approving noises. They were all talk. But in fairness to them, these guys hadn’t come home to a rich dad who wanted them to go into politics. If Joel ever opened up to them about his family background, or even about what he’d been through that winter, with me and Hannah and our own cop colleagues out to get us, what could these guys say? Dogged lost his foot because of shrapnel, didn’t take care of it, and it got infected. So he got sent home. Now sells Audis. Soulfather? Sure, he survived a few firefights. But he spent most of his time at the FOB trying to kill his boredom. There were no medals for that, so he had to wear his fake machismo as one.
Didn’t mean they were lightweights, though. Didn’t mean they didn’t have a reason for the anger. Take Joel’s case. His experience in Iraq was pretty dull until it ended with him trying to save dying people in the aftermath of a car bomb at a wedding. Sure, he didn’t save anybody, and he froze up anyway, but back home, partnering up with me, he nearly got his ass killed. He did get Robin tazed. He saved Paula’s life and mine, although Thorn will tell you we weren’t really in danger. But that’s beside the point. He survived a shootout with some shadowy dudes, probably hired by our old police Chief, and he came out of a van rollover guns blazing.
And now these two were running off at the mouth about how the metro was going to shit, and how they could do something to make a difference. Joel pitied them. But he also needed them. Without them to roll through the night, he’d have to listen to Robin psychoanalyze him, endlessly. Without them, he would give in, be the sort of man Robin wanted him to be, which was exactly the sort of man he didn’t want to be. He wanted freedom. She wanted … well, he couldn’t rightly say what she wanted. Control? A collar and leash around his balls? Whatever it was, it made him feel sick, and yet he couldn’t quit her. He couldn’t stop loving her. That was what hurt so bad.
Anyway, this time he needed the guys for another reason.
“Tomorrow, think you can do me a couple favors?”
Soulfather and Dogged glanced at each other, shrugged. “Depends.”
“Something happened. You can’t tell anyone. But I don’t have the resources—”
“We got you. We understand.”
“One of our guys went missing. One of the advisors. He was a good friend of Marquette. But then it gets weird.”
He told them about the phone. About the car in the Mall parking garage. About the blood (which would come back from the lab as pig’s blood, by the way). About Dylan himself, the sort of person he was.
“What do you need, brother?”
“Whatever they found, whatever their plans are. Is he dead? Is he on the run? Just see what you can find out.”
Dogged turned away from the window, scrunched his eyebrows. “Don’t you work with a BCA guy? Can’t he find out?”
“That guy, Jesus, that guy. Can’t trust him. I need this for me. Otherwise, I have a feeling I’m going to be left out of the loop.”
So they talked about it a few more minutes, Joel telling them that this missing guy was a good friend of … well, he didn’t name me, but he said, someone he knew. It would mean a lot, he told them.
That was that.
Joel took a U-turn. “Northside?”
They all agreed. Show those punk gangbangers who was really in charge.
It was 2AM.<
br />
4
I bought a new dress.
Didn’t take one from Hannah’s closet, didn’t borrow one from my sister. I bought a new dress for me, my shape, my size, my eyes. Then I bought new shoes, new colors of makeup, a little brighter than the stuff I’d been using. When I got back home, I shaved my legs and arms and face and other places.
Panic attack.
I made an appointment with one of the therapists from the doc’s list. She didn’t have an opening until next week. That sent me into a further panic. The dinner was that night. Didn’t she have any cancelations or, or … No? Okay, fine, next Thursday, thank you.
Curse or blessing in disguise? Being brutally honest with myself I knew that I couldn’t handhold for the entire year. I needed to try this on my own. After all, therapists and doctors advice — more like require — that a person considering hormones and sex reassignment surgery should live as the gender they want to be (or believe themselves to be), but here I was hiding behind Manny, using the campaign as an easy excuse to postpone my transition.
Then Tennyson came along and picked the scab. Very smart, knew exactly what he was doing. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the play: if I wanted to win over LGBT groups, I couldn’t hide anymore. This had to have been approved by Andrew for it to happen. Tennyson must have changed his mind.
Then again …
Later that morning, I had a little time to spare, so I looked for as much as I could about Tennyson: Single. Often seen in the company of beautiful women of all races, most of those identifiable in political circles, financial circles, cable news. Maybe not ‘famous’ famous, but pretty well-known in the big cities. Yes, he was very good at hiding his personal life. This was all surface. Hardly anyone had a real read on his private life.
Some rumors here and there: had a large family in Utah, a white wife and nine kids, all seen as proof that he was a closet Mormon. Of course, there was no evidence for it. On to the gay rumors, the inevitable gay rumors, but again, nothing to back those up either. And if he was into trannies, then no one else had picked up on it. And before I could do any further stripping back of his official persona, I ran out of time. That dress wasn’t going to buy itself.
Castle Danger--The Mental States Page 4