by Amir Lane
Apparently, no-one had told Dick that The Hillside was a strip club. The entire drive down, he was talking as if it was a regular bar. Lindy bounced her leg up and down, pressing her lips into a tight line as she tried to keep herself from laughing. She couldn’t wait to see his reaction to the discovery. More than that, she couldn’t wait to see his reaction to Landon. She’d only met him once in passing since he was friends with Lenna and apparently all animal witches knew each other, but she was pretty damn sure he was exactly the kind of person who would give Dick an aneurysm, and it was going to be great.
It was early, far too early for the club to be open, and the parking lot was nearly empty.
“Think anybody’s home?” Dick asked, even as he cut the engine and undid his seatbelt.
Lindy followed suit and got out of the car after him, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets. The sound of dry grass crunching beneath her feet reached her ears. Beside her, Dick squinted and held his hand up over his eyes to block out the sun. He quickly overtook her with unapologetically long strides. She was used to it, being shorter and therefore slower than her brother, father, and most of her friends, but that didn’t mean she didn’t consider running up and grabbing the short hairs at the back of his neck to slow him down. It was what she’d done with Dieter to break him of the habit of walking in front of her, it would probably work with Dick. But she didn’t need to listen to him complaining about it.
Like the parking lot, the club was all but empty. There was one person behind the dark wood bar, two people setting up the tables, and one man standing on one of the small stages. It was hard for Lindy to see through her glasses, but she was pretty sure that was Landon. He had a very distinct appearance that was pretty hard to miss, even in the dim lighting. She knew all of two things about him, and one was that he was a dancer.
“I’m going to go talk… to… uhm…”
Dim lighting and sunglasses or not, it was easy to see why he’d stopped talking.
A large peacock walked across the club, moving past them as if they weren’t there, the long tail dragging across the floor.
Dick watched the bird, gaping. As the bird moved, Dick turned his head to follow its path of motion until he just turned around and walked back toward the door they’d come through.
“Peacock,” she could hear him saying, “a fucking peacock, are you kidding me? And let me guess, it’s a goddamn magic peacock. Fuck this magic bullshit, I did not sign up for…”
His voice trailed off as he left.
Lindy snorted. She didn’t even bother trying to suppress her grin. It shouldn’t have amused her as much as it did, but Dick’s complete and utter frustration with the magic world was never not funny to her. It was for the best, though. Having him out of the room would always make it easier to talk to witches.
The hairs on the back of Lindy’s arms and neck started to stand on end. She looked around the club again. At this point, the few people inside were starting to look at her. She coughed to clear her throat a little.
“I’m looking for Landon,” she said, though her voice rose at the end, making it sound more like a question than a statement.
The man on the stage jumped down. As he approached, Lindy could start to make out his features. The dark skin, wide nose, and shock of blue and green hair were just as Lindy remembered from their first brief meeting. But what really stuck in her memory was the array of multi-coloured eye tattoos reminiscent of the spots on the peacock’s tail inked onto that dark skin. That was the part she knew Dick was going to love, even more than the hair.
It was something animal witches tended to do. Some could take on their Familiar’s features, albeit temporarily, the same thing that Lenna did to see in the dark. Others sometimes made themselves look like their Familiars, mostly through tattoos. It wasn’t something everyone was into, but Lindy had to admit that she liked the look.
“Uh, yeah?” Landon said, pushing his hand through his hair. “What do you want?”
Okay, this was awkward. Lindy glanced back over her shoulder, but Dick was nowhere in sight.
“Uhm, okay. Yeah. I have some questions to ask you.”
Landon raised an eyebrow. She could actually feel the impatience and skepticism rolling off him in waves.
“About what?”
Again, she looked back for Dick. He was walking back inside, even though he didn’t look any calmer now than he’d walked out.
“That is something he is going to tell you.”
“Okay,” Dick said, “it’s going to bother me if I don’t ask. Why the fuck is there a frigging peacock walking around in here? I mean, do you have a— a— a— a license to keep that thing around? Exotic animal license or whatever? Who keeps a peacock in a strip club?”
Landon stared at Lindy with something that she could only describe as are you fucking kidding me?
“I promise none of those are the questions that we are here to ask you,” she said. “Dick, come on. We have actual questions to ask.”
It was easy to understand why Dick was caught up on the peacock. If she didn’t live with a 60-kilo adult male black jaguar, she probably would have been reacting the same way. Her first introduction to Familiars had been through a friend whose Familiar was a ferret. It was definitely easier to get her head around a ferret than a peacock.
The bird was still walking around, completely indifferent to the conversation around him.
“Right,” Dick said. He cleared his throat and gave the peacock another glance before turning his attention to Landon. “John Hubbard was found dead in his home last week.”
Landon’s eyebrows pulled together, and the purse of his lips suggested that he didn’t know who Dick was talking about.
“Green Thumb,” Lindy clarified. “He was shot by a guy calling himself A.”
This time, Landon’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open. He looked back and forth between Dick and Lindy. For a few seconds, his lips moved as if he was trying to form words, but nothing came out.
“What?” he finally managed to gasp out. “How? What?”
Lindy looked up at Dick. She had no idea how to have this conversation. She’d never had to tell someone that someone they knew died, especially not like this. There was a tight knot in her stomach.
Landon sniffed and rubbed his hand over his mouth. He shifted, hanging his head down. He mumbled something behind his hand that Lindy didn’t understand, but it sounded like it could have been Hindi to her. When he looked back up at them, his eyes were red and watering.
“Are you sure?” he asked tightly. “Are you sure it’s him?”
Dick nodded.
“We’re sure. What’s your relationship with Mr Hubbard?”
Jeez, did he have to be so stiff about it? He probably did, actually. Cops weren’t the same as operators. While operators had to be sympathetic to comfort and support callers, cops had to get in and get out as quick as possible. It wasn’t like they both hadn’t been trained not to get attached, but Lindy wasn’t trained to be hard.
“I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re getting at,” Landon said.
He clicked his tongue, stiffening his shoulders. Lindy could feel more than see the peacock approaching. When she looked over, she could see his feathers were ruffled, making him look even larger than he was. Did peacocks attack when threatened? Shit, she hoped not. She didn’t know enough about peacocks to know for sure.
“That’s not what we’re getting at,” Lindy said, her voice soft, cutting Dick off before he could speak. “We’re just trying to piece together what happened so that we can figure out why he was killed.”
Landon nodded and swallowed.
“He was my old English teacher. We kept in touch, I was bringing him some books he’d lent me.”
“When you went to see him, did you see anyone or anything suspicious or out of place? Anything helps, even if you don’t think it’s important,” Dick said.
He shook his head and frowned, swallowing a
gain before pushing his bangs back and holding them on top of his head.
“There was a car. Greyish. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but it was kind of nice for that neighbourhood. I figured it was someone visiting… Oh God, was he— after I left? If I’d stayed, would he have—?”
“No,” Lindy said, “there’s nothing you could have done. This isn’t your fault, I promise.”
Landon covered his face with his hands. He was shaking with each breath.
“Do you need to sit down?” Dick asked.
Lindy had to wonder why it hadn’t occurred to her to ask. Maybe because she wasn’t usually looking at the people she talked to. Landon nodded, and Lindy pulled up a chair for him. He sat down immediately, his legs crumpling beneath him.
The peacock moved over to Landon and pressed up against his side with a soft cooing sound.
Lindy’s eyes stung. She told herself that she wasn’t tearing up, as if it would stop happening just because she denied it. As annoying as the sunglasses were, she was glad that neither Dick nor Landon could see her stupid, irrational, and unnecessary reaction.
“That car you saw,” she said, relieved when her voice didn’t shake, “was there anyone in it?”
“Yeah. There, uhm… There was someone in the driver’s seat, but I didn’t look. I saw the license plate, though.”
Lindy looked over at Dick with wide eyes. Her heart sped up, pounding hard in her chest. It was all she could do to stop herself from bouncing with excitement.
“What did it say?” she asked. “Was it an Ontario plate?”
Holy shit, calm down, Lindy. She didn’t want to agitate anybody but holy fucking shit, this was great! Well, maybe great. That depended on what the plate said.
“Yeah, it was an Ontario plate. But I— I only remember the first half. I didn’t see any point memorizing it.”
Lindy nodded in understanding. Why would he? It wasn’t like people just went around memorizing license plates.
“That’s fine, anything helps,” Dick said. “What did the first half of the plate say?”
“It was, uhm… It was B-B-A-Y. Like B-Bay.”
It was something, but at the same time, it was nothing. How many BBAY license plates had she seen this morning alone? Both of Ekkehardt’s cars had BBAY plates — why he needed two cars was beyond her — and so did Lenna’s Jeep. Her stomach sank, but she tried not to let it show.
But the car outside Annalise’s house… It was also a greyish car with BBAY plates. Sure, that still only narrowed it down to three-quarters of the cars in the city, but it still counted.
“I’m sorry I don’t remember anything else,” Landon said. “I just— I wasn’t looking. I didn’t think I had to, I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a great start,” Dick said. He fished his wallet out of his right pocket and pulled a business card from it, offering it out to Landon. “If you remember anything else, please give me a call.”
There was nothing else that could be done here. Dick turned, motioning for Lindy to follow. Lindy offered Landon the most sympathetic smile she could manage, though she wasn’t sure it showed with her glasses, and thanked him for his help. She felt awful leaving him like this, but there was nothing she could do for him.
End the call and move on. There was no difference here.
15
“I'm heading out for the night,” Staff Sergeant Ice Breaker said, pausing at Dick’s desk as she pulled on her jacket. “I'll see you guys tomorrow.”
Dick waved without looking up from his notes, but Lindy couldn't help but stare at her. More specifically, the buttons on the shoulder. She must have seen it in her office or something. There was nothing weird about it.
Still, her blood rushed through her ears, and her periphery faded out even more than usual.
“Lindy?”
“Uh, yeah. Good night.”
Lindy’s vision blurred but she couldn’t close her eyes.
Ice Breaker turned toward the elevator and walked up a short set of stairs. Her hand settled on the doorknob, slowly freezing it over. It pulled off the door easily. She looked back behind her to make sure nobody was watching before letting herself in.
“Oh my God,” Lindy whispered. She stood up as the elevator door slid shut behind Ice Breaker. “Oh my God!”
“What? Lindy, what?”
“I—”
What was she supposed to say? That she thought Ice Breaker had killed three-quarters of a family and left the last quarter with some serious issues? Oh, yeah, Dick was totally going to go for that. She— She had to be wrong on this one. She was exhausted, stressed to hell, going blind for fuck’s sake. Her brain was obviously open circuiting. She was so desperate for an answer that, even though it had never happened before, she was subbing in whatever information she had. And in this case, the information was that… was that Ice Breaker owned a jacket.
She either needed to be drinking more coffee or less coffee. She wasn’t quite sure which yet.
“Lindy!”
“Hm? What?”
She looked back down at Dick. He was frowning up at her, a hand on the arm of his chair like he was deciding if he was going to stand or not.
“Are you okay?”
Was she—?
“Yeah, I just… have to pee.”
She grimaced as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but she’d already said it so before he could comment or make a face or… anything, she made a beeline for the bathroom. Her shoes clicked against the laminate flooring with the quick pace of her steps.
The women's washroom was empty as usual. With only two women aside from herself and Ice Breaker working on this floor, it didn't get much use. Lindy braced herself against the counter and pushed her glasses up to stare at her suddenly blurry reflection.
“Get your shit together,” she said. “Ice Breaker has nothing to do with Alistair Cudmore. It's probably a really common jacket that a lot of people have. You imagined it.”
Except she didn't. There was a difference between her imagination and her visions, and she knew what that difference felt like. She could always stop her imagination or change the course of it, and it always changed a little every time she replayed it in her head. Visions were concrete. This was concrete.
But it didn't mean that Ice Breaker had anything to do with this. Maybe she'd only discovered the scene. Maybe this was a totally different day. It might not have even happened yet. Except the empty flowerpots at the top of the steps were the same ones in the photographs taken that night, and the scene hadn't been discovered until morning.
Oh, God, she was going to puke.
She crouched down and pressed her forehead to the counter. The ceramic was cool against her skin. It gave her something to focus on besides the tightening in her spine and ribs. She just had to keep breathing. If she kept breathing, she would be fine. Everything would be—
Everything was not fine. If Lenna was right, then someone had slit Abigail’s throat from behind. Her first thought had been Alistair but the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. It was over ten years ago. Alistair would have been, what, eight? There was no way he would have been big enough to overpower Abigail, who was five years older and a solid foot and a half taller than him. It couldn't have been Alistair.
But it couldn't have been Ice Breaker either!
Lindy slammed her hands on the counter and screamed in frustration. She knew Dick was waiting for her to go back but she wasn't ready yet. She slid down against the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest. How was she supposed to face him, knowing that his boss might have tried to kill an entire family? The pictures were stuck in her head, always behind her eyelids, somehow worse than anything else she'd seen so far on this fucking case. Was it too late to become a librarian? Of course it was. She was going blind, for fuck’s sake! A Staff Sergeant might have killed three people, the fourth might have been somehow causing someone to go on a literal witch hunt, she hadn
't eaten since breakfast, both her dad and brother were probably on this asshole’s list, and she couldn't even see two inches in front of her fucking face!
She screamed again and kicked the garbage can.
“Lindy? Lindy, are you still in here?”
Oh, and now Dick was going to see her crying like a fucking baby. This was exactly what she needed.
“Lindy?”
She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and tried to speak past the lump in her throat. The only thing that got past was a cough.
“I'm coming in,” Dick warned.
Lindy reached up for her glasses and pushed them back over her eyes. The bathroom dimmed into focus. Dick was peeking in, making sure she was the only one there before actually entering.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I'm fine.”
She pulled herself up, squeezing her eyes against the sudden dizziness. She felt Dick’s hand on her arm.
“Lindy?”
“I said I'm fine. I just… got a headache. It passed.”
Dick didn't answer at first. He sighed, slowly, and let go of her arm.
“I keep forgetting that you aren't used to this,” he said. “I don't know if bringing you so far in was the right decision. Not because you aren't helpful. You —” He sighed again. “— help more than I give you credit for. But you don't have to solve this. I know Cockburn expected you to, but nobody solves cases on their own. You need to talk to people. You need to talk to me, even if I'm a — what do you call us? — Normal, so we can solve this as a team.”
She nodded slowly. Dick was right. She needed to talk to people. Not to him, he didn't know anything. It wasn't his fault, obviously, but he wasn't a witch. This wasn't his world and, as much as he believed otherwise, it wasn't his case. It was hers. But she continued to nod.
“You're right,” she said, because he was.
He put a hand on her shoulder. It was sympathetic, and she hated it.
“Maybe you should go home. I think you came back too soon. Is there someone I can call for you, or…?”