Songbird's Call

by Herron, Rachael

She mewed at the kitten. Then she said, “Have you ever hurt a person? On purpose, I mean, without a reason?”

  He looked at his feet. “Yeah.”

  “Who?”

  Molly. But he wouldn’t say it. Couldn’t admit it. Scott Tinker? He’d twisted that guy’s arm a little too roughly – he’d known he had, even if Tinker hadn’t said anything about it. Of course, that had been after Tinker had thrown the punch at him.

  Come on. He knew he must have been like his father at some point, hurting an innocent person. For fun. He thought harder. “Damien Scandi. I threw him in the cell so hard he tripped and twisted his ankle.”

  “What had he done?”

  Colin scowled. “Broke his four-year-old daughter’s arm. Second time.”

  “So. You hurt a guy who had a habit of abusing his daughter.”

  It sounded too innocent, too clean, when she put it that way.

  “And you didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  That was true. But he hadn’t minded Damien yelling in the cell.

  “Colin, you don’t hurt people. You never have.”

  “I did, though.” He could almost see Molly’s face, paling again.

  “Did you hit her?”

  “No. But, Nik, you have to hear me when I say this.” He sank into the couch next to her and kept his eyes forward, out the windows, towards the impending, still invisible storm. “I could hear Dad in my voice.”

  “Yeah, well. That’s where you’re better than him.”

  “What?”

  “You can hear it. He never did. He always thought he was right, you know?”

  That Chuck had. He’d never doubted a word he’d said or a move he’d made in his whole life. No matter what kind of mess he’d created as he’d blown through people’s lives, he’d always believed he was more right than anyone else. Colin nodded.

  “Then do better. For his sake.”

  “For Dad’s sake? You think we owe him one single, solitary damn thing?”

  Nikki leaned sideways, putting her head on his shoulder.

  Why couldn’t Colin remember the last time he’d hugged his sister? Told her he loved her?

  “Yeah,” she said. “We do owe him.”

  “For what?”

  “For this.” She pushed her head more firmly against him.

  Quickly, so quickly that he could almost pretend he hadn’t done it, he dropped a kiss to the top of her hair.

  “So fix it.” Asiago purred a rumble on Nikki’s lap.

  “I don’t know how.” He rubbed his aching forehead. “Do you have any bright ideas?”

  “Not a single one.”

  “Some use you are to me.”

  Nikki sighed, but the tension was gone from her voice, the smile back in it. “Just a folly. Pretty and useless.”

  He was her big brother. He had to tease her. It was the law, and he upheld that law. “Pretty?”

  Nikki laughed. “See? I have this, thanks to him. I have a brother.”

  “Yeah. Well.” The backs of Colin’s eyes hurt. “I have a sister.”

  In McMurtry-speak, it was the same as I love you.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Molly couldn’t get the beach folly out of her mind.

  It was a trick, she knew, her own brain drawing her as close as she could get to Colin without actually seeing him.

  But she let herself fall for her brain’s trick. She drove herself out to the folly twice, both times hiding her car on a close-by side road. God forbid he should drive home and see her car and think she’d come to see him.

  Because she hadn’t. That’s what she told herself, anyway.

  Instead, she sat on the top floor of the folly and hung her legs off the open sides. She threaded her arms through the lacy bars and let the salt spray coat her skin. She breathed it deeply, allowing it to reach her lungs. The air smelled like home more than anywhere in Nashville ever had. It even smelled more like home than any other ocean ever had, and God knew, she’d sailed them all in the last six years.

  As she sat and watched the tide pull in one afternoon and retreat the next, as she hoped that Nikki was okay on her own managing the café for the hour or two she took off, she sang that damned song.

  The song they’d caught on tape.

  It was unconscionable, what the media had done. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, and she knew she was naïve that it had. They’d been in the restaurant, after all. They’d asked her direct questions, and she’d answered them cheekily, without considering the sound bite they’d be able to build. She used to know better than that. Worst of all, she’d sung that song, her made-up lyrics to Adele’s song. They’d caught it.

  I’m not loved, I don’t belong.

  They’d caught her looking like a drunk, homeless hobo, her legs splayed out in front of her, the neck of the beer bottle slung between her fingers like it was always there, tears running down her cheeks. They must have been in the white van that had been parked in front of the saloon. She hadn’t looked. She hadn’t thought.

  And the very worst part was that Colin knew because there was no way in hell he hadn’t heard about it from someone. Nikki hadn’t said anything more than, “Saw the clip. Sorry about that.” That was enough. It was good to hear, and Nikki had hugged her hard.

  Her sister Adele, though, had been purple with fury. “We’ll sue.”

  “For what?”

  “Defamation.” Adele had spat out the word as if it had tasted bad.

  “Did they actually say anything wrong, though? They just speculated and used my own words. It’s been worse, you know that.”

  Adele had looked over the crowded dining room. “Well. At least it’s brought the tourists in, huh?”

  “In droves. Whole wild packs of them, all of them wanting coffee and barbecued oysters.”

  “Good. You’re going to be laughing all the way to the bank.”

  It wasn’t that easy. The café, even busy, was expensive to run. She had so much debt to pay off that it felt like she’d still be buried under it when she died of old age. But it was true, any publicity was good for business.

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “No.” Molly hadn’t bothered to ask who her sister meant. “And I won’t.”

  “But you’re heartsick.”

  “I’ll recover.”

  The very worst part was knowing that she would. Someday, she’d wake up and not miss him quite as much.

  Now, with the ocean breeze polishing her skin, Molly fell backwards on the wooden floor. She looked up through the lace ironwork at the pale-blue winter sky.

  The beams that held her up had been refinished by Colin. Honoring the mother he’d loved.

  Someday she wouldn’t miss him like she did at this very moment, and that day would be even worse than today was – it would mean she wouldn’t have this Colin-shaped hole in her heart, and that loss would be worse than this pain.

  She needed that empty place. It was all she had left of him – that and his silly plastic badge, the one she kept in her pocket. Just in case. She pulled it out and held it tight as she dialed her cell phone.

  Adele answered, sounding distracted. “Golden Spike Saloon.”

  “It’s me. I want to do something.”

  “What?”

  “I want to be the voice again. And I need your help.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Two weeks later, The Jack and Ginger Show was delighted to hear from her, proving that good things could come from bad press. The problem was that the producers insisted that she come to them. “We’ll fly you and your sister out to New York, of course. All expenses paid.”

  “I have my business to take care of. I can’t just leave the café. And Adele manages the adjacent saloon. Can’t we just do it over the phone? Or send out a film crew to me?”

  “We handle these kinds of things every day. We’ll have a temporary manager we’ve used before in Northern California step in. And you have a second-in-command, don’t you?”


  Molly, who was calling from the small desk she’d put in just off the kitchen, craned her neck to look out on the dining floor. Nikki was balancing three cups of coffee on a tray while laughing with Polly White and at the same time directing a family to the bathrooms. “I have a great one.”

  “Then it’s settled. We think what you and your sister are doing is wonderful, and we can’t wait to talk to you. It’ll be an amazing segment.”

  A segment. Like a piece of an orange, a thing that could be pulled out and put on a plate, a thing that could be squeezed.

  It was okay. They needed the exposure if they were going to make this work.

  Molly worried about telling Nikki, how to do it without making her seem like the impetus, which she was, after all. “We’re doing an album. Adele and I.”

  “Just the two of you?” Nikki, wiping down hot plates before stacking them, stared. “What about Lana?”

  “She said no.” What Lana had actually said was, “Go ahead, you two do what you want to do – you will anyway” before hanging up, but that was, after all, exactly what they’d expected her to say.

  “Wow. Why now?”

  “It’s a fundraiser, actually.”

  Two lines formed between Nikki’s brows, a thin eleven. “We’re doing that badly? Have you ever thought about paying a guy to do that dancing sandwich-board thing down at the marina? We get a lot of the tourist traffic, but I know we could always use more, right?”

  “Not for the Golden Spike. I want to…” Nerves danced in Molly’s stomach. “I want to open a women’s shelter. Somehow.”

  “Oh, Mol.” Nikki stayed still. She held a bright-blue plate.

  “And I don’t want you to feel weird about it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

  “No, of course not.” But Nikki’s eyes had turned a richer chocolate. They were just like her brother’s that way, darkening with emotion.

  “You were the inspiration, I admit.”

  “The poster child for what not to do, right?”

  “No. Exactly the opposite. I want to ask you to work with me on it. The media has been non-stop since we opened. This is the right time, I think.” Two weeks before, Molly Darling had been almost forgotten, but just that morning, she’d been asked to dance with the stars. (The nerve of that email had made Molly’s cheeks overheat. We’ve found many of our stars have gained the added bonus of shaping up as a result of the strenuous daily workouts.)

  Meanwhile, Nikki’d been learning to live without Todd. She hadn’t seen him once, and Molly was so proud of her. The restraining order was in place, and someone said he’d left for a fishing job up in Alaska. Another someone said he was gone for good. Finally got tired of being targeted by local law enforcement. Wanted to go somewhere he could be his own man. Good. He could be his own man in a whole different state. Molly hoped he’d freeze his balls right off, two solid nuggets dropping into the snow. “I’ll pay you, of course.”

  “Don’t. I’d never let you pay me for that kind of work.” Nikki set the plate down with a tiny clatter. “I’d be honored to volunteer with you.”

  “We’ll work it out.”

  “How can I help you now?”

  There were so many things she wanted to say. Tell your brother I miss him. Tell him I should never have implied he was trash. Tell him I go to the folly and wait, hoping he never comes with one breath and praying for him to arrive with the next. Tell him I speed past the sheriff’s office, hoping he’ll pull me over. Tell him I’m furious with him. Tell him I love him. Tell him I wish I’d never moved back to Darling Bay. Tell him I wish…

  But all she managed to say was, “I would take a hug. If you have one to spare.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Colin had a desk full of important things to do.

  He always did. There were files on his desk that were so hot they should burst into flame just sitting there. One of his deputies had cheated on his taxes. Another was bankrupt from a gambling addiction. The mayor’s son was dealing speed. Darling Bay was, often, darling, but it was also just a town, with real-life problems that balanced out the quirky local color. Colin had critical decisions to make daily. And today he didn’t want to make a single one of them.

  He called dispatch. “Hey, someone said Leif was out sick today. Who’s on crossing-guard duty?”

  “No one, yet. I’m working on it.”

  “I got it.” He waved at Sweetie Swensen as he left the building, pulling on his orange vest as he went.

  He spent the next hour relishing the simplicity of it.

  Wear the orange vest. Wait for kids to approach. Stop the cars with his whistle and one raised arm. He would stop them with his body if he had to. He felt made of stone, and he was pretty sure that he could stop one car flying through an intersection, maybe even two. He’d end up on the pavement, broken into chipped pieces. He’d probably puncture the speeder’s tires as well. They wouldn’t get far. His last action would be a noble one. (Would Molly come to his funeral? Probably not.)

  But the hour passed and all were safe, himself included.

  He tucked the orange vest into the pocket behind the seat in his patrol car. He called dispatch to see if he could help clear any calls, but their board, for once, was empty. He thought for the thousandth time about driving to the café, about poking his head in, about apologizing.

  How did you apologize for scaring a woman?

  Damn it.

  He checked his cell phone – no calls, no emails.

  He’d get an old-fashioned donut, that’s what he’d do. It had been a long time since he’d brought dispatch any goodies. Coffee and pastries were always a good way to make them happy.

  The line at the donut shop was so long, and there were at least two city council members sitting at the shop’s tables already. He’d have to talk to most everyone in the store.

  And today Colin couldn’t quite handle the political bullshit. Usually, he could shut down a portion of his mind (the part that wanted to be alone, in quiet) and play the game, but not today. All he could handle was waving kids across intersections. One foot already in the donut shop, he spun on his heel. Guy Mazanti was already in mid-wave, and Colin awkwardly pulled out his cell phone and waggled it in his direction. “Busy,” he mouthed, and fled.

  Idiot.

  What a fucking idiot he was.

  Along with the mayor and the fire chief, Colin ran Darling Bay. And he couldn’t even handle being in the donut shop?

  He drove back towards the department. He waited at the light on Lowry, and it wasn’t until the blue car behind eased around him slowly and then passed him that he noticed the light, which had turned green, was going back to red.

  Normally, people would honk at the person who wasn’t moving at the green. But you didn’t honk at a cop car. You eased around it, making sure your every move was legal.

  And why was that?

  Because people were scared of the cops. Not just the bad guys – the good guys were, too. How many times had little old ladies had panic attacks just because he’d pulled them over? Their hands would shake, and their breath would get short. He would know with one-hundred-per cent certainty that they weren’t dangerous escaped felons, but his badge and uniform made them feel as if they were. Some young rookies liked that effect they had. They liked making people stutter with fear.

  Chuck McMurtry – that had been just about his favorite thing in life, right up there with pot roast and making his beautiful wife and daughter cry.

  Colin turned around one more time. He got in line at the donut store. He waved at the council members (four of them, clustered at one table like chickens huddling under an eave in the rain) and made the universal be-right-there sign.

  Benny the butcher, behind him in line, said, “Hey, nice sound effects.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I was at the library a couple of weeks ago, and they had the police scanner on. Sounded like you were…exercising?”

  Colin just
laughed along, though his chest felt tight.

  He bought two dozen donuts and a portable box of coffee, the ones the records manager sometimes brought to finance meetings.

  Then he strode out with a wide smile and no apology to the city council members he still hadn’t chatted with.

  In his car again, he pulled over the first mommy van he saw.

  Sure enough, the dark-haired woman at the wheel had two little ones in car seats and a kid who looked to be about six riding shotgun. The mother had streaks of grey at her temples and she looked like she hadn’t slept in the last three years. “Oh, no. Is it the tags? Because I’ve been meaning to get the smog check, but every day it seems like it’s just impossible…” She put her hands to her face. “God, I’m sorry.”

  Her hands were shaking.

  Her registration tags were, indeed, expired. And he didn’t give a shit about them.

  Colin said in a clear, firm voice, “You did nothing wrong. Nothing at all.” He craned his neck and peered in the side window at the toddlers in their car seats. He grinned at them. “Looks like you’re doing great. Seems like you just need a coffee.”

  “Wha–?”

  “Are they allowed to have a d-o-n-u-t?”

  She blinked. The kid in the passenger seat piped up, “Yes! We are allowed!”

  “Do you know what I spelled, son?”

  “No.” His eyes were wide, but he didn’t look scared. “When grown-ups spell something, we want it.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Y-yes. Sure.”

  “Back in a flash.” He got a coffee from his car and took the box to the window. “Here. Pick out what you want. I just want you to have a better day than you were having before I stopped you.”

  Colin pulled over two more mothers, both of whom reacted similarly – with disbelief and then happy laughter. He pulled over a Mexican day laborer who probably didn’t have papers. The guy’s car was falling apart – if he didn’t have a valid driver’s license, Colin could legally impound the car for thirty days, after which the storage fees would be too steep for the guy to get his car out of the tow yard. Day laborers tended to buy cars that barely sputtered along and cost under five hundred dollars just for this reason. The man’s hands didn’t shake, but his jaw was so tight Colin could almost hear his teeth grinding. “Don’t worry. No se preocupe. Have a coffee. Take a donut. Gratis. Have a good day.”