by Hopkin, Ben
“Ms. Charan,” the principal intoned. What was his name? Howard Killarney. Big guy, receding red hair and an expanding gut that looked less like heavy eating and more like heavy drinking after school hours. The blue of burst capillaries in his nose seemed to bear that impression out.
“Actually, it’s Dr. Charan,” she corrected. Mala wasn’t one to stand on ceremony, but when it came to interactions with authority figures, it never hurt to make sure the playing field was leveled out a bit. Especially ones who had power over her child’s academic life.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a tone that suggested that not only was he not sorry, he may very well have known about Mala’s title before she said something. “I brought you in to discuss the behavior of your foster child, and what kind of plans we can make for the future.”
“Plans?” Mala asked.
“It’s my understanding that it was you who pushed for Janey here to be put in with the…” He hesitated, looking down at Janey. “Ah… to be mainstreamed.”
“That is correct.”
“Well…” he said, trailing off, as if what he had to say was self-evident. It might very well be, but Mala was going to force him to say it.
“Yes?”
The man coughed, a deep, booming sound that seemed to rattle around in his chest a while before coming out. “I think you can see that this is not working.”
“I would disagree.”
Mr. Killarney frowned. “Your girl threatened a boy in her class. We have a zero-tolerance policy against that kind of thing.”
A zero-tolerance policy? For kindergartners? “I understand that she’s done something inappropriate, but is it possible we’re overreacting here? What exactly is she accused of doing?” Mala asked, glancing at Janey. Janey met her gaze without flinching. There seemed to be no defensiveness coming from the little girl at all.
“She took scissors from the art center and cut off the hair of one of her classmates.”
Janey shook her head, her mouth set in a firm line. That wasn’t the whole story. Mala probed further.
“All of it?”
“Well, no,” Killarney admitted. “It was a boy, and he had short hair except for a rat’s tail.”
“And the rat’s tail is what she cut off?” At his nod, she continued. “I’m not trying to dismiss the seriousness of her misbehavior, but I would hardly call that a threat.”
“The boy cried. It disrupted the classroom.”
“I understand that he was upset, and I agree that it was wrong for Janey to have done it, but do you really feel that this warrants placing her in a classroom with developmentally challenged children?”
“I told you,” the principal reiterated. “We have a—”
“Zero-tolerance policy. Right,” Mala answered. “And are the parents of this damaged child concerned about what’s happened?”
The man cleared his throat again. “To be honest, we haven’t been able to get in touch with either of his parents.”
At least there was that. Mala breathed a silent sigh of relief before continuing. “Then I suggest that until we are able to speak with the parents of the boy affected, that we handle this in a less aggressive fashion. Personal boundaries are still fluid at this age. I’ll speak with Janey and have her draw a picture apologizing to the boy and to her teacher.”
“It’s just that the policy is clear. It states…”
“My experience with zero-tolerance rules is that they are an administrative copout,” Mala countered. “You strike me as the sort of man who sees beyond such limitations and does what’s best for the children involved.” That wasn’t at all accurate, but setting the bar there for the principal would help make him want to clear it.
“That’s true enough,” he rumbled. “Although I think this situation demands further monitoring and follow-up.”
“Oh, I agree,” Mala said, giving Janey a stern look. Janey had the good grace not to grin back. “I was going to suggest that Ms. Kingsley and I come up with a behavior chart or demerit system to encourage her good behavior.” It was one more thing to put on Mala’s plate, but if it meant keeping Janey in the mainstream class, she’d figure it out.
“That sounds fair. But if the parents don’t agree—”
“Then we’ll reconvene and reassess at that point.”
Mr. Killarney stood, his throat clearing reaching a climax. “Right. Well. Thank you for coming in.”
“My pleasure,” Mala answered, shaking the man’s proffered hand and then ushering Janey out. “So sorry for the circumstances.”
But as she left the office, all of Mala’s professional front crumbled and she found herself near tears in the middle of the elementary school hallway. She leaned against the wall for support.
Janey came up her and wrapped her arms around Mala’s waist. She buried her head in Mala’s stomach and squeezed tight. Janey knew that Mala was upset and she was trying to make it better.
That was the little girl that Mala knew and loved. What was happening here? The bad behavior seemed to be escalating.
Mala knelt down and got on Janey’s eye level. “What you did to that boy was not okay. Do you know that?”
Janey nodded her head and frowned. She was clearly upset, and seemed like she wanted to communicate something to Mala but wasn’t able.
“I need you to do the best you can. Okay, sweetheart? Are you making friends in your class?”
A nod and a shy smile. Yes. She was. And from what shone in the little girl’s face, Mala could see that they were good friends.
“All right. Just do the best you can. And don’t cut anyone else’s hair.”
Janey shook her head. No. She wouldn’t.
“I love you, Janey.” Mala reached out a hand and brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen in Janey’s face. “So much it hurts.”
Janey’s eyes filled up with tears and she threw herself back into Mala’s arms. It was so vulnerable, so sweet, that for a moment Mala was overwhelmed with emotion. She pulled back from the embrace and made eye contact again.
“Now, go back to class and draw the best apology picture you can dream up, okay?” Janey nodded and ran off to her classroom door, pausing only to wave to Mala before she disappeared inside.
Mala felt drained. This kind of experience was so exhausting. More so than anything she’d ever done before.
And somehow, she knew that it wasn’t over with yet.
CHAPTER 11
Trey peered up at the sign above the quirky little shop. The Devil’s Workshop, it proclaimed, with the “v” in Devil making the horns for a cartoonish red devil smirking down at the two detectives.
“Clever,” Trey admitted. “Idle hands… devil’s workshop. It’s like he’s flipping us and everyone else the bird.”
In tracking down Edward Hoffman, they’d found that he owned a store in the Central Waterfront area of Seattle. It was a place that sold antiques, handmade soaps and lotions, homeopathic remedies and knickknacks of all sorts.
From the traffic moving in and out of the storefront with Devil’s Workshop bags, it also appeared to be very busy and successful. Edward seemed to know his market and catered to it extremely well.
Entering the shop, the first thing that Trey noticed was that Edward appeared to have perfect taste. It was charming, warm and oddball all at once. There was nothing at all creepy or sinister about the décor.
It also wasn’t overly cheesy, like most of these kinds of shops had a tendency to be. No posters of kittens or babies dressed as cabbage or folksy sayings. Just elegant wares that still managed to have an earthy appeal to them.
In spite of himself, Trey dug it.
He glanced over to the side at a hand-blown vase that had swirled patterns of a dark red and violet color streaming through it. The piece was beautiful, and almost without consciously deciding to pick it up, the vase was in his hands.
“Maggie would love this…” he murmured to himself.
“That happens all the time in he
re,” a voice called out to him. “All of the sudden a customer’s holding something, and voilà. They’re walking out the door with it all nice and wrapped up and they don’t even know how it happened. You know what I think?”
Trey looked up to see the store’s owner, Edward Hoffman, approaching them. Trey carefully put the vase back down where he found it.
“What do you think?”
“Well, I think the devil made them do it.” The Satanist High Priest threw his head back and laughed at his own joke. Trey had to admit that if the guy weren’t someone who admitted to worshipping pure evil, they might even get along. Edward stopped just in front of Darc and Trey. “So, are you here to shop?”
“No,” Darc answered in a burst of monotonic speech. Trey’s partner could express so much with so little.
The Satanist put on a mock frown. “Ah, Detective. You make me sad.” He shrugged elaborately. “Well, I’m guessing you’re here to ask about my alibi for Saturday.”
“How do you know that?” Trey asked.
“Well, I did it, of course,” he answered with a grin. “Or maybe I read about it in an article online. Fantastic title. Satanists Savage Seattle. A bit much on the alliteration, though, don’t you think?”
“That’s what you’re going with? You got it on the web?”
“Sure thing,” Edward said with a grin. “As far as you know.”
Trey felt his hands clenching into fists. Man, this guy got on his last nerve. Well, no. Not his last nerve. That one was reserved for the new APA, Carson Speer. This guy was just messing with Trey’s theory.
“Don’t you know you’re making yourself that much more suspicious?”
“But isn’t that half the fun?”
Trey counted to ten in his head. “Are you still going to think it’s fun when we haul your ass down to the station?”
Edward’s gaze hardened. “Do it. Please. I would love to take you to court for harassment. Can’t you see the headlines? Satanists Sue Seattle’s Savant. See? I can do alliteration, too.”
“He’s the savant, not me,” Trey protested.
He shrugged. “Creative license.”
“And speaking of litigation, we got a tip that you were involved in some recently.”
The Satanist leaned up against what looked like an antique desk. “Not sure how that’s anyone’s business.”
“The defendants in the suit include all of the dead victims,” Darc stepped forward to say.
“Oh. That lawsuit.”
“Yes, that lawsuit, you douchebag,” Trey yelled at him, causing several of the store’s patrons to glance their way. He lowered his voice. “You knew that.”
“I know it now,” Edward confessed. “But I wonder how much you know.”
“What? What do you mean?” Trey asked, confused.
“Look, as a Satanist, I’m kind of morally opposed to helping out ‘the man,’ so why don’t you figure it out yourself?” He turned to go back behind the register, calling out over his shoulder. “But if I were you, I’d take a strong look at who was on that lawsuit and what it was about.” He turned back around. “And the lawyer who pointed you in my direction.”
Now how had he known that? Trey looked over at Darc, who had remained largely silent throughout their exchange. “We don’t have enough to bring him in, do we?”
Darc shook his head.
“Pity. It’d be nice to slap some handcuffs on that guy. Even if it was just for a second.”
Trey’s partner paused for a moment, then nodded his head. Apparently, Edward had pissed Darc off, too.
And that was saying something.
* * *
Interesting.
Fascinating, even.
Not only had the bald detective escaped, but he had managed to save his partner in the process. Admirable, if misguided. It was clear that Detective Darcmel could not see that Detective Keane was a leaden weight hung around his neck. Remove the encumbrance and he would soar.
But part of becoming the best and the brightest was the process of allowing oneself to be rid of those relationships that bind one down. Release the burdens. Cut the ballast. Divest oneself of the anchor.
Until that happened, true progress would always be held hostage to “caring” or “compassion”. The Intermediary had thought that Detective Darcmel would be above such petty concerns, but that was evidently not the case.
And yet…
The fact that Darc had anticipated the trap to the extent that he was able to save his partner was further evidence of the man’s superiority. It was a conundrum.
Ah, well.
On to larger concerns.
The net continued to close in. The players in this dance of death were marked. And the Intermediary would cut them down one by one.
They thought to play by their own rules. In a way, they had qualities that would mark them for the work, instead of for destruction. If only they weren’t such miserable specimens of subhuman attitudes and behavior.
They used their influence and power, not for the greater good, but for the ends of self-aggrandizement, self-immortalization, self-satisfaction. They were fit for nothing more than to be mown down as chaff and burned at the harvest.
Not the harvest of the righteous. Oh no. There was nothing of interest in that tired old cliché of a story.
The harvest of the mighty. Those that would stand up to a tyrannical god as quickly as they would a tyrannical government.
It was close. The Intermediary could taste it. For this, all the extra hours, the socializing, the slow molding and shaping of ideas. The efforts would not be in vain.
The Intermediary would see to that.
* * *
Darc moved through the hallways of the precinct building, Trey following at his heels. This was a configuration they fell into on a regular basis. And, as always, Trey was complaining about it. That seemed illogical. Either work your body so that it was stronger and could keep up, or ask him to slow down. Trey did neither. Instead, he, in his own words, bitched about it. In between wheezes.
“You’re… actually a machine… aren’t you? Are you… in contact with Skynet? Am I going to have to… melt you down in some boiling pool… of molten metal somewhere?”
That sounded like some sort of reference to popular media. It was a logic train that Darc could track down if it had registered as something important, but this sounded like Trey’s standard operating procedure. The lines of logic did, however, bounce back and forth as they assessed Trey’s respiratory situation. Their answer? Stop talking and use the extra breath for additional forward movement.
Now that seemed logical.
They had been called in to see Captain Merle. The involvement of their captain at this point had many other stray strands of light whirling around in Darc’s inner mind’s eye, seeking for the possibilities. Anticipating the reasons for the call.
As they entered the Captain’s office, there were no preliminary greetings. Captain Merle seemed to have realized long ago that Darc did not respond well to them.
“You two are part of a task force that’s being assembled to protect the Mayor.”
The statement landed like an artillery shell in the middle of the small room. Trey stood, appearing stunned for a moment, then spoke up.
“Why are we being asked to protect the Mayor?”
That, to Darc’s view, was not the correct question to ask. The pertinent information related to how much time this protective task force would require of them, and how that would impact their search for the killer.
“Mayor Isaacson is worried. Three members of his council are dead, plus a prominent businessman—”
“You mean mob boss?” Trey muttered.
“I mean businessman,” Merle emphasized. “There is no evidence that Mario Colacurcios was involved in any kind of—”
“Come on!” Trey said. “His last name was Colacurcios. What else do you need?”
“Regardless,” the captain continued. “The recent deaths hav
e left the Mayor spooked. There’s that big parade coming up, and he’s worried about his safety.” Merle grabbed a file off of his desk and threw it to Darc. Trey dove for it and managed to catch the heavy folder before it struck Darc in the chest.
“Catching isn’t really Darc’s thing,” he explained, glancing through the file. “So how much involvement are we talking here?”
“You’ll need to head up the team. I’ve put the files of some of the best uniforms in the city you can draw from, as well as some guys from other departments.”
“Our time is engaged in our investigation of the recent killings,” Darc said. The threads were racing back and forth, assessing this new information. There had been not a single strand that had predicted this development, and it was one that would hamstring their investigation.
“You’ll have to do both at the same time,” Merle responded. “Sorry.”
Trey blinked. “Sorry? Did…?” He looked from Merle to Darc and back again. “Did you just apologize? To us?”
The captain raised his hands in a backing off gesture. “Look, this is over my head. I need you on the case, but the very reasons you’re working it are the reasons the Mayor wants you. Only the cream of the crop for his protective detail. You know how it goes.”
“But…”
“Don’t mistake my apology as an invitation to argue with me on this.” The captain pointed at the door. “We’re done here. Keep me updated on your progress.”
Trey grumbled as they walked out. “Stupid Mayor. Doesn’t he have some kind of security team or something?”
Darc was never certain when Trey was asking a real question, so he decided not to answer. They would have plenty to do to continue making sure the investigation moved forward at the same time that they were protecting the Mayor. The strands of light twined around one another, working on the issue, attacking the problem from all sides, spitting out answers. None of them were satisfactory. There simply was not enough time.