I didn’t like that.
c
CRUISERS WITH LIGHTS OF RED and blue populated what was typically a quiet stretch of Rosie’s Cove, considering the hour, and the hound dog was busy terrorizing every single one, including the people that populated them, each in turn. But that’s a given. Driftwood bystanders had gathered alongside a ribbon of police tape, including many GUIDE DOG patrons, though I failed to see Michael among them. The unidentified carcass of hair and bone and very little meat had been thoroughly photographed and was currently making its way into a zip-lock bag, all under supervision of the coroner. I was glad to see it go.
Detective Hazelwood was probably in the middle years of his thirty-something’s, originally of African heritage. He was dressed to the dapper in charcoal slacks that gave definition to his legs and a shirt dictated by purple horizontal and vertical stripes, with an accommodating tie, and his bald head gleamed.
He budgeted a brisk looksy-loo at the unidentified carcass before shifting the full weight of his steamroller eyes on me. Already there was an air of self-righteousness in him that went so well with the profession.
He said: “Preacher….Preacher….Where have I heard that name before?”
I said: “You must not be a scholar, as it pertains to great men in history, Detective.”
His much shorter, somewhat fat Caucasian partner, he went by the name Detective Mello (and none of his clothes seemed to fit right), was chewing uneasily on a toothpick. He removed that toothpick long enough simply to assert: “Hey, I know you. You’re Jack Preacher’s boy.”
Hazelwood said: “The Private Investigator?”
“They both are, he and his boy,” Mello said.
“Jack is my Great-Uncle. His son Joe was my partner.”
Hazelwood tightened his eyes, “Was?”
Mello added: “You mean you Preacher brown-nosers are multiplying?”
“You forgot roguishly handsome.”
“Parasites come in all kinds, I guess,” Mello.
“Look, I didn’t come back to Driftwood for sleuth work, Detectives.”
“And yet already digging up bodies,” said Hazelwood.
“What was I supposed to do? I come down here to the beach to get my dog and inadvertently discover the body. I couldn’t possibly leave her lying there.”
“If it means you Preacher’s don’t get involved, the D.P.D. give their thanks,” Mello.
“I’m hoping to put all of that behind me.”
Barks mixed with the squaw of seagulls as the hound further harassed another unsuspecting police officer.
Hazelwood said: “Is that your dog?”
I said: “It’s not ownership if there’s love, Detective.”
Mello sighed: “Does being a smart-ass come with the name or the profession, Preacher?”
Hazelwood looked confused. “What I don’t understand is why you keep telling us that you know her. Care to expound on that?”
I said: “The VIC lived next door.”
Mello held both hands up. “Hey, nobody said anything about a crime victim.”
“Her name’s Britney Webber. She’s thirteen or fourteen years old. And I’ve seen her arms. She’s a cutter.”
Hazelwood said: “Yes, so you’ve said. I had my Sergeant run a background check, and this Britney girl….”
“Britney Webber.”
“Yes, this Miss Britney Webber, there’s no record of her having been reported as missing. Why would you even begin to speculate that she’s disappeared when her own parents haven’t taken the time?”
“I had a…..I had a dream about her last night.”
Mello’s eyes sunk into his skull. I was concerned that they might get lost in there. He let out a complimentary groan too, paired with an: “Oh Jeez.”
“Oh yes, the sensitive eyes,” Hazelwood added to his partners soundtrack, “Look, I don’t mean to sound rude, especially to the investigation skills of Jack Preacher’s protégée, but this body has been floating in the ocean for God knows how long. It’s probably been weeks. Fingerprints couldn’t even identify it, much less a mug shot. There’s no way anyone could…..”
“You don’t understand, Detective, I know this girl.”
“See, I don’t think you understand. The ocean rarely gives up its own. And with how long this corpse has been floating and all the fishes that had a go at her, assuming this is a woman and not a man or a hermaphrodite or a space invader from Mars, if she did indeed live on the other side of your fence and took a long walk off a short pier about two weeks ago, then she should be washing up in the Hudson or Puerto Rico right about now.”
“Look Detective, I had a dream, several of them in fact, and here she is. I’m not saying I know-know. I’m just trying to be helpful, that’s all.”
“Psychotherapy isn’t my department.” Hazelwood shifted in place then turned, rather impatiently, to exit from the story of my life. “And it sounds like P.I. work isn’t down your alley. Glad to hear you’re giving it up.” There was a short pause and then: “Thanks for your time, especially the time that you wasted. We have your information and we’ll contact you if there are any more questions.”
Hazelwood managed several paces towards the coroner, rubbing out the shine from his immaculately polished shoes with every step. And yet those dreamlike images of Britney Webber swam through my skull as I watched him go.
I said: “It was murder. You’ve got to believe me.”
“That’s for the coroner to decide.”
“I hope the sand doesn’t mess up your polished shoes, Detective!”
Hazelwood didn’t stop in his stride. Without turning he said: “If wise-cracks weren’t protected by the First Amendment, I have this feeling that you and your Uncle….”
“Great-Uncle.”
“….Would have been locked up years ago, Preacher.”
“He raises a titillating point,” Mello grinned.
It was in that moment, when both officers attempted to exit my life for good, that the hound assaulted Detective Mello from the side. Mello utilized the creative use of several adjectives, all which resembled swear words, in an attempt to repel the dog from his legs. In this he was successful, and before I could hook the collar in my fingers he was galloping off again.
c
IRONY WAS WAITING to kiss the words from my mouth as I turned my back to a wall of yellow police tape and lit-up cruisers and left the beach behind. It came in the picture of a missing girl, the question HAVE YOU SEEN ME in bold print and an 843 area code to accommodate the message. It was all crudely scribbled in handwriting, printed probably dozens of times on a copy machine. The picture itself was poorly lit, gave little identifying character to its subject, and was fastened with the ugliest gray tape its designer could find, where it hung from a gas lamp.
The missing girl in the photo, I recognized her immediately, was none other than Britney Webber.
I ripped the printed paper from the gray tape that held it in place, and barely able to fully comprehend it myself, said with a lack of breath in the lungs: “Either this is a sick prank, or someone forgot to file a missing report.”
Since nobody was there to respond to me, I answered myself: “Well I’ll be damned.”
c
BACK INSIDE THE PRIVATE HELL that had once been Michael Holmes childhood residence, Michael was pounding down Bourbon like it was going out of style. With a glass in one hand he was presently dialing someone on the landline when I opened the front door and entered.
Michael took one look at me, barely able to stand, and said: “I’m dialing Desarae for the third or fourth time, or perhaps the twelfth, maybe even sixteenth, I don’t know. Aw hell, I lost count. But what does it matter, – she won’t pick up anyhow.”
It gave three consecutive rings on her end before he hung up, and I said: “I can’t leave you alone for a second.”
Michael budgeted another pull of Bourbon and then shook his finger at me. “I know the next best thing.”
“Who are you calling now?”
“Josephine,” he said.
Josephine was Elise’s identical sister, both of them sharing the same three-way split with the very egg that also contained Desarae, which made them triplets. She answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Michael,” the other Bibeau triplet spoke in a serious but somber tone, likely well aware of the low-down by now. “How are you making out?”
“Is she staying with you?”
In the background we could hear what may have proven to be the abominable sound of someone’s butt blowing its organ pipes in nauseas repetitions.
“No. And if she was, I would certainly tell you. I’m really very sorry about all of this. Is Preacher there with you?”
NO! I pronounced silently with my mouth, waving my hands in a frantic but complementary motion.
Michael said: “He says No, he’s not here, and if you’re sorry, then let’s consider having that false prophet conducting religious ceremonies of sacrilege with my wife locked up.”
Josephine was a lawyer for Barnes & Collins, a considerably good one at that, and I thought he might be referencing Elizabeth Fitzgerald, my ex-girlfriend. Oh what a tangled web we weave.
She said: “Are you drunk?”
He quickly hung up the phone.
“Yes,” Michael admitted to it after the fact, stumbling around a bit while adding: “I’m drunk,” and, “That was a close one.”
He then looked to the picture of himself when he played pitcher for the RiverDogs of Charleston. It was framed on the mantle. I watched him clench his fist at himself and said (with a terrible slur): “If you squeal.”
After staring at himself for a further time, budgeting further slurps from the Bourbon, he dialed Josephine’s digits again. When she picked up he told her receiver: “I must have bad reception or something.”
Mm-hmm, she sighed.
“Do you know where she’s staying?”
Josephine took in a deep breath from her end, as if contemplating her answer. “Yes,” she finally said.
“Ah-ha! Under fierce interrogation you admit to it!”
Josephine said nothing in response while in the background we could still hear what appeared to be someone’s butt hounding wolfish puffs of stuffed piping and likely intended, from the awful sound of it, to finally blow the three piggies’ house down once and for all.
So he added: “Care to tell me where she is?”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Michael, and for obvious reasons. Hold on a second….” She set the phone down. “Charlie! Can you climb off the saxophone for a second? I’m on the phone with Michael!”
Ah, the wolfish butt that brought two of the three piggies house down, Josephine’s fiancée, there it was.
“I just want to talk with her.” Michael’s voice broke up in a poor attempt to mask its drunken slurs and the fact that a tear or two was brewing in the back of his skull. “She won’t take my calls.”
“Look, Michael, please be patient and know this: You’ve got a lot of sway amongst Charlie and me. You always have. If the saying is true, that blood is thicker than water, then you might as well be the truck that shows up at a blood bank.”
“Thanks, Josephine.”
“I imagine I’ll be talking to my sister again soon. I’ll get Elise on it too. You have an advocate, in fact two of them. But no matter what happens, if you need anything, and I mean anything, a fridge or a couch to sleep on, please don’t hesitate to call.”
“Thanks, Josephine.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” she once more paused to think on her choice of words. “Is Preacher with you?”
Michael hung up the phone, another close one.
c
THERE WAS AN IMMEDIATE BUZZ in my pants pocket. Caller I.D. announced Josephine. I was on my way out when it happened, and I said: “You’re a wrecking ball. And I’m not answering that.”
c
THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN and I stood there staring into the darkness that was PREACHER HOUSE, anxious to inspect everything that the Sisters had bothered hoarding into it, only the hound was staring right back at me, and I said: “Weren’t you just at the beach like fifteen minutes ago?”
The hound let out a menacing woof.
“Okay, okay,” I said, “I’m going,” and closed the door.
c
THE BREEZE HAD MANAGED TO BLOW yet another cigarette into Amanda Webber’s mouth. She was on the dock smoking again, legs crossed, arm draped across both knees, with two fingers squeezing that cigarette, and her elbow was doubling as a sort of paper weight. She saw what I saw at the exact same moment, only what I saw was the very picture of her youngest sister pinned onto her lap, only she had an entire stack of them, and what she saw was a single piece of paper in my inconsiderate hands, crumbled up and ripped of its tape.
She scowled: “So you’re the one!”
I must have looked confused, and I was, because Amanda clarified her statement, adding a slightly more grotesque description to her tone as she said: “So you’re the creep who’s been taking them down!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What’s that in your hand?”
Her cigarette pointed at the obvious.
“I, uh…..”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” That cigarette went into her mouth. There was a quick inhale, exhale, back into her stiff fingertips, and then: “Am I the only person who gives a damn about my little sister? I keep putting them up, and some creepo keeps taking them down.”
I noticed the same ugly roll of tape lying at her feet, and said: “How long has this been going on?”
“What, me hanging them up or some creepo taking them down?” She nudged her brows at me when pronouncing creepo.
“Both.”
Amanda shook her hair of the disgust, hastily turned back to her cigarette, and puffed.
I tried to iron it out on my leg. “I saw this on the beach. Tell me she’s not really missing. Tell me this is all some sort of indiscreet prank.”
Without ever turning her head Amanda rolled both eyes in my direction. “Where have you been for the last two weeks?”
I said: “Trying to figure out this Sunday’s sermon. Am I to understand that Britney’s been absent for two weeks?”
Amanda lifted the missing posters as a prop to her following point: “Duh.”
“And there hasn’t been a report filed with the police?”
“How the hell should I know?” More eye rolling, tightening of lips and rude gestures complemented the sarcastic intent of this question. Except then she nervously sucked on the cigarette, lowered her voice, and said in a half-whisper: “We’re not supposed to talk about it.”
“Who’s not supposed to talk about it?”
“Everyone, Jessica and me for starters, it’s a closed topic.”
“Amanda, if you or any of your sisters are in danger….you need to tell someone.”
Amanda, with all the sarcasm that a teenager could possibly throw at me, quickly scoffed: “Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot. A new preacher rides into Driftwood, – like you’re going to do anything about it.”
“I’d like to help.”
More hurt than I could ever probably comprehend filled the space behind her eyes. “It wasn’t the first time, you know.”
“She’s run away before?”
“Two or three times, but she always came back the next day, – just not this time. My parents are playing dumb as a dodo, it’s they’re favorite game. They’re only concerned about themselves and their own image as parents. They’re pretending like she doesn’t even exist, like the whole embarrassment will just go away if they do. And the worst part, everyone over at First Truth Bible Church is treating this the same way.”
I said (referencing my father): “Including Pastor Preacher?”
“Especially Pastor Preacher,” she said.
Amanda’s entire body trembled. “Is she….is the body, I mean…..is it that unrecognizable that you don’t know?”
“It’s probably been swimming around for weeks. There were remains….of what looks to be a young girl, but it’s been too long. They’ll have to match up dental records.”
“Is she still there, can I see her?” Amanda stood up.
“Settle down, the bodies with the coroner. They’ll do a complete autopsy report and get back to me.”
Amanda covered her mouth. “I think I have to throw up.”
“We don’t know that it’s Britney. In fact, it’s not only an improbability; it’s more than likely a complete impossibility.”
Amanda didn’t look well.
She said: “No….”
“I really think we should wait for the autopsy report.”
“No…..I’m going to hurl.”
In a move to rush past me she gripped my arm (so as to not topple off the dock, which she almost did) and quickly surrendered to her knees, where she bent over and lost a considerable portion of her internals.
“Amanda,” I bent down at her side, “Let’s just wait for the autopsy report, and keep our fingers crossed.”
“Can you just leave me alone?”
A lot of people had been telling me that over the last couple of hours, so I left her there on the dock and went for the Stable. Opening the front door, poor girl, she let out another hurl.
c
SEAN PARKER IN THE FLESH scrambled up the driveway before I could close that door. Believe me, I tried to close it. He looks disheveled, panting of breath, and his hair was out of place. Then again, his long flowing hair, rippled with waves of earth-tones, was always out of place. Still, something was clearly as off-kilter as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dressing up in drag.
He said: “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
I sighed: “Please give me about fifteen minutes and then come back and ask the same question.”
The Sea Surrendered Her (Preacher Book 1) Page 5