by Jason Winn
Contessa spent two years coddling her, lavishing her with toys and affection, making Jitsuko feel as though she was the loving mother figure she always wanted. The result was a perfect one-way relationship of Jitsuko’s unconditional love and obedience.
“I may have to start using her neck soon,” said Potts pointing to the IV needle.
Contessa wanted to slap Potts for that. She had said that intentionally, getting back at Contessa through scaring Jitsuko. Contessa noted that in her mental ledger.
“She doesn’t mean that, baby doll,” said Contessa. “You’ll be fine.”
Contessa stood silent for a moment. Jitsuko looked like she’d gained a pound or two. “How much does she weigh?” Contessa asked Potts.
“Eighty-two pounds.”
She would need to lose at least two more pounds. Eighty-one pounds had almost ripped the O-washi spirit suit the last time they tried it on.
“Now,” said Contessa, “after Nurse Potts is done here, you are going to have to go into the sauna.”
Hearing that, Jitsuko deflated in her T-shirt. Sauna sessions could last for hours.
“You’re going to help Momma, with something very special,”
“Really?”
“Yes. Some friends of mine are coming over soon and you’re going to get to wear your special suit, but only after you have lost some of that nasty weight.”
Jitsuko’s face lit up with joy.
“You want to help Momma, right?” asked Contessa.
Jitsuko nodded excitedly.
“And after you do, you can have one of your favorite cookies.”
A thin tongue licked at Jitsuko’s pink lips. Her eyes stared off at some imaginary star in the sky. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. A tear ran down her cheek.
“I can do that, Momma.”
“I know you can, baby doll.”
Chapter 5
“Let me go,” Shelby Painter screamed.
Someone held her back, though. She struggled against the firm grip on her arms and waist. Tears streamed down her face and she could feel the veins in her neck bulging. Her bathrobe fell away. Sweat chilled her skin. The cold sidewalk scraped at her feet. The houses in the neighborhood shimmered red and blue in the night. And people milled about, ignoring the hysterical woman. The smell of acrid smoke filled the air.
“Ma’am, you can’t go back in there,” a man said.
She watched as flames licked at the roof and smoke rolled up from the windows and front door. Her world narrowed to a dot. All she could see was the window to her sons’ room, on the second floor.
Had Ethan and Jackson gotten out?
“Honey,” said her husband Jacob. “The boys are probably fine.” There was no urgency in his voice. As if the boys were playing in the front yard, on a summer afternoon.
“Get someone in there to look for them. My babies are in there.” Rage and terror formed a lump in her throat.
“Ma’am, we’re going to look for them in a minute. Please calm down.”
Shelby managed to break an arm away. She tore at the hands that held her other arm. And she was free, running across the lawn. She dodged tricycles, basketballs and water guns. Embers fell all around her. Some landed in her hair. She swatted at them, burning her fingers. Clouds of smoke temporarily blotted out her view of the house. The sprint up to the front door seemed to take an hour. Smoke seeped from Ethan and Jackson’s window.
“No,” she screamed. “Mommy’s coming. Get on the floor.”
The wind was knocked out of Shelby as someone tackled her. She crumpled to the ground, feeling the weight of an elephant on her back. She struggled to take a breath.
“Get off of me,” she said, but it came out as more of a wheezing breath than words. “Get the fuck off of me.”
She craned her head up to see her twins’ window. Four little fists pounded the window glass.
“See? They’re right up there. Let me get them. Please.”
A pair of boots came into her view and blocked out the window.
“Ma’am, there’s no one alive in the house,” said a man.
Shelby tried to move her head to see around the boots, but all she could see was a pair of firemen, lugging a hose across the lawn before dropping it and striking up a conversation.
“Turn the water on!” she screamed.
They ignored her.
“Ma’am, I’m not going to let you up until you calm down.”
“Fuck you. Let me go.”
A sharp pain rolled through her shoulders as it felt like more people were piling on top of her. All attempts to draw a breath were met with withering pain in her chest and head.
Glass shattered and the boots walked away. Red and blue shards fell in front of Shelby’s head, followed by the charred bodies of her children. They hit the lawn, right in front of her. Their faces identical masks of horror, their black eyes wide and mouths frozen in screams.
***
Air filled Shelby’s lungs and she shot up in bed.
“My babies,” she screamed. “They’re dead.” She sucked in air, relieved that the people had finally gotten off of her.
The room was dark and cool. Wet covers clung to her skin.
Jacob had awoken beside her. He patted her leg. “Honey, the boys are fine. They’re asleep.”
“No, I need to see them.”
“Hey, don’t go waking them up,” Jacob snorted. “It’s three a.m.”
Shelby jumped out of bed, feeling sanity come back to her. It was a dream. Another fucking dream, where her boys died in a fire.
Jacob’s feet hit the floor as he got out of bed and rushed over to her, before she could open the door to the hallway.
“Honey, it’s fine. You had another nightmare.”
Drained, Shelby fell to her knees. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” The tears came. “I don’t want to go to sleep anymore. I can’t see that again.”
“I know. Come here.” He knelt beside her, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her head to his chest. The two rocked back and forth on the floor.
The same tears and lump in her throat from the dream returned. “You don’t know.”
“It has been a while since the last one.”
Shelby sniffed. “Like a week.”
“Well, that’s better than it was. Remember when it was almost every night? You got through that.”
She had gotten through it all right, by popping Paroxetine every day for almost a month. Shelby didn’t want to think about what that had done for her mental well-being, but it was better than waking up every night screaming to the sight of her children dead in a burning car, or school, or tied to posts, like witches.
“Yes.” She paused to wipe her nose on her sleeve. “I did.”
There was a long silence before Jacob spoke. “Maybe you need to see a different therapist about all of this.”
“Okay.” But that was a lie. The bureau was only going to tolerate so many therapist visits before they started to doubt her ability to hold a clearance. Then what would she do?
The nightmares were getting further apart, but as they did the sights were more gruesome; the scenes more lucid. And it was getting harder and harder to pull herself out of them.
Composed now, Shelby stood up and gave Jacob another hug. “Thanks. Let me get some dry sheets. I’ll help you change the bed. Then I’ll just go downstairs and read.”
“You sure?”
No, she wasn’t sure. But anything was better than seeing that fire again. “Yeah.”
Chapter 6
“I’ve given up on having friends. Not because I don’t want them, but because the trust I place in them has caused a lapse in judgment from time to time. Solitude will never cloud the mind.”
Nancy Mosby - 1998
***
With one hand, Shelby tugged at Muffin’s leash. She checked her work phone with the other hand. The old husky needed to sniff absolutely everything every four feet. Each time Muffin stoppe
d, she held her ground as if her feet were tree trunks. Shelby finally gave up pulling and unsnapped the leash. Muffin sprinted away to look for playmates in the dog park.
Before their walk, Muffin had patiently waited for her to change into jeans and a light jacket. Dark clouds threatened rain. If she’d had a third hand she would have brought an umbrella, but like her friend Lisa in the Marines said, “Skin is waterproof.”
Her phone buzzed. It was the office, Agent Vargas. She answered.
“Do you have an update?” She expected Vargas to tell her that Mr. Lindstrom was going to cooperate fully, to avoid jail for money laundering for a Mexican drug cartel.
“Mrs. Painter, Mr. Lindstrom is not cooperating, again. He says he won’t identify his contacts.”
Shelby felt her pulse quicken. She cleared her throat. “This is not an option for him. If he doesn’t go with you tomorrow morning and point out his contacts, make it clear we will throw him back to the federal prosecutor and he will go to prison. It’s that simple.”
“He wants assurances that his wife will be taken care of if he plays ball.”
“He knows we aren’t going to prosecute her if he cooperates. His lawyer has the plea agreement.” Shelby was constantly amazed at how field assets sometimes thought they had her over a barrel.
“I’m not finished. He also wants money for his kids’ college fund.”
“Is he out of his fucking mind? He’s not going to blackmail us.” She was raising her voice now, loud enough that she looked like an irate soccer mom telling her daughter for the tenth time “you’re not going to that party.”
“Okay, you know what?” said Shelby. “He was a nice-to-have. We’ve got enough to go to the attorney general’s office. Call him back. Tell him thank you very much, but the deal’s off and send him off to prison.”
“What about his wife and kids?”
“I’m sure she’ll have a fine time in prison as well. We’ve got her on tape talking to him about the money. And the kids, well, I’m sure they’ll grow up fine in foster care.”
There was a pause as Vargas was probably writing all of this down. “Okay. I’ll let everyone know.”
Shelby ended the call. It was probably for the best. Lindstrom, the sniveling geek, was either going to get shot on the street or shanked in his cell. But Shelby distanced herself from all of that. It wasn’t her job to empathize with the people she manipulated; it was her duty to gather evidence through informants.
She looked up and noticed she and Muffin were alone. All the other regular dog owners were probably home, sitting down to dinner in air-conditioned homes, as she dragged Muffin out for one last romp.
Her phone buzzed with a message.
Unknown sender: Is that you in the dog park?
Shelby froze at the words.
Unknown sender: This is Carol Booth BTW
Carol? What the hell?
What was Carol doing here? She and Carol had attended Georgetown together and been sorority sisters. They’d both graduated with bachelor’s degrees in psychology. Shelby went on to get her master’s in forensic science at UVA, while Carol had gone straight into law enforcement with the Maryland State Police. Shelby ended up at the FBI.
Alarm bells sounded in Shelby’s head. Was it really Carol? Shelby’s line of work at the bureau put her in contact with some manipulative and at times desperate people. Her concealed carry pistol was tucked in her waistband in the small of her back.
She had Carol’s work number in her phone. They talked every few months or so. This seemed a little cloak and dagger to her.
Shelby decided to go along. But first a test.
Shelby: Who was our earth science teacher?
There was a pause.
Unknown number: OMG that was 15 years ago
Dr. Vassar was unforgettable, mainly because he would always smell of weed when he came to class. He got busted for selling dope to some of the students the year they graduated. How do you forget that? You’re a cop, for Christ sake.
Shelby: Good-bye whoever you are
Unknown number: Ok, remember when you stripped naked and pretended to be a cadaver so that Joel Backman would ask you out?
Shit, I forgot about that. Shelby deleted the text and hoped the bureau’s computer security team wasn’t watching her account right now.
Shelby: Yes, it’s me. If you want to talk just come over here.
Shelby looked around and spotted a stocky woman wearing big sunglasses, in spite of the cloudy sky, with a baggy T-shirt and shorts walking toward her. Curly red hair tried to escape a hasty ponytail. Carol never gave a shit about fashion. She was, however, smart, tough and loyal to a fault. A messenger bag—Carol hated purses—slapped at her thighs as she appeared to walk as slowly as possible.
Shelby suppressed the urge to shout out to her, the way close girlfriends always did. Watching Carol approach gave her a chill. This wasn’t a social call and no one ever pulled something like this to give you good news. Carol wanted to tell her something private, and Shelby could tell from Carol’s downturned mouth that the news was bad.
The two hugged.
“Where’s your dog?” Shelby asked as they parted.
“At home,” said Carol as she dug in her bag. “Let’s go over to the bench.”
Carol continued to rummage in her bag as they sat down. Shelby could see Muffin continuing her sniffing and eventually peeing.
“I couldn’t bring the originals,” said Carol. She pulled out a stuffed manila folder and rested it in her lap.
“Okay...” Shelby wanted to get to the bottom of this now. The air had turned cold and windy and while this seemed important, she really didn’t like the idea of driving home with the smell of wet dog.
“You remember that gas main explosion at Camp Peterson last November?”
Shelby thought for a moment, and then she remembered. “Right, the one with all the homeless people who were squatting on that abandoned military base?”
“That’s what the news said. I wasn’t there for the initial investigation, but I got a look at some of the evidence they collected before the case was closed.”
Gas main explosion, tragic loss of life…what did this have to do with her, Shelby wondered.
“Okay.”
“So here’s the weird part. I was talking to one of the first troopers on the scene, the day after the explosion. He said it looked like a bomb had gone off. He thought it actually looked like it was domestic terrorists that had set up shop there and accidentally blew themselves up. He said there was a lot of modern equipment there for a place that had been shut down decades ago. Homeless people don’t have armored SUVs lying around, along with cases of assault rifles and ammunition.”
Now Shelby was interested.
“Slow down, Carol. You’re saying that the gas explosion was actually a bomb?”
“Don’t know. It gets weirder. A few days later, the forensics guys are about to finalize their recommendation to kick this up to the FBI and for no reason whatsoever the chief, and every officer I spoke to, changes their story. Everyone now says it was a gas main explosion. When the Homeland Security liaison calls the chief, he’s told ‘nothing to be alarmed over, fire department examiners found an old gas line connected to a rusting underground oil storage tank. The thing should have blown up ten years ago.’“
“Did you see the blast site?” Shelby’s mind started building a list of questions, ‘what the blast radius measured’, ‘any explosive residue in the debris,’ ‘what sort of injuries the victims sustained.’ She wanted answers to all of them.
“Until then, no. When I asked to go out there to do a follow-up evaluation, my commander said I would be terminated if I did. When I talked to the guys that had been out there, they looked at me like I was crazy. ‘What are you going to find out there?’ they asked. ‘You going to risk your career for a bunch of squatters and their meth lab in the middle of a swamp?’ What does Carol the dyke know about police work? I’m only a detecti
ve lieutenant, right?”
Shelby considered the processes and procedures that go into action the second state law enforcement suspects there is domestic terrorism at play. They notify Homeland Security, who in turn notifies both the FBI and the President’s Chief of Staff. There were a lot of moving parts. Her office would immediately start computer analysis of social media chatter, people of interest, and they would contact the NSA for local surveillance. It was a big deal, and the media would eventually be notified if the government needed assistance in locating suspects.
“Please tell me you went anyway,” said Shelby. Carol was a damn good detective. She’d fought for every rung on the ladder as she climbed to detective lieutenant. Backing down, even under threat, wasn’t in her playbook.
“Bet your ass. I went out there on my day off, after everyone mysteriously declared this a tragic incident and moved on.”
“What was there?” Shelby was hanging on every word now. This had the markings of a conspiracy all over it. How far did it go? She fought the urge to start texting her boss and the Baltimore field office. But she decided to wait for Carol to finish.
“It was a slaughter pen. The main house, the old base commander’s residence, had definitely seen some sort of explosion. It was centered in the part that had been the living room or some type of parlor. And all those assault rifles and SUVs the officer had mentioned? Gone.”
“Was he telling you the truth?”
“I don’t know anymore. But answer this: why would squatters have a sailboat tied up in the marina?”
“What?”
“Yeah, from the looks of it, about a forty-five footer. Still there, bobbing away. It was registered to a Colonel Nathan Trask. Ever heard of him?”
Shelby pulled out her phone. This was setting off too many alarms. This certainly sounded like something serious. Then her eyes fell to the manila folder in Carol’s lap. Shelby had forgotten all about it, listening to Carol’s account of her visit to Camp Peterson. Raindrops made little splatters on the envelope. Then Shelby felt them on her cheeks and hands.