While, intellectually, I knew kids grew up, I was always fairly baffled that he looked so much older, every darn time. He stood on the lawn in a T-shirt, cutoffs and flip-flops, working some kind of handheld gizmo with his thumbs while an odd mechanical sound buzzed in the distance. We’d just seen him a few weeks ago. Yet somehow, he seemed practically adult-sized now. A smallish adult, maybe—but still, it was weird, because I’d never stopped thinking of him as the snot-nosed brat who parroted random homophobic remarks to try and get a rise out of me.
Barbara powered down the window and barked, “Clayton Joseph!”
I flinched. Her kid didn’t. She was out of the car like a shot before Jacob even cut the engine.
“I told you to stay inside with the door locked. And why in the heck would you need to stand in the middle of the lawn to play your video game?”
“It’s not a game—it’s a drone.”
We all looked up as we joined her on the edge of the lawn. So that’s where that buzzing noise was coming from.
I wondered if it was only civilian drones that were so loud.
Barbara was not impressed. “And where did that drone come from?”
“Dad.”
“Figures,” Barbara muttered under her breath. “I swear Derrick lives to make me look bad. I told Clayton no drone. And what does he go and do? Buys him a frickin’ drone. And now, if I take it away, I’m the bad guy.”
The whining grew louder as the drone floated down to earth. “Did you see that landing?” Clayton turned to Jacob, and his careless tween attitude slipped. “Uncle Jacob, did you see?”
“Awesome,” Jacob said. I think the enthusiasm was genuine, too, despite everything he’d been through. He’s always had a soft spot for Clayton.
Jacob and Clayton wandered toward the sidewalk, trailing after the drone. Once they were out of earshot, I dropped my voice and told Barbara, “You can always use it for leverage. Take it away when he does something wrong.”
“Oh, I will. Believe you me. Even so…it pisses me off.” She whispered the curse word as if she was afraid God might hear her and put a black mark on her permanent record. “I never wanted to be the only disciplinarian in Clayton’s life. But now I’m stuck being the strict parent.”
I wasn’t sure how much or how little Barbara wanted to tell me—and to be honest, other folks’ personal details tended to leave me feeling uncomfortable and strange—but for whatever reason, people seem to think they want my advice. “He’ll thank you for it later,” I said vaguely.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Derrick is always showering him with money and toys. How can I compete with that?”
“By being there for him.”
Barb pressed her lips together and gazed off into the middle distance. Her eyes looked a little bit wet. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s enough.”
The conversation was hitting uncomfortably close to the bone, and I saw Barbara’s attention swing back to her phone, as if locating Sacred Heart would save her from having to think about how thankless it was to be a single parent. It was bad enough to shield ourselves from the prying eyes of the FPMP. I had no idea how to extend the protection to her. If she knew how far we went to avoid surveillance, she might think we were being paranoid. Or she might believe us, and jump on the paranoia bandwagon herself. Either way, I’d hate to be responsible for her ending up under the microscope.
“You should probably act interested in Clayton’s new gizmo,” I said, way more decisively than I felt. “Reverse psychology. The more you act like you’re cool with Derrick’s bribes, the less Clayton can play the two of you off each other.”
She put her phone away. “You’re right. Kids can be incredibly manipulative—and even when you know darn well that they’re doing it, there’s no avoiding the guilt.”
Funny…Jacob’s sister and I seemed to be getting along awfully well these days. You’d think the stress of her grandmother’s fall would’ve made her even more prickly and domineering. But instead, she just seemed vulnerable.
We crossed the lawn to join them, and Barbara proceeded to ooh and ahh over the drone. She was pretty darn convincing. Clayton seemed surprised that his mother was interested in his new toy, but since he was unwilling to relinquish his newfound teenaged ennui, he managed to downplay his reaction.
When I was his age, I flew airplanes made of balsa wood with propellers powered by rubber bands. They sold them at the corner store for a buck-nineteen. But as flying toys went, this drone was in an entirely different league. Clayton demoed the controllers—forward, backward, hover. It even interfaced with his cell phone.
Frankly, I’d never given drones much thought. And now, of course, I’d need to look up into the sky every time Jacob and I attempted a private conversation. We were being treated to a dizzying camera view of the roof of his house when Crash’s ringtone sounded, and I gratefully disengaged from the group to take his call.
“Hello?”
“So—what kind of stripper did you want for your bachelor party?”
“First of all, none. And second—there is no bachelor party.”
“Sexy cop answering a noise complaint is the standard. But I figured that would only give you work flashbacks. Plus, I’m none too fond of pigs. Even fake ones with tearaway pants.”
“There is no bachelor party.”
“We could go with a fireman—a talented dancer can really put a pole through its paces. But again, is that too expected? You know how I loathe cliché.”
“No. Bachelor. Party.”
“Maybe we could do something meta. A stripper shows up as an off-duty stripper—”
I sighed gustily.
Crash said, “Clearly, you’re convinced I’m yanking your chain. But take a look on the calendar and you’ll see—”
“What calendar?”
“Wednesday night is all blocked out for the bachelor party.”
“What calendar?”
My phone dinged and a link appeared. I poked it and a calendar opened up. I might have figured it for some elaborate gag (since Crash truly did love to yank my chain) but then I noticed it had been authored by Barbara…and a variety of real obligations were already plugged in.
“This was supposed to be simple,” I groaned.
“If you really wanted simple, you should’ve just gone downtown and had a judge do the deed. But don’t worry. I promise not to pipe up with any objections during the ceremony…as long as you promise to be super nice to me.”
“Are you done?”
“Just one more question…sushi, or taco bar?”
“I’m not so sure I trust Wisconsin fish unless it’s beer-battered and deep fried.”
“Taco bar it is. Hasta luego.”
Crash hung up and left me staring at the calendar, wondering if the whole stripper thing was a legitimate threat. A few yards away, the drone plunked down onto the lawn again—apparently they don’t have much fly time—and Clayton showed off how to swap out the battery. While Jacob was enthusing over his nephew, he’d forgotten all about those rows of initials…and was just Jacob again, enjoying his healthy, normal family. It would’ve been a heartwarming scene, except I knew it wouldn’t last.
I wished I could reach through the veil and throttle Kamal for turning Jacob’s normal family life into a big, fat lie. Out on the lawn, Barbara finally lost her cool and exploded about Clayton wandering outside while she wasn’t home, threatening to donate that “gosh-darned drone” to needy children who listened to their parents…and even that made me nostalgic for the illusion that Jacob’s upbringing was normal and good.
I edged over toward Jacob and gesture with my phone. “Did you see this calendar?”
Barbara stopped haranguing Clayton and turned her attention to Jacob. “Are you telling me you didn’t send it to Vic?” That thing about her not being so prickly lately? I took it back. “Jeez, Jacob—I can’t do everything around here.”
Before she could tear him a new one, I said, “It’s fi
ne. I’ve got it now. But this bachelor party—”
“Are you going to be late for that too?”
Jacob pulled out his own phone. “What bachelor party?”
Then Clayton piped up with, “How does that work, since you’re both guys? Do you each get a separate party, or do you have to share?”
“Is Crash really in charge,” I asked, “or was he just trying to get a rise out of me?”
Barb said, “Well, I don’t have time, and who else would do it? My parents? Fine—if you wanna play euchre all night.” Euchre was a card game, I knew that much. But since cards typically involved counting, strategy and luck, I’ve never been a fan. “I figured one of your Chicago friends would be more fun anyhow, so I went through the guest list and found a volunteer.”
Yeah, well. That depended on your idea of fun.
“So you’re sure you have the calendar now?” she asked me, in a tone that implied, I’d better.
I dutifully called up the link Crash had just sent to demonstrate that she had nothing to worry about. She angled my phone so she could see it better and scowled at it so hard I was surprised she didn’t call up the operating system. Belatedly, I wondered if Crash had sent me the actual calendar, or something filled with inappropriate innuendoes.
“Jeez, it’s ten to twelve already?” Barbara said. “You’re supposed to meet with the photographer by noon.”
Oh great. Just what I needed. A photo shoot.
17
SINCE BARB WASN’T about to let Clayton out of her sight—or us, for that matter—we all bundled into the car and headed off to the park. “Did you really need to do that scrapbooking today?” she asked Jacob. Clayton snorted. “You knew we had a packed schedule.”
Jacob said, “What are these pictures even for? Won’t we have plenty from the wedding?”
“Normal couples do engagement shoots, so they have plenty of shots to put up on the projector wall at church. But since you guys didn’t bother—”
“It’s fine,” I cut in. “Let’s just do this and cross it off the list.” Judging by the calendar, our whole week was basically one gigantic to-do list. We were better off just getting our obligations over with.
We showed up at the location with no time to spare. “Park over by the pergola,” Barbara said. The word pergola wasn’t in my vocabulary—Pastor Jill probably knew it—but Jacob managed to figure out where to go.
He pulled up by a wooden structure that looked like the unfinished frame of a garden shed, one that had been abandoned so long ago that vines were now crawling up its wooden skeleton. Underneath was a wooden swing-seat. Some of the vines were starting to bloom. All in all, not a bad place to take a picture. And despite all the rushing around, it looked like we’d managed to beat the photographer there, too. The only other person in sight was a chubby guy walking half a dozen yippy little dogs.
We climbed out of the car and Barbara assessed us critically. “Look at what you’re wearing. We should’ve stopped by Mom and Dad’s for your suits.”
Her complaining was starting to get annoying—but it was drowned out but the cacophony of the little dogs, which were easily twice as loud. The guy holding the leashes trundled along behind the group of them, red-faced and sweating as they dragged him relentlessly toward a nearby shrub. While individually, none of the yipping furballs could’ve outweighed Clayton’s drone, together they seemed to wield some collective muscle.
“We don’t need suits.” I wasn’t sure if Jacob was raising his voice over all the barking, or if he was starting to get pissed off.
“But you’re wearing cargo shorts.”
“It’s fine.”
As the dog walker reached down with a baggie-covered hand to pick up a dog turd, he piped in, “I agree. Casual couples’ shots are the big thing nowadays.”
We all looked at him like he’d sprouted a listening device from the top of his head while his dog pack snuffled around the bush.
“Abner Stroud,” he said as he tied off the bag, then offered me his hand in greeting. Given that it was probably still warm from touching the poo through the thin plastic, I shoved my hands in my pockets and took a half-step back.
“You’re Abner Stroud?” Barbara demanded, as if surely he must be full of dog shit.
“And you must be Barbara. Your mother told me all about you.” Stroud veered her way and tried to aim his handshake in her direction, but she was no more eager to experience it than I was. “I can’t tell you how excited I was to get the opportunity to document your family’s big day!” He then tried for Jacob’s hand, which clearly wasn’t gonna happen either. “You must be Jacob. I’ve heard so many great things about you, too.”
Jacob was looking at the dogs with bewilderment. “You’re the photographer?”
“Maybe you’ve heard of me. Abner Stroud. Portraits-by-Abner.com.”
The smallest dog—a scruffy, whitish thing—lifted a leg and peed on the side of the pergola.
Clayton smirked, then pulled out his phone, thumbs flying, and turned his back to ignore us boring grown-ups.
“Where’s your camera?” Barbara demanded like she thought she was being punked.
Stroud patted himself down with his free hand while the dogs yanked at the one holding six leashes and the turd, threatening to send the plastic bag flying God-knows-where. He brightened and pulled out a tiny point-and-shoot. “It’s amazing how much firepower they can pack into such a tiny footprint nowadays!”
He staggered off toward a trashcan, being pulled every which way by the pack of yipping dogs. Once he was out of earshot, Jacob said, “Where did you find this guy?”
“I don’t know. Mom picked him out. She said he had glowing reviews.” They both watched with identical looks of disgust as a grayish living dustmop wound through Stroud’s legs and very nearly sent him sprawling.
Clayton turned his phone to flash us a portrait of a chihuahua in sunglasses. “Look—he’s a dog photographer.”
It was tempting to double-check that the site he’d found really was Portraits-by-Abner…but I had the sinking feeling it couldn’t possibly be anything else.
“Mom’s gonna hear about this,” Barb muttered.
Stroud aimed his dog pack in our direction and they dragged him back toward the pergola. While he tied off their leashes to a nearby signpost, I leaned into Jacob and said in his ear, “Look, you’ve seen the schedule. The photo shoot will be over soon. So do your best to grin and bear it, and I’ll make an effort to stop wincing over the sheer badness.”
Some of the tension went out of Jacob’s shoulders and he shot me a grateful look.
“Maybe we’ll even laugh about it someday,” I offered.
“That’s pushing it,” he said…but his annoyance was softening.
Barbara was annoyed enough for all of us. She parked herself on a nearby park bench, fuming, while Clayton half-sat, half-leaned on the bench’s arm, once again engrossed in his phone. Stroud gave each of his yip-dogs a treat, which shut them up—for maybe ten seconds. And then the barking started up again, even louder.
Stroud didn’t seem to hear it. I guess there’s no telling what a person can get used to given enough exposure. With the miniature camera dangling from his wrist by a tiny strap, he pulled some folded papers out of his pocket and shoved them toward Jacob and me, followed by a pen. “All righty, then. All I’ll need is a signature from each of the grooms and we’ll get started.”
I scanned my page, noting it was thick with legalese. “What is this?” Jacob asked.
“Just your standard models’ waiver.”
“What do we need a waiver for?” I asked.
“My website, obviously. So I can post it in my photo gallery.”
“With the dogs,” Clayton chuckled, eyes still on his phone.
Jacob pulled out his wallet and showed Stroud his identification. “That won’t be possible. My contract with the government precludes my appearance on the web without a lengthy vetting process…and there’s no time to
go through all the channels now.” He delivered the news calmly, but with his usual utmost certainty. “I’d hate to have to find another photographer on such short notice….”
And I’d be perfectly fine with skipping the shoot altogether. But the more wedding details we glossed over, the more obvious it would be that we were just here to snoop around.
Stroud stood no chance against Jacob’s authoritative-voice, and he agreed that not only would we not appear on his website, but he’d delete the master photos from his backup drive.
We dutifully positioned ourselves under the pergola. “Okay guys,” Stroud told us. “Look happy!”
I never knew what to do with my face at the best of times. I looked to Jacob for reassurance, but all he could manage was a subtle head-shake, like he couldn’t quite wrap his head around how we’d arrived at this point either.
“Okay, great. Now, closer together. Relax your shoulders. Maybe something where the two of you are actually touching would be nice.”
When we moved to slip our arms around each other, we each vied clumsily for the top-arm position.
“Kibbles does that too!” Stroud announced. “We call it pat-a-cake. Wanna see?”
“Just take the pictures,” Barbara snapped. “We’re on a tight enough schedule as it is.”
Stroud unsuccessfully tried to bite back a wince. Since we couldn’t manage to arrange our own limbs, he came over and did it for us. “There you go. Now look at me—normally I’d be holding up a piece of cheese for you to look at, heh heh.”
I couldn’t even imagine the expression I must be wearing. Stroud snapped some pictures, then said, “Okay, now look at each other.” Even Jacob looked somewhat chagrined. “That’s great, just perfect—uh, hold on. There’s something on your jackets.”
Jacob and I both looked down…and saw we were covered in glitter. Jacob batted at his sleeve, but I didn’t bother, since I already knew from whacking at his sister that the tactic was useless. Stroud produced a lint brush from his pocket. “Never fear! I’m a trained professional!”
Jacob grabbed the roller from him, and we dispensed with the majority of the glitter.
Other Half (PsyCop book 12) Page 11