Graffiti Creek

by Matt Coleman

  She collapsed back down and fought a scream. Marlowe started to question but stopped. He put a hand on Cary’s back. “Your girl?”

  She nodded, with her hands gripped over her mouth and tears and snot beginning to bubble up over her knuckles.

  Marlowe held her with both hands, almost shaking her. “Hold it. Hold it together. You make a sound and we’ll be joining her.”

  Cary nodded in short, hiccuping jerks.

  The CSI finally retrieved what the detective wanted. Marlowe watched as he pulled a phone out of the trunk and handed it to the detective, who had put on one blue glove to handle evidence. She examined the mobile phone for a moment, pushing a couple of buttons and reading. Marlowe looked at the sobbing Cary. Looked at the phone resting by her leg.

  The detective hit a button on the phone and held it out in front of her. Other police gathered around to look. Marlowe heard one faint ring coming from the speaker phone in the detective’s open palm. A second later, to his right, the phone on the ground chirped loudly, echoing through the trees. Marlowe jerked his head around and saw every cop swivel up to look in their direction. Cary sobered with a sharp shake of her head and fumbled with the phone. She managed to hit decline and make the chirping stop. Marlowe reached for Cary’s phone and they both pawed at it. He whispered, “How do you silence it?”

  Cary continued shaking her head as the entire police unit took tentative steps in their direction and the detective hit the button again. Cary whispered through tears, “I don’t know.”

  Marlowe heard the faint ring from the speaker phone again. He grabbed the phone from Cary’s hand and threw it behind them and farther up the embankment toward the road. The chirp exploded again and continued as the phone bounced and came to a rest. The police followed the sound, drifting up and past the hiding place where Cary and Marlowe remained huddled.

  The detective called out, “I’ll keep calling. Fan out.”

  Marlowe wheeled around, looking on all sides of them. Two cops drifted down toward the creek. Two CSIs nosed past them, staring off toward the sound of the phone. The only clear spot on any side of them was where they had all come from.

  Marlowe took hold of Cary’s face and pulled her close. “You’re about to think this is crazy. Just trust me.” He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her through the bushes toward the car. They stooped and ran around the front of the car next to the creek and came up on the far side. Sliding down with their backs against the far side of the car, they froze and listened.

  They could hear voices calling out and responding through the woods. The chirp still cut through everything. Marlowe mumbled, “Sweet shit, that’s a loud ass ringtone.”

  Cary leaned against the car and looked back over her shoulder at the open trunk. She convulsed in breathy sniffles. A trail of blood led away from the car and into a little puddle. Marlowe slapped a hand over her mouth and made eye contact. He put a finger to his lips and pointed toward the bridge. He made a hand motion to go under.

  A police officer sang out, “Got it!”

  A cacophony of footsteps cracked and echoed through the trees, and Marlowe whispered, “Now,” jerking Cary up by the elbow and leading them both into ankle-deep water under the bridge. He pulled her up into the dark nook on the near side of the bridge, pressing their bodies into the moss and mud until they couldn’t be seen. The movement sounded nearer. They were making their way back toward the car.

  Marlowe leaned out on the far side of the bridge to stare up the road which curved farther into the woods. A farm truck slowly rumbled its way toward them. Marlowe poked Cary in the side and pointed. “Here’s our ride. Be ready.”

  He led them up the far side embankment. It was away from the crime scene and slightly obscured, but if they missed the truck they would still be exposed. He put a hand at Cary’s back and pushed as the truck eased onto the bridge. “Don’t miss this,” he barked into her ear.

  Junk littered the flattened bed of the truck. Cary got a good start and made one hop up, rolling over a metal rod and into an empty space. Marlowe followed by sliding in next to her and lying low as the truck bounced around the bend and toward the railroad tracks.

  When they reached the tracks, the truck eased to a stop before crossing. Marlowe sprung to action. He leapt over Cary and rolled onto the ground on the driver’s side. The driver spun around, shocked, and started to move forward. But Marlowe ripped open the driver’s door and pointed a gun at him. “Stop the truck, man! Stop!”

  The jerking stop flung Cary forward. She sat up and looked at Marlowe. Her mouth hung open, her brow wrinkled in confusion.

  Marlowe motioned with the gun. “Out of the truck. Don’t do anything. I’m sorry. We need your truck. Now get out. Come on, man.”

  The driver was an older man. Dressed like a farmer. He climbed out with a grunt of effort. “You don’t have to do this, son.”

  Marlowe waved him on, rushing him. “Yeah. I do. And I ain’t your son. You got a cell phone?”

  The man moved back from the truck and frowned. “What?”

  “A cell phone, motherfucker. Do you have one?”

  The man nodded.

  “Cary!” Marlowe waved Cary down. “Give her your phone, man.”

  The man pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to Cary. She nodded and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

  Marlowe jumped in behind the wheel, and Cary rushed around to the passenger’s seat. The old man leaned up toward Marlowe through the open window and muttered, “That son comment weren’t no race thing. I’m just old. And you’re young. And—”

  The wheels spun and vaulted the truck up and over the tracks. Marlowe wound his way back to the freeway and sped up. Cary had sat, church-still the whole way. She looked over at the gun sitting between them on the seat. “Why the hell do you have a gun?”

  Marlowe looked down at the gun. “I should have told you.”

  “Yeah. You should have.”

  “Look, I’m not dangerous or anything. I’ve been looking for my brother. He runs with some rough crowds. It’s protection. Nothing more.”

  Cary made brief eye contact and looked down into her lap. “Why were you at Dollar General?”

  Marlowe shook his head. “What?”

  “You said yourself. It’s the whitest part of the city.”

  Marlowe sniffed. “Maybe I came from a white girl’s house.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  Marlowe nodded. “Yeah. Well, I told you. I was looking for my brother. I got a little turned around. Lucky coincidence for you.”

  Cary laughed. “Not so lucky for you, huh?”

  He joined her in laughing. A little humor worked wonders at repairing the mood. “Nah. Not lucky at all.”

  “So what now?”

  Marlowe had worked his way back to the city and pulled into a gas station parking lot. He reached over and picked the gun up, shoving it back into a deep pocket of his jacket. “Well, we in it now, girl. Got no choice.”

  Cary shook her head. “What choice?”

  Marlowe shrugged. “You said it yourself. We either find the other Cary Trubody, or we go all the way to the top. Figure they’ll be looking for a white girl with a black dude now, so we might as well split up. Give me that phone.”

  Cary handed him the phone, and he dialed his own number, then handed it back. He pointed at the farmer’s phone. “I’m gonna look for the other Cary. You gonna go find the chief of police. Whichever one hits first, we call.” He opened the truck door and got out.

  “Wait, what? How will you—”

  He waved a hand at her. “Don’t worry about me. I got people. I’ll find a ride. You take the truck. But remember, it could be reported stolen any minute. You need to ditch it pretty soon. You got cash. Take cabs if you need to.”

  Cary nodded, her eyes glassy and dazed, red rimmed from thoughts of Johnna. She mindlessly pulled out money and counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, pushing them toward Marlowe.

  He
shook his head. “Keep it. You may need it more than I do.”

  Cary frowned at the money and swallowed a lump of some lingering doubt. “And what the hell am I supposed to say to the chief of police if I find him?”

  Marlowe smiled. “Try telling him that story about your crazy-ass brother and the bears and shit. Worked on me.”

  Chapter 13

  Detective Bright Hudson stood in the middle of some hickville woods holding a phone out in her palm. She struggled to balance on heels, but goddammit, she still wore them. And a dress. Every day. She never wanted any of the men who worked under her to forget for one second she was all woman.

  “We got the phone, Bright.” Carlos Moya walked toward her holding a disposable mobile phone with a loose blue plastic glove. Carlos was the only member of her team she let call her Bright. She always hated the name. Her mother had been some spaced-out moony feminist who named her Bright New Day. Some accused her of marrying her ex-husband merely to get the name change. She dropped the New at the same time. But Carlos was mild-mannered, polite, artsy. He would doodle in meetings and leave them on Bright’s desk at the end of the day with some smartass comment. She liked that. And him.

  She hit End on the call and held a gloved hand out for the phone. Carlos gave it to her gently, like it was alive. Bright pulled up the call log and examined the list. “The first call.” She looked up at everyone gathering around her. “The first call got declined.” They stared at her like slack-jawed simpletons. “They’re still here! Comb every inch of these woods. Somebody call and get a car up there by the tracks. Nobody in or out. You know the drill. Go, go, go.”

  Everyone scattered. The CSIs scanned the terrain for any signs of anything. The detectives went out guns drawn. Bright watched them go and tapped an index finger on her lips, thinking. She made her way back down to the crime scene. The twenty foot perimeter around the body in the trunk rested quiet and empty. Hers. She coveted this moment while everyone else searched for someone who slipped away long ago.

  She walked to the car and stood at the trunk, staring down at the girl’s body. Someone mangled the poor thing. Bright guessed at what happened. He made a mess of the girl’s throat, strangling her at least a couple times—clutching and adjusting and twisting. He used something heavy to crush her face and windpipe, too. And a small stab wound pooled blood all over her torso. A deep red dot and bright red fan bleeding out down her dress like a melted crayon. Somewhere along the way she lost one of her shoes.

  Bright looked around the base of the car. She didn’t find the shoe, but she found blood. A pool of it right outside the trunk, and, as she looked more closely, blood straggled off everywhere. Drops and splatters and trails. One led off toward the bridge, so she followed it. She moved carefully, making sure not to screw up her own crime scene. Footprints jumbled all over. She couldn’t make sense of anything on the ground except this blood. Blood always made sense.

  She made her way almost to the bridge when the blood stopped in another pool. A much larger pool. A this is where she died pool. A voice up ahead startled her. “Boss?” A CSI hunkered under the bridge like a little troll. “I think I found something.”

  Bright made her way over to him, trying and failing to keep her shoes out of the water. His flashlight beam illuminated a strappy high heel with something poking out of the toe. She squinted. “What is that?”

  The CSI looked up at her. “A shoe.”

  Bright rolled her eyes. “I know it’s a shoe, jackass. What’s in it?”

  The CSI leaned over the high heel until his face almost scraped against the loose strap. He looked back over his shoulder at Bright. “Screwdriver. Bloody.”

  Bright felt like saying a line out of a cheesy cop show. Some bullshit about Cinderella or something. But she didn’t have it in her. “Take pictures. And bag it.” She dictated softly and sadly. Like a funeral director ordering a sandwich.

  She made her way back over to the car. Carlos examined a wad of duct tape hanging off the tailpipe. Bright stood over a hose tossed a few feet from the car. She noticed Carlos staring at it, too. Carlos shook his head. “You think this was all a suicide attempt?”

  Bright chuckled. “Not unless she stabbed herself with a screwdriver and climbed into the trunk.”

  Carlos pointed toward the front of the car. “I was more thinking murder-suicide. Registration says Cary Trubody.”

  Bright nodded. She walked to the open driver’s side door and looked around inside the car. She called back to Carlos, “You got gloves on?”

  Carlos stood from his crouching position and eased past her. He followed her site line and reached down to the floorboard with a gloved hand.

  Bright leaned over his shoulder. “What is that?”

  Carlos held up a broken zip tie. “Zip tie. Cheap kind.” He pointed to a shoe in the backseat. “I saw the match in the trunk. Laces undone.” He waggled the zip tie. “Somebody friction-sawed this.”

  Bright nodded in appreciation. “Clever.”

  Carlos nodded toward the body. “Not clever enough, I guess.”

  Bright frowned and shook her head. “She had on heels. Something went all kinds of fucked up.” She pointed toward the loose shoe. “And I think Cinderella there fucked it up.”

  Carlos grinned. “You want me to hum a theme song?”

  Chapter 14

  Sameer must have driven every block of every street in Midtown. Harper’s Village was nothing more than a loosely-named neighborhood. Even a born-and-raised local might not be able to tell where it began or ended. So he spent his entire afternoon and into the evening popping into every coffee shop in Midtown to ask after a group of budding filmmakers.

  Although he turned up a couple of “maybes,” no one seemed to remember seeing a group exactly like he described until one of his final stops. He agreed with himself to try four more shops before calling it a day. The second of those four gave him a barista who eagerly nodded at the mention of the group. She told Sameer to come back the next morning around ten. He would be sure to find at least a few of them circled up out on the patio.

  The news picked up his spirits a touch. He began to understand what Seamus loved about journalism. The lead definitely provided a rush. And the constant motion—up and moving, moving, moving. Sameer had spent the last five years of his life at a computer, writing code.

  Before landing his programming gig, he’d done a three-year stint as a flight attendant. Although he enjoyed the opportunity to travel, the job itself mainly consisted of slowly walking the same aisle over and over for hours on end.

  Chasing leads proved more manic and devoid of the sense of pattern ruling his normal life. Even in the pit of fear and panic and heartbreak, Sameer caught himself erupting in adrenaline smiles every now and then.

  But home—home brought back the sorrow. Everything half empty. The garage. The little shelf inside where they took off their shoes. The hooks where they hung keys. The kitchen table. The couch. The bed. Everywhere he looked was filled with empty space. The movement helped, he decided. He knew it was illusion. Like taking a long, winding, roundabout path to avoid sitting still a few extra seconds at a red light. But stopping and enduring the cold beside him where a person should be? The notion chilled him and made him choose the illusion.

  So he threw on some exercise clothes and went for a run. He showered. He took his dinner onto the back porch and ate standing. After hours of nervous motion, he fell asleep for a couple of hours in a lawn chair. In the morning, he threw on clothes, spending as little time inside as possible, and left for the coffee shop two hours before the barista suggested.

  Whole Bean Coffee Shoppe offered a wide array of coffees from around the world in addition to its highly-touted “locally sourced” pastries and breakfast dishes. Sameer opted for a familiar Pakistani coffee with cinnamon and cardamom. He hadn’t taken his coffee this way since childhood and his grandmother would pour him a cup, always adding a little extra cream and some sugar. By the third cup, he grew a to
uch jittery.

  Sometime around 10:30 the first of the group wandered onto the patio. Sameer didn’t realize at first, but he flagged the guy as a possibility. The lanky black guy wore full hipster regalia: skinny jeans and thick glasses and an unnecessary scarf. Eventually, two others joined who fit the bill. Another black guy with a little more hip-hop in his hipster. And a white guy with a pretentious beard and coiffed hair who looked overly proud of himself for having two black friends.

  Sameer sat back and listened at first as they talked about politics and laughed about some inside joke he didn’t understand. When the conversation shifted to a discussion of a movie they had seen recently, he leaned forward. Something about the way they talked gave Sameer enough evidence to believe this was, in fact, the group.

  He walked up to their table a little more rapidly than he intended. He held out a hand as if he were formally introducing himself in some Renaissance era royal festival and immediately cursed himself inwardly for doing so. “Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Sameer Zardari. I am looking for a group of young men who make movies. Or, well, films, I’m sure. My hope is that they may be able to assist me in locating a missing person. I noticed you discussing film in a way not entirely dissimilar to the way I would expect such a group of young men to discuss film. So I theorized you might be this group, which I hope is accurate.”

  They all blinked at him. Hip-Hop Hipster laughed. “You been hitting the coffee pretty hard this morning, huh?”

  Sameer closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Yes. That was awful. I’d like to go back.”

  White Guilt grinned. “Go back? Like, take two?”