by Matt Coleman
And it took everything in her to fight off the sickening feeling of déjà vu.
Bright’s parents had both been writers. Writers who had took very different paths. They were children of the sixties, and they spent their teenage impressionable years traveling around in stereotypical vans and dropping acid. Her father grew up in cold country and longed to feel the sun on his face and meet people and write about it. Her mother fancied herself a poet since age four. She ran away from home at age thirteen and never looked back. Taken to calling herself only Sunny. Bright didn’t know what her real name had once been. When Sunny ran across Carneades “Carnie” Day she felt like it was fate’s way of winking at her. The two fell in love as much as their free spirited ways would allow. About twelve years later they gave birth to Bright New Day, named at her mother’s insistence. Carnie settled a bit. He latched onto the protests of the sixties and seventies and become a reporter. Sunny never conformed. She scribbled poetry on canvases and stared straight at the sun throughout all of Bright’s life. She was still doing it as far as anyone knew. Her drug-addled mind landed her in a retirement home by age sixty, but Bright didn’t think she’d ever die.
Carnie, however, was not long for this world. He threw himself headlong and on fire into his work. Since Sunny wasn’t fit to feed a fish, he often took Bright with him, which is what he was doing the night he died.
Bright was nine. The Reagan Era had transitioned to the Bush Era in an attempt to hold steady with the decadence of the eighties. Carnie Day, on the other hand, had spent the better part of a decade trying to rip it down. The hippy in him was strong enough to want to blow up political corruption from the inside. He wormed his way into a story about politicians and drugs and prostitutes and police cover ups. Bright was too young for him to tell her everything, but she picked up enough.
The city had a very exclusive boys’ club. And it included a list of names even a nine-year-old recognized. She had gone with her father to meet a few prostitutes. She hadn’t understood what they were at the time, but she could look back and realize he took her to put them at ease. An overzealous reporter looked like he was trying to scoop a story. But a father of a little girl appeared to be out for the well-being of disenfranchised young ladies. The night he died, he was supposed to have an interview with a girl who could break the story wide open. She lived with a couple of roommates in an apartment semi-attached to a house. It looked remarkably like the one Bright was staring at. Carnie couldn’t leave Bright at home because Sunny had been rolling through a spell of very un-motherly behavior involving an experimental dabbling with crack. But looking back, Bright also appreciated Carnie’s willingness to bring her along because of the calming effect she had on young prostitutes.
Bright had been fast asleep when Carnie woke her. She remembered having a dream about a puppy her grandmother took her to play with when she was maybe six. The dream always stood out. So innocent and childlike. Carnie carried her to the car. He didn’t even make her get dressed. She wore mismatched pajamas and a threadbare robe with matching slippers. She was carrying a stuffed elephant, for Christ’s sake. When they arrived at the apartment, Carnie seemed to change his mind for a second. He looked around and wouldn’t turn the car off. Bright unbuckled her seatbelt, but Carnie caught it and fastened it back. He smiled at her and squinted. “Stay in the car this time, sweetheart. I’ll be right back,” he told her. Bright shrugged, slumped against the car door, and drifted off to sleep.
Years later, she would try to work out how long she had been asleep. She tried to remember glancing at the dashboard clock or hearing something on the radio or anything. But it never came. All she remembered was falling asleep and waking up with a start. There had been a loud pop in her dream. And another when she was wide awake. When she looked up, a woman was standing at the corner of the house, smoking a cigarette and biting at a thumbnail. She looked like she had been standing there for several minutes—Bright remembered her finishing the cigarette within a minute after the second pop. And the noises startled her, but they didn’t surprise her.
A few seconds after the second pop, a man walked out of the apartment. Young Bright almost jumped out of the car, thinking it was her dad. But this man looked different. Larger and dressed strangely, like a soldier. She couldn’t make out his face. He walked past the woman and said something to her, patted her on the shoulder. The woman cringed at his touch, but she nodded in agreement to whatever he said. The man walked away, maybe toward a car out of view. She remembered him walking under a streetlight and she tried to pay attention to his appearance. But she couldn’t distinguish any facial details. Only the clothes. The boxy shoulders and hat. And the gloves. He took them off and tossed them in a dumpster as he walked off. They were rubber gloves. Blue ones. Like police wear.
The woman walked over to a pay phone in the alley and made a call a minute or so later. After making the call, she disappeared. She didn’t go in to pack or anything. She just walked away. Bright spent years trying to track down the woman, but her name wasn’t on any lease and no one claimed to remember her. She pored over her dad’s notes, but never connected a name to the woman.
Within minutes of the phone call, police rolled up. They found a frightened Bright in the car and drove her to the police station. After several failed attempts to reach her mom, a detective drove her home to find the Day home ablaze. Sunny stepped out to buy milk, she claimed. The fire was attributed to Sunny’s carelessness, but Bright always suspected something more sinister. Something which would have killed her had she stayed in bed.
Carnie Day’s murder was never solved. He took two shots to the back of the head and died instantly. The three inhabitants of the apartment supposedly lived there in a cash only arrangement—no lease—and they never turned up for questioning. For the rest of Bright’s compromised childhood, her mother made ends meet by stretching out the insurance payout until Bright turned sixteen and could start picking up odd jobs. In college, Bright considered following her dad’s footsteps into journalism, but news stories would never provide any vengeance. She didn’t want to simply write about corrupt cops and dirty politicians. She wanted to face them down and lock them up.
So whatever feelings of déjà vu came gurgling up into her throat needed to get pushed back down. Because this was exactly the kind of case Bright had joined the force to catch. And she would be damned if she didn’t see it through.
As she worked to steel her nerve, she heard tires crunching gravel in front of her. A little SUV with its lights off eased into Dante’s old parking spot. Two people eased out of either side, and Bright flipped open a file folder on her passenger seat. She leafed through papers until she found photos—Marlowe Holliverse’s DMV photo and Shelley Doyle’s picture from the police yearbook. It was them. And if she spotted them, she figured the cop outside did too.
Chapter 36
Carlos Moya walked into the police station break room and fished through cabinets until he found a hot chocolate packet. He filled a Styrofoam cup with hot water and stirred in the powder. He filled another cup with coffee and loaded his pockets with creamers and sugar packets. The hallways were busy with steady traffic, which would clear out in ten minutes or so. Carlos eased back into the interrogation room where Cary sat looking haggard. He set the cups in front of her and grimaced.
“I wasn’t sure what you like. I made a coffee and a hot chocolate. Oh,” he fished the creamer and sugar out of his pockets, “and this.” He closed his eyes and bit his lip. “Dammit. I forgot a stir stick.”
Cary laughed softly. “It’s okay. I take it black. Thank you.”
Carlos smiled back and sat down across from her. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It should clear out a little in a few minutes. As soon as it does, we’ll get out of here. Promise.”
Cary nodded.
Carlos let her sip her coffee in silence for a moment before adding, “We need to decide on where to go, Cary. Is there anywhere you might feel safe?”
Cary rolled her eyes up and shook her head. “A couple of days ago? Sure. Lots of places. Now?” She heaved a breathy laugh.
Carlos grinned and nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry. We’re going to figure all this out, Cary. Bright—Detective Hudson—she’s the best there is. When she gets on something like this, she doesn’t let up until she ties up every loose end. And she’s got the whole Sherlock Holmes thing going on.” He waggled his fingers. “She makes all the connections, you know?”
Cary tilted her head. “You don’t seem like a cop.”
He laughed.
Cary winced. “I’m sorry. I hope that’s not offensive. I don’t mean it to be.”
Carlos shook his head. “No, no. None taken.”
Cary shook her head. “I only mean I’ve run across a lot of cops here lately. And, granted, I haven’t been exposed to the best examples. But still, you’ve got the grizzled vets, the cocky patrol cop, the moralistic young cop, the Sherlockian detective, and then you. I’m not sure what you are. And I mean that in a good way.”
Carlos smiled and nodded. “Well, I was raised by my abuela. Which may not come across as an explanation of any kind, but to me, it explains everything. I think those of us raised by grandparents have a certain softness about us. We care about people. And we nurture. Protect.” He shook a finger. “And I’m not talking about being soft. Don’t confuse it. I’m talking about caring a little more. Empathy. I do this job with empathy. That’s what’s different about me.”
Cary smiled and sipped her coffee. “I see what you mean.” Her eyes got wide. “Grandmother! Johnna’s grandmother. I can go there. Thompson already ransacked Johnna’s room. He won’t go back. He thinks she will call him if I show up, so he won’t expect me to go back.”
Carlos squinted. “Will she?”
Cary shook her head. “No. She made a mistake, but she won’t do it again. She’ll keep me safe.”
Carlos sighed and nodded. “Might be all we’ve got.” He stood up and went to the narrow window in the door, peering back and forth down the hallway. “Okay. It’s pretty clear. Let’s go.”
He escorted Cary out of the station and to his replacement car without drawing any attention. He opened the passenger side door for her and rushed around to jump in and drive off before anyone noticed them.
On the drive, Cary studied Moya. “You believe me, right?”
Carlos laughed. “Cary, if we didn’t believe you, we wouldn’t be taking you out of the police station once we got you in custody.”
Cary nodded. “Good point.”
Carlos glanced at her. “Look, in confidence, Detective Hudson and I have been working with Internal Affairs on some cases involving possible police corruption for a while. We’ve been connecting dots. Those dots led us to you.”
Cary shook her head. “How?”
Carlos paused, but conceded an answer. “Graffiti Creek.”
Cary frowned. “The place they took me? Out in the woods.”
Carlos nodded. “Yeah. A couple of leads we followed pointed to Graffiti Creek as a”—he swallowed—“a dump site, I guess you would say. We had witnesses who named the site as the rumored resting place of some missing people. We never found anything, but we flagged the location to get called if anything turned up. And, well, you know the rest, I guess.”
A few minutes of heavy silence later, they turned onto Johnna’s grandmother’s street. Carlos slowed into the curve in front of the house and pulled to a stop at the mailbox. Cary pointed forward with her head. “Is that a cop car?”
Carlos had been unbuckling his seatbelt and starting to open his door but stopped and looked up. “Shit.” She was right. About a block up the road, a patrol car sat with someone slouched over on the door rest watching the house. Carlos buckled his seatbelt back and spoke to Cary without looking at her. “Go inside. I’ll take care of this, and I’ll be back.”
Cary hesitated, but relented. Carlos watched to make sure she made it in. Johnna’s grandmother looked surprised but welcomed her with an embrace. Carlos took the cue to ease on toward the police cruiser. He pulled up close, almost nose to nose and popped his hood. He got out, holding his badge up to Officer Reynard, who was lazily climbing out of his own car. Carlos smiled broadly, “How’s it going, officer? Think you could help me out a little?”
Reynard returned the smile. “I can try.”
Carlos thumbed back to his car. “My car’s messed up and they gave me a temp. But the battery is acting screwy. I tried to check the connectors, but I can’t get the damn strap off the top of this battery. You got a Phillip’s head screwdriver or something I can use?”
Reynard sucked at his teeth and stared at Carlos’ trunk. “Yeah. I got a kit in the trunk. Help yourself.” He strolled back to his driver’s side door and popped the trunk.
Carlos sighed, “Thanks, buddy. You’re a lifesaver.” He started toward the trunk. “So what? You patrolling the neighborhood?”
Reynard lifted Carlos’ hood and propped it with the built-in stick. “Yeah. They got me watching a house for this wanted girl. In fact, I think it’s the house you came from. Where you dropped off a girl.”
“No shit? Yeah, we got her. You didn’t hear it on the radio? Detective”—Carlos snapped his fingers—“Thompson, I think his name is. He’s got me sitting on her over here until he sorts a couple things out.”
Reynard shot a look over his shoulder. “Thompson?”
Carlos pulled up the trunk and scanned for the tool kit. “Yeah. You know him?”
Reynard’s voice sounded closer, like he had taken a few steps down the length of his car. “Yeah. A little.”
Carlos found the toolkit open and scattered about. The Phillip’s head was missing. He searched the trunk to make sure it hadn’t fallen out. “Good guy. Knows the job, you know?”
Reynard sounded closer. “Yeah. I do know. What’d you say your name was?”
Carlos searched the whole trunk in a frenzy and came up empty. “Hey, buddy. Your Phillip’s head is missing from your kit.”
“Yeah, I must’ve misplaced it. Anything should pop this strap though, right?”
Carlos came away with a small crowbar and reached to close the trunk. “Sure, sure. Yeah, I got something.” Before he closed the trunk, he noticed strange markings on the roof of the trunk’s lid. He paused and stared. They were scratchings, crude and blocky, like letters. He deciphered a J and a blocky O. Carlos squinted. H. Two N’s.
Soft footsteps padded behind him. Turning, he found Reynard standing a couple of feet away and holding a small gun, outstretched, its silencer coming within a foot of Carlos’ chest. Carlos made a swift move for his sidearm, but it was too late. The first pop was loud, like a firecracker. But the next two were nothing more than whistling snaps. The force felt like he’d been hit with a baseball bat and sent him falling back into a crumpled seat on the edge of the trunk. Carlos struggled to draw in a breath and looked up as Reynard pushed him down and folded him up into the trunk. The darkness crept in and enveloped his eyes before Reynard even slammed shut the trunk.
Chapter 37
Neither Marlowe nor Shelley owned a key to Dante’s apartment. Marlowe pestered his younger brother to give him one for emergencies, but Dante never got around to it. In their desperation, they discussed the thought of breaking in, but Shelley convinced Marlowe to try the landlord first. It was a plan which proved easier said than done.
Marlowe knew the old man’s name—Yancy Tannehill. It was a little hard to forget. But every search they tried came up empty. Even Shelley was about ready to give up when Marlowe remembered one detail. Dante was always making fun of the reclusive old man. He used to talk about how he couldn’t understand how Yancy stayed so stick skinny when all he ever did was sit. Even at his job. Dante had said the old guy sat all day in a booth at the public library, taking dollars and passing out parking stubs. It was their one shot at gaining lawful entry to their brother’s apartment, so they spent the few extra minutes.
Marlowe
drove them to the public library, which was virtually empty. Sure enough, a painfully skinny old man sat in the lonely parking attendant booth reading some paperback mystery novel. Marlowe eased up to the booth and rolled down his window. Yancy Tannehill barely looked away from his novel to say, “One dollar, one hour. Two dollars, two hours. Three dollars, all day.”
Marlowe smiled and raised his eyebrows at the man. “Mr. Tannehill? My name is Marlowe Holliverse. My brother is”—Marlowe lost the smile—“was Dante Holliverse. Your tenant?”
Yancy looked up from his book and stared at Marlowe, looked past him to Shelley, and looked back at Marlowe.
Marlowe nodded. “That’s mine and Dante’s sister, Shelley. Mr. Tannehill, our brother, well, he passed, Mr. Tannehill. We were hoping you might could give us the key to his apartment so we could begin collecting his things. And if he needs to finish out any rent or anything, I’m sure we can help settle out his affairs with you.”
Yancy nodded. He put an old parking stub into his book as a bookmark and set it down. He motioned toward the parking lot with his head and started climbing down from his stool and jingling keys in his pocket. “Pull around. I can get the keys for you.”
Marlowe put his hands together in a gesture of gratitude. “Thank you so much, Mr. Tannehill.” He looked up and waited for the parking bar to raise, which it never did. He looked back to Yancy.
Yancy had a hand stretched through the window. “One dollar, one hour.”
Marlowe cocked his head and started something, but Shelley shot a hand holding a dollar past him for Yancy, adding, “Thank you again, Mr. Tannehill.”
The bar raised and Marlowe pulled in, cursing as he drove around to the far side. When they pulled up, Yancy was examining his key chain, flipping through huge cluster of keys. He held one out to Marlowe. Marlowe took the key without coming to a complete stop, mumbling a thanks as he did so. Yancy’s grunt made him stop the car after he almost passed by the window completely. Marlowe and Shelley both looked back. Yancy glanced up from the keys and gave them a sour expression. “Don’t you want the other one?”