I made it home at two a.m. I saw the call light flicking on my phone, pulled out my cell, shut off before the rally. Calls were stacked up on the cell as well, all from Harry. I felt a sense of dread.
“What is it, bro?” I said when he picked up.
“Noelle’s gone. This time the grab was successful.”
My breath froze in my throat. “What? How?”
“The security detail and staff were distracted by a car burning on the street below…”
“A what?”
“The fire trucks added to the drama, kept the faces glued to the window. The flames were twenty feet high.”
I saw the picture. “Staged,” I said.
“Stolen car. A backseat full of rags. A soaking of gasoline and fuel oil. The staff were distracted for maybe five minutes.”
I heard voices in the background, a clattering like a cart or gurney.
“You’re at the hospital?” I asked.
“The thing happened at eleven. I’ve been interviewing, checking security tapes – nothing.”
“What can I do, bro?”
“Go to bed. Get some sleep. There’s nothing left here.”
“I’ll see you in a few hours and –”
“Carson?” he interrupted, his voice ragged.
“Yes?”
“You were at the rally, right?”
When I didn’t answer, he clicked off. I took his advice and fell into bed. Sleep was a series of disjointed images: a mouth talking with only the sound of thunder emerging, arachnids crawling over webs spun from faces, subhuman creatures feeding a fire so hot it burned blue.
After crawling from bed at five a.m., I climbed into my truck in the dark and drove toward Mobile, at the last moment turning east on I-10 and crossing away from Mobile, driving east into Daphne.
The sky carried only a whisper of light when I parked in Kavanaugh’s drive. The house was dark inside. I approached the door of her office and sat on the stoop. There was no sound from the house, the drapes drawn and the curtains closed.
The sun began giving form to the shapes in the night and I felt vulnerable. I retreated to the causeway, the slender spit of sand linking the east and west shores of Mobile Bay, pulling off near the eastern shore, by Meaher Park.
I sat on the hood of my truck and looked across the water. Fishermen in small boats were gathering their nets. I pictured escaping fish beneath the surface, jumbled and in turmoil, much like the thoughts in my brain had become of late. Last week, the jumble and turmoil had started not just crawling into the light but ramping up into actions. I had done stupid things that seemed to explode from the shadows of my mind.
Was I going mad? Had the family curse slithered from a hiding place in my genes?
I tucked the disquieting thoughts away for later study, then went to do my job as best as I knew.
I found Harry at the hospital, trying to make sense of the crime. He sat in an exam room with a full-size poster of a skinless human body on the wall and laid out the details of the abduction.
“The fire distracted the staff. Someone moved in, took Noelle, and made it outside – or hid until they could get outside. The doc called me at eleven thirty. By the time I got here it was a mess, everyone running into themselves.” Harry looked on the brink of exhaustion, his clothes rumpled, his breath sour.
“Nothing on the cams?”
“A few people that look like staffers. We’re checking them out one by one. We’re checking everyone out one by one. But no one saw anything out of the ordinary.” He looked at me. “I really need you, Carson. I’m not sure if I’m thinking straight.”
I started to argue. “You always get one hundred –”
He stopped me with an upraised palm. “I’m trying to stay here as long as possible, get the investigation on fast-forward. As soon as Tom finds out I’m here, he’ll pull me. Tell him I’m working the Scaler case; buy me some time.”
“Sure.”
I started away. Harry called out.
“Carson?”
I turned to face him.
He said, “I need your head on straight, and I need it now. Don’t let me down, brother.”
I nodded and looked at my feet. I said, “I’m sorry.” It seemed a strange thing to say.
I headed downtown to the department to continue researching Scaler and Tutweiler. On the way I pulled into a convenience store to grab something to eat. I picked at the stacks for five minutes, nothing looking good, finally snatching a couple of chili dogs and a can of Dr Pepper.
A dozen customers queued ahead of me, highway-construction guys in work boots and luminous green shirts. A couple of female office workers in skirts and heels and fresh perfume. I saw a biker-gang type in ratty clothes with a bright chain slung belt to wallet. He was leaning against the wall by the door to the restrooms, talking on his cellphone. He shot me a look, went back to his conversation.
I stood in line and counted my change. I felt eyes on me, looked at the guy. His eyes shot away. Waited. Lifted. Saw me watching him.
He said, “Gotta go, Miriam. Catch you later.” He walked back toward the restrooms.
Miriam? I thought. The guy who’d smacked me with the hospital cart had been talking to Miriam when I interrupted him in the restroom.
Gotta go, Miriam. We’ll talk later.
Was the improbable name a code for, I can’t talk now, someone’s listening? I walked back to the can but saw no one inside. I pushed open the door of the women’s john.
I saw no one until the guy exploded from the stall, shouldering me into the wall as he blasted out the door. I scrambled after him. Bolting toward the front of the store I heard the roar of a Harley cranking up. As I pushed through into the lot, the guy was roaring away, shooting glances over his shoulder.
He’d been following me.
I threw a fiver at the surprised clerk and high-balled to the hospital where I told Harry about the incident. Five minutes later we were with the hospital’s director of human resources, Daria Fareth, an attractive light-skinned black woman with dazzling green eyes.
“We need to talk to a male employee,” I said. “Mid thirties. Five-eleven to six feet tall, stocky, weighs maybe two twenty. Brown hair, thinning at the top. Pushes a cart poorly.”
Wentworth flipped through personnel files with attached ID photos. “Him?” she said, turning the book our way, slender finger tapping a head shot.
“Nope,” I said. “Our guy’s younger and uglier.”
“This fellow?” She turned another photo our way, her nose twitching like a septic odor was rising from the page.
“Bingo,” I said. “Cart-man. What can you tell us about this guy without getting in confidentiality trouble?”
“Michael Douthitt – a less-than-model employee. Lazy, not real bright, smokes inside the hospital, and has a way of…” Wentworth looked at Harry. “A way of talking down to people who aren’t white. But makes it so it doesn’t sound like down, y’know?”
“Gee,” Harry said. “I’ve never encountered that.”