I was feeding my copies of the case files into my fax machine when I heard Wendy putting the kayak back beneath the house. Then the shower. Seconds later she was stepping into my living room wearing one of my old short-sleeve work shirts over the suit.
“That is the sweetest boat, Carson. It’s like paddling a teflon-coated needle.”
She saw me at the fax. “I’m sending some case stuff to a friend at the FBI,” I lied. “He’s in the behavioral section and I want a second opinion. I’ll be finished in a half-hour.”
I shifted through pages, separating what I thought Jeremy might find helpful from what he’d find salacious (and therefore spend the most time with), until only a few pages remained.
Wendy was lazing on the deck in a lounger, the height and cant of the deck allowing her to drop her top and work on erasing tan lines without being seen from the beach. I looked outside, sighed, and went back to feeding papers when I heard footsteps on my stairs and looked out to see a brief glimpse of dark hair pass the window.
Clair.
A knock on the door. For a moment I wondered if I could hide in the closet and wait until she left. A second knock pulled me to the door. Clair stood on the stoop in a cream blouse and dark slacks. Her face was unreadable, neither the smiling Clair of a week ago, nor the brittle and sarcastic woman of late. She simply nodded and pushed past, a green bag over her shoulder and a folder in her hand.
“I’m on lunch break and called to tell you the prelim was ready. Harry said you were here and I needed to get away from the morgue and clear my head.” She fanned a hand at her forehead. “It’s hotter than the hinges of hell out there. I need a drink.”
My heart climbed into my throat. If Clair looked toward the deck she’d see most of Wendy Holliday. I heard Clair grab a glass from the cabinet, open the fridge, pour a gurgle of ice water. Seconds later she was back in the living room passing me the folder.
“No surprises in what I found, although it was ugly. I’ll let you read the post results yourself.”
“Thanks, Clair. It was really good of you to come all the way down here to—”
“There’s something else, Carson. Billy Hawkins was in Forensics checking prints on bricks of cocaine. I don’t like him, a loudmouth. He spent most of his time telling everyone these killings were somehow your fault. I recalled yesterday’s paper. You’re the detective mentioned?”
“The whole thing is completely distorted, Clair. What I said was—”
Clair waved me silent. Her eyes were a foot away, the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen, the blue of arctic ice reflecting a cobalt sky. They were staring past the lenses of my eyes, past the retina, somehow staring directly into my mind.
“Whatever you were going to say, Carson. I believe you. I’ll always believe you. I just wanted you to have the results of the post and to tell you what people are saying. I also wanted—”
“Clair …” I whispered, “I think we should talk about—”
A cool finger pressed my lips still. “Sssssh. I also wanted to tell you I’ve been a bit of a bitch. Maybe more than a bit. I’m not going to apologize because I don’t think it would be heartfelt.” She paused, took a breath. “Look, I’m crossing the big bar in a couple years, Carson. Fifty years old. Sometimes I look back and think I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do, other times I think I’ve been hiding from life. The feeling is heightened when I see a beautiful and intelligent young woman whose life is spread before her like a banquet. It’s further heightened when I see you attracted to that woman.”
I had nothing to say, so I said nothing.
“Here’s the way it’s going to be, Carson,” Clair said. “Exactly as it always has been. I think we’ve managed something – a friendship, a relationship, a … I don’t know if a word has been invented for us, maybe shouldn’t be. All I can say is, for now and for always, I’m here if you’re there.”
Her finger retreated from my lips. “Don’t say a word, Carson. It took me a while to come to this conclusion and it’s still fragile, a work in progress.”
I didn’t move a muscle. Clair turned away and opened the door. She started out, then paused. “Oh, and Carson?”
“Yes, Clair?”
“Make sure Miss Holliday is using sunscreen out there. The sun is brutal today.”
The door closed at Clair’s back as the deck door opened. Wendy stepped into the living room. “Did I just hear …” she went to the window and looked into the drive, “Doctor Peltier.”
I waved the file. “She was dropping off the preliminary.”
“She drove all the way down here? That’s incredibly thoughtful.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “That would be Clair.”
I had to return to work and so, regrettably, did. Wendy said she had nothing to do today but study, and her notes were in her phone. Would I mind if she enjoyed the beach and had supper waiting when the day turned me loose?
We walked the two blocks to Mix-up’s daycare and brought him home − a guard dog. I’d told my colleagues at the Dauphin Island Police of my situation, and they cruised the house regularly. I didn’t expect a problem, but a big, loud dog was one more layer of protection.
Harry and I resumed our pilgrimage of people I had pissed off, a sop to Baggs. We returned to the department at shift change, Harry to write reports and me to make sure our fliers had been distributed in the uniformed division. Those folks wore the blue, so chances seemed higher any conflict between the killer and the “Blue Tribe” originated with cops in uniform.
I pushed into the guys’ locker room, an olfactory broth of sweat, testosterone, cologne, talcum powder and deodorant. The front was packed with rows of wide green lockers with benches between. The rear held showers and commodes. The dividing line was a wall of sinks beneath mirrors. It resembled every men’s locker room I’d ever been in, like there was a master plan for the things, a Platonic Form.
There were a half-dozen guys at lockers, more in the back, obvious by the sound of showers and the steam in the air. One guy was changing clothes in the near stand of lockers – Johnny Wilkes, a lanky black guy who’d been in the academy with me. He was pulling a polo shirt on over jeans, his change of uniform cap in the open locker. Taped inside the door was a top-to-bottom montage of photos of Johnny’s wife and four kids.
He said, “What brings you down here with the working folk, Carson?”
“I wanted to make sure everyone saw the flier Harry and I put out.”
He did dubious. “I saw it. I also heard that you were the one—”
I shook my head in exasperation. “The guy’s mad at me, yeah. But our shrink is pretty sure he’s pissed at the whole force. I’m just the figurehead.”
“I heard you were on the web inviting the guy to kill people.”
He turned away. I grabbed Wilkes’s shoulder, pulled him around to face me. “Look in my eyes, Johnny. Do you see anyone in there stupid enough to invite a psycho to kill people?”
“I’m only repeating what—”
“You’re not looking, Johnny. How much stupid do you see in there?”
He studied my eyes, then dropped his in embarrassment. Said, “None.”
I released his shoulder. “It’s bullshit, John. It never happened because I’m not that stupid, and I’m tired of people thinking I am.”
I was tired of it, my guts turning every time my co-workers fell into whispers as I walked by, wondering if, or worse, why, I had goaded a killer into action. They were wrong, that was bad enough, but there was also a tiny voice in the back of my head asking if my past actions and reputation – including a penchant for what I called innovation but others often saw as taking risks – played a role. Had I set myself up for this fall … at least partly? I looked up, saw Wilkes studying the flier, seriously this time.
“You’re saying the perp’s mad at all of us? Is that it?”
“We’re convinced he’s responding to an actual incident: traffic stop, arrest, roust …”
I saw Ronald Mailey at the back of the row of lockers, ear bent our way, eavesdropping. That meant Austin was one of the bodies in the shower.
“What is it, Mailey?” I asked.
“Ah, nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.”
I followed Mailey to his locker and saw Austin walking our way, towel around his thick waist, rubbing his hair dry with a second towel. His body was heavily furred and he called to mind a surly bear. He stopped at a sink and ran a comb through the graying hair.
I said, “Tell me anyway, Mailey.”
“It was a few weeks back. About midnight. We stopped this dude for running a red three seconds in. When we started to check him out there was this, uh, thing with his, um …”
“His what?”
“His bowels, Detective. He had a bowel movement.”
Austin was eavesdropping and turned to us. “The guy had diarrhea was all. Big fucking deal. Maybe we stopped him after a Mexican supper and he had to squirt some beans.”
I looked at Austin’s image in the mirror. “What went down, Horse?”
“Mailey just fucking told you, Ryder. The guy was having some kind of problem. It was no big deal.”
I turned back to Mailey. “No confrontation? No words, no anger, no sense of the citizen losing any self-respect?”
Mailey shot a microsecond glance at Austin. “Hunh-uh, Detective. Nothing like that. The guy, uh, ended up thanking us.”
I saw Austin grimace. Something seemed off, but I had no idea what.
“That was it?” I asked Mailey.
“Come on, Ryder,” Austin snapped. “We’re trying to get home here. Go bang your head against the wall someplace else.”
I looked at Mailey. “The guy ended up thanking you for giving him a hundred-buck citation?” I asked.
“Uh, we didn’t write him up.”
I stared at Horse in the mirror. Austin not writing a ticket was as rare as irony at a Southern Baptist convention. He cited everyone for everything and averaged over a thousand bucks a day in citations, one of the reasons he kept his job on the street – he was a profit center.
“Come on, Austin. You’re telling me you didn’t ticket a guy who ran straight through a red?”
Austin threw his comb into the sink and wheeled to me. “What the fuck business is it of yours if I let the guy slide, Ryder? I felt sorry for the silly fuck standing there with shit down his pants and a dead grin on his goofy face. And since you’re so fucking interested, you wanna know what I did next?”
“What?”
“Accompanied the poor, sad fuck to his home to make sure he got there safe and sound. Maybe I shoulda kissed his forehead and tucked him into beddy-bye. There … now you know it all, asshole. So how’s about you leave us working stiffs alone?”
“You wanna ride again, baby?” the call girl said, running a slender finger between her small breasts and down the flat, muscled stomach. “Maybe a little mouth scolding?”
Gregory reached to feel his genitals, not in the mood.
“Not now.”
The canvas slippers padded to the window and Gregory looked out through the blinds. Though the low sun painted the cityscape with shadows, it was still daylight, a rare time for him to seek sexual attention. But the Itch was hitting hard lately and he knew from personal experience what cops could do under cover of darkness.
You stink like a sewage factory, poopy. Go home and learn how to use a toilet.
“You still got forty minutes on the meter, baby,” the machine purred. “I’m here when you need me.”
Gregory wandered to the bureau. On his last visit the bag of white powder had been here, but now it was gone.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Where’s what, baby?”
“The powder.”
“Open the top drawer, hon. Look on the right.”
Gregory found a small round mirror, a razor blade and a zip bag of white powder. “Primo quality, baby,” the robot said. “Never been stepped on. Ain’t nothing but the finest for my special customers.”
“What did you say it would make me feel like?”
“Like God. Like you’re the master of the whole fucking universe.”
Gregory shot a sideways glance at his image in the mirror, his eyes pools of radiant power, his stomach hard, his biceps thickened by hundreds of hours with the bow machine. The effect seemed appropriate: he was a master of life and death.
Gregory had studied cocaine after his last visit, a stimulant. As amazing as his new life was, his surveillance cut deeply into his sleeping time – perhaps the cause of unsettling dreams of late – and caffeine didn’t sit well on his sensitive stomach. Given the visibly increased police presence on the streets, he needed to be fully alert in every aspect of his new life.
Gregory picked up the bag and dandled it in his palm. He turned to the sex robot.
“How much for the bag?” he asked.