Crow got a lot of information about Patty Trang and Monk Addison, but no insights. Her backstory was a lot of nothing details—driver’s license, immigration, naturalization, work history. Crow sent requests through Interpol and directly to the police in Tuyên Quang, Vietnam, asking for details about the murder of Trang’s mother and daughter. That would take time.
For Monk there was less than there should be. He was able to confirm that the man had been born in New York, enlisted in the army at eighteen, ran with the Airborne Rangers for three years and then with Delta Force, and received an honorable discharge eleven years later. His service record read like the fiction it had to be. According to what Crow could find, Monk’s MOS came up as 63W, a job code that meant he was a wheeled-vehicle repairer. He’d been a sergeant and a mechanic? Crow smiled. Sergeant he could buy, but that was about it.
His guess was that the military occupational specialty on record was horseshit. Everything about Monk screamed special ops. And not an obvious branch like the Green Berets, because the database Crow was accessing would have said that. Could Monk have been Delta? Those guys were cagey about what personal details were ever revealed. There was a guy Crow knew named Joe Ledger who was some kind of black ops and background checks on him were fiction, too, and unbreakable.
Was that what Monk was?
Maybe, Crow thought. Monk had hinted he’d also been a PMC, but those companies were even more squirrelly when it came to revealing employee information. Safety concerns, sure, but a lot of it was hidden behind walls built by the various intelligence and military agencies who hired private contractors. Even if Monk was in custody for a provable crime, none of those agencies was going to share data with a small-town cop.
As he dug deeper he was able to confirm that Monk really did work chasing bail skips, and Crow actually laughed out loud at the name of one of the firms who had him on retainer: Scarebaby and Twitch.
The company was owned by J. Heron Scarebaby and Iver Twitch. Actual names. Crow sniggered all the way to the coffeemaker and back. How fucking unlucky do you have to be, to be hung with names like that? Did their parents hate them? Were both families cursed by witches?
“What’s so funny?” yelled Gertie.
“Nothing,” said Crow.
“You better not be laughing at my hair, Malcolm Crow. I told you about that before.”
“I’m not laughing at you, your hair, or anything in that whole corner of the office.”
“You better not be.”
“Hand to God.”
Gertie lapsed into the kind of silence where it was clear she did not believe Crow and was going to be listening for validation of her suspicions. Her hair really did look like weasels were committing unspeakable acts in it.
Crow called the bond firm and got Mr. Twitch on the line. Scarebaby was, according to his partner, at another fat farm and hadn’t bothered to bring his phone. Crow murmured a sympathetic noise and asked about Monk Addison.
“Why?” asked Twitch. “Is he is trouble again?”
“Again?”
There was a pause as Twitch probably suddenly realized what he’d just said to a cop. “Just a joke,” he said quickly. “Monk’s great. How can I help?”
“Doing a routine background check on him,” said Crow. “Confidential.”
“Uh huh. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. This is just routine and—”
“I’m an attorney,” interrupted Twitch. “Criminal law. Don’t talk to me like I’m a tourist.”
“Is Mr. Addison your employee or your client?”
“He is both,” said Twitch with a touch of asperity. “So, again I ask, is he in trouble?”
Crow drummed his fingers along the side of his WORLD’S GREATEST DAD coffee cup for a moment. “He is a person of interest in a matter we’re investigating.”
There was a soft hmmm-hmmming from Twitch, then he said in a quick rapid-fire, “You’re Pine Deep PD. Monk just moved there. Pine Deep is where the Trouble was. Pine Deep is a notoriously weird little town. I’ve read the articles. The Most Haunted Town in America. What’s your advertising slogan? ‘Visit America’s Haunted Holidayland’?”
“Past tense,” said Crow. “We’re pretty chill these days. Arts and crafts. Gearing up for our first fringe festival.”
“Uh huh,” said Twitch in exactly the way someone would say “bullshit.” “What’s Monk into?”
“I can’t comment on an active investigation.”
“Is Monk in custody?”
“No.”
“Is Patty okay?”
Crow paused. “You know Ms. Trang?”
“Patty Cakes, sure.”
“Can you tell me, please, about the nature of her relationship with Mr. Addison?”
“Is Patty okay?” Twitch repeated, leaning on it a little harder. And there was something in the tone that made Crow wonder if Twitch already knew the answer. Had Monk called him? Probably, he decided.
“She was brought into the emergency room of the Pinelands Regional Medical Center,” explained Crow. “She’s in stable condition.”
“What happened to her?”
Crow said, “I’m going to be frank with you, Mr. Twitch … Ms. Trang came in with bruises on her face and body, a variety of small cuts, and a minor head injury. She claims that this is all self-inflicted during a drunken blackout, which is also the story Mr. Addison tells. Her blood alcohol content was .34, so that bears out some of it.”
“What about other drugs? And, before you stonewall me, Chief, Patty’s my client, too, and I’ll get any test results I might need.”
“I didn’t call to stonewall you, Mr. Twitch, I’m looking to make sense of this. So, no, there are no traces of cocaine or other drugs. No Rohypnol, either, but I have some concerns about Mr. Addison and—”
Twitch’s sharp snort of laughter cut him off. “Fuck me to tears, Chief, but if you think Monk Addison beat up Patty Cakes, let me set you straight. Monk only looks like the kind of guy who would cut your liver out with a dull spoon and make you buy it back while thanking him. He’s a big, scary, deeply dangerous son of a bitch and that’s me, his friend and lawyer, saying it. But—and this is a big twerking but—Monk is one of the good guys. Not a nice guy—God, don’t ever get that impression—but if he has your back, then you never need to look over your shoulder.”
“As you said, you’re his lawyer…”
“Sure, you think I’m hyping him because he pays me. Sure, sure, and no. I know Monk. Not as well as Patty, but well enough. And, let me say this, if someone in your freaky-deaky little town has hurt Patty, then you do not want to get between that unfortunate asshole and Monk Addison. No, sir, you do not. Monk has this thing about people putting hands on women and kids. Let’s call it a zero tolerance policy.”
“So he’s what? Captain Hero?”
Twitch laughed again and it sounded genuine. “Tell you what, Chief Crow,” he said, “you go ahead and investigate all you want. If you like Monk for what happened to Patty, knock yourself out trying to sell that. It’s your time to waste. But once you realize that he’s the one person who is never going to be a legitimate—and I’ll use your phrase here—person of interest—and start looking for the actual asshole who might have done it? When you get there, take some friendly advice and just step out of Monk’s way.”
“I think we can handle ourselves, Mr. Twitch.”
The lawyer was still laughing when he hung up on Crow.
The chief sat at his desk and frowned at the phone. Then at the computer screen. And finally down into the depths of his coffee. There were no answers anyway. He got up and walked over to the big picture window and stood looking out at the day. The words PINE DEEP POLICE were written in big, fancy silver and black letters across the glass and he stared out through the O.
Where there had been sunlight not an hour ago now there were storm shadows. Every store and building across the street was painted in bruise colors.
“Going to rain soon,” he said aloud. Not really talking to Gertie, though she answered.
“It rains every day now,” she said. “Probably that climate change stuff.”
No, thought Crow, I don’t think so.