Hatchetfish are small and ugly, just about four inches and flat as hatchet blades. They have enormous, tubular, upturned eyes that make them look like floating burnt pancakes with two pus sacs affixed to their heads. Their big eyes and flat heads give them a zombie-like expression, like they’re in a constant state of huh? and since their eyes are somewhat fixed, they only look in one direction.
Detective Lewis peered at me through the bars of Tipee Island’s Police Department holding cell, his mustache curved upward in what I could only guess was a smile. I was sitting, knees to chest, on the sorry excuse for a cot, and had been there for two hours already after they booked me. My feet hurt, I’d found two ticks on my legs, and everyone in the building knew that Teague’s girlfriend was sitting in lock-up. It hadn’t been a good day, and now I was being hatcheted into even more pieces by this narrow-minded creep.
“Filing a false report and now trespassing,” Lewis taunted.
“Trespassing? Are you serious? Who doesn’t trespass on that property?” I countered angrily. “My grandma was out there three weeks ago looking for piping plovers, black skimmers and terns. No one sent the cavalry out to arrest her. And while I was there I saw Ricky Wakefield and some guy with J.J. on his arm having an air-soft war. Didn’t see any flashing lights to stop their activities.”
“They weren’t caught,” Lewis reasoned.
“Isn’t that strange?” I retorted. “All I wanted was to take a look-see, perhaps find something that you guys may have missed in the dark.”
“All you want is to cause trouble,” Lewis replied. He chuckled. “You may have gotten yourself out of any wrongdoing in the Chambers case. May have weaseled your way out of false report charges at the Peacock, but I got you this time.”
I huffed. “Just give me my one phone call.” How I would use that call, I had no idea. Crooks on TV always call lawyers.
“Oh, Teague already knows,” Lewis laughed. “Had to step out of his anti-drug training when Kent called to tell ‘em his girlfriend’s gotten herself locked up. I bet the look on his face was priceless.”
My shoulders slumped. Lewis, grinning ear to ear, told me to sit tight and think about what I’d done. Instead, I thought about Ricky Wakefield and his buddy, J.J. While I sat in here, they were free to roam the woods, shoot innocent squirrels, and keep appointments, whatever that meant. They reminded me of former students. The ones who put on the biggest show are the ones with the darkest secrets. Tattoos, piercings, anger, and attitudes were all places to hide, evidence that their lives had been hatchet jobs. Good teachers could pick these rebels out, dust them off, and put them back on track.
But, who was I kidding? I was never a good teacher, evident by the way my teaching career blew up in my face and fizzled into a bad memory. I put my head down against my knees. Jail seemed a fitting place for me.
The main door to the room of bars opened with a loud clank, and in walked Chris Kayne. He looked like a brick of gold sitting atop a trash pile (me being part of the trash). He wore a light blue Polo, khakis, and Converses. The edges of his tattered notebook hung out of his back pocket. He had a handsome face, very Matt Damon, presently smiling at me.
“If you wanted a tour, Ms. Duffy, all you had to do was ask.”
“A guided tour would’ve defeated my purposes,” I countered.
“What exactly were you hoping to find that the police didn’t?” he challenged.
“Based on the expertise of detectives like Harlan Lewis, I considered it very possible to find just about anything,” I returned.
Chris smirked. “I suppose you’ve got a point.”
“Well, thanks for that, but it doesn’t do me much good,” I refuted.
“Course it does,” he argued. “I’m here to get you out.” The officer standing behind him brought out his keys and unlocked my cage.
“Really?”
“I hope you’ll accept our apologies. Our groundsman, Wake, is somewhat overzealous when it comes to strangers, as is my father,” Chris explained as I joined him on the outside. I followed the officer and Chris out of the holding cells and toward the real world again. “When Wake told my father he’d found a trespasser, he told him to let the police handle it. He didn’t want to get involved. Had he known the circumstances, I’m certain he wouldn’t have been so hasty about calling the police.”
“Well, your groundsman didn’t give me a chance to explain,” I said. “In fact, he didn’t talk to me at all.”
“That’s Wake,” Chris shrugged. “He can talk, just chooses not to. Gets him into trouble. Anyway, I hope you’ll accept our sincerest apologies and please, snoop wherever you’d like with our blessings.”
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson about the snooping,” I smiled, “but I do need to go back for my dog. He got away from me in the woods.”
“Ah, don’t worry. He is presently lounging on the deck of the Peacock with plenty of water and a complimentary steak.”
My eyes widened in relief. “Wow, if you pamper him that much, he may not want to leave.”
“We have been known to make people and animals feel that way at the Peacock, but I doubt he’d ever abandon his fearless owner,” Chris returned. I scoffed. Fearless certainly wasn’t a word that described me. I signed the clipboard and handed it back to the officer at the desk. My phone. Dora the Explorer. It was all returned to me. “Drive you back to the Peacock?”
“That’d be nice.” We shuffled through the precinct. The stares and snickers I earned from Sam’s co-workers made me keep my head down and my feet moving quickly.
Lewis eyed me disappointedly. His view was just as narrow as the hatchetfish, I thought, content to wrongly assume that I was guilty of anything and everything. But, I relented. I hadn’t found anything that proved the woman was ever in those woods and no one had found her, alive or otherwise. And the reappearance of my shoes triggered a litany of doubts. Perhaps my view was just as narrow, only seeing through my own tainted perspective. And it was tainted. There were voices in my head. Couldn’t there be visions in there, too? Maybe there never was a redheaded woman at all.