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As she drove past the supermarket, pink and red balloons in the window caught Harry's eye as she passed, and she groaned aloud. It had been two weeks since the death of the man who had been brainwashing street children. Valentine's Day came next. Harry sneered at the idea, and then stepped out of her car onto the wet pavement of the convenience store parking lot. Her boot scraped on an old, squashed beer can and sent it skittering across the ground. It echoed off the empty buildings around it, the sound amplified from mere annoyance to headache-inducing in the right circumstances—like tonight. Harry swore, slammed the door, and locked the car with the key fob as she walked toward the half-open front door of the store.
The young man at the door was maybe 14 or 15, and looked familiar. He gave her a dirty look as she walked in. She ignored him and walked to the back of the store. She didn't want to think about everything happening in her life anymore, because it was all a muddled mess. The feeling of being watched crawled along the back of her neck, and she grabbed a six-pack of bottles out of the cooler, turned around, and saw the boy at the door dash away with a jingle of the makeshift announcement wrap-tied to the top of the door.
"You okay?" she called to the kid at the counter. She squinted as the teenager's head lifted just a fraction and eyes with dark circles lit on her through a cascade of matted, blue-streaked hair. "That punk bothering you?"
"He's not a punk," the cashier called back.
This kid was just like all the others. Left behind, treated badly, reclusive, scared, and hungry. They were all so hungry. What fed them may be different—one on love, a couple on smack, several on something as simple as a dry bed—but they all fit the mold in Harry's eyes. She walked toward the register, grabbing a bag of pretzels and a packet of BC Powder on the way, then pushed everything onto the counter. When she reached in her back pocket for her wallet, the kid flinched.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
The kid nodded, head down, and started to clumsily scan the items with a skinny arm covered in a crisscross of razor marks. Self-mutilator. This one would be a perfect catch for a predator with an eye for broken toys. "That's $13.65."
Harry handed over a twenty and caught the arm that reached forward to grab it. She twisted the kid's hand and watched a half dozen of the razor slices open up and ooze a yellowish clear liquid.
"Hey, what the hell?" the kid asked and pulled back the arm, twenty in hand.
"That'll kill you, you know that?" Harry gestured at the cuts. "If they get really infected, and that infection goes into your bloodstream, you can develop sepsis. Do you know what that is? It’s like your body becomes a toxic waste dump that’s trying to kill itself.”
The kid stared at her for a moment, then pushed a button on the cash register to complete the sale. At what seemed like an afterthought, she looked down at the bill. "I need to take this to the back to get the marker that checks it for forgery. Stay here." Glancing back and forth, gaze lingering for a moment on the dark parking lot, the kid ripped off the receipt and slipped through the office door.
Harry looked around her: at the slush machine slowly churning, the battered coffee machine that could use a good wipe down with a sanitizing wash, at the open cash register that, had she been a less honest person, she might have dipped into while the kid was away, and then out to the dark parking lot. She thought she saw something moving, but as she pushed off the counter to check it out, the cashier came jogging back toward her.
"Sorry," the kid said. "You can't be too careful." The kid slid the twenty into the register, counted out correct change with some effort, then placed it all on Harry's hand on top of a folded receipt. Harry declined a bag to carry it all. "Be careful out there tonight, Detective. The parade has all the weirdos out."
––––––––
WHEN HARRY GOT HOME, she twisted the top off a bottle and guzzled down half the beer in gulps as soon as she walked in, kicking the door closed behind her with one boot whose laces were loosened almost to the point of untied. She dropped into the chair she had moved without ceremony into the middle of the living room, plunked the rest of the six pack onto the little table, and kicked her boots off and onto the floor. Twisting to the side, she pulled the remote control out from between the cushion and the side of the chair and turned the set on.
As she drank, she emptied the contents of her pockets onto the TV tray beside her, grabbed a BC Powder from the pack, and took it with the rest of her beer. The trash can beside her had just enough room left in the bag to accept the empty bottle. She opened another, grabbed her pretzels, and ripped open the bag. While she watched, ate, and drank, the heater kicked on. She swore aloud as the force of the heater's fan blew her change from the store off the table and onto the floor. Scrambling up, she grabbed every bill, unable to afford to lose even one without the stability of her job backing her. She spotted the receipt as she sat back down. It was unremarkable with its promise of a survey that would have 'One lucky winner of $1,000!' On the other side, however, was scrawled a message in black.
"3479 Sycamore Drive. STOP THE PURGE OR THEY ALL DIE!”
Harry jumped out of her chair and into her boots, stopping only long enough to haphazardly lace them. She grabbed her phone, keys, and wallet, and slammed the front door shut behind her. Sailing down the stairs, she collided with a stooped figure on its way up. Her swear echoed through the stairwell as she started running again for the door to the parking garage.
When she got into the car, she dialed the direct line to Briggs' office. Nothing. The second day of the parade weekend was always crazy. She pulled out of the garage and pushed the pedal as far as she thought she could safely go, her defrost blaring to clear the fog from her hot breath against the icy windshield.
"Come on," she chanted as she dialed another number, then another. When she didn't get a busy signal, she got voicemail. She tossed her phone at the seat and in a few minutes, she pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store. Flinging the door open, she barely escaped her seat belt as she launched herself out of the car at the front door. She pulled it open, the bells tinkled, and she ran to the abandoned cash register as the teenager’s words echoed in her head.
Be careful out there tonight, Detective.
She had recognized Harry, had known who she was before she even walked in. But how had she known Harry would go to that store? The realization flooded her veins with icy sludge that stopped her in her tracks. She was being watched.
"Hello?" she called. "Kid? I need to talk to you!" She listened for a moment, and when she didn't hear anyone call back, or hear any signs of life, she lifted the hinged divider and walked behind the counter. "Hello?" On the floor behind the cash register, the uniform vest the teenager had been wearing lay crumpled in a ball. "Son of a bitch!"
She pulled out her phone and dialed Briggs again. As she listened for her old captain to pick up, she stepped toward the little office behind the counter. Briggs picked up as she reached out, twisted the doorknob, and pushed the door open.
"Shit," she whispered. On the floor of what was basically a glorified closet, hogtied and purple, lie an older woman in Dickies work pants and a button-down shirt with the store logo embroidered across the left breast.
"Excuse me?" Briggs asked from the other side of the line.
Harry snapped to attention. "Captain, it's Harry Thresher. We have a problem."
"By 'we' you mean...?"
Harry groaned. "You have a problem. The department. The city. I just got a little message about the Gray Cult from a kid at a convenience store. I didn't see it until I got home, and by the time I got back, the kid was gone. But I just found the body of the store employee."
"Where are you?" Briggs asked. "We'll be right there."
Harry stepped back out of the office and walked to the counter. She avoided touching anything while she gave the address. "The kid's note gave an address where she said..."
"Who's 'she'?"
"The kid. You still have your pen? I have the note on me." Harry gave her the address to what she assumed was a warehouse deep in the bowels of the city. "What do you want me to do?"
"Stay until the uniforms get there, give a statement, and hand over that receipt. Then go home, Thresher. You've done enough." The captain paused. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost kind. "Thank you."
"Keep me in the loop, huh?" Harry asked, with a glance back at the corpse of the night cashier she now realized she recognized. She had seen the woman dozens of times in the last six months, but she never thought to even flick her eyes down at the nametag on her vest. Janette. She was as familiar to Harry as the rest of the store from weekend after weekend, and some week nights, of needed a little extra boost from a 12-pack full of cold bottles. "I just want to know it's really over."
"You'll know when I do," Briggs promised, then hung up.
Harry watched as the photo of her former captain disappeared and the home screen on her phone popped back up. She stared at it for a moment before pressing the little icon in the top right corner. As the phone dialed, Harry contemplated the face on the screen. Harry knew the woman was smarter, more cunning, and had a better moral compass than her by leaps and bounds. She knew they barely had any business working together, let alone pursuing a relationship, but she couldn't stop herself. It was a compulsion, a need that she felt in the ephemeral center of herself.
"What do you want?" The voice was almost cold, but Harry could hear a tinge of warmth still left there. If she could rekindle it tonight, they might have a chance.
"I want you. I miss you, Busy. I need to see you again. Tonight. No sex, no strings." She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice, but it colored her tone like splashes of paint on a canvas. "Please. I'm sorry I was such a creep, and I know I don't deserve another chance."
The line went quiet for a moment. She could hear the hiss of a tea kettle nearing its whistle in the background, and she imagined the scene she couldn't see: Busy, her hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, dressed in an oversized t-shirt and cut-off flannel shorts, leaning with one hip against the counter as her water boiled. The tea bag would already be inside the mug that proclaimed, ‘BE NICE OR LEAVE.’
"Please, Busy," Harry said again. The begging tone of her voice grated against her own ears as she watched the two police cars pull up outside the clear glass doors of the convenience store. "Just meet me at my place. I have to give my statement, then I'll be there."
"Your statement?" Busy's voice went soft and warm, full of concern, and Harry felt a burst of heat in her chest. She did care. "What's going on, Harry?"
"I'm okay," Harry told her. "Go to my place and wait for me. You still have the key, right?"
Busy sighed, and the tea kettle stopped hissing. She would have to abandon her plans for the night, and Harry promised herself she would make the change worthwhile. "I'll be there."
They both paused as if waiting for the other to say something, an unsaid proclamation that Harry felt in her gut but couldn't bring herself to say. She cleared her throat. "Be careful, B."
"I can take care of myself," Busy answered back, then hung up the phone.
Harry opened up a memo document, transcribed the note exactly, then laid it on the counter as four uniformed police officers walked into the convenience store. Two of them recognized her immediately and one gave her a dirty look.
"Fellas," she said, stuffing her phone in one pocket. "Let me introduce you to the night cashier of this fine establishment." She pointed a thumb behind her at the open office door, then pulled the note out of her pocket and slapped it onto the countertop. "And here's the note given to me by the fake cashier, who, we can only assume, was this poor woman's killer."
The first cop grabbed the bridge of his nose and squeezed. When he was done, he pulled out a notepad and pen. "Let's take it from the top, Thresher. No funny business. What the hell are you doing here, and why should I believe you didn't kill this woman?"
