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I could see the sheriff eyeing his deputy through the glass from where he stood near Mordecai. My plan had been to catch them here, alone. Push for answers. A glimpse at their briefing gave me all of those and then some. Now, I just wanted to get back outside, fire up Bubonic, and make for Fenwick Hall.
“I stopped by to reclaim my personal property. You guys look busy. I can come back another time.”
Araceli had her hand on the door. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but I tried to follow her out anyway. Gardener called us to a halt right as the cool outside air rushed past.
“We’ve got another report filed against you.”
I turned, genuinely surprised. “Oh yeah?”
Gardener furrowed his brow and pointed toward the damaged SUV. “Vandalism?”
Well, at least Mordecai’s goons had one legit claim. I hadn’t seen either of the two bruisers in the bullpen or waiting outside in their ride. If they were out of pocket, I couldn’t name too many places other than the motel or diner. Probably took their pay in greasy spoon visits.
“As I recall, they nearly ran me down. I rolled off the hood, took out their side mirror on the way. I’ve got a witness.”
Araceli studiously examined the parking lot.
“That so?” Deputy Gardener replied. “They reported moving all right. In reverse. Say you came after them.”
“Those heavyweight sons a bitches? I’m a middleweight, at best. I know my limits.” Gardener remained unimpressed. “They here? I’d love to apologize, maybe settle this face to face or whatever.”
The suggestion had him squirming. His discomfort from our heart to heart during booking the other day returned. Maybe Mordecai’s muscle had been given a different job which the Deputy couldn’t approve of? I wanted more, but like a predator sensing the same weakness, Araceli pounced.
“Will this new charge be grounds for more false imprisonment? You’ve got a nice facility here, money to spare,” she let her eyes roam about the sparkling waiting area. “But how is your department’s liability insurance? Or your personal assets for that matter?”
I cracked a smile. I didn’t get her. Tough on the outside, even harder on the inside, she showed glimpses of this proper lady routine like lingering habits learned as a kid. But whatever musty castle she attended hadn’t been a charm school. She had the hunger of somebody who’d fallen on hard times and learned to confront a system, not work with it.
Gardener backed off. “This one’s not a jailable offense,” he mumbled. “They came in early this morning to file the report. Their boss, Sunday,” he checked over his shoulder, toward the bullpen where the preacher carried on with his sermon but gave the waiting area a piercing gaze as though he’d heard his name called over the intercom, “their boss caught them here at the station and dragged them out.”
Gardner’s sudden helpfulness told me he’d witnessed something which unnerved him. Could’ve been a slip of Mordecai’s carefully built mask. A glimpse into the underlying reality which the Deputy’s brain might’ve rejected, but subconsciously, he knew he’d seen hell.
Closer to the door, Araceli hadn’t seen the preacher’s reaction. She shot an alarmed look my way anyway. My guess, the minions hadn’t just failed their boss, they’d failed in the binding employment contract which they may or may not know they’d signed.
I’d been in Gardener’s shoes many times before along my own journey. A trained observer becomes more sensitive to those inconsistencies. A cop’s intuition puts them in a unique position to see and accept, or be driven mad by, the worlds beyond our own.
I decided to see how far his help would go. “Unexplained things have been happening since I arrived, I’ll give you that. Crimes somebody needs to answer for. But you know as well as I do, all this started long before I showed up.” I stepped closer and looked off to the side. “You want me to have your back, say the word.”
He examined me, doing his best to hide his nerves. “You better leave before I get the go ahead to lock you up.”
I nodded and backed off. “Those belongings of mine, the ones you took from me, can help me end all this.”
He half-turned toward the bullpen. “You really want to come inside and fill out the paperwork?”
“Tempting, but I’ll pass.”
“Okay then.” Gardener adjusted his belt. “Well, I’m supposed to tell you to get to work.”
As Araceli and I slipped outside, Mordecai fixed on the door. He waved brightly, his fake smile giving off a measurable wattage. He followed the wave with a quick gesture as if he were drawing a sword. Halfway across the building and through a pane of glass, I could still hear his childish giggle.
***
“GO ON IN AND GET US a table,” I told Araceli. A misting of rain had started from a gauzy sky pressed low to the pines out behind the diner. “I’ll give you a few to get settled and loosen up our informant.”
“Didn’t you say you spoke to the waitress before? Why not now?”
“Because I’m only guessing what she was told, and I don’t have my root to coerce her.”
Araceli crossed her arms and fell against Bubonic’s white leather seat. “Coerce? The more I know about it, the more your magic unnerves me.”
“What? You don’t have any spells to gather information, give you an edge in an interview?”
“Mai! An alchemist would never resort to such methods!” Her eyes flared, cheeks flushed. I’d found a chink in her armor. She composed herself and walked back the denial. “Interviews. Coercion. Interrogations. The lines are too narrow. Darker times saw an end to such practices.”
“Luckily we’re outside your jurisdiction. Besides, this is America. Savage land of the free built by the not-so-free,” I said.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can get out of her.” She grabbed the door handle and swung open the heavy door like she was ready to charge into combat.”
“Chill,” I said. “No need to get a deposition. Aside from frying up scrapple, Becky’s best skill is serving gossip. If she has been warned I’m some kind of serial killer, getting a chance to speak to you alone after seeing us together will be too hard for her to resist.”
She gave a curt tilt of her head and hopped into the spattering rain.
I watched her hustle toward the diner, her arms pulled tight against the mist. She didn’t have much of a way with people. Her upbringing must’ve been lonely which provided another contradiction to her claims of belonging to magical high society. She’d become another mystery for my brain to puzzle; one where I kept trying not to imagine unhitching her shoulder straps and letting those overalls slide down into a heap.
Love, even of the hook up variety, hadn’t been common since Keandra passed. I’d lost friends on the block. Those had hit hard but were rarely a surprise. Her death had been so different. All the dangers we’d been taught to avoid on the streets, nobody expected a city bus.
She’d been walking home from her job. Rainy day like today, headphones, bumpin’ to Cardi B, out making that money move for her little boy. Never heard the engine as it plowed through a late red light. Never caught the horn witnesses say never happened.
Another wet cough and I wondered how long until we were together again.
I popped my collar and jogged into the rain. Droplets tickled my scalp, water seeped freely into my eyes. The payphone offered no protection. Still, I crouched and huddled under the shallow lip of the phone’s case. Quarters in, not sure how many, and I called home.
“Hello?” Mom answered.
Better her than the alternative. Dad had worked a miracle and stuck it out to raise a family only to watch mine fall apart. He’d shepherded his son through the streets and into college. The degree hadn’t been as advanced as all the talk, but I’d gotten a job. Busting up corners instead of slouching on them. Cleaning up the neighborhood. He’d been proud. At one time.
He hadn’t spoken to me since I left. He’d been strong, stronger than most, so why couldn’t I? Of all the disappointments I could heap on him, leaving had been the greatest.
“Hi, Momma.”
I heard the furtive swishes of secrecy. The twang of the phone cord going taut as she stepped around the corner. A hand brought close to the receiver to conceal her whisper.
“Eustace? Where are you?”
No harm telling her. I’d be on my way out of town one way or another soon. “South Carolina. Outside Charleston.”
“South Carolina? What are you doing all the way down there? Last time you called from Alabama. Time before, Virginia. It’s been months, Eustace!” She struggled to keep the volume low. Her voice had already ascended into the high-pitch scolding I’d learned to fear and respect. Shoes thrown with marksman accuracy were soon to follow if I’d been in the house.
“You know, working. Searching.”
“You need to stop this nonsense and get your ass back home for your son! He needs a father, Eustace!”
He did. He needed one who’d live longer than a few days away from his demon magic. I’d often thought about bringing him to Saint Augustine. But who’d look after him while I searched? Kitterling? Who’d protect him when these spirits and demons came knocking? No, like my own father had left the Game on the streets, I needed to be clear of this madness first.
“How is he?”
I could imagine the smile creeping across her cheeks against her will. “He’s such a smart boy, Eustace. They talked about early placement in school, but your father wouldn’t have it. He wants him old enough to take care of himself. Thinks he’ll get bullied.”
“It’s just kindergarten, Momma. Nobody going to recruit him or have a beef over snack time.”
“You know your father. He’s cautious. Thinks when he’s older, a year behind in age, he’ll find trouble he can’t handle.”
“He’ll find that at any age.” I blinked away the rain which had trickled into my face.
“Well, you want to make decisions about his education? You come and get your ass on back home.”
I heard my father call out in the background.
“Nobody, J.T. Wrong number,” Momma called back, the phone muffled against her. Then her voice came back, loud and clear. “You hear me? You come home.”
“You tell him I love him?”
“Every night. I tell him his Daddy, wherever he is, loves him.” There was a pause and I knew what she would say next. “He thinks you’re with his Momma.”
“Sometimes I’m not sure that’ll be a bad place to be.”
“Eustace Haynes Grant! I don’t want to hear you talk like that ever again, you understand?”
Dad grumbled in the background again, probably dangerously close to getting off the couch. Mom escalated the threat level to keep him in place. “Yes, wrong number! I said wrong number. I’m trying to help them find the right number! Charity, J.T., that’s what the Lord expects!”
“The Lord doesn’t want you to be no telephone operator!” Dad’s familiar gravelly voice came through clear this time around.
“Honey,” Mom whispered, “I gotta go. You need help down there, see if you can find your cousins.”
“Cousins?”
“Your father’s side. They go way back down there. Don’t you ever listen to him go on?” She never gave me a chance to answer. “Haynes, your namesake. Why, they’re all over those parts. It’s been since we were kids, but Charlene used to be outta Charleston somewhere.”
I promised her I’d look them up. I made sure to repeat the condition ‘if I needed the help’ and got quickly taken down for my legalese. I strained those last few seconds of the phone call, trying to hear my son in the background, playing, cruising around the house. He’d only just started walking when I left. She hung up too quick.
I rose out from under the shallow overhang and accepted the downpour. Rain slicked the receiver. I waited until it was only rain on my cheeks before hanging up the phone.
Then an idea struck. I reached into my jacket and pulled out the rolled up sheaf of names and ages. Ignoring the spattered droplets smudging the photocopy, I ran through the lines with a finger. Most were a first name and an age, their family erased by their owner. A few listed a full name. Only a few.
Haynes. Ruth Haynes. Property of Hallewell.
Coincidences, they just don’t exist.