A Killing at the Creek (12 page)

“Hear what?” He was casual, innocent as a lamb, turning the can with his fingertips.

She made a scornful face. “Oh please,” she said, tipping her beer for another swallow. “The talk.”

Shaking his head, he said, “Only talk I've heard is about the kid.”

A spark of interest flared, in spite of herself. “What's that?”

Shifting into the corner of the booth, Noah settled his broad back against the wall. He drank before he answered. “Everybody's pissed you're not in charge.”

She sat up straighter; he had garnered her complete attention. “How's that?”

“Nobody thinks she'll keep after it.” There was no need to ask who “she” was. “And nobody at the department thinks her little fag chief assistant has the balls to see it through.”

She squinted; her contact lenses seemed fuzzy. Maybe the beer was drying her eyeballs. “He's not gay.”

Noah's response was a cross between a snort and a cough. “Dixie!” he shouted, waving his empty can, but she ducked into the kitchen behind the bar.

A perverse impulse prompted Elsie to defend Chuck. “He isn't. He's just big city, that's all.”

His teeth shone like a Cheshire cat. “Big city.”

“You know, metrosexual. Fancy haircut, expensive clothes.”

“Hair gel,” he suggested.

“Yeah.”

“My point exactly.”

She flushed with resentment. Though she wanted to shut him down with a biting retort, she could only come up with: “You're stupid.”

Dixie appeared at Elsie's shoulder with a plastic basket, lined with wax paper. She set the basket in front of Elsie with a flourish. It held a sizzling cheeseburger; and in the top bun, which was shiny with grease, someone had stuck a single birthday candle. Its short wick was lighted.

Dixie nudged Noah. “Are we singing?”

“No.” He gave the basket a little push toward Elsie, his hand brushing hers. “Make a wish, baby.”

Panic seized her; she thought,
Who is he calling baby?
“What is this?” she snapped.

“I saw your car, and I remembered. Wish I had a real present. But I know you love the cheeseburgers here at the Bald. You used to tell me you craved them, sometimes.”

She scooted out of the booth. “That's nice of you; thanks. But I'm going now.”

“Wait.” He seized her arm. It wasn't a painful touch, but it held her in place. “You've got to eat something, or you're going to regret it. And honey, you're in no shape to drive.”

Reflexively, she tried to jerk from his grasp, but he held on. Glancing back at the basket, she saw that the bun now had a quantity of melted pink wax on its surface. Still, it smelled delicious.

She relaxed and slid back into the seat. “I need the ketchup and mustard.”

He reached behind him, swiping condiments from the next booth. With a smile, he said, “Eat. I'll give you a ride home.”

 

Chapter 22

E
LSIE AWOKE FROM
a sodden sleep. Lying under a wrinkled sheet, she fought through the fog of the night with her eyes squeezed shut.
Please
, she thought,
please let me be in my own bed.

And let me be alone. All alone.

Peeking through her eyelashes, she was comforted by the familiar sight of the dusty light fixture hanging over her bed. Sitting up with a sigh, she threw off the sheet and assessed the magnitude of her hangover. She shook her head, hoping to clear it, but without success.

It was going to be a rocky day, she thought, as she grappled for her eyeglasses on the bedside table..

Shuffling toward the kitchen, she shrieked at the sight of Noah Strong with his feet on the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee.

He laughed at her reaction. Aping her expression, he squealed in falsetto, “Help! Police!”

“Shit,” she said, pushing her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose.

“There's a man in my apartment! Call the cops!”

She trudged into the kitchen and picked up a cup from the dish drainer. Pouring coffee from the pot he'd brewed, she said, “What are you doing here, Noah?”

“That's a nice way to greet your hero. The guy who drove your drunk ass home last night.”

“Oh fuck,” she muttered.

“And put you to bed. Got you out of your work clothes and shoes.” He reached for her as she walked past, catching her hand and pulling her onto his lap.

Elsie set the coffee cup on the table and squirmed away from him and into the other chair. Wishing most desperately that she didn't have to ask, she said, “Did we do anything?”

“Like what?”

She turned on him with a flash of temper. “Don't mess with me.”

“Did we watch TV? No ma'am we did not.”

She picked up the coffee with a shaking hand as her anxiety spiked. She would not repeat the question. She would retain a shred of dignity.

With a sigh, she shifted in the kitchen chair, observing that there was no telltale twinge of tenderness; and after a dry spell, Noah's attentions would have left a morning-­after reminder. She relaxed a trifle.

He nudged her. “Since you're having some recall problems, you might not realize that you don't have a car outside in the parking lot.”

Elsie breathed in and out, carefully. He had the whip hand this morning, and was clearly enjoying it. In a polite voice, she said, “Would you mind if I take a quick shower before we go pick it up?”

W
HEN
E
LSIE SAW
the elevator door closing she made a run for it, dashing down the courthouse hallway. The doors shut just as she reached it. Panting, she headed for the marble stairway. As she trudged the two flights, she left damp fingerprints on the brass handrail.

Stacie looked up when Elsie pushed through the door of the Prosecutor's Office. “You're late.”

A glance at the clock behind Stacie's head confirmed it. Elsie considered crafting a clever excuse, but she couldn't muster the wit.

“It's just one of those days, Stacie. One of those old days, as my mom says.”

Stacie leaned over the desk, and in a stage whisper, she said, “Someone's waiting for you. She's been sitting outside in the rotunda since the courthouse opened.”

Elsie felt the cloud over her head expand. “I don't have any appointments this morning.”

“Well, you've got one now. I checked the calendar. You're not in court till one. I said you'd see her at nine.”

Oh Lord, Elsie thought. It was only minutes before her surprise appointment. “Well, okay. I guess.”

Elsie sank into her chair, surveying the paperwork on her desk. New police reports had been stacked on top of a stack of Missouri cases she'd printed out. “I need a vacation. A summer vacation.”

“Ms. Arnold?”

A woman appeared in her doorway. Elsie rose, startled; she thought Stacie planned to announce the stranger first.

“Yes?”

“I been waiting for you.”

The woman walked into the office, pulling a black roller bag behind her. Not a briefcase, Elsie noted. When citizens came into the office armed with a briefcase, she could expect a long harangue.

The woman settled into the chair across from Elsie's desk. As she pulled the black bag to her side, Elsie studied her. She wore a battered hat adorned with a cluster of orange flowers; it sat askew on thinning black hair sprinkled with gray. Despite the morning heat, a pilled pink scarf was knotted around her neck.

Elsie managed a smile. “What can I do for you?”

The woman turned piercing blue eyes on Elsie. “There's something I can do for you.”

Unsettled, Elsie fumbled as she turned to a blank page on a legal pad. Uncapping a pen, she said, “Your name?”

“I been to the desert on a horse with no name.”

Oh shit. Crazy
. Elsie glanced at the bag resting at the woman's side. She had been through security. If the bag contained a weapon or an explosive, they would have detected it.

“That's interesting. Now what's your name, ma'am?”

The woman just smiled in reply, revealing a set of teeth with several molars missing. She bent over the black bag and wrestled with a broken zipper.

Here we go
, Elsie thought. The bag would surely contain a collection of paperwork compiled to convince the Prosecutor's Office to file a frivolous charge.

When the bag opened, Elsie leaned across her desk to confirm that her guess was correct. But the bag contained a wad of wrinkled clothing; mismatched shoes; a yellow wrapper around a portion of a McDonald's cheeseburger; and a folded newspaper. The
McCown County Record
, Elsie suspected. She wondered whether she was looking at the sum total of the woman's worldly goods.

The woman bent over the suitcase, pawing through the clothes. When she straightened in her seat, she held a deck of cards in her hand.

“I'm Cleo. I've been sent to help you.”

Cleo set the deck of cards on Elsie's desk with a flourish. They were tarot cards.

Elsie pushed her chair away from the desk, waving a hand in dismissal. “I don't need my fortune told, thanks. Don't have a penny on me. Can't pay you.”

Cleo ignored her. She shuffled the deck and placed the cards in a rectangular pattern on the desk.

In a sharp voice, Elsie said, “I'm serious. This is a workplace. I've got stuff I need to do.”

Cleo studied the cards, nodding. She pointed at one of the cards, which depicted a young man on a horse. Tapping it with a grimy fingernail, she said, “There he is.”

Elsie rose from her chair, determined to remove the intruder. “You have to leave.”

Cleo tapped the card again. “Don't you want to hear? About the boy?”

Elsie froze. “The boy?”

Cleo picked up the card. “The Knight of Swords. It's the boy.”

She reached into the black suitcase and retrieved the newspaper. As Cleo smoothed the front page on the desk, Elsie saw that it was the issue reporting Tanner Monroe's certification hearing, with a photo of the boy in handcuffs, lying on the floor of the courthouse hallway.

Cleo set the tarot card beside the newspaper photo. There was no resemblance; still, seeing the pictures side by side was eerie, Elsie thought.

With a knowing look, Cleo repeated, “The boy.”

Elsie swallowed, wishing she'd stopped at Sonic for a Diet Coke. “Do you have some information about the Monroe case?”

Bending over the cards, Cleo studied them without answering. Elsie watched the woman, her impatience increasing and nerves jangling.

“If you have any pertinent information, I'd like to hear it. But if this is some kind of joke, you need to move on out of here and let me get to work.”

Cleo shoved the undealt cards in the battered deck toward Elsie and said, “Draw.”

Irritation shot through her; Elsie wanted to knock the cards off the desk and watch them fly through the air.

“This is ridiculous.”

Cleo tapped the deck with her index finger. Elsie looked away; the sight of the woman's dirty hand was unsettling.

“Draw.”

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Elsie picked the top card from the deck, hoping she wouldn't catch a nasty bug from the cardboard rectangle. She examined the card briefly, then held it up so Cleo could see it.

Cleo nodded. “The Fool.”

“Are we done here?”

“The Fool stands on the precipice. He doesn't look to see the dangers ahead.” Cleo took the card from Elsie's hand. “This is you.”

“Okay, that's it. Out.”

Cleo settled back in her chair. “I've done it over and over again. It comes out the same every time.” She picked up another card. “You're trying to imprison the Knight, but you can't. See? The Hanged Man.” She waved the card close to Elsie's face.

Elsie jerked away. Rising, she walked to her office door and swung it open. “You need to leave.”

Taking no notice of the dismissal, Cleo went on. “You want to be his destruction.” She sighed, looking at the card with an expression of regret. “It's not your place. He'll do it to himself, if it's meant to be. He's been at the mercy of the dark forces.”

Elsie leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. “Appreciate the advice. We're all done here.”

“You'll leave the boy alone. The Knight.”

“Cleo? Ma'am? Appointment is over. I'm serious. I'll call security.”

Cleo chuckled, picking up the tarot cards in an unhurried fashion and returning them to the black suitcase. “It's okay. I'm used to it. No one wants to hear the truth.”

Get her out, get her out
, pounded in Elsie's head. When Cleo rose from her chair with a grunt, Elsie crossed her arms, willing the woman to hurry through the door and out of Elsie's sight. “Have a nice day,” she said, hoping it would conclude the interview.

“No one wants to hear. No one really wants to know. Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, that's what the ­people of the town call us.”

Is that a song?
Elsie wondered, watching the woman make her way down the hall. She shut her door with a bang and turned the lock. Crossing to the small refrigerator sitting near her closet, she prayed that it would hold a silver can of medicine. Squatting down, she opened the door and shoved a bag of withering apples to the side. There it was: a single can of Diet Coke.

Elsie sighed with pleasure as she popped the tab, closing her eyes to savor the first cold swallow.

The crazy woman's voice lingered in her head.
The Fool
, she thought.

It was true enough. Waking up with Noah Strong in her apartment, for heaven's sake. The Fool, indeed.

 

Chapter 23

T
HE BA
TTERED METAL
door of the solitary confinement cell at the McCown County jail swung open with a squeal. The head jailer, Vernon Wantuck, loomed in the doorway, his girth filling the frame.

“How you doing, boy?” he asked.

At the sound of the booming voice, Tanner winced and shrugged in reply. He slipped the ballpoint pen he held into the pocket of his orange jailhouse scrubs.

“Look at you, working on your jailhouse tats like a big man. You're a big shot now, aren't you, you little fucker?”

Tanner looked at the jailer with hooded eyes. “Am I going to court today? I thought it was tomorrow.”

“Nah, you're moving. Come along with me.”

A look of fear shot across Tanner's face before he could hide it. “I can't be in the population. It's dangerous, the judge said so. They'll attack me. The judge said it. In court.”

The jailer shifted to his side, feeling for the handcuffs dangling from his rear pocket. One of his suspenders had come loose in the back, making his Sansabelt pants droop and exposing the elastic band of his underwear. “Let's cuff you up for your stroll to see your new friends.” When Tanner didn't move from the bunk, the jailer's eyes narrowed to slits. “Now! Move, you little fuck.”

Slowly, Tanner slid off the bed. When he reached the jailer, Wantuck stopped him with a beefy hand. “First thing, you're gonna give me that pen.”

Tanner pulled it from his pocket with a jerk. As he set it in the jailer's hand, he said, “The lawyer says I'm supposed to help with my defense. I got to be able to write.”

Wantuck grabbed Tanner's hand and looked at the ink marks. “You been doing some writing. Just like the big boys. What's that say?”

When Tanner didn't answer, Wantuck released his hand with a snort. “Tell your lawyer to get you another pen. Bet they got a whole box of them in his office on the square.”

“He ain't got shit,” Tanner said under his breath, so softly that Wantuck didn't hear.

The walk from solitary to the general population cells was short. Wantuck and Tanner Monroe turned a corner and the catcalls began, whistles and jeers sounding around them as the jailer led the juvenile to his new quarters.

The facility had not been updated in decades, because the McCown County voters responded to tax increases with a resounding “No.” All inmates were grouped into the overflowing cells in twos or threes, exposed to full view of one another through the metal bars. Only Tanner would have a cell to himself.

The boy's demeanor remained stoic, but telltale beads of sweat formed on his upper lip. He reached out with his cuffed hands and tugged at the jailer's sleeve. In a low voice, he said, “The judge is going to be pissed. I want to talk to the judge.”

Wantuck wheeled on him with a confused look. “Judge? What judge?”

Tanner almost collided with the man's belly; he backed up a step. “The juvenile judge.”

“The juvenile judge?” In the voice of a whiny child, he repeated, “The juvenile judge?” Then the jailer threw his head back and laughed with such delight, his belly shook like Santa Claus.

Wiping moisture from his eye, Wantuck said, “You ain't no juvenile, son. Not no more. You're an adult.” Turning to the men locked into the metal cells, Vernon said, “Ain't that right, boys?”

The inmates roared their approval. The cinder-­block walls rang with the rebel yell.

Chuckling, Wantuck pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and shuffled up to an empty cell. A prisoner leaned his skeletal face, pocked with scabs, through the bars of the adjoining enclosure. “He's no juvenile, Vernon. He's a big man.”

With speed that belied his girth. Wantuck slammed the heel of his hand into the inmate's nose, sending him back into the cell.

“Get your fucking head back inside your cage, you no-­account freak show.”

The inmate nodded, bobbing his bloody nose up and down. “Yes, sir.”

“I am
Mr.
Wantuck to you, you piece of shit. Now what's my name?” he asked, punctuating each word with a bang of his fist on the metal bars of the cell.

“Mr. Wantuck,” the inmate said, wiping the blood from his nose onto his sleeve. “It's Mr. Wantuck.”

“You goddamned right.”

Wantuck unlocked an empty cell and sent Tanner inside with a shove at his back. After Wantuck slammed the door shut, Tanner sat gingerly on the edge of a metal bunk. He picked at peeling black paint on the bed frame with a nervous hand.

The overhead light cast a garish glow on the scab-­encrusted face of the man with the bloody nose. He grasped the bars with mottled hands bearing blood blisters at the fingertips. His fingers bore tattoos, also uneven marks depicting spiderwebs.

The man's eyes followed Wantuck as the jailer strode away with a heavy gait. When Wantuck disappeared, the inmate turned to Tanner with a smile.

“They won't let you smoke in here.”

Tanner inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“Not even in the exercise yard, man. Don't let you smoke for nothing. Fucking douche bags want to stomp out smoking. Like they stomp out crime.”

Tanner nodded, moving his head a fraction.

“They let you go to church, though. Send a preacher in every week to save us on Sunday. We don't have to go. But I do.”

The inmate pressed his face against the bars of the cell. The metal pressed into his cheek. He said, in a hushed voice, “I go. To get away from the rats.”

At the mention of rats, Tanner's eye twitched. He looked around the cell and spoke to the inmate for the first time. “I don't see no rats.”

“Oh, there's rats in here, big as a groundhog. You can hear them scuffling at night. Rustling around.”

The boy leaned back on his bunk and didn't speak.

The other inmate opened his mouth in a wide smile, revealing bloody gums and decayed teeth. “And spiders. Shit, them spiders climb out of the toilet and into your ass.”

“If you say so, man.”

“They lay them eggs. Lay them spider eggs right in your insides. They'll do it.”

Tanner narrowed his eyes, appraising the scabbed man. Slowly, he nodded in agreement. At the acknowledgment, the inmate giggled and said, “Then you got a mess. You'll be all fucked up, shitting spiderwebs out your ass. That's bad, man.”

Softly, the juvenile said, “I hear you, man.” After a beat, his mouth twitched with a smile. He said. “You're like Spider-­Man.”

An inmate with a lank mullet ponytail occupied the cell with Spider-­Man; the man groaned and said, “Shut up, you crazy fuck.” He pulled a rubber flip-­flop off his foot and threw it at his cellmate. The shoe bounced off Spider-­Man's head.

“Sorry, dude. Can't help it, man,” Spider-­Man said in a whispered entreaty to his cellmate. “It's them spiderwebs.”

“Talk about rats or spiders one more time and I'm gonna ream your ass.” The ponytailed inmate sat up on his bunk to address Tanner. “Wonder how come Wantuck didn't double you up in here. Not like he gives a shit whether you's a bitch or you ain't.”

Tanner gave the man a rocky stare.

“Who's your lawyer?”

Tanner shrugged.

“Don't you know? You so dumb you don't know your lawyer's name? You got the public defender?”

“I got some old man,” Tanner said.

“Ain't no such thing as an old public defender. We all got the public defender in here, and they don't hardly look old enough to get they dick hard,” the inmate said. “My name's Darren. You that Monroe kid, right?”

He nodded.

Darren leaned back in his cot, sucking his teeth as he contemplated. “Wantuck's doing you a favor, shutting you up by yourself. Only time I saw Wantuck give a fuck about an inmate's security was one time when a guy had hired old man Yocum. Is that who you got? Yocum?”

“Dunno,” Tanner said with disinterest. “He's an old fuck. Smells like Ben-­Gay.”

“I don't care if he smells like a shit sandwich—­I'd get Yocum if I had the green. Ain't got it. But Yocum's the ticket.”

Pulling down his scrubs, Spider-­Man crouched on the stained toilet in the cell he shared with Darren. He commenced scratching wildly at his backside, making high-­pitched noises. “Spiders, spiders hatching. Them eggs is hatching.”

In a low voice, Tanner asked Darren, “Is the spider guy crazy?”

“Crazy motherfucker. Just waiting for his court date. Even the goddamned prosecutor's shrink says he's batshit crazy. They're letting him go NGI.”

“So he walks? Because the doctor says he's insane?”

“Nah. He'll go to the state mental hospital in St. Joe.”

“Is that better? Than prison?”

The man shook his head. “Dunno, kid. Ain't never been. Psycho time may be easier. Just about have to be. But it ain't gonna be no shorter. Callaway don't let a crazy walk out of the hospital till he's been there awhile.”

Tanner stretched out on his cot and surveyed Spider-­Man in the next cell. The inmate stopped scratching his butt and gave the juvenile a smile, revealing again the bloody gums and blackened teeth.

“Are you my friend,” asked Spider-­Man with a childlike longing in his voice.

“Yeah, man,” Tanner answered. “You bet.”