In Shadows (4 page)

“Pam called you? What did she say?”

Cramer shrugged. “She takes after you. She didn’t volunteer a lot. But it’s amazing what you can wheedle out of someone in the space of a conversation if you listen good. How come you never told me your father killed your mother?”

Jake sighed. “That came up in a conversation about my uncle’s death?”

“When I said baggage I didn’t mean
baggage.
That’s why you left Maine?”

Jake nodded. That was as good an excuse as any.

“I’m really tired,” he said at last.

“Don’t you want to call your cousin?”

Jake tried to stare Cramer down. When that didn’t work he looked at his watch. “It’s five in the morning there.”

“Call her later,” said Cramer.

“All right. Now go home. You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” said Cramer, rising. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”

“Lock the goddamn door, and leave your key with me.”

Cramer chuckled, sliding the glass door to the balcony shut behind him.

RAMER PARKED HIS
F
ORD SEDAN
beside a rusted Volvo station wagon. Two of the streetlights were out, and the parking lot of Memere’s apartment building was filled with sinister shadows. But several windows were ablaze with light, and he knew from experience that those belonged to the meth-heads. This part of town had been okay when Memere had first moved in twenty years earlier. Now it was shady and dangerous, and Cramer hated that there was so little that he could do about it. Busting people like the Torrios might cut down on wholesale drugs in the city, but it wouldn’t touch the real pool of vice that never ran dry. Sometimes he felt like Hercules shoveling out the Augean stables. He slammed the car door loud enough to rustle a couple of curtains, knowing that the assholes were well aware he was a cop.

He checked the Glock under his arm, but he wasn’t expecting trouble. Most of the neighbors were as afraid of Memere as they were of him. He smiled, imagining strung-out dopers with God only knew what kind of armaments,
terrified of an eighty-year-old woman who didn’t weigh ninety pounds soaking wet.

His footsteps echoed on the metal landing as he strolled to Memere’s door, peering across the flickering lights of the kidney-shaped pool at a couple of wired-up kids smoking pot. They turned in his direction, then went back to toking. He flipped through his key ring, found the master, and opened the dead bolt and then the door lock without knocking. The smell of peppermint incense blasted his nostrils, and he had to sniffle to keep from gagging. Memere was always trying something new.

A cedar post—the
poto mitan
, the cosmic axis of Memere’s temple that connected heaven and earth—reached all the way to the ceiling from the center of the living room rug. Several tall candles burned in saucers on the floor, and there was an intricate design laid out in cornmeal on a broad piece of canvas. A
veve
, this one the symbol for Cramer’s guardian, the machete-wielding Ogou. From the back bedroom he could hear a rattle, and he stepped carefully around the candles.

Memere wore a traditional, stark, white cotton shift, her gray hair pulled back tight against her skull. She leaned over one of the tiny alcoves filled with candles, tiny cups of rum and sweets, and small idols of each of the most important Voudou spirits. In her hand she held the
ason
, the sacred rattle. She was speaking to each of the spirits in low whispers, shaking the
ason
, and nodding to herself. But Cramer knew she was aware of his presence.

Finally she straightened and walked over to him, hugging him tightly. Her head rested just above his belly button, but her withered arms were surprisingly strong. When she leaned back to look into his eyes he knew she was seeing straight into his soul. Drawing him out of the room and into the kitchen where a pot of tea was brewing, she poured
both of them a cup and laced each with a healthy dollop of rum.

“You come by so early to see me wake the spirits up?” she asked, sipping across toothless gums, her dark face glowing with warmth.

Cramer shrugged. “I saw the light.”

“You know I leave candles burning all the time. You come because of dat boy.”

Cramer knew
dat boy
was Jake.

“Why do you say that?”

“I tink Jake in a world of hurt. I tink you know dat.”

“He’s got a lot of baggage. I know
dat.”

“I don’t know baggage. I know trouble. Ogou say you stick wid dat boy, you got trouble, too. You gonna do dat?”

Cramer sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think he wants me to stick with him. He’s been closed up tighter than a drum since the day I met him. But now something’s happened.”

“Men get kilt on de beach.”

He frowned. “How did you know that?”

She laughed. “It on de news! You tink Ogou come tell me dat? Why for I need spirits to tell me what’s on CNN?”

“Something funny happened out there, but he won’t talk about it. Jake almost got killed. And I got a call from his cousin in Maine. His uncle was murdered.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I tell you, dat boy got big trouble you maybe don’t want no part of. Maybe you do. You got to decide.”

“How do I decide?”

“Is he worth it?”

“Worth what?”

“Dyin’ for.”

Cramer felt a chill rise between his shoulder blades. “You think maybe that’s what’s gonna happen?”

“I tink dat boy got a ton a misfortune comin’ for him.
Maybe he be okay. Maybe not. He kill José Torrio, right? People around dat boy gonna be swimmin’ in shit, I tell you dat.”

“That’s what you’re worried about, the Torrios?”

Memere made a face that said maybe so, maybe no. “The Torrios are bad juju. They mix up the spirit nations, like stirring a pot of soup wid a dirty toilet brush.” She shook her head, and a strand of gray hair seemed to slice one dark eye. “But dat boy got de baggage, all right. The Torrios are just icing on a cake made outta cow patty. You got to decide.”

“But you haven’t told me
how
to decide.”

She smiled, slapping him on the shoulder. “You gonna know when you know. Some t’ings worth dying for. Some t’ings ain’t.”

“I’d die for you,” he said softly.

She leaned to hug him again. “I know dat.”

“I gotta go,” said Cramer, chugging the tea, even the heat of the liquor failing to thaw the ice that had settled in his bones.

“Ogou watch over you. I see to dat. But you got to watch out for you self. You got a problem always wid you.”

“I’m just too darned easy,” said Cramer, smiling.

“You just too darned easy for de spirits. You a soft touch for dem. Always has been. You got to harden up and not let dem in so quick. It not funny, boy. One day something gonna get in and der gonna be hell to pay gettin’ it out.”

“You used to tell me that I was going to be a great
Houngon
one day.”

“And maybe so you could be. But to be a priest you got to know how to keep the spirits in they place. You stay mixed up with Jake, no telling what trouble you two get into. You be careful.”

“You just make sure you lock this door behind me.”

This time Memere smirked. “Anybody break in here, dey be sorry, I promise you dat.”

AKE SAT STARING ACROSS THE TARMAC
at the sunrise, waiting for the rest of the passengers to board the jet. But the commotion all around was as inconsequential to him as the bubbling of an air compressor on an aquarium. He had spent most of the previous day arguing with himself over whether or not to return Pam’s calls. Then she’d called again, and now her voice kept hammering in his head.

“Please come, Jake. Pay your last respects. You owe him that.”

He could hear her husband in the background, counseling her to take it easy. Pam had married Ernie Peyton, a Protestant minister, after Jake left. He assumed the man Pam wed had to be something special. Probably a man he’d like a lot.

“I’m sorry, Jake,” said Pam. “I know you never wanted to hear from me again or to see this valley. But Albert loved you like a son.”

Jake felt a stabbing sensation around his heart. “I never said I didn’t want to see you again, Pam. I had to get away from Crowley. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

“From Mandi, too?”

The stab became an ax. He started to say
yes, Mandi most of all.
But his voice wouldn’t wrap around the sentence, his lungs wouldn’t exhale her name.

“Please come home, Jake. Even if it’s just for a visit.”

He heard the hurt in her voice, the sense of betrayal, just as he’d heard it fourteen years earlier when he’d climbed on another plane, running from who he was. Only he couldn’t take it now, not again.

“All right, Pam,” he said quietly. “I’ll come.”

Cramer’s voice knocked the wind out of his thoughts. “You’re taking up two seats, asshole.” He waved his ticket in Jake’s face, pointing at the aisle seat. “That’s mine.”

“What are you doing here?” asked Jake, shifting, dull pain radiating from beneath the bandage on his shoulder.

“Taking a vacation. I always wanted to see Maine.”

“No, you didn’t. You hate the country. You hate any place that doesn’t have a shopping mall. How did you know what flight I’d be on?”

Cramer flipped his shield in Jake’s face. “I keep trying to tell you, I’m a detective.”

“You don’t need to do this. I’m just taking a little time off.”

Cramer shrugged. “Believe it or not, the chief actually likes you. When I told him you were taking a trip he agreed that it might be a good idea for me to cash in some of my vacation time and go with you. It seems like Jimmy Torrio has suddenly disappeared.”

“You spoke to the chief?”

To Jake that was a little like speaking to God.

“You were on the news, dumbass.”

Being on the news and getting noticed by the chief were not good things.

“What do you mean Jimmy Torrio
disappeared
?”

“Nowhere to be found. That’s kind of curious seeing as how his brother just died. He and José were close. So tell me about your lovely hometown.”

Jake sighed, fastening his seatbelt. “Crowley isn’t really a town. It’s a valley. There’s nothing there but a few scattered homes tucked away in the woods. The kind of place where no one locks their doors at night. You’re gonna love it.”

“The valley was named after your great-great-grandfather?”

“Jacob Crowley,” said Jake, giving Cramer the eye.

But Cramer merely tapped the pocket holding his badge again.
“And you’re
the king!”

“More like the prodigal son.”

“Are they going to barbecue a fatted calf for your return?”

“I doubt if anyone except Pam even remembers me. Did you contact anyone else in Maine besides her?”

Cramer squinted, glancing past Jake out the window. “Some local yokel in Arcos named Milche.”

“He isn’t a yokel,” said Jake. “Virgil Milche is the county sheriff, and he’s a damned good police officer. It was because of him I decided to become a cop myself.”

“Really? Well, he was curious why you didn’t show for the funeral and why you were coming now.”

“When
did you talk to him?”

“Right after Pam called.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Like you were talking. How come you couldn’t make it to the funeral, but you’re going back now?”

“Pam called again.”

“And?”

“I guess she’s taking it pretty hard.”

“She and your uncle were close?”

“Not as close as he and I were. Look, I’m going to Crowley to pay my last respects and to settle Pam’s nerves. She’s high-strung.”

“And maybe to investigate your uncle’s murder?”

Jake sighed.

“What makes you think you can find out anything this great cop friend of yours hasn’t?” asked Cramer.

Jake closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. “Have a nice flight.”

The engines revved up, and he turned toward the window. The tarmac became a gray river as the plane rumbled inexorably down it into the thunderous roar of some great cataract just ahead.