Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." (6 page)

Whatever happened to retiring within the sanctuary of his dwelling…relishing in his endeavors? Cools sits up in the booth; the leather squeaks as he positions himself closer to hear.

Tabatha is just rounding off a three-part question when Joshua says to the camera, “I would like to answer with a poem.”

“Sounds interesting,” Tabatha replies animatedly. Joshua smiles and holds out his hand, asking for the microphone. Then, with those piercing green eyes, he stares intently into the camera and recites,

“There is One,

Who was the Soul of fire,

Now He is many,

Cause of Angels’ desires,

They beg for His darkness, His secrets of old…

They feast from His table, where torments are sold…

And sometimes, He whispers to Me!”

With that he politely hands the microphone back to the now speechless news reporter and strolls back into the privacy of his home, ignoring any pleas for more. The video clip ends, and Tabatha pops back onto the screen, in the studio. “Now that’s what I call shock factor! And although we have no comment on what was meant by the poem, you can hear it again by going to
KUBEchannel9.com
. Click on the link and decide for yourselves.”

Cools plays the poem over and over in his mind from memory, trying to solve it like some sort of puzzle. A buzz begins around the bar; he can hear others discussing it. He looks inside the bottle where he can see the words—
And sometimes, He whispers to Me—
floating on the shining brown liquid, but no answers. From his jacket pocket, he takes out a pad of paper and pen. He makes a few circles in the top corner to get the ink flowing and writes down what he can remember. Most of it doesn’t matter a great deal; from the first couple of lines, it is seemingly clear that he is making some reference to a demon or maybe even the devil himself. But the last line, the one he writes down, is of interest.
And sometimes, He whispers to Me!
He reads it repeatedly, considering its implications. It tells him two things: one is that Joshua is probably more disturbed than previously considered, and two, the media is going to squeeze from this story its last drop of nectar. He gulps another tall drink to ease his rattled anxieties as his attention again turns to Tabatha.

It’s now 10:06, and she’s still going on and on, milking it from every angle. She brings in a couple panelists, expert psychologists of some sort. Cools isn’t interested in listening. He has too much going on inside his head. Doesn’t really matter; they’re all the same, always inventing some disorder that the person is or was suffering from, basically excusing any and all behaviors; assigning blame to his childhood or the fact that he didn’t grow up on the prairie in a little house. Why does it matter anyway why a freak is a freak? If a wild animal is found lurking in our midst, especially one who makes claims of the devil speaking to him, we do not make excuses defending them. Or if a bear comes out of the woods and kills a small child, no one would try to defend the bear because of his mental illness or the fact that he was an only cub or some other bullshit. An animal is an animal, even if it is human; if it preys on and kills smaller, weaker victims, then we hunt it down and fucking kill it!

He pours more drinks, keeping up the pace until things begin to blur, the room becomes a haze. An unsettling sense surrounds him, and his last remembered thoughts are uncertain.

Should I kill him? Do I have the courage?

.

Chapter Six

S
ix days later, she drives recklessly down a rainy-morning freeway toward Seattle, still twitching from last night’s cocaine consumption. Tears drench her face, smearing pink eye-shadow, as worry and immense dread dominate her thoughts. Amberly Carlson has only two things on her mind: her missing friend and the fact that she has most likely just made the biggest mistake of her misguided life. She doesn’t know what she should do, only that she must do something.

An irritating horn shrieks from another highway traveler demanding she slow down. And out of natural reflex, she flips the finger, holding back the tears long enough to yell, “Fuck off, asshole!” Amberly is a tough, streetwise girl, but today is one of those days where she misses the daddy she never knew. Her bleached hair is matted with sweat, and untamed curls beg for a wash; the thighhigh boots she wears, made of blue snakeskin, are sticking to her as she fights to work the car’s peddles. It’s a recently borrowed—or stolen, depending on how one would look at it—Lexus, which she loaned herself this morning from one of her many boyfriends. And although it is a quality vehicle, it is a stick shift that she barely knows how to operate. So the gears grind, the pink eye shadow runs, and anxiety clouds the troubled mind of the young girl as she speeds through congested traffic.

Miles later, after many near misses, a lot of cursing, and nineteen abrupt lane changes, she finds her exit. All the while the lack of drugs in her body screams for her to turn back. But she journeys forward, following the signs that lead her to the Seattle police station. She parks in a conveniently open handicap spot and leaves the car running, so she can freshen up her appearance. With a few strokes of eyeliner and a tease of her hair, she manages to transform her look from a two-hundred-dollar whore to a five-hundred-dollar one in a matter of seconds. In the mirror she gives herself a pep talk. “You have to go in there and tell them the truth. You didn’t know you did anything wrong. You’re not going to be in trouble, and even if you are in trouble, you still have to do it. You just need to find Detective Cools and explain what you did. You have to, so go now!” Then, powered by pure impulse, she exits the car with a chirp-chirp, activating the high-dollar theft detection system that apparently doesn’t protect against desperate girlfriends.

She crosses the busy street, tugging her bag, along with a business folder found in the car held over her hair. In the wind her short dress dances near a full show as she shuffles up the steps to the large entrance door. It’s heavy, but she uses her hips to push it open, entering into a large room packed with more cops than she’s ever seen in her life. As usual she immediately catches the attention of the men, as she shakes her way quickly to the station’s service counter. There she waits intolerantly until someone is ready to talk to her. “Hi, I’m Amberly. Amberly Carlson. Is Detective Cools here? I need to speak to Detective Cools.”

“No, not at this time. Is there anything I can help you with?” the officer asks, blatantly looking her up and down.

“Yes, well, I need to report a missing person. And I need to see Detective Cools; is he here?” she asks, peering behind the counter, searching for him, even though she doesn’t know what he looks like.

“Okay, missing persons…Take a seat, and I will have someone help you shortly.”

“No, I need to talk to Detective Cools!” she blurts out like a spoiled child.

“Ma’am, I have your name, and you need to have a seat,” the officer states, raising his voice.

Amberly stands her ground in protest for a second, until the officer’s finger directs her to a row of empty chairs. She lets out a frustrated groan to show her disapproval of his hospitality, then turns sharply, swinging her bag, and stomps her boots to a seat, where she flops down hard. And there she waits, clutching her bag for thirty-five minutes, paying no attention to her onlookers, and praying to God she gets out of this without having to go to prison.

“Hi, are you the Amberly Carlson that wants to report a missing person?” asks a heavyset policeman.

“Yes, yes, I am,” she replies, with a rush of anxiety.

“I’m Officer Renny; follow me.” He then turns without even taking so much as a glance at her and waddles back through the station to a small cubicle. Amberly, rarely getting such a reaction from men, follows closely. A curious look reveals a wedding band. His desk is decorated with vacation pictures of his family surrounded by knickknacks only a wife would buy. Well, at least he’s not gay.

He offers her a chair, and after taking a seat, she crosses ignored legs. She watches him quietly, attempting to hide her nervousness, but soon she’s going to have to tell what she’s done. Lengthy seconds turn into minutes before he pulls up the missing persons screen and begins asking the basics. “What is your full name? Where do you live? Where do you work? Your phone number? And who do you want to report missing?”

Suddenly she clams up. This is it; once I answer this question, there’s no turning back. A voice tells her to run. Just get up and run out of the building as fast as you can.

Officer Renny, with his portly fingers on the keyboard and unwary eyes glued to the screen, repeats the questions.

“Give me a minute!” she blurts out.

He gives her an odd, fleeting look, only to return to the photos surrounding his space, apparently oblivious to her fidgeting, long, painted nails. Left alone she studies him. He is a rare man in her torn world, a loving and faithful family man, the kind that won’t even look at her. She scrutinizes him, sitting in his chair peacefully, looking as if he only does this job to put food on the family table and take them to Disney World in the summers. Images of him dressed as Santa Claus entertaining the little ones on Christmas and cutting their turkey on Thanksgiving strengthens her determination. I bet he never raises his hand in anger. I bet he tells bedtime stories to his children and kisses them good night. I bet he makes love to his wife, instead of fucking her. She steadies herself, preparing to tell who is missing. Officer Renny, sensing she is about to give him something to type, raises his round fingers back to the keyboard. Then she releases, allowing the words that have been bottled up in her all night to fly from her lips. “Kimberly…Kimberly Siconolfi is missing!”

Amberly tenses in preparation for what is next, though nothing happens; all the protective armor she’s built appears to have been unnecessary. It doesn’t seem to get even the slightest reaction out of Officer Renny, who simply types in the name and asks, “And how long has she been missing?”

His unassuming response eases her reservations, and she begins to let it all out. “Well, she hasn’t been to work. She doesn’t answer her phone, and I just heard last night that there was a situation with her husband killing her on the radio. Her husband is a freak, you know. He abuses her and makes her do things—weird things! And I
know
he’s done something to her!”

Officer Renny, now aware of whom Kimberly is, looks to her to confirm. “Is her husband Joshua—the guy on the news?”

She shakes her head yes, almost shamefully, and then begins to cry. “She’s missing, and it’s my fault. I mean, it’s her husband: Joshua’s done something to her. And there’s something I can only talk to Detective Cools about. I think I may have done something wrong, and I don’t want to be in any trouble, but I did come in on my own. I just need to talk to Detective Cools. I can only talk to him!” She begins to cry harder.

Renny quickens at her adamant plea for Detective Cools. Pushing down on the arms of his chair, he scoots his round body back to a more upright position to yell across to the adjacent cubicle. “Hey, Lonnell, do you have Detective Cools’s number?”

“Just a second,” an unseen voice returns. Then a few moments later, Officer Lonnell yells back a seven-digit number over the thin partition separating the two spaces. Officer Renny writes it down on a piece of paper and dials.

It rings five times before an exhausted voice comes across the line. “Hello.”

“Detective Brad Cools?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Detective Cools this is Officer Renny, down here at the station. I met you before at the—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know who you are.” Cools cuts him off in a tone that says get to the point since he’s just gotten out of the shower and is dripping wet.

“Detective, I have sitting in front of me a young lady named Amberly Carlson. She’s here filling out a missing persons report on a coworker, Mrs. Kimberly Siconolfi.”

“The same?”

“Yes.”

Instantly Cools abandons all plans of sharing a passionate morning with the woman lying in his bed and replies, “Keep her there…And keep a tight lid on this, Renny. I’ll be there in…in fifteen minutes.” Click. There’s no time for boxers, so he snatches his black slacks lying on the bedroom floor and hits speed dial, letting the phone ring while buttoning a shirt over his wet, muscular frame. “Michelle!”

“What’s going on, Brad?”

“Michelle, listen, a coworker from the strip club is, right now, down at the station filling out a missing persons report on Kimberly Siconolfi. I need you to meet me at the station; we are going to interview her together. Something’s going on; I can feel it.”

“Slow down. It could be nothing, Brad,” she replies, wondering how in the hell he got his name, thinking it should be Detective Brad High-Strung-Impatient-Angry-Drama-Queen. Anything but Cools.

“Michelle, I’m right about this. Something’s going on. He may have killed his wife for real this time, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. I need you to meet me at the station in twenty minutes. So put your shoes on, girl. We got work to do.”

A submissive sigh comes from Michelle before agreeing to his demands. “I’ll be there, hon.”

Cools snaps his phone shut, ending the conversation, when another hurdle presents itself.

“And where do you think you’re going?” asks the pretty woman lying in wait.

He almost answers her before deciding not to. Then he mumbles, “Nowhere,” while searching the floor for a pair of dress socks.

She sits up and grabs her eyeglasses—the naughty-librarian kind that she wears so well—from the lampstand to gain a better idea of what is going on. “Where are you going? It’s our day off.”

Cools has been in this situation before and knows his best play is to say very little, get out as quickly as possible, and then explain everything to her later. It isn’t because he doesn’t value her or care for her; he’s actually very much in love with her. Still he knows that as soon as he starts answering, it’ll only lead to more questions, ultimately escalating to a senseless argument, and that would only slow him down. So evading all eye contact, he continues dressing, throwing a few vague utterances her way. “It’s a police emergency…I can’t talk now. I have to go. Okay, baby?”