The Stonefly Series, Book 1

by Scott J. Holliday

  "He works different shifts at New Center hospital," Beauty said. "Sometimes he doesn't come back until late in the afternoon or the middle of the night. He's probably out galivanting somewhere."

  "He's not at work right now?"

  She shook her head. "He's got the day off. I'm sure he'll end up over at his blind and then Eddie's, or vice-versa."

  "His blind?"

  "Hunting blind," Beauty said. "Tree stand a few miles north of here. Just off Bayonet Road."

  Harris wrote down the road name.

  "Whatcha writing that down for?"

  He smiled at her. "Just keeping notes, ma'am."

  "Well, keep this note, then. Darnell may be an idiot, but he's not dumb. After he got himself all burned up trying to save his momma he made sure to finish high school and get a job so he can support a family. Does all right by me and Frankie, even if he's found a spot of trouble here and there. Man burned up like he is, you have to expect some of that. He's a hero, even if his momma died. And don't call me ma'am."

  "It's not hunting season yet," MacDonald said. "What's he doing out at his blind?"

  "Sugar beets," Beauty said. "He keeps feeding them deer year-round, making sure they'll come back once the season starts. Eats up a bunch of our budget, but we get it back in venison."

  MacDonald looked down the hallway from the kitchen. The bedroom at the end of the hall was clearly a child's room, as there was a crayon drawing on it. From this distance it was hard to read, but it looked like a green monster wearing an orange sash and holding a stop sign. "Mind if I look around?"

  "Yes, I mind. But hey, be my guest."

  MacDonald went down the hall. Family pictures on the walls. Walmart frames. The three of them at a barbecue, two beers held aloft, one juice box. He heard Harris speaking in sotto voce from the kitchen, "Actually, I will take you up on that coffee." To the left there was another door, presumably the master bedroom or the bathroom while a hallway to the right led to what appeared to be an outer door, only there was no sunlight coming through the window. MacDonald turned down the hall.

  "He won't want you in there," Beauty said from the kitchen.

  Sergeant MacDonald looked back down the hall.

  "That's his special room," Beauty said, she was holding a Mr. Coffee carafe in one hand, a cigarette in the other. "Frankie went in there the other day and Darnell was pissed." She gestured to her battered eye with the hand holding her smoke.

  "He hit you for something the boy did?" Harris asked.

  "He hits everyone for something no one did," Beauty said.

  MacDonald moved down the hall and tested the door handle. Locked. Silly, because the locking mechanism was on his side. A simple flip of the tumbler and he'd be in. He peered into the room through the window on the door. There was faint light in the space beyond, just enough from a small window above the wood burning stove to illuminate some tools on the workbench—a screwdriver, a hammer, a box of nails. The items were innocent on the surface, as was the room itself, but there was something that felt wrong about the setup. Like it was staged. MacDonald felt the urge to investigate but knew better than to destroy a case by acquiring evidence illegally.

  Besides, there was no case to investigate here, only a favor for a friend.

  So why did he feel like he should get a warrant?

  He backtracked down the hallway into the kitchen, where he discovered Harris sipping on hot coffee. He and Beauty were looking at each other in a shy kind of way.

  "You said he might be at Eddie's Bar?" MacDonald said.

  It took a second for Beauty to pull her eyes away from Harris's. She looked at MacDonald. "Yeah, but usually that's only after his shifts. He works at New Center hospital."

  "You said that already," MacDonald said.

  "So?"

  "What is he, a nurse?"

  "How come you don't ask if he's a doctor?"

  "Playing the best hunch, ma'am."

  "He'd be a far sight better than most of those asshole surgeons, I'll tell you what."

  Harris sipped his coffee, eyes on Beauty.

  "You no longer taking notes, detective?" MacDonald said.

  Harris set down his cup, pulled out his pad, and started writing.

  "I'm assuming Eddie's is that joint out on the main road there," MacDonald said to Beauty, "closer to Dover?"

  "Gee, did the big sign out front give it away?"

  "When's he back on shift at the hospital?"

  "He's got a few days off about now," Beauty said. "He works ten days in a row, gets three days off, works ten again, and then gets five days. No vacation time, but it works out okay."

  "And he worked last night?"

  "Yep. Got home around three or four this morning, was out the door by noon. You ain't gonna tell me what he's done, are you?"

  "He ain't done nothing wrong," Harris said, picking up on the woman's colloquialisms and speech patterns. "We're just out here on a favor for a-"

  MacDonald stopped Harris with a gesture. Harris folded his notepad over and tucked it into his pocket. MacDonald nodded toward the front door.

  "Nice to meet you," Harris said to Beauty.

  "Whatever."

  30

  Get the kid a bike.

  Yeah right, Jake thought as he walked through the electrified gates and across the Dover parking lot toward his truck. He grabbed the driver side door handle and stopped. Something had emerged from the weeds beyond the tree line at the corner of Jake's vision. He turned toward the movement.

  Watching him from the center of a goldenrod field was the kid.

  "Hey, buddy," Jake called out.

  The kid turned and ran.

  Jake dashed across the parking lot, giving chase. He ducked a branch and skirted an evergreen, hopped over a down log, and ran out into the field. The kid was up ahead, off the field now and moving through the woods with the familiarity of a deer. He was pale as the night before and still shirtless and shoeless.

  Jake crossed the field running hard. By the time he reached the edge, his throat burned and his lungs ached. He came to the forest edge where there was a worn trail. He sprinted down it. The trail swerved through the trees, around boulders, beneath branches. Ferns in the undergrowth whipped at his shins. Bars of sunlight revealed the path ahead. Glimpses of the kid through the trees. Sometimes Jake felt he was gaining, other times the kid seemed too far out to catch.

  Jake came to the river and skidded to a stop. The kid was at the bank, kneeling by the water. The air here was thick with moisture and gnats. Jake hunched over, hands on his knees, gulping stressful breaths.

  The kid was breathing easy.

  Jake dropped to his knees and looked around. The spot was vaguely familiar. He'd been fishing here just two days before. The dock where he first met the kid was a quarter mile upstream. Jake came down to his butt, still sucking breaths as his lungs shuddered.

  The kid was poking a stick into the mud, making a crude drawing. He looked up at Jake. "You didn't tell me you were deaf."

  "You didn't ask."

  The kid looked at Jake, confused. The bruise around his neck was mostly yellow now—trace outlines of a man's hand.

  "How'd you know that, anyway?"

  The kid shrugged. "Did you get them stoneflies?"

  "Yes," Jake said. "They're beautiful. You made them?"

  The kid lowered his head and nodded, seemingly ashamed of his skill. The old man probably told him his craft was a joke, a waste of time.

  "What's your name?" Jake asked.

  The kid said something to his chest.

  "I need you to look up, bud," Jake said. "Can't read your lips if you're not looking at me."

  The kid looked up. "Sorry."

  "No need to be sorry. I just need you to help me out a little. What's your name?"

  "My name's Frankie. Are you going to kill my dad?"

  "About that... "Jake took a long breath and let it out slowly. "Are you sure it's what you really want? I'm guessing there's ple
nty of other things a kid like you could use. Maybe a new bike?"

  The kid shook his head.

  "But your dad's not such a bad guy, is he?"

  Frankie cocked his head. "My dad's a good person. Why would you say he's bad?"

  Where to begin?

  "If he's a good person," Jake said, "why would you want him killed?"

  Frankie threw his drawing stick into the river. It splashed, bobbed under, came back up, and floated away. The mud drawing he'd made was a stonefly. He started talking again, still facing the river.

  "Eyes here, Frankie," Jake said. "I need you to look at me."

  He looked. "My mom says there's a good person inside him. She says if you look at him just right you can see that good person in there, hiding."

  "If there's good in him," Jake said, "then I have to ask again, why would you want him killed?"

  Frankie's eyes deepened into a thousand yard stare. "If he dies while he's still good, he'll always be good, you know? Forever."

  "And if he lives to be old?"

  "People like my dad don't get to be old."

  Jake began to reply but the kid hopped up and dashed off. He was fifty yards down the riverbank before Jake came to his feet. He didn't chase. If the kid was headed anywhere but home he'd never catch him, anyway. Best to let him cool off a bit, approach him at his house later, maybe tomorrow. Maybe catch his mom at home, too, get some help from her on changing the boy's wish. He just had to find a time when Darnell Collins wasn't around.

  Jake's phone vibrated against his leg. He pulled it out. A text message from Lori.

  You're not at home, are you?

  Jake replied: No.

  Three animated dots appeared below his message. She was replying.

  When will you be back?

  Soon. What's up?

  Rough night. No more Preston.

  Jake felt marginally guilty about the smile that formed on his face. He imagined her standing in her apartment, holding the door open while the prick walked out with his head down. Russ would be standing there defiantly, ready to bite some ass if this Preston bastard tried anything. Good boy.

  Did he hurt you?

  No one will ever hurt me again.

  When I get back we'll have pizza.

  All of her break-ups resulted in two-person-and-one-dog pity parties at her place. They'd order O'Malley's, drink Jack Daniels, and talk about how they hate everyone and everything, keeping it fun and sarcastic. They'd laugh and Russ would get his share of crusts, but eventually she'd cry and good ol' JD would tell her it would all be okay.

  You know my one true love is pepperoni ;)

  Should I stop by?

  Text me once you get home.

  It was twilight by the time Jake arrived back at his shop. As he pulled into his parking spot his headlights revealed Lori's mountain bike leaning against the wall near the shop door. He recalled giving her a set of keys some time during their first week together, but as far as he knew she'd never used them. He'd forgotten she even had them.

  He got out of the truck, went to the door, and found it unlocked. He pulled it open and stood in the threshold.

  Lori was in the bakery kitchen. Her hair was down. She wore blue jeans and a Mello Yello t-shirt so threadbare Jake could see the dark outlines of her bra. Her hands were covered in flour and there was some white on her left cheek and forehead. She blew hair out of her face and smiled.

  "What are you doing here?" Jake said.

  She came over to him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him through the doorway. Once inside, she made a sweeping gesture over the kitchen, which looked like a cyclone had come through. "Making pizza!"

  Jake's jaw dropped at the mess.

  Lori lifted his chin with her fingers, made him look at her. A pouty lower lip. "Aren't you glad to see me?"

  Her eyes were big and blue. Jake lost a moment in them.

  She put her fists to her waist, cocked her hips, and raised an eyebrow.

  "Yes," he said. "I am."

  After Lori finished baking, they took the food upstairs to his apartment. He had no whiskey on hand, so they drank red wine while they ate and talked. Lori's homemade pie was maybe the worst food Jake had ever tasted, but he wolfed it down, anyway.

  She laughed and said, "Stop pretending. I know it's awful."

  "No. It's good. Really."

  "You're kind." She glanced at Jake's water pitcher against the wall and then looked out the window. The night sky was riddled with blinking red lights and the yellow squares of high rise offices. Midnight oil burners. "It's out there, isn't it?"

  Jake nodded.

  "How close?"

  "Getting closer."

  She smirked. "Remember when we tested it?"

  Jake chuckled and rotated his shoulder, feigning pain. "Yeah."

  "You were so funny propped in the back of that car, JD."

  After the incident where Jake found himself trapped in his apartment and needing Billy the pizza delivery guy to rescue him, he wondered if it was possible to break through the barrier of his horizon. And if he could, what would happen? Would he weaken or grow sick? Would he die? Or was his horizon simply impenetrable? He'd tried to push through it with his hands, but nothing doing. He'd even run up against it, but it knocked him down. So, he thought, what if he was in a car? What if he was in a plane?

  "Seeing you in the rearview mirror," Lori said, "out there on the street with all that glass, I thought you were dead."

  The plan had been to find the edge of his horizon and try to drive through it. Jake blew a couple hundred bucks on a beat-up, late 80s Escort that barely ran and stank like cat litter. He figured it best he wasn't driving, so the plan was for him to sit in the passenger seat while Lori drove.

  Then he thought it best to sit in the back.

  Then he thought it best to curl up on the seat backs and get up against the back windshield.

  In hindsight he should have knocked out the back windshield or sat on the bumper, but that kind of clarity is reserved for people already lying in hospital beds.

  Jake was just glad they didn't test the plane theory first.

  They found the edge of his horizon on a deserted city street in Milford. Jake packed himself into the small space above the backseats and told Lori to punch it.

  She looked back at him, nibbling at her lower lip. "I don't know, JD."

  He was losing his nerve. "Just do it."

  She did it.

  At twenty-five miles an hour the car was shuddering. At thirty-five it seemed to be popping apart, but it held together as it passed through Jake's horizon.

  Lori held together, too.

  Jake, however, hit his horizon like a ripe tomato hits concrete. Through the back windshield he went. It shattered into tiny squares. He spilled out across the trunk thinking this is what it must feel like to be punched by a dinosaur.

  The battered old car turned out to be Jake's ambulance, too. It managed to get him to the hospital, where he found out the extraordinary amount of blood on his face and hands was only due to a broken nose. His knees and elbows were banged up, as well, plus his shoulder throbbed, but otherwise he was no worse for wear.

  Jake smiled at the memory and touched his nose.

  "Remember we called you Lone Ranger for a week afterward?"

  After his broken nose both Jake's eyes turned black. He did, in fact, look like The Lone Ranger.

  "What am I gonna do with you?" Lori said.

  "I'm a pain in the ass."

  She looked down and to the right, rubbed her palms on her thighs. "Russ didn't like Preston from the start."

  Jake sat back and settled in, eyes on her lips.

  "As soon as that asshole walked in the door last night," she continued, "Russ growled at him. I asked him to be reasonable, but I should have listened instead."

  Preston had become that asshole. Jake couldn't restrain his satisfaction.

  "Yeah, I know," she said. "Anyway, I told the asshole eight o'clock, but he wa
s fifteen minutes late. I wasn't even ready yet."

  Jake laughed. She'd never once been ready on time for any date. It was her little test to see how tolerant her potential new beaus were, even if she didn't know or wouldn't admit she was testing them. If a guy was late, it forced her to wait around doing nothing so she could be even later than him, which was frustrating to her. Jake guessed she spent too much time reading 1984 and not enough time with Catch-22.

  "So he rolls up late like he's a big man," she said, puffing up like a big man, "and I'm still in curlers, ya know? I tell him he's gonna have to kick it for a few minutes while I'm getting my act together."

  Jake imagined her in a slinky dress with a low-cut neckline. Unhealthy. He pushed the image from his mind.

  "I told him to go ahead and grab a beer from the fridge if he wants," she said, "but you know what that asshole did?"

  Jake shook his head, loving the word asshole.

  "He went ahead like he owns the joint and cracked the seal on that bottle of Jack in the cupboard."

  "That was for us!"

  "And that bastard opened it without our permission."

  "What. A. Bastard."

  "So I come back into the living room," Lori said, "and he's standing there with a tumbler, smirking like he's Cary Grant or something. Know what he said? 'You look hot, baby.' Can you believe that shit?"

  Jake had wanted to say that exact same thing to her about a thousand times, only without 'baby' at the end. He made a mental note.

  "I mean, how much of a cheese dick can you be?"

  "Apparently a lot dickier," Jake said, assuming she hadn't dumped him just for drinking their Jack Daniels.

  She smiled, but it was strained, and it went away quickly. She lifted her half-full wine glass, swirled the dark liquid for a second, and then put it to her lips and drained it all down.

  "You okay?" Jake said.

  Lori set down the empty glass. "He was just another asshole."

  "Seems to be a lot of them running around." He was trying to be funny but the joke missed the mark.

  "Not you," Lori said.

  "Not me, what?"

  "You're not an asshole, Jacob."

  Jake swallowed hard. His palms were suddenly sweaty. "I have my rough patches. After all, I-"