From a Whisper to a Scream

by Charles de Lint

  “Thanks.” She took a sip, then set it down between them on the bench. “So what do you do?” she asked. “Just wander around through the streets and look for neat stuff to take pictures of? And then get paid for it.”

  Jim shook his head. “I wish. I used to work freelance, but now my editor just hands me assignments.”

  “Your mission today, should you choose to accept it,” she intoned in a passable imitation of the voice-over that began the old Mission Impossible TV series, “is to track down buskers and photograph them in performance.”

  “You remember that show?” Jim asked, thinking she was too young to have been around when it was on the air.

  “Caught it in reruns.”

  “Of course.”

  She smiled. “And were you really assigned to take pictures of buskers?” she asked.

  “Actually, it’s my day off.”

  “So you’re slumming.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “But normally you do—what? Fashion photography?” she asked.

  “Not often and only when it’s assigned, and even then I don’t get to choose the models. But Meg—that’s my friend who’d probably put you up—she does. She could probably use you if you wanted to make a little quick cash.”

  “Yuck.”

  Jim shrugged. “Your choice. But you’d make more in one day on a fashion shoot with Meg than you probably could in a month of playing music on the street.”

  “But I like busking.”

  Jim held up his hands defensively, sloshing coffee from the cup in his right. It splattered on the edge of the bench and her foot. She made a little yelping sound as she drew back her foot.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry,” Jim said.

  She rubbed the wet spot on her foot against the leotard-covered calf and gave him a quick smile.

  “That’s okay. My feet could stand a cleaning. I’m going to stay at the Y tonight so that I can take a shower.”

  He was, Jim realized as he caught the full warmth of that smile, becoming rather quickly enamored with her expressive features. He wished there was a way to install a camera in his head for situations like this, so that he could take pictures without disrupting the mood. That was the benefit of being an artist, he thought. You lost the immediacy of the moment, but you could just file the shots away in your head and bring them to life on paper or canvas at your leisure.

  “You know,” she said, “when I first spotted you coming up the street, I didn’t think you’d stop to listen.”

  That she’d even noticed him before he’d talked to her brought a foolish smile to Jim’s lips. He felt like a high school kid again.

  “Why was that?” he asked.

  “You just looked so … I don’t know. Grim, I guess. Or determined.”

  Jim nodded. “I guess I was preoccupied. I’ve been looking for this girl … .”

  He pulled out Niki’s photo and passed it over to her. An unreadable expression came into Cindy’s eyes as she looked at the picture.

  “What’d she do?” she asked.

  “Nothing. That is …”

  He hesitated, realizing that with all the experience she’d had with newspaper photographers, Cindy wasn’t going to buy the artist’s release line he’d been using all day. But while he didn’t feel like lying to her, he didn’t know what to say. As the day had gone by, he’d begun to feel that the whole thing was maybe just too much of a long shot in the first place. And just saying he tracked Niki down, what was he going to say to her?

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Cindy said.

  “It’s not that. It’s just that—well, it’s going to sound weird.”

  He explained then how he’d seen Niki at the crime scene last night and then discovered, when he was at Meg’s place, that she’d been at every one since the first victim was discovered.

  “So,” Cindy said when he was done. “You think she’s involved in some way?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Why don’t you just go to the police?” she asked, echoing what Meg had said last night.

  Jim had had some time to think it through more carefully since he’d talked to Meg.

  “If Niki’s not involved,” he explained, “my going to the police is just going to cause her all kinds of trouble. They’ve been getting nowhere on the case and I’ve got the feeling they’d jump on anyone they even remotely thought knew something.”

  Cindy nodded, but didn’t reply. She ate half her Danish, drank some more coffee.

  He shouldn’t have told her, Jim thought. He should just never have brought it up in the first place.

  “I told you it was going to sound weird,” he said.

  Cindy turned to look at him. Her eyes were so blue he found himself wondering if she wore tinted contacts.

  “I saw her last night,” she said finally. “In … what’s that place called, all those blocks of deserted tenements up north of … is it Gracie Street?”

  Jim nodded. “It’s called the Tombs, or sometimes Squatland. That’s not exactly the safest place in the city.”

  “Safer than the Combat Zone was last night.”

  “There’s that,” he said.

  “And I know that scene. There’s squats to be found in every big city.” She gave him one of her quick smiles, then tapped the photo. “Anyway, I saw her up there last night. She was squatting in the same building I was.”

  “Can you remember which one?”

  “Oh, sure. But her name’s not Niki.”

  SEVEN

  Jammin’ stayed with her overnight and bought her breakfast next morning at a little diner over on Williamson Street. They got there early and the place was filled with blue-collar workers. Chelsea overheard more than one snide comment as they waited for the waitress to fill their order: Jammin’ got it because he was black; she, because of the way she was decked out. Although she was still wearing her jean jacket, she’d changed from her jeans and T-shirt into black stockings that came down to just below her knees, a pleated tartan miniskirt and a frilly white blouse that left her midriff bare. With her spiked hair and the clumpy Doc Martens on her feet, she knew she looked like everything that frightened the other patrons about their own kids.

  They were all big, tough-looking guys, but not one of them had the courage to look her in the eye when he spoke. Screw ’em, she thought. She knew their kind all too well. They wore their conformity with smugness, like she was something that had crawled out from under a rock, but they’d still slap down twenty bucks for a quick blow job.

  After breakfast, Jammin’ asked her to come over to his friend George’s place, where the band was going to be rehearsing, but she begged off. She washed up in the diner’s claustrophobic and dingy bathroom, then walked as far as the Gracie Street subway stop with Jammin’. Leaving him there, she made her way back down the Pier, where she’d spent most of yesterday morning. She wandered in between the various concession stalls, but there wasn’t any action yet. The tourists were still having their own breakfasts, and it’d still be a couple of hours before they made their way down to the lakefront.

  She’d made about ten bucks panhandling yesterday before she got distracted by Jammin’s band. Looking younger than her actual age, and being just naturally small, she usually did okay, and it sure beat selling her butt on a street corner. Chelsea thought of it as The Little Match Girl Syndrome. People generally seemed to take more pity on what they thought was a young, innocent girl needing a handout.

  Yesterday’s ten bucks had taken her just under an hour to collect. She only had three dollars left after last night’s dinner. She’d have to do better today if she wanted to eat over the weekend. Sunday, for all its being God’s day of grace, was usually the pits for cadging spare change from all those good Christian Samaritans.

  She bought herself a coffee from the old guy who had the cart right where the Pier began, ignoring his disapproving stare. You don’t look so cute yourself in that jerky apron, she wanted to tell him, b
ut she let it be. Digging a newspaper out of a trash can, she found an empty bench overlooking the lake. There she sat, sipping her coffee and reading the account of last night’s killing. Morbidly, she stared first at the photo of the crime scene, then beside it at the high school picture they’d run of the victim.

  That should have been me, she thought. If Daddy’d had his way, it would have been her.

  She shivered, feeling scared and depressed, and looked around herself. Was he watching her right now? Hidden around the corner of one of the concession stands, fingering that big knife in his pocket? But all she could see was the first scattering of tourists, a couple of bums, some businessmen.

  She dropped the newspaper at her feet. Leaning on her knees, she just stared down at the picture of the girl who’d died last night.

  I’m sorry, she thought.

  She started as one of the businessmen sat down beside her on the bench. He gave her a smile when she turned to look at him. He was out of shape, carrying at least thirty pounds more than he should for his height. His suit looked like it was in the three-hundred-dollar range, but he didn’t wear it well. She figured he was in his forties—heavy-jowled, balding, and tired. He put his briefcase on the ground between his feet.

  “Got any spare change?” she asked.

  He studied her for a long moment, then cleared his throat nervously.

  “How’d you like to make a little real money?” he said.

  Oh, gimme a break, she thought. Another upstanding citizen looking for a quick good time with Lolita.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

  He looked embarrassed. She knew what he wanted—it was sitting there in his eyes and the bulge at his crotch—but he couldn’t seem to speak.

  “I … I thought we could …”

  She smiled and slid over beside him. Taking his arm, she draped it over her shoulder; then she took his other hand and put it on her breast.

  “Something like this?” she asked in a husky voice, slipping her hands under his suit jacket.

  She almost laughed at the stunned look on his face.

  “H-h-here … ?” he stuttered.

  That was when she screamed.

  “Get away from me! Get away!”

  Heads turned to look at them. He still had his arm around her shoulder, a hand on her breast. But now she was pushing at his chest, acting as if she’d just been sitting there, innocent as you please, and he’d tried to molest her. A big guy who had to be a tourist—camera around his neck, wife at his side—stepped forward. Before the tourist could do anything to him, the businessman grabbed his briefcase and fled.

  Her rescuer took a few steps after the businessman, but stopped when he saw he wasn’t going to be able to catch the fleeing man. His wife sat down on the bench beside Chelsea, who had her hands under her jean jacket, hugging her chest. Like her husband, the woman was wearing sandals, shorts, and a T-shirt. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was wearing too much perfume.

  “Are you all right, honey?” she asked. Her voice had a touch of a Southern drawl.

  Chelsea called up a few tears to make her eyes shiny and put a tremor in her voice.

  “I … I think so,” she said.

  “Can you believe it?” the husband said as he moved back to join them. “In broad daylight. I tell you this goddamn city—”

  “Sidney!” the wife said.

  Sidney gave a meek nod. “Sorry.” He looked at Chelsea. “How is she?”

  “A little scared, that’s all—right, hon? Is there anything we can do for you? Can we take you somewhere?”

  Chelsea shook her head. “I … I’m meeting my boyfriend here. I’ll be okay now.”

  “If you’re sure … ?”

  Chelsea nodded.

  “All right then, hon. But you just be careful. There’s a lot of not very nice people in this world.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Still looking hesitant, the woman rose from the bench and let her husband lead her farther down the Pier. Chelsea could hear him saying something about if he could’ve got his hands on that guy …

  She waited a few moments, then headed for the public washrooms. Once inside a cubicle, she reached into the inner pocket of her jean jacket and pulled out the businessman’s wallet. There were sixty-three dollars in it.

  Not bad, she thought. That’ll teach that old fuck to go chasing after jailbait.

  She waited until the washroom was empty, then left the cubicle. Dropping the wallet in a trash bin—the money folded up and securely stowed away between her skin and the elastic of her panties—she went back outside and looked over the beach and lakefront area with a holiday feeling growing in her mind.

  It was hard to think of her father with the sun shining so brightly and all those crisp bills stashed away just waiting to be spent. Suddenly everything seemed to have a glow about it.

  Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a shitty day after all.

  EIGHT

  Thomas Morningstar was so soundly asleep that he never heard the phone ring. It wasn’t until Angie shook him awake that he realized something was up.

  “It’s Lieutenant Brewer,” she said.

  For a long moment, Thomas paid no attention to the telephone receiver that Angie was holding out to him. In the Morningstar household, he was usually the first awake, and he always took the time before rising to lean on one elbow and study her sleeping beside him. He’d marvel at how good she looked, even with her auburn hair all disheveled, no makeup on that peaches-and-cream complexion, one rounded shoulder free from the sheets that would cling to the perfect curves of the rest of her form.

  She was a bright, attractive woman, just a year younger than he was himself. She made half again as much as he did, working as a researcher in an office filled with good-looking, bright guys, half of whom carried a torch for her. What the hell she saw in him, with the kind of work he did and his hours, he’d never been able to figure out, but he didn’t plan to raise any complaints.

  He took the receiver from her and muffled the speaker end against his shoulder.

  “Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are in the morning?” he asked.

  Angie smiled. “Down, boy. Business calls.”

  Thomas glanced at the bedside clock. The luminous digits read 7:24.

  “Yeah, more’s the pity,” he said.

  “I’ll put the coffee on,” Angie told him.

  He nodded his thanks, then turned his attention to the phone.

  “Hello, Jacob,” he said into the receiver. “What’ve you got?”

  “A Mike Fisher called in to the 12th about ten minutes ago,” Brewer replied. “Says he saw something last night.”

  The name didn’t ring a bell for Thomas. “Does he have a sheet?”

  “Nope. He’s a clean, upstanding member of society who just happened to be passing through the Zone on his way back from work.”

  Thomas caught the irony in Brewer’s voice. He knew just what the lieutenant was thinking. The killing went down around eleven-thirty last night—a little late for this Mike Fisher to be going home from work. Thomas could almost hear how Fisher would start his explanation: He was just passing through, you understand, we won’t tell his wife, will we, because he usually didn’t go home by that route, or leave so late, but he was putting in some overtime … .

  Until it went to court, Thomas could live with holding back the details from the press and the man’s wife. Hell, at least he’d stepped forward.

  “When will you be interviewing him?” he asked.

  “He’ll be at the 12th for eight-thirty,” Brewer replied. “I thought you’d want to be there when we talk to him.”

  “I appreciate the call.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll leave you to get hold of Sarrantonio and then I want both of you to get your butts down to the 12th—an hour ago.”

  “We’re on our way,” Thomas told him.

  Angie came back into the bedroom just as he finis
hed talking to Frank. He cradled the receiver and looked at her with regret. She was wearing a sloppy oversized T-shirt in place of a nightgown, but at that moment he didn’t think she’d ever looked as sexy.

  “You’re going in early?” she asked as she handed him his coffee.

  Thomas nodded glumly. “Jacob wants us at the 12th for eight-thirty.”

  Angie put her own coffee on the night table on her side of the bed and got back in beside him.

  “What time’s Frank picking you up?” she asked.

  Frank had taken the unmarked car home last night, even though they’d only signed it out for the evening. It was one of the perks of working a major case—no one’d say anything about it unless he trashed it.

  “Quarter past.”

  Angie grinned, then pulled her T-shirt up over her head.

  “Then we’ll just have to be quick this morning,” she said.

  Michael Richard Fisher, Jr., was about what Thomas had expected him to be. He was a little, weedy guy with a nervous twitch, dressed in an off-the-rack suit that hung sloppily on his thin frame. He worked as a clerk downtown in one of the office complexes on Walker Street--the Allen & Roy Corporation, the last bigwig pulp and paper industry still based in the city. Their mill was east of Newford, on the Dulfer River.

  They interviewed him in one of the 12th’s interrogation rooms, simply for the privacy. Thomas took notes, leaving Brewer and Frank to do most of the talking. Mostly they just listened as Fisher went through his innocent “just passing through” spiel, interrupting him only for clarification of details. When he got to the point in his story where he was following Leslie Wilson along Lambton, Frank broke in.

  “Let me get this straight, Mr. Fisher,” he said. “You followed Miss Wilson because you were worried about a young girl like her walking alone in the Zone?”

  Fisher’s eye twitch went into double time. He cleared his throat.

  “Th-that’s right,” he said.