Dust to Dust

by Tami Hoag

  As if his thoughts had called up the devil, a shape suddenly loomed up at the end of a trash bin thirty feet down the alley. The end of a cigarette glowed red, an evil eye in the dark.

  Ken’s step faltered and he slipped on the rutted ice and had to catch himself against the side of a building. He swore as he felt a false nail tip give way. He would have to keep his gloves on for the next set. There wouldn’t be any time to fix the fingernail. Damn Liska.

  The figure down the alley didn’t move. The business behind the specter was a tattoo parlor. The kind of place where the patrons got AIDS and hepatitis from dirty needles.

  Ken dug around in the pocket of his coat for his pepper spray and kept walking, staying as far on the other side of the alley as possible. The club was two blocks away.

  He held his breath with each step. He ran every day to stay in shape, and he was better than most women in the heels, but he didn’t want to have to try sprinting in them.

  He could feel the specter’s gaze on him. He waited for the eyes to glow red, like a wolf’s.

  He drew even with the back door of the tattoo parlor, ready to bolt, hand sweating around the canister of pepper spray even in this cold. His heart seemed to be quivering in his chest behind the falsies.

  God, he did not want to die in drag. In his mind’s eye he could already see the crime scene photographs being passed around. He could hear the cops snickering. Maybe, if he wasn’t killed tonight, he would go get a tattoo of his own: I Am Not A Transvestite.

  The specter tossed the cigarette, the glowing ember an arc of light in the gloom, and lurched forward suddenly. Ken bolted. Hoarse laughter followed him as he slipped and skidded. His right ankle buckled beneath him and he fell, sprawling gracelessly. Pain hit him like so many hammers—both knees, one elbow, one hipbone, his chin. A cry wrenched out of him, sounding desperate and weak, dying against the brick and concrete.

  He scrambled to get back on his feet, clawing at anything to pull himself up. He grabbed hold of the edge of a Dumpster and hauled himself up, slipping, banging against it. His nylons were ruined. He could feel cold and wet against bare skin. He heard stitching pop as his legs splayed and strained the seams of his dress.

  He jerked his head around to look behind him. Still laughing, the specter turned and went back into the tattoo parlor. Asshole.

  Ken leaned against the Dumpster, breathing hard, the air feeling like dry ice rasping down his throat.

  Damn Liska. He had half a mind to send her his dry cleaning bill.

  Limping, he started down the alley again. One shoe was missing a heel, and his ankle felt sprained. He touched a hand to his mouth and chin, and brought it away; the white glove was smeared with blood and dirt. Damn. If he needed stitches, his boss was going to have a hissy fit. Two blocks was looking a lot farther than it had in the beginning of the evening. And with the repairs he was going to have to make, there was no way he was making the last set.

  The end of the alley was near. There was no traffic on the side street. A single dark car sat parked along the near curb. He could see the trunk and no more. He thought nothing of it until just a split second before the large, dark shadow of a man fell across the mouth of the alley, when the cold wash of a horrible premonition swept over him.

  I’m going to die tonight.

  The trunk of the car opened, the light illuminating a face in a dark ski mask. The man reached into the trunk and came out with a tire iron.

  Ken Ibsen stopped and stood still, the moment seeming both real and surreal. Then he turned slowly, thinking to go back the way he’d come, after all. The better part of valor. The lesser of evils. But there was no going back. And there was no lesser evil. Another dark, faceless figure blocked the escape route behind him. A hulking silhouette with something in its hand.

  He could feel evil emanating from them as they closed the distance from either side. Fear hit him like a bolt of lightning, and he screamed and pulled the pepper spray from his pocket, fumbling with the trigger. The attacker with the tire iron made one quick move, and Ken’s arm flung out to the side, broken and useless. The canister clattered to the ground like a piece of trash.

  He thought to run as the iron hit the side of his knee, and bone shattered like glass.

  He thought to cry out for help, and felt his jaw crumble and his teeth spill like Chiclets from his mouth.

  He thought, I don’t want to die in drag, and everything went black.

  LISKA SLID THE Saturn to the curb in a no-parking zone a quarter of a block from the coffeehouse Ibsen had chosen for their meet. She was way late. Damn Speed for taking so long.

  The few customers sat in knots of two or three, scattered as far away from each other as possible, wrapped up in their own conversations. No one looked up as Liska came in. She went directly to the bar, where the only visible employee was engrossed in a textbook as thick as the Yellow Pages.

  “What are you learning?” she asked as she pulled her badge out of her purse.

  The bartender looked up at her through a pair of trendy glasses. He had soulful brown eyes and the kind of thin, elegant face painters attributed to Jesus Christ. “I’m learning that my father is spending a lot of money to send me through school so I can learn to make a great cappuccino.” He glanced at her badge. “Are you here to arrest me for impersonating a med student?”

  “Naw. I was supposed to meet someone here a little while ago. Short, slim guy with platinum hair.”

  The med student shook his head. “Haven’t seen anyone like that. There was a transvestite dressed as Marilyn Monroe. He seemed like he was waiting for someone, but he left. Not a blind date, I hope.”

  “No. How long ago did Marilyn leave?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes. Went out the back way. He works down at Boys Will Be Girls. They come in between sets sometimes. Otherwise I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he hurried to add.

  “A transvestite,” Liska muttered to herself, turning away. “This night just gets better and better.”

  Her big informant went around dressed up as Marilyn Monroe. Preachers and bankers seldom ended up as informants to crimes, she reminded herself. And when they did, it was because they were secretly perverts or thieves.

  And her mother wondered why she didn’t date more.

  She went down the hall, past the bathrooms, to the back door of the coffeehouse. Med Student followed like a puppy.

  “Do you know anyone at the county morgue?” he asked. “’Cause the way things are going, I’m thinking pathology might be best for me. No malpractice.”

  “Sure, I know people,” Liska said. “It’s not a bad job if you can stand the smell.”

  She pushed the door open and looked out. The alley was dark and wet and filthy. There should have been some rats and ragged orphans to complete the picture, she thought, and just then noticed a scavenger bent over something thirty feet down the way. He stood in a little puddle of light coming from over the back door of some other business. He started and stared back at her, like a coyote caught going through the garbage—wanting to run, but loath to give up the treasure. He moved just enough to allow the pale light to fall on his find, and the details of the scene began to register in Liska’s brain: a woman’s shoe, a bare leg, a glimpse of pale hair.

  “Hey, you!” she shouted, drawing her weapon, moving so that the Dumpster gave her cover. “Police! Step away from the body!

  “Call nine-one-one,” she said to Med Student. “Request police and an ambulance. Tell them there’s been an assault. Hurry.”

  Coyote bolted. Liska was in gear instantly, running, shouting, leading with her weapon, wondering if he had a gun, if he would turn and use it. He tripped and staggered, lost precious seconds trying to get his feet back under him. Liska hit him running and rode him down to the ground, driving her knee into his back, grabbing a handful of coat collar and greasy hair in her left hand as she put her weapon on him with her right.

  “You’re under arrest, motherfucker! Don’t mov
e!”

  “I didn’t do nothing!”

  The smell of cheap bourbon and diarrhea wafted from him in a noxious cloud. He tried to rise up and Liska banged him hard on the back of his skull with the butt of her Sig. “I said don’t move!”

  “But I didn’t do nothing!”

  “If I had a dollar for every talking asshole who said that, I’d have a mansion and pool boy named Raoul.”

  “Ask Beano! It was them other guys!”

  “Shut up!”

  Other guys.

  She glanced back over her shoulder at the victim. She couldn’t make out features, couldn’t tell if the person was breathing. She cuffed Coyote’s hands behind his back.

  “Stay right here. Don’t get up. Don’t move.”

  “But I didn’t do it,” he whined.

  “Say that again and I’ll fucking shoot you. Shut up!”

  He started to cry as she turned away and went back to the victim.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?” she asked. A stupid question meant simply to elicit a response. A moan, a groan, something, anything.

  She squatted down beside the body and reached under the matted mess of white-blond hair to try to find a pulse in the throat. At first, she thought what she was looking at was the back of the skull—a bloody mess of caved-in bone without features. Then the victim drew a shallow, shuddering breath; a horrible, wet, sucking sound; and she saw bubbles in the blood coming from what must have been a mouth.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, finding the weak, thready pulse with shaking fingertips. With her other hand, she carefully brushed the hair back. It was a wig, and it pulled free with little pressure, revealing short platinum hair streaked with blood leaking from a skull fracture. Ken Ibsen.

  He lay on the ground like a discarded rag doll, limbs bent at odd angles. In one hand he clutched a scrap of paper—a napkin. Liska slipped it from his twitching fingers and held it so that the faint light fell across it. Doodling. Probably what he’d done while he’d waited for her to show up. Random words and little drawings. One phrase caught her eye: wrongful death.

  Med Student ran up, panting. “They’re on the way.”

  Even as he said it, a siren sounded not too far in the distance.

  “I brought a flashlight,” he said, and directed the beam on the face of the victim.

  The flashlight hit the ground and bounced. Med Student turned and vomited, and began to reconsider medicine as a career.

  22

  CHAPTER

  SHE FELT HIM behind her before she looked. Awareness rose inside her like a floodtide, lapping at the back of her throat, threatening to spill out of her mouth in a scream. Fear stiffened the muscles of her back, making it difficult to turn around. She felt as if she were wearing a straitjacket.

  He stood in the shadows of the living room, the moonlight coming through the windows making his form clear, yet she couldn’t make out his features at all. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move as long as she watched him. She wondered if he thought he could make himself invisible by being still. She had thought that when she was a child: If I can be still, they won’t see me.

  Conversely, she wondered if she pretended not to see him, if he might disappear.

  She walked away, trying not to hurry, and went into the dining room. She didn’t hear him follow. She should have heard his shoes on the hardwood floor, but she heard nothing. Still, when she looked over her shoulder, he was there. He stood in the shadows of the hall, looking in.

  She held her breath until it felt as if someone was strangling her. Then she realized with a jolt of raw panic that someone was. His large hands closed around her throat from behind, fingers pressing against the small, vital bones. She clawed at his hands and tried to jerk free. He pulled her back against him and tried to push her down to the floor. Adrenaline surged through her, and she broke his grip suddenly, gasping air into her lungs. She looked over her shoulder then, as she started to run, and saw him clearly: Andy Fallon, his face purple and bloated, eyes dull, tongue coming out of his mouth.

  And then she was awake. She had leapt up off the couch, becoming conscious as her feet hit the floor. She stumbled, crashing into the antique steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. She clawed at her throat, scratching herself as her fingers tore at the high zippered neck of the sweater she wore. The soft cotton sweater she had put on because it made her feel cocooned and safe. She had sweat through it.

  The tears came then, as she realized what had happened, as she thought of how many times she had gone through this, and wondered if it would ever end. She sank down to the floor on her knees and started to put her face in her hands, gasping as she touched the raw spots.

  She was so tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Tired from the lack of sleep, and from the stress, and from the nightmares, and the guilt. God, all of it.

  For just a moment, she wondered what it might be like to have someone there to hold her up as she shouldered the burdens of her life. Foolish fantasy. She was meant to be alone whether or not that was what she wanted. That was the thing about fate: it didn’t ask for your opinion, didn’t consider what you might want or need. And so she sat alone in the night, shaking from the strain and from the sweat now chilling on her skin. Trying not to cry because there was no point in it. Crying was just a waste of energy she couldn’t afford—one of the few useful lessons her father had taught her.

  She closed her eyes and started the breathing exercise to slow her heart rate and calm her nerves. Unbidden came the memory of a strong hand on her shoulder, solid strength beside her. She could see Sam Kovac’s dark eyes looking at her reflection in the ladies’ room mirror. She could feel his concern, hear it in his voice. For just a second she let herself imagine what it might have been like to turn toward him and rest her head on his chest, and have him put his arms around her.

  Kovac was a rock, an anchor. He seemed so grounded, she doubted anything could knock him off balance. Not that she would ever find out. He was the last man she would allow to see inside her and try to tame the snakes in her head. She was destined to fight them alone, and she would. She had done so for a very long time. It was just that tonight . . . tonight she felt so tired, and so alone. . . .

  She breathed a sigh and forced herself to her feet. She made the obligatory search of the downstairs rooms, walking through the silent house like a zombie, not really seeing anything, dimly aware that she was searching for something that couldn’t be seen. She ended the search back in the living room, standing for a long time just staring at the wall of photographs she had taken over the years. Black-and-white, landscapes and still lifes. Beautiful, empty, bleak, stark. A projection of the photographer’s inner self, a therapist would say.

  Time slipped by unnoticed. She might have been standing there five minutes or an hour when the doorbell rang. The sound startled her so, she wondered if she had gone back under into that place of waking dreams and was now being shocked back out of it, or if this was part of the next nightmare and she wasn’t really awake at all.

  The bell rang again. Heart pounding, she went to the door and looked out through the peephole. Kovac stood on her front step. Not sure that her mind hadn’t conjured the image, she pulled the door open.

  “Your lights were on,” he said by way of explanation for being there.

  Savard stared at him.

  “I assumed you were up,” he said. “Was I wrong about that?”

  She touched her hair self-consciously, started to shield the wound around her eye, but stopped. She glanced down to see that she was actually wearing clothes. “I . . . ah . . . fell asleep on the couch.”

  “I’m sorry, then, if I got you up.”

  “What do you want, Sergeant?”

  He shifted from foot to foot, his hands in his coat pockets, his shoulders hunched. “Getting in out of this cold would be a good start.”

  Hugging herself against the night air, Savard went back into the hall, leaving him to follow. She checked her reflecti
on in the mirror above the hall table and was appalled. Dark circles, pale skin, hair limp and messy. She looked battered and lost. Haunted. She would rather he had caught her naked, at least then he wouldn’t have been paying enough attention to her face to wonder at her mental state.

  “I’m not keeping you from anything—like a significant other?” he asked bluntly.

  Not unless inner demons count, she thought. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  She caught his reflection in the mirror. He was looking at her, studying her, and she jerked around, the pain in her neck and shoulder making her wince. “Plymouth is out of your jurisdiction.”

  “I’m off duty. I have friends out here. John Quinn. You know him?”

  “I know of him.”

  “I had a couple of questions for him regarding your boy Andy. I’m still not convinced he died alone or by choice. Could have been an accident,” he conceded. “But if it was an accident and he wasn’t alone, then someone left the scene of a death, and I’d wanna know who, ’cause they got something to answer for, you know?”

  Savard smoothed one hand over the wrinkles sleep had pressed into her top. She couldn’t quite keep her other hand from touching her hair again. She hated him seeing her like this. Vulnerable—the word pulsed in her brain like a nerve that had been struck with a hammer.

  “What did Mr. Quinn have to say?” She couldn’t seem to make herself look directly at him. As if he couldn’t really see what a mess she was if they had no direct eye contact. If I can be still, they won’t see me. . . .

  “He had some thoughts,” Kovac said, moving to stay in front of her. “I don’t always take a lot of stock in that mindhunter stuff. You know, sometimes people do things just on account of they’re rotten. Then again, sometimes a person’s past can haunt him—or her—to the point of driving him to do things.”