by Gregory Ashe
According to his driver's license, Jesse lived on the fourth floor of a brick walk-up apartment building. When they buzzed, no one answered.
“Try again,” Hazard said.
Somers buzzed again. Longer. Drilling his finger into the button.
When he let go this time, a voice came over the speaker. “Jesus Christ fuck, asshole. What the fuck do you want?”
“Police,” Somers said.
The door popped open like a jack-in-the-box.
As Somers and Hazard took the stairs, Somers said, “How much weed do you think he’s flushing?”
Hazard grunted.
“Poor guy.”
Hazard looked at Somers very deliberately. He shoved back his hair and twisted it to keep it away from his face. Then he rolled his eyes.
When they got to the door, it opened on the first knock. The kid inside was beefy in what Somers guessed was supposed to be a muscular way, although it looked like pizza and beer were getting more of this kid’s attention than the weights. He was wearing a pair of driving mocassins that made the rest of the outfit—rumpled Vineyard Vines shorts and shirt—a little bit more douchey, if that were possible.
“Jesus, man, I didn’t know. I never would have—”
“Can we come inside?” Somers said.
“Move,” Hazard barked.
The kid fell back like Jack dropping into the box again.
Somers pointed at the front room; while Hazard moved to investigate, Somers cut down the short hallway, throwing open doors: bedroom, bathroom, closet, bedroom. No sign of Jesse Clark.
“Um, what do you guys—I mean, don’t you have to, like—”
“Shut up,” Hazard said. The big man stalked closer to the kid, his eyes cutting to Somers for a report.
“Not here,” Somers said.
“Where is Jesse?” Hazard said. “Which room is his?”
“That one. What the hell is going on? Is Jesse in some kind of trouble?”
Somers didn’t bother listening to Hazard’s response. He moved to the room that the kid had indicated belonged to Jesse, checked it one last time to make sure Jesse wasn’t hiding in there, and then pulled the door shut. They’d go through the whole room later, piece by piece, but not until they had a warrant. And a warrant was going to take time: first, Somers would have to get someone from the dorm to identify Jesse in the pictures; then, if he were lucky, Lena Brigaud might be able to confirm that Jesse was the person who had stabbed Fabbri. They were lucky in the sense that they had the stills from the arts facility, where Jesse was wearing the same outfit that Lena and the others had discussed. They were unlucky in the sense that Carl Klimich was dead and Cynthia Outzen was hospitalized, unconscious, and possibly unable to testify for the foreseeable future—and, of course, because it was a coin toss whether Lena would actually help the police, when it came down to it.
Hazard was pressing the kid in that low, deadly voice he used. It was working; beefcakes looked like he wanted to piss himself, and he was saying, “I don’t know,” like a fifth-grader in the state capitals hot seat.
Somers called Cravens; no answer. He called Moraes; no answer. He called Carmichael.
“If you try to tell me one more time,” she said as she picked up, “that you don’t have a fucking ambulance, I’m going to drive over there and shove your phone up your chute. Get an ambulance. Get something. I don’t care if you have to borrow your mom’s station wagon, you fucking retard, just get over here and do your fucking job.”
“Hi, Carmichael. You know, retard is a really ugly word these days.”
She let out an explosive breath. “Sorry. Thought you were this other asshole who’s been jerking me around.”
“No, I’m just this asshole. Hey, I need somebody to babysit. Hazard got a line on the killer in the Fabbri murder, but I don’t want the roommate or anything in the apartment to disappear before we can get a warrant.”
“So sit on him. We’re all hands over here; Cravens couldn’t send somebody if she wanted to.”
“We can’t stay. I’ve got to run down an eyewitness and get another statement, get eyes on some pictures.”
Carmichael sighed and then shouted, “No, you ass monkey, sit on the ground, sit on the fucking ground just like I told you. Jesus Christ. You know what, Somers?”
“What?”
“You and Hazard aren’t joined at the fucking hip.” Her voice shifted, took on an edge. “Hazard found your lead; is that what you said? Like he found the knife. Kind of like the old days.”
“Never mind. I’ll call someone else.”
“You know what I think? I think you should send Hazard. You can stick around and babysit. He’s doing all the work, right? Jesus Christ, just give him a badge again. Give him yours, why don’t you?”
“Ah. Right. Thanks. Have a great day.”
The call disconnected.
“No,” Hazard said, interrupting himself as he shot another question at the kid.
Somers tucked the phone away. “She’s right.”
“No. I am not babysitting burrito boy.”
“Hey man. Hey, I’m like, it’s like, you gotta have mass when you’re trying to build muscle—”
“Shut up. No, John.”
“I’m going to run over to Brigaud’s office. If she’s not there, I’ll come right back, and we’ll look for her together.”
“John.” The word was a growl.
“Fifteen minutes. Tops.”
“John, I swear to God—”
“Talk to him about packing on mass. You love that kind of stuff.”
Somers was out the door before Hazard started roaring. He took the stairs. Two at a time. Just in case Hazard decided he wanted to keep discussing the issue.
The mathematics department occupied a 70s-era building that looked like a cross between a spaceship and a hamburger: lots of vertical glass, and then two horizontal swatches of stone that made up the bun. The doors were locked, and it took Somers almost ten minutes to find a security guard who would let him inside. Then the security guard insisted on tagging along, following Somers up two flights of stairs and along the upper ‘bun.’ A few windows peeked out, but the whole effect on this level was squat and depressing.
Lena Brigaud’s door was open. Papers spilled out into the hallway, bathed in the yellow light from her office. Somers nudged the door, but it struck something. Through the narrow opening, Somers could spy the devastation inside the room: desk overturned, drawers smashed, shelves ripped from the walls to spill books. He pushed the door again; it hit something just on the other side.
Somers risked sticking his head through the door, got a quick glance, and then said to the guard, “Call 911. Tell them Lena Brigaud has been stabbed. She needs an ambulance now.”
The guard stared at him. He was a young guy, but he already had bulldog jowls, and now those jowls were quivering.
“Now,” Somers said.
The guard grabbed his walkie.
While the guard relayed the message, Somers turned sideways and slid into the office. Lena Brigaud looked bad; someone had stabbed her multiple times. He thought of the way Jim Fabbri had died. He knelt, stripped out of his jacket, and pressed it to the worst of the wounds. Sirens played in the background, but that didn’t mean anything; he’d been hearing sirens, on and off, for over an hour now.
Blood soaked through the fabric, wet against his fingers, and Somers glanced around for something else. Then he saw what he had missed on his first, rapid survey: words written in blood on the window, glazed by the November sun.
Bright Lights.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NOVEMBER 4
SUNDAY
11:57 PM
THAT NIGHT, HAZARD COULDN’T get Somers to go to bed.
“I’m not tired.”
“You’ve been working all day. And all night.”
Somers just sat there, one hand packed in ice. “I want a drink
.”
“One beer,” Hazard finally said, opening the bottle, foam flecking his fingers. “And then bed.”
But now it was beer three or four—or five, maybe five, because Hazard had gone to the bathroom and he thought he’d heard Somers opening a bottle.
“It’s been a shitty day,” Hazard said.
“I’m not tired,” Somers said again.
“How long did you spend going through Jesse’s stuff?”
Somers tilted his head back, draining the Bud Lite, the brown glass glowing in the lamplight. His Adam’s apple bobbed; the smooth, perfect lines of his neck made him look like a sculpture. Then he lowered the empty.
“Hours,” Hazard said into the silence. “You were there for hours, digging through every gum wrapper, every dirty sock, every fucking awful script he wrote and boxed away.”
“Dulac was there.” Somers laid his head back, his eyes drifting closed. “And Norman and Gross came later and took some prints.”
Hazard walked into the kitchen. He raised the blinds over the sink and stared into the half-mirror of glass and light. Then he dropped the blinds again. He went back into the living room, next to the sofa. He ran fingers through Somers’s hair.
With a start, Somers jerked away, eyes flashing open. He tried to cover up for it, getting to his feet, the brown glass dangling from one hand. Every step was casual, the slope of his shoulders relaxed as he sauntered to the back door and opened it and tossed the bottle overhand, like he was making a jump shot, into the recycling. The explosion of glass made Hazard rock forward on his toes.
“What’s going on?” Hazard said.
“What’s going on,” Somers said with a grin, shutting the door with his hip, “is I’m going to have another beer.”
“It’s late.”
Somers shrugged and went to the fridge; the slight suction of the rubber seals made Hazard think of an airlock. “Want one?”
“Let’s go to bed. I know things look bad right now, but we’ll figure them out in the morning. We always figure them out, John. We’ll run down Jesse; he can’t hide forever. By then, Lena and Cynthia will be able to make an ID. Even if they can’t, somebody at the party should be able to. We’ll connect him to the knife.”
Emerging from the fridge, Somers glanced at the bottle of Bud Light in his hand and made a face.
“We’ll figure it out, John. We will.”
Somers lined up the bottle cap with the edge of the counter and brought his other hand down. With a tinny pop, the cap flew free, and beer sudsed up and over Somers’s fingers. He took a long drink. He looked at Hazard over the rim.
“You will.”
“What?”
“You will. You’ll figure it out. That’s what you mean, right?”
“No.”
“Come on. That’s what you mean.”
“I meant what I said.”
Somers laughed and took another drink. “Ok.”
“What does that mean?”
Shrugging, Somers made a line for the sofa. “Ok. That’s all it means: ok.”
Hazard moved into his path. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Will you move, please?”
Folding his arms, Hazard settled into his stance, still blocking Somers’s way.
“Ree, move. Please. I’m tired, and I want to—”
“I thought you weren’t tired.”
The blue eyes snapped up. “I’m not tired enough for bed, but I’m tired. Is that clear enough?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing, ok? I’m tired. I want to relax and have a drink.”
“Big surprise.”
The words landed like two slaps, hard little cracks of sound. Red burned its way up Somers’s cheeks. He shook his head and chuckled. “Ok. There we go.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Oh, fuck, who cares?”
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Somers slid around Hazard, moving toward the sofa again. “You go on and go to bed. I’ll be up in a little.”
Something like the bottom of the ocean opened up inside Hazard right then: cold and black and quite possibly infinite. Because, what if Somers didn’t come up later? What if—
Hazard grabbed his arm. “What the fuck is going on tonight?”
“Jesus Christ. Get the fuck off me.” The tone, more than the words, startled Hazard into letting go, and Somers shook himself like he was still trying to throw off Hazard’s touch. “I want to have a fucking pity party, ok? I want to feel super sorry for myself and be a big dumb shit for one night, ok? So go to bed.”
“What’s wrong? Whatever it is, we can—”
“We, fucking we. Damn it, Ree, just say it: you. You want to fix this. Go ahead, fix it. And solve the fucking case while you’re at it.”
Hazard stood there; the ocean was still opening up inside him, and he could feel his own frantic paddling as he tried not to go under.
“You’re being a real asshole.”
“Yeah. I guess I am. Want to fix that too?”
“John,” Hazard said, unable to keep the confusion out of his voice and hating the sound of it. “What happened?”
Somers surged off the sofa and stalked toward the kitchen. Halfway there, he spun around.
“What happened? Nothing big. I’m just a fucking joke at work, all right?”
“I thought you told me it wasn’t a big deal. I thought you told me Foley’s just an asshole.”
“Foley is just an asshole. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. And Gross is right. And Carmichael’s right.”
“What are they right about?”
Somers shifted, as though he might walk away again. Then, instead, he put the bottle to his mouth and drained it, his eyes cutting defiantly towards Hazard the whole time.
When Somers lowered the bottle, Hazard said again, “I’m not police; that’s what you mean.”
“Well, you’re not. Not anymore.”
“And I shouldn’t be involved in this investigation.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No; everybody else said it for you. You just had to get mad enough to tell me.” Hazard could feel the next words slipping their leash before he could catch them. “I’m the one who found the knife. I’m the one who found the security video. I’m the one who found out Jesse was the killer.”
“Thanks so fucking much for that.” Somers left the empty on the counter and opened the refrigerator again.
“What does that mean?” Hazard asked, following him into the kitchen. He grabbed Somers by the shoulder, pulled him away from the refrigerator, and slammed the door. “Well?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t do that. Every time—”
“It means if you’d waited, if you’d talked to me, if you’d kept the fucking police detective who is working this case informed of important developments, we could have pulled that footage officially. We could have done it without the secretary watching over our shoulders. And she wouldn’t have told everybody in a twenty-mile radius that Jesse Clark was the killer. And he wouldn’t know that we’re looking for him.
“He was already in hiding. Nobody had seen him since Halloween.”
“And now he knows that we know. Now there’s no chance he’ll let his guard down and make a mistake.”
“All right, I fucked that up. I know I did.”
“Look, I want you to do this: have your own agency, investigate, help people. But I can’t have you screwing up my job in the process. I’m so fucking sick of people riding my ass because I look so fucking stupid with a civilian working my case for me.”
“So I should just stick to kiddy cases, is that it?” Hazard’s chest was heaving, which was strange because he felt so totally calm, like all the anger had drained out of him. “Lost dogs. Bounced checks. Adultery. And then, the rest of the time, I should be
here, taking care of the house while you’re out saving the world.”
Somers snorted.
“What?” Hazard said. “Do you want to say something?”
“You don’t have to take care of the house, but it’d be nice if you’d shut up about it once in a while. Every time I step foot in this house, I have to hear about something. The drywall that needs patching. A light switch that’s not working.” Somers shook off Hazard’s grip and reached for the refrigerator again. “That goddamn sink in the utility room.”
For a moment, all Hazard felt was something like moonlight: a cold, pale clarity. And then he started to laugh.
Somers hammered another bottle cap off on the edge of the counter, drank, and stared at Hazard over the brown glass.
Still laughing, Hazard went to the garage, flicking on the banks of fluorescents, moving along the wall. He grabbed the sledgehammer with one hand, testing its weight, and then headed back inside.
From his spot near the refrigerator, Somers said, “Don’t be stupid.”
Hazard wasn’t laughing anymore. He started down the basement stairs.
“Put that back in the garage,” Somers yelled.
Hazard was going faster now; everything accelerated, dragged down by gravity. He crossed the basement and kicked open the door to the utility room. When it struck the wall and bounced back, he kicked it again. Behind him, he could hear Somers’s slow steps. Hazard adjusted his grip, two hands now, bringing the hammer up over his shoulder like the next one was going to be a grand slam. Then he swung.
The sink itself was a single piece of molded plastic. One side shattered under the first blow, long strips of plastic flexing and then snapping back, trying to retain their original shape. Hazard swung again. This time, one of the legs cracked, and the sink tipped a few inches. Another blow. And then another. Hazard could hear the whistle of the hammer. He could hear Somers’s voice—the memory of it, the sound of that goddamn sink. But he couldn’t hear anything else. Kind of like Hazard himself had ceased to exist, which was a nice idea.
When he’d finished, shards of plastic lay all over the utility room. The hot water supply line had somehow survived intact, the thin hose connected to a dangling faucet. The cold line hadn’t been so lucky; water sprayed across the floor from the damaged connection.
