“Please, no more questions until we're through.”
Erin was introduced as the new lead detective. “Please, no questions for Detective Vanderjagt until she's situated. Everyone can, of course, understand that.”
Forester wasn't making any effort to understand. And he wasn't making friends with his repeated interruptions for questions nobody would answer. “Why aren't autopsy reports available on the recent victims? If they exist, where are they? Where is the coroner? The people are entitled to know the cause of these deaths. They're entitled to know if these incidents are related. Is there a connection between the house explosion, the opera house death, the elevator crash, and whatever happened at the Town Clock Plaza? Speaking of which, what happened at the Town Clock Plaza?” Forester was shouting. “I was there and I don't know!”
“All of the incidents you've bagged up together took place under different circumstances,” the police chief said. “At this point, we have no reason to assume they are connected.”
“Rumor has it the victims have identical wounds. What kind of wounds? Were the victims missing any blood?” Forester ignored the gasps. “One victim was found on a roof. A witness at the elevator blamed a man in a cape. Someone said the perpetrator can fly. Is this some kind of vampire?”
The room went deathly quiet, then erupted in talking, laughter, unintelligible shouts. Mayor Light nearly broke his gavel trying to get everyone quiet and back in their seats.
“I don't think that's funny, Mr. Forester,” Musselwhite said. “And it isn't helpful.”
“It's nonsensical and childish,” the mayor barked. “And it's bad for business.”
“Am I supposed to care about that?” the reporter asked.
“Certainly you should care,” Light said. “We hope the local newspaper cares about the well-being of the city and conducts itself with some journalistic integrity.”
“We just want the facts—”
“We all want to know, Mr. Forester,” the mayor shouted, cutting him off. He took a breath, retook his seat, and cleared his throat. “We have no more information at the moment. When we have, it will be made available to the press. In the meantime, for the good of the community, I want to stress the need for calm while the various departments of this city carry out their careful investigations.”
“I feel obwiged to add,” the fleshy city attorney put in, “that wild concwusions, uninformed guesses, and out-wight fantasies sold as facts will do no one any good. Pwinting or airwing damaging guesses without factual support could do iwweparable harm to the city and its touwism. In such a situation, the city would have no awternative but to defend its intwerests. I will communicate that personalwy to the editors and producers of the media personawities here tonight.”
The usual urge to titter at the gummy attorney's speech impediment was stifled by the threat. Instead, those same personalities clouded over en masse, aiming their glares at Forester. Then, as if the city had conspired with the electric company for a dramatic ending, the scheduled rolling blackout struck that section of the downtown district. The lights went out; the council chamber was plunged into darkness. Those assembled filed out, murmuring and trying to ignore a palpable undercurrent of fear.
Engine 2 pulled into the dark alley behind the Masonic Hall, eased down the seedy corridor between dumpsters and stacked cardboard boxes near the rear exit and parked, nose to the street, behind the main branch of the telephone company. There the pumper was shut down. Their watch would last three hours and there was no sense idling the apparatus. Barring World War III, they weren't going anywhere.
Tuck and Pontius climbed from the cab and Arbuckle from his jump seat. They met on the phone company side of the engine. Pontius found the metal door, like a night deposit box, in the brick wall at the back of the building and inserted a key. It took a moment – and a tug from Tucker – before it opened to reveal an old phone, a direct line on uninterrupted power through which the Com Center could send calls of dire emergency. Garden variety emergencies would wait until after the blackout. All part of the joys of living in a quaint town suspended between cave drawings and Enhanced 9-1-1.
“When do we join the twenty-first century?” Arbuckle asked. “Get a real phone system?”
“And lose all our old world charm?” Tuck grinned. Then he spotted the approaching ambulance and bellowed. “Hey, hey! Here come the rock stars. 'Bout time.”
Late as usual to department gatherings that did not involve fire or blood, Ben (with Pierce riding doctor) eased 1-Boy-16 past the alley and parked on the street. They looked even more unhappy. Who could blame them? With recent events, it was a horrendous time to plunge sections of the frightened city into darkness. But the power company had refused to alter their schedule. Blackouts it would be. And the phone monitoring (read that 'waiting in a dark alley') began.
An hour later, the watch remained quiet. Nothing was afire and the Station 1 ambulance was just finishing up at the hospital with their only call of the night. The 'B' Shift gang, out of witty banter, had drifted apart and each now stood alone. Ben had stepped from the black alley to the black sidewalk beside the ambulance. He rubbed his shoulders, bothered not by a chill, but by a chilly feeling. In the distance, coming on like the purr of a stalking leopard, the thunder rolled.
“You all right?”
Ben started and glared at the rookie behind him. “Damn. Don't do that.”
Pierce smiled. “Sorry. You looked…”
“I looked… what?”
Pierce shrugged. “I don't know. Like something was wrong.”
“Something is wrong,” Ben said. “Something in this town is very wrong. But I don't know what.”
Pierce could only nod. That's all anyone could do. Agree it was bad, whatever it was, nod without understanding, and standby. It was a helpless feeling. Despite the press, 9/11 did not make firefighters heroes. And Ferguson did not make cops villains. Both groups were made up of people who were, or were not, whatever they were, or were not, before those incidents. Just people, like everyone else, but schooled in the art of stopping the artless. Braver than most? Maybe and maybe not. Crazier than most? Almost certainly. But not permitted to ask, 'who do we call when we need help'?
They stood a long time, on edge, in silence, when Ben noticed Pierce staring skyward.
“What's the matter?”
“Did you see that?”
He followed her gaze. “What…?”
“I don't know. Something, a shadow, flew over us. And I heard… I don't know. A clicking sound, or a ticking sound, and… Did you ever hear a broken kite flap in the wind? It sounded like that.”
Ben turned to look above the roofs, from the bluff on one side to the open expanse of the river on the other, from the roiling gray clouds in the distance to the darkness above. He looked back at the paramedic. He said nothing but the corners of his mouth rose slightly.
“Screw you,” Pierce said.
Nearby Tuck and Arbuckle, the Bobbsey Twins of meat, laughed at Pierce's expense. Ben joined in. Truth be told, it wasn't all impish glee. Though they'd deny it, genuine nervousness lurked behind the laughs. The night was dark… and the approaching storm pushed a cold front ahead in its own version of a rolling blackout. Pierce's ticking, flying shadow hadn't warmed them a bit.
Thirteen
The weather in the Mississippi River Valley resembled the little girl in the nursery rhyme: When it was nice it was very nice, but when it was bad it was horrid. You've already seen the fog turn the air thick as cotton. When it rained it poured with lightning like hurled javelins and thunder like war drums. When the wind blew, the river became impassable with cold chop. Even harbored boats were tossed in their moorings like toys. On the bluff and through Eagle Point Park, the ash and maple bowed low to the forces of nature. Those that failed to show respect were snapped like twigs and hurled to the ground. When it was nice it was very nice, but…
A jittery Angelina Pena saw the thunderstorm approaching from the ninth floor se
rvice room and knew the weather would soon be horrid indeed. She clocked out, and clutching purse and papers, caught the staff elevator. It had been a long night and, as the doors opened to the hospital's first floor back hallway, Angelina could see it wasn't over yet. The planned blackout had been no problem for the patients. The facility generated its own power with no interruption to care. The same could not be said for the staff. There was no cafeteria, no shift amenities, not even for those on overtime as Angelina had been and now, as her tour finally ended, no lights in the back hall.
Not meant for public eyes, the hall was uninviting at best. In darkness – save for sporadic safety lights – the trip the length of the complex, past the Pathology Annex (Morgue to the rest of the world) and Shipping and Receiving was all she needed. Even the usually ignored Muzak was conspicuous by its absence. The hall was not only dark, but quiet as a tomb. Angelina patted her baby bump to remind herself she wasn't alone. She heard nothing the length of the walk, but the echoes of her own footsteps and, behind that, a strange sing-song that started as she passed the morgue. A mechanical something that, obviously, Maintenance needed to fix.
Tik. Tik. Tik, tik. Tik, tik.
Despite exhaustion, Angelina found herself picking up the pace, her footfalls coming quicker as she hurried from one dim spot of light to the next. Quicker and louder. Quicker and louder.
Tik. Tik. Tik, tik. Tik, tik.
The hall angled to the right past the heavy plastic curtains of the Shipping dock, then back to the left. Tik. Tik. Tik, tik. The floor became a ramp to ground level. Tik. Tik. Tik, tik. Her heart was racing as she reached the employees entrance and Angelina nearly screamed with relief as she escaped outside.
The relief was short lived. None of the lights were on in the west parking lot. Blackness above with the even blacker silhouette of parked cars below; that was all there was to see. Angelina caught her breath, recovering from the fright she'd already given herself, only to realize a new vulnerability, a new sense of danger, and an overwhelming feeling she was being watched.
Worse, her fear did not change fact. She was in a parking lot which meant she'd forgotten where she parked. She clutched her coat and bag against the wind, a chore made more difficult because, in her hurry to work, she'd grabbed a coat that didn't fit her tummy. She scanned the rows trying to remember, and when it came to her, was off like a shot.
Angelina's Mustang convertible was her beauty, her slave and, at just under forty thousand dollars to purchase, her master as well. Though hers was not a luxury model – it did not have heated seats or an Airscarf –it was still a luxury to her. The power and freedom it afforded reminded her of her new home. Only someone from a cramped Manila could understand the glory of a convertible car and an American road. Besides, Angelina was not fooling herself. When the baby arrived, she knew, her racing days would be over.
Her usual first action when she climbed in was to lower the top. It was, Angelina believed, the American thing to do. Why have a convertible otherwise? But tonight she left the roof in place. Not merely because of the impending storm but for that other thing as well; that sensation, like flames on her nerves that she was being spied upon, perhaps even followed. It made no sense, of course, but feelings often did not. Just the same, what could one do but feel them? Tonight, she would forgo the freedom and surrender to the fear.
She found her car, an ugly maroon in the dark despite its actual red brilliance, and nearly scratched the paint in her hurry to get inside. She relocked it quickly, and breathless, eased back into the seat. She was being crazy and felt embarrassed. But what did that matter? The feeling was inescapable; there was something evil in the air.
She'd feel better when she got home.
Then it dawned on her that Nestor would be home. All that time on 'B' Shift and now a change, temporary he'd said, but a change to which she'd have to adjust. Tonight, though, the thought made her glad and she began to breathe more easily.
Angelina pulled from the lot and turned for home. It was silly, of course, feeling watched on city streets, but there it was. And, in the awful blackout dark, she might have continued to be afraid… but now she'd thought of him her fears were turning to Nestor. Not fears of him; fears for him.
Yes, Nestor would be home, but would he be drinking again? Her husband had been drinking a lot lately. Stress, probably. Nerves, maybe, with the baby coming. But he shouldn't be nervous, not more nervous than happy. And he shouldn't be drinking so much. He had never been violent, and she almost regretted having mentioned it to Erin, but he did get quiet and grouchy. He pulled away from her when he was drinking heavily and it made Angelina sad.
Just as quickly, the sadness was replaced by the return of the cloying feeling she was under an all-seeing eye. The feeling she was being followed. It was ten minutes to home and she had herself spooked (was that the word?) by the time she got there. That none of the street lights were working and the neighborhood was black as pitch did not help. Their house did not help either.
Nestor had picked their home; a place that looked like a mansion from an old horror movie. It had gloomy round towers with coned roofs, front and back, and turrets all around. According to Nestor, an architect would have called it Romanesque. The locals called it 'The Castle'. The name fit; it was a castle, falling down and grabbed at a steal – but a castle nonetheless.
Talk around town gave the place forty rooms, when there were merely twenty-four, with two and a half baths; four stories from the basement to attic cupola. It had a tiled swimming pool in the basement, full-sized by 1920 standards when it was built, in which a resident was rumored to have drowned. His ghost, or hers (depending upon the teller), had haunted the castle since. The pool was real. The tale of the drowned ghost did not hold water. But the pool had once held a large collection of potted marijuana plants for a previous owner with a green thumb and no regard for the law. It took the cops a whole day to clear the nursery after her arrest. Nestor denied they'd dropped any seeds. It was his story and he was sticking to it. The Castle was the rumored site of a murder as well. Whether or not that story was true, Angelina did not know or care to know. All she knew was the place had always spooked her.
It was a spooky night. The rumbling had arrived and the storm was drawing near. She eased her Mustang beneath the vine-covered trestle and disappeared down the drive through the 'hole in the hedge' that surrounded their home. She pulled up to the old carriage house that in the late 1930's was converted to a three-stall garage. She broke another rule, not bothering to put her precious car away. Angelina had simply had enough. She turned off the lights and was swallowed by the darkness again.
She saw a flicker in the second-floor windows and took a moment to realize it was candlelight. Nestor and candles? It struck her as funny, then odd, then disconcerting. She found herself worrying again about her husband's drinking and pictured her old house on fire. Wouldn't that be all they needed?
Angelina took a deep breath, unsure exactly what she was readying herself for, jumped from the car, and bolted for the door.
Fourteen
Angelina fumbled with her keys again at the door, struggling to hold her purse and papers, holding the door open with a knee. Her nerves, and that ridiculous feeling, made it impossible not to look back at the night. Thunder rolled. A hand grabbed her shoulder and Angelina screamed.
“Hey, hey!” Nestor exclaimed. “Take it easy.”
“My God, I can't believe you did that! You scared the life out of me. Oh my God, Nestor. What did you do that for? I didn't even see you. What are you doing out here in the dark?”
“Watching the storm come in.” He waved a half empty bottle.
Great, she'd been right, Nestor was drinking. And the door wasn't even locked. She'd been wasting her time and her worries. She turned away, headed in.
“What's the matter?” he called after her.
“I've had a long night. I'm tired. I'm sick of the darkness. And someone followed me home. Other than that everything is
fine.”
Nestor studied her car in the drive, the wind shaking the hedges, the cloud-filled night sky, and a flash of lightning. His arms turned to goose flesh. He rubbed at the chill, took a hit from the bottle, then started in after his wife, shouting, “Don't see anyone. Who followed you home?”
“I do not want to talk about it on the porch,” Angelina called out, feeling a headache coming on. “And I am done shouting.”
Nestor entered the kitchen, shivering now, and set the bottle on the table. Seeing it drained below the label, Angelina frowned. “That's what you were doing on the porch, yes?”
“Told you. Enjoying the night air, waiting for you. What did you mean? A car followed you?”
“I don't know what I mean. No, not a car. There was nothing on the road. I just felt it; someone watching me, following me. I do not know what it was.”
“You mean 'who it was'.”
“Stop it, Nestor. I mean what I said.” She started away. “I don't want to talk about it anymore.”
“Just trying to help.” He followed Angelina into the drafty expanse they used for a living room.
“That is great. But you are not helping. Why are all the candles lit?”
“Why do you think? The blackout.”
“I know the blackout. It looks like a funeral home.” She dropped purse, papers, and coat. “And you weren't in here. You were outside waiting to scare me to death. You should not be burning candles when you are drinking. You are going to burn our mausoleum down.”
Nestor held up his hands in surrender. “Okay. You're tired, hungry, and skittish. Got it.”
When The Tik-Tik Sings Page 9
