by J. A. Kerley
Harry and I hit the streets and banged on our snitches as if they were bells, hearing nothing in tune with the case. At seven p.m. we heard Tommy Brink was drifting in and out of consciousness, his condition precarious. We found a small face with closed eyes. Chrome stands hovered by the bed like alien sentinels, on their arms the bags of pharmaceuticals filling Tommy’s body. Arletta Brink sprawled in the bedside chair, Tommy’s mother, late twenties, silver shorts as tight as paint, her green halter top displaying cleavage and tattoos. Her pink high heels were as bright as they were cheap. We entered with badges displayed, me in the lead.
“What you po-lice want?” she snapped.
“We need to talk to Tommy when he comes around.”
“He don’t wanna talk. Leave me be.”
“Can we speak out in the hall, Miz Brink?”
An elaborate eye-roll. “What’s wrong with here?”
“I don’t want to disturb your son.”
She sighed and followed us into the hall, leaning against the wall with arms crossed and one toe tapping her anger. Arletta Brink was maybe twelve years old emotionally, a fact highlighted by her rap sheet: shoplifting, public intoxication, assault, drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest.
“Where were you when this happened, ma’am?” I asked. “The attack.”
The eyes went evasive. “I was visitin’ a friend down the street. Jus’ a few minutes. You can’t say I did nothin’ wrong.”
“I wasn’t making any inference, ma’am, I’m trying to establish the events.”
“Events is what I say they is.”
“Do you have any idea who would want to hurt Tommy?”
“How the hell I gonna know that?”
“Has Tommy received any threats?” I said, keeping my voice even. “Gotten into any trouble at school?”
“Trouble?” she cawed. “That boy spend his life in a wheelchair. I gotta stick the food in his mouth some of the time. And clean it away when it come out. How he gonna get in trouble?”
I’d been watching Brink’s eyes, saw the pupil dilation. “Are you under the influence of anything, Miz Brink?”
She wobbled on the heels and jabbed a scarlet fingernail my way. “Who the fuck are you to talk to me like that? How about you kiss my—”
A shrill, piercing sound cut Brink short. I winced and turned to Harry, pinkies in the sides of his mouth. Harry could whistle the dead from their graves. Nurses were leaning out of rooms and looking our way. Harry walked to Brink, stopping one step away with his hands in his pockets.
“You spent good money on that buzz, Miz Brink, right?” he asked, his voice as pleasant as springtime birdsong.
“Hunh?”
“Some wine. Something for the pipe. I figure you got twenty, maybe thirty bucks invested in that buzz.”
The chin jutted. “I doan know what you talkin’ about.”
“You spent good money on that high, Miz Brink. Be a shame to haul that buzz to a loud, smelly jail. Especially when you could make nice and let that sweet buzz bloom in this quiet hospital.”
Harry was brilliant as usual, threatening not the woman, but the quality of her high. He looked past Brink and into the room. “Tommy’s awake again, Missus Brink,” he said. “May Detective Ryder and I please speak with him?”
A pause. “G’wan inside,” Brink said.
“You coming in, ma’am?” Harry asked. “To see how your son’s doing?”
“Hunh-unh,” she said, digging in her purse for a crumpled pack of Kools. “I need a smoke.”
We stepped into the room and I studied the monitors. I’d been in a lot of hospitals and knew when things seemed stable. The kid’s eyes followed us.
“Where’s Mama?” asked a paper-thin voice.
“She had to take care of something, Tommy,” I said. “She said to tell you she’d be right back.”
Tommy seemed dubious. I introduced us and pulled a chair close. “Do you remember anything about the attack, bud?”
“I was watching a big jet way up in the sky and wondering what it would be like to go through clouds. I heard footsteps behind me and felt a terrible hurt in my side and got knocked over.”
“Did you see who it was?”
He shook his head. “I tried to git to the house but tipped over. I think I kind of passed out. I could hear, but it was like from far away. I heard a voice.”
I scooted closer. “Man or woman, Tommy? Could you tell?”
He paused. “It seemed like a man.”
“What did the voice say?”
“It wasn’t words, just sounds. Like laughing. Then that Indian thing.”
“Indian thing?” I asked.
“You know …” Tommy Brink pulled one hand from beneath the covers, cupped it over his mouth.
Went “Woo-woo-woo.”
Tommy Brink’s eyes started drifting and Harry and I tiptoed quietly away, hoping the kid could turn sleep into healing. We headed down the corridor toward the elevators. Harry frowned at me.
“Woo-woo-woo?”
“Kid could’ve dreamed it,” I said.
“Or the perp said something and it got garbled.”
I flagged a nurse at the floor station. “Tommy Brink – he’ll pull through, right?”
Her eyes went blank and she did the voice that tells you things are bad without saying bad. “Infection’s a major concern since he’s immuno-compromised. We’re hoping for the best.”
I nodded and walked away, seeing Arletta Brink step off the elevator like the hall floor was six inches higher. I figured whatever she was on, she’d had another taste.
In the lobby we headed to the main door, passing the information desk, almost bulldozed by a sixtyish black lady in a flower-print dress, a bag the size of a shopping sack under her arm. Her face was drawn.
“What room is Tommy Brink in?” she asked the blue-haired lady at the desk. “I need to see my poor sweet baby.”
“Granny, you think?” Harry said.
I shot a look at the woman, shuffling toward the elevator with fear in her eyes.
“Or an aunt. At least Tommy’s got someone who cares.”
Chapter 20
Morning arrived with dawn rain chased off by hot breezes from the southwest. Gregory pulled into the lot of a restaurant near the bay, gulls shrieking above like bleached rats with wings. The overpriced venue was the current favorite of Mobile’s moneyed types and the lot was already crowded. He muttered about having to park at the rear and trudge through the soupy morning heat in a wool blazer. A dozen summer-weight blazers hung in his closet, but the wool was a particular iron-gray Gregory felt was the perfect complement to the subdued gentian in his irises, and he’d never been able to duplicate the color in a lightweight jacket.
As he passed the first rank of parked vehicles, head craning for a spot, Gregory saw a blue Dakota leaving a space in the row nearest the restaurant, another driver angling for the prime slot. Gregory squealed through a turn and raced down the front row. The other vehicle was in the oncoming lane, indicator signaling the driver’s intention to enter the space.
Using the reversing Dakota as a shield, Gregory zipped into the spot. He grinned and shot a glance into the mirror as the loser cruised past his bumper, two blue-haired old women giving him the frosty eye. Gregory had recently seen a news clip suggesting exercise might improve memory in the elderly, and he figured the desiccated hags should thank him for the opportunity to hobble a couple hundred feet.
Exiting his vehicle, Gregory glanced at an open side door to the kitchen, two youngish men taking a cigarette break, one in waiter garb, the other in a stained dishwasher’s apron. The pair puffed as Gregory walked the two dozen paces to the door.
He entered and crossed the floor, the restaurant at capacity, plates of food on the starched white tablecloths, the population heavily skewed to middle-aged and elderly women in designer clothes. Gregory knew most would be regulars, their weekly gobble-and-gossip session the highlight of useless, wastrel lives.
Ema was looking at her watch as Gregory walked up. A cup of tea sat in front of her, napkin centered on her wide lap. He tapped the back of her neck and she turned, startled.
“There you are, dear. I was, uh, getting worried again.” An attempt at a smile. “Only a bit, though.”
Gregory said nothing, wanting Ema to worry, punishment for all she’d put him through the other day.
The waiter arrived, a slim male robot in his mid-twenties with a mouth like a wet rose, his close-cropped black hair looking more painted-on than grown. His eyes were an emerald green. The man verged on being pretty and Gregory disliked him on sight.
While Ema scoured the menu, the wait-bot metronomed its pen against the order pad, probably to rush them. Was the moron too blind to note Gregory’s jacket cost more than the man earned in a week?
Ema ordered an asparagus and chèvre crêpe with a side of hash browns, except here they were called pommes frites. The waiter turned to Gregory, the pen doing the tapping again. The robot’s brass nameplate had greasy thumbprints on its surface.
“And you, sir?” the machine said.
“Bring me a simple spinach salad, no eggs, bacon, onions or mushrooms. Vinaigrette dressing. Wholewheat toast, dry.” Gregory ate nothing that grew underground, or pushed from the unspeakably filthy interior of a chicken.
“Basically a bowl of spinach, then. And to drink?”
“A pot of tea and a small pitcher of honey.”
The waiter nodded at honey packets in a basket centering the table. “There’s honey in the basket, sir.”
Gregory felt a surge of anger and pushed it down his throat. Had he not requested a goddamn pitcher of honey?
“There’s honey in the kitchen. It’s used to cook. Pour some into a small pitcher and bring it to me.”
A nod. “Very good. I’ll see what I can do.”
The ridiculous excuse for a man was back in two minutes, a small pitcher in hand. He set it on the table, said, “There you go, sir, honey.”
The man went to serve another group of diners. Gregory scowled at the man’s small and high derriere until Ema’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Was that man being short with you, do you think?” Ema asked.
“I don’t think so, Ema,” Gregory said, watching the man take the order of the other group. Looking as though he was actually serving them.
“He seemed rather dismissive,” Ema said, resettling her napkin in her capacious lap.
Gregory took the pitcher of honey, inspected the contents carefully, and poured it into the carafe of tea, stirring with a butter knife as Ema watched in fascination. “When did you develop such a taste for honey?”
“The majority of microorganisms can’t reproduce in honey,” Gregory said. “It involves the water index, an indication of the energy status in an aqueous system.” Gregory pulled a silver pen from his pocket and began writing on the white linen napkin. “I can show you the exact formula, taking p as the vapor pressure and …”
Ema reached across the table and stilled Gregory’s hand. “I’ll take your word for it, dear. You know I don’t have a head for numbers.”
Gregory held his flash of anger. Every time he tried to teach Ema something important, she demurred. How was she to ever become more than she was?
Ema’s meal arrived and she shoveled with delight, her mouth showing the glistening slop ready to be squeezed into a bolus. The pair traded small talk, Ema carrying ninety per cent of the conversation as always, Gregory nodding assent or assuming the faces Ema liked to see, all the time conscious of the insolent waiter, seeing his slender form flash by at the edge of vision, two tables away, one table away, three …
Never quite close enough.
Ema finished her breakfast and studied Gregory as a busboy robot cleared the dishes. “There’s something different about you today. More assured. More intense, like you’re suddenly …” She struggled to frame her words.
“Alive?” Gregory said quietly, a smile ghosting his lips.
Ema chuckled nervously. “That’s an odd choice of word.”
“It seemed the direction you were going.”
“I’m not sure where I was headed. You seem … bigger. Like you take up more space.” Ema paused to listen to her own words, then shook her frilly curls. “That’s silly, right?”
“You’re never silly, dear Ema.” Gregory reached across the table to take her hand, a simple gesture she seemed to relish. He was pleased that even Ema recognized his new energy. He showed Minty Fresh smile, but his eyes scanned the floor for the waiter … There! One-handing a silver tray of dishes above his head and moving in their direction.
Closer, you insolent fool …
The waiter paused to answer a question from a diner, then continued. When he was about to pass the table, the waiter shot Gregory a glance and they locked eyes. Turning his head the opposite direction, Gregory threw his leg out. The waiter tripped over it, his body slamming the floor as the tray came clattering down, bacon, eggs, sausages, coffee, juice … all splattering across the carpet. Every head in the restaurant turned.
The waiter sat upright, his eyes flashing at Gregory. “You … did that on purpose,” he whispered. “You saw me and you stuck your leg out.”
Gregory’s eyes bored into the eyes of the robot. “I’d be damned careful what you say, moron,” he hissed. The waiter started to respond, but several staffers arrived to assist and he turned away to gather the strewn items.
“The man … accidentally tripped over your leg?” Ema asked, her face anxious.
“The man never touched my leg,” Gregory said. “He stumbled over his own feet. It’s easy enough to understand why. He’s obviously on drugs.”
“You can tell?” Ema said, eyes wide.
“His pupils were dilated,” Gregory explained, a note of condescension in his voice. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice, given all that crime TV you soak up.”
“You’re amazing,” Ema said. She looked toward the waiter, now disappearing into the kitchen. “Shouldn’t you mention it to the management? The drugs?”
Gregory sighed. “It’s a difficult job market and I can’t bring myself to be the cause of a man’s termination. What if he has a family dependent on him? Babies?”
Ema gazed at Gregory in wonder. “You are a saint, dear,” she said. “I never would have considered such a thing.”
They parted soon after, Gregory washing his hands for several minutes before leaving. Arriving at his car he saw someone had spat on his windshield, a thick retrieval from the deepest recesses of someone’s lungs. Gregory fought to keep his food contained in his belly. Averting his eyes, he entered his car and turned on the wipers, forgetting to hit the washer button. When he glanced up, the wipers had smeared phlegm across the entire driver’s-side window. Unable to hold himself any longer, Gregory leaned from his door, vomiting.
He pulled himself upright and groped for the washer button, spraying until he heard the grind of an empty reservoir. When he finally looked at the window, it was clear. Still, he visited a car wash on his way home, passing through twice.
It wasn’t until he pulled up in his own drive that he recalled the men smoking outside when he’d parked in the lot, idly watching Gregory enter the restaurant. He focused his mind on the memory. One of them was the robot Gregory had punished.
The waiter had known his car.
Chapter 21
When I arrived in the morning, Harry was hunched over his keyboard, coffee mug to the side, staring into the screen. He was wearing an orange shirt, lime tie, strawberry jacket, plum slacks. I didn’t know whether to greet him or harvest him.
“Am I interrupting your morning porn session?” I said, Harry still immersed in the monitor.
He pushed away from his desk. “You think there’s any possibility the Ballard killer and Tommy Brink’s attacker are one and the same?”
I sat and perched my chin on tented fingers. “The attacks were brazen: Ballard on a well-used pathway, the Br
ink boy in his own backyard. Using crime-scene tape to shut down the alley shows a creative mindset, using police tools to help foil discovery. The Ballard killing probably required a disguise. The difference in weapons is what’s keeping me from a full yes. Freaks like consistency.”
“What if the guy doesn’t need a particular weapon, his only need being one that best fits his attack mode?”
“That’s a nasty thought,” I said. When tracking psychos you wanted set patterns that might be used against them. A killer with a fluid and ever-changing methodology was much harder to profile, much harder to find.
“Still, I started thinking how a knife is easy to conceal. When you mentioned the crossbow being a strange thing to carry, hard to hide, I got to wondering. I did a little research, found this …”
Harry turned the monitor my way and I saw what appeared to be a typical crossbow, save for a pistol-style grip. It was also, judging by the arm in the photo, about half the size of a standard crossbow.
“A pistol crossbow?” I said, reading the text. “One-handed use?”
“A spring-steel bow,” Harry said. “Check the dimensions. You could hide it in a backpack or beneath a jacket. Whip it out, wham off a shot, jam it under cover. I’ll bet it could be done in five seconds.”
“Jesus,” I said, reading deeper into the text. “The damn thing can drive a fiberglass bolt an inch deep into a pine board from ten feet.”
Harry brought up a page offering a dozen pistol crossbows ranging from twenty-buck models to the hundred-and-seventy-five-buck Handhunter Pro. Stalk and Shoot with Deadly Accuracy, the copy claimed in blood-red type.
I stared at the screen as Harry put on his gun, heading out to grab a couple of uniforms and hit Tommy Brink’s neighborhood again, trying to leverage sympathy for the kid into information.
I reviewed interviews with the friends and associates of Kayla Ballard, one question foremost: if the cases were linked, how was a farm girl from middle Mississippi connected to a wheelchair-bound kid from inner-city Mobile? The disparity of their worlds was apparent in their parents, the broken Silas Ballard and Arletta Brink, the party girl who treated her son like an afterthought. It seemed the killer had dealt one a blow beyond measure, provided the other with a favor.
