by Ellis, T. W.
The call disconnects. Out of credit.
I consider adding more coins but I’ve said everything I need to say. I’m sure he knows all of it by now anyway. I’m sure he knows exactly what’s going on. He has to know.
And I have to find him.
12:00 a.m.
Corpses are funny things. They look so lifelike, which is kind of ironic. People are more used to seeing bodies in movies than they are real ones so it can be a shock to witness the full, unfiltered spectacle. Some people just can’t handle it the first time. And then there’s those whose corpses go out the hard way …
‘How’s Zeke?’ Rusty asks.
Sabrowski shrugs. ‘I think he’s just about done throwing up by now.’
‘Please assure me he made it outside before making a mess of my crime scene?’
He says, ‘Might be a couple of spots of vomit on the front step.’
Rusty sighs. Not much can be done about it now seeing as she left her time machine in her other shirt. Messer’s corpse is one big, ugly mess in the hallway.
Rusty says, ‘What can you tell me?’
‘He did not die peacefully in his sleep.’
The medical examiner is not in a good mood because he lives three towns over and was fast asleep when the call came in, so Rusty doesn’t tell him to cut the BS. It’s late for her too. Late for everyone. No one wants to be here.
Rusty looks at Messer.
‘Least of all him,’ she says to herself.
Sabrowski looks to her because he heard something but nothing specific. Rusty shakes her head at him to say, forget it.
‘Is that a grease stain on your collar, Officer?’
There isn’t one, but Sabrowski tries to rub it clean regardless as Rusty moves on. She keeps blinking because she’s doused her eyes in drops about sixteen thousand times since she received his call. She’s convinced they’re still redder than a Bloody Mary and knows that’s probably just the paranoia, but she’s a stoned police chief at a crime scene and has every right to be paranoid.
She’s sure he’s looking at her funny. She fakes a yawn. Tired folk look a lot like high folk.
‘How are you feeling?’ Rusty asks Wilks to stop her thinking about the knowing curiosity in the officer’s beady eyes.
Wilks has ice cubes in a towel, and that towel held against her skull. ‘I’ve had worse.’
Rusty’s eyebrows arch. ‘You have? Then might I recommend you try and do your job without getting your ass whooped in the process?’
Wilks is silent.
Rusty feels bad. It’s not her nature to kick a person when she’s down but Rusty’s tired and stoned and paranoid and her blood sugar is low. A saint could get irritable given such provocation.
She opens her mouth to apologise, but Wilks is already turning, already heading off to make a call or check something out or to have a moment to herself.
‘What are your thoughts, Officer?’
Sabrowski isn’t paying attention so gives her a dumbfounded expression when she looks to him for an answer.
‘What are your thoughts?’ she says again. ‘What do you think happened here?’
‘Someone shot the big dude on the floor. Not when he was on the floor, I mean. They shot him before. That’s why he’s on the floor.’
‘Thank you for the clarification, Officer.’
The medical examiner, tired and irritable like Rusty, shoots her a little grin because they’re kindred sarcastic SOBs. She winks at him in return.
Rusty’s phone rings. She sees the caller ID and steps outside to take it, making sure to avoid the yellow splats of Zeke’s stomach contents on the doorstep.
‘This is Rusty.’
It’s her friend on the West Coast, working late but not as late as it is here.
Rusty listens.
‘You’re kidding?’ she says when her friend has finished.
Sabrowski knows something is up given Rusty’s expression but he’s not privy to any of the conversation and is eager for enlightenment when Rusty hangs up. Rusty ignores him.
She finds Wilks in the kitchen, getting some more ice for her head. She stands before her for a moment, trying to find the words.
‘What is it?’ she asks.
‘What is it?’ Rusty echoes. ‘It’s more what it’s not, Agent Wilks.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’
‘I have this friend,’ she explains. ‘From way back. Like, the Dark Ages back. Bet you have friends like that too, don’t you? You’ve been through something together and you end up with a fierce bond that survives distance, that even survives decades. The kind of friend you can call up out of the blue and they’ll drop everything to help you. You have friends like that?’
Wilks says nothing.
‘I have,’ Rusty continues. ‘She’s been in the military, in law enforcement. She’s done all sorts of work she can’t tell me about and met all sorts of people in the process. She’s done so much for so many that she could get a meeting with the President quicker than you or I could see our bank managers. This friend of mine, this connected friend of mine, I called her earlier today, you see. After you and your newly dead associate left my office. I called her because something wasn’t quite right and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I tell her about the two FBI agents who came to see me this morning when no one from the Bureau has so much as pissed up the wall of my building since I’ve been chief. I tell this good friend of mine that something isn’t right, that although you’ve got the badges and the suits and the holier-than-thou expressions, something’s missing. I don’t know what that something is, but if she could ask around and check out a couple of Feds by the name of Wilks and Messer and let me know what she finds I would be mightily appreciative.’ Rusty pauses. ‘Care to guess what she found?’
Wilks is silent.
‘That’s exactly right,’ Rusty says. ‘She found nothing. She found nothing about a pair of FBI agents named Wilks and Messer because Wilks and Messer aren’t FBI. Which is all kinds of confusing to a simple girl like myself.’ She pushes her thumbs against her temples to emphasise the point. ‘So, Not-So-Special Agent Wilks, you want to tell me who you really are and what you’re really doing in my town before I arrest you for impersonating a federal agent?’
‘We should probably talk about this in private.’
Rusty nods. ‘Now why did I have a funny feeling you were going to say those exact words?’
12:05 a.m.
Aside from a quick pit stop in an all-night coffee shop – or was it a diner? – we stay on the move. Keeping mobile feels safer than the alternative. Trevor isn’t saying much and neither am I. There’s too much to think about and the silences are intense. I long simply to have a conversation about something boring and mundane like the weather to ease the anxiety but small talk is beyond either of us right now.
It’s not long before we need to stop at a gas station because the needle is threateningly close to the red line and the last thing I want to do is run out of fuel. Trevor stays in Carlson’s car while I go inside to pay.
There’s a kind of awkwardness I feel doing this. I know I’ve done nothing wrong, that I have only acted in self-defence, but I still feel like a criminal, like a fugitive. I suppose I am because I’ve failed to report a crime or left the scene of a crime or whatever. I’ve no idea what laws apply here nor which ones I may have broken and may be currently breaking. Ignorance is no defence, I know, but there’s too much else on my mind right now.
I pick up some water and some snacks because I don’t know how long it will be before we will get to eat again. I spend a while browsing the aisles because I barely touched the grilled cheese sandwich I ordered earlier. Seeing all the treats on offer is making me hungry. Of course, my restless, anxious mind won’t let me decide what I want. Actually, I know what I want. I want a nice, freshly made meal, prepared in my own kitchen with my own utensils and using vegetables I’ve grown, and I want to sit down at my own table and ea
t it with Leo and chat about our crazy day and laugh that it’s all over.
Such a simple fantasy, so far out of reach that I wonder if it will ever happen like that again.
Where are you, Leo?
What are you doing right now?
I spend so long browsing that the attendant behind the register is looking at me like I’m a nervous shoplifter. As soon as I notice this I feel anxious to the point of panic, as if I’m guilty until proven innocent. I knock some snacks off their hook and on to the floor in my sudden clumsiness.
They’re back on the shelf soon enough despite my butterfingers and I grab a bag of tortilla chips and a couple of bottles of vitamin-infused water and take them to the counter.
As I pocket my change I say, ‘Do you happen to have a payphone here?’
The young attendant looks at me like I’m crazy. ‘A payphone?’
‘Yeah, you know. A phone that you pay to use.’
‘You don’t have a cell phone?’
‘I have a cell phone but I don’t have it on me. Which is exactly the reason why I need a payphone.’
‘Ah,’ she says, illuminated.
‘So …’
‘So?’
‘Do you have a payphone?’
She shakes her head. ‘Of course not.’
‘Of course not,’ I say back.
Trevor says ‘What kept you?’ when I return to the car.
I slide on to the seat, shaking my head. I pass him the tortilla chips and a bottle of the water which he eyes with suspicion and then proceeds to drop into the footwell as he turns his attention to the chips.
‘Didn’t they have the spicy ones?’
‘I … I don’t know. I was in a daze, Trevor. I’m sorry.’
He grunts to say it doesn’t matter.
‘We need a plan,’ he tells me.
I crack open my bottle of water. ‘That’s kind of the cause of the daze.’
Trevor tears the bag apart. ‘You don’t want to go to the police?’
‘No,’ I say, firm and resolute. ‘I don’t know who is working for the FBI and who isn’t and who is working for a cartel and who isn’t. I don’t know who in authority is on my side and who is against me. I go to Rusty and I may as well put a flashing sign on my head to alert the next Wilks and Messer or Carlson for that matter to come for me.’
Trevor grunts approval. ‘I did say you can’t trust government types.’
Clouds smother the moon.
He crunches on chips and stares out of the windshield. I watch his reflection, fascinated by the intensity of his gaze and the deliberation behind his silver-blue eyes.
‘It’s impossible,’ he says between chews. ‘So don’t bother.’
‘What’s impossible?’
His gaze remains on the outside world. ‘Reading my mind. Isn’t going to happen, so quit trying. Got myself a microchip implant to stop the government using gamma rays to analyse my thoughts.’
I almost – almost – take the bait.
He smiles to himself, pleased enough that I nearly humiliated myself.
‘You’re a mystery, Trevor,’ I reply. ‘One I’m determined to solve.’
‘Might be a better use of your time to solve the mystery of who wants you dead and why they’re looking for your husband.’
‘Noted.’
I give it a go. Fail.
Trevor sucks salt from his fingers. ‘If I might make a suggestion … ’
I swallow. Nod with vigour. ‘Please, I’m all ears.’
‘What do these people want?’
‘As far as I’m concerned I can’t believe what anyone’s told me so far today. Leo’s a money launderer, he’s a thief … he has cartel information, he’s an FBI informant.’
‘Okay.’ He pauses, tries again. ‘What do they have in common?’
‘They’re looking for Leo.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s a money launderer or a thief or a secret bus driver.’
Trevor nods. ‘There you go then.’
‘There I go what?’
‘That’s what you need to find out. Which is it? What is Leo? Then, when you know that, you’ll be able to work out what they actually want with him.’
‘That sounds great in theory, Trevor, but how am I supposed to find out in the first place?’
He shrugs. Munches on chips. ‘He’s your husband, not mine. You should know him better than anyone.’
‘Right now I feel like I don’t know him at all. Whatever he is, whatever he’s been doing, he’s kept it a secret from me for a long time.’ I shake my head. ‘I feel like an idiot. I feel like I’ve been duped into believing he’s something he’s not.’
‘You don’t know what he’s kept secret from you so don’t judge yourself too harshly.’
‘Judging myself too harshly is kind of my MO. If there’s one person in all this I trust least of all it’s me.’
‘That’s TV talk.’
‘TV talk?’
‘Yeah,’ he says with vigour. ‘TV talk. The nonsense they go on about on TV nowadays. Everyone’s got this problem and that condition and no one ever has just a bad day because everyone’s got to be depressed instead. You know why that is?’
I roll my eyes. ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
‘Damn straight I am. Everyone’s got to have something wrong with them because there’s no profit in a bad day. A snake oil salesman can’t sell you snake oil if there’s nothing wrong with you. And people lap it up. They lap it up because it gives them an excuse. They are absolved of responsibility for their actions because there’s this wrong with them or that wrong with them. How did folks get by in the past if they were all suffering undiagnosed and untreated? Civilisation should have ground to a halt long before now.’
My cheeks are warm with rushing blood. ‘Just because you have no direct experience of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’
‘Sometimes a bad day is just a bad day.’
‘You’re being incredibly insensitive right now.’
He huffs. ‘Insensitive … ’
‘Yeah, insensitive.’
‘To who?’
‘Me, for one. And to a lot of other people too. You may have been blessed with a hardy, healthy brain but that’s not the case for everyone. The brain is an organ like any other. Sometimes, things go wrong. Someone has a bad heart, you don’t tell them there’s nothing wrong with their heart because your own heart is fine, do you?’ He doesn’t answer quick enough for my righteous fury. ‘Do you?’
He mumbles something that I take as a sign of concession.
‘Show a little sympathy for those less fortunate than yourself, please.’
‘I’m just saying that sometimes a bad day is just a bad day.’
‘Yeah, sometimes it is,’ I agree. ‘Today, for example. Today has been a really bad day.’
He presents the bag of tortilla chips my way. ‘Take a handful. They’ll make you feel better.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t eat PUFAs.’
‘What the hell is a PUFA when it’s at home?’
‘Polyunsaturated fatty acid,’ I say.
Trevor’s expression tells me he doesn’t pay a lot of attention to nutrition.
‘Vegetable oil,’ I explain. ‘Well, they call it vegetable oil, but it’s seed oil really. PUFAs go rancid really quick. They cause huge amounts of oxidative stress in the body, triggering inflammation that can lead to a whole host of problems ranging from heart disease to diabetes.’
Trevor is wide-eyed. ‘You’re saying all sorts of things but I’m not hearing any of it.’
‘Poison, Trevor,’ I say. ‘Those chips are fried in poison.’
Now his mouth is wide open like his eyes.
‘Screw it,’ I say, reaching my hand into the bag. ‘Diabetes is the least of my concerns right now.’
Trevor smiles. ‘There you go. Always an upside.’
I crunch for a little while. They really are all kinds of
delicious.
‘Got it,’ I say.
Trevor’s eyebrows arch like two bushy caterpillars. ‘Diabetes? That was fast.’
‘Ha, ha,’ I say with a sneer. ‘No, not diabetes. I’ve got a plan.’
Trevor brushes salt from his fingertips. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘We’re going to give Leo an audit.’
‘We are?’
I nod. ‘Whatever they want, whatever the truth is, we know it’s related to Leo’s wine business. Whether it’s being used as a cover to launder money or whatever, it’s his business that is enabling it.’
‘If you say so.’
‘So, let’s go take a peek in Leo’s books.’
‘Why?’
‘Because numbers don’t lie.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will,’ I say. ‘Now take this bag off me before I eat the lot.’
Trevor does, and peers inside. ‘You’ve made a pretty good dent in them already. Not sure there’s enough left to—’
‘Not the time, Trevor. Not the time.’
Trevor can’t sit still. He’s restless, fidgeting. I can see that he’s working up to say something and I’m happy to let him give me more time to think things through.
Eventually, Trevor says, ‘Jem, I’m—’
‘No need to apologise for all the TV talk stuff,’ I interrupt. ‘I’ve already forgiven you.’
He grumbles. ‘Actually, I was going to say that I’ll drive us if you’re feeling tired.’
I shoot a sideways look. He’s got a little wry smile on his face.
‘Don’t change, Trevor,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t ever change.’
But I need to change. I need to stop believing what people tell me.
As Trevor said: I can only trust myself. I can’t take anyone else’s word for anything. I need to get to the bottom of this myself.
Then, only then, will I know who’s been telling me the truth.
12:17 a.m.
There’s a lot of road to traverse before we get to Leo’s warehouse and hence a lot of time to think, to worry. There are so many things on my mind to be concerned with that it’s a surprise when the one that demands immediate attention is a grumpy old dog.
