Written in Blood

by Layton Green

  In the center of the room, four people Preach had never seen before were lounging around a wooden table. Ashtrays overflowed next to shot glasses and a bottle of rye whiskey. Underneath the table, a pit bull eyed the newcomers as it gnawed on a broom handle.

  “Officer Kirby and Detective Everson,” the same voice boomed. It was coming from a burly man at the head of the table, his face swallowed by a bushy black beard that cut off in a straight line with his moustache. He wore a flannel shirt underneath a motorcycle jacket, and a brown wool cap pulled low. His dark eyes possessed an unsettling mixture of deadness and energy, like twin lumps of coal still glittering in the vein. “I saw you on the news.”

  The door clanged when it swung shut. The pit bull growled softly, and Preach saw Kirby tense up beside him.

  “Mac,” Kirby said, with an uneasy edge to his voice. Preach realized his partner’s introduction was meant for him. “Big Mac Dobbins.”

  “Welcome to my humble establishment, gentlemen. What can I do ya for?”

  Preach took a look at the two men beside Mac. The man on the far left was missing a front tooth and wore a flannel vest over a long underwear shirt. The skinnier redhead had a Walking Dead T-shirt, pierced eyebrows, and leather wristbands with iron spikes.

  Sitting next to Mac was a striking Asian American woman with fur-trimmed boots propped on the table. Tribal tattoos writhed up her crossed legs and disappeared beneath a black leather skirt.

  Preach could tell at a glance that these people belonged to a different breed from Wade. All four had the kind of mean, hardscrabble eyes that told Preach that wherever they had come from, their parents hadn’t met for barbecues around the neighborhood pool.

  “I hope we’re not disturbing you,” Preach said. “We just have a few questions.”

  “If you’re not with the IRS, you’re not disturbing us. So what’s on your mind, Preach? That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”

  “My friends do,” he said. As far as he knew, his nickname wasn’t public knowledge. Mac had been keeping tabs. “You can call me Detective Everson.”

  A throaty laugh escaped the woman, and Preach noticed the hands of the other two men slip below the table. Kirby folded his arms, the woman recrossed her legs, and Mac poured himself a shot and held the bottle up. “Care for a drink? We like to welcome our neighbors right and proper ’round here.”

  There was a hardness to Mac’s aura that went beyond that of the other three, a dangerously careless vibe, as if Mac had crossed lines in life he shouldn’t have crossed.

  “Wade told us you can vouch for his whereabouts last night,” Preach said. “Is that true?”

  Mac downed the shot. “He was playing poker with us right here at this table. All of us except Mina. Where were you last night, honey? Out causing mischief?”

  “I’m a good girl, Mac,” she purred. Straight black hair framed her heart-shaped face, and her arms were folded across a lavender shawl. Her mouth puckered when at rest, and she was so skinny her collarbone jutted out like a ship’s mast.

  Mac lowered his eyes and shook his head. “Girl, if you’re good, then I don’t wanna know bad. Hell no,” he said, with a rumbling belly laugh.

  “What time did Wade start playing last night?” Preach asked.

  Mac eyed the other two. “What was it boys, around eleven?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s right, Mac. Right before eleven.”

  Preach let his gaze rest on the other two men, who gave him defiant stares. “And when did he leave?”

  “About dawn, I reckon,” Mac said. “Poker night tends to get frisky.”

  Preach was aware he was lying. He was also aware that Mac didn’t give a damn that he knew.

  “Do you have video surveillance?”

  Mac chuckled. “We prefer to deal with security on our own. Keeps overhead down.”

  “That’s risky business,” Preach said. “Things could get out of hand.”

  “Oh, they’d get out of hand all right.” Mac set a fist on the table and rubbed his thumb slowly against his forefinger, eying Preach as if lancing a boil. “Real quick-like.”

  In the ensuing silence, the dog began to growl, and Preach resisted the urge to reach for his gun.

  “Wade’s a good boy,” Mac said finally. “You should leave him be.”

  “I prefer to think of him as a grown man,” Preach said, “and I’ll make my own decisions. But as long as your story doesn’t conflict with any other information we receive, then we’re done here.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Mac said, pouring himself another shot as Preach and Kirby turned to leave. “Real good.”

  5

  “So who are they?” Preach asked, as they walked to the car. “Local dealers?”

  Kirby unwrapped a protein bar. “They’re bad news is who they are. Crank and pot and pharmies, mostly, but they’ve got a hand in other stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  “Breaking and entering, dogs, car boosts, gambling. Who knows what else.”

  “Sounds more like a mafia enterprise than a drug ring,” Preach said. Then muttered, “Only in Creekville do crime lords own coffee shops.”

  “That’s right,” Kirby said, smirking. “We’ve got a hipster mafia.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Mac owns the Rabbit Hole?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  Preach stopped walking. “Why not?”

  “He has lots of business interests. I guess that’s one of them.”

  Preach sucked in a breath, reminding himself that this wasn’t Atlanta. “You have to keep track of your major players. What’s his history?”

  “He came out of some trailer park on the South Carolina border, in the system at thirteen, swept into town like Darth Vader about three years ago. We’ve never pinned anything on him, and his people are too scared to roll.”

  “And the girl?” Preach asked, as they got into the car and headed for the station.

  “Mina Hawes. Her mom’s Korean or Bangladeshi or something, I forget, but they’re from some shitty apartment complex right down the street. Mina’s sheet’s as dirty as Mac’s is clean. A pair of burglaries, second degree arson, domestic violence—she beat the hell out of an ex with a tire iron. Got some legs, though, huh? Like a pair of saplings.”

  The police station came into view, a plain brick building with white awnings right in the middle of downtown. The station was located on the second floor, above a gluten-free bakery and an ice cream parlor. Preach grimaced every time he saw it. Who put a police station on the second floor?

  “My guess is the toxicology report will show illicit substances in Farley’s system,” the detective said, as they parked in the rear lot.

  “You’re thinking Mac was his dealer, and Farley stole some stash or threatened to roll? And Wade was the point man?”

  “I doubt Wade pulled the trigger, but he might have gotten someone inside the home.” Preach shook his head and cursed softly, hoping his old friend wasn’t involved.

  “What about the crosses?” Kirby asked.

  “Any chance Mac’s a Dostoevsky scholar?” Preach asked.

  “About the same chance he plays Ultimate Frisbee in the quad on the weekends.”

  Preach and Kirby briefed Chief Higgins back at the station. Officer Terry Haskins joined in, reporting that none of the neighbors had seen or heard anything suspicious. Officer Haskins was a narrow-faced thirty-year-old with a widow’s peak and naturally arched eyebrows, as if he were in a constant state of perplexity. The chief told him to reach out to Farley’s sister and look into the bookstore’s finances.

  Preach got a head start on his paperwork while Kirby looked up an address for J. T. Belker, the writer Ari had overheard arguing with the victim in the bookstore.

  “J. T. lives at 725 Hager Street,” Kirby said, eying his watch in embarrassment as he approached Preach’s cubicle. “That’s out by the tracks. Listen, I told my sister I’d watch my nephew tonight, while she takes my niec
e to her recital. Sis is injured and can’t drive, Kayla would be heartbroken, and we don’t really have anyone else—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Preach said. “I’ll talk to the writer.”

  “I’ll be done by nine.”

  “Let’s regroup in the morning. Do me a favor and check with Evidence before you leave.”

  As Preach was leaving the station, Chief Higgins beckoned him to her office. The chief was a top-heavy redhead with oily skin and a thin, determined mouth. She had cut her teeth in Charlotte, where her former husband had died young and in the line of duty. She was the only person in the building besides Preach with homicide experience.

  He updated her on progress, and she folded her oddly graceful hands on the desk, making soft hmms as she took in the news. Chief Higgins was full of seeming contradictions: an overweight vegan, a gun-toting liberal, and a North Carolinian who didn’t care for any of the Big Three: BBQ, beer, or basketball.

  “You sure you’re okay to handle this?” she said.

  He sat in the metal chair and fiddled with an hourglass paperweight. “The first murder in my hometown in a decade, a month after I start? Fate is a complicated thing, Chief. I believe you ignore it at your peril.”

  “Is that some kinda religious saying?”

  “What does fate have to do with religion? Unless you’re a Calvinist?”

  “I dunno, I guess I’m not that deep. Fate to me is getting hit by a car. Or not.”

  Preach leaned back in his chair, watching the sand seep through the center of the hourglass. “I’m going to do my job.”

  “We can try to bring in someone from Durham or Raleigh.”

  “You know how that will turn out. I’ll be fine. Thanks for the concern.”

  “It’s not just about you,” she said quietly.

  Preach set the paperweight back on the desk. “What happened in Atlanta was different. A one-off. This is a straight murder, and I’ve cleared dozens of them.”

  “Therapy?”

  “I start in two days,” he said evenly. “We both know it’s just a rubber stamp.”

  She took a sip of masala chai and folded her hands on the desk. “We’ll do our best to give you what you need.”

  “What about Kirby? He expressed an interest, and I think he shows promise.”

  “An interest in what, being on TV? I’ll give him some rope.”

  “Why don’t I know about Mac Dobbins yet?” Preach asked.

  She nodded. “He’s an up and comer, all right. Smarter than the rest of the yahoos trying to deal drugs around here. Kept his nose clean so far, but I agree—he’s dangerous.”

  Her phone rang. When Preach rose to leave, she said, “I know it’s Creekville, but keep your wits about you. Things have changed around here. Hell, small town America has changed.”

  The lights of Creekville sparkled in the headlamps of Preach’s car. Downtown consisted of a few blocks of two- and three-story brick buildings, but the hustle and bustle was frenetic for such a tiny town. Part of it was the nearby university, part of it was the starry-eyed bohemian vibe that attracted wanderers and artistic types from all over.

  He cranked the heater. The temperature had gone into free fall. As he drove, he thought about the two crosses and the anomaly they presented. He had told Kirby that most homicides were creatures of the obvious, and they were.

  Easy motives, easy chain of evidence. Murder by numbers.

  What he hadn’t told the younger officer was that when it came to some crimes, some psyches, statistics were worthless. He had learned that not only on the force, but as a chaplain in some of the worst prisons in the country. Listening to the confessions of minds so bankrupt his skin prickled from the toxic energy seeping through the glass barrier. Dealing with moral compasses so skewed from the norm that he wondered if he were talking to a human being at all, and not some other lifeform that had evolved on a separate evolutionary track, irrational to the rest of humanity.

  He passed the turn to his mother’s house and remembered they were supposed to have dinner. Since her house was three minutes away, he decided to let her down in person.

  Virginia Everson still taught sociology at UNC, but Preach’s father had died of a heart attack three years before. His mother had stayed in the house, a sparkling white midcentury modern with a wall of windows overlooking the forest. The home was a substantial upgrade from the rustic wood bungalow in which Preach had been raised.

  He parked, and his mother met him at the door. Tall and long-limbed, her hair was a mass of tawny spirals parted in the middle and streaked with gray. She was wearing reading glasses, loose cotton pants, and a beige blouse. None of the piercings, henna tattoos, headbands, and sloganed T-shirts Preach remembered from his youth.

  “I’ve seen the news,” she said. Polite but removed as always. “I take it we’re off tonight?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Does it have to be you?”

  “It’s my job,” he said.

  “I just thought, after Atlanta, that maybe . . .” Her words faded away, and she averted her eyes.

  “Thanks for the concern.”

  They swam in the unasked questions concerning his career. He didn’t want to discuss it, and his mother wouldn’t probe. She recoiled from displaying emotion, public or private. She had always been far more aligned with the aloof hipster crowd, even before it was a thing, than with the finger on the throbbing love pulse of the universe set. That had been his father.

  “Farley Robertson and I went to high school together, you know,” she said.

  “Did you keep up?”

  “We hadn’t spoken in years. We were never close.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Lee was popular but not well-liked, if you know what I mean. In high school, he had a talent for making people feel small. Honestly, he was rather mean.” She rolled her eyes. “God, what a terror teenagers can be. You remember what you put us through, don’t you?”

  “How could I forget?” He checked his watch. He wanted to catch Belker at a reasonable hour. “Look, I have to go.”

  “Son . . .”

  He knew she was worried about him and struggling to voice her emotions, to say something real.

  Just once, he wished she would win the battle.

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “Thanks for coming by to tell me,” she said finally.

  Preach slowed as he pulled onto Hager Street, a ribbon of age-spotted pavement crowded by row houses with cheap siding. Not the worst part of town, but far from the best. A light was on inside Belker’s place. In the yard next door, a neighbor had erected three fake graves for Halloween and labeled the headstones Stalin, Ayn Rand, and Rush Limbaugh.

  Preach and his old crew had often walked the railroad tracks across the street, following them to the trestle in the woods and tossing beer cans into the gushing creek below. The memory felt like a tangible thing, both warped by time and achingly familiar.

  Someone inside Belker’s house peered through the drapes. Preach rang the bell, his hand on his gun. One never knew how a murder suspect would respond, what panicked thoughts might be running through his mind.

  Especially if he was guilty.

  A heavyset man in his late forties opened the door wearing thick glasses, baggy gray sweatpants, and a food-stained T-shirt. His head was bulbous, his hair stringy and balding.

  “Can I help you?”

  Preach displayed his badge and told Belker about the murder. The writer’s uneven mouth contorted into a shocked expression. “Farley’s dead?”

  Preach saw glimmers of something else behind the surprise, something the writer was trying to keep hidden. “You didn’t see it on the news? Talk to anyone in town?”

  “I’ve been home all day. And I don’t watch the news.” He led Preach into a kitchen piled with pizza boxes and crusty dishes, then shook two pills out of a prescription bottle. He downed them with a glass of water.

  “So you’re a full-time write
r?” Preach asked.

  Belker spluttered water into his glass. “No, Detective. I am not.”

  “What else do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a freelance editor. With an odd job here and there,” he muttered, “depending on the month.” He paused as if coming to a realization. “Why are you here?”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions. Shall we sit?”

  Belker’s stoop became almost a hunchback as he grabbed a thermos and led Preach to two sagging armchairs in a living room heaped with uneven stacks of books. Next to Belker’s chair was a clunky laptop on a rolling TV table.

  Preach watched the writer’s eyes bob to and fro, landing everywhere except on him. “What was your relationship to Farley Robertson?”

  “Customer and capitalist.”

  “That’s it?”

  “He was also, I’m sorry to say, my publisher.”

  Preach’s eyebrows lifted. He had to get Farley’s laptop unlocked.

  “He co-owned a small press with Damian Black,” Belker continued. “Pen Oak Press.”

  “So you write horror?”

  “I write novels.”

  “Implying that Damian doesn’t?”

  Belker snorted. “Damian’s a businessman who churns out swill for the lowest common denominator. And of course I’m jealous, before you ask. I’d kill for success like that.”

  Belker stopped talking with his mouth hanging open, realizing what he had said. A vein pulsed on his neck as his hands shifted from his lap to the arms of the chair.

  Preach smiled to disarm him. “Many people would.”

  Belker ran a hand through an oily clump of hair. “I was, of course, speaking metaphorically. Being a successful author is like finding true love: it happens to only a handful of writers in the world, while the rest of us slave away in obscurity.”

  “So why do it?” Preach asked, trying to put him back at ease.

  “Because we writers are called to fail en masse, bash our pens against the jagged rocks of greatness so the flame stays alive until one of us becomes a Proust, a Shakespeare, a Chekhov.” The ugly little man cackled and swept a hand down his chest. “At least, that’s what people want to hear. Do I look suited to anything else to you? My only skill in life is the ability to see how people tick, the hidden gears with all the pooled grease and hidden, dark compartments. I’ve been cursed with the compulsion to share—as if anyone wants to listen. Today’s readers want vampires who look like, well, you.”