Mute

by Brian Bandell

  “I haven’t worked with you before, bitch, and I ain’t starting now,” Moni said, but not over the radio.

  By the time they were approaching the major intersection with Babcock Street, Moni saw flashing red and blue lights far back in her rearview mirror and up ahead. She also saw red traffic lights above the intersection and a smattering of cars racing by at speeds only driven late at night when people think they’re the only cars on the road. The Lagoon Watcher’s pickup didn’t slow one bit. Instead he slammed on his horn in a long wail. It jumbled with the blaring siren of the police car approaching the intersection from the oncoming lane. Somehow, the noise didn’t rattle a car streaking left to right across the truck’s path. The oncoming patrol car created another obstacle by looping around and covering most of the three lanes on the other side of the intersection. Unless the Lagoon Watcher slammed the brakes before crossing, his bones would get crushed inside his truck like a bag of potato chips under boot.

  Anticipating a horrible smashup, Moni held her breath. He didn’t slow down. The Lagoon Watcher whipped his truck to the left just as the car crossed his path. His pickup delivered a hard lick across the car’s rear tire that spun it out—straight into Moni’s lane. As the Lagoon Watcher’s truck avoided the parked police car by jumping the curb on the left side of the road, the struck car hurtled toward Moni with its broadside. Her heart seized up. A chill shot through her body as her headlights showed the rapidly approaching mass of glass and steel. Moni thought of Mariella sitting in the backseat. The innocent child had lost her parents. Now Moni would lead her straight to her death. She hit the brakes and swerved right. They missed the oncoming vehicle, but smacked into the side of Skillings’ patrol car. The blow bumped the patrol car halfway off the road, where a light pole sheared off its right side mirror. If Skillings hadn’t been there, Moni and Mariella would have hit that same pole with much more force.

  “Sorry ‘bout that, darlin’,” Moni said sweetly without Skillings hearing her.

  The next second, Skillings answered her over the radio anyway. “What the fuck was that? Who are you trying to catch, him or me?”

  Moni wouldn’t legitimize such an obnoxious question with a reply. She carefully weaved through the intersection and around the other patrol car as Skillings followed close behind. The Lagoon Watcher had recovered from his off-road jaunt and once again had some distance on them. Not eager to put Mariella’s life in danger once more, Moni hung back while Skillings closed in. With the superior speed of Nina’s patrol car, plus three pairs of flashing lights growing larger in Moni’s rearview mirror, the Lagoon Watcher would soon have a net of officers surrounding him. Then they arrived on his turf. The left side of the road opened up into a small clearing. Out past the line of palm trees, Moni saw the black pool of the Indian River Lagoon. The highway curved closer to the waterline. Soon they were driving about a dozen feet from the home of the bacteria that ate iron, fuel and any living creature that strayed too close.

  The stench of over-salted rotten eggs hit Moni’s nose. It usually smelled of salt, but it shouldn’t reek so putridly. Randy Cooper had described such a stench from the lagoon before the infected gator snared his brother in its jaws and dragged him into an acid bath. Moni pulled her car into the far right lane so she drove as far away from the lagoon as possible. Even with the man who had been stalking Mariella straight ahead of her, Moni couldn’t keep her eyes from drifting off the road and over to the lagoon. They called her. They begged her from beneath the black water. Her head rang as if there were a hive of buzzing bees inside her skull. She could no longer feel her body. She felt the lagoon. She felt its insatiable appetite pulling her and the girl toward it. Moni remembered her father’s words.

  “The lagoon man has a hunger and I smelled it out there today. That girl belongs to his lagoon and he’s coming to take her back. You can’t stop it, so you best get outta the way.”

  Her senses rejoined her body and she quickly realized that she had eased off the gas and let the car drift left. She had been slowing down on the side of the road closest to the lagoon.

  “What am I doing?” Moni exclaimed as she smacked herself in the forehead. She shot a glance toward Mariella. “I’m sorry about that, baby.” The girl didn’t seem bothered in the least.

  Whatever had districted Moni didn’t show any signs of impacting Skillings’ dogged pursuit of the suspect. Her patrol car had once again closed the gap and got into position for another run at him. Out of the corner of her eye, Moni saw a black figure swoop out of the sky above the lagoon. She saw them. They were unmistakable. The thing had purple eyes that gleamed in the night. It smashed through Skillings’ windshield. Her patrol car careened off the road and lost its grip on the ground. It buckled over the curb and rammed straight into the wide pillar of an office building. Shards of glass erupted from the car. Its frame bent as easily as aluminum foil.

  “No!” Moni yelled. She slammed on the brakes and headed for the wreck, which let the Lagoon Watcher turn down a side street without anyone following him. She jumped out of her car and ran to the driver’s side of the battered patrol car. She saw a mess of feathers. The pelican whacked an unconscious Skillings over and over with its long bill. The officer wore a mask of blood and a badly twisted nose. Moni reached through the shattered window, grabbed the bird around the back of its neck and hurled it out of the car. Its feathers flew as it rolled across the pavement before it finally caught its feet under it. The pelican stood and stared down Moni with its glowing purple eyes. She drew her gun and put a bullet between them. The infected creature fell motionless.

  It barely registered that Moni had a cut on her hand from the broken glass when she reached for the window. Sticking her hand in once more, she unlocked the door from the inside and felt Skillings’ neck. She hadn’t broken it and she had a pulse, but it wouldn’t last for long with her gushing blood from that gash on her forehead. Moni wrapped her arms around Skillings’ chest and started pulling her out of the wrecked car. A hulking figure swooped in and grabbed the officer’s feet. Clyde Harrison, Skillings’ usual partner, carefully helped set her down on the grass. He knelt over her in a concerned pose. Then he peered up at Moni—all but strangling her with his eyes. They had embarked on this chase together, but instead of watching her fellow officer’s back, Moni had played it safe and let her take the shot that could end her life.

  Dozens of officers showed up over the next few hours. They all looked like they wanted Moni thrown headfirst into that building, but none more so than lead detective Tom Sneed. He didn’t care about the TV cameras hovering over the smashed patrol car and closely watching the officers on the scene. The moment he saw her, Sneed tore into Moni with a thunder that resonated for blocks away.

  “There’s a damn good officer nearly dead because of you!” Sneed shouted as he lumbered his bulky frame toward her with his finger jutting in her face. “Why did you refuse her order to box him in?”

  “She’s not my superior officer. I don’t take orders from…”

  “The hell you don’t!” The torrent of hot air from his mouth nearly knocked her over. “Skillings has tactical training in automotive pursuit and tons more experience than you in that field. You know that damn well. If you had listened to her instead of playing dolls with your little friend in the back seat, Nina would be leading our killer into a holding cell right now.”

  “I was trying. Look at my car.” Moni pointed out her trusty Taurus, which looked like somebody had gone to town on it with a sledge hammer. “That’s all from my efforts. I nearly got him.”

  “So you ‘nearly’ caught him and got your ass kicked. That’s something to be real proud of,” Sneed said with a snarky smirk. “I pray to God that Nina wakes up, because when she does I wanna hear you give her that answer and see what she has to say about that bullshit. You could have easily ended this without any police casualties if you had done what any good officer would do.”

  Moni knew he really meant, “What any white offi
cer would do.” She bit her tongue and balled up her fists.

  “Maybe I should put you on patrol of the nursery school,” Sneed said. “Or maybe not. You can’t even control that girl of yours. She has you on a leash like you’re her bitch. She’s the one who’s supposed to be doing the barking, but, instead, you are.”

  “I did what any sensible parent would do, but you wouldn’t know that because your ugly ass doesn’t have any kids.” Moni shot a repulsed glare at Sneed’s bulging belly. “Don’t you think the DCF would have a problem with me if I got all Bad Boys on a police chase with an eight-year-old girl tagging along?”

  “Girl, the DCF already has a problem with you, believe me.”

  Something told Moni that he meant those words as a threat more than a warning. She sucked in her breath and finally disengaged from him. As she trotted back toward her car with Mariella peering out the window at all the frantic activity, Moni’s cell phone rang. She wished it was Aaron calling in the middle of the night to check on her. Instead, she got another man. Moni sent Darren straight to voice mail and then made her phone block his number. She had been damaged enough for one day without her ex-boyfriend pretending he gave a damn about her so he could peel her panties off.

  “Douche bag,” Moni mumbled as she smiled for Mariella, who remained inside the car.

  She welcomed the girl into the front seat with her. Moni put her arm around Mariella, who nestled her little head against her shoulder. As she stroked her bandaged fingers through the girl’s silky hair, Moni lamented how close she had come to harm.

  Even though she couldn’t catch the man stalking them on that night, at least she had protected the most important thing in the world, Moni thought. She wished Skillings hadn’t gotten hurt in the process, but now she couldn’t tell anyone about the drawing of the burning man. When the other officers weren’t looking, Moni had fished the picture out of the wrecked car and pocketed it.

  What am I thinking? It’s not a good thing that Nina got hurt. It’s a horrible thing.

  As she drove home with Mariella on her arm, Moni knew she should feel terrible. She didn’t.

  Chapter 26

  Moni laid Mariella in her bed and shut the door. The girl didn’t look sleepy after getting woken up by a little car chase. Still, Moni figured Mariella needed all the rest she could get before another trying day at school.

  She should have hit the sack too, but Moni’s rush of adrenaline wouldn’t settle down. She replayed every swerve and bump of the chase in her mind. If she had clipped him harder on that first hit, he would have spun out. Or if she had listened to Skillings and boxed him in, they might have slowed him and help would have arrived before he reached the lagoon. He would be behind bars right now and not out there as a threat that could spring at Mariella from any direction. Moni’s hands trembled as if they still held the wheel that guided an engine blasting over the asphalt.

  She grabbed her wrist and steadied it. Moni opened the refrigerator door and gazed inside for a few long moments. She felt like cramming everything on the shelves down her pie hole. Instead, she settled on frying up a couple of eggs for some late night breakfast.

  Moni sat down with her plate and grabbed the remote control. She couldn’t turn on the TV. She feared that the first thing she’d see would be a newscast of the crash scene. The cameras must have caught Sneed chewing her out. That’s why Darren had called hoping he could take advantage of her, Moni thought. He always waited for her to throw herself into his arms for refuge any time something went wrong in her life. Not this time.

  Moni called up Aaron. She hoped he slept near his phone. He answered on the fifth ring with a groggy voice. “Hello?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Hello?’ Don’t you know it’s me on the caller ID?”

  “Moni? Aw, I’m sorry. My eyes are still adjusting. Is it morning already?”

  “Well technically, yes. It’s four in the morning.”

  “Oh shit. What happened?” He suddenly sounded more alert. “Are you okay? What about Mariella?”

  She told him everything about the chase, save for the drawing of the burning man, and the strange feeling in her head when she approached the lagoon. She couldn’t even remember how it felt anymore. It seemed like a fleeting dream. Aaron asked her whether she knew for sure that Harry Trainer had been in that pickup. She told him that she didn’t get a clear look at his face, but the vehicle had Trainer’s license plate. He accepted the evidence. She knew his professor would seek another explanation, just as he would if they had caught the Lagoon Watcher with a machete in one hand and a severed head in the other.

  When Aaron learned about Skillings’ serious injuries, he stopped asking anxious questions about the pursuit. He went silent. This time, someone he knew had gotten hurt. Moni recalled the first time she learned that police work was no rumpus adventure. She had stood over the flag-draped coffin of a 24-year veteran and then watched his sobbing wife and kids receive the flag. Luckily, they wouldn’t need that for Skillings now, but Moni knew either one of them could have been body-bagged after that chase. The pelican might have struck the wrong car.

  With the Lagoon Watcher still lurking in the dark, body bags with the names Moni and Mariella on them might yet get filled with their cold, stiff contents.

  “Will you come by again after I pick Mariella up from school?” Moni asked.

  “Sure. Why don’t I come in the morning and meet you after you drop her off? You sound a little shaken up. Maybe you should call in sick.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t you have class in the morning?”

  “I have lab with Dr. Swartzman. I can blow it off.”

  “Hold on there, slacker. Don’t make me bring you in for cutting class,” she said playfully. It didn’t escape her that if he came by after she dropped the girl off, they would be in her house alone. That playa better check himself. “But for real, there’s a ton of evidence you and your professor need to go over. I’m sure the pelican that attacked Nina was infected, but you better make sure. And there’s more stuff from the marina explosion, so, put your work in and then come by.”

  “Alright.” He sounded bummed that he didn’t have an out from his studies. “But this time, I’m stopping for pizza first. And with extra pepperoni.”

  “Okay, I can live with that. I’ll see you… tonight.” She ended the conversation with a smile—a total 180 from where she began it.

  * * * *

  Moni kept Mariella under her watchful eye that afternoon. The girl tried going outside to the back porch, but she wouldn’t let her anywhere near the water. She felt a chill every time the girl walked by the rear sliding glass door. She still hasn’t replaced the screen that the infected snake had destroyed.

  She had Mariella sit on the coach, where she breezed through her math homework in a few minutes.

  “Good job, baby.” Moni smiled warmly. “Every time I finished my homework, my momma used to give me a Popsicle. Would you like one?”

  The girl nodded eagerly. Moni took one each of the four flavors out of the freezer and let her choose. To her relief, Mariella picked strawberry and not grape. Not that it would have meant anything if the girl had showed a tendency for purple since she has nothing wrong with her, Moni thought. Tropic the cat stretched with his back arched and placed his front paws on Mariella’s lap as he begged for a lick of the treat. A cat can avoid its owners all day, and then it sees them eating and all of a sudden it’s their best friend. The girl extended a gooey red finger for the purring feline.

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Tropic bolted to Moni’s bedroom before he scored a taste.

  “Save some room. That must be our friend, Aaron, with the pizza,” Moni said. The girl didn’t seem all that thrilled, but at least she didn’t run away like Tropic.

  Keeping her eyes on the sliding door, Moni undid the chain and swung open the front door. “I’m glad you could…” When she saw those deceptively charming brown eyes and that dimpled chin, she nearly swallowed her tongue.
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  “Make it? Well I sure am too,” said Bo Williams. Inviting himself in, Moni’s father stepped through the doorway before she could regain her faculties, and slam it in his face. He spun around and guided the door firmly closed. “You’re looking mighty fine for someone who’s been in a car wreck.”

  She shrank from his gaze and avoided meeting his eyes. “I got cut up a bit pulling the other officer out.” Moni held up her bandaged hand in the hope that he wouldn’t beat on an injured woman. Her memories of her bruised mother’s pleas for mercy told her that it wouldn’t make one bit of difference. When her mother had blocked the entrance to Moni’s room, he had shoved her. Moni remembered hearing her mother’s head thud against the wall and then her mother’s soft sobs as her father penetrated her room. Then he came to her closet.

  “I saw you bleed’n on TV and figured I oughta come over and make sure you’re okay.” Her father’s bushy eyebrows arched into his crinkly forehead in an expression of sincerity fit for a vulture.

  “I’m fine. Thank you.” She started backing toward the couch so she could shield Mariella from the man who had left a scar on her life; Mariella had enough lasting wounds.

  “I see you’ve got company.” His eyes shifted toward Mariella. He strolled toward her. Even at 51, Bo Williams had retained much of his burly frame from his days as a linebacker. His skin had gotten as wrinkled as an old leather sofa, but he still had sturdy muscles under there. The man walked with a slight limp from a sore hip. Too bad Moni couldn’t outrun him with her back against the wall—a position he always caught her in.

  “I reckon this is my new granddaughter.” He leaned over and put his hands on his knees. A smile crossed the prickly hairs of his unshaven face. “I’m Grandpa Bo. What’s yer name sweetheart?”

  The way he eyed her like a tasty new chew toy made Moni’s stomach curdle. She stepped in front of Mariella and shielded her from his gaze. The girl grabbed a hold of her leg.