Red Fish, Dead Fish

by Amy Lane

  Mike beamed at her, quiet worship, and Ellery got absurdly close to tears.

  “Go get the file,” he said, wiping under his eye with his third finger. “Let’s see if we can send somebody out there to check for him.”

  “Good,” Jade agreed. “Because sitting here pretending it’s all okay was driving me batshit.”

  BY NINE o’clock, Ellery had talked to one Eric Pierpont, and the news was not heartening.

  “Jackson? Yeah, sure. He seemed okay when I saw him. A little, you know, wired, but then someone had smashed his window in with a knife hilt, and he’d spent about ten minutes holding a gun on those drug dealers until the police got there.”

  “More like five,” Ellery said, not liking the hyperbole. “I was the idiot on the other end of the phone.”

  “Oh,” Pierpont said, like this explained a lot. “Well, he’s very loyal. You should know that. I told him I was interested, and he said he was taken straight off. Some guys would have tried to play, you know?”

  Ellery grunted. “Yeah. I know. But where did he go afterward? Do you know?”

  “Well, he asked the kid about someone out in Meadowview, and the kid gave him a description of the house before we took him away. He was trying to find a drug dealer, I think. Someone named Bobby or—”

  “Billy.” Okay. Good. So that had been the same plan Ellery knew about, and there’d been a reason behind it. Ellery could deal with a reason. “We sort of know why he was going there—but he should have been back by now. Can you think of anything else?”

  Pierpont made some unspecific sounds over the phone. “Uh… look, your guy didn’t have… you know, a problem, did he?”

  Uh-oh. “Define problem.”

  “Well, he showed me how the drug business worked—the drug packets were folded up in the papers. It was pretty clever. But the paper he showed me had one packet, and as we were doing the inventory, we noticed that all other papers had two. At first I thought ‘Oh well, drug dealers—not always the brightest bulbs in the pack,’ right? But you calling up, and him wanting to go to Meadowview to find another dealer….”

  “Two and two does not make five,” Ellery said flatly. “Jackson won’t even take painkillers most of the time. He’s got a full bottle of oxy from when he came home from the hospital, and he was shot.”

  Jade was listening on speakerphone. “And he hates needles,” she threw in for good measure. It was true—too much time being hurt. Just the thought of the shunt in his shoulder had made him nauseous.

  “Okay. Well, would there be another reason for him to sneak a dime bag of heroin?”

  “No,” Jade said flatly. “Must have been coincidence.”

  Ellery analyzed her expression—but he bided his time. To Pierpont he said, “I know you’re off shift right now—”

  “No, not a problem. I’ve got a buddy on patrol near there. I’ll have her check it out.”

  “Good, thank you.” He swallowed, thinking about this nice, cheerful officer hitting on Jackson and taking no for an answer. Thought of him taking Ellery and Jade’s word for it that Jackson hadn’t stolen drugs from a crime scene—and about the last time he’d seen Jackson at a crime scene he had nothing to do with, and how the police hadn’t been nearly so friendly. “Sincerely,” he added. “Thank you.”

  “I’m a friend of Mack Davis. He’s always told me Rivers is a good guy. I didn’t see anything today to change that. Cops can be assholes—I try not to be.”

  Ellery let out a steady breath. “Mission accomplished. Call me if you hear anything, okay?”

  “Will do. I, uh, hope we only hear good news.”

  Ellery squeezed his eyes shut. “Me too.” His voice was way huskier than he would have liked.

  They rang off, and Ellery looked at the bottom of his empty coffee cup. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “What if he, you know. Went ho—back to my place. What if he’s there and I’m not there?”

  “Good idea,” Jade said gruffly. “Just, you know. Tell us if you hear any news.”

  Ellery looked her in the eye. “What were you thinking when you heard about the drugs? You don’t think he’s going to use them, but you had something in mind.”

  Jade fidgeted, looking over his shoulder for Mike. “You’re going to have to fill in the blank all on your own, buttercup. This is your ghetto—” Mike stopped and swore. “I’m sorry.” And then, as though by rote, “That was culturally insensitive of me, and I am desperately trying not to be the cracker you first thought I was when we met.”

  Jade laughed and scrubbed her fingers through the waves of hair at her nape. “I hate this ’do,” she muttered. “I mean, it looks good, but braids were always the fuck outta the way, you know?”

  She was tired, and the accents of her college education fell away, leaving her with the same cadence Jackson spoke in when he wasn’t paying attention. Something about this little pocket of the universe trapped a mix of your basic Southern accent, street Spanish, and, God help them all, surfer lingo in the language of the natives. Ellery had noticed that it went beyond socio- or even economic groups. It was like the area was one big melting pot.

  Well, it was.

  “I know,” Mike said kindly. He moved from his spot by the coffeemaker, around the table, so he could massage her shoulders. “It’s your hair, hon. However you want it. You know I think you’re beautiful.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled shyly. “Okay—you need to not say ‘cracker’ when you give the speech. You’re not that guy. You can say ‘uneducated.’ That’s closer, okay?”

  Mike nodded, and Ellery had to wonder how many rough patches they’d ridden to get to the spot where they had the language to deal with race and region and cultural sensitivity without rubbing each other raw.

  Maybe the world could take note.

  “I’ll say anything you want.” He bent and kissed the top of her head. “But you should probably answer Ellery’s question so he can drive home and worry about Jackson.”

  “And feed his cat,” Ellery acknowledged.

  Jade grimaced. “He’s talking to a drug dealer, Ellery. I mean, we both know he doesn’t use, but he could use it as ID—hey, is this your product? He could use it as a bribe for a junkie—give me your dealer and I’ll give you a fix now for free—”

  “That’s not very bright of them.”

  “They’re junkies, Ellery. They’ve killed a lot of brain cells getting to that point. Anyway—I think he took it for one of the above. He was going to walk into a drug dealer’s den, and he figured it would come in handy. The cops never logged it. Pierpont didn’t see him palm it—”

  “I take it he’s done that before,” Ellery said dryly.

  Jade raised her eyebrows. “For a while, in the sixth grade, he’d bring me and Kaden candy bars. Took us a couple of months, ’cause we were kids and kids are stupid, but we realized he’d been stealing them from one of the five liquor stores on our block. We told him to quit it or we’d have to tell Mom, and he stopped, but he must have been good, ’cause he never got caught.”

  Ellery’s heart twisted. He nodded and stood, keeping his face averted. “I’ll just see myself out—”

  Jade threw herself into his arms and hugged him tight. “Mike will walk you out,” she said. “There’s still cops outside, remember? It’s not safe.”

  He had no choice but to hug her back, surprised at how comforted he felt by her soft, solid body and her warmth. She wore something exotic-smelling in her hair, and that comforted him too.

  “He’ll….” He couldn’t finish that thought.

  “He’ll come home,” she told him.

  In the end what got him to his car and through a simple handshake with Mike was faith in her word.

  He got home and was greeted by Billy Bob, bitching at him piteously. Jackson—who had been working only part-time for the last two months—was not home.

  Ellery usually waited until he’d undressed to pick the cat up. He spent enough time with th
e lint roller on his slacks as it was. But today he walked through the door and scooped the damned cat into his arms, careful of the mostly healed missing leg but needing the warm animal smell and the reminder of Jackson more than he needed a clean suit.

  “Heya, buddy. How you doing?”

  Billy Bob swore at him. At least Ellery assumed it was swearing, because Jackson wouldn’t even own an animal that couldn’t say “Fuck you, bub. I’m hungry, lonely, and pissed!” in whatever tongue it favored.

  “Yeah, I miss him too.”

  More swearing, followed by the cat unexpectedly touching noses with him and scent-marking him with a little free drool thrown in. Ellery let him finish and then carried the cat to the bedroom bath so he could wipe his face off.

  “That was sweet,” he muttered, spitting fur. “Maybe don’t love me so mu—”

  The cat did it again, and Ellery let him, trying really hard to keep his lips closed. Finally he just sank down to the bed, slacks and all, and cuddled the cat, since Billy Bob wasn’t going anywhere. After a moment he pulled out his phone with the intention of calling Pierpont and riding his ass for news he obviously didn’t have yet.

  Instead he found himself on the phone with his mother.

  “Ellery! So nice to hear from you. At twelve o’clock at night.”

  Ellery pictured Taylor Cramer as she’d been around midnight all through his childhood. During the day she wore impeccably tailored suits with sensibly heeled pumps and, always, hose.

  At night she changed into pajama pants—something soft and tasteful. His father got her a new pair for Chanukah and for her birthday, every year, with a T-shirt to match. She’d be wearing one now and a pair of fluffy, angel-soft slippers, with a blanket or shawl Ellery’s sister had crocheted her recently. Rebecca had started the craft in high school, and although their mother had been bemused by all the expenditures on yarn, she’d been grateful for every gift. (Rebecca had once told Ellery that she would, just once, like to crochet for their mother in a color other than black, camel, cream, ecru, or white—but she picked interesting patterns and luxury fibers to keep herself from getting bored.)

  “Hi, Mother. I was just….” Oh God. His mother didn’t do sentiment. She did legal sharkery, but tonight Ellery needed comfort, and he felt like a foolish child for even picking up the phone in the first place. Billy Bob meowed plaintively, and Ellery fondled his ears, trying to think of something to say.

  “How’s Jackson?” Taylor said into the silence. “Has he resigned himself to being a part of the family yet?”

  Ellery let out a sharp bark of unhappiness. “I would have to say that’s a big no.”

  “Oh, Ellery—are you having problems? I’d ask if you two had broken up, but I hear the cat in the background. One thing I know about your young man is that he’s not going anywhere without that cat.”

  Except he did. “He’s having a tough time right now,” Ellery said gruffly. “There’s….” Too many things to count.

  “Ellery, spit it out. I’m starting to worry.”

  Crap—he really had to get it together. “His house got vandalized, his mother died, and he’s disappeared.”

  His mother’s gasp of breath on the other end of the line was oddly reassuring. It meant he wasn’t alone in being worried.

  “Oh, Ellery—what have you done to find him?”

  God—Mom! “I tracked his phone—it’s been destroyed. I called the police to look for him in the place he was last, and they’re doing that. He’s only been off the grid for a couple of hours—”

  “How did you let him go?” The censure—and the horror—in her voice was also reassuring.

  It meant he wasn’t alone.

  The story of their morning poured out, from Jackson’s oddly disturbing good-bye kiss to the fight in the house, the trip to the morgue, oh-God-Owens, and Jackson’s insistence on continuing the investigation like it was any other day.

  “Oh,” she said softly when he was done. “You didn’t really let him go, then. He ran away.”

  “No,” Ellery protested automatically, trying to be sure. “If he’d really run away, he would have taken his cat.”

  “That’s not what I meant—not that he was going for good, Ellery, but… you know. Like the cat. If he hears a scary noise, he’ll run away.”

  Billy Bob drooled on his lap and marked the shoulder of his suit again.

  “Not this cat. This cat will jump on its head.”

  “In perfect health,” she conceded. “Honey, he was hurting—”

  “Mom, she was a monster—”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course—do I have to tell you about his childhood? Because….” It felt private, but he would, if only to convince her that Jackson was not the grieving son she thought he should be.

  “Ellery, when you were nine you threatened to run away because we refused to get you a puppy. Do you remember that?”

  “No.” Of course he remembered.

  “You wrote up a brief detailing why I would be convicted as the worst mother in the entire world if I didn’t get you a puppy. I kept that brief. It was flawless. I was planning to show it to Jackson when you two visit over Thanksgiving.”

  And that was another twist of the knife.

  “Is there a reason you’re bringing this up?”

  “Ellery, do you love me?”

  “Of course.” There was no question. Yes, his mother was insufferable, meddling, controlling, perfectionistic, and irritating as fuck. But he had never, not once, doubted her love.

  “Jackson’s mother may have been a horrible mother—I’m not going to ask for details, but I do trust you, you know. But even if she was a monster, and he doesn’t have one damned good memory of her, he knows what a good mother should have been. You told me, right? His friend, Jade? Her mother had a hand in his raising. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” Ellery said, remembering how Jade and his mother had clashed—many times—in Jackson’s hospital room.

  “Well, if the mother was anywhere near as bright and resourceful as the daughter—not to mention protective—then Jackson knows what a good mother should be. Do you think he doesn’t mourn that? His mother’s death means that this idea of her, as awful as it is, is final. She will never be that mother he’d always hoped for. Do you understand?”

  Ellery closed his eyes. “Dolly Parton,” he said, remembering Jackson’s blurry rambling over the mutilated body of his mother. “She used to sing Dolly Parton songs. And….” He’d seen this over the summer, right before Jackson had been shot.

  I thought you were out of that, Jacky.

  “She worried about him. Wasn’t going to do anything about it, but, you know—worried.”

  “So maybe just enough to give him some hope. Cruel hope, really, but hope.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think you’re right to be worried, Ellery,” she said after a quiet moment when even the house seemed to breathe. “I don’t think he would have run away for good. But when he comes back, I think he’s going to need some room before he talks about it. It may take years before he admits he’s hurt and sad. You got to give me a brief and tell me all the reasons I failed as a mother, and then we got to compromise and you got a fish tank when your grades proved satisfactory, and I got my annual Mother’s Day chocolate with a minimum of resentment.”

  “Jackson got to throw his clothes in a trash bag and move to his best friend’s apartment when he turned sixteen,” Ellery finished.

  “Charming.” Her breath came out in a rush.

  “It was the high point,” he told her bitterly.

  “Are you worried?”

  “That he’s not home? Did I not just call you out of the blue when you’re in your pajamas?”

  “Don’t bite my head off, Ellery!”

  He took a deep breath and lay back on the bed, figuring his suit was toast. Billy Bob was comfy on his chest anyway, and this conversation with his mother in the dark of his house was as much reassurance as
he was going to get.

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, neither did I. I meant….” The pause was uncharacteristic of her in the extreme. “Are you worried that he’s too damaged to stay?”

  Oh. Ellery rubbed noses with Jackson’s cat, taking in the tattered ears, the broken tooth, the deep trenches in the fur on his face and shoulders from hard-fought battles.

  And don’t forget the bald stump of his back leg, where the fur hadn’t grown back out.

  “There’s no such thing as too damaged.” He tilted his head back and resigned himself to puncture wounds in his shirt.

  “Then as long as he comes back to you, I think he’ll be fine,” she said, and for the first time maybe ever in his life, he realized his mother was bluffing. Her voice was too smooth, too sweet, and oh my God—

  “You’re worried too,” he said, the knot in his stomach exploding all over again.

  “Of course I am,” she said softly. “He’s not home, Ellery, and he needs you. I know you think I’m the worst mother in the world, but I like this young man, and you love him. Of course,” she repeated, her voice dropping to the tones of hurt, “he needs to come home.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said, voice thick. “I actually needed to hear that.”

  “Well, anything to help, honey,” she replied sweetly, and he heard the recrimination there. Not warm and cuddly, his mother. He wondered if she ever regretted that. Thinking about her, in her soft pajamas, with a lush shawl around her shoulders as she exercised her razor-sharp mind, he wondered at the process that had forced her to hide that part of herself, even from her children.

  “Mom, you know you’re not the worst mother in the world, right?”

  “Well not compared to Jackson’s!”

  He managed a bark of laughter. “Not compared to any mother. You’re actually pretty amazing as a mother. Just, you know, sort of a mature child’s mother.”

  Her chuckle warmed him. “Thanks, Ellery.”

  “Love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too. Tell me when your young man gets home. I’m worried too.”